Chapter 109 Chapter 26 Mountains and Rivers

I hesitated to stop on the pillar and did not continue to climb down.At this time, I looked down hard, hoping to see some living things, but it seemed that I couldn't see anything that could move.There are no living things around the guzheng, so how was the guzheng played? Could it be that ghosts are really playing it?If it's a real thing, I don't have any fear. At worst, if I fight with it, at least I will die happily. If I fight with an illusory thing, I have nowhere to use my strength, and I feel uncomfortable all over. Xinhong noticed that I stopped behind and didn't follow. He looked up at me, then looked down knowingly, and said, "If you don't want to come down, you can wait for us up there, so we can have a response."

"Fuck you, am I the kind of person who covets life and fears death and runs away? I'm just a little..." I replied hesitantly. "Are you just a little afraid of ghosts?" Chen Jing raised her head and said to me. "There's nothing to be afraid of ghosts. At worst, ask a Maoshan Taoist priest to take it away, but if you want to invite it, you are the ones to invite it. I won't leave now." I said desperately. "Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu whouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" who was surrounded by stalactites, and almost let go of my hand .

I cursed in my heart, what a ghost, could it be that tonight is the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month, so a group of ghosts are out?Now even the little ghosts are here, the pillar leads to such a deep place underground, maybe the end is the door of hell, and Marx is waiting for us below. "Why is there a little girl crying? It's strange. Could it be that there are other people besides us." The old curator Zha wondered, and he stopped after us. "I remember that Sister Yu said that her daughter also came in, could it be her daughter? But I don't understand, she didn't see her daughter coming in, why is she so sure?" Xinhong guessed.

"Whether she's a human or a ghost, she's going to go down anyway, so we won't delay if we go early." Chen Jing's words are very reasonable, we think it's futile to guess from above, so we might as well go down and have a look. We rested for a while, and Xinhong asked me to give him the searchlight. I thought I was tired too, and the searchlight belonged to his mother, so I gave it to him.Some of the stalactites were already brittle, and a few pieces broke when I grabbed them. Fortunately, I thought about this situation in advance so that I didn't fall off.After going through several layers of caves, we saw scattered cats and cats. We never expected that there would be so many beasts in a mountain with a hollow inside. No wonder the villagers said that there were tigers.As soon as they saw the searchlights, they got out of the way, and I thought they were going to charge desperately.Just when I was very proud, the searchlight unexpectedly went out with a splash!It's really not the right time for it to go out. It won't go out sooner or later, but it has to go out at this time.The searchlight has been here for 20 years, why can't it persist for another day, maybe it is the fulfillment of the old saying "things are turned against each other", I really shouldn't be complacent just now.

We had been turning on the searchlight just now, and no one thought that the lamp oil would run out at this time, and they thought it could last for a few days.We turned on all three lighting objects at the same time just now, but now that the searchlights are off, there are only two flashlights left.Chen Jing's flashlight is relatively bright, and I am holding the one brought by Xinhong. The old curator Zha said that his flashlight was lost when the flood came up.The strong light weakened, and the fear cats gathered around the pillar one after another, scaring us into a cold sweat.I took a flashlight and shone the eyes of the fearful cats, expecting them to show panic again, but this time there was no response.In fact, I should have thought that they would sometimes run out of the mountains to look for food, and they would not be afraid of light that is not particularly strong.Since the innocuous light had no effect on them, the four of us hastily accelerated our speed and climbed down, wishing we could jump right away, if we didn't fall to our death.

The most worrying thing still happened. I fear that the cat has not been able to eat a few catties of human flesh on weekdays. Now that I see four people coming to my door, how can I let it go so easily.We hadn't climbed a few steps when a fat dread cat rushed straight up the pillar, thinking that the pillar would collapse and we would be crushed to death by the rocks.Unexpectedly, only a few small stones fell from the pillar, and it seems that the pillar is quite up to date.This time, I didn't feel complacent for too long, fearing that something might happen again, I just hurriedly climbed down.However, I don't understand how so many phobias hid when the underground flood came out. After entering the cave for so long, I only saw the body of a phobia.

The phobia saw that the phobia hit the pillar without injury, so the group of phobias backed up a few steps, ready to knock down the pillar with all their strength.As soon as I saw it, I felt that the end was coming. With so many cats coming from different directions, it was impossible for the pillars not to break.The four of us climbed in a hurry, and the fear cat had already hit the pillar. At first, the pillar did not respond, but after a long time, the pillar loosened and fell down.I saw that there was still a distance of more than 100 meters below, and I prayed in my heart, pillars, pillars, just hold on for a while, anyway, you have held on for thousands of years, and this time is not too bad.

