The tunnel going down is a very strange place. Anything thrown into it will be quickly returned, and it will be surprisingly aggressive.
No one was willing to try what would happen if someone went down, and the source of the voice that emerged in his head was unknown, and it probably had something to do with the bottom of the tunnel.
The four people covered each other and retreated back from the tunnel. Fortunately, apart from the inexplicable sound, it seemed that the enemy could not come up with any more attack methods. It took a while to return to the fork in the road.
"Now we should take a look at the road over here." Robert took a look over there. The road condition was much better than the tunnel going down. He held the silver coins in one hand and took the lead to explore the road. Tachikawa Ryo and Yu Gui Ting followed closely, while Lu Ning fell one step behind.
She took out a new flashlight and took a look at the road she had just returned. The moisture on that side was extremely heavy, the ground was soft, and the footprints looked very clear. Even if four people walked back and forth, it would become very messy. According to Lu Ning, The detective ability can also tell the difference.
There are five types of footprints in total.
In addition to the footprints of the four people, there was also a line of footprints heading deeper into the tunnel, but did not come back.
She nodded meaningfully and turned to follow the pace of the three people in front of her. After walking back and forth, she had carefully observed her surroundings. If there wasn't some extremely hidden secret door, there wasn't any fork in the road going down.
Along the flat road, several people soon arrived at a landslide.
Compared to the previous blockage of the entrance, the situation here is slightly better. A large amount of soil and gravel blocked half of the mine tunnel, but the other half of the supports are still holding on and have not completely collapsed. Although it seemed to be in danger, Yu Guiting was still able to move forward after carefully checking the strength of the bracket.
After squeezing through this landslide, it can be said that the front is suddenly clear.
Just a few dozen meters away is a huge mine, as big as three basketball courts. The area illuminated by the flashlight will emit green fluorescence. I don't know what kind of ore it is. Lu Ning stepped on the ground and found that the earth-rock mixed road in the mine had turned into gravel under her feet.
"This place looks interesting at first glance." Yu Guiting looked around with his flashlight, looking very interested. Lu Ning also started to observe the large mine along the edge, and soon discovered a black nest in the corner.
Her heart moved and she took two steps closer. Sure enough, it was a "nest" exactly like the one she saw in the cemetery. The only difference was that there was no witch's heart growing on it.
And compared to the nest that grew out of a person's corpse, this one was too small. After careful observation, she discovered that the black sticky threads that made up the "nest" grew out of the cracks in the wall.
"Wait a minute, the corpse... the nest... the child buried in the wall..."
"Oooh!"
Lu Ning's thoughts were interrupted by a loud shout. It was Yu Guiting who stepped on something slippery and fell down, sitting down on the ground. The other three people all heard a loud "click".
"Are you okay?" Robert walked over hurriedly.
"It killed me..." Yu Guiting got up with a look of discomfort on his face, "What was broken just now? This place..."
He reached under his body and pulled out a bone that was broken into two pieces from the rubble.
There were still some remaining black sticky threads attached to the bones, and Lu Ning recognized the appearance of this bone at a glance.
"Human tibia."
Yu Guiting's expression changed immediately, he threw the bone aside with his hand, and then jumped to the side like he was avoiding the plague.
"This green light can't be phosphorus fire!"
"It's fluorescence."
Lu Ning knelt down and picked up a relatively large stone, and shook it with a flashlight. It was indeed a little green seeping out of the surface of the stone, not the bones. But even so, there are probably many people buried in this place.
"They did not die in the mining accident." Tachikawa Ryo had quickly pushed aside a piece of gravel, and in some places, such "nests" had already appeared. But they are not very big, at least the entire mine floor is not made up of these nests.
Indeed, these people did not die in a mining accident - there was no obvious landslide here, and it was not a place to bury corpses. There were several mining tunnels around the mine, which was obviously used as a transit area.
Lu Ning paid a little attention. Counting the road he came from, there were a total of six passages branching out from here.
Six more.
Six demons, six ritual objects, six children's corpses, six passages...
