Pawn Crossing the River

However, Qi Xuansu immediately denied this speculation. Judging from the time, at the end of Paititi, the Holy Court had not invaded the southern continent in a large scale. At that time, it was still a period when the Goddess Association was active, acting as a pathfinder for the Holy Court under the banner of friendly exchanges. Pioneer, so as a member of the Goddess Society, Lopez was able to form a deep friendship with the last emperor of Paititi.

Xidaomen's time will be even later. Xidaomen actually followed the footsteps of the Holy Court to the New World. It was like the Holy Court was opening the way in front, and the West Gate came along the opened road. After discovering the New World, Xidaomen didn't dare to make any move, he just stayed nearby. Then there was a big fight within the Holy Court due to the uneven distribution of the spoils, and the Steam Gospel was born.

Seeing the rare opportunity, Xidaomen next to them raised the banner of justice for heaven and united with the local forces in the New World to seize chestnuts from the fire. The Holy Court would definitely not be happy, so they wanted to beat Xidaomen. When Xidaomen saw that he was no match, he quickly contacted his brothers in the east, that is, East, South, North, and Central. After all, brothers are jealous of each other and resist their insults outside.

Several brothers of the family discussed and made a plan. First, our brothers cannot be bullied by outsiders. This is a good opportunity to take back Xidaomen; second, the Holy Court has been too arrogant recently, so we need to suppress his arrogance; third, the Holy Court has to swallow up such a large territory. Once he is digested, the balance of forces between the two sides will be broken. Even if it cannot prevent the Holy Court from engulfing the northern continent, it must at least preserve the southern continent; fourth, with the support of local forces, the division will be famous.

The brothers all thought they could do it, so they took action to help Xidaomen stabilize the situation.

In this way, the Daomen made a lot of money and fully restored the connection between the Daomen and the West Daomen, allowing the Daomen to indirectly obtain the Southern Continent. The Holy Court lost a bit miserably, losing the Southern Continent. Although it retained the Northern Continent, Steam Gospel became a semi-independent vassal town.

After coming and going, the Holy Court became less arrogant. On the contrary, the border between East Posuo Continent and West Posuo Continent calmed down a lot.

Although Daomen got an advantage, it was still far away from defeating the Holy Court. In addition, Xidaomen also did not return to the embrace of Daomen, so there was no pursuit of victory. The two sides began to maintain the status quo, only making small moves. The South that just ended not long ago The mainland war has become the largest action taken by both sides.

Calculated this way, the time doesn't match up. .??.

Because there is an important anchor point here, and that is Andres Lopez, a missionary of the Society of Goddess.

This person was a friend of the last emperor of Paititi. He reported the matter to the Holy Court only after the last emperor of Paititi disappeared with Paititi with the legendary artifact. A copy of this report was also in the hands of Wang Jiaohe and was written during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Wei Dynasty.

The ten years of Shenzong were basically ten years of fighting for the world. At this time, Xidaomen had not left the Central Plains and was participating in the fight for the world. That

The outcome is uncertain at this time, and it is impossible for Xidaomen to send people to the southern continent early.

Qi Xuansu asked, "Is it an insect?"

Wuniang said, "The earliest insect people appeared in the late Jin Dynasty. Their existence was not discovered until the Daomen entered Nanyang. In the intervening hundreds of years, there is no record of how the insect people developed, so even if the insect people were early It makes sense that we didn’t know it when we came to the Southern Continent.”

Qi Xuansu agreed, "Although the Insect People were discovered in Nanyang, they have obvious Central Plains appearance. They are not like Nanyang people, but more like people who migrated from the Central Plains. The reason why they were able to deceive the Taoist sect in the first place was that they were able to fool the Taoist sect." It is thought that they are branches of the Taoist sect. In addition to their skills, the similarity in appearance is also a major reason. It now seems that when the remaining insect people fled from Nanyang to the Southern Continent, they did not choose a route in a hurry, but were well prepared because this side of the Southern Continent. There is a branch of the insect people, and they come to join their relatives.”

Wuniang continued, "These insect people from the Southern Continent have had interactions with the ancient gods many years ago, and even became priests of the ancient gods. This is probably just doing as the Romans do. The insect people from the Southern Continent are more like Taoist priests because they are close to the Taoist sect. Because the insect people were close to the ancient gods, it was no wonder that Ixichel believed in them and knew them well. They turned out to be old friends. "

Qi Xuansu said, "It can be explained that those human figurines were left behind by the ancient insect people during the Paititi period."

Wu Niang reached out and touched the heart of the female corpse. Her palm broke through the flesh that had not yet rotted, and went deep inside. Sure enough, she took out a cocoon, but the cocoon was already shriveled. Apparently the insects inside died along with the host. .

"The methods of the West Dao Sect are not as good as those of the Dao Sect. They did not clean up the Insects cleanly and left many remnants of the Insects, such as the Lanyun Sect." Wuniang said, "Judging from the altar, these Insects are loyal to Itsam." Na, let’s not care about whether these insect people are playing double-dealing, just think that they are believers of Itsumna. After Itsumna’s death, they chose to trace Ixichel and oppose Kukulkan. Of course, it makes sense logically.”