Originally, Xinhong was more sensitive and faster than me, but now I have surpassed him, and I was still behind him just now.I know it's all because the searchlight is in his hands, so he can crawl slower.I told him to drop the searchlight, but he didn't want to, and didn't say much.He must have thought, this is what his mother left behind, maybe the only thing, that's why he desperately wanted to keep this bulky thing.The number of cats kept increasing, and the pillars began to wobble. There were several times when I almost fell because my hands slipped. According to the previous experience, the sound of the zither can stabilize the manic mood and calm the beast, but we were really unlucky, so we were about to approach the bottom, and the sound of the zither stopped at some point.Now, with the sound of falling stones, our panting, and the howling of fearful cats, the column is full of noise, just like a vegetable market.There are more dire cats than I can imagine, and if they keep crashing, we're literally going down to hell.It is said that people who die on the 14th day of the seventh lunar month will turn into plants in their next life and live their whole life without being able to move.If someone is more unlucky and becomes a long-lived tree that can live for tens of millions of years, it will be worse than Abi Hell.

Just when I was in despair, a gunshot rang through the pillars. It was so loud that the cats were probably afraid of this by nature, so they hid away when they heard the gunshot.The gunshots came from below, and there was obviously no one in sight below. What's going on?Maybe Lin Yue had already gone down, and the gunshots were probably her masterpiece. If Sister Yu was also down there, wouldn't she be in trouble?Thinking of this, I blamed myself for a while. I knew that I should have asked a few more neighbors to watch over Sister Yu. Now that she ran out by herself, I still feel responsible for what happened.That Uncle Long was really real, I remember he said he was going to find someone to look for Xiaoyan with him, but most of the day passed, not to mention the figure, even his voice was not heard.But when I think of Long Bo, all I can think of is the panic he showed when he touched the blood by the stream.

After the gunshots, there was a scream of a woman, which seemed to be the voice of an elderly woman.Then, there were some male voices, also aged voices.We all want to find out what's going on, but circumstances don't allow it right now.I finally caught an opportunity. If I don’t take advantage of this moment to climb to the bottom and find another way out, I’ll just wait to be crushed to death by thousands of stalactites. Finally, after a hectic climb, we approached the bottom.The tail end of the pillar disappeared ten meters above the ground, which meant we had to jump.The few of us have already reached the end of the pillar. The distance of ten meters is far or near, and none of us is willing to jump down first.In the end, a drizzle-like water mist fell on the pillars. We knew that the underground flood was coming soon, and we would have no time to escape if we didn’t jump.

