Chapter 11 Getting stuck in a maze

I suddenly became suspicious, wondering if this guy was lying to me?He wanted to go deep into ancient Beijing to find Nezha's tomb, so he deliberately said this to scare us and let us go with him. This may also exist.But I couldn't help but look solemn, and for a moment I couldn't make up my mind.I changed my mind, staying here is waiting to die anyway, why not go out and give it a try, so I shut up and didn't question it. So the two of us climbed down from the top of the hill and woke up the other two.Bei couldn't help repeating his theory again. Dayingzi was big and brainless, and he listened to whatever he said. Zhen Fu looked at him suspiciously, and then at me.I nodded quietly, and she agreed.

The four of us cheered up and packed our luggage—in fact, there was nothing to pack, our luggage was almost lost—we took off a few round and thick pine branches with turpentine, and lit them to save light as much as possible.We lighted torches and walked slowly along the intermittent path on the side of the mountain.This road should have been built by the ancients, and there are half rusted handrails on both sides, which are suitable as road signs.There are all kinds of bones along the way, lying or lying down, which looks really shocking. As we walked, we were soon surrounded by mist like a shroud of fiasco. Only the firelight with the pungent smell of pine oil could give us a little sense of security.I desperately opened my eyes wide, reminding myself not to be hit by the sudden appearance of bones.The number of bones here is more and more dense, there are men, women and children, all of them are clustered together, and it is extremely crowded.Their empty eye sockets are facing forward. Even after all these years, I can still feel the bewilderment and anger of their dying.

Dayingzi was only looking around, when suddenly he let out a scream of "Oops" and collided with a corpse.The skeleton fell forward, collided with dozens of corpses, and fell continuously for more than 20 meters.Dayingzi was startled, thinking that he had caused a catastrophe, but saw a strange little thing at the end of the line. I quickly helped him up and asked what was wrong, Dayingzi panicked and said there was something ahead!I raised the torch and saw that there was a shrine as tall as a person in front of me. A crooked skeleton leaned in, holding a flat-headed spatula in his hand. In front of him was an iron pan with a full moon. There were many bottles beside the iron pan, which contained suspicious things. Powder——Bei couldn't help but say that this was a geologist who was in charge of surveying astronomical phenomena and terrain.

I said can you see the terrain of the labyrinth from him?Bei couldn't help shrugging his shoulders regretfully, saying that this was just a superstition of the ancients: this kind of geomancy method is also the same, it is called noodles, they will first heat the iron plate, then pour it with the prepared flour paste, and then sprinkle it with various ingredients. A kind of secret medicine, using a flat shovel to adjust various shapes to judge good or bad, which is no different from observing the cracked lines of a turtle shell or the shape of a bird's internal organs for divination. The Discovery Channel once made a special program.

"Even if we want to divination, there is no batter." Bei couldn't help saying. Next to the shrine, there is a shed even larger than it, in which many paper scrolls are placed.This time, I don’t need to keep explaining. I also know that this is Wenyuan Pavilion—the place where materials and documents were stored in ancient times.However, the volumes here are not thick, most of them are thin volumes, some covers are women and men in ancient costumes, and some can't tell what they are.I picked up a volume casually, opened it, and read it. With my level of ancient prose, I couldn't read the whole article at all.

"Let's go, the torch can't be wasted here." Zhen Ji urged. I put down the volume, left the shed, and walked for a long time among the forests of the dead.This place deserves to be called Xizhi Fengdu, the roads lead in all directions, ups and downs, making people dazzled, and soon lose their sense of direction.The one leading the way couldn't help it, and just walked towards the place where the bones piled up based on intuition.Zhen Jian sang the song "Welcome to Beijing" softly in the team again, her voice was ethereal and clear, and it sounded particularly impressive in this crowded environment.

In the distance, a vague building can be seen.The building is flat-roofed, and the entrance is gloomy. After entering, there is a section of wide steps that descend. The bones stand there silently in a line, as if waiting to return to the peace under the nine springs. Bei couldn't stop standing at the door for a long time, and finally made up his mind, waved his hand, let us follow him in.After going down the steps, we found that this place seemed familiar, similar to the altar in the cave we walked through.But this place is much wider than that altar. The railings are arranged like nine palaces and eight trigrams.There were no lights in the whole place, and it looked as lifeless as a tomb.It seems that the core maze of this Fengdu maze is here.

"Look, there seems to be a signpost here." Dayingzi suddenly shouted.We leaned over and saw a piece of blued iron hanging from the ceiling. It was rusty and fuzzy. After the torch approached, we could barely make out several arrows pointing in different directions.Behind each arrow, there is an ancient Arabic numeral.I do know this, and I told the students in Chinese class.There are three numbers on the sign, namely 2, 4, and 13. These three numbers obviously point to three paths.But how?I couldn't help but was also stumped. I took the treasure map and turned it over to look at it, but I couldn't see why.

