Chapter Thirty: The Eight Trigrams Labyrinth

  Things were as frustrating as Liu Ya had thought, and they once again returned to the round hall. Liu Ya raised her wrist and saw that it was already 4 pm. If they followed their original plan, they would now be on the bus back to Lei Ling Temple, heading back to the city. Looking at the tired group of people, she felt a little unbearable. Liu Ya quietly sat down next to a stone and took out the hand-drawn map. The pattern looked too similar to something, as if she had seen it somewhere before? But for now, she couldn't quite recall.

  "I'm exhausted, I really can't walk anymore." Liu Fang knocked her small leg, her voice very tired, "How much longer do we have to walk before we can get out?"

  "I'm also very tired, I think I'll head back." Huang Ying massaged her own calf while asking Zi Qing beside her, "Lei Zhengzi, are you feeling better? Is your foot still hurting?"

  "It's much better now, it doesn't hurt like before." Zi Qing replied while looking around the large circular hall, "When can we leave?"

  "Everyone eat something first, replenish your energy, we will definitely be able to get out." Liu Ya promised solemnly, then said to Jia Wei and Xiao Yu, "Jia Wei, Xiao Yu help give them some food, finish eating and hurry on the road. It's 4 pm now, at this time of day, it will be dark around 6 pm. And we need at least an hour and a half to get down the mountain, so we must leave Tiger Wolf Cave within half an hour."

  "Walk out in half an hour?" Mu Lin Feng exaggeratedly looked at Liu Ya, they had walked this road thousands of times, and still circled back, to walk out in half an hour was impossible!

  "Even if I die, I'll love! If it's not thorough and enjoyable..." Liu Ya ignored Mu Lin Feng's expression and hummed a tune to herself.

  "Dead, what's the point of loving anymore!" Mu Linfeng looked at Liu Ya crazily, walked to her side and sat down. "Princess, how confident are you that you can take us out?"

  "What's with the 'princess'?" Liu Ya raised her hand and gave Mu Linfeng a "hammer" on the head, "You should call me 'Your Highness'! Have you seen those codes? Do they address princesses as 'distinguished guests'? Can't you have some historical knowledge? You've at least read up to high school!"

  "As long as you can take us out, I'll call you 'Princess Ma'! We're all willing!" Mu Lin Feng looked at Liu Ya with a pitiful expression, "You must have a way, right?"

  "You're willing, but I'm not! Ah, wasn't it this morning that someone swore to take you out of the underground palace? Liu Ya couldn't help teasing Mu Lin Feng. "So soon, you've surrendered to 'Tiger Wolf Cave'? I think you should learn from Grey Wolf and say to this lovely great hall, 'I'll be back!'"

  "I......" Mu Lin Feng looked at Liu Ya, wave after wave of speechlessness.

  "You quietly cover my eyes and let me guess who you are?......" Liu Ya continued to sing K songs in front of the silent crowd.

  "I don't need to blindfold you, you can't see who I am anyway!" Mu Lin Feng took over the lyrics and improvised a line, singing it out loud. "It's so dark in this cave, do I still need to blindfold you? If I blindfold you again, we'll all crash into the wall! Can you at least lead us out of here? Don't make us suffer like this, it's going to shorten our lifespan!"

  Pfft——, everyone forced a bitter smile and remained silent, quietly staring at Liu Ya.

  "I can give you directions!" Liu Ya looked at Mu Linfeng's frantic appearance and smiled, saying, "But there's a condition!"

  "You're not going to strip me naked again, are you?! Maple Lin was shocked and pale, "Everyone has already seen me naked! Do you want to see it again?! I'm a very innocent person, I'll be embarrassed!"

  "Ugh!" Liu Ya looked at Mu Linfeng with disdain, "With those elephant legs of yours, and so many hairy lines on them, I'm sick of looking at you! Ah! You'll die if you don't love yourself!"

  Pfft! "Mulin Feng, Princess Yaya wants to see your hairless elephant legs." Zi Qing burst out laughing and didn't forget to tease Mulin Feng.