I gritted my teeth, and the cat jumped down on its body.The tail of the pillar was facing a white guzheng. When I jumped off, I tried to face the other side for fear of bumping into the guzheng.Immediately afterwards, Chen Jing and Xin Hong jumped down.I struggled to stand up, and saw that the guzheng opposite was all snow-white, only mixed with a little green leaf, and the edges and corners were not very clear, but it was not as smooth and fresh as the superior Ziyu.However, I understand that the material used for the body of this guzheng is not so simple. Its origin is far away, and it is probably even rarer than the smooth and fresh seed jade, because it is "mountain and water"!It is one of the rarest things that can only be found by those with the right opportunity. Looking at the "mountains and flowing waters", I was lost in thought, and I didn't wake up until the water droplets fell on my head one after another.The old curator Zha was still on top, and he never jumped off, which made me jump up anxiously.Originally, the underground flood would not submerge the other pillar, but as we saw just now, it can only submerge halfway.However, this cave has many passages, and perhaps the water from any passage poured into this pillar.Just thinking of this, a lot of water droplets fell on our heads, we are really unlucky, we can do whatever we want.It seems that the underground flood is about to pour here, why is Grandpa Zha still not jumping, is it possible that we will be buried with us?It's wrong to think this way, but I really don't want to die like this. I still have a lot of questions that I haven't figured out.Now the water falling on the pillar is like heavy rain. It seems that if you don't leave here quickly and find a place to hide, it will really be too late. Before we jumped down, we had no time to look around. Everyone was encouraging the old director Zha to jump down. He also said that he was going to jump down, but he didn't jump down after talking for a long time, and kept holding on to the stone above.Suddenly, a blood red flashed before my eyes, this... this is... a red beast!It turns out it's really here!As soon as this kind beast appeared, the old curator Zha should be saved, and I felt relieved a lot when I thought of this.The red beast stood obediently under the pillar, arching its back, motioning for the old curator Zha to jump on its soft back.Fortunately, the old curator Zha was still awake, and he didn't hold on to the pillar all the time, and he would not let go even if he died. When he saw something below him following him, the distance shortened again, so he quickly jumped off. The old curator Zha just landed on the back of the red beast, as if someone poured water on the pillar, we were all drenched all of a sudden.Although we didn't calculate the distance when we climbed down, when we looked down from above, we felt that it was at least a few hundred meters.A stone dropped from such a high place can smash through a person's head, and now that so much water is thrown down, we can't be smashed into meatloaf.We just wanted to run aside together to avoid the frontal impact of the flood, but we never thought that a round meat ball would roll in front of us and startle us. It's no big deal to be startled, at most a few cells will be lost, but this jump can kill our escape time!The underground flood is pouring down crazily. Although there is still room to hide around, we don't need to directly impact the underground flood directly, but the vertical landing speed is too fast, and we have no chance even if we want to run over.Anyway, I couldn't run away, so I just closed my eyes and waited for the water to come, but after waiting for a long time, the flood just didn't come down.Opening his eyes, he saw that the meat ball in front of him had a big crack, and the water falling from the pillar poured directly into its body. "What is this?" I wondered in my heart. The underground flood can fill the tiankeng in an instant, which shows the huge amount of water, but the meat ball in front of me can continuously absorb the underground flood into the body.Such an unscientific thing is really an exaggeration. I can hardly believe that the water volume of a reservoir can disappear like this. After looking carefully, it turns out that the tail of this ball has been inserted into the stone slab, and its tail has expanded to the same size as its body. It is really hard to find that it also has a tail if you look carefully.The water swallowed by the meat ball poured into the stone slab from the tail, and there should be a water vein under the slate. There was no danger for the time being, and only then did I notice the surrounding environment.The place we are in is a round platform with a diameter of more than 20 meters. The rest of the place is water. This is an underground lake. Our location can be said to be an island in the middle of the lake.This subterranean lake is very vast. Although our searchlights were shot very far, it has been extinguished, and it is impossible to see how big it is.However, the two flashlights in our hands can vaguely allow us to see that the lake is very wide, at least not yet able to see the edge.It turned out that there was such a cave under the pillar, and what caught my attention the most was that there was a gust of wind blowing.This shows that the underground lake must be connected to an exit, and there is a way to go out here. There was light shining on the round platform. I felt strange when I was on it just now, but now I saw that the light came from a circular channel around the round platform.There are many luminous liquids in the circular channel, and for a while I couldn't see what was made of them, they were all luminous, illuminating the entire circular platform.The flood is still pouring in. I can't help but worry about whether the meat ball can hold it, but its meat is really elastic. If a piece of pork is placed at the bottom, it will be washed away by the flood water. Xinhong patted me behind me, and when I looked back, I found Lin Yue, Sister Yu, and a little girl.Next to him was a foreign man whose whole body had rotted. This man came in with Lin Yue. His current state of death was the same as what we saw above. He had just died and his whole body had rotted.Lin Yue didn't know why she was unconscious on the ground, and Sister Yu was fighting with a wild beast for the little girl. That little girl should be her daughter Xiaoyan. Subsurface flooding is only intermittent, sucking back into the ground after a while.As soon as the water stopped, I found that there were a total of four beasts on the round platform, and there were three other than the red beast.One is the meat ball, which has no eyes, no nose, no facial features, and no emotion or