Chapter 24 Chapter 23: Hunting the Dragon

Sanpao took over the conversation and said, "It can be seen that there are centipedes everywhere, and my hairs are all standing up. Can this King of Nanling still be engaged in special breeding?!" I said goodbye to him and said nonsense, this is the totem worship of ethnic minorities, the centipede is called "Tianlong", and it is not a dragon alienated by ethnic minorities, but a real dragon image in the early days.Even in modern times, there are still centipede dragon totem worship in some ethnic minorities. We already knew from the information obtained by Young Master Long earlier that Nanling worshiped the centipede dragon, and everything in front of us proved this point even more.

The walls around the main hall are covered with various reliefs. In the center surrounded by eight pillars that support the centipede and dragon, there is a jade altar, which is also the place where the statues of gods are placed. In ancient dynasties, especially this In this peculiar country, the king is often portrayed as a body of gods, so if there is a statue here, it is likely to be the statue of King Nanling himself. But unexpectedly, the jade platform was empty, and nothing was placed there.I don't know if the owner of the tomb deliberately arranged this way, or if the place has suffered the bad luck of being robbed and destroyed.But there is one thing that even Young Master Long felt very strange. Although he has been immersed in the Nanling civilization for many years, he has very little information about the Nanling King, and we have not found any information related to the Nanling King along the way. Seeing that the jade altar where the statue should have been placed was empty, an indescribable strange feeling surged up again.

I walked around the jade platform twice, but still didn't find anything. The jade platform was carefully built, surrounded by four copper pillars, and the capitals of the pillars were exquisite carved gold beasts, which were lifelike. Master Feng said: "The workmanship of these things is very fine, and they should be of great value. It is in stark contrast to the empty space on the jade platform. It should be more suitable to put a statue on the altar!" Long Shao nodded and said, "Maybe this is a special meaning created by the people of Nanling. The things they worship may not be real. Abstract worship is also very common."

"What does that mean? Could it be that their king is only spiritual, and there is no king in Nanling at all?" Ying Ge wondered.After hearing this, I was also extremely puzzled. If this is the case, who are we fighting against? Master Feng replied that this possibility is unlikely. In the ancient social system ruled by man, even a loose and barbaric small tribe had tribal leaders. Without a ruling class, it would be impossible to establish a country with a calendar, sacrifices, and totem civilization. Young Master Long nodded. Although Young Master Long had the most information among us, he couldn't tell why at this moment.A few people walked around there, and finally gave up here, and then went deeper into the main hall, and saw two huge jade gates in front of them.

The Yumen Gate is about three meters high and two meters wide. It was tightly sealed and very tight. We pushed it twice and found that with the strength of the few of us, it was difficult to even lift a crack in the door, and it was impossible to open it. . A Dong touched the jade door and said: "The door is sealed, unless you use explosives, you can't open it at all, even if you open it, it may not be an exit!" Master Feng frowned when he heard this, and asked, "How do you know it's not necessarily an exit?" A Dong chuckled and replied: "We found the exit according to the direction of the wind. This Yumen Gate is blocked. Where did the wind come from, so I don't think the exit is here."

Everyone looked at each other, thinking it made sense, A Dong raised the torch, looked at the direction of the wind and waved: "Go along the wall, this place is too big, the wind direction is very chaotic, it is easier to judge at the base of the wall." Because the place where the main hall is built is a cave, there are not many flat places, so in order to ensure the flatness of the altar in the middle, other places have to be sacrificed. It fell under a rock and got stuck inside. Although it is a wall, it is not a brick structure at all. It is the original rock wall. There are many petroglyphs on the rock wall, most of which have fallen off and are blurred.

We moved forward a lot, and finally reached the flat stone ground. This is a critical point. As the ground turns into stone, the wall also becomes a masonry structure. Colonnades stood on one side and stretched forward into the darkness, forming a long corridor-like walkway. This corridor is quite spacious, more than five meters wide, and the length is even more frightening, and there is no end in sight at a glance.The difference from before is that there are only simple decorations on the stone pillars here, and there are no complicated carvings of centipedes, panlongs and alien beasts.Corresponding to the side of the stone pillar is the brick wall. The center of the brick wall is a prominent relief of more than two meters high. The structure of the whole brick wall is like the Nine Dragon Wall of the Forbidden City.

"My God! Look!" A Dong looked at the reliefs, his mouth could not close his mouth in astonishment. We looked in the direction he was pointing, and soon knew why he was shocked.There are many characters and scenes on the relief, but the most eye-catching thing is a giant centipede with a frighteningly large body.I can't even describe how huge those centipedes are, because there is no creature so huge as to compare with it. What's even more frightening is that, judging from the situation described in the relief, this terrifying giant centipede still lives in groups, and the number is very large. On the picture, they are dormant in a rift valley, twisting and lingering, puffing clouds and mist, bursts of intense The mist spit out from their mouths and scattered in all directions.

