Exploring the Cave

Liu Yuanzhou emerged from the crowd and looked around. He soon spotted Wang Wu's back as Wang Wu hurried outside. Liu Yuanzhou quickly followed him.

Once outside the market, there were few people on the road. Liu Yuanzhou merely trailed far behind Wang Wu. Wang Wu kept his head down as he walked and never looked back, so he did not notice anyone following him.

After twisting and turning through several streets, Wang Wu arrived outside a courtyard with walls and a main gate. He pushed open the gate and went inside.

Liu Yuanzhou hid behind an earthen wall not far from the courtyard. After waiting a long while without seeing Wang Wu emerge, he shook his head and prepared to leave. The Yangge competition was about to begin.

Liu Yuanzhou had always vaguely felt that the haunting at Li Laocai's home, the sealing of Thousand Buddha Cave, and the various strange happenings involving the village's Yangge troupe all seemed to be connected to the White-Haired Taoist. Yet he could not figure out how. That was why, when he saw the White-Haired Taoist hand a box to Wang Wu and Wang Wu hurry away, he decided to follow and get to the bottom of it.

Now that Wang Wu had entered the courtyard and remained inside for so long, Liu Yuanzhou felt that perhaps he had been overthinking it. Maybe Wang Wu had merely returned to put down the box. He was about to leave.

Suddenly, Wang Wu came back out through the gate. Liu Yuanzhou's spirits lifted. Looks like my instincts were right. This time, Wang Wu had changed his appearance. He wore a hat, while the box still hung from his shoulder.

Wang Wu left the courtyard and turned directly onto a small path to the left. Liu Yuanzhou followed carefully. He trailed Wang Wu out of Crouching Tiger Slope and saw him take the road toward Liu Yuanzhou's village.

"So he really is going to our village." Liu Yuanzhou pondered for a moment, then decided to take a detour and return to the village ahead of Wang Wu to wait for him. The land on both sides of the road here was wide open, making it difficult to tail someone.

Once Wang Wu had gone far enough, Liu Yuanzhou turned onto a narrow path and broke into a run. By the time he emerged from the small road, he had already reached the village. He then climbed onto the roof of a villager's house, where he could almost overlook the entire village.

About a quarter of an hour later, Wang Wu appeared on the main road at the village entrance. He really came. This must have something to do with Li Laocai.

At this time, most of the villagers had gone to Crouching Tiger Slope to watch the Yangge performance. The main road was empty, without a soul in sight.

From afar, Liu Yuanzhou watched Wang Wu walk deeper along the village's main road. Before long, Wang Wu passed beyond the village and headed behind it, without entering Li Laocai's gate.

Though puzzled, Liu Yuanzhou did not slow down. He took a small path nearly parallel to the main road and ran toward the back of the village. Once outside the village, he saw Wang Wu turn into a mountain ravine in the distance. Thousand Buddha Cave lay within that ravine.

This time, Liu Yuanzhou was certain that Wang Wu was headed for Thousand Buddha Cave. He quickly left the main road and chased after him in that direction. Taking a shortcut, he reached the woods outside Thousand Buddha Cave ahead of time, climbed a large tree, and waited silently.

Before long, Wang Wu arrived at the gate. He climbed the steps and knocked several times. A moment later, the gate opened. Wang Wu slipped inside, and the gate slammed shut with a smack.

The person who had opened the gate led Wang Wu beneath Thousand Buddha Cave, where the Yangge rehearsals were held. The two stood talking, but they were too far away for Liu Yuanzhou to hear what they said. Judging by his build, the man speaking with Wang Wu was Li Laocai's third son, Li Fuguang.

After talking for a while, the two climbed to the cave entrance and began removing the stones and wooden boards. In no time, the entrance had been completely cleared, revealing its original dark, blackened appearance. Once they were done, Li Fuguang hurried back to the room, while Wang Wu slipped into the cave.

Liu Yuanzhou wanted to go over and see what Wang San had entered the cave to do, but there was a broad stretch of open ground before the courtyard. Even if he slipped past the walls, there was no cover around the cave entrance—only a bare expanse. If he entered the cave, Li Fuguang in the courtyard would certainly spot him. So he suppressed the restless urge in his heart and waited patiently.

Another quarter of an hour passed. Just as Liu Yuanzhou was growing impatient, Wang Wu ran out of the cave and stopped beside a house.

