The being in yellow vanished behind the door.
With the iron gate at its center, the darkness and gloom shrouding this world slowly receded. Pale moonlight painted the face of the night anew.
Zheng Qing felt he could finally breathe again.
He began to suspect that the being in the yellow robe had come from the Starry Sky, because during their brief contact, his head had started to ache faintly again.
His teacher had once told Zheng Qing that his headaches were caused by the accidental sprouting of the "order seed," which had germinated after absorbing a vast amount of occult knowledge. With his limited knowledge of magic, the only beings Zheng Qing could think of that could transmit such knowledge through mere contact were the Outer Gods from the Deep Starry Sky.
But even if he suspected that the being in yellow might not be a devil, Zheng Qing was absolutely unwilling to enter that narrow door.
Perhaps the sight had stirred something in him. He suddenly recalled a passage he had read in a spellbook while shopping in Daming Market long ago—though it had not really been that long, only July or August of the previous year:
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But narrow is the gate and small is the road that leads to eternal life, and few find it."
The passage came from the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and had been printed in a Paris-bound spellbook. At the time, Zheng Qing had secretly mocked Sephrano's younger brother, thinking that someone of his size could never fit through the narrow gate.
Then that rude fat man had turned into a Boar Demon.
The night wind