The next day, Chen Yuan and others all got up early. Taimo has already set up his horse in the morning light. Although he still can't open his eyes, he doesn't know whether he is still asleep or intoxicated by the faint morning light.
Dai Erban was lying under the eaves, holding a piece of grass and basking in the sun.
Gu Ming sat on the steps and asked: "His second brother, I didn't even ask him carefully yesterday, how could you be besieged?"
"Bah, you are so unlucky. If you want to lie on the roof and eavesdrop, you will break the tiles." Dai Er spat out the grass roots in his mouth and cursed.
"With your skills, you shouldn't." Chen Yuan was also quite surprised.
"Uh... wasn't it? Yesterday, my legs and feet were a little weak..." Dai Er said, scratching his head in embarrassment.
The two of them laughed and bent over.
"But I have a long memory, and I will have experience in the future." Dai Er said.
"It's good to have a long memory. If the enemy this time is stronger, you will tell me where it is. Do you dare not visit the brothel again before getting down to business?" Gu Ming said with satisfaction.
"What did you say?" Dai Er opened his mouth and asked in surprise, "When did I say I would stop visiting brothels?"
"It's not that I won't go shopping, I just won't go shopping before getting down to business." Gu Ming said angrily.
"That's not okay! I'm going to ascend the throne later, so I have to go shopping now!" Dai Er said matter-of-factly, quite seriously, with sincerity in his eyes.
"Then tell me what your memory is." Gu Ming laughed angrily.
"From now on, before we get down to business, no matter how many women we find, we have to let them move on their own. I won't move again. Really, my legs will become weak when they are used." Dai Er was quite satisfied with the last verse he came up with. Satisfied, he clapped twice.
After Chen Yuan and Gu Ming listened, they looked at the complacent Dai Er and were speechless for a long time.
"What are you talking about? You are so happy." A person strode into the courtyard. Unexpectedly, the prince also got up early.
"Uncle Wang, why haven't you had a good sleep after running around for a few days?" Chen Yuan said with a smile.
"Shenman doesn't want to sleep. Your uncle and I are full of energy." The prince patted his chest and said.
"But compared to this good nephew, I'm a little behind. After all, I'm getting older." The prince pointed to two people and said: "I have a friend who asked me to ask what this good nephew eats on weekdays. Is it nourishing?”
"Uncle Wang..." Chen Yuan was speechless.
"Haha, let's get down to business!" The prince smiled and said haha, "Didn't I say yesterday that I would take you to Shuangfeng Mountain today? Let's leave early while it's cool." He said again.
"Let's go!" Upon hearing this, Chen Yuan immediately became energetic and jumped in front of the prince.
"Just the two of us?" the prince asked, looking at Gu Ming and Dai Er.
"This... is the prince's secret after all..." Gu Ming hesitated.
"Yes, it's a secret. It's so secret that I don't even know what I'm guarding." The prince smiled.
"Then, I will go together." Gu Ming said.
"Then let's go quickly. Yun'er will wake up soon and will pester you again." The prince said.
"I'm not going." Dai Er didn't even get up. He picked up a piece of grass from somewhere and moved it under the sun.
"Well, you are injured. It doesn't matter if you take it easy. Then you can watch Mo Mo practice." Gu Ming said.
"I don't look at it either." Dai Er said, shaking the grass on his lips up and down.
"You don't do this or that, what are you going to do?" Gu Ming stepped on Dai Er's calf and asked.
"I'm going to find Lele." Dai Er looked at the sky with empty eyes, and said: "She owes me one more time..." After saying that, drool and a smile slowly appeared on the corner of his mouth, and his eyes became more and more empty, as if In a dream.
Gu Ming didn't say anything, turned around and left. He rarely cursed people and whispered: "What a fucking beast."
The prince said: "My dear nephew, my friend asked me to inquire about something. You can serve some snacks and write me a recipe." Chen Yuan pulled the prince out of the house, dumbfounded.
