Chapter 1546: Spirit-lit Lamps
"That's unbelievable! That kid was right! Even Feng Lianzhu has been left in such a horrific state with his Dragonrise Sword!"
All at once, hundreds of pairs of eyes locked on Chen Xiaobei in shock and awe.
A few seconds ago, they were all waiting for Feng Aotian to give Chen Xiaobei a reality check; a slap in the face. They had never thought that when the truth was finally out, it was their faces along with Feng Aotian's face that had been slapped instead.
"So? Are there anymore disbelievers here huh? You can all give it a try if you want to! If you can open this jade door, consider me the greatest loser then!" Chen Xiaobei looked around at the people, brows raised challenging them.
Right now, except for the nine demigod-ranked Jianghu leaders, the rest of them were elders and core disciples of these nine forces.
It was to be understood that these hundreds of people were of the highest tier on the Jianghu pyramid.
Strangely, at this very moment, none of them dared to give it a try. Even the most powerful of the lot, Zhou Daoxian and the strongest one, Long Zishan were silent daring not to make any smart-arse comments.
Clearly, these people had all finally realized that there was probably some mysterious sorcery or mechanism concealed within the jade door.
This was due to the fact that they were not sure what the nature of this mechanism was. Making a hasty move would only be a waste of effort, and the embarassing results of the previous attemps would just repeat itself.
There was pin-drop silence in the place, and everyone's attention was on Chen Xiaobei. Now, they were looking at him as their only hope.
After a moment of silence, Long Zishan spoke, "Faction Leader Chen! If you can open door, then please... go ahead! Stop keeping us in suspense!"
"Mm, I won't give anyone face here, but I must give face to Faction Leader Long!" Chen Xiaobei grinned. "All the faction leaders holding Orochi Scales, please come to the door. We'll need all nine pieces to open it!"
"Ahh... I understand now!" Feng Bucun exclaimed before anyone could give an answer. "This door has the same protective formation in it! The halo of light that attacked me is the same as the one before! We'll just need to gather all nine of the Orochi Scales to open the door!"
Fang Ying quickly praised him, "Master Feng, you really are very smart! You can tell of the inner workings of the door at first glance!"
"Master Feng is right! Hurry! Do as he says!" The girls urged excitedly.
"Right my ass!" Chen Xiaobei rolled his eyes at the giddy fangirls. "The protective formation within this door has the same function but the method to open them is a completely different one! If you don't believe me, you're free to give it a try!"
So, the leaders with the Orochi Scales gathered together. However, nothing happened. The jade door did not even budge an inch.
Thus, Feng Bucun and his fangirls were all left speechless, their faces beet red in embarrassment.
"Well, Faction Leader Chen, this proves that you are right! Just tell us what we should do now!" Long Zishan said.
The other leaders said nothing, signalling that they were all in silent agreement.
"Fine! Watch closely!" Chen Xiaobei picked up a couple of pebbles from the ground and tossed them at the door one after another at different points. "I've just used the pebbles to hit seven parts of the door. Everyone, please choose one point and aim the the scales at a point each!"
Wasting no time, the Seven leaders quickly did as he said, raising their Orochi Scales to each of the points.
"Hah! It's not responding! Chen Zhufeng! If you're messing with the seven leaders, you are as good as dead!" Feng Bucun barked.
"Hey asshole. Did your school-teacher teach you math? If you can count, we've only used seven of the Orochi Scales! Of course it's not going to react!" Chen Xiaobei picked up his own two Orochi Scales and pointed it at two other points.
Wooom!
Suddenly, the giant jade door began moving. Rings of light scribed with ancient runes began to light up in the areas where the Orochi scales were pointing at.
The formation on the jade doors was activated, and magically, a tremendous force came from within and slowly pushed the doors open.
"Good lord. It's open?! It's finally open! It looks like we are only able to open the door because of Chen Zhufeng's method!"
The people all around began to exclaim with loud gasps, staring at Chen Xiaobei with a look of awe and surprise.
"What happened?" Long Zishan asked as she stared at the opening jade door. "What sort of mechanics were hidden on the nine points of the door?"
Chen Xiaobei chuckled. "It's actually not some obscure mechanism. It's just the Nine Palace Eight Trigrams."
"Oh?! Nine Palace Eight Trigrams?" Long Zishan studied the door with a closer inspection. "One Kan, two Kun, three Zhen, four Xun, five Central Palace, six Gan, seven Dui, eight Gen, nine Li - this really is the Nine Palace Eight Trigrams!"
All the leaders nodded in agreement with a genuine and pleasant surprise in their voices. "Whoa... that was something so simple! The Nine Palace Eight Trigrams arrangement! Why didn't we think of that in the first place?"
"Well, we didn't think of that because we didn't know about the existence of these nine formation cores!" Zhou Daoxian said.
To these leaders, the Nine Palace Eight Trigrams was simply basic knowledge. It was something they were all too familiar with.
What they could not see, were the points where Chen Xiaobei threw the pebbles.
They were the nine formation cores of the protective formation. If Chen Xiaobei had not pointed them out, the Nine Palace Eight Trigrams would have never crossed their minds.
"Faction Leader Chen, how did you know the exact locations of the formation cores?" Long Zishan was curious.
"It's my secret!" Chen Xiaobei merely smiled, revealing nothing.
The people were left high and dry. Their curiosity was piqued but Chen Xiaobei's empty answer shot them down.
It felt like being flirted with and aroused by a beautiful woman, but at the crucial moment, she said that she was on her period.
What a party pooper!
However, that was simply the case for them, but not for Chen Xiaobei's own people. Those people actually knew what that secret was.
It was when Chen Xiaobei used his Golden Gaze Fiery Eyes to examine the jade door, that he discovered the hidden protective runes. This was why he said that Feng Bucun would be able to act cool for only three seconds and not longer.
At the same time, Chen Xiaobei also spotted the positions of the nine formation cores. That was how he knew of using the Nine Palace Eight Trigrams to break the formation.
This 'secret' was not very complicated at all but of course, Chen Xiaobei did not want any outsiders to know about it.
Crraack!
The giant jade door finally opened completely.
A 10 meter wide passage appeared behind the door; wide enough to accommodate 10 cars placed beside each other!
The passage though, was in complete darkness so it was difficult to tell how deep it went.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Suddenly, large oil lamps on both sides of the passage gradually lit up in pairs, and like street lamps, they lit up one pair after another along the path all the way to the end of the passage.
"How is it that oil lamps light up on their own?!" Fang Ying asked.
Feng Bucun took to answering confidently without much deliberation, "It's elementary. There is white phosphorus inside the oil lamps. When the jade door opened, oxygen entered the passage and when white phosphorus makes contact with oxygen, a combustive reaction happens! That's how the oil lamps were lit up!"
"Wow! Master Feng! You know so much... you're so knowledgeable! How incredible!" The group of fangirls praised in unison.
Feng Buchun smiled smugly. "Hehe, I've done a lot of homework in preparation for this operation! If there's anything you don't understand, you are all free to direct your questions to me!"
"You're wrong!" Chen Xiaobei suddenly spoke. "This is no white-phosphorus-spontaneous-combustion bullshit! These are Spirit-lit Lamps!"