Chapter 13 Chapter 10 The Cave (Part 1)

There are thirty-eight people in the immediate family of the Gong family, only Gong Ruya who stayed by my side survived, and the cause of death of the rest is unknown. According to the old man, their bodies showed no signs of harm on the surface, but murder was found in hidden places-all of them had been bitten by some kind of mosquito.It is very likely that the murderer poured the deadly venom into the mouthparts of the mosquitoes, and spread the toxin after they sucked blood and bit humans. But this inference is too difficult to implement, after all, mosquitoes are difficult to control. I knew very well in my heart that it was too easy to order mosquitoes to carry venom to kill people with the means of Yaxin's forces.But why did the Gong family turn against that mysterious force, even at the cost of the whole family's life?Gong Xiong clearly knows that the price of turning against me is death, this can be clearly judged from his ordering Gong Ruya to follow me all the time.

I didn't dare to tell Gong Ruya the news, and I didn't know how to tell her.Could it be that he joked with a hippie smile, Gongmei, all your family members have gone to see the King of Hades, don't worry, there will be no pain when you die.If you are not careful, it is estimated that the day of seeing them is not far away. Scratching my head, I smiled wryly again.Gong Ruya doesn't have a deep friendship with herself, and I'm not a good man who can comfort others, so let's put this matter aside, and she will know when she returns to Spring City.As for the future, I don't need to take care of it!At 3:30 in the afternoon, after everyone had rested, I led the team towards the mine.

The mines in Shipusa Village are not difficult to find, and a wide road has been built to transport the excavated coal out.This road runs across the entire village, like a belt tied on the mountainside, very conspicuous, and the other end of the road leads to the direction out of the village.This road is exactly what we have been looking for, but we have never been able to find it. It is the village road marked on the old map. I really don't know what method the forces who wiped out Stone Bodhisattva Village used to hide this road. The Panshan Road was poured with asphalt. Although more than ten years have passed, it still functions as a road.The journey went smoothly, until we stood in front of the deep mine, everyone hesitated a little.

The hole in front of me is not too high, because of its age, it has nothing to do with standardization and mechanization. The messy wood supports the roof of the cave, and I always feel that it will collapse at any time. I ordered: "Turn on the lights, our destination should be a deep pit in the depths of the mine. Watch your feet when you walk!" Everyone wore miners' lamps on their heads one after another and walked into the mine. Sure enough, it is indeed a bonanza. Although the scale is small, black coal can be seen everywhere. No wonder there are still resources after thousands of years of mining.I judged that although this coal mine belt is easy to mine, its reserves are not large, and the scale of normal mining is only enough for the nearby villages and towns.

There is a huge red letter at the entrance of the mine, the three big characters of "Dongyi Mine" that have been mottled on the painted surface, and the unique slogan of the planned economy era, which makes people look very novel. The mine has been going down obliquely, and the slope is not steep. After more than two hours, we came to the deep pit that Li Ming described.Facing this sudden pit dug down, although I was somewhat prepared, seeing it with the naked eye still made me a little dazed.The height and width of the hole seem to be inconsistent with Li Ming's description. Could it be that someone widened it on purpose?

The pit was surrounded by bricks to a height of half a person, which was used as a warning so that no one would accidentally fall into it.I shone in with a flashlight, and the hole was dug downward at an angle of 30 degrees. It was unfathomable, and there was no way to see the end. "The ancient tomb is inside?" asked the old gun. "good." I nodded and nervously swallowed my saliva, "Be careful, let's go down slowly." "no problem." As an experienced captain, Old Gun turned his head and ordered Han to point, "Old man, drive a pile and fix the long rope to the hole."

Han Dian took out the special nylon rope. This kind of rope is only as thick as a finger, but it is enough to bear the weight of five people.The soil in the coal mine was a bit soft, so he drove the metal stake into the ground more than one meter before he tied the rope.A group of seven people tied the safety rope and walked down leisurely. It can be seen that the workers were very impatient when digging the hole. The inside of the hole is uneven. Thirty degrees is not too steep, but it feels really bad to walk on tiptoe all the time. It took a full two hours, and about 2.5 kilometers forward, the pit finally came to an end, but one thing in front of them shocked everyone.

