Chapter 124: Fengdu Guest (XIV)
When the elevator door on the twenty-first floor opened, the first thing that came into view was a corridor that looked eerie and strange. The corridor was built with blue-gray stone bricks. On the left was an open fence, through which one could see the atrium of the City of the Dead.
Looking from the fence, the light was not bright. The lower level of the City of the Dead had been hidden in the darkness because of their current high position, and the upper level was too high to be seen. All they could see was the repetitive corridors from top to bottom, which made people feel helpless from the bottom of their hearts.
A gust of wind blew, and several pieces of yellow paper money were blown into the air, adding a sinister atmosphere to the depressing scene.
The faint blue flames illuminated the dark bluestone floor. A paper lantern with the word "甸" written on it was swaying in the wind. A few moths were lying on the lanterns. When they saw a stranger approaching, they were startled and flew away with their wings flapping.
Listening to the sound of tiny wings flapping beside his ears, Lu Ren couldn't help but feel a little strange: "Why are there moths in the City of the Dead? Shouldn't this place be full of ghosts? What do these moths eat to survive?"
Before he could ask his doubts, he heard the voices of Lao Li and Mr. Zhang talking behind him.
Old Li seemed to have noticed the moths flying on the lanterns, and frowned and said in dissatisfaction: "Tsk, why are there corpse moths growing on this floor again?"
Mr. Zhang responded calmly, "The lower levels are always more prone to corpse moths. Needless to say, someone must have smuggled a few more tomb robbers' corpses down here to eat as snacks."
"Alas." Old Li sighed after hearing this, as if he was very dissatisfied with the situation where the masses took the initiative and increased his workload. "Tomorrow I will go knock on the doors of those old emperors and check every house. They have a lot of burial objects, so they are the most frequently visited."
Mr. Zhang calmly replied, "Well, I'll go with you. If we split up, we can investigate faster."
Old Li nodded: "I really hope they can cooperate a little and keep the city clean and sanitary. Don't always think about storing the bodies of these tomb robbers for New Year's Eve."
Then, Old Li raised his voice and said to Lu Ren and Chongtong in front of him: "The two Hades are careful, don't let the corpse moth touch your body. Although this thing only eats corpses, the scales on its wings are very poisonous."
Poisonous? Hearing this, Lu Ren felt a great sense of danger. He saw a corpse moth that was tired of flying and just stopped on the wall not far from him to rest.
To make matters worse, there was no one more dangerous than Lu Ren at the moment, because he was the only one holding a lantern, and moths were naturally attracted to light.
What you fear will come to you. Just as Lu Ren was thinking this, the corpse moth that had been resting on the wall next to him seemed to notice the light in his hand, and it suddenly fluttered into the air and flew straight towards Lu Ren.
Lu Ren was shocked: "I can't be so unlucky!"
Just as he was lamenting that his life was over, the quick-eyed and quick-handed Chongtong was the first to react.
He stretched out his hand and grabbed the corpse moth, then gently exerted force with his fingers, and the moth fell down like a cloud of powder. Old Li and Mr. Zhang were both stunned, but Chongtong himself, who was doing all this, did not even change his expression, and easily scattered the powder of the corpse moth.
After raising his hand, Chongtong said "Amen" expressionlessly.
Lu Ren, Lao Li, Mr. Zhang: ???
The atmosphere had already been set to this point, and everyone thought that a huge fierce battle was inevitable, but who knew that it would be so easily physically transcended by Chongtong.
The scene fell into silence for a moment.
After a moment, Old Li coughed and flattered him, "As expected of the Lord of Mount Tai, you are very good at killing corpse moths."
If you think about it carefully, this new generation of Lord Taishan was born in the bloody world. He was an evil ghost who struggled in the sea of blood when the underworld was first established. Later, he fought in the sea of blood as a ghost Gu. You can imagine how resentful he must be.
The poison of the corpse moth is nothing compared to that of the double pupil.
However, Lu Ren's focus was on something else. He looked at Chong Tong and said in surprise, "Lord Taishan?"
Come to think of it, when I first met Lao Li, I was too busy being on guard to investigate further. But now that I think about it, it seems that Lao Li called them "the two Hades" when he first met them?
So this so-called "Lord of Mount Tai" should be the same as "Lord of Biancheng"?
Lu Ren originally thought that the King of Hell should have very strong power in the underworld, but now it seems that he is not the only one.
So Lu Ren turned to Old Li and Mr. Zhang and asked, "So, Bian Cheng is not the only Hades?"
Old Li hadn't yet recovered from the shock of seeing the skilled and daring actions of the man with double pupils, but he didn't expect to be shocked by Lu Ren's ignorance again.
This little Lord of the Underworld seems to know nothing about the affairs of the Underworld?
But despite his surprise, he still explained to Lu Ren respectfully: "Yes, there are a total of ten Hades in the underworld."
Lu Ren understood . He originally thought that the Lord of the Underworld was such a high-ranking profession, but it turns out that there are actually ten of them. So this so-called Lord of the Underworld should be equivalent to a department manager in the underworld, right?
No wonder Bian Cheng had to go to great lengths to find him to cover for him. It turned out that he was just a junior middle-level cadre who was embarrassed to skip work.