The back of my spine was in a cold sweat, and I was surprised: "Damn! Isn't this the rift we walked through? Could it be that these things spit out the fog?" I looked around at everyone's expressions and found that everyone was frowning. Obviously, the content of the picture is not difficult to understand. According to the description on the picture, what I said should be the truth. "No way?" Master Feng said, "This is too exaggerated. It is impossible for this kind of thing to grow to such a large size, let alone so many of them together to create poisonous gas!"

A Dong said: "It's possible, maybe these things are monsters, we have a local legend that centipede spirits will spit poisonous smoke and kill people, such a big thing must have become a spirit!" Centipedes have always been a common theme in ghost novels. It is rumored that they can swallow clouds and smoke. The pagoda in "Taling Qingxia", the seventh of the famous Shaoshan Eight Scenes, is a demon-repelling pagoda.The tower has six corners and six floors, which is the number of 6636 celestial gangs. It is said that it was specially built to restrain the centipede spirits because of the poisonous mist spit out by the centipede spirits in the mountain.

Of course, these are just ghost novels and legends, just for entertainment.But when I saw the content of the relief, I still felt uncomfortable. It seems that many things in the strange novels are not just nonsense.However, the content of this relief is also questionable. For example, what do such a large number of giant centipedes survive on predation? What is there under this rift valley that can feed such a large number of giant centipedes? As soon as A Dong's words came out, no one refuted them. It is true that many times when we hear the legends about evildoers, we think it is nonsense, but now we have truly experienced the power of the poisonous fog and then look at the contents of these reliefs. Don't think it's a joke. Long Shao said: "These contents should be true. Just imagine, anyone who sees such a huge centipede will have his world view subverted, so the centipede dragon totem in Nanling also appeared. It's just..." Long Shao paused After a pause, his gaze had already moved to the next picture, and he asked in confusion, "What does this mean?" Following Long Shao's question, our eyes also turned to that place, and we felt incredible immediately.This one depicts a hunting scene, a group of people with spears, bows and arrows, and stones are attacking the fog at the bottom of the rift.And in the mist, a huge centipede protruded most of its body, and was climbing up the plank roads that were built. The centipede's body is really huge. Compared with the surrounding characters and scenes, it looks like a group of ants attacking a chopstick-long centipede.What's even more strange is that the centipede actually has two pairs of dragonfly-like wings, but its body is too huge. The wings are just a shape, and it can't support its body to fly. It can only fly along those plank roads. To climb to the top of the rift.And on one corner of the screen, there appeared that kind of blood sacrifice jade ball of light. "What's going on? Isn't it the centipede dragon totem worship?" Ying Ge said, "Why does it seem that they are treating their gods now? These people are crazy, even killing their own gods?" Master Feng also said: "Yes, it turns out that the thing that this kind of blood sacrifice light ball is going to attract is this kind of giant centipede, and the plank roads built are also to facilitate this thing to climb up from the bottom of the rift. It seems that they are hunting This centipede!" "Then there has to be a reason, why spend such a high price to catch this thing? Do Nanling people have nothing to do to hunt wild game to improve collective food?" Sanpao joked, "Or there is a famine in Nanling, and they have no choice but to eat their own gods. Is it? If this is the problem, then it is worth the price, it is much better than starving to death!" Master Feng said: "Don't talk about the young man! Judging from the previous description, the matter is already obvious, and it's not like your nonsense!" Sanpao said unconvinced: "Okay, okay! I'm talking nonsense, you're full of reasoning, I want to hear what reasoning you came up with!" Before Master Feng could speak, Ah Dong suddenly interjected: "Of course it's because of the poisonous fog. You can tell it with the soles of your feet. Such a large group of centipedes spit out poisonous gas at the bottom of the valley all day long. There are jungles everywhere here, and the poisonous gas can't be dissipated at all." , This is a very dangerous thing. If it is not dealt with, the Nanling National Security will die in the hands of these guys with legs all over." This explanation makes sense, but I always feel very aggrieved. Although many difficult problems are due to very simple reasons, I still can't accept such an explanation.It is rumored in history that Nanling has a splendid culture and sacrificial civilization, and the so-called sacrificial rituals are hunting activities as a last resort for a long time, which makes people feel too disappointed. I believe this is definitely not the fundamental reason. Master Feng smiled and didn't say anything else. He just ran to Long Shao's side and whispered something in his ear.After hearing this, Young Master Long didn't have any special reaction. He just nodded and moved his eyes to other places. The content of those reliefs is very complicated, but these are the only ones that talk about sacrifices, and the rest are specious things, without any specific clues.However, I accidentally discovered that there is a colonnade in front of me that is a bit different. The colonnade here is all bare, but this one actually has the same centipede dragon coiled on it, as if to show its uniqueness. I was wondering, and then I felt a flash in front of my eyes, and the centipede dragon on the pillar seemed to move.