Volume 1 Hello, Lu Mingfei Chapter 66: Dragon Servant (I)
Yangtze River, China.
Tonight is a rare rainstorm, the sluice gates in the sky seem to have been opened, the rain is pouring down, making the decks crackle. All the ships have moored to the shore for shelter, only the tugboat Moniach is still swaying like duckweed in the wind and rain, its xenon lights flickering on the river.
This is a secret operation of Kassel College, codenamed Kuimen Project, named after the place. One of the mixed-blood families from China, the Cao family helped the college obtain the right to block the river tonight, and no unrelated personnel would appear nearby until dawn.
Professor Mans Rundstedt, the captain of the Moniach, sat in the cockpit with a headset on. Drops of rain hit the window in front of him and the strong wind made the sudden rain even more dangerous.
But the more this happens, the more this action cannot be stopped. The awakening of the Dragon King is often accompanied by the distribution of elemental turbulence, including but not limited to storms, thunder, lightning, ice and snow, and even earthquakes. The extremely rare rainstorms may not be natural phenomena, but may also be the self-defense mechanism produced by the target who has sensed the danger.
This is the Yangtze River bank west of Qutang Gorge, also known as Kuimen. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty and changed the country's name to Xin. General Gongsun Shu swept away the bandits in Yizhou, full of vigor and vitality, and put on a white robe. At that time, there was an ancient well in the city, which often emitted white steam, like a white dragon. There was even a real dragon that jumped out of the well and occupied the mansion. Gongsun Shu took this opportunity to become the emperor, and the city he ruled was named Baidi City.
According to Chinese history books, Gongsun Shu occupied Shu and fought many battles with Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu until the Grand Marshal Wu Han led an army to attack and finally defeated the enemy. All members of Gongsun Shu's family were killed.
In the history of the dragon clan, this story is completely different. Gongsun Shu did see a real dragon, the King of Bronze and Fire, the first generation of the direct lineage of the Black King Nidhogg, one of the four noble monarchs, Norton. It was with the help of the dragon clan that Gongsun Shu was able to sweep across Shu in a short period of time. The one who defeated him, Wu Han, was from the ancient Chinese mixed-blood Wu family. Despite the help of the emperor, the Wu family still paid the price of almost extinction for three generations to defeat the dragon clan behind Gongsun Shu, so that this mixed-blood completely disappeared in history during the Three Kingdoms War at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and was no longer recorded.
Now, a thousand years have passed in a flash. The Baidi City of that time has long been submerged in the Yangtze River. New Baidi Cities have been built repeatedly around Kuimen in successive dynasties. The most recent one was also submerged during the construction of the Three Gorges Reservoir. Now only the Baidi Temple remains. That secret past seemed to have been sealed with time, until Kassel College recently obtained accurate information again. The cocoon left by Norton before his death is likely still in the ruins of the ancient Baidi City. The Kuimen plan was finalized.
On the big screen, two green spots of light kept flashing, representing two young hearts, Ye Sheng and Shude Aki, who were currently 90 meters underwater.
But according to previous sonar detection intelligence, the vertical depth of the water here is only about 50 meters. In other words, they have reached a deeper place below the rock layer.
There had just been an earthquake underwater, and the communication signals between them were interrupted for a minute. If the heartbeat monitoring equipment had not been still working, Mance would have thought that those two outstanding young people had left him forever.
"Ye Sheng, Jiude Aji, report your situation!" Mans called repeatedly.
"If you see a wall and you can't see the end whether you look up, down or left, and you can never reach the edge, what is that?" A calm voice sounded in the headset.
"Ye Sheng!" Professor Mans asked happily, "Where are you? I see your depth is 90 meters underwater! Is there something wrong with the equipment?"
"That wall is called death, of course, it could also be the city of the Dragon King." Ye Sheng said, "This is Ye Sheng, Aki and I are fine, we have arrived at the palace of Norton, the King of Bronze and Fire."
Deep under the water, Ye Sheng and Yaji held each other's hands tightly and looked up. The spotlight on the top of the diving suit was lost in the dark green light.
