Anecdote of the Yellow River

Chapter 79 The Dark River (1)
After making sure that no more zombies crawled out of the hole, we cautiously walked into the secret passage.

The secret path is under the main hall of the temple, and the space underneath is actually very large, and it doesn't feel cramped.

There was a dead silence in the secret passage, only the sound of each other's breathing could be heard.

On the way, we found some rotting bones and some exploding zombie heads.These zongzi obviously died inside the secret passage, not outside the entrance of the cave.Recalling what Wan Juncheng said before, I secretly guessed that these old zongzi, which have been dead for many years, are probably Wan Juncheng's masterpieces. Otherwise, how would he know that zombies would emerge after the secret passage was opened.

I don't know how long I walked deep underground, and the space in front of me suddenly became wider.

We held up the wolf-eyed flashlight and looked forward, and the scene in front of us almost made us cry out.

Under this secret passage, there is actually a slowly flowing underground river. At this moment, that underground river lies in front of us.The most peculiar thing is that the underground river water turned out to be black. I stretched my nose and sniffed it, and felt a strange smell wafting in the air.

Before, I always thought that there was an underground palace under the secret passage, but I didn’t expect that there was a vast underground space under the secret passage. The river surface is very spacious, and the horizontal direction is estimated to be more than 50 meters. Because the water flow is not fast, it looks like a huge black rag. .

Wan Juncheng stood by the river with his hands behind his back, staring at the dark river, and said excitedly: "Those historians generally believe that the name of Heishui City is because the Heishui River flows here, but they are all wrong. , This is the real Blackwater River, the name of Blackwater City actually comes from this underground river, and this Blackwater River is actually not a river, but oil! This place is full of oil!"

oil? !
The real Blackwater River? !
Is it all oil here? !

Wan Juncheng's words shocked us extremely. I said that I smelled a strange smell just now. Now that I think about it, it turned out to be the smell of oil.It turns out that this is the real Heishui River. It seems that those historians were deceived by the Xixia people.

Wan Juncheng continued on his own: "When Li Yuanhao, the emperor of Xixia, secretly built the underground palace in Heishui City, he accidentally discovered the oil river flowing underground. But the ancients at that time didn't know what oil was. They saw this This river is lifeless, has no living things, and exudes a strange smell, so it is named 'Styx', which means the river that flows to hell!"

Speaking of this, Wan Juncheng turned around: "Ah Qi, what about the things I asked you to prepare?"

"It's all here!" Ah Qi snapped his fingers, and the two militants behind him put down their backpacks, each dragged out a black rubber cloth from the bag, then took out a portable inflator, and filled the rubber cloth with a whirr. Inflated, the rubber cloth quickly expanded, turning into two inflatable rubber boats.

Everyone worked together to put the rubber boat into the Styx, and then divided into two teams to board the boat.

We followed Wan Juncheng in a boat in front, Ah Qi and his men sat in a boat behind, and the two boats drifted down the Styx river one after the other.

Wan Juncheng reminded everyone to pay attention to fireworks. This place is full of oil, which is easy to burn and catch fire.

The underground space was silent, deadly quiet, and depressing.

We were about to enter the underground palace soon, Wan Juncheng was in a good mood, and even chatted with us very rarely.

Of course, the so-called small talk is actually him talking alone, and we don't pay much attention to him.

In fact, the origin of the name Styx is not only because it is an oil river, it is said that there is a story in it.When the craftsmen dug here, they found that there were countless dead human skulls floating on the Styx, that is, skulls, overlapping, like white bugs, floating densely on the river.Because there are too many skulls, the will-o'-the-wisps here are also very prosperous. Countless blue will-o'-the-wisps float on the river surface, like ghosts, reflecting the Styx River in a terrified manner.The craftsmen thought they had seen hell, and they were so frightened that they didn't dare to continue construction.

Later, the warlord who was in charge of building the city came. Heishui City was built by Emperor Li Yuanhao himself. Of course, the warlord did not dare to neglect. Under the persecution of the strict military order, the craftsmen had no choice but to continue to work. Unexpectedly, something happened after the start of construction...

The next morning.

The leading craftsman reported to the warlord that several craftsmen disappeared last night and no one could be found anywhere.

At first, the warlord thought that these craftsmen had escaped, and the crime of fleeing was serious, so if they were caught, they would be punished as deserters.

The Overseer was very angry, so he sent soldiers to investigate the matter and ordered that the missing artisan be brought back.

Another day passed.

The master craftsman reported to the warlord that several craftsmen disappeared the night before.

This time the warlord was really angry. Not only did he scold the master craftsman, but he also gathered all the other craftsmen together and personally issued a military order that anyone who dared to escape would be beheaded.

However, the warlord's move did not have a deterrent effect, and some people were still missing on the third day.