  "Your foot doesn't hurt anymore, does it!?" Liu Ya and Mu Lin Feng asked Zi Qing in unison.

  "Ow! It hurts! I'm going to die! It seems like it's starting again...... Ow~~~~~" Zi Qing pretended to be dead. The cave returned to calmness. Liu Ya concentrated her energy, and it seemed like there was a faint sound coming from one of the caves. It should be that thing, right? Did it really follow me here? If I don't focus my energy, I won't be able to detect it. You want to drag this out with me? Hmph, then I'll just wait and see how long you can hide in the dark!

  "Walking on the small village road, the old cow returning home at dusk is my companion, the blue sky and a sunset on my chest, the colorful clouds are the evening glow's clothes......" Liu Ya looked at the crowd that was silent again, and the silver bell-like singing voice rose once more.

  "Cheers! With the bones on his shoulders, Liu Ya's singing voice is undulating, oh wu oh wu ~ she's still singing, and there's a group of children... " Mu Lin Feng took over the song again, but he changed the lyrics again!

  "Knock it off!" Liu Ya knocked a note on Mu Lin Feng's head, "Stop always snatching my songs, okay? If you want to sing, start your own!"

  Pfft——Hahaha... Everyone couldn't help it and burst out laughing. After a long while, Liu Jia Wei walked up to Liu Ya's front.

  "Yah, what conditions must be met for you to take us out?" Jia Wei asked somewhat impatiently. "No matter what conditions you set, as long as they can all leave safely, I'm willing to do it, just say."

  Liu Ya shone a flashlight on Liu Jia Wei's face, shook her head and said, "You're not as handsome as Mu Lin Feng! If he agrees to my conditions, I can lead the team to try. However, there's only an 80% chance."

  "You think I'm more handsome than Jia Wei?" Mu Linfeng patted Liu Ya's shoulder, "Or do you have good taste? You say, as long as you don't make me strip again, I'll agree to any condition!"

  "This is what you said!" Liu Ya's playful heart rose, shining the miner's lamp on the skeleton in the corner of the hall, "Or, you go give it a kiss!"

  "Can't we?!?" Mu Lin Feng yelled in terror, "This is too difficult! Can we change to another one?!"

  "Change into another one, it's okay!" Liu Ya paused for a moment, pointing to the southwest direction of the cave entrance, said, "Then, you go to that cave entrance and throw yourself in, it's done."

  Plop - Hahaha! A burst of laughter came from the southwest entrance, Liu Ya and Xiao Yu cautiously stepped forward to block the crowd, their two mining lamps shining in unison towards the cave. Could it be that the thing following them was about to appear? Liu Jia Wei, Li Jin Yi, Mu Lin Feng, and Xia Tian quickly surrounded the girls in the middle, while the girls were screaming loudly, except for Liu Ya.

  "Oh no! A ghost!" shouted Mu Lin Feng. Liu Ya despised Mu Lin Feng in her heart, a ghost? Can ghosts smile?! Don't you have any common sense?!

  "Who!? Get out here, now!" Liu Ya had originally thought that what was following them was some kind of ferocious beast. Listening to the laughter, she estimated it was a person. No, it should be a person! "If you don't come out, I'll throw a smoke bomb!" As she spoke, she quickly reached into her backpack on the left side and pulled out a smoke bomb, just in case.

  "Don't throw, don't stay, we're out." At this time, four people, two men and two women, walked out of the cave from the southwest direction. Liu Jiawei and Xiao Yu looked at the people who came out in surprise, never thinking that someone was following them. When those people came out, everyone shone their headlamps on their faces, and immediately recognized two of them: Li Zihao, Jiang Min!

  "Hey! How is it you guys?" Mu Lin Feng saw Li Zi Hao, suddenly remembering the duck-snatching incident from a while ago, and his anger surged up, "Damn it, last time you snatched our ducks, this time you're pretending to be ghosts to scare us, you bastard, you're deliberately looking for trouble!"

