Inside the cliff cave is a very long cave passage.
Wang Erniu asked everyone to light torches and walk deeper into the cave.
The road inside the cave is winding and ups and downs, and various strange-shaped stalactites can be seen everywhere on the road, emitting various kinds of light under the illumination of torches.
This is not the first time Shu Guan has come here. When he was thirteen years old, he had already come here.
In his previous life, he also visited many scenic spots in China famous for their cave landforms.
However, Shu Guan could swear that no cave he had ever visited was as strange and unpredictable as the one in front of him.
It's just that those colorful stalactites are not only beautiful and charming, but also have a faint aura that makes people shudder.
For example, the huge stalactite that they just passed by was hanging upside down from the ceiling of the cave and was dark green in color. A milky white liquid dripped from it and gathered into a puddle in the cave below, exuding a slight allure. aroma.
Unfortunately, beside the attractively fragrant milky white stone liquid, there were several rotting carcasses of mountain rats.
When Shu Guan came to this cave for the first time, the old cripple told him that no matter how thirsty he was, he should never touch any drop of water in the cave.
Of course, all the villagers in Taoyuan Village knew about this, because some of their ancestors accidentally drank the stalactite liquid and died on the spot.
On the ground inside the cave, there are some strange footprints, as if carved on the hard rock ground.
As for the strange reason, although these footprints look very similar to human footprints, they are much larger. The largest pair of footprints is more than two feet long and one foot wide.
When Shu Guan first saw these footprints, he was inevitably surprised. With such big footprints, wouldn't the person who left the footprints be at least four or five meters tall?
How can there be such a tall person in the world?
According to Shu Guan's memory, the tallest person on earth in his previous life in the Guinness Book of Records seemed to be a little less than three meters. He couldn't remember the exact amount, but it would never be more than three meters.
With a height of four to five meters, he can be said to be a real giant.
Could there really have been giants on earth?
But these footprints were not what puzzled Shu Guan the first time he came here. There were other things in the cave that also puzzled him to the extreme.
That is, on the rocks on the walls of the cliff cave, you can see some very special textures from time to time.
It's hard to describe what those textures are, because they present too many and complex shapes. Some look like incomplete leaves, some look like animals and birds, and some are so fragmented that I don't know how to describe them.
If it is a rock painting, the lines are too rough. If it is a naturally formed texture, then the textures of so many real objects seem to be too coincidental.
The villagers in Taoyuan Village didn't know what these things were, not even the old cripple, and of course they never cared.
But Shu Guan knew.
These are all fossils.
He stood in front of these fossils for a long time.
At that time, he had not read the book of notes left by the old scholar and thought that he was still on the earth. However, when he saw these fossils, Shu Guan still had a lot of doubts in his heart.
Because among those fossils, some animals have really weird and special shapes.
Just because most of the fossils are incomplete, and what is exposed from the rock wall is only a part of the whole picture, it is difficult to truly judge the full picture of those strange creatures, so Shu Guan's doubts at that time were just doubts, not suspicion.
It wasn't until he walked into the cave again this time and saw those footprints and fossils again that Shu Guan finally realized what these things meant.
These are not creatures from Earth at all!
An hour later, everyone in Taoyuan Village finally reached the end of the cave.
At the other end of the cave, there was still an entrance, and dazzling sunlight poured in from the outside.
This cave directly runs through the entire mountain peak.
This is also the reason why Shuguan came to have a look after hearing about this cave.
Because he originally thought that the only connection between Taoyuan Village and the outside world was the narrow gap through which he drifted in along the stream, but he didn't expect that there was another place.
But after visiting the cave, Shu Guan was still disappointed.
Because at the other end of the cave, after exiting, there is a rather wide open space. Below the open space, there is a cliff of ten thousand feet, and above it is still an extremely smooth cliff.
Therefore, no one can really leave the valley where Taoyuan Village is located from here.
On top of the cliff, there is a huge boulder sticking out like an eagle's wings, covering the open space below, so from above, you can never see the small temple under the boulder.