Seven beams of light illuminate this small space, which is less than three meters wide and only two meters high.On the ground in front of him, there was an iron chain as thick as a waist.I don't know how long this iron chain has been cast, and it is completely black, reflecting an ominous light under the light. Everyone was amazed except me. The earth cap touched the iron chain with his fingers with a playful smile, "This thing is actually a real thing. I didn't expect this kind of chain to be used to tie the watchdog in the coal mine?" "I don't know what kind of watchdog needs to be tied with an iron chain as thick as a person's waist. No creature can bear the weight alone, and an elephant will be crushed."

Zizhu likes to argue with Tuma the most, and I don't know whether the girl likes him or really hates him, "Obviously there is no need for iron chains in the coal mine, maybe it's part of the ancient tomb that Mr. Ye mentioned .” A girl's mind is delicate, and she can guess the truth with just a random guess. I looked at the iron chain and didn't speak for a long time. "Look at the front end of the iron chain, it was obviously torn off by something with brute force." Han points to the broken chain. Because iron is malleable, if it is pulled hard, the broken part will be stretched.The iron chain was obviously twisted into a twist by some kind of great force.

I already knew about the existence of iron chains from Li Ming's mouth, so I wasn't too surprised, but I couldn't figure out the purpose of the iron chains.Could it be that one of its ends is really tied to something?What would cause a man to stop action with chains as thick as a man's waist?Could that thing be the keeper of the mysterious place deep in the soles of the feet?After breaking free from the chain, where did that thing go?Dead, or is it still active in the vicinity? "Get it done quickly, it's getting dark." Ganga looked at his watch, it was a quarter past seven in the afternoon.

