Inside the gate.
Paper figures moved about on the yellow-mud stage, arranging the setting, while ornate Blackwood chairs stood in ranked order on the jade steps before it, radiating streams of ji earth light.
Liu Xiaowen froze, sudden alarm rising in his heart.
He could no longer sense his divine abilities. His magical power was empty, and even his spirit treasures and magical artifacts had vanished. Only his dark-black Daoist robe patterned with red clouds remained on his body, and nothing else.
This stretch of heaven and earth was exceedingly cramped, as though it had been built solely to hold this one stage. Muddy, sodden earth lay underfoot, while the sky above was an endless blank.
Puzzled, he took several steps forward.
Just then, a young boy sprang out from among the paper figures. Wearing a red cloth bellyband, his expression lively, he turned into a streak of fire and darted over, saying with a giggle:
"Please sit, please sit."
The boy seized Liu Xiaowen's hand and pulled him toward the row of Blackwood chairs. But an old man in a blue cloth tunic, smoking a pipe, stepped out of the flowing ink, stopped the two of them, and grabbed the boy by the ear.
"You little bastard, itching for a beating? Is that a seat he can sit in? The moment his backside touches it, his soul will scatter!"
The boy ran off with a miserable face, leaving Liu Xiaowen there. The old man straightened his clothes, then turned his gaze toward him.
"Young fellow, who let you in?"
"I-"
Liu Xiaowen had barely begun to speak when he was interrupted.
The blue-robed old man reached out and pointed lightly at him. The old man's finger ignited with extraordinary speed, taking on a magnificent golden-crimson hue.
Ink flowed, and