noffsinger Chapter 12 Puzzle Mechanism
Chapter 12 Puzzle Mechanism
"This is... a fairy?"
Although decades of erosion have blurred some of the details of the statue.
But everyone could see that when the statue was first completed, the woman on it must have been an incredibly beautiful and lifelike figure.
"More than twenty years ago, I was also quite obsessed with this statue."
Wei Ziheng chuckled self-deprecatingly, while everyone else became curious.
"Could this statue be related to the mystery?"
"At first, I didn't understand it either, but it wasn't until the last night of that year that I realized the mystery."
After Wei Ziheng finished speaking, he raised his hand and pointed to a cliff face on the front and back of the statue.
Everyone looked up and immediately noticed something amiss.
There was a square recessed area in the stone wall, smooth and flat, without a single weed inside.
"Like... a picture frame?"
Xiao Xuan measured the area up and down with his eyes. The square area was about two meters high and more than one meter wide, just enough to fit one person.
"At this size, it resembles a portrait painting."
The others also immediately recognized that the dimensions of the frame were exactly the size of the life-size portrait.
Wei Ziheng continued to clear the ground with his long cane, and everyone helped him. Seeing that Lei Long was personally helping, Xiao Xuan also used his legs to sweep the ground a few times.
"There should be many stone fragments under that frame; please help me pick them up."
Following Wei Ziheng's instructions, the group arrived at the stone wall and indeed found many square stone slabs stacked together.
Each of these stone slabs is about an inch thick. One side is pitch black and covered with black residue, while the other side is decorated with patterns carved in colored paint and covered with transparent resin to prevent weathering and discoloration.
Xiao Xuan held the two stone pieces together in his hands and surprisingly felt a slight magnetic repulsion between them.
"puzzle?"
Xiao Xuan picked up more stone fragments, and sure enough, the patterns on each stone fragment were different, but it was clear that they came from the same painting.
"This ingenious sage is truly fascinating. Was the mechanism he left behind merely a jigsaw puzzle?"
After moving all the stone slabs to the open ground, Lei Long glanced at them and looked at Wei Ziheng with disbelief.
"Island Master Wei, isn't this just a painting cut into many pieces? All you have to do is put them back together, right? How come you haven't been able to solve it even after three days and three nights?"
Wei Ziheng shook his head and waved for everyone to give it a try.
"You'll discover the secret once you try it."
"Then I, Wang, will give it a try first."
Wang Hong was eager to try; if he could solve this problem, he could ask for a bigger share of the profits.
Wang Hong simply rolled up more than ten stone slabs, leaped onto the cliff face, and moved along it as if his body was glued to the cliff, sticking all the stone slabs into the square frame.
"Master Wang's gecko wall-climbing skill is indeed impressive."
After landing, Wang Hong looked at Wei Ziheng smugly: "The backs of these stone slabs are all magnets, so there must be magnets behind the stone wall as well. Let's stick the stone slabs on first, and then switch their positions. Isn't that simple?"
Before Wang Hong could finish speaking, the stone slabs on the wall began to fall one by one, crashing to the ground with a clatter.
"What happened?!" Lei Long exclaimed in shock. "Did it break?"
"No, those stone flakes are very hard."
Wei Ziheng seemed to have anticipated this outcome.
"If it's not placed in the correct position, it will fall down in a few breaths."
"This..." Wang Hong's expression was somewhat displeased, "Then why didn't you say so earlier?"
"Isn't this Sect Leader Wang eager to try?"
"you!"
Wang Hong gritted his teeth, seemingly harboring hatred for yet another person.
Su Qing gave Lei Long a push from behind, and Lei Long immediately came between the two of them.
"What if we lay it out on the ground first?"
"That won't work either. Without the magnet behind the stone wall to counteract the magnetic force, the stone pieces will repel each other and bounce away."
As he spoke, Wei Ziheng demonstrated to everyone. He forcibly joined the four stone pieces together, but as soon as he released the force, the stone pieces flew several meters away.
"So, we can only try after we've confirmed everything?"
As everyone was discussing, Riko Furukawa suddenly picked up a stone slab.
"As you can see, there is no color on this, but you can see the signature text, which must be in the bottom right corner."
Those who were nearby crowded over to take a look, and saw that the inscription read: "The Qixi Festival will never be forgotten."
Riko Furukawa took the stone slab and leaped down, gently placing it in the lower right corner of the frame.
"Once you have one corner, you can just piece it together slowly by following the picture."
"It still doesn't work."
As soon as Wei Ziheng finished speaking, the stone slab slid off the stone wall.
"Who says the location of the drawing is the same as the location of the stone tablet?"
"What do you mean?"
"If it were pieced together to form a complete picture, this stone fragment would be at the bottom, but this stone wall was not designed according to the complete picture."
"what?"
Hearing this, everyone was a little confused, even Xiao Xuan was completely baffled.
Wei Ziheng pondered for a moment, then organized his thoughts and explained:
"Based on my assessment, there should also be ninety-six lodestones behind that stone wall, and they are scattered around."
To solve this puzzle, you must first place the stone pieces in front of the corresponding magnets, then move the pieces on the stone wall to restore the messy painting to its original state.
Lei Long and the others were still completely confused, but Xiao Xuan saw the light and immediately understood Wei Ziheng's meaning and how the mechanism worked.
According to Wei Ziheng, this puzzle is a Huarong Road game, except that the person who solves it must first place all the stone pieces in place before they can begin.
"Is it really possible to finish this in three days? It's that difficult!"
What the people didn't know was that the Sage of Machines hadn't left any time limit; the rules were all decided by Granny Wen on the island.
Even Granny Wen herself had never entered the valley or seen the mechanism.
She was a very contradictory person. She didn't want anyone to successfully solve the puzzle, but she also didn't want the legacy of the ingenious immortal to be buried here. So she set the rule of putting people on the fire to roast.
"Quick! Gather all the stone fragments first!"
Lei Long spoke urgently, and everyone obeyed. Except for Lei Long, Su Qing, and Wei Ziheng, the rest of them immediately scattered in the canyon to search.
After a stick of incense had burned, the group returned and found a total of ninety-five pieces.
"Wait a minute! We're still missing one piece, right? Judging by the size, there should be ninety-six pieces, shouldn't there?"
"Did it bounce off?"
"If one piece is missing, won't it be impossible to finish?"
Lei Long grew increasingly anxious as he listened to their conversation, but Wei Ziheng chuckled and remained silent.
Xiao Xuan raised his hand to interrupt everyone and said directly:
"That's right, there are ninety-five pieces. As Island Master Wei mentioned before, we need to move the stone pieces on the stone wall, so there must be a gap in the stone wall so that other stone pieces can move through."
Upon hearing Xiao Xuan's words, Wei Ziheng immediately turned around in surprise.
"That kid...he's right!"
When he first cracked the mechanism, he struggled for a long time with the missing stone fragment, and it took him a whole day to figure it out.
Unexpectedly, the young man in front of me saw through the secret at a glance.
"The younger generation is truly formidable."
Wei Ziheng nodded silently. At this moment, Sha Peng, who was standing next to the statue, suddenly spoke up: "There's a mechanism on this stone statue too!"