Xixia dead book

Chapter 18: Legend of the Undead in the Book of the Dead (18)
7
"Strange door? Why are there two door latches inside and outside?" Han Jiang asked puzzled.

"It's not surprising. This reflects the wisdom of the ancients who built the Qiang village. The thick wooden door has two door buttons inside and outside. If the enemy comes in from the outside, closing the door can add a line of defense to stop the enemy. If the enemy comes from Qiang If you come in from the gate of the village, you can retreat to the stairs behind the gate, close the gate, and take the opportunity to escape. What a clever design this is." Tang Feng sighed.

"But who just buckled both the inner and outer door buttons?"

Tang Feng was also surprised by Han Jiang's question. He fiddled with the wooden door buckle twice, and explained: "Maybe it's because of the age, the door buckle is loose, once the heavy wooden door is closed, the two door buckles are both knocked by the vibration. Shocked."

After listening to Tang Feng's explanation, Han Jiang didn't say anything more.He glanced at the spiral staircase inside the door again, turned around, and asked Xu Renyu: "Where is Stephen? I told you to stand where you are, why are you running around?"

"I don't know what your gesture means!" Xu Renyu muttered.Afterwards, Xu Renyu pointed to the first door on the right, and said, "I saw Stephen enter that door, maybe... maybe he's also locked inside right now."

Everyone came to the first door on the right, which was opposite to the first door on the left. Just as Han Jiang was about to push the door in, Liang Yuan exclaimed, "There is no latch outside this door?"

Everyone was shocked. There was no button outside the door, and Stephen hadn't come out after such a long time. Could it be... Everyone didn't dare to think about it anymore, and pushed the wooden door open together.

Light came in from a flower window. There was no spiral staircase here, but a complete room. There was no one in the room, and there was no furniture.

"Where's Stephen?" Tang Feng also asked Xu Renyu in a low voice.

Xu Renyu rubbed his head and said suspiciously: "I just saw him enter this door, and Liang Yuan saw it too."

Tang Feng still felt that the light in the house was not enough, so he turned on the flashlight and shone on the four walls of the house, but he found nothing except the peeling off wall skin that had been in disrepair for a long time.Tang Feng's footsteps slowly moved towards the flower window, and suddenly, Han Jiang yelled at Tang Feng: "Pay attention to your steps!"

Tang Feng was so startled that he took half a step back and looked down, only to find that there was a one-meter-square hole on the floor near the flower window. If Han Jiang hadn't reminded him in time, he would have fallen into it.

Everyone gathered around and looked down at the light from the flashlight. The one-meter-square black hole was bottomless, and a damp and corrupt atmosphere diffused from the hole. "Did Stephen fall?" Xu Renyu looked terrified.

"You mean Stephen fell into this hole?" Liang Yuan asked back.

Xu Renyu nodded, and said, "Look, the marks on the broken part of the board are new."

"In other words, the floor was just broken." Tang Feng said.

"S-Ti-Fen!" Xu Renyu shouted towards the entrance of the cave, but there was no Stephen's voice in the cave, only a terrifying echo.

"How deep is this hole? Why did Stephen fall in so quickly...it's over! By the way, could there be any scary things in the hole, such as monsters!" Liang Yuan stared at Tang with a pair of big, terrified eyes. wind.

"I think you've watched too many horror movies! How could there be monsters in this place!" Tang Feng scoffed at Liang Yuan's random conjecture, but when he looked down from the small hole again, he still felt a sense of shock. shudder.

8
Tang Feng once again shot at this strange room with a flashlight, and said, "What interests me is, why is this room built on a hole?"

After carefully inspecting the black hole, Han Jiang speculated: "This room is not built on the entrance of the hole, but this hole is intentionally built under the floor. I have checked carefully, and this hole is artificially built with stones, that is, It is said that when this huge Qiang village was built, this cave was already built."

Liang Yuan was still in shock, and asked timidly, "This Qiang village is so mysterious, why did you build this hole under the room?"

"That's right! The other rooms may also be densely packed with traps. This Qiang village is more like a labyrinth with many traps." Xu Renyu sighed.

Tang Feng meditated for a moment and explained: "I guess this Qiang village was built like this because of the need for military defense. Qiang village is different from ordinary dwellings, it is more like a military fortress, but what we have seen This Qiang village I visited pays more attention to the military defense function than other Qiang villages, the entire hall on the second floor is full of traps, what will happen below and the upper floors?"

"So, isn't it very dangerous for us to be here?" Liang Yuan asked in surprise.

"Tang Feng, you're exaggerating. Even if there are many organs, after hundreds of years, they can still play a role? Besides, this was also inhabited at the beginning. With so many organs, what if you hurt your own people? I It seems that this hole is just an escape route, and in the end, Stephen..." Han Jiang retorted Tang Feng.

