Chapter 38: White Jade Bell (IV)
Jiang Xian was silent.
The Mausoleum of the Qin Emperor, the first cemetery in China throughout the ages, hides too many secrets. As they go deeper and deeper, their speculations are overturned again and again. Now he is not sure what is inside.
An underground super project? Apart from the Mausoleum of the Qin Emperor, what else can be called a super project?
"Why do I have to think so much?" After a long while, he looked at the sunlight coming in from the cave entrance, and suddenly smiled: "This is my last chance, if I don't succeed, I will die... No matter what it is, I will get the answer in the end as long as I get through it!"
………………………………
Time passed quickly. At ten o'clock in the morning, four figures were already standing twenty meters away from the cave entrance.
"Are you ready?" Jiang Xian asked in a deep voice, and the other three nodded solemnly at the same time. Jiang Xian took a few deep breaths, flicked his fingers, and the exquisite dice flew straight out and landed on the ground with a thud.
At the same time, Ling Xiaozi held the handle of the whisk. Hong Si Niang's eyes had narrowed slightly, and her breathing was almost inaudible. Her tall body was almost motionless. Her feet were not straight. Her hands tightly grasped the pipe. From the fingers of the eight-armed arhat, several sharp weapons like wolf teeth had already been extended.
Everything seemed to stop, and only the sound of the exquisite dice spinning on the ground could be heard. After several tens of seconds, it fell to the ground with a "click". Jiang Xian held the hilt of the sword behind him and rushed out without hesitation.
Clang! The moment he rushed out, the Dragon Slaying Sword flew out against the wind, and a streak of light like autumn water flashed across the air. However, when he took a firm step, he discovered...
Nothing at all.
Compared with the previous Scarlet Heart, this place seems like a paradise.
Under my feet, there is a 15-meter-wide road. It was carved from the original cave wall and paved with bluestone. There are two-meter-high stone guardrails on the edge. Thousands of years have passed, and the cracks in the bluestones have long been full of tenacious weeds. I don’t know how many times this bluestone road has been trampled, and even the brick seams can’t be seen clearly. The outer guardrail has long been blurred by natural erosion. I can vaguely see the blurred carvings on it. Telling the vicissitudes of time.
The stone walls on both sides showed traces of artificial carving and were polished very smooth. However, after thousands of years, only messy plants were left. Even the lamp holders on the wall were covered by plant roots.
No murderous intent.
Instead, it gives people a feeling of a winding path leading to a secluded place.
Jiang Xian did not put away his sword, but continued to look outside. Outside the guardrail, a patch of tree roots hung down like a waterfall, like a natural screen for this passage. These tree roots had been growing for who knows how many years, densely packed and impenetrable.
"Such dense tree roots..." He frowned slightly, as if something flashed through his mind. The Dragon Slayer Sword gently lifted the tree root screen and murmured, "I'm afraid that only banyan trees can have such dense tree roots in nature..."
At the moment when the tree root screen was opened, his pupils suddenly shrank. Then he froze in place!
He finally... knew what had just flashed through his mind.
"Hey?" Ling Xiaozi blinked behind him: "What's wrong? Did you see the master resurrected?"
Without answering, Jiang Xian just silently made way. Ling Xiaozi looked at him in confusion and followed him out. As he walked out of the cave, he saw the tree root screen that Jiang Xian had lifted up, and the view in front of him suddenly became clear.
What appeared in front of him was a huge pit.
It was probably a thousand meters wide and circular. Like a Hakka earth building. Rays of sunlight shone down from the top of the cave, illuminating patches of color below. An underground river several dozen meters wide flowed slowly through it, shimmering like thousands of golden threads. Clusters of bright flowers bloomed in the water, swaying slightly in the sunlight, humbly seeking survival.
They were not on the ground, but in mid-air, about twenty meters above the ground.
From left to right, there were nine holes on each side. They were five meters high and four meters wide. They were at the third hole on the left. In the middle of the two holes was a platform covered with dust. The carvings were already blurred.
"Nature's uncanny workmanship." Ling Xiaozi sighed, then looked at Jiang Xian in astonishment: "Why are you so surprised? Have you seen similar scenes before?"
"I've seen it before." Jiang Xian sighed, closed his eyes and said slowly: "Everyone, welcome to Wowokeng."
Wo Wo pit?
These three words made everyone stunned. Ling Xiaozi suddenly rushed to the guardrail and looked at the magnificent natural wonders below. After a few seconds, he turned around and said in astonishment: "Is this the Wowo Pit? That's where you went down?!"
Jiang Xian opened his eyes and nodded. After the initial shock, a feeling of unexpectedness yet reasonableness arose spontaneously.
Yes...it should be so...Darog Village is only two kilometers away from the big banyan tree where they came from...
"You didn't realize there was a circular passage here before ?"
Jiang Xian smiled bitterly and said, "I was with a group of rookies at the time, and I was only concerned about getting out. Besides, this place is like one of the floors of a tulou, with obstructions above and below, and built against the wall of the cave. I was like looking up from the center of the tulou, and there were tree roots blocking the way. How could I have found it?"
