TDU Chapter 484
Chapter 484 Display of Divine Ability
“I’m completely confused,” Chen Junnan said, turning back. “Fourteen jie, which deity from the Havoc in Heaven do you think this belongs to?”
“Ah?” Cui Fourteen felt her thoughts being pulled along by Chen Junnan. “Captain, why must we limit the possibilities to {Havoc in Heaven}…?”
“Isn’t it obvious enough? {Divine Ability}, related to hair and lotus… and now this…uh petroglyph?” Chen Junnan held the icy jade piece in his hands, studying it carefully, then muttered under his breath, “I can’t read these characters… it must be a {heavenly script}. Maybe this belongs to Daode Tianzun or Taibai Jinxing…?”
(TLN: They’re both old immortals with long white beards.)
“Uh…” Cui Fourteen scratched her face, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and worry, staring at Chen Junnan with a mixture of emotions. “Captain… even if these items are related to the {Havoc in Heaven}, it offers us no advantage… It might not even be worth our attention.”
“But this jade piece is pretty…” Chen Junnan brushed off the dust and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll save this for Dong jie.”
As the two spoke, the door beside them opened, and the burly bearded man and the middle-aged man stepped in.
“Oh?” Chen Junnan raised an eyebrow. “Well? Was it smooth sailing?”
“Um…” The two men exchanged a glance, their expressions marked by the peculiarity they had experienced.
“Spit it out already,” Chen Junnan rushed.
They nodded. Ma Twelve extended his hand from behind, holding a small flower basket, while Wu Thirteen held what looked to be a black iron rod shaped like a simple hairpin.
“Huh?” Chen Junnan stepped forward to inspect the basket and the iron rod, his confusion deepening.
“A hairpin and a flower basket…?” Cui Fourteen murmured, pondering the oddity of the items.
What purpose could this completely random assortment serve?
Chen Junnan contemplated for a moment but drew a blank. He could only tell the group, “Forget about these for now.”
He pointed toward the southern door. “We’re almost at the exit. Let’s make a run for it first, and then figure out how to save Song Seven and Xiao Jiang Ten.”
The others understood that surviving the game took priority. No matter how strange the items were, they didn’t need to figure everything out.
When the broadcast voice sounded, Chen Junnan took the lead and opened the door, the sight behind it left the others momentarily baffled once again.
On the table in the room lay a sword, its blade clearly engraved with two words: {Divine Ability}.
And the two doors straight ahead and to the left were each marked with the word {Exit}.
“…We’ve made it?”
Everyone let out a brief sigh of relief, only to realize something amiss. The two doors leading to the exit looked exceedingly strange.
Previously unseen by them, couplets now adorned the right side of the left door and the left side of the right door.
The upper line read: Man, woman, old, young, rich, honor, poor, and lowly,
The lower line read: Sword, lotus, donkey, basket, flute, script, fan, and cane.
Beneath the couplet, there was an opening resembling a ventilation duct. Above it, in cursive script, a large word was written: {Manifest}!
“Dammit!” Chen Junnan threw the item in his hand aside and rushed to the doors, tugging at them, only to find both were locked. No matter how hard he pulled, they didn’t budge.
“Captain…what…” Cui Fourteen froze, realizing the doors were indeed locked. Unlike other doors, these had no visible latches and seemed sealed by some sort of mechanism.
“We need a grand display of divine abilities…to hell with {Havoc in Heaven}…” Chen Junnan gritted his teeth. “This has nothing to do with the {Havoc in Heaven}, but we were thinking in the right direction!”
He stopped tugging at the doors and instead reached into his pocket, pulling out the black hair and the jade tablet. Then he turned to the others and commanded, “Bring all the items over.”
Ma Twelve and Wu Thirteen didn’t dare hesitate and quickly handed over the flower basket and the black iron hairpin.
Chen Junnan carefully laid out every item on the dirty floor, then slowly raised his eyebrows.
“I knew it…” He touched the grimy floor and looked back at the group. “This isn’t an escape game at all… it’s {Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea}.”
“Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea…?” The others stared at the items on the ground, still puzzled.
Chen Junnan stood upright and pointed to the couplet on the wall. “Man, woman, old, young, riches, honor, poor, and lowly—that’s referring to eight people. Combine that with their divine artifacts, and doesn’t it spell out the {Eight Immortals}?”
“So these items…”
Chen Junnan held up a few of the Divine Artifacts for everyone to see. “The flower basket is Lan Caihe’s divine artifact. The lotus is He Xiangu’s divine artifact.”
“And the rest?”