The two-humped sacred mountain looks like a camel's hump from a distance, high in the west and short in the east. In fact, the two humps are about the same height. It is only because the terrain is higher in the west and lower in the east that one appears taller and the other shorter. But no matter you are tall or short, you get the same amount of sunshine, rain and dew. God is fair to both of you and will not give you more rain just because you are taller. And because you're short, I won't let you bask in the sun more to make you grow taller. The trees on both sides are equally lush, mainly pines and cypresses, and are full of vitality all year round. Because of its reputation as a sacred mountain, felling was prohibited in the past dynasties, so the trees are thicker and taller than those on other mountain peaks. Other mountain peaks can show some mottled earth color, but the Shuangfeng Sacred Mountain is like an emerald green and airtight barrier.
"Did you see it? The Earth Temple is right under the short peak." The prince said.
Chen Yuan said nothing and looked at the sacred mountain from a distance. He didn't know what he was thinking, but he could see some excitement.
"On the top of the mountain on the higher side, there is a small broken house. It is really small, not as big as the room you live in. The house is not high, and the trees have completely blocked it. Once you reach the top, Only then can you see that there are three words written on the door plaque: Wushen Pavilion." The prince said again.
"What's in the pavilion?" Chen Yuan asked.
"There is nothing. Even though it is called the Martial God Pavilion, there are no statues of any gods. There is only an old man living there and a boy. They clean the house and the courtyard every day," the prince said.
"Just an old man? How did he achieve the cooperation with all the previous dynasties? Just by him?" Chen Yuan said in surprise.
"There are other places. Most of the places are relatively hidden, and there are no deeds or reputations in the world, so people know very little about it." The prince said.
Chen Yuan pursed his lips and did not speak, but the look in his eyes became more and more excited, which was difficult to conceal. His legs also clamped the horse tighter, urging him harder, and finally he simply jumped off the horse and started running on his own.
Finally arriving, Chen Yuan observed the terrain here. He was now standing at the foot of the short peak, and one mile ahead was the taller peak, where Wushen Pavilion and the mysterious old man were at the top. Chen Yuan held his breath and concentrated. In the dense mountain forest, the sound of the gurgling spring water washing against the stones rang in his ears. The breeze blew through the top of the grass, and a Grasshopper lying on the heavy grass head was shaken lazily. It chirped, as if whispering a curse to the breeze for disturbing its sweet dreams. The chirping of various insects appeared chaotically and clearly in Chen Yuan's ears. Not far away, a snake hissed up the tree trunk. The young birds in the nest "chirped" as if they had discovered danger, calling out to the people who were out looking for food for them. Big bird. "Shen Ling!" Chen Yuan shouted in his heart. This is a meditation-like technique given to him by his father, which can adjust various feelings to an incredible level. After Shen Ling, he smelled the fart of a pedestrian a hundred feet away from him, or heard the whispers of an adulterer and an adulterous woman hiding in the valley a hundred feet away. It's like putting your face against a pedestrian's butt and smelling it, or lying between them and listening. It's just that this skill requires too much preparation time to perform, and it's generally not very useful. Chen Yuan doesn't use it often. At this moment, Chen Yuan's spiritual awareness had sunk to the deepest level, and all of it was in his ears. Chen Yuan couldn't wait to go up to that mountain peak. At this moment, he let his sense of hearing go and explore it to see if it had the sound of bells, drums and sutras being read like the imaginary thousand-year-old temple. However, in addition to the chirping of insects and birds, and the approaching sound of horse hooves, the prince and Gu Ming also arrived.
"Good boy, you ran fast!" said the prince.
"Teach your soldiers this skill, then let's start the war..." the prince said again.
"I might as well give you a horse lesson. A horse that has learned kung fu is no faster than a person who has learned kung fu." Chen Yuan was interrupted and Shen Ling said angrily.
"Oops!" The prince choked, and said, "What do you think, do you want to go up now? You'd better take a look at what I'm guarding first."
"Let's first see what the Martial God Pavilion asked you to guard." Chen Yuan was equally curious about this thing.
"Come this way." The prince said and took the lead into the dense forest of Aifeng.
After walking a few dozen steps, we were still at the foot of the mountain, just about to go up the mountain. A small earth temple half a person tall appeared next to a few people. There were no clay sculptures or any other statues inside. Only the mural of the earth god was painted on the back wall. He was a smiling old man with a white beard and a cane. There were several unburned but long-extinguished candles at the entrance of the temple. The wax oil was condensed and spread all over the floor. There were many incense heads scattered on the ground, some long and some short. Some incense heads were sealed in condensed wax oil, and there was dirty ashes everywhere. It seems that there used to be incense, but not much, and not many people came here in recent years.
