There is a very special machine lock on the white wood carving box. Only the octagonal silver dart that Zhang Zhuxun asked someone to bring to Wu Xiaoxie before going to Changbai Mountain can be used as a key to open it.
Zhang Zhuxun knew very well that this time in the Zhang family ancient building, he was destined to confront the Wang family. He could already vaguely feel the aura of a storm coming.
In fact, he himself had no idea whether he could come out of the ancient building.
This box was a layer of insurance he added to that plan.
If, if he really broke into the Zhang Family Ancient Building this time, he hoped that Wu Xiaoxie could follow the instructions in the box, avoid detours, and pick up the little brother from the bronze door as soon as possible.
It's just that when the time comes, he won't be able to accompany you.
On the surface, Pan Zi seemed to believe Zhang Zhuoxun's explanation, but in fact, he still had doubts in his heart. He always felt that this kid was hiding something from him.
Pan Zi stared at Zhang Zhuxun for a long time, but never saw any flaws in his expression.
From the outer wall of the arch came the shouts of food being served, "Here comes the sour radish veal leaf, purple eggplant and salted egg, and vinegar kidney flowers!"
The female waiter carried a large wooden plate full of dishes, which came like a gust of wind. She put it on the table with her hands and feet neatly, "This is rice, you two eat first, the crayfish will be out of the pot soon, and several other dishes will be out soon." "
Pan Zi put the white wood carving box on the edge of the table, picked up the chopsticks, and put vegetables into Zhang Zhuoxun's bowl. "When the new year comes, I will try to step back from my current position. The third master's stall will eventually be It has to be left in the hands of the mistress. After we get married, I probably won’t have time to take care of the affairs of you young people. No matter what you have to do, just go three steps forward and four steps behind. You just have to know it in your mind."
Zhang Zhuoxun smiled and nodded, "Okay, I'll remember it."
Afterwards, they chatted about some irrelevant things and finished the meal quickly.
After leaving the hotel, the two got into the car.
Panzi put the box into his backpack, lit it on fire, and asked, "Where do you want to stay? A hotel or my place?"
Since he had someone he cared about, Pan Zi used the money he had saved over the years to buy a few houses in places with a good environment and convenient travel. He usually lived in the old alley in front of the hall.
Zhang Zhuoxun shook his head, "Let's go directly to the airport. I have to hurry up and get back to Banai. The little brother and the fat man are still waiting for me."
"Sure." Pan Zi nodded, said nothing more, and didn't ask any unnecessary questions.
After leaving Banai that day, Zhang Zhuoxun squeezed time and returned to Yao Village on the morning of the fifth day.
It hasn't rained in the past few days, and the road up the mountain is open.
Zhang Zhuxun came to the village entrance in a fellow villager's ox cart, and happened to meet Huo Xiuxiu who was directing the men to carry equipment to the donkey cart.
This little girl didn't know what she had been through these past few days. The expression on her face was always ugly, and she didn't even smile when she saw Zhang Zhuxun.
Zhang Zhuoxun thought about it for a moment and understood the whole story. He didn't want to get involved and decided to go up the mountain to meet the fat man and the little brother first.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he took two steps, he heard Huo Xiuxiu calling him from behind.
"I have communicated with grandma before, and she asked you to go up the mountain with us when you come back." Huo Xiuxiu said.
Zhang Zhuxun thought about Mrs. Huo's intention, and silently squatted down on the rocks on one side to wait for Huo Xiuxiu and the others to finish loading the car.
It seemed that after these few days of delay, the old lady was indeed angry, but judging from Huo Xiuxiu's tone, it seemed that the anger was not directed at him, so it could only be the fat man.
Thinking of this, Zhang Zhuxun laughed a little in his heart. Fatty really specializes in treating old goblins.
I just don’t know what this kid did to make the old lady so angry.
An hour later, the team set off.
It was still the same road. The road Agui took them on was still very solid. After so many heavy rains, only a small part of the mountain in the forest collapsed, so it was not very troublesome to take a detour.