After finally waiting for Jiang Xian to admit defeat verbally, Ling Xiaozi suddenly felt refreshed and raised his eyebrows: "How do we leave now?"
Jiang Xian did not answer, but walked to the middle and gently stroked the railing of the platform. These stone buildings have been there for thousands of years, but they are still strong. It's just that under natural erosion, the exquisite carvings of the past can no longer be seen.
From here, you can overlook the entire Wowokeng.
He closed his eyes again and tapped his fingers on the guardrail. This time he didn't open his eyes for a full ten minutes. Then he took out then... aimed it at the stone plank road hundreds of meters away.
Bang! With a muffled sound, a long nail shot out. Before it could hit the target, several long nails followed closely behind with a few bangs. Suddenly, they landed on the stone plank road!
At the moment of the nail being driven in, a tooth-grinding mechanical sound was heard instantly. The next second, with the naked eye, more than a dozen Qin-style long halberds, shining silver in the sun, suddenly thrust out, with such force that the tree roots outside were blown up one after another.
"Oh my god..." Right behind him, Hong Si Niang's eyes twitched slightly. Ling Xiaozi looked at Jiang Xian as if he had seen a ghost: "Why are you..."
"Because I can think from their perspective." Before he could finish, Jiang Xian stared ahead and said in a deep voice, "What if this is a warehouse? What if this is a tomb?"
"I have two answers. First, if it is a warehouse, according to the Qin Dynasty system, if they want to build a huge underground project, they will never allow leaks." He looked to the left and said, "Such a large warehouse... It is very likely that we have not explored it all. The underground palace we saw on the Great Wall before had more than one floor, at least five or six floors. How much supplies can it hold?"
"How many civilians are needed to transport these supplies?"
The train of thought continued smoothly: "With so many civilians, how can we ensure that they will not mutiny? I think if I were the builder, I would definitely leave some traps to prevent mutiny."
He pointed at the halberd that had not yet been retracted: "These things were the backup plans of the rulers at that time. Once anything unexpected happens, the mechanism will immediately pierce all the people in the passage! No matter how many people there are, they will not be enough to die."
"The mechanism is hidden behind the cracks in the rocks..." He pointed his finger across the entire cave from left to right: "As long as you step onto the plank road, there is a halberd behind the rocks. The only safe place is here."
He didn't say what would happen if it was a mausoleum. The answer was too simple - if it was a mausoleum, there would also be traps, because it was the way to the outside world! The emperor's mausoleum would not let anyone who knew about it escape!
"It's safe here..." Hong Si Niang looked at the ground, then looked ahead, and suddenly an idea came to her mind: "The view here is unique... You mean, this is where the supervisor used to stay. Naturally, there won't be any traps?"
Jiang Xian nodded. Then he frowned and said, "The problem now is, how are we going to get there?"
"Perhaps walking normally won't trigger it?" Ling Xiaozi pondered, "Several monkeys and cranes came last night, but they didn't trigger it either..."
"They are very likely to have climbed up from here." Hong Si Niang added, "And the nail gun was enough to trigger it just now... This shows that its trigger mechanism is very delicate. If you are not careful will be pierced by thousands of halberds. In this unique terrain, it is almost impossible to avoid it. I dare only say that there is a 20% chance of success."
Just as he finished speaking, Jiang Xian's eyes suddenly lit up and he began to look around. He said in a deep voice, "Well said. The ape crane may have crawled over from here, but... where is the exploration team of the Chongxu Sect?"
Did they fly here?
This mechanism is very simple, but the difficulty lies in the geographical location. It is truly a situation where one man guards the pass and ten thousand men cannot get through. How did the other party get through?
Ling Xiaozi raised his eyebrows: "Yuanhe can climb it, but Chongxu can't?"
The profound meaning of "Da You monk can touch it, but I, Ah Q, cannot"...
"No!" Before he could finish, Hong Si Niang also reacted. She raised her eyebrows and said, "Mr. Jiang told us that there are mutant lampreys in this river."
"Even he couldn't tell it apart the first time. Although the Chongxu Sect is famous, in terms of individual strength, I believe Mr. Jiang from the Feng Shui group ranks first. If he can't see it, it is very likely that others can't see it either."
Ling Xiaozi suddenly realized, and immediately looked towards the river, muttering: "The Chongxu Sect's exploration team left more than a dozen bodies in the hall behind. Their team is not small. If they walked from below or from the opposite side, they must have passed through the river. It is very likely that they suffered casualties in the river. But..."
However, there is no trace of it in this river!
No body, no clothes, no backpack!
They didn't crawl over here.
Ling Xiaozi's eyes became brighter and brighter. "The weight of the backpack cannot be washed away by the river water. With lampreys in the river, it is even more impossible to go down to the river to salvage the bodies. In other words..."
There is only one answer - there is a 99% chance that they did not go into the river.
Here... there is another way!