"Is this the entrance?" Chen Yuan asked.
"Yes." The prince nodded and said no more. He pulled out the sword from his waist and cut off some legless grass in front of him. Two steps forward, I found a bronze sculpture that had fallen to the ground under a locust tree. Half of its body was buried in the soil, with only one side of its wings and head exposed. It was a vulture. The prince spat first, then stepped on the vulture's wings and slashed the vulture's neck with his sword. "Buzz--" A dull golden sound penetrated the wormwood and woods with a long sound, startling a group of roosting crows and magpies to fly away. "Click", another sound similar to the opening of a door sounded. Chen Yuan followed the sound and looked. The Tudigong on the wall actually threw away the crutch in his hand - the back wall cracked between Tudigong's hand and the crutch. Open it, slowly separate it to both sides, until it stops with another "click", and a large and naked hole half a man's height is placed in front of the three people. The prince was familiar with the road and bent down to get in, followed closely by Chen Yuan. As soon as you get in, it immediately opens up. From the light coming in from the entrance of the cave, you can roughly see that almost half of the mountain is empty. Whether the cave is naturally formed or dug by man is unknown. , in short the space is large enough. It's like a huge underground palace, and this palace only has a door that is half a person high. However, the palace is quite shabby. If Chen Yuan lived here, everyone would say that his house was bare. The entire underground cave has a slightly flat ground, and there is even a road paved with bluestones. Then there are more than a dozen large pillars extending from the ground to the top of the cave, each one as thick as two people hugging each other. I don't know if it is for decoration or to prevent the earth and rocks on the top from collapsing. Other than that, it can be described as nothing. The huge palace only has some pillars and one road.
The prince was still walking in front, walking more than a hundred steps along the road paved with bluestone slabs, then stopped and looked back, waiting for Chen Yuan and the others to come closer. Before Chen Yuan got closer, he saw a dark cyan wall in the darkness from a distance, standing at the end of the bluestone road.
"Now, I'm just going to guard this thing." When the two of them approached, the prince pointed at the green wall behind him, then turned around and patted it with his hands, as if patting on the thick earth. Apart from the snapping sound of his hands, No more sound.
"Is there a torch?" Chen Yuan asked.
"There are two sticks stuck on both sides of the door, but there are no fire sticks." The prince said.
Chen Yuan walked along the giant door to the edge. The giant door was perfectly embedded in the stone wall of the mountain. The gap between the two was even thinner than a hair. Chen Yuan pulled out the torch inserted in the stone nest, and the cold light from his sleeves flashed on the stone wall. A spark fell into the torch and was not burned. Chen Yuan pulled a few more strokes before the torch started to burn. Chen Yuan held the torch and returned to the bluestone road in the middle. The places illuminated by the fire along the way glowed with the simple light of bronze. Although Chen Yuan did not know the size of this door, he could feel its heaviness and loneliness just by feeling it. , According to what the prince said, this giant bronze door has stood here for many dark years, and what kind of secrets does it guard? No matter how the years pass and the dynasties change, its legacy has always been the lifeblood of the current dynasty. Looking back, there was a small circular open space opposite the bronze door where they passed when walking along the bluestone slab. A high platform was cast in the center of the open space, with nine steps leading to the top of the platform. On the top sat a round tripod with three legs and two ears, and there were things like incense and ashes inside. It appears that this was once an altar.
Chen Yuan gently touched the giant bronze door with his hand, which was cold and simple. He secretly poured in his inner strength without even a trembling ripple. How big is this? How thick is it? Is this a door? The door can be opened and closed. If such a door needs to be opened and closed once, what kind of power will it take? What is the altar across the way worshiping? Are you offering sacrifices to the unknown within this door, or are you offering sacrifices to the bronze door itself? Chen Yuan had too many questions at that moment, and these questions were like the coldness coming from the copper door, making his heart cool down.
