Chapter 39 Chapter Thirty-Nine

"What is this?" Wu Qi asked softly, but his body involuntarily retreated to the entrance of the passage that he had entered. Even Ghost Wu's body trembled slightly at the moment, obviously shocked by the incomprehensible scene in front of him. In front of me are four stone pillars with the top, which are as thick as a person can surround them. They stand on the four corners respectively. The surface of the pillars is engraved with various strange patterns, and fat monkeys are presented in various postures. : Some are hunting prey, and some seem to be mating and breeding.What is more eye-catching is the cage-like pear-shaped objects that stand upright on the screen. The people locked inside open their mouths and struggle, their bodies and expressions are severely distorted, and they appear abnormally deformed. Looking at these realistic sculptures, Wu Qi can almost feel the pain and despair of those people personally.

Most of the contents are similar to alchemy furnaces. Many of the contents on the stone pillars are very complicated, and they are all narrative. It is easy to distinguish at a glance, and all the carvings are closely related to alchemy. Corresponding to the stone pillars, there are more than a dozen wooden pillars about the height of a person, with hideous and ugly faces carved on them. At first glance, it is impossible to believe that those are human faces, even It also had human features, but these looked more like the result of a badly failed plastic surgery, the kind that should belong to demons and ferocious beasts.The two stood between them, it felt like a large group of terrifying monsters staring at him greedily, sniffing greedily the scent of human flesh they emitted.

"What are these things for?" Wu Qi has never seen so many scary faces arranged so densely. Judging from the narrative carvings, it seems that this place is not a simple totem pole. Ghost Wu said: "This is Nuo!" Wu Qi was still puzzled, thinking what?Ghost Wu continued: "These are masks of the Nuo gods, which are worn by the local Nuo masters to drive away ghosts. It is said that the Nuo masters wear the masks of the Nuo gods and cooperate with drum music and dance steps. Demons and ghosts!" When he heard that it was this Nuo, Wu Qi suddenly realized that he remembered that he had heard from his third uncle that there was a special Nuo culture in some parts of our country, and it was a mysterious culture with a long history in our country.Nuo culture is widely distributed in western Hunan, southern Jiangxi, and southwest, and its uses are basically related to offering sacrifices to gods and expelling ghosts and gods.

The flames flickered, and the ferocious faces on the old rotten wood were rendered pale, which made people feel even more chilling.Wu Qi took a closer look and suddenly found something unusual: all the Nuo masks focused their eyes not on the place where they came in, but on the inside. Dozens of faces stared at one place together. It was a black and bottomless of the hole. "Isn't it the mask of the Nuo God? Why didn't the Nuo masters wear it on their faces, but carved it on wood and stood it up here? Where is that?" Wu Qi obviously also saw the unfathomable hole, puzzled asked.

The flashlight shone there along the direction of his finger, revealing the entire hole without reservation.This is a nearly circular hole, and inside is a level of stone steps, gradually blurring from near to far, leading to unknown depths.The height of the hole is only about one person's height, and it is obliquely cut straight down, like a slanted cylinder, more like a huge boa constrictor with its bloody mouth open, ready to swallow them at any time. The people here put up the masks of the exorcising gods to exorcise ghosts here, and all their eyes are fixed on this weird cave entrance. This situation is enough to make people frightened without thinking too much. Could it be that the ghosts they want to drive out are in this deep cave?Thinking of this, Wu Qi couldn't help but shudder.

Ghost Wu said again: "The alchemy at that time was already flooded!" He pointed to those stone pillars, "The inscriptions on them are the impact of the pills on the lives of those people. Great control!" Wu Qi asked softly: "Then the ghosts they want to exorcise are those pills? But why is the worship of pills spread here? It's people's worship of pills, not expelling them like plague gods!" Ghost Wu said solemnly: "That may have something to do with the change of people's ideas here. There are two types of worship, one is reverence and the other is reverence. Even evil gods have a higher status in the eyes of some ethnic groups. Extremely high. The age of this stone pillar has been very long. Maybe people’s attitude towards those refined medicines changed in a certain period of time. It may be that people think that it is the arrangement of God, so they obediently obey, or it may be that these medicines help have done them a great favor, and thus people have developed a good opinion of them...”