On the morning of the seventh day, the team arrived at the river.
Zhang Zhuoxun returned to the tent and took a look.
Neither brother nor Fatty were there, but there were several pieces of paper stained under the camp bed frame, and on them were messages that Fatty had left for him.
After reading this, Zhang Zhuxun immediately understood why the Huo family he met on the way back to the tent didn't have a good look on him.
During the few days he left, Fatty came up with a particularly wicked idea.
In order to delay Zhang Chuxun's wishes, the fat man made a mental calculation and found that other strategies seemed to be of no use, so he asked the younger brother to pretend to be sick.
In fact, there is no need to pretend to be obvious. As long as the brother lies there, whether he is sick or not, Huo Xiangu will understand.
As long as the little brother doesn't want to move, no matter how impatient she is, she can't get in and can only wait.
But let it go like this, after all, everyone knows it.
Huo Xiangu's technicians can take advantage of this time to expand the passage behind the ancient tree.
But the fat man was a dramatist. He looked sad all day long and leaned in front of Huo Zhizhi's eyes, looking like a little brother who was about to lose his life. He tried to steal some precious medicinal materials and other good things from Huo Zhizhi.
Huo Zhizhi was so angry that he was half-dead. However, for a disciple of a big family like him, what he usually saw most with Huo Xiangu were plots and conspiracies. Until they finally broke up, everyone showed up. Everything is peaceful.
Suddenly faced with Fatty's rogue style of fighting like spreading pancakes, when the two parties cooperated, they were really helpless.
Mrs. Huo had a lot of things arranged, and he didn't have time to argue with this damn fat man.
Moreover, Mrs. Huo's health has been deteriorating recently, and several close insiders have a tight knot in their hearts. The fat man's entanglement makes them extremely annoyed.
In the end, the matter reached the ears of Mrs. Huo. Mrs. Huo directly sent a message to Fatty, saying that she would wait for Zhang Zhu to come back and take action together. It was useless for Fatty to try and give him the medicine.
The fat man made a fuss and was very angry.
But he didn't hesitate, and went up the mountain with his brother who was "recovering from a serious illness" the next day. According to what the fat man wrote on the paper, he couldn't trust Mrs. Huo and had to keep an eye on her personally. .
The fat man also wrote on the paper that the Huo family had detected three stone seals deep in the crack.
He also quoted a lot of words from the younger brother and Mrs. Huo, mixed with many of the fat man's own private comments.
To sum up, the three sealing stones are the legendary Thousand Mile Lock, and the Siguniang Mountain where Wu Xiaoxie went is the "key" to the Thousand Mile Lock.
The day before yesterday and yesterday, they spent two days clearing out the outer edge of the crack and opening a passage directly into the sealing stone.
This morning, he and his younger brother took someone to check out the situation, and then contacted Wu Xiaoxie.
﹉﹉﹉
The camera turns to Siguniang Mountain.
Because they had to wait for special equipment, Wu Xiaoxie and Xie Yuchen set off two days later than Zhang Shuxun and the others.
The second day after hanging on the towering cliff went unexpectedly smoothly. They found the reinforced cave that Mrs. Huo had mentioned.
He quickly dug a hole and filled it with cement, and found a dead body inside.
The corpse was covered with a large amount of mold-like hair. Xie Yuchen used a small hammer to crack open its skull and found that there were also large clumps of black, tingling hair inside.
"The situation is not good." Xie Yuchen clicked his tongue.
Wu Xiaoxie raised his head and looked into the cave. There were several white bones stuck diagonally on the red cement surface in that area. It seemed that the situation inside was more serious.
He couldn't help but feel a little scared. He didn't know how these hairs got into this man's head. He suspected that the reason why the Nine Sect team suffered heavy casualties was because there were many forbidden women hidden inside, some even worse than the forbidden women. Want something weird.