"Shen Ling!" Chen Yuan closed his eyes tightly again, as if he wanted to explore the unknown world behind the door through the palm of his hand that was in contact with the door.
Gu Ming and Ran Zheng saw Chen Yuan holding a torch and closing his eyes tightly. There were beads of sweat oozing out from his forehead, and his teeth were clenched. The two of them didn't know what he was doing, but they knew they couldn't interrupt him.
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo..." Finally, Chen Yuan gasped and opened his eyes. This time, Shen Ling went deeper and harder than ever before. He basically exhausted all his internal energy, but he didn't hear the slightest movement from behind the door. . Chen Yuan feebly patted the cold giant in front of him. The giant didn't even make a sound. It was just like it had been in so many previous dynasties, silent, simple, and solemn. Chen Yuan raised his head and looked upwards. The farthest point that the light could reach still did not reach the upper edge of the giant bronze door, so he used his last bit of strength to move upwards, which was a full three feet high. Chen Yuan raised the torch above his head at the highest point and could no longer see the end. So he threw it upwards with all his strength, and finally at the end of the firelight, he saw the upper edge of the bronze door, which, like the two sides, was embedded in the mountain at the top.
Chen Yuan landed, took a deep breath, stretched out his hand to catch the fallen torch, and said: "Thirty feet, if not thirty feet, there must be twenty-six-seven." Then he walked from one end of the door to the other while holding the torch. On the other hand, he said: "The width is not that big, at most fifteen or sixty feet."
"Uh!" The prince stared, but hesitated to speak.
"What's wrong, Uncle Wang, what's this expression?" Chen Yuan leaned on his knees and panted, looking at Ran Zhengdao.
"Why are you going to all the trouble? If you want to know the size, just ask me. I've measured it..." the prince said in a softer voice.
"..." Chen Yuan felt dizzy and quickly sat cross-legged on the ground to adjust his breathing. Gu Mingze turned his head away, and heard the intermittent sound of "chichichi". It was obvious that he wanted to hold back his laughter but failed to hold it in. He just laughed half a time, then quickly held it back, and so on.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Chen Yuan stood up and said still a little weakly.
"You didn't even ask," the prince said.
"Okay, let me ask you, Uncle Wang, have you ever studied the pillars in this cave?" Chen Yuan asked.
"I've researched it! It's made of the same material as the bronze door, and it was obviously made in the same period." The prince nodded.
"What's next?" Chen Yuan asked.
"Besides, these pillars are solid." The prince thought for a while and said.
"No?" Chen Yuan said.
"It's gone, what else can there be?" the prince said matter-of-factly.
"Didn't you measure the size of the door? You should have gone up to the top of the cave." Chen Yuan said.
"Yes, with a little effort, you can climb up along the rock wall on the side of the door." The prince said.
"You didn't find anything? For example, these pillars in the temple are actually not connected to the top, that is, they just stand there empty." Chen Yuan said.
"What?" the prince said in surprise, "Aren't these pillars used to support the roof of the cave? Just stand there empty?" The prince's eyes widened.
"Well, I saw it when I threw the torch up just now." Chen Yuan nodded.
"Then what's the use of these pillars..." The prince said to himself as he walked to the nearest copper pillar, walked around in a circle, and looked at the top again.
Chen Yuan was also puzzled, and followed the prince to do the same action again, patted the copper pillar again, and scratched his head. No matter how wild and wild Ren Chenyuan's mind was, there was no room for fantasy about this door and pillars.
"Let's go, we've seen everything there is to see, and there's nothing else here." Chen Yuan said. He wanted to go out and see if he could get some light, and an idea flashed in his mind.
"You have no clue, don't you? Don't blame me. I've been guarding this piece of shit for decades. I've been researching it for at least a hundred times, but I've found nothing." The prince said.
"Yes, you said that such a big door is a whole. Logically speaking, the door should be two, pushed or pulled apart from the middle. But this copper door doesn't even have a seam in the middle. It is a whole piece of copper. Pimple, how did it open? Fall down? Lift it up?" said Gu Ming, who had been silent for a long time.
After hearing this, Chen Yuan's eyes widened immediately. He walked to the pillar closest to the door, patted it, looked at the door again, and said, "Get out of the way."