Tang Feng didn't argue. He went back to the hall and checked the other rooms on the second floor one by one, but found nothing unusual in the other rooms.The four returned to Guozhuang in the center of the hall. Han Jiang shined a flashlight on the wooden planks upstairs, and suddenly asked, "Huh? That's strange, why didn't you see the stairs leading upstairs?"

Tang Feng looked it over and explained: "This is normal. Generally, there are no fixed stairs in Qiang villages, and movable wooden ladders are used to go up and down the stairs."

"Then why are there fixed spiral stairs in the first two doors on the left?" Han Jiang asked back.

"Those two spiral staircases are really strange! Generally speaking, the first floor of the Qiang village is a place where livestock are raised and sundries are piled up, and ladders cannot be repaired that well. In short, this abandoned Qiang village is full of people. Mystery." Tang Feng also couldn't explain many strange phenomena in this Qiang village.

As soon as Tang Feng finished speaking, he suddenly found that the black cat appeared by the second door on the left without knowing when.Tang Feng pointed to the black cat squatting by the door, and Han Jiang also noticed the black cat. He raised his legs high, lowered his feet lightly, and walked towards the black cat, but as soon as he approached the black cat, The black cat, the black cat turned around and disappeared through the door in an instant.

"What a strange cat!" Han Jiang muttered softly.

"Maybe this cat will lead us to solve the mystery." As he said, Tang Feng chased after him and followed the black cat into the door.Han Jiang didn't dare to keep Liang Yuan and Xu Renyu anymore, so the three of them followed Tang Feng into that door.

The spiral staircase winds down, Tang Feng walks in front with a flashlight, Liang Yuan and Xu Renyu follow closely behind, Han Jiang looks back at the wooden door vigilantly, and then follows.

Tang Feng couldn't remember how many times they turned around the spiral staircase.Every time he took a step, the spiral staircase would make a "squeak", and this sound made every pore on Tang Feng's body open.Tang Feng shone a flashlight down the stairs in front, and the cat that led them here disappeared mysteriously again.

Tang Feng's feet finally walked down the wooden spiral staircase. A tunnel made of stones appeared in front of him. The tunnel was in the shape of an arch. The highest point was less than two meters. The tunnel was densely covered with cobwebs. Obviously, no one had visited it for many years. here.Tang Feng took two steps forward, and suddenly noticed a light above his head.Tang Feng suddenly looked up, and found that he was standing under a tall watchtower at this time, and the light was the light reflected from the small windows on the watchtower.Liang Yuan, Xu Renyu and Han Jiang came to Tang Feng's side and looked up together. Liang Yuan asked Tang Feng curiously, "How did we get to the bottom of this big chimney?"

Tang Feng looked at Liang Yuan helplessly, and said: "This is not a big chimney, but the watchtower we saw outside the Qiang village. The watchtower is usually the commanding height of the Qiang village, which serves as a lookout and defense. Looking at this Qiang village from the outside, there are two watchtowers in total, one on the left and one on the right. The situation in a radius of tens of miles."

"But how to climb up? There are no ladders in this watchtower!" Xu Renyu observed the inside of the watchtower, wondering.

"Same as the situation in the hall on the second floor, the original ladder is not a fixed ladder. It has been gone for so many years." Tang Feng speculated.

"I'm more concerned about where this tunnel leads to!" Han Jiang muttered to himself with a flashlight shining on the dark tunnel ahead.

The dense cobwebs, the thick dust raised up, and the sudden turning made the strong light of the flashlight seem to be useless in this dark tunnel. Tang Feng, who was walking in front, didn't know what was waiting for them ahead. What is it, monster?Or a trap?
The timid Liang Yuan followed closely behind Tang Feng, a little dust suddenly fell from the top of her head, and Liang Yuan grabbed Tang Feng's skirt in shock.A wall appeared in front of it. This was not the end of the tunnel, it was just a turning. Tang Feng and Liang Yuan turned over first.Tang Feng suddenly found that the tunnel in front of him seemed to be getting wider, and the road under his feet sloped downward from here, extending to the depths of the more and more humid tunnel...

9
Liang Yuan looked at the tunnel in front of her in surprise, and took a step forward involuntarily. Suddenly, there was a strange "click" sound from her feet, and Liang Yuan hurriedly took half a step back in shock.Tang Feng also heard the sound, and he took a flashlight to shine at Liang Yuan's feet. The two saw a black "stick". Erased the black mud on a section of the "stick"...Suddenly, Liang Yuan widened her eyes and screamed, and the "stick" in her hand fell to the ground, because she clearly saw——under the black mud , what was revealed was a terrifying white color, Tang Feng and Liang Yuan both recognized it, it was a bone, a human bone.

Liang Yuan's scream attracted Han Jiang and Xu Renyu to catch up. "What happened?" Han Jiang asked nervously.