He told his guess to Jie Yuchen. Jie Yuchen was silent for a few seconds and said, "I took a closer look. These hair-like things seem to have grown out of this person's body. It is possible that there is something inside the hole." What
If something is inhaled into the body, then we might as well wrap all the exposed skin on our body, put on a gas mask, and cover our mouth and nose tightly. "
The implication is that they must enter this hole.
Without much hesitation, Xie Yuchen picked up the walkie-talkie and notified the people below to send over several sets of strong and durable protective equipment, as well as gas masks, goggles and the like.
The equipment was quickly delivered. After Wu Xiaoxie put it on, they wrapped each other's cuffs and necks with tape, leaving no gaps for air to enter, and finally put on gas masks.
Before entering the cave, Wu Xiaoxie was already sweating profusely, and the sweat all over his body was dripping down like nothing.
Jie Yuchen handed him the pickaxe, and the two continued to clean the remaining cement.
Carefully digging around the bones, soon the second skeleton was dug out, followed by the third, and even more.
What surprised them was that the bones were all hugged together one after another, and the shape was tragic.
At first Wu Xiaoxie thought they were fighting over something, but as more bones were dug out, he gradually realized that the actions of these people were not fighting, but pushing the people in front of them away.
Wu Xiaoxie could even imagine through these things that after the accident that year, when people outside were pouring cement into the inside, how the people trapped inside went from struggling desperately to having no hope of escape, and how they were trapped in a large amount of cement and hair in despair. Pour into the mouth and nose, eventually suffocating to death.
Jie Yuchen quickly cracked open a few more skulls and looked at the situation inside. He turned around and said angrily to Wu Xiaoxie: "Your previous guess was right. The cave was closed not after Granny Huo left, but after what happened." When the incident occurred, they quickly sealed the entrance to prevent those who had no time to retreat and the things that caused the incident from coming out."
"But one thing is strange. Since Granny Huo knows about this, why didn't she tell us?"
Wu Xiaoxie found a place to sit down, took a breath, and shook his head when he heard this, "Not necessarily. Since we want to cooperate, Mrs. Huo has no reason to hide such crucial information from us. It's possible that after they evacuated first, The remaining people were unwilling to give up and continued to search inside the cave, and then..."
"No, it's still wrong!" Wu Xiaoxie frowned, staring closely at the large number of gray-red cement stones that they smashed and piled aside, and suddenly turned to look at Xie Yuchen, "This is a premeditated situation, they are here They had already predicted the situation before entering the cave, so they installed a cement filling system on the cliff just in case. Before entering, they were prepared to die."
Xie Yuchen has obviously taken this into consideration, "She didn't tell us. It's probably because she doesn't know what's going on here."
"But since she was the main force in the team and fully participated in the entire event, there is no reason why she doesn't know about such an important thing. Therefore, there is only one explanation for all this." Xie Yuchen looked at Wu Xiaoxie.
Wu Xiaoxie immediately thought of a deeper level. When the mountain breeze blew, a chill seeped out from his back, "These corpses are not from the old Jiumen. After the people from the Jiumen left, another group of people came here. , and it won’t be too long from now, look at the blood in the cement, it’s still red.”
He didn't know if the other group of people in the speculation would be the so-called "it" people, but it was very likely.
Installing a cement tank system on a cliff is a very large and difficult project. Without strong and abundant capital, it is impossible to complete it.
The Nine Sects were too busy to take care of themselves at the time. The only one who could do this without alerting any forces seemed to be the mysterious and strange "it" hidden in the dark.
Xie Yuchen silently added: "You are right, and the other group of people is very strong. They installed cement cans in advance, which shows that they did know the situation inside before entering. These people must be related to what happened back then. .”
"Granny Huo said that the team that went to Siguniang Mountain was very large, and the people in it were a mixed bag. It is not surprising that some people from other forces were mixed in." Xie Yuchen continued, "But after what happened that year, that force is likely to not at all
They find what they want, but they don't give up, so they make a comeback after years of dormancy. "
Wu Xiaoxie subconsciously looked inside the cave. At this time, the sun outside the cave was bright and the wind was gentle.
