"Then let's start looking.
I don't believe it. The guy running the boat has better luck than us. "
Jiang Yingxue stood up, patted the pastry crumbs in her hand, and then began to organize all the personnel to conduct a comprehensive investigation around the suspicious location pointed out by Bai Ning.
In order to prevent Captain Dong from laying some poisonous traps, everyone started working with gloves and gas masks. Whenever they noticed something was wrong, they put on the gas masks.
In fact, just as Jiang Yingxue expected, a large number of booby traps were placed in hidden places, and a large amount of toxic powder was spilled, causing everyone to panic.
Fortunately, the various detoxification potions brought this time are very sufficient. Even if the eyes are blinded by the poisonous powder, they can be dealt with quickly.
Half a day of busy work passed by in a blink of an eye. Except for two people who had inhaled too much poisonous powder and were unconscious in the camp, the other people were still normal, but they seemed to be emotionally excited.
There is no doubt that in such a constant battle, no matter how tight their defenses are, all the bodyguards will eventually be tricked.
They don't know how many more people will be standing here before they officially find the entrance.
Altitude sickness forced the bodyguards to take as long a rest as possible. Looking at the panting bodyguards, Jiang Yingxue's expression never softened.
The rotation of personnel seems to be a clever move to solve the current crisis, but how to survive until the rotation time comes, this shortcoming has gradually begun to show up.
Without wanting to discuss the possibilities too much, the discovery of a poison trap in the place where Captain Dong stayed means that this area is special.
After the rest, the entire team continued to search everywhere, but gradually, the number of traps began to decrease, and the proportion of poisons obviously began to decrease.
It seems that this also proves from another aspect that the amount of poison in Captain Dong's hands has been reduced.
These are just some ordinary traps, but these experienced bodyguards can handle them very neatly. As their self-confidence increases, the subsequent exploration progress becomes faster and faster.
Finally, when a group of bodyguards discovered a piece of floating soil that had been deliberately covered with grass and stones, Bai Ning let out a sigh of relief.
The presence of a large amount of fresh earth indicates that there are caves dug downwards near this area.
What the nature of this cave is is unknown.
The suspected entrance to Queen Mother Xi's initial refuge was finally confirmed. At this time, there may have been a huge time difference of two days and two nights from when Captain Dong entered.
All the bodyguards were called together, spread out to search everywhere, and soon found the source of fresh floating soil at the bottom of a low-lying stone pit.
I saw that this low-lying stone pit was covered by a large pile of weeds, and it looked like a fluffy weed pit.
All the weeds were transported here together with their roots, and there were even traces of Tibetan sheep gnawing on them. If they had not used preconceived notions to deliberately search for them, even if they passed by this stone pit, they would still have them. It is ignored.
A group of bodyguards quickly cleared away all the weeds at the bottom of the pit, and a burglary cave the size of one person appeared in front of everyone.
Judging from the cave digging skills, Captain Dong should still be a skilled native master.
It seems that in order to find the dragon, he must have done a lot of digging and digging graves.
In addition to a downward robbery hole, some traces of artificial excavation can also be seen vaguely in this stone pit. Some stones in the soil of the stone pit also seem to have some traces of artificial carving.
Captain Dong, who was lying here at the beginning, must have discovered something extraordinary in the soil of the stone pit, so he gradually started to dig deeper into the soil.
"Move camp."
Now that the bandit cave leading to the initial refuge of the Queen Mother of the West had been discovered, Jiang Yingxue waved her hand and directly ordered everyone to move the previous camp here.
Even if leaving the poisonous place would cause the toxin levels in their bodies to fluctuate greatly, they could no longer care about that at this time.
The current logic of operations has changed dramatically. The previous cautious defensive strategy is no longer suitable for the current pace of exploration. Even if some problems occur due to the violent fluctuations of toxins in the body, they have to resist.
In the blink of an eye, they turned from defenders to attackers, and to a certain extent, they had trapped Captain Dong, making him a turtle in the urn in a broad sense.
The transfer of the camp went very smoothly. At nightfall, all the core tents had been set up, and the low-lying stone pit was completely covered by a huge tent.
The floating soil at the entrance of the cave was thoroughly cleaned, and many stone carvings with clearer textures were excavated during the process. They did not look like some kind of funerary objects with special symbolic significance, but more like some random gravel mixed in.
Continuing to excavate inside, the area inside the stone pit showed a trumpet-shaped expansion. Overall, it looked like a collapse hole had appeared somewhere in the underground shelter, which was eventually transformed into a secret exit.
