At this time, I heard a crashing sound coming from the direction of the giant face behind me, like someone dumping shelled peanuts. I was worried that something new would happen, so I turned around to look. The huge face made up of countless bugs now seemed to be a sand sculpture, instantly collapsed. After the dust settled, the stone box that had fallen there appeared on the ground.
All the illusions and double images in front of me disappeared, and there was only a softening headless mummy under the body. I pulled out my Shimen Ling from it and found that there was a big worm pierced on it. This worm was about the size of a banana. It was dead. Its body quickly dried up and then broke into pieces and fell to the ground.
The fleshy black stuff on the ground now turned into an ink-like liquid and flowed away, exposing the water-filled ground. Only then did I realize that this place was a large funnel-shaped puddle, and the surrounding area was very flat. The place where I fell into the water happened to be a small area. Watching the mummy gradually softening, and finally turning into a wrinkled white skin, I reached over and stirred it a few times using the Shimen Ling. The white skin was like paint, and it suddenly dispersed in the water. , and then sank to the depths with the current.
I then stood up and found that my legs were a little sore at the moment, probably because they were too tight just now, as if they had exercised too strenuously. So I limped towards the stone box, and on the way I also found the iron scissors that I thought I would lose. Around the stone box, the black worms that used to form huge faces have now turned into black oil floating on the shallow water, and they can't be seen as worms at all.
I put the Shimen Ling and the scissors back into my satchel. After all the fussing, my satchel had turned into a drowned rat. It would probably take several days to dry the contents inside. At that moment, I simply gave up on myself, so I bent down and tried to pick up the stone box, but maybe because it had been soaked in the water for too long, it was already full of water. My hands and feet were so weak that I couldn't hold it at all. move. So I turned to Songzi and Qin Bukong and said, you two, come quickly and be careful of the deep puddle in the middle.
Qin Bukong seems to be fine. As for why he fainted and fell unconscious before, I plan to ask him later. Songzi helped Qin Bukong come over. Because of Qin Bukong's physical condition, when they crossed the deep puddle, I went to the edge of the deep puddle to help him. At this moment, I feel deeply for Qin Bukong. I am grateful, and it is no exaggeration to say that without his guidance and rescue just now, nothing would have happened now, and my life would have been in danger. But now is not the time to express gratitude. After all, we are still underground, and the secrets in the stone box have not yet been seen, so we should wait until we are all safe to say those sensational words.
Since I couldn’t move the box, I simply stopped moving it. Songzi and I worked together to turn the box upright, and then pry open the top lid. As I expected at first, the box was filled with water. It was the same as the box we encountered when we were in "Zhao", except that the water inside was black and oily water. The worms I just scattered on the water looked like Very similar. We tilted the box and poured out the water inside. As the water in the stone box became less and less, we finally found that except for the protrusion on the lid that contained wax beads, there was also another one at the bottom of the box. A wooden Taoist token.
The whole body of the token is a bit muddy black, and it looks like a rectangular prism, but one end is semicircular. It looks very much like a paperweight used to hold down paper when learning calligraphy. It is only about half a foot long. I took it in my hand and observed it, and found that the square end of the wooden strip was engraved with the original five elements, that is, the pictographic symbols of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The narrower and longer sides of the token were engraved with four figures on each side. The characters, on one side, are "eyes like thunder and lightning", and on the other side, "the eight poles of brilliance".
It's easier to understand, because when Taoists give orders, they usually use the tokens to signal the power of the gods, so these eight characters should be catalyzing the ability of the "魍" guardian ghost in this place, which means It is to keep an eye on all directions and listen to all directions, and never let go of the slightest idea. This is why Qin Bukong and I were both attacked one after another, even though we did not provoke each other at all. It is tantamount to saying that this is a pardon for killing, and anyone who violates this area will be killed without mercy.
The wider and longer sides are engraved with patterns. One of them shows a person sitting cross-legged in meditation, but there is a circle of light behind the person's head, indicating that he is a god, but I can't tell who it is because of his unclear facial features. There are many strange things carved on the back of this person, which look like all living things, demons and ghosts. The meaning of the whole picture is probably that this person suppresses the demons and makes them unable to harm the body. The other picture was much simpler. It was just a sword from top to bottom. There was a long spiral thing on the sword. I originally thought it was a snake or a dragon, but when I looked carefully, I found that it turned out to be a snake or a dragon. A long worm, like an earthworm. Among the five elements, earthworms are all earth-centered in terms of color and attributes. This also just confirms the strange order of the five elements for each hexagram in the previous eight-door array, and the long worm here seems to be secretly It indicates that if we want to break this barrier, it must have something to do with insects.