anger; the other is the beast that He Yu Dajie snatched Xiaoyan. It is shaped like a tiger, but it is many times bigger than a tiger. The most unique The place was its face—it was a human face, but its teeth were like those of a pig, and its claws were like those of a tiger; there was another one that stayed in the corner, motionless, like a cow, but the last The strange thing is that its eyes are in the armpits. Sister Yu saw that we had met a savior, she hurriedly called out: "Come and help me catch Xiaoyan, please!" I thought to myself, saving people is the most important thing, if you ask for it or not, it's too much to say.I asked Xinhong and the others to stay, and just go there by myself.Before I ran over, I remembered what Chen Jing said, if you want to explain what the red beast is, you have to wait for those things to be complete before you can explain.Now here are four beasts, and they are so strange in appearance that if caught, they would surely sell for a lot of money, and we could be in the newspapers and shock the world.Four beasts, and only four.It suddenly occurred to me that there was a theory of the four evils in ancient times, and the descriptions of the four evils were very similar to these few. The ancient four evils are: Taotie, Chaos, Qiongqi and Wuwu.The first thing we see clearly is the red beast. It should be Qiongqi. There is a saying: "(邽山) there is a beast on it, which looks like a cow and has stomach hair. It is called Qiongqi." Qiongqi is red all over, It is the same as what we have seen; the meat ball should be called Chaos, and this kind of weird animal was mentioned in "Shen Yi Jing"; the one that has been standing still in the corner, and the one with eyes in the armpit is Taotie.Legend has it that Xuanyuan fought against Chiyou, Chiyou was beheaded, and his head fell to the ground and turned into gluttony; the one who fought for Xiaoyan with Sister Yu was Zhuwu. I remember that there was a saying in "Historical Records: Five Emperors Benji": "There are untalented sons in Zhuanxu's family, so don't teach them a lesson. If you don’t know what to say, the world calls it 梼杌.” Most of the four murderers are described as cannibals. We haven't been eaten yet, maybe it's nonsense in ancient books.Just as I was thinking of this, I suddenly saw many bones on the round platform. After looking carefully, they were all no different from human bones. Could it be that they really cannibalized people!Sister Yu saw me in a daze, so she called out hastily again, and I rushed over in a hurry.Wuwu held Xiaoyan in its mouth and refused to let it go. I wanted to go up and give it a knife, but the knife had already been lost.However, even with a knife in my hand, I don't think I dare to stab the wuwu, because I have seen that there are many human bones on the round platform. into their stomachs. Wuwu had no intention of eating Xiaoyan, it just kept tugging at Sister Yu, as if it wanted to throw Xiaoyan into the channel surrounding the round platform.I don't know what the glowing liquid in the channel is, it may be poisonous, and it will be bad if Xiaoyan falls.I saw that the 梼杌 was not as vicious as described in the book, so I bravely fought with it for Xiaoyan.Xiaoyan was born dexterous, but she is now in a coma, probably caused by excessive panic. The two sides were in a stalemate, seeing that Wuwu didn't want to eat me, so I wanted to call Shang Xinhong and the others to hold Xiaoyan together.Unexpectedly, Qiongqi came over first, rubbed me with his body, and then bumped into the 梼杌.Zhu Wu looked very helpless, and then let go of Xiaoyan from her mouth.I didn't expect this scene, I didn't expect Qiongqi to help us in turn.Sister Yu saw that Zhu Wu let go of Xiao Yan, she immediately took Xiao Yan to the side of the round platform, for fear that Zhu Wu would come and snatch her.I am very surprised by the actions of the four evil spirits. There are obviously many human bones on the ground. I see that those bones are very fresh, and they are all leftovers recently. Why don't the four evil spirits eat us? After Wuwu let go of Xiaoyan, he stepped aside boredly, staring blankly at everything on the round platform.Qiongqi is close to me again, acting like a pet at home.Taotie looked at us proudly, and then spat on the male corpse in front of him.The male corpse was already rotten and stinking, but after Taotie's saliva fell, the corpse rotted even worse.This frightened me enough, it turned out that the corpse would rot so quickly because of the gluttonous spittle!We've touched dead bodies before, and I can't help shaking my hands at the thought.Lin Yue was still in a coma. She didn't know what happened just now. It might be the work of the four murderers.The rest of the four evil spirits were arranged around, and Qiongqi followed me obediently, going wherever I went.When I saw that things had calmed down, I wanted to go and have a look at the guzheng made of "Mountain and Flowing Water". Anyway, I couldn't figure out why there were four murderers here, so I decided to take a look at "Mountain and Flowing Water" first. Many "mountains and flowing waters" come from the western region of China. At the southern foot of the majestic Kunlun Mountains, there is an ancient and beautiful city called Hotan.Hotan, known as Khotan in ancient times, was found in documents as early as the second century BC and is the most famous jade city.During the Han and Tang Dynasties, this place became an important country on the Silk Road to the South of the Western Regions.There is a river in the east and west of Hotan City, called the Yulong Kashi River and the Karakash River respectively.They meander down from the Kunlun Mountains, converge into the Hotan River in the north of Hotan, and flow into the Taklamakan Desert.The two rivers are famous for producing high-quality Hetian jade, and the history of its mining can be found in the earliest Han Dynasty documents. There is such a record in "Historical Records Dawan Biography": "The source of the Han Dynasty is poor, and it comes out of Tian, ​​and its mountains are full of jade." "Mountain and flowing water" is because the glaciers there erode the jade belt year after year, carrying the jade materials to the valley, and then the lumpy jade materials are formed due to the transportation of the glaciers, which are not as sharp-edged as the mountain materials. , not as smooth and fresh as the seed material, but somewhere in between.Every summer when the glaciers melt, people come there to look for "mountain water" near the ice tongue and under the ice cap.It can be seen from this that "mountains and rivers" are not visible at will. You can only find them if you have the right opportunity. When I was about to get close to Guzheng, strange things happened again.