He pondered for a moment, then lifted the iron rod shaped like a hairpin. “From its size, I initially assumed this was a black metal hairpin… but from its shape, isn’t this an Iron Crutch?”
After listening to Chen Junnan’s explanation, the others examined the ‘hairpin’ and realized it truly was a miniature Iron Crutch, Iron Crutch Li’s divine artifact.
“As for this jade…” Chen Junnan fell silent for a moment before speaking, “it must be Cao Guojiu’s {Jade Tablet}.”
He then picked up the tuft of black hair. “The most misleading item has been this black hair labeled {Divine Ability}…Now that I think about it, this isn’t human hair at all, it’s {mule hair}!”
“Mule…?” The others nodded, understanding immediately. “Zhang Guolao’s mule?”
“And with the {sword} on the table, we’ve now acquired six of the Eight Immortals’ Divine Artifacts.” Chen Junnan said. “This game cannot be won by just reaching the last room. To open these two doors, all eight Divine Artifacts must be gathered.”
Chen Junnan’s unconventional deductions left the listeners keenly aware of the delicate complexity at hand.
Song Seven and Jiang Ten continued their relentless {door-closing}, expecting their teammates to escape once at the final room, only for fate to leave them trapped at the very threshold.
“As the saying goes, {Eight Immortals cross the sea, each revealing their divine ability}*…” Chen Junnan continued, “I should have guessed this would be about the {Eight Divine Artifacts}. After all, the floor beneath us has always been blue-green, symbolizing the sea. This damn game is called {Penglai}, alluding to the legendary {Penglai Pagoda} where the Eight Immortals gathered before departing…”
(TLN: That’s the literal translation of ‘八仙过海，各显神通’, but the idiom has several interpretations: 1. each has its own way of doing things 2. each to compete with each other 3. everybody using their talents or skills to achieve a common goal. Oh, and the ‘eight immortals’ will be explained in the tl note below.)
“Then what should we do now?” Ma Twelve asked, his voice edged with anxiety. “Captain, where can we find the remaining {Divine Artifacts}?”
“They must be scattered throughout the rooms,” Chen Junnan replied, narrowing his eyes. “Do you remember which rooms contained the {Divine Artifacts} we’ve already discovered?”
“I do,” said the middle-aged man Wu Thirteen. “At the commencement of the game, we found the {Iron Crutch} in the initial room, and after passing a bare room, we obtained the {flower basket}. That places the rooms containing {Divine Artifacts} at {Two} and {Four}.”
“I knew it,” Chen Junnan remarked. “If I’m not mistaken, the rooms where we collected these {Divine Artifacts} were {Six}, {Eight}, and {Twelve}, along with our current location, {Sixteen}.”
“Oh!” Cui Fourteen exclaimed, realization dawning. “As the saying goes, ‘Happiness comes in even numbers*’… Could it be that all the {Divine Artifacts} are hidden in the even-numbered rooms?”
(TLN: a better translation of ‘好事成双’ would be ‘good things come in pairs’, but we need ‘even numbers’ mentioned.)
TL Note: Heh heh, the previous explanation of Penglai was what everyone initially thought Penglai was referring to the island….which is kinda true, but this game is specifically related to the Penglai Pagoda (蓬莱阁), known as the landing place of the Eight Immortals.
The Eight Immortals (八仙) are a group of legendary immortals in Chinese mythology. Each immortal's power can be transferred to a vessel (法器) that can bestow life or destroy evil. The Eight Immortals are revered by daoists and are also a popular element in secular Chinese culture.
The Eight Immortals are:
吕洞宾 Lu Dongbin, the swordsman whose sword can subdue the evil
何仙姑 He Xiangu, her lotus can cultivate people through meditation
汉钟离 Han Zhongli, his fan can bring the dead back to life
铁拐李 Tie Guaili (aka Iron Crutch Li), identified by his iron crutch and calabash bottle, can help the needy and relieve the distressed
张果老 Zhang Guolao has a drum that can augur life; he rides a white mule
曹国舅 Cao Guojiu has a jade tablet can purify the environment
蓝采和 Lan Caihe, whose basket of flowers can help communicate with gods
韩湘子 Han Xingzi owns the flute that can cause growth
There are a zillion variations on the story ‘The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea’, the characters in it are thousands of years old, and so there is no real ‘original’. The details change from version to version, but the basics remain the same: the Eight Immortals (八仙) decide to show off a little, and each use their special powers (神通) to cross the ocean, the domain of the Dragon King. Their antics start a battle, which, like any dispute among powerful spirits, gets out of hand, and a few gods and goddesses have to step in to break up the fight.
Sources:
