?

  Pangzi's hand had just touched Hei Xiangzi's face when his wrist was grabbed. Hei Xiangzi grasped Pangzi's wrist like a vice, and I thought something was wrong, so I raised my dagger to charge forward. Just then, Hei Xiangzi suddenly gasped for breath: "Quickly...go...have..." Before he could finish speaking, he fell down again.

  I exchanged a glance with Fatso, and we were both stunned. What the...? Did he think this was a TV drama or something? He died at the critical moment?! I quickly went to check Black Blindman's breathing, and he hadn't stopped yet.

  He said to hurry... Is there something extremely terrifying here? Hei Mangzi, I've only cooperated with him once. This guy is a typical smiling tiger. At She Zong's place, whether it was during critical moments or when everyone was chatting and laughing while camping, he always had a cheerful expression. Although I knew he wasn't simple, I didn't think too badly of him either. If not for Pangzi's description, I'm afraid that if I met him again, I would still invite him to dinner or something.

  As a result, this reclusive smiling tiger has encountered an extremely frightening event.

  I was lost in thought at the critical moment, when a dull gunshot suddenly rang out beside my ear. The gunshot came from the darkest place and spread through the echo, like a low growl of a ghost.

  How could there be someone firing a gun here? Is it Second Uncle or Xiaohua's people? I was startled by the gunshot and didn't have time to think about Hei Mangzi's words. Pangzi also heard the sound and couldn't care less about Hei Mangzi, hastily pulling me to leave. I said: "Wait, what about them?"

  Fatso was taken aback and said, "What's the point of caring about their lives or deaths? Haven't you heard that a fight has broken out downstairs? Maybe your second uncle is being bullied by that Qi guy, we have to hurry up and rescue him!" Fatso's words were not wrong, but these eight people, although they were on their last breath, had not yet stopped breathing. If we abandoned them, they would probably die in this fight, after all, it was eight lives at stake. Thinking of this, I still couldn't bring myself to do it.

  I couldn't help but scold myself in my heart, I've really forgotten the pain after the wound healed, Wu Xie, you deserved it.

  Finally, I took out a half-eaten packet of vacuum-packed beef and put it into Hei Yanzi's arms. Now in this situation, even if we wanted to save them, it would be impossible. Whether they live or die is up to fate now.

  Fatso seemed to want to say something, moved his lips, finally sighed, pulled my arm and jumped down the stairs, scolding me along the way: "What's wrong with you, when did your sympathy become so cheap? That package of compressed beef is enough for us to survive for four days in a critical situation. You're too generous, just waved your hand and gave it away, and even gave it to Fatso's arch-nemesis."

  I felt apologetic when I heard what Fatso had to say, after all, our lives were tied together. This package of beef may seem small but it's actually very significant and can be considered a lifesaver. Without asking for Fatso's consent, I gave away the shared lifesaving equipment, which wasn't right. So I didn't dare to speak up and just endured Fatso's scolding until he convinced me that I was wrong to give away the beef. I started regretting it and told Fatso: "When we head back, I'll take the beef back."

  The fatty's scolding stopped, and he chuckled, saying: "Tian Zhen, you're so obedient, I'm a bit unaccustomed to it."

  I understood that fatty was venting his anger, so I immediately shot back without being polite: "You're itching for a beating." Originally, my nerves were tense from the gunshot, but after bickering with fatty, my mood relaxed.

  "Hey, you just made a revolutionary mistake, and instead of reflecting on it, you dare to talk back? Unacceptable! I need to re-educate you properly." Just as Fatty was about to launch into a long lecture, something suddenly appeared in front of me, and I waved my hand, signaling him to shut up.

  We've already slid down the coffin-shaped funnel for over a hundred meters, and inside it's pitch black. The only light comes from the civilian flashlight in my hand. At this moment, I discovered that on the stairs below, in the dark, there was a human figure lying as if asleep.

  Is it finally over?

  I and Fatso hastened to quicken our pace, jumping and leaping as we went down, and at last we approached the human figure, and by this time we had reached the bottom.

  As the flashlight shone, I saw the true appearance of that human figure. It was a huge bronze statue lying horizontally on a stone pedestal about one meter high, with various patterns carved on it. Upon closer inspection, there were countless evil spirits depicted in the carvings.

  As I walked closer to take a look, I found that this bronze statue was quite strange. On the side of its body, there was a seam, and it seemed that this statue could be opened, and inside, there might be something like a corpse. What's even stranger is that on the forehead of this statue, there was a hole, and at the bottom of its feet, there was also a hole. What does this mean? Could these two holes have some special significance?

  At this moment, the fat man suddenly patted my shoulder and signaled me to shine the flashlight on the wall. I raised the flashlight and instantly discovered that the space here was much larger than I had imagined. The underground area had been expanded, making the entire bottom look very spacious. On the mountain wall, there were eight dark caves, and it was unknown where they led to. What's more strange is that the mountain wall was filled with murals. I carefully identified them and found that they were not painted on, but carved on with sharp objects.

  Does this mural record some important information?

  Where is the person who just fired the gun? Where did they go?

  I kept waving my flashlight and found many signs of fighting on the ground, with shell casings scattered all over. Had they gone into those caves? Just as I was about to crouch down for a closer look, Fatso suddenly yelled out: "Damn it, little bro!"

  My hand shook and the flashlight almost fell to the ground. Muffled oil bottle? Is he here?

  Subconsciously looking around, only the two of us were left, I immediately cursed: "Wang Baozi, what are you yelling about blindly? Xiao Ge is guarding the gate on Changbai, even if you miss him, you can't yell him out."

  "Fatso's voice was excited: 'No, I really saw the little brother just now! I swear, it's absolutely true.' My heart skipped a beat. Listening to Fatso's tone, could it be that the oil bottle is really here? Damn it, what's going on? Could it be that the gatekeeper and all that were deceiving me?"

  My mind was a complete mess, the flashlight waving wildly as I subconsciously shouted: "Little brother! Little brother! Stop playing!" The tomb chamber was empty and desolate, with only my echo remaining. Just then, my flashlight suddenly shone on a figure standing in the darkness, motionless and still. In that fleeting glance, both his build and posture were identical to that of Mute Oil Bottle.

  My hand shook and the flashlight suddenly lit up, shining directly on that figure. At this moment, I saw a stone statue.

  A stone statue with a body shaped like an ancient oil bottle.

  Fatso's excited voice suddenly stopped, and he muttered: "This... little brother is petrified." My excited heart was suddenly doused with a basin of cold water. I called out to Fatso and said: "Let's go take a look."

  I and Fatso stood in front of the stone statue, which was a life-sized stone statue with a thin figure, no clothes on its body, and its lower part connected to the stone base. Its facial features were ancient and simple, far from those of an oil jar. I reckon Fatso just said it looked like an oil jar because of psychological reasons. Firstly, the statue's physique was similar to that of an oil jar; secondly, if someone with a similar physique appeared in this kind of place, probably anyone would misunderstand.

  I felt a little disappointed, I stared at the stone statue for a long time and didn't find anything different. At this moment, my gaze was attracted by the mural behind the stone statue, because I found that the location of this stone statue was actually the starting point of the mural.

  Could it be... that this stone statue is the tomb owner?

  I quickly turned on the flashlight and began to examine the mural in detail, but what I saw next was something that I couldn't believe no matter how hard I tried, because it was all too incredible, like a story from mythology.

  The murals recorded a nation, whose settlements were at the foot of Tibet, roughly in today's Qinghai area. They worshipped the Qilin divine beast. This nation once migrated from Tibet to the Changbai Mountains due to a certain reason.

  The description on the mural is that this nation practices endogamy, and for some reason, it's difficult for people within the tribe to conceive children. Even if they are born, most of them have some defects. Therefore, in this nation, reproduction and longevity are what everyone prays for.

  They moved to Changbai after unknown reasons, and as an alien nation, they were invaded by the local indigenous people. Due to the scarcity of their own people, they could not withstand the war and retreated into the Changbai Mountains, where they discovered a bronze gate.

  Such a magnificent building made them think it was a divine sign, so they came to worship year after year. They even domesticated a kind of bird with a human face. Over time, they found that the bronze gate had divine power, because the lifespan of their tribe members were prolonged to varying degrees, and some could live up to two hundred years old. Everything in the tribe developed towards the better side. Until one day, the bronze gate suddenly opened.

  It was opened by someone else or by myself, I have no way of knowing, because on the mural there is only one open bronze gate.

  The villagers thought that behind the bronze door lived spirits, and now that the spirits had opened the great gate, they must be demanding something of them. So they sent a man and a woman into the bronze door as human sacrifices.

  That bronze gate closed again silently on a certain day.

  At this time, they found that their ability to live a long life was gradually disappearing. Was it that the gods of sacrifice were not satisfied with the offerings? Later, some people were sent into the bronze gate, but it was still the same. Even after sending ten batches of people, the tribe felt unbearable because they had very few people and, more frighteningly, their lifespan began to become shorter than ordinary people.

