Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 103 The Gate to Hell (3)
At dusk, a carriage arrived, and several officers and soldiers quickly threw a corpse out of the carriage, and then left quickly.He Honglin held back his grief and waited patiently until the carriage left and disappeared, then quickly jumped down from the tree and protected the corpse before the wild dogs pounced on it.He chased away the wild dogs, took off the black cloth covering the corpse's head with tears in his eyes, and was immediately stunned.

This is not his son!Although the corpse was also a young man, its face shape was completely different from that of his son.What's even more strange is that the corpse is very emaciated, almost skinny, and only a long-term starvation can make a person thin to that extent.

He Honglin was a little puzzled.He examined the body carefully and found that there were fresh strangle marks on the neck of the body, indicating that it had just been hanged.In other words, this public hanging did hang a man, but not his son.What about the son?Where did you go?
Although he has been disturbed by his son's affairs these days, He Honglin is a thoughtful person after all. From this simple case of exchanging corpses, he can see that there must be something hidden behind it, and it may even be a Big conspiracy.He decided to investigate, if only for the son of the scapegoat.

What's more, the corpse in front of him did not belong to his son, which made him faintly ignite a glimmer of hope: Maybe his son is still alive?
He Honglin carried the body back to his home in the middle of the night and examined it carefully.He found that the corpse was not only emaciated, but also covered with abscesses, the muscles were severely atrophied, and the internal organs, including the brain in the skull, were also shriveled and dried up, as if... The monster sucked the vitality of the body.It is now completely a skeleton wrapped in a layer of skin, not so much like a human, as it is like an evil spirit drilled out of hell.

Thinking of the word "evil ghost", He Honglin suddenly shuddered, recalling some long past events.When he was young, he was taken by his father to watch a fire. The victim was a distant relative of his family, an astrologer named He Lan.The He family is one of the top ten surnames of the Yu clan, with many branches. He Lan is just a distant relative, and the two families don't have much contact with each other. He Honglin didn't have much impression of this person at first.But the reason why he was burned at the stake is very famous, because he founded a cult, declaring that the end is coming and the gates of hell will open.

According to Helan, on the night of the famous Bing star coming a few months ago, the gods let him see the opening of hell. Although it was just an illusion created by the gods, the meaning was clear.And the appearance of the evil spirit in hell he described was very similar to the corpse that He Honglin saw decades later.Moreover, the wrists and ankles of this corpse also showed signs of being chained for a long time.

"Evil ghost... exactly the same evil ghost... This can't be a coincidence, it can't be a coincidence!" He Honglin looked at the horrifying corpse in front of him, and said to himself.

three

"Can you guys guess what is the truth about these evil spirits?" He Honglin stopped here deliberately to make a fool of himself.

"You have to tell me the details of the star night first, so that I can make an educated guess." An Xingmian said.

He Honglin nodded, and told An Xingmian about Helan's deduction that the star had fallen to the ground and his decision to wait there, as well as the series of wonders he witnessed later.An Xingmian thought about it: "Are these things Helan told the believers after he became the leader of the cult?"

"Yes, after the government convicts him later, these theories about the fire, hell, and evil spirits are all considered to be fabricated by him, and the messenger of the gods who visit in the middle of the night is even more unbelievable," He Honglin said, "But when I saw it with my own eyes After seeing the 'ghost', I began to rethink what he said. What if what he saw was true? Could there be a reasonable explanation other than 'the gates of hell are open'?"

"Assume that evil spirits are real..." An Xingmian walked up and down the room, thinking hard.Xue Huaiqing poured him a cup of tea, he held the tea bowl in his hand, but forgot to drink it.He Honglin looked at Xue Huaiqing again: "Although we met for the first time, Xing Mian told me about you a long time ago. He said that you are a very smart girl, and because you are a corpse dancer, you often think differently Ordinary people are different. Can you dare to guess as well?"

"It's not a ghost, it's a human." Xue Huaiqing said six words.

"Why?" He Honglin said.

"I am a corpse dancer, and I have seen all kinds of grotesque and terrifying corpses," Xue Huaiqing said. "I believe that there are no ghosts in the world. The ghosts that people see are just the horror of their appearance that makes them lose their common sense judgment. .”

"That's right, ghosts and hell are nothing more than a very reasonable explanation that He Lan found out under extreme terror." An Xingmian put down the teacup heavily, "If you deduce from common sense and discard the grotesque heresy, that night What happened was actually quite simple."

"Oh? Why don't you tell me?" He Honglin said.

"The so-called evil spirits are just a group of people, a group of people who were imprisoned and tortured," An Xingmian said, "and that hell is nothing but an underground prison. The star is no coincidence, It just hit the ground above the prison, opened a big hole in the prison, and caused a fierce flame to burn. The prisoners desperately took the opportunity to escape, of course, it may be just to escape the scorching flames, from the place where they were knocked out. Climbing out of the gap, Helan happened to see it, and he regarded it as a scene of hell."