  "I'm really sorry, we didn't mean to scare you." Li Zihao looked at the furious Mu Linfeng and said nervously, "It's, it's what you said, it's too funny, we, we just couldn't hold it in...!"

  "What's going on?" Liu Jiawei loudly and irritably asked.

  "It's all just a joke...” Jiang Min picked up where he left off, “Originally, we only wanted to follow you guys out.”

  What's going on? Could it be... Liu Ya guessed eight or nine out of ten after hearing Jiang Min say that.

  "Haha, so you guys are lost too?" Mu Lin Feng sneered and gloated for a moment before becoming dispirited again, "We're also lost!"

  "Someone can take us out!" Li Zihao said very affirmatively. "Aya, she can take us out!"

  "Hey, hey! Don't be so shameless, okay?!" Lu Xuan was unhappy that Li Zihao called Liu Ya 'A Ya', saying "Is our A Ya very familiar with you? Besides, even if A Ya can take us out, why should she bring you guys along?"

  "Let him follow for a bit, he won't die!" Another girl next to Li Zihao spoke up discontentedly, "You guys won't lose any flesh either!"

  "Who are you?" Lu Xuan crossed her arms over her chest and asked the girl with an air of superiority, "What's wrong if I don't bring you guys along?"

  "Shut up, Xiao Man!" Li Zihao shouted at the girl called Xiao Man, "Don't make trouble! I forgot to introduce you. This is my sister, Li Xiaoman, and this is her classmate, Yin Hai."

  Yan Hai... this name is too dazzling! Liu Ya took a serious look at this boy named Yan Hai, about 1.7 meters tall, wearing a military green adventure suit, with a hat on his head, a square face, a pair of medium-sized eyes with glasses, a nose like a hill sitting on his face, a hairless mouth, and two small dimples when he smiled! Hmm, indeed, a lewd-looking face! His parents are really good at naming him.

  "How long have you been in here?" Liu Ya's gaze skipped over Li Zihao and landed on Li Xiaoman, asking directly, "How did you get lost?"

  "We've been here for about 2 hours, and we also came to the hall, saw that thing." Li Zihao pointed to the skeleton in the corner and continued, "Then, we retreated back, and then got lost. Later, we bumped into you guys."

  "That feeling, has it been following us all along?" Li Jin asked in surprise. "En!" Li Zihao nodded and replied, "It's been following you for half an hour now."

  "Alright, don't say anything else. Earlier, I said we only have half an hour's time, we must leave, otherwise we'll have to spend the night on the mountain tonight." Liu Ya said as she took out the map she had drawn, "Come and take a look at this map."

  "Plop - , Yaer, you're drawing a treasure map!" Huang Ying said without thinking as soon as she saw the hand-drawn map by Liu Ya.

  "Bagua diagram?" Liu Ya heard Huang Ying say this, and suddenly felt that this map really did resemble a Bagua diagram. She quickly picked up her pen and started marking it up, with the circular great hall as the center: Qian south, Kun north, Li east, Kan west, Dui southeast, Zhen northeast, Xun southwest, Gen northwest.

  "Wow, sister, you're looking at the Feng Shui!" Li Xiaoman exclaimed in surprise after Liu Ya finished drawing the map, "It looks too much like a compass!" Liu Ya speechlessly looked at Li Xiaoman.

  "Shut up, Xiao Man!" Li Zihao couldn't help but scold his own sister as he saw Liu Ya staring at Xiao Man. Who knew that this Liu Ya would kick him in the stomach like she did to him before, and even give him a fake diagnosis of "Duck Buttock Excitement Intestinal Knot Syndrome"!

  "Do you understand the Bagua diagram?" Liu Yading looked at Li Xiaoman steadily, if she did, maybe she would be a good helper. No mistake, Liu Yading discovered that this map was indeed a 'Bagua diagram'. It seemed that during the anti-Japanese war, the masses had laid out a circular route according to the Bagua, in order to confuse the devils. A slight deviation at any point could lead back to the main hall or a dead end, or even fall into a trap.