The group put away their surprise and began to plan the next step.The iron chain is almost vertically downward, and the hole is also dug vertically downward from here.The reason why I want to hire experts with vertical zipline experience is for the next part of the trip.The relevant information has been given to Lao Qiang, so he arranged it in an orderly manner. The iron chain is more than 60 meters long from the beginning to the end, and then there will be a small platform dug out more than ten years ago, which means that in the first stage, we only need to descend to a height of 70 meters.After laying several deep and shallow stakes to fix the rope again, Ganges turned on the searchlight, installed the slide lock and safety device, and then slowly descended. Not long after, his voice came from the intercom: "The bottom is ok, the platform is very big, it is more than 20 square meters. I will respond from the bottom, and you will slide down one by one in order." Old Gun nodded, and after checking the safety measures on us again, he signaled me to go down. The sliding lock itself has its own resistance system, so the speed of the descent is not too fast or slow. It took half a minute for 70 meters, and then I stepped on the fairly solid ground. Then came Gong Ruya. After the four of them arrived safely, I breathed a sigh of relief and began to look around. This platform has obviously been widened several times, and there are traces of digging with various equipment on the ground.The space is in the shape of a bottle, with a small entrance and a large bottom.That weird iron chain was tightly fixed to an iron wall beneath his feet. This mysterious place is a full 130 meters deep into the mountainside, which is simply unbelievable.How did ancient humans transport so much molten iron to this remote place thousands of years ago, and pour it on the walls to form a solid cage?I am powerless to explain. Lao Qiang and the others were amazed, and looked forward to the ancient tomb under their feet.A square hole about three meters wide was cut out of the iron wall by tools, exposing the dark space below.Just standing around, you will feel a burst of cold coming out, so cold that the bone marrow is almost frozen. "The temperature here is probably only about two degrees. It's unbelievable. It's obviously summer." Zizhu shuddered, and quickly took out his jacket and woolen sweater and put them on. Everyone was too cold to stand, and they all followed suit.After I got dressed, I took out the thermometer and put it on the ground. Thirty seconds later, I looked over and saw that it was close to zero. Could it be that there is still a big ice cellar underneath? "Ganges, measure the height." Lao Qiang stepped on the iron layer that was at least one meter thick and ordered. Ganges, who is relatively silent by nature, took out the laser rangefinder, went to the hole and pressed the switch.Soon the number 173 was displayed on the screen. "One hundred and seventy-three meters high." Ganga frowned, "It's my limit." Lao Qiang patted him on the shoulder with a smile: "Fortunately, I brought a 200-meter-long rope. Rest for a while, and then we will go down." At 8:50 in the evening, the rest is over.Since the ground is made of iron, Lao Qiang and others built piles on the four walls as safety points for fixing the ropes, which are very strong.The rope was thrown down, and a few fluorescent sticks were thrown down.At the top of the cave, I saw only those fluorescent sticks emitting a faint green light, and then they were swallowed by the gravity, and finally the fragile light disappeared. Still the Ganges goes first.He secured the small oxygen cylinder in his breast pocket, bit on the breathing tube, and slid down. The person above held his breath, watching him being swallowed by the deep darkness, and soon only a faint light was left.Ten minutes later, the intercom rang. "There's no problem down there, the air isn't cloudy, so you don't need an oxygen cylinder." Ganges' words reassured everyone a lot. It was still my second slide, more than 170 meters, the whole person was dangling in the air, and the oppressive feeling that I couldn't see anything up and down made me feel so uncomfortable that I wanted to go crazy.It's no wonder that cave speed skating is not something that ordinary people can play. Guys with a weak heart can scare themselves to death. Stepping on the solid ground again, I let out a long breath, my heart was beating so fast that it was about to jump out of my chest. Ganga motioned me to go, then spoke into the intercom: "Next." When I finally came to the end of this trip, I naturally looked at the nearby scene immediately.The miner's lamp overhead cast a bright light, but in this incomprehensibly large space, it was still like a weak match, which could only illuminate a small area. Looking around for a moment, I got some rough impressions. This place is like a natural cave, so vast that you can’t see the edge at a glance, and we don’t know where the cave is where we slid down. Looking from a distance, the further east, the more traces of artificial buildings.The ground of the huge cave has obviously been smoothed out by rough methods, and many strange buildings can be seen faintly. I knelt down and touched the ground.The dust is not thick, the ground is cold and dry, and there is a chill in all directions.The fluorescent stick thrown on the ground emitted a dim light, as if the monster's eyes were staring at him.I shuddered! It took an hour for everyone to arrive.Everyone looked around cautiously, amazed.Lao Qiang and the others were very excited about this mysterious place. Perhaps it was because they watched too many Tomb Raiders movies, and they always felt that the more bizarre and mysterious the place, the