Liang Yuan was in shock and was speechless.Tang Feng did not answer Han Jiang's question, but shone the flashlight down. At this time, everyone was horrified to find that there were skeletons covered in mud on the slope extending deep into the tunnel.These bones almost covered the entire ramp, and, without exception, all the bones were lying face down on the ground, with their heads facing the direction of the spiral staircase at the entrance of the tunnel.They all seemed to be in great danger in an instant. In order to survive, they ran towards the entrance of the tunnel desperately, but—but just a little bit, they were all enclosed in this dark and damp tunnel.Why did they come to this tunnel?What is it that makes them so frightened?

Tang Feng was already stunned by the scene in front of him.He thought of the underground palace of the emperor's tomb, a sloped tomb passage leading to the unfathomable underground palace.It is said that some emperors closed the underground palace before burial, and buried the craftsmen who repaired the tomb alive in the underground palace.At the last moment of their lives, those craftsmen's survival instinct prompted them to run desperately towards the entrance of the underground palace, perhaps this is the scene in front of them!

"It's terrible, let's go back!" Liang Yuan retreated first.

Xu Renyu touched the fine sweat oozing from his forehead, looked at Han Jiang and Tang Feng, he was timid in his heart, but he didn't want to give up his efforts to find Stephen.Both Han Jiang and Tang Feng understood what Xu Renyu meant, and they didn't want to give up, but... Han Jiang also hesitated, and he glanced at the slope tunnel in front of him again, and said to everyone: "It's getting late today, and everyone is tired , we might as well go back to the lobby on the second floor to rest, and come here tomorrow to find out."

Xu Renyu agreed, Tang Feng didn't say anything, the four of them were about to turn around, but something suddenly jumped in front of the beam of Tang Feng's flashlight, it was that cat again!Tang Feng saw the black cat again. The black cat was squatting on a pile of white bones in the tunnel, watching Tang Feng quietly.

"No! We should go down and have a look, in case Stephen is not dead..." After speaking, Tang Feng went straight down the slope tunnel without asking for other people's opinions.Seeing Tang Feng go down, Liang Yuan didn't know where she got the courage to drag Tang Feng down the tunnel.Tang Feng pulled Liang Yuan, stepped on the bones carefully, and walked down the ramp.The air became more humid as it went down, and it became more difficult to breathe. At the same time, the sound of "click" and "click", the sound of bones breaking, was transmitted to the brain through the eardrums, stimulating the fragile nerves of the two.

Han Jiang and Xu Renyu also followed. After walking about 20 meters, everyone came to the bottom of the slope tunnel. The original arch-shaped tunnel became a dome-shaped square underground space here.Tang Feng made a rough estimate of this square space, which is about seventy or eighty square meters.What is this place?When Tang Feng was suspicious, Han Jiang suddenly leaned against his ear and whispered, "Tang Feng, could this be the legendary 'Black-headed Stone Chamber'?"

Hearing Han Jiang's words, Tang Feng was shocked. "Blackhead Stone Chamber"?Could this be the Blackhead Stone Chamber?From the moment Tang Feng walked into the tunnel, he immediately thought of the Blackhead Stone Chamber, but he quickly denied this speculation. He didn't believe that he could find the Blackhead Stone Room so easily by mistake.But Han Jiang's question at this time made him have to start thinking about this question again. Is this large underground space really the legendary "Blackhead Stone Chamber"?
10
Tang Feng lowered his voice, and replied to Han Jiang: "You must find sufficient evidence to prove this inference."

After Tang Feng finished speaking, he walked to the wall. He looked carefully with the strong light of the flashlight, and a white and slightly yellowish water line appeared on the surrounding walls.Tang Feng patted the wall in front of him and said to everyone: "Look, there are traces of long-term water accumulation here, which means that this place has been submerged in water for a long time before."

"No wonder it's so humid down here, and there's so much mud on the sloping tunnel!" Liang Yuan murmured.

Han Jiang suddenly thought of something: "Could this place used to be a water prison? The bones on the ramp are probably the prisoners who were once held here. Because some changes happened here, such as the water level rising, they desperately wanted to escape. to go, but in the end they were submerged by the flood.”

"I think you can write novels!" Xu Renyu sneered at Han Jiang.

But Tang Feng said: "Han Jiang's words are reasonable, it is entirely possible, but why did the water level here suddenly rise?"

"Then go into that door and have a look." Saying that, Han Jiang pointed to a hole that appeared on the side wall.

Tang Feng nodded, and burrowed into the hole, which was still a tunnel with an arched roof. However, when Tang Feng gradually got used to the light and smell in this tunnel, he was shocked again, because he broke into the tunnel. A human bone tunnel was opened, and under the beam of torch light, rows of bones arranged in an orderly manner appeared in front of everyone.

(End of this chapter)