It can be seen that the formal entrance, which was very conspicuous at the beginning, has been completely buried by the sealing earth, and the external area has either collapsed or been blocked by a large number of stones.
Continuing to excavate down the robbery hole, the number of gravels is increasing, like an area that has been filled in hastily. Because of this, the subsequent robbery holes become more and more scrawled and tortuous. At the end of the excavation, the robbery hole is It collapsed and disappeared.
Faced with this situation, Bai Ning ordered people to install expansion bolts on the stone layer on the side, and installed an additional layer of insurance on all personnel and equipment.
Continuing to dig down for one or two meters, the gravel soil suddenly sank downwards. With a muffled "crash" sound, a large piece of gravel soil in the central area collapsed downward, revealing a dark space below.
After all the personnel stabilized their bodies in mid-air, a large number of sudden stone bars appeared in front of everyone at the collapse. They illuminated a circle with a strong flashlight, like a man-made dome structure supporting the previous earthwork and rubble. landfill layer.
Captain Dong was able to drill a hole in such a dome structure and ensure that it did not collapse. His tomb robbing skills were truly miraculous.
Without enough time to sigh, all personnel continued to clean up the earthwork rubble above the dome, and finally removed all the dome stone strips that might pose a threat.
After completing all this, it was already late at night, and a tunnel leading to the initial refuge of the Queen Mother of the West appeared in front of everyone.
The fluorescent stick that had been thrown down long ago reflected the sparkling light like a candle in the deep underground. When I looked down, I felt like I was peering into the bottomless abyss.
Captain Dong has been exploring this underground ruins for two days and two nights, but now there is still no trace of turning back, and he has no idea what he is going through inside.
The night was deep, and the people responsible for the excavation had already dispersed to rest. Bai Ning and Jiang Yingxue, who could not sleep at all, led an advance team of 5 people to descend directly down the zipline.
Nights in high mountain areas are already cold, let alone such a huge cavity buried countless meters underground.
During the rapid descent, I could already feel the cold wind hitting my face. As soon as I stood firm at the bottom of the cave, an indescribable feeling of coldness penetrated through my warm clothes and entered my internal organs.
This feeling was very similar to the cold hallucination that suddenly occurred under the torture of drugs. It made Jiang Yingxue wonder if there were some traps set up by Captain Dong nearby.
The advance team did not blindly explore the surroundings, but installed a large number of lighting equipment in this dark underground.
As high-brightness lamps light up the entire underground cavity, a large number of ancient relics are clearly presented in front of everyone.
The previously collapsed stone strips and earthwork collapsed the roof of a residential house, and the main structure of the house with broken walls and ruins was not much better. It seemed that if a gust of wind blew up, it would be completely reduced to a pile of ruins.
The entire area illuminated by lights is a seemingly small residential area. All the roofs have decayed and collapsed, exposing the stone frame structure inside.
There was no moss or other ferns on the walls, but instead they were covered with a layer of old dirt mixed with a lot of dust.
The disintegration of stone requires microbial corrosion or weathering from sunlight and rain. This stone building is quite well preserved underground in the absence of light, wind and rain.
In addition to the convenience of using local materials, this may be the key to choosing to use stone to build the basic structure.
After taking a brief look around, except for a few faint footprints that appeared on the dusty ground, I didn't find many clues left by Captain Dong on the main roads.
Following these footprints may be able to roughly confirm Captain Dong's departure path, but because the interval is too long, we want to completely catch up with him unless we encounter some unexpected situation.
After setting up the initial base here, Bai Ning led everyone to follow Captain Dong's footprints and continue deeper. Not far away, the moisture on the ground began to become heavier, and occasionally some water began to appear on the stone ground.
Soon, a large shallow water area appeared in front of everyone, like a tributary of an underground river, spreading over the endless man-made square.
It was obvious that the drainage system of this shelter was damaged, causing waterlogging in the underground city.
The instability of this underground shelter made Bai Ning and others lose the possibility of continuing to track Captain Dong, which dampened the morale of the team.
Standing in front of this shallow water area that was just below his ankles, Jiang Yingxue didn't see any sign from Bai Ning and seemed a little confused.
"Aren't you going to move on?
Crossing this shallow water area, you might be able to find fresher water-stained footprints on the other side. "
While Jiang Yingxue inspected the specific scale of the shallow water area, she casually chatted a few words, as if she wanted to relieve the fatigue from the journey.
Although the effect of the medicine on her is much smaller now, the inability to sleep shows the serious situation of the poison residue.