more valuable things were hidden. "Bring your gear and let's head east." After studying the direction for a while, I found that the east side has the most buildings.Judging from the story Li Ming told, going east should not be a mistake. Everyone turned up the lights a lot, but the seven rays of light still seemed extremely small in this huge space.After walking for about ten minutes, the buildings in the distance are close at hand, and I can see their appearance a little bit. The buildings of various colors are strange and full of imagination, and the purpose cannot be discerned at all. There are towers more than ten meters high, and there are also a large number of exotic creations that do not belong to Bashu. "Those are pagodas, right?" Tu Mao's eyes lit up, "Buddhism likes gold the most. Will there be stupa relics, gold plates and bowls inside?" His words successfully attracted everyone's attention. "Don't be stupid, this is Qin Ta." I pointed to those tall pagodas that did look like Buddhist pagodas, and said calmly: "Qin Pagodas are almost used to garrison troops for defense, and there can be no treasures. Why do you build pagodas in caves? Isn't it superfluous?" The earth hat said awkwardly. Everyone laughed and went deep. After another ten minutes, a tall altar appeared in front of my eyes.The surroundings of the altar are empty, only the countless stone steps gradually narrow and become higher as if ascending to the sky.There seems to be a humanoid object on the top of the altar, but because the distance is too far, there is no way to identify it. Li Ming never mentioned this altar. "Wow, is this a ruby?" Zi Zhu's sharp eyes suddenly saw a reflective object on the ground, he picked it up and looked at it under his eyelids, and cried out in surprise when he saw it. The eyes of the remaining six people were focused on her palm.Sure enough, a ruby ​​the size of a duck egg reflected blood-red light under the miner's lamp.That blood-deep redness, which can hardly be concealed by dust on the surface, is really conspicuous. People who don't need to be experts, even laymen will know that this thing is definitely worth a lot. Tumao swallowed, "Chouzhu, you've gotten rich. You finally got enough dowry to find a good man to marry." "Fart, my mother, I am naturally beautiful, and there is a line of people who want to marry." Zizhu didn't bother to talk to him, and put the gem into his pocket with a smile. Lao Qiang and the others looked at each other, licked their dry lips, and said with ecstasy, "This is the right time, there is indeed a treasure in the ancient tomb." Han smiled and nodded, "With this business, we can retire early." "Climb up and have a look." The earth cap was so excited that his heart was beating wildly, "That ruby ​​obviously fell from the altar. There may be more on it." There was a lot of noise among the crowd, scrambling to climb up.I stayed where I was for a moment, my brows tightly wrinkled into a ball. Gong Ruya, who also wanted to go up, hesitated and tugged at me, and asked, "Is there a problem up there?" "I don't know if there is a problem, but it seems that the situation is somewhat different from the information I got." I touched the wings of my nose.Indeed, since entering, what I saw was different from Li Ming's story.Is there a problem with his memory, or is he deliberately concealing it? I don't know. "Be careful yourself, run away if you have any problems, and don't worry about anyone. First use the rope to get out of this pit." Sighing slightly, I exhorted. "Oh." Since entering the cave, the girl beside her has been a little absent-minded.She nodded, not knowing how much she had listened to.Followed me up a few steps, suddenly realized, and asked in surprise: "Are you caring about me?" The long-lost black line on her forehead immediately appeared again, and her reflex nerves were really unusually long. I didn't answer, but kept picking up the steps. After walking about a hundred steps, we finally reached the top.This altar is eight stories high. In this deep mountain cave, it gives people the illusion of standing in the void. At this moment, I realized that Lao Qiang and others who had come up one step ahead of me seemed to have been greatly stimulated, and everyone froze in place as if petrified.I suddenly remembered that Li Ming once mentioned that the Blood Bodhisattva cannot be seen, and people who see it will lose some behavioral abilities. I was startled, then startled again by the ecstatic cries of the dirt hat. "Get rich, ruby, emerald, agate, gold... God, get rich!" The soil cap threw himself on the ground and rolled hard.I suppressed the urge to beat him up before I dared to look at the top of the altar. This is a space of about 100 square meters, not big, but there are a lot of gold, silver and jewelry piled up on the ground in a square shape. There is no jewelry, and most of them are slightly carved and processed rough stones and gold nuggets.Originally, the jewels were once well placed in the four coffins around the altar, but now they were randomly scattered on the ground, obviously showing signs of looting. But since it has been looted, why didn't the looters take the jewelry away, but let it spill on the ground?Where did those people go?In the center of the altar is a stone statue of a woman as tall as a person, made of ordinary materials.But the strange thing is that after thousands of years of sealing, there is no sign of corrosion. The face of the stone statue was vividly carved, but when I was about to take a good look at its facial features, the face seemed to be covered with a layer of veil. No matter how much I looked at it, I couldn’t remember its appearance. There is an evil look between the eyebrows, especially the mouth, which is painted red