I'm Trapped in the Block

Shen Ping picked up a tree branch and poked at the strange Immortals.

The branch passed through the Immortals’ robes and emerged from the other side.

Phew...

They were illusions, just as he’d thought. Shen Ping sighed in relief.

Once the iridescent light stopped flickering, the Immortals’ forms solidified completely. Their bodies were exquisitely detailed, indistinguishable from real beings.

Just then, Shen Ping noticed a dazzling golden light flaring from the wooden pavilion high above. He focused his gaze and saw that the roof tiles had all turned a solid, wondrous gold.

At the same time, all the Immortals suddenly looked up, their gazes fixed on the glittering golden roof.

Their steps were perfectly synchronized as they ascended the final flight of stone stairs and walked toward the pavilion.

As they walked, the group of Immortals made a strange, discordant sound—a combination of popping bubbles and scraping scales that slowly coalesced into a rustling whisper.

Shen Ping monitored his physical condition as he followed the Immortals into the pavilion, arriving before a large door carved with countless patterns.

The door was also made of wood. Although the patterns on it seemed random and chaotic, together they looked profoundly mysterious, possessing a strange kind of beauty.

The Immortals lined up and approached the door one by one. They raised their hands, joining their thumbs and index fingers to form a perfect oval. Then, they passed straight through the door, disappearing into the pavilion in a flash of golden light.

Shen Ping stood at the back, curiously observing the Immortals’ strange behavior.

He didn’t act recklessly just because they were illusions. Instead, he waited obediently in line, approaching the door only after all the Immortals had gone inside.

Once he was before the door, he realized the mysterious patterns weren’t writing or anything like that.

They were various marine creatures.

The door was like a painted scroll, depicting innumerable marine creatures.

They were arranged in concentric circles, like ripples on the surface of the sea, spreading outward from the center. The empty spaces were dotted with small patterns that Shen Ping couldn’t make out.

Shen Ping observed them closely and found that many of the marine creatures were unfamiliar to him, their appearances utterly bizarre.

He followed the circles with his eyes, from the center to the edge, ring after ring, but the creatures seemed endless, with no boundary in sight.

His gaze reached the edge of the door and then moved past it, toward the distance. The patterns were still there.

On the pavilion’s pillars.

On the closed shutters.

On the rocky mountain outside the pavilion.

In the sky.

...

’This is an infinitely extending painting!’

He didn’t snap out of it until a flash of golden light startled him.

’What just happened to me?’

He remembered seeing fish swimming outside the universe!

’There’s something wrong with this door.’

The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. Shen Ping quickly took out the relic and monitored his body.

No mutations, no distortions. Everything was normal.

He let out a long sigh of relief, then steeled himself and looked again at the center of the door. In the middle of the concentric ripples was a strange, oval-shaped pattern, like an Olive.

Shen Ping suddenly understood. The gesture the Immortals had made earlier represented this pattern.

Having found the key, Shen Ping quickly lowered his head, no longer staring at the door.

He raised his hands and, imitating the Immortals from before, formed the shape of the Olive.

Suddenly, the space within the circle formed by his fingers began to blur. It was as if Shen Ping could see a blue sea through his own hands.

Immediately after, he felt an abrupt pull from ahead, like the suction felt when pulling oneself out of water.

He stumbled forward uncontrollably, passed through the door, and a dazzling golden light flashed before his eyes.

When Shen Ping steadied himself and recovered from the blinding light, he found himself standing inside a vast, brightly lit pavilion.

’Why is it nighttime?’

Shen Ping immediately saw the twinkling stars outside the window.

Countless Immortals were gathered in the pavilion. The light from high above illuminated their strange heads, and the air was filled with the scent of wood incense. Here, the whispering had become a raspy sonata, like the sound of a broken, ancient zither.

For a moment, Shen Ping couldn’t tell if he had been transported to another space or if everything before him was still an illusion.

The physical sensation of passing through the door hadn’t felt like an illusion, either.

With this in mind, he used the branch he was still carrying to poke the crab-headed Immortal next to him. As expected, it passed right through.

The Immortal had no reaction, paying him no mind at all.

’Still illusions,’ Shen Ping thought, sighing in relief.

’Maybe copying the Immortals’ gesture just triggered some mechanism that pulled me inside,’ he reasoned.

’The stars outside must be part of the illusion, too.’

As Shen Ping was lost in thought, he noticed the sound of the broken zither growing louder. After a moment, all the Immortals looked up in unison toward the highest point of the pavilion.

Shen Ping followed their gazes and saw an oval-shaped void appear high in the center of the pavilion.

Then, the oval void suddenly filled with water, becoming a giant, blue Olive.

Shen Ping again felt that sensation of being pulled toward the surface of water, though thankfully, the feeling wasn’t as strong this time.

A lobster-headed Immortal stepped forward, raised his hands, and once again formed the shape of the Olive.

Just as Shen Ping was wondering what was happening, he witnessed a shocking scene.

The surface of the sea within the void rippled, and it spat out a glittering golden relic.

The relic slowly descended, coming to a stop before the lobster-headed Immortal.

The lobster-headed Immortal cupped his hands to receive the relic, then slowly backed away to let another Immortal step forward.

’Are they handing out relics?’ A strange thought suddenly occurred to Shen Ping.

Sure enough, Shen Ping’s guess was correct. One by one, the Immortals stepped forward and received a relic.

They lined up in an unhurried manner, carefully stowing away the relics they received before silently walking toward the main door and disappearing into the golden light, leaving the pavilion.

’How can this blue Olive have so many relics?’

Watching the Immortals leave one by one with relics in hand was agonizing for Shen Ping.

’Why does this all have to be an illusion?’

It was like staring at a mountain of treasure he couldn’t mine. Shen Ping could only silently take out his device and record what the relics looked like.

’I hope this data will sell for a decent price,’ he thought. ’It’s information on a lot of relics, after all.’

It was the only way he could console himself.

Only after all the Immortals had left the pavilion did Shen Ping reluctantly put away his recording device.

However, the blue Olive in the sky did not disappear. It remained floating quietly in the air, its inner waves churning.

Gazing at the blue Olive that still remained, Shen Ping, on a strange impulse, walked beneath it and made the same gesture as the Immortals.

He almost laughed at his own absurdity, mocking himself, ’What am I doing? It’s all clearly an illusion. As if it’s going to give me a relic, too?’

However, things did not go as he expected.

The surface of the sea rippled. A glittering relic materialized from thin air and began to slowly descend.