The building consists of three attic buildings, one high and two low. The outside is surrounded by gray stone walls, which are mottled and covered with various wild vines. Above the main entrance, there is a plaque that looks like it has some traces of time, which reads The word "Qixia".
Therefore, the name of this temple should be Qixia Temple.
Of course, the name was not given by the villagers of Taoyuan Village, and the temple was not built by the villagers of Taoyuan Village. Instead, it originally stood here for who knows how many years.
However, in the middle hall of the tallest wooden building in the temple, there is a clay statue, which was originally built by the villagers of Taoyuan Village there.
The statue is of a middle-aged man who looks like a Taoist priest in black robes and long beard. He has silky eyebrows and phoenix eyes. He stands with his hands behind his back and has an elegant appearance.
It is said that this statue was sculpted according to the real appearance of the immortal back then. Although it cannot be exactly the same, it is probably about 60-70% similar.
And in the middle hall, there is a pillar as thick as two people hugging each other. There is a dragon embossed on the pillar. The dragon scales all over its body are painted black. The dragon's body is circling around the pillar, with the dragon's tail on top and the dragon's head on the bottom. It is the state of holding one's head high.
According to the records of the old scholar, when the immortal came to save them, he came and left on a dragon.
Therefore, when the villagers of Taoyuan Village made a statue of that god, they did not forget to carve his dragon.
This dragon was naturally carved according to the real appearance seen by the earliest villagers of Taoyuan Village.
On the top of this dragon's head, there is only one horn growing in the center.
If according to the standards of the Chinese mythology that Shu Guan traveled back to, this snake-like creature is actually not a dragon, but a dragon.
Of course, those are just creatures in Chinese myths and legends. In fact, there are no dragons on the earth, so Shu Guan has no way of knowing whether there are dragons and dragons in this world.
In addition, the snake-like creature on the pillar has half of the horn on its head. It is not known whether the statue has been damaged over time, or whether it is just the original appearance.
After everyone in Taoyuan Village entered the Qixia Temple, they first cleaned up the dusty temple. It had been five years since the last time they came to worship this immortal.
If it weren't for praying for rain this time, I don't know how long it would have been before people from Taoyuan Village came here.
"Immediately..."
Shu Guan muttered something in a low voice while wiping the cobwebs on the base of the immortal statue.
"Mazi, what were you talking about just now?"
Wang Dahu's head stretched out from behind the statue and looked at Shu Guan strangely.
It seems that there is no such proverb in this world.
"Did I just say something? You heard me wrong."
Shu Guan glanced at Wang Dahu without blushing and said.
With the dark pockmark on his face, almost no one except the old lame man could notice the real change in his expression, and almost no one could tell whether he was telling the truth or a lie.
Wang Dahu scratched his head, shrank back with a cry, and continued to wipe the body behind the immortal statue.
This took more than half an hour. By the time everything was tidied up and the offerings brought were neatly placed in front of the statue of the immortal, it was already around 2:00 p.m.
The setting sun moved westward, and the sunlight slanted into the hall from the top of the cliff and fell on the old cripple.
All the eyes in the hall fell on the old lame man at this time.
"Uncle Lame, what should we do next?"
Wang Erniu came to the old lame man's side and asked softly.
Shu Guan was also looking at the old cripple. He was also curious about how the old cripple wanted to ask for rain. At the same time, he was thinking about what he should do to prevent the situation from becoming too embarrassing if it didn't rain later.
The old lame man had been smoking dry cigarettes just now. At this time, he just finished smoking a pot, so he stuffed the emerald green cigarette rod into his belt and said something.
"Everyone join me in kowtow to the old god."
There was a kind of sincere determination and unquestionability on the old lame man's face.
"Forty-nine years ago, I came here and kowtowed nine times to the old god, begging him to save our village. After I finished drinking, it started raining."
Then the old lame man said something again, and then he knelt down first towards the statue of the immortal in the middle of the hall.