This was gradually confirmed when we dug the hole earlier. The fierce fight just now exhausted almost all my energy. It also proved to me with facts that the big ghost guarding the gate we wanted to defeat was actually a human being. A container for the Millennium Bug Gu.
I don't know why, but when I saw this token, I felt a vague sense of sadness in my heart. It’s not because I had a premonition about how difficult the next four levels would be, because I had already been mentally prepared for this difficulty when I decided to break through the levels. What I am really sad about is the senior master who left these things behind.
He seems to be fully capable of suppressing the Witch King's soul for tens of millions of years, and facts have proven that he has indeed been able to do this over the past thousand years. However, he did not set up a headless formation. For each strange gate and each level, he left some solutions accordingly. Although it was not so obvious, it seemed to be solving a puzzle, indicating that when he set up the formation, In fact, he is extremely lonely inside. He doesn't want his soul to be found, but he is also afraid that others will not find him. Because the person you find may not necessarily have a very upright mind, and if you can't find it, no one will know about the unique formation you left behind.
This is the reason why I am sad, because I feel that he is very lonely. He is so proud of his abilities, but he is likely to be buried deep underground forever. He seemed to be looking for a close friend, but he was not sure whether this person was evil, so he left some real but ambiguous clues, which can be regarded as a test for future generations.
After I read the token in my hand, I handed it and the wax-skin bead to Qin Bukong. Qin Bukong looked at it carefully under the light, and the wax-skin bead came from me. At first, just like the two beads before, it vibrated like a cicada. Qin Bukong asked, this is really a piece of wood. What kind of wood can be so intact after being soaked in water for thousands of years?
In fact, this is something that I am very puzzled about. If the liquid in this stone box is the same as the one first found in the "Zhao" place, and has undergone special chemical treatment, then there should be some evidence from the inner wall of the box. Yes, but the inner wall is made of ordinary stones. Not only that, but also due to years of soaking, some powder has appeared on the surface. This means that the water in this box is actually ordinary groundwater, just like those who dug ancient tombs and opened them. Same as the water behind the sarcophagus.
Songzi said that this kind of wood is called golden nan, which is a kind of camphor wood. The wood itself is fibrous and has a very good effect of isolating moisture and oxygen. If something wants to rot, it needs to meet two necessary conditions, one is that it is not waterproof and moisture-proof, and the other is that it is not resistant to oxidation, and this kind of wood has both. Perhaps because it has been immersed in closed water for many years, it also has the effect of isolating oxygen, so it still does not rot.
I looked at the token carefully. As the light changed, golden water ripples actually appeared on it, even the kind of water ripples that looked like living water. I was amazed when I saw it. After taking it out of the water, I quickly shook the water and wiped the surface dry. At this moment, it felt slightly moist and greasy to the touch. I pinched it hard, but no water came out.
Thinking that this thing might have other uses in the future, we planned to take it away together, leaving only an empty stone box here. At this time, Songzi used a flashlight to shine directly above our heads. At the top of the cave, which was about six or seven meters away from us, we saw a round black hole the size of a wellhead.
Songzi said that if the calculations were correct, this hole should be Tiji Well. A lot of dirt must have been dumped when filling the well, but the space here was too big and could not be filled, so they simply sealed the well head. A monument was erected on it.
Qin Bukong nodded and said yes, look at the color on the cave wall, it seems that it has been soaked in water for a long time. I took a closer look and found that the wall inside the cave near the wellhead was darker than the top of the cave. This meant that many, many years ago, the water level in the cave we were standing in was much higher than it is now, reaching almost the wellhead. The location, I don’t know why, maybe due to the receding water in recent years, the shoal we are standing on has been exposed.
The three of us looked up at the mouth of the well for a long time, each with our own thoughts. I have no way of knowing what Qin Bukong and Songzi are thinking, but I am thinking that if it is true as the legend says, then Laojun dug through this hole in the first place. At the beginning, he was looking down at our position at the mouth of the well, knowingly wary of himself.
And now when we look upward in the opposite direction, maybe we become the self reflected in the water at the bottom of the well in the eyes of others. After all, although I am a Taoist, I still love the world of mortals.
