Old Joe’s voice was as cold as a frozen blade. Clutching the heavy bronze brick that now pulsed with an eerie, spectral light, Lin Xiao stumbled toward the rear of the shop. She crouched behind a towering wooden cabinet, peering through the narrow gaps between the stacked relics.
Ding-ling.
The moment the teak door swung open again, three men in black suits entered, taking up a calculated triangular formation. Their full-spectrum goggles flickered with a ghostly green light as they scanned the room. The man in the lead raised his right hand; a standard-issue high-frequency vibration baton snapped out, tearing through the air with a lethal, piercing zi-wong screech. The frequency was so high it made Lin Xiao’s eardrums itch, and even the coffee cups on the counter began to hum in sympathetic resonance.
"Target detected. Codename: Fuxi. Confirmation positive," the agent's voice was a flat, mechanical monotone. "Per the Skyveil Defense Protocol, you have been classified as a Tier-1 Temporal Interference Source. Cease all futile physical resistance and accompany us to the Illuminati for interference analysis."
Old Joe didn't respond. He simply reached out and slowly lifted his heavy black umbrella.
This seemingly ordinary object bore a formidable name: "The Hun-Yuan Umbrella: Mark II." Its handle was forged from Orichalcum, laced with flowing veins of liquid gold. It had been crafted from the spinal column of a dragon carcass Joe had pulled from the depths of the Yellow River millennia ago; the biochemical genes of the ancient behemoth still pulsed within its core. Embedded at its heart was a shard of the shattered Xuanyuan Sword—if necessary, the handle could be drawn to reveal a legendary blade. The canopy was woven from the bio-energy fabric of the lost continent of Mu, the entire apparatus shimmering with a sentient glow at his fingertips.
He tapped the tip of the umbrella lightly against the marble floor, then swept it in a horizontal arc.
As the tip struck the ground with a crisp metallic ding, a series of rapid ka-tack sounds followed, like massive, invisible gears grinding beneath the stone. A streak of violet-gold light surged along the floor's fissures, tracing a three-meter Bagua array onto the marble surface. The array began to rotate slowly, and the lead agent’s foot landed precisely upon the Gen (Mountain) position.
"Qimen Array, Open. Gen Gate: Mountain Seal!"
"Warning! Energy attack detected!" The agent’s briefcase snapped open automatically, projecting a pale blue kinetic shield around him. He stalled for a fraction of a second before raising his baton once more.
The two agents flanking him lunged forward, batons extended. Old Joe remained motionless. The Hun-Yuan Umbrella snapped open with a resonant thump—a sound as thick and heavy as the beat of a massive war drum. It was followed by a low, guttural vibration, like the growl of a beast, which stirred a localized vortex of distorted air.
"Taiji Neutralization!"
The two batons, capable of shattering steel, slammed into the canopy. Instead of a collision, it felt as though they had struck the deep ocean; their momentum was instantly dissipated into the abyss. With a flick of his wrist, Joe sent a rippling recoil through the fabric, throwing the two men off-balance.
The lead agent, having recovered from the array’s suppression, leaped high into the air. His baton extended a blade of blue plasma energy, cleaving downward in a brutal arc.
Joe’s eyes sharpened. He collapsed the black umbrella in a flash, his fingertips sliding a talisman paper across the ribs.
"Five Thunders Devolution—Divert!"
The tip of the umbrella parried the energy blade with a light touch. The plasma energy was suddenly drawn toward the umbrella like iron to a magnet, diverting along the ribs as three bolts of violet lightning danced across the surface.
"Heaven and Earth Upended—Nine Firmaments Thunder Array!"
Joe shifted with lethal agility, gliding into the center of the three men. He drove the tip of the umbrella down hard onto the Zhen (Thunder) position of the floor array. A massive concussive force, laced with electric arcs, swept outward. The three agents were struck by a high-voltage discharge, sent flying like puppets with severed strings into the corners of the shop, falling instantly into deep unconsciousness.
Dead silence returned to the shop. Old Joe methodically collapsed his umbrella, giving the tip a casual flick to shed non-existent droplets of water. He patted his chest pocket, confirming the pocket watch was still beating steadily, before finally turning his gaze toward Lin Xiao, who stood paralyzed in the corner.
"Grab your bundle. We’re leaving."
Lin Xiao stepped out from the shadows, her face ashen, her voice trembling. "Who... who are they? Are you really a Taoist priest?"