The cave was extremely dark, damp, and cold. I wonder if it was his imagination, but he always felt that something was staring at them coldly in the depths of the cave.
He whispered: "So, there is something more important than Lu Huang silk in this cave."
(Additional update as the occasion arises)
Looking at those blood-stained mummies with ferocious postures, curled up and curled up, Wu Xiaoxie felt an indescribable disgust and disgust in his heart. What on earth could be worth those people making such meaningless sacrifices again and again.
As he said before, these people seemed to be suicide squads, ready to sacrifice themselves, so there could only be one explanation for their terrifying struggle before death.
These disgusting hair-like things are worse than death when they attack.
It is very likely that the process of death is extremely painful, so painful that even these dead soldiers are afraid.
Thinking of this, Wu Xiaoxie couldn't help but smile bitterly and looked at Xie Yuchen, "It seems that we are destined to suffer some hardships this time."
Jie Yuchen was silent for a long time. He was not as optimistic as Wu Xiaoxie. It was still unknown whether he could come out alive.
He didn't think that those people would have received less information and prepared in advance than they did now.
"No matter what, it seems that they failed and triggered a fatal mechanism. The mechanism inside has been triggered by the people of Laojiumen, and they have also been tricked, so the mechanism inside is not a one-time thing, and it is highly dangerous. It’s so huge that we both may not be able to avoid it, so we have to be extra careful.”
Jie Yuchen sighed, picked up the pickaxe again, and started chipping away at the remaining cement stones.
Wu Xiaoxie also sighed heavily. Without those three people, he always felt that something was missing around him, and his heart felt empty. He didn't know what the situation was like in Banai.
After working non-stop for more than three hours, I finally cleaned up the cement stones blocking the hole.
The two of them piled all the bones together and opened a passage in the middle to facilitate their escape in an emergency.
Returning to the sunlight at the entrance of the cave, the two took a short rest, ate something to replenish their energy, then put on new protective clothing and masks, and put on their backpacks.
Just two steps inside, Wu Xiaoxie suddenly stopped Xie Yuchen, took out five or six octagonal silver darts from his backpack, and handed them to Xie Yuchen, "Here, it may save your life at a critical moment."
"What is it?" Xie Yuchen pinched one and looked at it carefully, and soon discovered something fishy on it. He looked at Wu Xiaoxie with a smile, "This thing doesn't belong to you, does it?"
Wu Xiaoxie patted his backpack proudly, "Of course, our Muyu prepared it for me, a life-saving escape treasure box."
Jie Yuchen smiled and shook his head, "You..."
Wu Xiaoxie showed Xie Yuchen how to use the octagonal silver dart, and the two turned on the mining lamp and entered the cave.
The extended space at the back was a little larger than they thought, and it was so deep that it could not be seen to the end.
After walking in, the first thing I saw was a square pit filled with bones and broken earthen jars.
The white bones in the square pit were also covered with hair. These white bones had turned yellow and brittle, and looked older than the corpses trapped in the cement outside.
Jie Yuchen reached into the square pit with his engineering shovel and fiddled with it a few times. The small piece of moss-like hair was shattered like a dry leaf that fell on the ground in autumn. Under the light of the miner's lamp, a wave of wind rose in the air. A blue-gray moldy smoke.
"People from Laojiu Clan?" Xie Yuchen's voice sounded muffled because he was wearing a gas mask.
Wu Xiaoxie nodded, "Maybe, this pit doesn't look like it was there originally. Could it be that the later group of people collected the bones of the Nine Sect members who died here?"
Jie Yuchen glanced at him sideways, "Do you think those people would be so kind?"
Wu Xiaoxie looked at him silently, "Then what's the point of collecting these bones?"
What effect? "
"How do I know?" Xie Yuchen straightened up, walked directly around the square pit and walked back from the edge.
Wu Xiaoxie puffed up her face, thinking about the days when Zhang Zhu and the three of them were together.
