In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

Lin Qiye put away the iron plate and walked downstairs.

The stairs were long, with rough stone walls on both sides, and every few steps there was a wall lamp that had long since gone out. He walked for about fifteen minutes, and the stairs came to an end, where a huge underground stone chamber suddenly opened up before him.

The stone chamber was larger than any he had seen in Old Dragon Abyss or Valley of No Return. The dome was extremely high, with countless stalactite-like rock pillars hanging down, each covered with runes that gleamed with a faint blue light in the dim glow. The floor was a single, polished black rock, so shiny it was like a mirror, reflecting the faint light of the runes overhead, making it feel like standing on a sea of ​​stars.

In the center of the stone chamber stands a stone platform.

On the stone platform, a huge skeleton sat cross-legged.

The skeleton was twice the size of an ordinary person, sitting upright with its hands folded on its knees, like a meditating statue. On its skull were two curved horns—exactly the same as the markings on its palms.

Lin Qiye stood in front of the stone platform, looking at the skeleton, and remained silent for a long time.

candle.

He had seen this figure in the altar murals of the Canggu Mountains, in the illusions of the Bone Tower, and in countless descriptions in the notes of the Gu family ancestors. Only today did he truly see it.

The remains of a candle.

Nine runic stone pillars surround the stone platform, each topped with a dull crystal. Between the nine pillars, dark golden runic veins meander like blood vessels, all converging towards the center of the stone platform—the chest of the skeleton.

The skeleton's chest was slightly open, as if something had once been stored there and then taken away.

Lin Qiye's gaze fell on that empty space.

He recognized the shape of that empty space—it was right there in his arms, the dark gold crystal he had brought out from the crevice in Black Wind Valley, which fit perfectly into it.

He reached into his robes and took out the crystal.

The crystal felt slightly warm in his palm, and the light patterns on its surface flowed slowly, as if sensing something, gently pulling it toward the stone platform.

He didn't put it on immediately.

He first walked around the stone platform, examining the nine rune pillars. The runes on the pillars were of the same origin as those at the seven sealing points, but they were older and more complete. He walked to the third pillar and suddenly stopped—there was a noticeable wear on the runes at the base of the pillar, as if it had been wiped clean by someone.

It's not the wear and tear of time, it's human intervention.

He crouched down, his fingertips tracing the worn surface, feeling a faint, cool metallic scent.

It was the same aura emanating from Mo Wujiu.

He stood up, his gaze darkening.

Someone had been here before him and tried to move those nine stone pillars—and that person could very well be Mo Wujiu, or someone even earlier.

As he was thinking, a very soft sound, like a sigh, suddenly came from deep within the stone chamber.

It wasn't the wind.

The sound was low and deep, as if it came from the deepest part of the earth, or perhaps from inside the skeleton. With that sigh, the runes on the nine stone pillars lit up for a moment, and dark golden light converged along the veins, flowing towards the center of the stone platform.

Then, a point of fluorescent blue light appeared in the empty space in the skeleton's chest.

It's not dark gold.

It is fluorescent blue.

The point of light slowly rose, reaching the same height as Lin Qiye's line of sight, and then slowly opened—it was a vertical pupil.

A vertical pupil the size of a fist, glowing blue.

It hovered in the center of the stone chamber, quietly watching Lin Qiye.

There was no malice, no hostility, not even a trace of emotion. It simply looked at him, like a being that had slept for far too long, finally waiting for the first person who could look it directly in the eye.

Lin Qiye did not look away.

"If you see a pupil, do not look into its eyes." The words left by his senior brother, the deacon, echoed in his ears. But he did not look away—the emblem on his palm was burning hot, the dark golden light confronting the fluorescent blue light of the vertical pupil, like two forces of the same origin but repelling each other, probing each other.

"You...recognize me," he said, his voice echoing in the empty stone chamber.

The vertical pupil did not answer.

But it slowly turned—not its eyeballs, but its entire pupil, like a gaze scrutinizing something.

Then, it went out.

The fluorescent blue light suddenly receded, shrinking back into the empty space on the skeleton's chest and disappearing. The runes on the nine stone pillars also dimmed, and the stone chamber fell into darkness once more.

It was as if nothing had happened.

But Lin Qiye stood still, the burning sensation still lingering in his palm. He looked down and saw a very fine, fluorescent blue line on the surface of the emblem on his palm—like that vertical pupil had left a mark on his palm.

He clenched his fist, then relaxed it.

He didn't put the crystal back on the stone platform. He put it back in his pocket, turned around, and walked out of the forbidden area along the way he had come.

When we returned to the ancestral hall, it was already dawn.

He climbed out of the air vent and landed under the pillars outside the ancestral hall. The morning light fell on him, casting a long shadow.

The emblem on my palm was slightly warm.

The fluorescent blue pattern, like an invisible line, pointed towards the underground of the temple.

He suddenly realized something.

The vertical pupil neither attacked him nor drove him away—it was waiting for him. Waiting for him to return here with the crystal and complete something that had been interrupted for a very, very long time.

The emblem on his palm is that key.

He clenched his fist and strode towards the direction of Qing Shi Lane.

When he got back, he had one thing to do: find out the origin of that fluorescent blue pattern. And—what exactly did that vertical pupil want him to do?

He did not start by checking the case file.

He went to Ironwall City.

In the secret chamber of the Gu family ancestral hall, he had only seen the sealed map the last time he visited. This time, he asked Gu Ruolan for the scroll of forbidden area records handwritten by the Gu family ancestor—he remembered that his ancestor had served as the first director of the Purification Department and had entered the forbidden area.

Gu Ruolan gave him the roll of notes without asking any further questions.

That evening, under the lamplight of the Gu residence in Iron Wall City, he opened the scroll of records.

The record begins with a self-narration by the ancestor:

"From the very beginning of the temple's construction, I served as the head of the Purification Department. The forbidden area at the bottom of the temple was established by my ancestors to suppress the 'Pupil.' The Pupil is neither god nor demon, but the primordial eye from the beginning of heaven and earth. It watches over all the heavens, and all the heavens watch over it."

"See the world through your pupils, and let the world nourish your pupils. When your pupils are awake, all the heavens will see them; when your pupils are dormant, all the heavens will forget them."

"The Candle Master used himself as a lock to imprison the Eye at the bottom of the palace. After the Candle Master perished, the lock lost its master, leaving only the mark. The person holding the mark can open the gate to the forbidden area and approach the Eye's location."

Lin Qiye's gaze fell on the last line of text.

"A journalist with the seal of office may open the gates of forbidden areas."

He opened his palm and looked at the fluorescent blue pattern.

Imprint.

The crest on his palm was never just a symbol of power—it was the key left by the candle. It could open the door to forbidden lands and get close to that vertical pupil.