  So this nation migrated again and they began to return to their homeland.

  At that time, the era was very chaotic. The ethnic groups who migrated during the war were eventually divided into four or five parts, and the branch to which the tomb owner belonged returned to Tibet. It was thought that once they left the bronze gate, everything would return to normal, but who knew that the lifespan of their tribe members would become shorter and shorter, and most of the children born would have problems, so they eventually had to give up their traditional practice of marrying within the same clan and began intermarrying with other ethnic groups.

  This kind of intermarriage gradually extended out of Tibet and formed a large family. This family, passed down to the tomb owner's generation, was from Songda La.

  What happened next was even more bizarre, far from the legend in Samba's mouth. The murals recorded that Songda people ruled Tibet for a long time, during which they launched tomb repair work here and sent many people out to find something, but it is not clear whether they were looking for people or objects. In the end of the mural, the Songda people seemed to have entered a bronze gate, then he took the things inside the door and walked out, entering the depths of the snowy mountains.

  On the mural, a picture of a scripture was carved. It is probably the "Zan Sheng Jing" mentioned by Sangba. It is said that it records the life of Songdala people. So, will this ultimate clue be referring to that volume of Zan Sheng Jing?

  The more I think about it, the more possible it seems.

  Firstly, according to the murals' records, this ethnic group had once undertaken a massive migration across the northwest and got scattered along the way. So, the ancient Zhang family, which practiced endogamy within the clan, seemed to have foretold everything, including the ultimate obsession of Muye Pen, suggesting that Muye Pen and this Songdala person were originally from the same ethnic group.

  So, it seems that the bronze gate at the foot of Changbai Mountain has existed even earlier, long before it was discovered by Songdala people. Who built it and what kind of world is behind it?

  If the bronze door can only be opened with the Ghost Seal, then how did the Song Dynasty people over 2,000 years ago find the Ghost Seal? In other words, would the person who made the Ghost Seal be the same as the person who made the bronze door?

  Songdaera people had once entered the Bronze Gate, so would he grasp this information?

  Everything might be recorded in that volume of the Zan Sheng Jing, so where would that thing be placed, and wouldn't it have already been obtained by passerby A? What's with the gunshot just now?

  This mural is very long, and most of the records behind it are about the mundane affairs of Songtsen Gampo's governance of Tibet, as well as scenes of slaves being buried alive. Even after a thousand years, looking at them today still shocks the mind.

  I roughly finished browsing, then said to the fat man: "If I'm not mistaken, our real goal shouldn't be that third Ghost Seal, but rather that Volume of Zen Scripture."

  Fatso said: "Needless to say, it's definitely on the zongzi, but... I haven't seen a coffin either." Then Fatso continued: "Tianzhen, you think, will that thing be in those holes?"

  I furrowed my brow and said, "It seems we'll have to search for them one by one."

  Fatso clicked his tongue and said, "What kind of place is this? Are we going to search one by one until someone gets killed? Take a look at the layout of these caves, is there anything strange about it?" I was reminded by Fatso's words and couldn't help but start observing carefully. As soon as I took a closer look, my heart skipped a beat. This damn thing actually resembled an array formation.

  The entire bottom, with a human-shaped bronze statue as the center, surrounded by eight caves in all directions, which are surprisingly identical in position, vaguely resembling an eight-trigram position, making me think of the famous Eight Lanterns in the tomb.

  The Eight Lanterns are also known as the Soul-Extinguishing Lanterns. Sometimes, the tomb raiders would encounter a grave with eight corners, each lit by an ever-burning lantern. Once inside the burial chamber, it would seal itself shut, and the only way to open up a path for life was to extinguish one of the lanterns located at the "life" position. If they were to extinguish the wrong one, countless mechanisms would be triggered.

  This mechanism relies on temperature control, and once the lamp goes out, the needle inside will change or pop up due to the drop in temperature, which is quite strange. However, it requires whale oil as a raw material to maintain its burning for a thousand years without going out, but whale oil itself is extremely precious, and later generations can hardly afford to make such mechanisms. As a result, some Confucian scholars may have encountered them, only to find that the mourning lamp inside had already gone out on its own, and the hidden crossbow arrows had long been exhausted.

  This mechanism is an extension of the formation method in Yishu. When the dead lamp is extinguished, a thousand arrows are fired at once, and there is only one chance.

  So will these eight caves around us be the same, once we go wrong, what awaits us inside will be countless mechanisms?