She began to slowly dig a hole with her dagger along the crack where the "nest" had grown. There were no large rocks in this rock crevice. After just scraping a few times, she felt the knife dig through the rock wall.
Is it so thin here?
"Lu Ning, what are you doing?" Robert asked when he saw her movements not far away.
"Let me see where these things grow from."
Lu Ning used her flashlight to shine into the gap. With that ray of light and the devil's eyesight, she finally saw clearly what was going on inside.
At that moment, she suddenly understood that the key here was not the six passages, but... the six secret rooms divided by the six passages.
A little late.
A blood-curdling scream sounded in the mine. The sound was so loud that the four people couldn't help but block their ears. However, at this moment, several crisp explosions sounded from everyone's hands, and all the flashlights were directly After the explosion, the light dimmed instantly. Only Yu Guiting's night light was still on, but it could only illuminate the surrounding area of two or three meters. Lu Ning and Tachikawa Ryo were both plunged into darkness.
"Are you two okay?" Robert shouted immediately.
"No problem." Tachikawa Ryo replied.
"I'm fine...what's going on?" Lu Ning followed.
Yu Guiting subconsciously stretched out his hand to hold the night lamp, but his reaction was still slow. A sharp stone came through the air, smashing the glass of the night lamp directly, and the flames inside were instantly extinguished.
"Oops! Everyone prepare for defense! Tachikawa, can you light a fire?"
"I'm trying, but there's some interference."
"Wait for me to find flint and steel! The candle can still be lit!" This was Yu Guiting's cry.
In the midst of the chaos, Lu Ning stood in the direction where the stones flew out, returned his slightly swollen palms to their original shape, and smiled.
There are both expected gains and unexpected surprises. This is really a double happiness.
Facts have proved that the closer a demon is to the "truth", the more rewards he will receive. At least Lu Ning is currently sure that he can transform into a demon in the dark without having to abide by the 7pm to 7am rule.
"You should be lucky that I didn't take the murderous route."
This thought flashed through her mind, and her hand had easily pierced the thin layer of rock wall here.
The interval between shadow leaps is ten seconds, and in Lu Ning's estimation, it would take almost that long for the three people to be at a loss to relight the candles.
The palm began to stretch and stretch indoors, and the black horny skin covered the original skin, gradually revealing its truly ferocious appearance. The five weapons, which were originally five fingers, had become as sharp as razors, cutting into pieces all the obstacles in the secret room until they touched a metal box placed on something unknown inside. Lu Ning immediately turned the blade back into the shape of a finger and held the box in the palm of her hand.
"Ten seconds."
Counting silently in her mind, she activated Shadow Leap again and returned to her original position. This time, no one noticed the action that spanned the entire mine.
When the fire lit up again, Yu Guiting raised the night lamp, while Robert and Tachikawa also lit the candles they carried. The three light sources immediately illuminated a large area.
Lu Ning struggled to pull her feet out of the black sticky silk nest, and her hands that returned to normal had quietly thrown the small box the size of a soap box into her backpack.
"Tsk, that's disgusting."
"No one was attacked, right?" Yu Guiting looked at everyone and saw that everyone was safe, and then he breathed a sigh of relief, "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention..."
"There's no need to apologize. It's just that we can't stay in this place any longer. It's very dangerous." Robert looked at Lu Ning, "Doctor Lu, did you find what you were looking for?"
"Hmm...can you help me take apart this rock?" Lu Ning pointed to the wall with black sticky threads around him, and also attracted the three people. In this way, the hole he made on the other side of the wall will never be discovered again.
After a little exploration and found that the rock wall was not too thick, Tachikawa Ryo and Robert took out hammers and chisels and quickly demolished a hole in the wall that could allow a person to pass through. As expected, the inside was almost filled with that kind of nest, and this time it was a nest with the shape of corpses inside. An unpleasant stench wafted out, and Lu Ning covered her mouth and nose and saw the innermost part with the help of light. Three witch hearts grew from the top of the nest.
"That's the one?"
"How do I feel...that thing is alive?"