At this time, Zhen Yan suddenly pointed in a direction: "I have a feeling that something is calling me over here." We looked at the direction she was pointing, with a 4 on the tail of the arrow. "4 means death in the ancient Chinese language. Isn't it a dead end if you go there?" I nervously rejected her opinion.I couldn't help but stopped me: "Mr. Zhao, you can't be so dogmatic. The ancients were deeply aware of the principles and would not use homonyms to make arrangements so superficially. As the saying goes, a lonely yin does not grow, and a single yang does not grow. These 13 and 2, both It is a prime number that can only be divisible by itself and 1, which is what the ancients called an orphan number. Although 4 has a bad reputation, it is a composite number in essence, which is in line with the way of harmony. Therefore, the passage leading to 4 is the most likely It's a way out."

Now that he said so, Dayingzi and I didn't insist too much. The four of us raised the torch a little higher and walked forward along the arrow of 4.This passage is extremely long. Apart from the endless skeletons of slaves, there are countless patterns and human faces on the wall, all of which are framed in a huge rectangular frame.Most of these faces are smiling, and they can do anything, holding various electrical appliances in their hands-this should be a mural of life in ancient times, recording the establishment and sacrifice process of the Fengdu Great Formation.If a humanist sees these, he will be ecstatic, but unfortunately we are so intent on running for our lives that we have no interest in these.

This No. 4 passage goes round after round, and every turn is connected with many forks. The situation is difficult and complicated, far exceeding our expectations.It is estimated that those slaves were endlessly turning around in such an environment, and their despair became more and more serious, so that their deaths turned into dry bones.We walked for a long time according to the signs, and finally came to a downward step. In order to ensure safety, Bei and I couldn't help but go down to investigate first, leaving Dayingzi and Zhen Ji on top and guarding the back road.If a bunch of eight masters suddenly rush out at this time, we will be miserable. Going down from the steps, there is a long and narrow platform. There are long ditches on the left and right sides of the platform, and both ends lead to a dark cave with gusty winds. It is similar to the altar we drilled into before. In the dark ditch on the right side of the platform, a huge black figure was lying there quietly. It was slender and fat, clinging to the platform beside the ditch, like a long dragon sticking its head out of the cave.Bei couldn't help but brighten his eyes: "I said this tunnel is so familiar, it turns out to be a sloughing dragon binding fairy lock! Unexpectedly, there is such a way out in Fengdu Maze, we can be said to be another village." I asked him what is the sloughing dragon binding immortal lock, and he couldn't help explaining that according to ancient records, ever since Nezha transformed into a Nielong in the town of Beijing, Nezha has always been reluctant to do so, but it has no way to compete with the Nezha on the ground. Nezha's magic weapon in Sihuan can only fight from the ground.It shed its scales continuously from its body, and every piece of dragon shed turned into a small dragon, drilling underground in Beijing.Over the past few decades, these little dragons have drilled out more than a dozen interlaced underground caves, and with the help of the power of Youzhou, the Sea of ​​​​Bitterness, they have drilled underground in various parts of Beijing. Do not open hands and feet. Of course this is just a legend.But these caves are all built underground and connected to each other. Walking along here might be a way to escape. We walked over and saw that the dragon lying in the long ditch was actually a carriage with several openings on its side.The dragon's body is hollow, filled with bones, as if the evil dragon had eaten a full meal of human flesh - I don't know if this represents the act of offering sacrifices to the evil dragon. I frowned and thought, so this is the real mystery of the Iron Snake Cave. The cave we got into at the beginning was supposed to be one of the sloughing dragons binding the fairy lock, but there was a lack of a dragon sloughing.Reminiscent of Kunming Lake, Wanshou Mountain, which symbolizes Youzhou, a sea of ​​bitterness, all signs indicate that the rulers of Nezha city with five rings, eight arms and nine gates have abandoned the god Nezha they once believed in, and turned to worship Nielong, saying Maybe this is the reason why ancient Beijing fell into a tiankeng... The torch was almost exhausted at this time, and Bei and I couldn't stop walking back to the steps, and was about to call them down, when we suddenly heard Dayingzi from above shouting "Be careful!" Then the light was shining brightly, it should be him who threw the flash bomb.Bei and I couldn't help being shocked, and ran up three steps at a time, but found that there was nothing special around, Zhen Ji and Dayingzi stood where they were, without moving. "What kind of flash bombs are you wasting?" I reprimanded angrily. Dayingzi didn't make any excuses, but just pointed to the distance.I looked over there by the light, and there was a row of gate guillotines not far away, with two guillotines interlaced.And under the guillotine, lay a dead body upright.This skeleton is different from the ones we are used to. Although it has been turned into a skeleton, the clothing on its body is still not rotten, and its hair and teeth are still there. It is obvious that it has just died in recent years. The skeleton was lying in the passage, with its head in a different place, and an ancient card in its right hand, as if it was about to reach into the small gap in the guillotine.There is no doubt that the deceased must have used this card to activate the switch knife and beheaded himself—but why did he do that?Could it be that there is something that must be done on the other side of the gate?