Joe looked at her, his eyes as calm and impenetrable as a thousand-year-old well. "I know you have questions. But let me tell you this: though they came for me, you—or the object in your arms—are now marked. If you stay here, the next thing they send in ten minutes won’t be human."
His tone was concise, carrying an unquestionable authority. "Follow me. I have another studio; I’ll explain everything there."
Lin Xiao glanced at the men strewn across the floor, then back at Joe. She set her jaw and nodded, her eyes flickering with a mix of dread and resolve.
The two vanished through the door into the rain. At the corner of the arcade sat a dust-covered Sanyang Wolf 125. Lin Xiao stared at this "antique" vehicle, her mind a chaotic blur. Joe mounted the bike and kicked the starter—Clang, Thrum—! The engine roared with a heavy, rhythmic thunder. It wasn't the smooth hum of a modern scooter, but a mechanical, metallic thud-thud-thud. A plume of white smoke erupted from the exhaust, and the vibrations were so intense they made the soles of Lin Xiao’s feet go numb. He tossed her a helmet, speaking as if stating a universal truth: "In Taipei, the Wolf is the only way to fly."
With another burst of exhaust, they disappeared into the rainy mist of Dadaocheng.
Less than five minutes after their departure, the teak door, newly closed, let out another soft ding-ling.
Old Xie walked in with a swagger, waving his paper fan and wearing a pair of worn-out flip-flops. He surveyed the scorched marks and the three limp agents on the floor, curling his lip in annoyance.
"That old fossil... thousands of years and he still has that temper. If you’re going to fight, just fight—did he have to make the walls look like they were hit by a localized lightning strike?"
Grumbling under his breath, Xie moved with a nimbleness that defied his shabby appearance. He hoisted the burly agents like scrawny chickens, one in each hand, and hauled them to a concealed gutter in the back alley.
Having cleared the "trash," Xie’s expression turned solemn. He pulled a long green tablet from his collar, its surface shimmering with faint streams of data. This was no ordinary piece of wood; it was the Terminal Control Key for the geomagnetic ley line system of the Xiahai City God Temple.
Standing at the center of the Bagua array Joe had drawn, Xie gripped the tablet and slammed it onto the floor.
"Gate of Rest, Life, Injury, Limit, View, Death, Shock, and Open. Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array: Activate!"
Centered on the "Momentary" Clock Shop, a translucent ripple expanded outward in a rapid arc, generating a resonant frequency with the nearby City God Temple. For a fleeting second, the Bagua pattern on the marble floor flared with a final, brilliant light before fading into silence.
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To mortal eyes, the alley still existed. But the spatial orientation around the building had been warped. Even if someone followed a map, they would be unconsciously diverted by the folded space. No matter how many men the Illuminati sent, they would never set foot across this threshold again.
"Well, now that Joe’s gone, I might finally get some peace and quiet for a while."
Xie tucked away the tablet, reverting to his lazy persona. He stepped out, locking the door of the shop that technically "no longer existed," and snapped his fan against his palm—shua, shua. As he faded into the wind and rain, he began to hum a few high-pitched, metallic lines of Beiguan Opera. The sound echoed through the rain, drifting closer then further away, until it finally dissolved into the air.
The Wolf’s exhaust let out a low, predatory growl. Old Joe hunched his shoulders, looking like an aging but cunning black panther.
"Hang on tight!" Joe bellowed.
The torrential rain struck like needles, but to Lin Xiao’s astonishment, the droplets slid away ten centimeters from Joe’s body. It was as if an invisible kinetic shield surrounded him; the rain pelted the barrier with a muffled puh-puh-puh sound, like water hitting thick, taut leather.
Behind them, three black SUVs veered sharply into the lane, tailing the old motorcycle. An agent leaned out, brandishing a silver rod with a three-pronged tip that crackled with arcs of electricity. Amidst the snap-hiss of the blue lightning, they scrambled to lock onto the speeding Wolf.
The bike surged toward Daqiaotou. There, countless commuters merging from their shifts formed Taiwan’s most famous spectacle: the "Motorcycle Waterfall." Hundreds of headlights interlaced into a flowing river of light through the rain, their collective roar drowning out the world. As the light turned green, the herd erupted forward like beasts released from a cage.
Instead of slowing down, Joe pinned the throttle. The Wolf displayed staggering agility, its narrow frame slicing through the dense pack like a bolt of lightning, threading gaps between cars with mere millimeters to spare. The agents were swallowed by the massive tide of commuters, forced to lean on their horns in a futile, raging cacophony.