"The possibility of obedience is unlikely!" Wu Qi said: "If the spiders were flooded, the people here would have migrated to other places. Can't they hide if they can't be provoked? But who can imagine that these disgusting things are still How can it benefit people?" Ghost Wu continued: "Everything has two sides. Although scorpions, poisonous snakes and centipedes are highly poisonous, they are of high medical value. The local people may use these medicines to cure many difficult and miscellaneous diseases, and they may also use them to defeat a certain disease." plagues."

Wu Qi looked at Ghost Wu quietly, as if he was the owner of this place, telling himself the history of this place.However, Wu Qi is not completely convinced of the pill that Ghost Wu said. Strictly speaking, ancient alchemy and pharmaceuticals also belong to the category of traditional Chinese medicine, and pills are high-end consumer goods. People who are keen on such products Being rich or expensive is not something ordinary people can afford. Wu Qi paused, and tentatively shone the flashlight into the hole, but he still couldn't hit the bottom at a glance. He only saw one level of steps. He began to suspect that this was a mausoleum, and immediately thought of all kinds of weird mechanisms in the ancient tomb. , really couldn't decide to pay attention for a moment, and then glanced at Ghost Wu.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the faces of the Nuo gods with ferocious expressions. Their eyes were wide and vigilantly staring at the entrance of the cave, as if some kind of ghost would emerge from the cave at any moment. Masks, as if their expressions were also full of fear and timidity. "Go in and have a look!" Wu Qi said: "Now that we have reached this point, if we don't get rid of the superstitions of the people here, there is no way to save other people!" He carefully poked in along the entrance of the cave. The inside of the cave was extremely dark, and the two walked along the steps at their feet by feeling. The surrounding stone walls were relatively dry, and under the dim light, they could barely see gray-black mixed with a little light green. Wu Qi followed the route they walked. It is certain that this is a channel cut down diagonally.

"Strange!" In the darkness, except for breathing and footsteps, there was no other sound, and Wu Qi broke the silence here. "This slanted passage is weird. Both the steps and the passage were dug by hand, and there was a high usage rate for a period of time! This...is this a mine passage?" Ghost Wu touched the stone wall, but didn't reply, his brows were furrowed, and he quickened his pace.The passage was completely passed through quickly, and they reached the end. There was a huge open space in front of them. Where the flashlight went, bursts of green faintly glowed. No, this is not the reason for the light, but the flashlight. On the green rock wall, compared with the mine tunnel, the color here is obviously much thicker. Under the blurred light, it seems that a layer of moss has grown on the rock wall.

"That's right, it's a copper mine!" Ghost Wu quickly glanced around and said with certainty, "This is indeed a mine, a chalcopyrite mine!" "Chalcopyrite mine?" Wu Qi looked at Ghost Wu suspiciously, but seeing him smile, he said, "It's just a very ordinary chalcopyrite mine, and the scale is not very large. Local gentry with certain strength can conduct it privately." Mining!" Indeed, as long as there is money and power in the local area, it is not too difficult to mine minerals. However, the management of mines in the past dynasties has been very strict, and it is a felony to open mines without permission. If it is a crime, it is actually a very uneconomical thing.It is not difficult to see at a simple glance that the mining time of this mine should not be long, because the amount of mining seen at the moment is very small. I believe that according to this scale of progress, coupled with the value of ancient brass, this miner is basically It is a loss-making business! "I found something!" Ghost Wu's voice came from the empty cave, echoing around.Wu Qixun quickly leaned forward and looked in the direction of his finger, only to see a huge pattern on the rock wall exposed under the light circle of the flashlight.