Baidi City has been rebuilt and relocated countless times over the past thousand years, but it has never been able to surpass its original appearance. The Baidi City, which was built by the dragon clan, is actually a city made entirely of bronze. Now it is sleeping on the seabed. The tiny human standing in front of it is like facing a huge bronze wall that stretches infinitely. The mottled traces and human-faced decorations tell of the ancient past. The blackened traces indicate that Baidi City had been baptized by war before sinking to the bottom of the river. The legends in history have been recorded by speechless ancient objects as a reality visible to the naked eye.
Ye Sheng released his Word Spirit, and his consciousness dispersed into thousands of invisible little snakes, which swam along the outer wall of the Bronze City, looking for a possible entrance.
The Word Spirit [Vacuum Snake] is not suitable for fighting, but is more suitable for exploration than any member of the Executive Division. The little snakes whose consciousness split out are like super-precise sonar controlled by Ye Sheng, and those snakes themselves have invisible life and senses. Ye Sheng can feel that several snakes have successfully touched the entrance. It is very damp and cold inside. What is even more surprising is that there is still air there, but the snakes dare not approach, but just wander far away. No matter how Ye Sheng orders them, they will not move forward.
This is an extremely rare phenomenon. Ye Sheng lost control of the snakes, and soon those wandering snakes took the initiative to leave there and return to Ye Sheng's consciousness.
Ye Sheng couldn't help but think of a piece of knowledge written in the textbook. It is said that targets above the Dragon King level will have the ability to protect themselves even in the cocoon state. They will release dragon power around themselves to interfere with the spirits of living things. Ordinary life will feel nauseous and dizzy when approaching the range and will be persuaded to return, while hybrids will suffer from bloodline suppression. The higher the level of the bloodline, the more able they are to resist this kind of mental interference.
Ye Sheng is an excellent commissioner of the executive department. He and Jiude Aki are both of A-level bloodline. If there is something that can interfere with the release of the A-level commissioner's words, the only possibility is the Dragon King himself. In other words, Norton's cocoon is indeed in the Bronze City. It has sensed the coming of danger and is actively protecting itself.
"Are you sure?" Professor Mance asked.
"Professor, if you were here and witnessed all this with your own eyes, you would also believe that this is Norton's palace ." Ye Sheng said, "But the problem is that I can't find a way to get in. The snake reported that it found the entrance, but here I can only see a bronze human face with sharp teeth."
To say that it has a human face may be considered a compliment. There is absolutely no such a hideous human face in the world. Judging from the facial bones and the huge mouth opened 180 degrees, it is more like an anthropomorphic self-portrait of a dragon.
The dragons look down on humans, but they like the human appearance very much. Compared with the huge bodies, the human body is more convenient for interacting with the world. Therefore, the Norton that Gongsun Shu faces is most likely a human version of the noble young man Piao Piao. Having witnessed the miracle of a dragon turning into a human, the ancients of that era certainly respected dragons very much.
However, judging from the ugliness of this bronze face, Norton might be extremely ugly.
"You've found the right place. That's a living spirit." Although he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, Professor Mans's rich knowledge allowed him to imagine the scene Ye Sheng was facing now. "That's a guard made by the dragon clan using once-living humans. The painful and hideous look on its face is caused by the struggle of the living human when it was cast in bronze. Take out the jar of blood I gave you and offer it to the living spirit, and the gate to the Bronze City will open."
The ampoule was on Shude Aki's body and was half filled with blood.
Using living spirits as gate guards is a defense mechanism that weakens intruders. Intruders must be injured in front of this barrier to see the true face of the emperor. The lower the bloodline, the more blood must be offered. However, there is something that can bypass this defense. The power of the dragon race itself has a word spirit called [Solomon's Key], which can open all things like doors in the world, whether they are doors that exist in concepts or doors in the real world.
The secret party has a member who holds the [Key of Solomon], but that person is still a baby and cannot participate in such a dangerous operation. The only way is for the members of the executive department to use the baby's blood and chant the [Key of Solomon] in dragon script.
Jude Aki crushed the ampoule in the bronze human face's open mouth and recited the ancient and mysterious dragon script to the human face through the diving suit mask, although he didn't know whether this dead spirit could still hear the sound.
The scattered blood did not spread in the water. It seemed to be attracted by some special power and flowed into the mouth of the bronze human face. After receiving the offerings, the human face slowly closed its mouth, as if it was full and wanted to take a rest.