"He’s there! Crossing Minquan West Road!" an agent roared over the comms.
Rounding the bridge, Joe pulled a limit-lean. The tires shrieked against the slick asphalt—a sharp screee-ga! that seemed to slice the night sky open. Then, the engine erupted with a heavy boom-boom within the narrow alleys of the Ningxia Night Market, the echoes rattling against the red-brick walls.
They entered another world. Red neon signs, clouds of steam from food stalls, and the aroma of frying oyster omelets hit them all at once. Joe navigated the labyrinth of stalls and rain awnings with practiced ease. Lin Xiao watched the blur of life beside her: a sweat-drenched vendor tossing noodles, a long queue waiting for taro cakes.
In the midst of the chaos, Joe caught a scent and muttered, "We should’ve had sesame oil kidney noodles for dinner."
The clang-clang of spatulas and the chatter of diners mingled with the sizzle of deep-fryers. The Wolf’s rugged engine note miraculously dissolved into the ambient noise of this earthly sanctuary.
Several agents abandoned their vehicles, sprinting to intercept them through the crowd. Joe remained unfazed. He released his left hand from the handlebar and flicked a talisman onto a vibrating electrical transformer box by the roadside.
"Gen Gate: Mountain Shift!"
In an instant, the world distorted before the agents' eyes. One agent, sprinting toward Joe, found himself inexplicably crashing into a stack of blue plastic stools, drawing a flurry of curses from a stall owner. Joe didn't even look back as the Wolf veered onto Chongqing South Road.
Chongqing South Road was a street thick with history, lined with old bookstores whose scent of aged paper wafted through the rain. As the dark red, Southern Fujian-style North Gate (Cheng'en Gate) loomed into view, Joe’s gaze deepened, as if stirred by an ancient memory.
This was a relic of the Qing Dynasty, the final fortification of old Taipei. Originally, the city’s axis was planned to run strictly North-South; however, Joe had told Liu Ao, the military intendant of the time, that the plan lacked "Ancestral Mountain support" and would be "void of Qi and plagued by Five Evils." At Joe’s insistence, the entire city grid was rotated 13 degrees clockwise, aligning the axis with Mt. Qixing to the northeast.
It was the earliest ley line node Joe had planted in Taipei, later serving as the "Eye" of a defense array linked to the City God Temple in Dadaocheng. Now, the solitary Cheng’en Gate stood surrounded by soaring glass towers and the modern monolith of Taipei Main Station—an abrupt, proud silhouette of the past.
Joe looked up, his gaze drifting eastward. If the North Gate was the core node of old Taipei’s ley lines, then the cloud-piercing silhouette of Taipei 101 was the feng-shui treasure of the new era.
The pursuers had regrouped. Several SUVs and black heavy bikes accelerated across the now-vacant stretch of road. The moment they hit the North Gate roundabout, Joe yanked the handlebars upward. For a fleeting heartbeat, the ancient gateway seemed to pulse with a faint, crimson aura.
Using the visual blind spots created by the torrential rain and the centrifugal force of the high-speed turn, Joe traced an arc that shouldn't have existed in the eyes of any onlooker. Then, like a drop of ink dissolving into shadow, he vanished into the deep archway of the Cheng'en Gate. As they slid into the darkness, he unsheathed his black umbrella, tapping it rhythmically against the vaulted brick ceiling above.
The agents behind them felt a sudden blur in their vision. The Wolf had been a roaring silhouette at the mouth of the gate, only to vanish into the stone as if the brickwork had simply unmade itself. When they tore through the archway a heartbeat later, the bike was gone—replaced by the cold, vacant expanse of a rain-slicked road.
Joe cut the engine, letting the bike’s momentum carry them toward the solid brick wall beside the archway. Lin Xiao, still reeling from the adrenaline of the chase, let out a terrified scream as the wall loomed closer. But the bone-jarring slam she expected never came. Instead, a soft pop—like a bubble bursting—ringed in her ears. The chaotic roar of the storm and the engines vanished instantly, replaced by a heavy, oppressive silence that felt like a sudden pressure in her eardrums. In place of the wall, a stark underground passage flickered into view.
"Hop off," he said.
He pulled the trembling Lin Xiao along, descending rapidly into the passage. They slipped through an inconspicuous security door and stepped into the sprawling subterranean network known as "Taiwan’s Greatest Labyrinth"—the Taipei Main Station Underground.