  "No!" Li Xiaoman said firmly, "I just saw my uncle use this thing to help people with feng shui. As for the rest, I didn't understand it." "Oh." Liu Ya responded softly, then sought advice from others.

  "Let me take a look." Huang Ying picked up Liu Ya's hand-drawn Bagua diagram and analyzed it: "The eight trigrams on the Bagua diagram each have three lines, 'Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, Dui' are arranged in eight directions, symbolizing the eight qualities and natural phenomena of 'heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain, and swamp', symbolizing the changes and cycles of the world. The classification method is similar to the Five Elements, and all things in the world can be classified into the eight trigrams."

  We know that the Taiji diagram has eight trigrams, and each trigram has three lines. Moreover, the broken and unbroken lines in each trigram have a mysterious rule. The word "gua" in the eight trigrams is a compound character consisting of "gui" from "zhui" and "bo". "Gui" refers to the earth gui, which was originally made of mud to measure the shadow of the sun. "Bo" means measurement. Setting up eight guis to measure the shadow of the sun, that is, summarizing and recording the shadows observed from the four cardinal directions and four corners, forms the diagram of the eight trigrams." Huang Ying said, looking around at the crowd, who were all staring at Liu Ya with a mixture of understanding and confusion.

  "Hey, Birdman, how did you know so much about gossip?" Seagull couldn't help but ask, "This isn't going to be your future aspiration, is it?"

  "No, no." Huang Ying hastily explained, "My grandfather used to do this line of work, so from a young age I watched my grandfather play big, and understood a bit on the surface. In reality, I don't understand."

  "Alright, others don't interrupt, Birdman, continue." Liu Ya greeted the others because she had to understand clearly, and only then could they leave with more confidence.

  "Ah, okay." Huang Ying responded while picking up the map again to study it. "The eight trigrams represent the eight basic elements: Qian represents heaven, Kun represents earth, Zhen represents thunder, Xun represents wind, Gen represents mountain, Dui represents marsh, Kan represents water, and Li represents fire. Together they are called the Jingua, and by combining two of the eight Jingua in pairs, we get the 64 Gua. The Qian Gua gives birth to the Kan Gua, the Kan Gua gives birth to the Gen Gua earth [Gen Gua earth is damp earth], the Gen Gua earth gives birth to the Zhen Gua wood, and the Zhen Gua wood assists the Xun Gua wood; the Xun Gua wood gives birth to the Li Gua fire, the Li Gua fire gives birth to the Kun Gua earth, the Kun Gua earth gives birth to the Dui Gua metal, and the Dui Gua metal assists the Qian Gua metal. That's all I know." Huang Ying finished speaking in one breath and looked at Liu Ya.

  Liu Ya took out the map again and began to analyze it in a mathematical way at the bottom of the diagram.

  Dry: x = 1, y = 1, z = 1

  Xie: x = 1, y = 1, z = 0

  x = 1, y = 0, z = 1

  x = 0, y = 1, z = 1

  Earthquake: x = 0, y = 0, z = 1

  Khan: x = 0, y = 1, z = 0

  Kan: x = 1, y = 0, z = 0

  Kun: x = 0, y = 0, z = 0

  "Alright." Liu Ya said after finishing up, "Let's get ready to head out."

  "Yah." Liu Fang couldn't help but call out to Liu Ya, "Can we really get out of here?"

  "I can, I must! And very quickly!" Liu Ya smiled confidently, "Let's go!" With that, Liu Ya held a torch in one hand and a map in the other, leading the team out. Unexpectedly, after turning through the tunnels for 2 or 3 hours, under Liu Ya's leadership, they emerged in less than half an hour.

  Q: Why could Liu Ya lead them out at once?

  A: She used the Bagua diagram, calculated with mathematical formulas based on the principle of mutual generation and restriction, and combined with the map they had walked through to find a straight path out. It seems that after this adventure, they should go back and study better!

  Digression

  The adventure ended like this, fortunately, they came out safely.