As its teeth clenched one by one, a creaking sound of twisted metal came from the bronze wall above its head. Cracks appeared in the bronze walls that seemed to be tightly closed, and the cracks grew larger and larger, eventually expanding to a diameter of more than one meter.
The entrance of the cave was surrounded by spikes that looked like the teeth of a bronze human face, as sharp as swords. It looked a bit like a trap. Ye Sheng guessed that if the amount of blood offered to the human face was not enough or the bloodline was not pure enough, then the entrance would open, but when someone passed through, the entrance would be sealed immediately, strangling the person inside.
He thought so because he saw traces of fabric, metal pieces and something that looked like leather on some of the spikes, which meant that this was not the first time the Bronze City had been opened in thousands of years. People had been here before. As for what the ending would be, he could probably guess it by looking at the entrance.
He couldn't help but be thankful that he and Aki came with the power of words, but even so he couldn't be completely at ease.
"I'll go in first, and you follow me." Ye Sheng gently pulled Yaji behind him and swam into the cave like a fish.
The water flow suddenly accelerated at this moment, and Ye Sheng lost his balance. It seemed as if something in the depths of the cave was pulling him, and the strong attraction was pulling him into the bottomless darkness.
There were spikes on both sides, and Ye Sheng had no foothold. Maybe something went wrong with the [Key of Solomon], and the living spirit did not have enough blood. This was still a trap, and he was about to die. The only thing he could be thankful for was that Aki did not come in.
He closed his eyes and felt that his body seemed to have lost all intuition. The tight feeling of the diving suit was gone, and the touch of the respirator was gone. This was probably a sign that his body was completely crushed. The only thing left was the gentle flow of water carrying him forward. He let go of this feeling and let the water lift him up.
He poked his head out of the water and he could breathe again. Everything that had just happened seemed like a strange dream, and now he was back to reality.
The information that Snake had brought back before was indeed correct. The water did not flood the interior of the Bronze City. Ye Sheng bravely tried to open the mask, and sure enough, there was air. This showed that the interior of the Bronze City was not completely locked, but there was a channel connecting to the outside.
This is a corridor, just like the gate leading to an ancient city. Ye Sheng shone the searchlight around. The sky above his head was completely empty. In the huge space, there were countless bronze artifacts. They were round, surrounded by a circle of sharp structures like wolf teeth. They bit and rotated with each other, just like a mechanical disk that was running all the time.
Norton, the King of Bronze and Fire, controls fire, one of the four elements. It is said that he is the most proficient in alchemy among the ancient Dragon Kings. Now it seems that he may be more proficient in mechanical engineering. The entire Bronze City is completely driven by these bronze gears.
The water behind him splashed, and Jude Aki also floated up from the water, and Ye Sheng pulled her up.
"I feel like I've died once." Shude Aki smiled bitterly. The hole seemed to be the door to another world. The moment you entered, you would be sucked in. That would definitely not be pleasant.
"I also hope that I don't have to pass by that kind of place again when I go back." Ye Sheng smiled, "Open the black box, we have to record everything we see here."
Both of them turned their searchlights to maximum power to explore the boundaries of this bronze city. With every step they took, the footsteps would echo, and the gears would slowly rotate with a creaking sound. Jude Aki felt that he and Ye Sheng were like two tiny ants who had accidentally entered a huge mechanical dial factory.
The deeper they went, the more surprised they were at the grandeur and complexity of this bronze city. The ancient dragons had mastered such wonderful skills many years ago. It was hard to imagine how the hybrids of that era could invade a bronze city guarded by living spirits and attack Gongsun Shu's army and Norton. The sacrifices they made were more than thousands.
"Stop!" Ye Sheng suddenly shouted, with veins bulging on his forehead.
Jiude Aki was shocked. She was about to ask why, but suddenly she understood where Ye Sheng's abnormality came from.
None of them continued to move, but the space around them was still echoing. That was the footsteps of the third person! This person had just kept a striking consistency with them, so none of them noticed it. Until the moment Ye Sheng released the vacuum snake, he was suppressed by his bloodline. The snakes gathered around him, but did not dare to move an inch around him.
Ye Sheng shone the searchlight forward, and in the cold silver light, there seemed to be an invisible ghost standing there.