The warlord was furious, and a group of people ran away that day, so how can the construction of the underground palace continue?If you can't finish the work on time, you will definitely be punished by the emperor.

So the warlord issued a more stringent military order, all those who escaped would be punished by the nine clans, and soldiers were stationed to patrol day and night.

But even so, craftsmen still escaped every day. After more than ten consecutive days, hundreds of people have escaped.

Under such a strict military order, how dare anyone escape?

What's even more strange is that the soldiers under him patrolled day and night, but never caught a single escaped craftsman.

In other words, the artisans probably didn't escape, but... disappeared mysteriously!
After thinking about it, the warlord felt that this matter was really a bit strange. After discussing with his subordinates, he invited a mage to "watch" overnight, in order to find out the real reason why the craftsman disappeared.

The mage set up the altar and tossed until late at night. I heard that the mage still has some skills.

After he got up from the altar, he cut a small person with a yellow talisman, and then he babbled and chanted the spell for a while. Finally, he raised the mahogany sword, sprayed a mouthful of strong wine on the tip of the sword, danced a sword flower, and the tip of the sword Pointing obliquely at the sky, he yelled, "Duh!"

The talisman immediately stood upright, as if possessing vitality, jumped from the table to the ground, and disappeared into the sand in an instant.

When it was almost dawn, Furen came back.

The mage lit a joss stick and burned the talisman, turning it into a pinch of ashes.

Immediately afterwards, he poured a bowl of clear water, mixed the pinch of ashes into the water, stirred it twice, and drank it down his neck.

The mage sat cross-legged, slowly closed his eyes, like an old monk in meditation, and never said a word.

I only saw big beads of sweat dripping down the mage's cheeks, and no one dared to disturb him.

In the meantime, people also saw the mage with his eyes closed, talking to the air, but all he said were strange words that he couldn't understand.

After touching for about half an hour, the mage finally opened his eyes slowly, and the first words he said frightened the people present: "I found those craftsmen, they didn't run away, but in Heishui River under!"

This sentence scared everyone enough. Aren't the artisans quite frightened when they found so many dead human skulls floating on the Heishui River?Then why did they sneak to the Heishui River in the middle of the night, and why did they go to die one after another?Is there something weird about it?
The warlord saw that the mage had some skills, so he didn't dare to neglect. Taking advantage of the clear sky and broad daylight, he led a group of soldiers to the Styx River, and then sent boats to carry out salvage work on the Heishui River.

As a result, the facts verified what the mage said. There were indeed corpses of craftsmen under the Black Water River. When the skulls of the dead on the river surface were removed, the corpses of the craftsmen floated up. There were hundreds of them, densely packed. In the cabin, some corpses were swollen like giant radishes, and it looked like they had been soaked for many days.

The Warlord used to follow the Xixia army to fight against Huangsha, but he had never been so afraid as he is now.He couldn't understand why these craftsmen drowned in the Blackwater River in the middle of the night, and the strangest thing was that the soldiers patrolling in the middle of the night never found a single craftsman going out.

Such a strange thing happened on the construction site, and so many people were killed. Naturally, the warlord did not dare to explain to the emperor. He ordered the news to be blocked and asked the mage for help.

It is said that the mage asked the warlord to build 49 octagonal bronze mirrors with strange shapes, and then embedded the 49 bronze mirrors in the bottom of the Heishui River in sequence according to the position specified by the mage.

Strange to say, since these 49 bronze mirrors were embedded in the bottom of the river, there have been no strange incidents of craftsmen disappearing and dying, and everything is going on smoothly.

The governor was puzzled, so he asked the mage for the mystery.

The mage told the warlord that there used to be countless skulls in the Black Water River, which was too dark, and it was a gathering place for ghosts and monsters.People with low or low spiritual fire in the sky are easily harassed by these ghosts and ghosts when they are working below. At the least, they will be insane, and at the worst, they will be possessed.

And the seventy-seven and forty-nine bronze mirrors are a road to death for these ghosts and monsters at the bottom of the river.As long as these ghosts walk down the 49 bronze mirrors, they can go to hell and reincarnate.Now those ghosts have gone to hell for reincarnation, so they don't bother those craftsmen anymore, and everything is naturally safe.

Since then, this Heishui River has also had the name "Styx".

Although we hate Wan Juncheng very much, the story he told is still very attractive, and we were all fascinated by it.

After Wan Juncheng finished telling the story, he stood up suddenly, stared at the hazy darkness ahead, and shouted ecstatically: "It's here! It's finally here!"

We were slightly taken aback, arrived?Arrived at the underground palace?Could it be that the underground palace is above the Styx?
I saw a huge silhouette appeared in the dark space, like some kind of building.From the visual inspection of the contour lines, the building is very tall, occupying almost the entire water surface and underground space, and looks like a dam.

(End of this chapter)