Luo Laoqi's accidental poisoning was like a seed, planting doubts in the hearts of the Grimace Taoist priest and even everyone. Everyone was more or less thinking about something at this time, and the spiral staircase became very silent. Only the sound of heavy breathing and footsteps echoed in this seemingly endless downward path.
After a long time, the silence was finally broken by a sigh from the grim-faced Taoist priest. He looked at a closed stone door at the bottom of the stone steps and said, "Oh my god, you've got a fucking clue, but this door is closed." It makes me a little irritated."
"Are we still afraid of a door?" He Siniang followed up: "Don't open the door, just use the spiral staircase behind."
"Hey, I'll go, but you must be quiet." The Taoist priest with a grimace said and started to try to push the stone door. Unexpectedly, the stone door seemed to be closed tightly, but it was actually slightly closed. After applying a little force, it slowly moved backwards, and then stopped after revealing a half-foot-wide gap.
Seeing that it was wide enough for people to pass through, the Taoist priest with a grimace stopped, then raised his torch and looked behind the door.
The first thing you see is a horizontal space more than ten feet wide. You can see that the ground and walls are very smooth, much finer than the tunnels and spiral staircases along the way.
The light of the torch swept across, and some patterns seemed to appear on the wall.
The Taoist priest with a grimace walked sideways into the stone door. This time the torch shone farther, and he could roughly see the pattern behind the door - he saw that there was another stone door closed more than ten steps away, and the distance in the middle. It is like a corridor connecting two spaces.
The walls on both sides of the corridor are extremely smooth, and at the height of the middle of the wall, there are two long murals from front to back.
The three Taoist priests with grim faces walked into the corridor one after another and came to the mural.
The murals in front of you are all carved in stone on the wall. The lines are simple and unsophisticated, but they have not faded under the dust of the years.
Soon the three of them roughly understood the contents of the stone carvings and murals.
This seems to be a documentary painting, recording the process of a group of people exploring a cave.
According to the layout analysis in the picture, this group of people explored the many caves that the three of them came along. This seems to be the stage when the cave was just discovered. A group of people were exploring around with torches. Some of the patterns looked familiar to the three of them. For example, there was a cave connected to three exits. The Taoist priest with a grimace pointed at the pattern and said: "This place Does it look like the monster’s lair above?”
He Siniang nodded: "It should be right, and if you look at the painting, there is an exit connected to a long downward road. Doesn't it correspond to the spiral staircase we came from?"
"Yes, I was just about to say it. These lines seem to be very simple, but they are actually drawn very accurately. You can see that there are caves under the sacrificial pit, and there are also tunnels leading to the second floor platform...this Isn’t it just a road map?”
"If we really look at it as a road map, then the path on it looks much more complicated than we imagined." He Siniang pointed to another exit in the monster lair and said: "At first we thought we could directly get there from here. The fork in the tunnel leading to the first floor seems a bit simple now, and there seem to be more forks on the other side."
"Yes, those dense lines seem to be tangled with hair. Xiao Zhang from Jueziying was really lucky to be able to run out from there."
"Tch~ I don't want this kind of luck." Luo Laoqi said sarcastically: "You went around in a circle to the monster's house, and finally let the monster beat him to death. How can this be called luck? It should be called bad luck, right?"
"That can only be said to be a bit of luck, but not too much..."
"But why did the mural disappear here?" He Siniang interrupted the two of them. At this time, everyone had unknowingly reached the end of the stone mural. Only a short passage under the spiral staircase was painted here, which looked normal. This is where everyone is now.
"Eh? That's right." The grim-faced Taoist priest looked at the mural and wondered, "Why are we only painting this section of the passage, and what's next? Why is there behind the stone gate..."
"Could it be on the other wall?" He Siniang said and turned to look at the mural on the other wall. But after just a few glances, she asked, "What is this painting again?"
The grim-faced Taoist priest hurriedly followed over. After quickly browsing the stone carvings on the left wall, he said doubtfully: "It's really strange. Why is the painting on it so similar to the one just now... Huh? That's wrong! This mural looks like More like a construction drawing, right?"
The grim-faced Taoist priest saw the difference between the two stone murals. If the little man in the mural on the right is exploring a cave, then the one on the left has obviously changed. The characters in the picture are starting to carry out some kind of engineering construction. Some of them are carving, and some are transporting. In short, You can clearly feel the busy scene from the picture.
After hearing this, He Siniang nodded and said: "It looks like that, just like here." He Siniang pointed to the middle part of the mural: "These people are dragging a huge boulder, and when the next scene waits for the next scene, the boulder will be erected." When it was installed, it looked like a stone gate was being installed.”
"Yes." The grim-faced Taoist priest responded: "And looking at that location, it is the stone door that is installed at the downward fork of the monster's lair."
"So the caves in this entire mountain are not artificially excavated...at most they are post-processed."
"Yes, this also solves one of our confusions." The grim-faced Taoist priest said: "Ever since Pei Shuang sent us in, Pindao has always felt that the size of the project in the mountain is too large, completely beyond the ancient Xiangxiong Kingdom. The level of development that it should be, now it seems that they may have come in to pick up the leaks. If they just widen and renovate the original caves and tunnels, it doesn’t feel so outrageous.”
"But don't underestimate the Shang Shung people's carving skills. Have you forgotten, Taoist priest? There is a huge Buddha statue outside the cave. It couldn't have been found by chance, right?"
"Don't tell me that I have completely forgotten this. The Great Mother Buddha statue is not only huge, but the carvings are also exquisite. The level of development of the ancient Xiangxiong Kingdom in this area is really not simple."
"Yes, no one knows what these caves originally looked like. There is no guarantee that some places were not dug out by the Shang Shung people themselves."
"But then again, why did the Xiangshung people repair these caves?" The grim-faced Taoist priest asked curiously: "We can understand the construction of Buddha statues outside the mountain. After all, it is related to Bon belief, but what about the inside of the mountain? What is it like? Why is it worth the labor they put into these caves?”
He Siniang shook her head: "I can't figure it out in this regard. The most important thing is that the mural records no longer exist here." He Siniang pointed to the stone door at the end of the painting: "What is behind this, I'm afraid we can only tell It’s impossible to guess.”