"What did he do inside the cave?" Liu Yuanzhou frowned tightly.

"Rumble—" A sudden deafening boom erupted from within the cave, followed by a violent shaking of the earth and mountains. A flock of sparrows in the woods took fright and fluttered out of the trees. Liu Yuanzhou, hidden in the tree, was shaken so hard that his mind went blank for an instant. "Was that an earthquake?" When he came to his senses and looked toward the cave entrance again, it was shrouded in a cloud of dust, and he could not make out its appearance at all.

"Could there have been an explosion inside Thousand Buddha Cave?" Liu Yuanzhou muttered. "Wang Wu must have caused it. What is he trying to do?"

Looking back at Wang Wu, Li Fuguang had already come out of the room and was standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Both faced the cave entrance without saying a word.

About half a quarter of an hour later, the dust gradually dispersed. Liu Yuanzhou looked toward the entrance and saw that it had not changed at all. It seemed the dust had billowed out from within the cave. Was something inside blown to pieces? he wondered.

After a while longer, the dust finally cleared. Only then did Wang Wu carefully crawl back toward the cave, while Li Fuguang remained where he was and did not follow.

Wang Wu crawled into the cave. It was not large, only about as deep as a Cave Dwelling. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness, and he saw that the cave walls, once carved with countless Buddha statues of all sizes and shapes, were now covered in cracks. In some places, entire sections of the Buddha statues had peeled away. Stones of every size littered the once clean and orderly ground.

"Tsk, tsk. The Exploding Talisman Master gave me is truly powerful." Wang Wu clicked his tongue in secret amazement, and his reverence for his master deepened.

He walked to where he had placed the Exploding Talisman and saw that a crack had been blasted open in the solid stone wall. Wang Wu lit a candle he had prepared beforehand and leaned closer to the crack. It was irregularly shaped and only large enough for one person to barely crawl through. Beyond it was utter darkness, and there was no telling how deep it went.

"The flame is barely flickering. Looks like it's a dead cave. I'll have to wait a while before going in." Remembering his master's instructions, Wang Wu waited quietly at the crack.

"Heh heh, Li Laocai's whole family are fools. What ghosts are there? This place contains an important treasure of my sect."

"Master truly has the foresight of a god and the calculations of a demon."

"Once I retrieve the treasure and present it to Master, it will be a great merit. What will Master reward me with? An even more formidable cultivation art?" The thought set Wang Wu's heart ablaze, but he immediately grew troubled again. "Sigh, I've been practicing for months. Why haven't I developed the magic power Master mentioned? What's the reason? Master always says not to rush, not to rush. Could he be keeping the good stuff to himself? No, after I render this service, I must make him teach me the true methods."

"Once I develop magic power, let's see who still dares look down on me, Wang Wu. People like Fatty Wang, and those two brats from Liu Li Village—I'll make you pay."

As Wang Wu let his thoughts run wild, another quarter of an hour passed. "It should be safe to go in now." He extended the candle into the crack and looked inside. In the faint firelight was a very small stone chamber, only about five feet square. The stone wall that had just been blasted through was around a foot thick. In the far corner of the chamber sat a small box.

"That's it." Wang Wu's heart surged with excitement. He wedged the candle into a crevice in the stone wall and crawled into the chamber on his belly. He crawled on his knees to the box and lifted it with both hands. It was not heavy. Wang San hugged it carefully to his chest, then backed out of the stone chamber and retrieved the candle as he went.

After leaving the stone chamber, Wang Wu's heart pounded fiercely. He sat on the ground, placed the box across his legs, wiped away the dust with his sleeve, and examined it closely while stroking it in the light spilling in from the cave entrance.

The box was made of wood and carved with intricate patterns. A brass lock hung on its front. He gently tugged at the lock, but the box was secured tightly and could not be opened. He did not dare try again. Taking a piece of yellow cloth from his robe, he spread it on the ground, wrapped the box inside it, and tied it into a knot.

After finishing all this, he stood and took several talisman papers from his robe. He pasted them around the crack in pairs, each pair crossed into the shape of a cross.

Once the talisman papers were in place, Wang Wu let out a long breath. Suddenly, the cave entrance darkened. He turned to look and saw a figure standing there at some unknown time. The person's face was covered, with only a pair of eyes exposed. Wang Wu was greatly alarmed.