with some paint, and the bright red lips seem to have drunk blood. But the stone statue's eyes were gouged out, and the empty dark grooves were exactly the same as the eye-shaped ruby ​​I found in Li Ming's stomach. Sure enough, that thing belonged in this place. "Buddha statue?" Gong Ruya came from a family, and she was not fooled by the gold, silver and jewelry on the altar. She stood beside me, looking at the stone statue. "How could there be Buddha statues in the Qin Dynasty?" I laughed. The girl glared at me, "Why is it impossible for the Qin Dynasty to have Buddha statues!" "It's all nonsense, you didn't pass your history class, did you?" I curled my lips, "It wasn't until the tenth year of Yongping in the Eastern Han Dynasty, that is, AD 67, that Buddhism was officially introduced to China officially. "Historical records show that in the tenth year of Emperor Ming's Yongping, Emperor Ming dreamed of a golden man flying in the palace at night, and asked his ministers in the morning. Taishi Fu Yi replied: The great sage of the West is called Buddha; the dream of your majesty is probably him. Emperor So he sent Zhonglang, Cai Yin, and other eighteen people to the Western Regions to visit and seek Buddhism. Cai Yin was equal to meeting Zhu Falan and She Moteng in the Western Regions, and got the Buddhist scriptures, and returned them to Luoyang on a white horse. "Dite built a jingshe for them to live in, called the White Horse Temple. So She Moteng and Zhu Falan translated the "Forty-two Chapters" in the temple. Adoption. After Buddhism was introduced to China, it was not until the time of Emperor Ye Huanling at the end of the Later Han Dynasty that the records gradually became more detailed and the historical materials gradually enriched. At that time, Buddhist scholars from the Western Regions came to China one after another, such as An Shigao and An Xuan from Anxi; Zhilou Jiachen and Zhiyao came from Yueshi; Zhu Foshuo came from Tianzhu; Kang Mengxiang came from Kangju. From this time, translation and religious affairs gradually flourished. Therefore, during the period of Qin Shihuang, Buddhism, a foreign sect, even had a shadow in China. nothing." "Then what happened to this stone statue?" Gong Ruya was stunned, no matter how she looked at it, she looked like a Buddha statue. "You have been deceived by the current messy religion." I smiled wryly, "The current religion is inexplicable. Taoism enshrines the Four King Kongs and Guanyin, and Buddhist temples actually have Taishang Laojun. It is purely a fast-food belief, and it is very deceitful of money, so ordinary people will naturally confuse Buddhism and Taoism. The gods of the religion are mixed together. What's more, the Qin Dynasty perished too early, and it didn't form its own religion at all." I touched my chin with my hand, and I was also thinking deeply about what kind of existence the woman carved in the stone statue in front of me belonged to. In the Qin Dynasty, the content of primitive religion also changed from the object of belief in the supernatural to the object of belief beyond the boundaries of tribal blood.Zhou died and Qin prospered, and the reasonable logical process should be the humanistic theme of this deformed variant, that is, ancestor worship was further deepened and promoted in Qin religion.After Qin gained an independent national status, it was obviously in the six kingdoms where ancestor worship was the main focus. Does this mean that the stone statue in front of him is an ancestor of Qin Shihuang, or an ancestor witch?But since it is an ancestor, why bother to seal it in a place with poor mountains and bad waters?Yes, it is indeed a seal!The buildings all over the cave, whether they are towers or forts, all have the faint intention of trapping the things on the altar.The roof of the cave was sealed with molten iron. I even suspect that the entire cave was coated with a layer of molten iron more than one meter thick by order of Qin Shihuang. What is the identity of the Blood Bodhisattva that Li Ming said?Since all the village chiefs who lived in Shipusa Village knew that there were dangerous things under their feet.Then, is it true that all the people in Stone Bodhisattva Village are actually the guardians transferred over during the Qin Dynasty? The village head has been told from generation to generation that there is danger in the cave, and it has been passed down like this for more than two thousand years. So, where does the danger come from?Is it the stone bodhisattva itself?The stone statue that lost both eyes looked coldly at everyone on the altar. Lao Qiang and the others tried their best to put the jewelry on the ground into the bag, and even took out the life-saving equipment and threw it away.But there are too many treasures on the top of the altar, and a few hiking bags are just a drop in the bucket.These greedy guys even wished to turn their bodies into empty pockets. I looked at my watch, it was already ten forty-nine in the evening, and I quickly stopped their crazy behavior: "It's not safe here, let's go up first, stay in Shipusa Village for one night, and come back tomorrow morning." Everyone is reluctant to part with them, but fortunately they have not lost their minds after years of experience in the wild. It is really difficult to guarantee safety when camping in an unfamiliar place, especially this kind of weird cave that cannot be grasped. The expedition team was not going to take out the jewels stuffed into the bag. They walked back cheerfully with their heavy bags on their backs.When they reached the location of the cave, everyone was at a loss and was dumbfounded. The rope, snapped, fell to the ground. There is no end to the dark cave roof, which only brings people infinite panic and despair.