"After figuring this out, it's easy to understand the so-called envoy who sneaked into his house in the middle of the night," he continued, "it was sent by the owner of the prison. Maybe they planned to silence them, but found that Helan If this matter is told to others, killing him will not help, but may attract suspicion. In this case, it is better to lie to him and make him really think that he saw the picture of the hole in hell. In this case, he If you spread this matter to the outside world, it will eventually be regarded as a lie by the leader of the cult to confuse the believers, and will not be taken seriously. In this case, the truth will be covered up."

"It can be seen from this that this is a great secret," Xue Huaiqing said, "But I think, Uncle Wang... Mr. He, you have already solved this secret, right?"

Time goes back to 27 years ago.

He Honglin picked up the nameless dead body from the wilderness, and thought of the "hell ghost" that He Lan, the leader of the cult, had witnessed with his own eyes, and decided to investigate it.He tried his best to collect the records of the star's fall to the ground, and found the approximate location of the star's fall, but found that it had turned into a piece of farmland. It turned out that the wasteland was bought by the people of Donglu.Fortunately, He Honglin's family was well-off, so he bought this piece of farmland with money, and then began to dig hard.He believed that after the big bang, those who knew the truth must have moved those "evil spirits" as quickly as possible, and then buried the scene, so He Honglin could not find anything when he went back afterwards.But he firmly believed that if there really was an underground prison there, it would be not small in scale, and even if it was buried hastily, there would definitely be clues left behind.

This matter must not be known to others, so He Honglin just hired workers to build a fence around it to prevent outsiders from entering, and then dug the ground by himself.Yuren was already thin and weak, and He Honglin had been a nobleman all his life. Although he also practiced martial arts according to the noble tradition, he didn't practice hard. Now doing this kind of heavy work is really hard work that he has never experienced in his life.However, this incident has almost become the only meaning in He Honglin's life, so no matter how difficult it is, no matter how much skin is worn and how much blood is shed, he clenched his teeth and persisted.

Several months later, after digging countless large pits, He Honglin finally found something: a rusty iron shackle.He was overjoyed, knowing that he had found it, and spent the next few days almost without sleep, digging desperately near the place where he found the shackles, and finally found the buried dungeon.He was overwhelmed by the size of the dungeon.

This dungeon is not too big, it is basically just a large stone room, not necessarily bigger than the main room of a wealthy family.But on the wall of the dungeon, there were densely packed bases for fixing the shackles. He Honglin counted them, and there were roughly two hundred of them.In other words, this dungeon, which was not much bigger than a rich man's main room, held two hundred prisoners.

What a miserable scene this is!He Honglin was almost covered in hairs, but he couldn't control himself to imagine the scene at that time: in the deep and dark dungeon, there was no light, it was full of the stench of corruption, and countless people tightly locked in shackles crowded together.They were skinny and dying, with pus and blood all over their bodies, lingering like walking corpses, waiting for the end of their lives.Living like this is far more enjoyable than killing with a single knife.

Why?Why should these people be subjected to such miserable conditions?Who are they?Who are the people who imprisoned them?He Honglin guessed and thought hard.Another thought that made his heart tremble even more: Will his son be imprisoned in such a place and become such a skeleton-like living dead?

He suddenly thought of the reason why his son was replaced when he was hanged: they needed his son to fill the vacancy.It seems that the black hands behind the scenes need to maintain the number of such ghostly prisoners, so they will throw out the dying ones and return them to healthy ones like their sons.He suddenly realized that since the mastermind behind the scenes was able to tamper with the government's death row prisoners, it meant that they had a close relationship with the government, and even...they themselves were.

This thought frightened He Honglin, but he couldn't get rid of it no matter what, instead all kinds of traces became clearer and clearer.He calmly buried the dungeon again, and began to find a way to search for the current location of the dungeon.He speculated that death row prisoners like his son were likely to be an important source of prisoners in the dungeon, so a way should be found to inquire about the death row.

He returned home as if nothing had happened, and began to communicate frequently with some powerful nobles whom he was unwilling to associate with in the past.He was originally an elegant and talkative person with aristocratic status. In addition, he generously gave away all kinds of calligraphy, paintings and antiques that he had collected throughout his life as gifts, and soon made many new friends.When he was young, he couldn't bear the darkness and insidiousness of the officialdom, so he stayed away from politics, but now he has to pick up various methods, living like a high-level scout.

