Revelation of the Way of Heaven

The Church of St. Francis Xavier has a sanctuary in the front and a bell tower in the back, with a small courtyard between the sanctuary and the bell tower.

Qin Xiaochuan and Guo Shiyi walked through the courtyard to the clock tower at the back. As for the shape of the clock tower, there is a large base at the bottom and two towering spires on top, while the clock chamber is located in the middle of the bottom of the two spires.

The base contained living quarters and storage rooms, which Han Kexin had probably already searched, but found no clues. He and Guo Shiyi went directly to the clock room. The clock on the clock tower was a mechanical clock, which had been removed from the clock tower and placed in the clock room. Only some parts behind the clock remained on the walls of the clock tower.

The clock was held in place by a circular, lattice-shaped iron frame, which was badly rusted. Looking at this frame, he felt a bit worried again.

The clock tower is three or four meters away from the study, and the iron frame is about the size of an umbrella. In other words, there is a large area where a light source could be placed. So where would be the most suitable place to put it?

"I know what 'still time and space' means now," Guo Shiyi suddenly said, looking at the metal frame.

"What do you mean?" Qin Xiaochuan asked quickly.

"Time is always flowing, so the hands of a clock are always moving, but there is one point on all the hands that never moves," Guo Shiyi said to him excitedly.

"You mean the very center of the clock!" He immediately understood what she meant. The hands always revolve around its axis, so its axis is equivalent to a stationary spacetime.

"Well done!" He couldn't help but give Guo Shiyi a high five, then placed the miner's lamp on a square in the center of the iron frame, finally shining it on the center of the opposite window.

"How's it going? Any discoveries?" he immediately shouted to the person opposite.

After a long while, Su Lie shouted back, "No!"

"Huh, why isn't it there? Wasn't it placed in the very center?" Qin Xiaochuan looked at Guo Shiyi in confusion.

Guo Shiyi couldn't help but frown, but after a moment she was certain of her guess: "It shouldn't be. The very center is the best explanation for a static spacetime. There's no mistake. Let's go take a look."

"But this lamp?" He pointed to the miner's lamp.

"Just tie it to the metal frame."

Qin Xiaochuan nodded, tied the miner's lamp to the iron frame, and then returned to the study across the street with Guo Shiyi.

"What happened?" Guo Shiyi asked Su Lie as soon as she got back.

"Come and see for yourselves," Su Lie said, pointing to a wall.

The light from the miner's lamp shone through the six-pointed star onto the wall opposite the window, forming a hexagonal spot of light. The spot of light was located in a half-centimeter-deep indentation, with nothing else particularly special about it.

It seems there was something here that was definitely the key to solving the mystery, but I don't know who took it.

"Did we fail at the last minute?" Guo Shiyi shook her head helplessly. The others also looked dejected, especially Han Kexin, who sat on the chair with a low mood, looking even colder than usual.

Qin Xiaochuan sensed something was wrong and examined the dent carefully.

"But don't you find it strange?" he said.

"What's so strange?" Guo Siyi looked at him, puzzled.

"The person who collected these treasures went to great lengths to hide them, leaving only such a profound and difficult-to-understand sentence as a clue, yet in the end, they openly placed the most crucial clue on this wall. Doesn't that make it easy for others to discover?"

"You mean the missing thing on the wall isn't the key clue?" Jiang Han seemed to understand what he meant, and Guo Shiyi and Han Kexin also fell into deep thought because of his words.

"Then how do you explain the direction of this ray of light?" Su Lie said dismissively.

"I think Qin Xiaochuan makes a good point," Guo Shiyi suddenly said.

Su Lie was surprised that Guo Shiyi would agree with Qin Xiaochuan's words, and frowned, saying, "Then our previous reasoning was flawed."

"The reasoning is fine," Han Kexin said coldly. "The problem lies in what should have been on this wall in the first place."

"What do you mean?" Su Lie was a little confused.

Han Kexin continued her calm analysis: "That thing shouldn't be the key clue, but rather something that guides us to find the clue. Judging from the layout of this room, it's very likely a mirror."

"A mirror!" Su Lie seemed quite surprised by this answer.

"That's right, I agree with Sister Kexin's analysis." Guo Shiyi cast an appreciative glance at Han Kexin.

"Then why did the mirror here go missing?" Jiang Han asked, puzzled.

"It must have been stolen, since mirrors were quite valuable back then," Guo Shiyi said.

"I'll go find a mirror," Su Lie said immediately.

"No need, I have some," the two girls said in unison.

The remaining three men were stunned. Women were indeed strange; even in a place like this, they didn't forget to bring a mirror with them.

Han Kexin took out a powder box from her body, opened it, and then placed the mirror on the powder box into the recess in the wall. The hexagonal light shone on the mirror and then reflected onto a small table under the window.

"Move the table," Han Kexin said. Qin Xiaochuan and Su Lie immediately moved the table as she instructed, and the hexagonal light finally shone on the base of the wall.

Everyone immediately crowded around to take a look. Although it wasn't very obvious, they could still tell that the color of that section of the wall was different from the other walls.

"Looks like this is the place," Su Lie said happily.

Han Kexin walked over, and an ice pick appeared in her hand. She used the ice pick to knock off the lime on the wall, and soon two movable blue bricks were revealed inside.

Han Kexin took out a blue brick, behind which was a mechanism that could be activated.

"Yay!" Su Lie couldn't help but shout when he saw the mechanism, and the others were equally excited.

Han Kexin took a deep breath before reaching out to activate the mechanism inside.

"Boom!" A rumbling sound came from downstairs when Han Kexin flipped the switch.

No one spoke; they all ran downstairs almost simultaneously.

When the crowd reached the foot of the main hall, they saw that the two walls, which were originally carved with reliefs, were slowly moving backward beneath the cross in the main hall. As they moved, they were also slowly cracking open to both sides. When they came to a complete stop, a hole more than one meter wide and more than two meters high was revealed between the two walls.

"Let's go in," Han Kexin said, and took the lead towards the dark cave entrance.

"Wait a minute." Guo Shiyi suddenly called out to Han Kexin.

"What's wrong?" Han Kexin turned around and looked at Guo Shiyi with a puzzled expression.

"It's so dark in this cave, are you planning to just go straight in?" Guo Shiyi asked, frowning.

"Oh no, have we been suspected?" Qin Xiaochuan couldn't help but exclaim in his heart. Entering a pitch-black cave without any light source, a perceptive person should have immediately noticed something was wrong. Unexpectedly, Han Kexin's night vision advantage had become a major oversight.

"What do you mean?" Han Kexin asked. Qin Xiaochuan could hear her voice slowly turning cold, and there seemed to be a smell of gunpowder in the air.

"Is this going to turn into a fight? We're at a complete disadvantage right now," Qin Xiaochuan thought to himself.

"Here you go." Guo Shiyi suddenly handed Han Kexin a glow stick, then said with a smile, "What I mean is you should at least bring a glow stick."

"So that's how it is." Qin Xiaochuan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and the tense atmosphere immediately dissipated.

"No need." Han Kexin didn't appreciate Guo Shiyi's kindness. She stretched out her hand, and a flame appeared in her palm.

"I have this," she said casually.

"Ah, I see. I was overthinking it," Guo Shiyi said with an embarrassed smile to Han Kexin.

"No, I should thank you for your kindness," Han Kexin said casually. Although her tone didn't sound like she was thanking her, Guo Shiyi didn't mind at all.

"Then let's go in," Han Kexin continued, and walked towards the cave entrance. The flame in her hand emitted a dim light, quietly spilling into the depths of the cave.