Lu Ning ignored the explanation and immediately walked into the lair. Even the dead witch's heart was so evil, and the three plants that still had vitality seemed to be calling loudly to take them away.
"Hey! Be careful of any danger..." Yu Guiting hurriedly stretched out his hand, but failed to hold it. Lu Ning walked up to the witch's heart as if she had discovered some rare treasure, took out a dagger and carefully cut off the leaves and flowers together.
"Okay, okay, but if the potion was prepared with this thing, it would be really disgusting..." Yu Guiting could only curl his lips in self-deprecation.
"If this stuff could save your life, you would drink it no matter how stinky it is." Robert revealed the truth ruthlessly.
"I also heard that excrement water was commonly used for detoxification in the old days..."
"Okay, okay! You two, stop disgusting me!"
Jokes aside, the spirits of several people were tense and did not relax. Although Lu Ning was pretending, the other three were all real. Robert now has a silver coin between his fingers. It seems that he learned his lesson without noticing it last time. As for Tachikawa, he has a habit of touching the handle of the knife every five or six seconds.
"I found it. I think we can actually go back this way. Something is obviously wrong here. Do you still want to continue exploring?" Lu Ning went back outside and asked the three people.
"Tachikawa, what do you think?" Robert turned and asked.
Among the four, only Tachikawa is capable of fighting head-on. If you want to continue exploring, you must seek his opinion.
"I'm not good at dealing with incorporeal opponents." Tachikawa shook his head, "If you want to explore further, you must invite Miss Sugiyama or Miss Inahara to come here."
Lu Ning packed the three Witch's Hearts in the medicine box she brought and put them into her backpack, and then said: "These three plants are basically enough for the past few days. As long as you don't mind this... strange growing place, I It can actually prepare a lot of medicinal materials."
"It doesn't matter. Gaining something is better than not gaining anything. At least this time it proves that there is a problem here - what was it that screamed just now? Did you see it?"
"It's pitch black, but there are no other attacks except sound and light-extinguishing." Yu Guiting said.
Lu Ning roughly understood what was going on.
If I'm not mistaken, this should be the sacrificial site where a demon tried to bring the witch back. The metal box she got probably contained one of the sacrifices, and the witch's heart was also a sacrifice. The other four rooms are probably similar.
However, judging from the fact that the Witch's Heart is almost dead, these sacrifices cannot be kept fresh forever. The ritual back then was probably a failure. The demon found all the sacrifices and found a place like this, but I don't know whether it was because of the lack of key items or the wrong place. In short, the witch failed to return, and the demon probably didn't end well.
This place in the scene has roughly the same function as the wooden board in the lake house. They are both used to remind the devil. There must be similar places, but since Lu Ning has verified it, there is no need to look for it anymore. As for humans... let them guess, this key information is still far from being exposed.
On the way back along the tunnel, nothing strange happened again. Even the rope was safe. After the four people climbed out one by one, they happened to see the sun setting in the west. The day was not over yet.
"It's much faster than expected." Yu Guiting stretched out his arms to loosen his muscles. It was quite satisfying to escape safely from that place.
"Because we didn't fully explore, we just went there to find things. But that's okay, it's just evening when we rush back now." Robert glanced at the height of the sun, "Everyone needs to change clothes."
Lu Ning rushed straight into the nest, and the other three dug holes and dug holes and got themselves covered in mud. Robert's words were immediately approved by Yu Guiting.
"Then let's hurry up..." Robert was about to point in the direction of White Lake Town, but his fingers stopped. Needless to say, several people had already noticed something that made him stop.
A wisp of smoke rose from the woods. It was not strong, but it was very obvious under the sky illuminated by the setting sun.
"Hey, could it be..." Yu Guiting's eyes widened.
"Let's go over and take a look." Lu Ning said in a deep voice, "It's autumn now, no one will set fire in the woods unless necessary."
"Go first." Ryo Tachikawa strode to the front and headed straight for the direction of the rising smoke as fast as the three of them could keep up.
Before he even got close, a burnt smell with the smell of barbecue was already coming over.