Wang Erniu and the others looked at each other with some doubts.
To be honest, most of the villagers in Taoyuan Village have extremely complicated feelings towards the immortal.
On the one hand, they must all believe in the existence of the immortal. This is something passed down orally from their fathers and ancestors. How could it be false? Moreover, in a place like this valley, without the help of the immortal, they would be like this. How can a mortal get in?
It's just that although they believe that the immortal exists, they believe that the immortal has already forgotten them, just like Shuguan's judgment.
Because if the immortal can really hear their prayers, then why hasn't he come to pick them up and leave here after so many years?
In the end, everyone followed the old cripple and knelt down towards the statue of the immortal, including Shu Guan.
Shuguan didn't have any psychological burden. In his previous life, he traveled to famous mountains and rivers. He also entered temples and Taoist temples and worshiped the gods when he saw them. It was just that he was determined not to buy the high-quality incense recommended by the tour guide.
"...Old fairy, the lame man has come to beg you again. It hasn't rained in the village for half a year. The crops have died from drought and the fish in the stream have also died from the sun..."
The old lame man's chattering, like a common voice, reached Shu Guan's ears from the front.
Shu Guan wanted to laugh at first, but then he found that he couldn't laugh at all.
Because this drought is really serious, and there are no signs of relief now. If it continues like this, many people in the village may die, including myself.
In this case, there was nothing he could do as a time traveler.
At this moment, Shu Guan felt a faint hope in his heart, but he didn't know what he was looking forward to.
So far, Shu Guan naturally does not fully believe in the things about immortals. He knows that this is not the earth, but without seeing it with his own eyes, it is still difficult to believe in these things that are beyond common sense.
The old lame man muttered to himself and kowtowed nine times to the statue of the immortal. Then he stood up.
Then the Taoyuan villagers behind him, led by Wang Erniu, also stood up.
It's that simple?
Everyone immediately turned their heads and looked outside the hall.
Outside the main hall, the sun is shining brightly.
Although it was sunset, it still exuded a scorching brilliance, as if the entire earth had lost its vitality in the high temperature.
Shu Guan sighed.
Something mysterious and unexplainable that I had just hoped for did not happen.
Wang Erniu and other Taoyuan villagers also had disappointed looks on their faces.
Only the old lame man's expression did not change at all, and he still maintained his unreasonable faith and piety.
"grandfather……"
Shu Guan called him, but didn't know what to say.
"Don't rush."
The old cripple smiled at him and everyone, took off the tobacco stick from his waist, and prepared to light another pot of cigarettes.
He had already smoked a pot of cigarettes just now, but before he had time to clean the cigarette cup, there was still some residue from burning tobacco in the brass cup.
So the old cripple knocked the cigarette cup on the nearby pillar a few times, and the cigarette cup happened to fall on the head of the bald-horned dragon.
"Du", "Du", "Du".
The old cripple knocked three times in succession to knock out the tobacco residue in the cigarette cup, then opened the cigarette bag and filled it with another pot.
"The old immortal will hear it."
At the same time, he still said this with certainty.
You think you can do it...
Shu Guan murmured in his heart, while diligently taking the flint and sickle to help the old cripple light the fire.
However, at this moment, there was only a "click" and a deafening loud noise sounded outside the hall.
Shu Guan shook his hand, and the flint and fire sickle fell to the ground.
That was the sound of thunder!
Everyone looked outside the hall again in shock.
The sunshine outside didn't know when it had disappeared, and it looked gloomy and dim.
Over fifty years old, Wang Erniu, the patriarch of the clan who had always been a steady man, let out a wild cry of unknown meaning and suddenly rushed out of the hall, subconsciously looking up to the sky.
But in the sky, strong winds were rising, countless dark clouds gathered from all directions, and the clouds shone with lightning like golden snakes dancing wildly.
With another loud thunderclap, heavy rain poured down.
Shu Guan, who had just stepped out of the palace gate, slowly opened his mouth.