The hard work finally paid off.After more than a year of patient Luo Zhi, he finally got to know a man who had been the warden of death row prisoners in Ningnan City.This warden named Mu Xiao is just a low-class nobleman, and with his status as a warden, no other nobleman is willing to get close to him, but He Honglin feels like a treasure.Regardless of the contempt of other nobles, he often invited Mu Xiao to his house as a guest. Finally, one time, Mu Xiao got drunk at his house and uttered some shocking truths.

"Actually, what kind of warden is just an empty shelf that looks good outside." Mu Xiao drunkenly held up the wine glass in his hand, "The death row in Ningnan City is basically empty. Not just in Ningnan City, but in the entire city-state." The death row inmates and the felons who don't have families are actually not in their own prisons."

He Honglin's heart was beating wildly, but he still tried his best to control his emotions. While pouring wine for Mu Xiao courteously, he pretended to be casual and said, "Are you kidding? The laws of our city-state are strict, and every year there are so many If the offender is not locked in a prison, where can he be locked up?"

"You don't know that," Mu Xiao shook his head like a rattle, "There has always been a secret agency in the city-state that screens serious criminals. Once those prisoners are selected, they will be taken away and disappear forever. "

"Disappeared? Where were they taken?" He Honglin hurriedly asked.

"How dare I inquire about this?" Mu Xiao put the wine glass heavily on the table, "Who am I? I'm just a lowly prison officer. Even if I want to pull me out and kill me, I can only accept my fate obediently. Where? Do you still care about those people who deserve to die?"

He Honglin knew that Mu Xiao knew only so much, so he didn't ask any more questions.What Mu Xiao said confirmed his guess. Those poor prisoners who looked like ghosts were indeed selected from the government's death row prisoners and severe criminals.Although the next thing is still difficult, at least there is a direction, that is to secretly monitor the death row.

The death row and serious criminals in Ningnan City are locked in a separate prison. This prison is located in the outskirts, far away from the residential areas of the citizens, and it is difficult to find a hidden place.And it seems to be to deceive people, even though there are not many prisoners in the prison, the prison guards are still quite strict, He Honglin is not proficient in martial arts, there is no way to sneak in from the guards' eyes and ears.Fortunately, since he had made up his mind to find out about this matter, he was not in a hurry and waited patiently, finally letting him wait for the opportunity.

The only water source in the prison has been polluted for some reason and is no longer drinkable. Until the pollution is eliminated, water must be delivered by city water trucks every day.He Honglin bribed the driver to deliver water with him every day, took the opportunity to observe, and finally found a special prison car when the water was delivered to No. 12 days.He followed the prison car and found the real location of "hell" - a barren hill north of Ningnan City.

"I risked my life to kill a guard, pretended to be him, sneaked in, and found that everything in front of me was as I expected," He Honglin said 27 years later, "It wasn't hell, but it was better than the real hell. Hell is even scarier."

"There were almost two hundred prisoners, so densely packed in the small stone room, it was not so much a human prison as a livestock pen, but livestock would not be chained like that. They Almost only the bones are left, and the shape is just like what I described to you before, but the most trembling thing is their eyes. They are a pair of completely lifeless eyes, neither happy nor angry, nor sad Le, despite being in such a miserable situation, they are neither afraid nor frightened, and there is no pain at all. Yes, they seem to be completely numb, and they don't feel any pain at all. I suspect their minds are completely empty Now, apart from being able to eat and excrete under the drive of instinct, I don’t know anything anymore.”

"I tried to find my son among the prisoners, but it turned out to be impossible, because the people had become completely the same, unless one could walk among them and examine them closely, but I had no such Opportunity. I can only leave with full of fear and doubt, the eyes of those people...those terrifying eyes...to this day, when I close my eyes, they still clearly appear in my mind."

An Xingmian and Xue Huaiqing glanced at each other, their eyes were full of unbearable, both of them felt as if there was an invisible poisonous gas permeating the room, making people's breathing difficult, as if their hearts were being suppressed by something .An Xingmian sighed: "I really didn't expect that such a dirty secret would be hidden within the Yu Clan. After that, you must have found out why they were imprisoned and tortured."

"I did find out," He Honglin stared at the dancing flames in the stove, "I spent several years in order to find out this secret, and almost went bankrupt. Everything that turned into money was sold, and even the guards of the royal library were bought, and after looking through a lot of materials in it, I got the truth."

"It's Saxigaro, isn't it?" An Xingmian's voice trembled slightly.

He Honglin nodded slowly: "Yes, it is Sa Xijialuo. This magic weapon is mysterious to most people who have heard its name. They only know its name and know that it is a city-state. The treasure of the town and even the treasure of the town, but I don't know where its power is. But I finally discovered the truth. As I said just now, I found the hellish dungeon, which was full of people Death row prisoners like dry bones. And Saxigaro is buried in the ground under those death row prisoners."

(End of this chapter)