This place was a tangled web of Exits Y, Z, K, and M. To Lin Xiao’s eyes, the endless signs looked like garbled code. They hurried past the anime posters of the Y-Zone and through the faint scent of cheap leather in the Z-Zone. Though the crowds were sparse at this hour, the colossal maze of steel reinforcements and high-voltage cables created a natural shielding field—a place where even the most focused minds could lose their sense of direction.
Joe walked ahead, twirling his dry umbrella with a steady, practiced gait.
"Strictly speaking," he said calmly, "I was the first one to build a station here."
Joe descended level after level, weaving through a labyrinth of conduits and maintenance shafts that would leave even the most seasoned station master hopelessly lost. The presence of other humans thinned until only the rhythmic echo of their own footsteps filled the cavernous passages. Finally, he stopped before a rusted iron door marked: “HIGH VOLTAGE – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” He didn't reach for a key; instead, he traced his finger across the corroded surface in a swift, runic motion.
As the glowing sigil on the door faded, the heavy groan of shifting gears vibrated from deep within. The door slid open with a ponderous grace, releasing a draft of air that was starkly different from the surface—dry like parched earth, yet sharp with the scent of cold, ancient metal.
Lin Xiao followed him across the threshold, and the sight before her stole the very breath from her lungs.
They stood within a colossal, vaulted hemicycle. The architecture was a world apart from the chaotic, modern utility of the metro system above; the walls were constructed from a translucent, crystalline basalt that pulsed with a faint, ethereal blue light. Massive pillars rose to support the ceiling, their surfaces etched with dense, geometric runes that seemed to flow like liquid mercury.
"Is this… part of Taipei Main Station too?" Lin Xiao’s voice rippled through the hall, stirring a series of faint, ghostly echoes.
"No. This is its true aspect," Joe said, pointing to the ground beneath them. "This system is known as the Global Leyline Vacuum Express (GLVE). Simon and I designed it tens of thousands of years ago. You can think of it as the Earth’s neural network—or in terms you might understand, a system that links the world’s most potent Feng Shui nodes. A century before you humans even broke ground, this was already the nexus of this island."
In the center of the hall, the floor split into a deep, curved trench. Floating silently within was a craft shaped like an elongated obsidian shuttle. The vehicle had no windows, no visible seams; its surface possessed only the dull luster of an old vinyl record, emitting a low, rhythmic thrum—woo—woo— that resonated in the marrow of their bones.
"‘You humans’?" Lin Xiao caught the phrase instantly, her voice trembling.
Joe brushed her question aside without a second thought. He descended the stone steps, his black umbrella tapping precisely against the ground. "That is what you would call a train. But in the age of Atlantis, we called it a Maintenance Pod. It doesn't rely on engines; it’s propelled by the gravitational waves within these vacuum conduits."
Joe didn't head straight for the craft. Instead, he led Lin Xiao past the central platform toward a structure built directly into the cavern wall.
The building looked like a vast, temporal assemblage. Its exterior was embedded with relics from every era: 19th-century cast-iron gears, glowing crystalline test tubes, and even a dismantled 1950s vacuum-tube computer. These components were welded together in a chaotic yet deliberate logic, forming a bizarre, trans-civilizational workshop.
Joe pushed open the door to the studio. A dim kerosene lamp flickered to life inside—but upon closer inspection, the flame wasn't burning oil. At its center sat a microscopic, spinning crimson nucleus.
"Come in."
1. Qimen Dunjia (奇門遁甲 — Qí Mén Dùn Jiǎ) An ancient metaphysical system used to calculate and manipulate the flow of spatial and temporal energy. In this context, it functions as the algorithmic framework for the defensive arrays.
2. The Eight Trigrams (八卦 — Bā Guà) A set of eight symbols used to represent the fundamental principles of reality.
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震 (Zhèn / Thunder): Represents kinetic energy and electrical discharge.
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艮 (Gèn / Mountain): Represents stillness, weight, and gravitational containment.
3. The Eight-Gate Golden Lock Array (八門金鎖陣 — Bā Mén Jīn Suǒ Zhèn) A specialized formation that utilizes the "Eight Gates" of Qimen Dunjia to seal or alter a specific space.
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開 (Kāi / Open Gate)
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休 (Xiū / Rest Gate)
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生 (Shēng / Life Gate)
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傷 (Shāng / Injury Gate)
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杜 (Dù / Limit Gate)
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景 (Jǐng / View Gate)
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死 (Sǐ / Death Gate)
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驚 (Jīng / Shock Gate)