After figuring out the key, Lu Ren asked Chongtong, "So, you and Bian Cheng are colleagues?"
Chongtong thought for a moment and replied, "Not familiar, but we have fought before."
Lu Ren then said "Oh" to show that he understood, and thought it was probably just a minor friction caused by the failure of cross-departmental communication, which was not uncommon in the world.
Although Lu Ren was very calm, Old Li and Mr. Zhang who were following behind him didn't dare to breathe after hearing this.
Are these minions really capable of hearing the secrets between the Ten Kings of Hell?
He won’t be silenced, right?
However, the two people walking in front had no idea how taboo the secret they were talking about was. They just mentioned it briefly and then ended the topic normally.
In fact , they were just chatting to give themselves courage. At this moment, there was only a deep corridor in front of them. The lights in the corridor were not bright. The blue phosphorescent light flickered with the cold wind, stretching and shortening the shadows of the columns on one side of the corridor. The whole space seemed to be shaking violently, which made people feel very uneasy visually.
Lu Ren walked two more steps forward along the corridor and found that the rooms on both sides were not doors, but cold tombstones. The inscriptions on the tombstones were either written in seal script or official script. Because Lu Ren had limited education, he could not distinguish what was written. However, in such an environment, surrounded by rows of tombstones, he felt goose bumps all over his back in an instant.
Lu Ren couldn't help but turn his head to look at Lao Li and asked, "Although I know this is the City of the Dead, is it necessary to make the gate into the shape of a tombstone?"
Old Li behind him smiled awkwardly: "These are the tombstones that were erected by relatives after death. They are kept as a reminder."
It turned out to be a tombstone for the dead. No wonder everyone's door here looks different, and the specifications and shapes are also very different.
"But," at this time, Lao Li's somewhat indignant voice came, "It's time for them to stop this trend. My neighbor Lao Wang is like this. He always shows off to me the tombstone his grandson built for him. It's big and magnificent, and he laughs at my tombstone for being low-class. Bah! He's already dead and he still cares about these things. Unlike me! I don't care about these material things at all!"
Although Lao Li said that he didn't care, as he spoke his face gradually turned gray and worn, and the arrow hole in his head began to bleed.
He was so jealous that he suddenly looked like he was dying.
"It seems like he cares a lot." Lu Ren and Mr. Zhang thought so at the same time.
In order not to arouse Lao Li's unpleasant memories, Lu Ren quickly changed the subject: "By the way, are you almost home?"
After hearing this, Lao Li quickly pulled himself out of his negative emotions, and his originally gray face became no different from that of an ordinary person.
"It's almost there. It's right in front. It's the third one after turning left."
Lu Ren and others finally arrived outside the door of Lao Li's house. Lu Ren carefully observed the door of Lao Li's house. The gray stone was not even polished clean, and the surface was uneven. There were several lines of words carved crookedly on it, which he thought should be Lao Li's life.
In comparison, the tombstone next to Old Li's is almost twice as big as his, and the inscription on the surface looks very neat and the font is also very neat, which shows that it has been repaired by a professional. It is obvious that he must have been a wealthy family before his death.
But what's the use? No matter rich or poor, we will all be together after death. What's the use of all the wealth? In the end, it can only be transformed into a few lines of inscription on the tombstone.
Old Li stood in front of his own tombstone, and it opened automatically, revealing the appearance of Old Li's home.
What was revealed behind the tombstone was actually the furnishings of a thatched cottage. Looking out the window, it was pitch black. It was night. He could vaguely see a few acres of thin fields outside the house with the help of the lights in the house. But the fields were bare and there was nothing in them, showing a desolate atmosphere. Looking further away, at the edge of the fields, a brick wall came into view. This seemed to be the boundary of Lao Li's family. Then, as if he had thought of something, Lu Ren looked up at the sky, but found that what he saw was not the night sky, but a brick dome.
There are fertile fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees and bamboos.
Of course, not all the residences of the dead ghosts look like Lao Li's. The place where the dead ghosts live often contains the obsessions of the deceased. Lao Li died in the war years, so he was hungry and cold. His only dream was to have a few pieces of land and a roof over his head, so his residence automatically turned into this.
Perhaps from today's perspective, this place seems a bit simple.
But it is hard to imagine that something that some people discard like trash may be the obsession of others.
The residential styles in the City of the Dead are very diverse. For example, a few floors down, King Zhou's house was filled with wine and meat; and further up, Mr. Zhang's house is a one-to-one replica of his former office in the CBD of a big city.
It has to be said that this quick tour of the City of the Dead really gave Lu Ren a new understanding of the decoration and design of tombs, which was simply breathtaking.
After the visit to the tomb, Lao Li went back to his room to get the key and without staying for long, he quickly led everyone out of his home.
This time, because they had walked through the corridor once and were familiar with its layout, and they also knew that the corridor itself was relatively safe, Lu Ren was not as nervous as before, and everyone returned to the elevator extremely quickly.
The elevator started up again smoothly and should have gone all the way to the gate of the City of the Dead if nothing went wrong. However, when it reached the 50th floor, the elevator slowed down and finally stopped. Then the elevator door slowly opened - someone outside was about to get on the elevator.