Qi Xuansu said, "Insect people can be loyal at all? I don't think so. The reason why they are hostile to Kukulkan is not because they are loyal to Itsumna. There must be a deeper reason, maybe Ixichel Promises were made to them, such as divine power, as evidenced by those human-headed trees.”

Wu Niang agreed with Qi Xuansu's statement, "Yes, the character of the insect people is destined to not be loyal to anyone. When Itsumna was alive, maybe he

They will be afraid of the power of this god and pretend to be loyal. After It Sumner's death, they will never continue to serve him as filial piety, and what happened to the Zhao orphans will not happen to the Insect Man. "

Qi Xuansu asked, "Wu Niang, how did this insect priest die?"

Wu Niang hesitated for a moment, "It doesn't look like suicide, there are no obvious injuries, and the body is not rotten. It can't be a case of obsession."

Qi Xuansu said, "This possibility cannot be ruled out. The insect people's skills have always been greedy for success. In their so-called 'Elixir Formation Period', if you are not careful, your elixir will be destroyed and people will die. It is normal for you to go crazy. If you go On the right path, I have never heard of people who died because of cultivating the golden elixir path. What the Taoist sect cultivates is immortality. Some magical powers and magic powers are incidental to immortality. If you fail to cultivate immortality, life is nothing more than death at the end of your life. What is the path to immortality that is difficult, like theirs? It seems like he just wants to die."

Wu Niang scanned the temple again with her spiritual thoughts, but found nothing else, and said, "Let's not talk about this anymore, let's continue looking for Paititi."

Qi Xuansu had no objection, and the two of them left the temple and continued along the ancient road.

Along the way, there are still some building ruins, which should be supporting buildings of the temple, such as the residences of clergy, etc. However, the quality of these buildings is obviously not comparable to the temples that serve the gods, and they have all collapsed.

It can be seen that this may be a temple area, and Qi Xuansu and Wu Niang have entered the city limits of Paititi.

After all, these southern continent city-states do not build city walls on a large scale like the Central Plains, which makes sense.

Qi Xuansu and Wu Niang gradually left the temple area, and there were more and more ruins of the building. In a prosperous city, every inch of land must be at a premium. Only palaces, temples, noble residences and other areas can leave large open spaces and appear empty. Once in downtown and civilian areas, people must be next to each other and houses are next to houses. .

Take Qi Xuansu for example. When he lived in Haichanfang, there were several neighbors in one alley, and one street was divided into many alleys. After arriving at Taishangfang, there were no alleys, only streets. There were only three or two houses on one street, and each house had a big garden.

There were originally few buildings in the temple area and there were many open spaces, which gave the rain forest the opportunity to grow wildly. Of course, there were only a few buildings seen, but it was different now. The rain forest could not completely swallow up these closely connected and chaotic buildings.

Once here, the road becomes clear with reference to the various architectural remains on both sides.

There is no doubt that the two of them have entered Paititi.

Although Paititi had no imagination

It is so spectacular, but it is also reasonable. After all, this is an abandoned city swallowed up by the rain forest, almost integrated with the rain forest. If it is very spectacular, then Qi Xuansu can see it at a glance when he looks down from above.

Qi Xuansu roughly analyzed the situation. According to Andres' records and some legends, it was said that the last emperor of Paititi disappeared with the artifact and Paititi. From this, it can be seen that although the ancient gods of the northern continent It had penetrated into the Southern Continent at this time, but it was still the royal family that dominated Paititi, not the ancient gods. Therefore, the road to Paititi Cave will not be in the temple area, but will most likely be in the palace that symbolizes the royal family.

Qi Xuansu communicated this speculation with Wu Niang, who also agreed with Qi Xuansu's idea, and the two decided to go to the palace area.

The palace is not difficult to find. It is usually located in the center of the city. It is no exception in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad.

However, along the way, the two of them always felt very strange. This place seemed to be an empty city. There were no traces of damage from the war, and no human figures or corpses were seen. It did not look like a scene after a massacre, but it seemed that the people here There has been a mass evacuation.

Qi Xuansu was a little confused, "Paititi has perished, but there are no traces of the war. Wasn't Paititi destroyed at the hands of other city-states?"

Wuniang is still well-informed. "This is your typical Central Plains thinking. You always feel that a city must be destroyed by foreign enemies, because the Central Plains has maintained a unified court for most of the time since Zulong, which can integrate resources and concentrate strength." However, these city-states in the Southern Continent are different in that they have dense rainforests and inconvenient travel. Their environment is not comparable to that of the Central Plains. They are very fragile. Once a disaster, such as an epidemic, occurs, it can easily destroy the entire country. The city was immediately destroyed.”

Qi Xuansu suddenly said, "No wonder later people didn't know the location of Paititi. If Paititi was destroyed in the war, then the city-state that destroyed Paititi should have relevant records. But if Paititi was destroyed in a certain It makes sense to plant a disease so that outsiders don’t know about it.”

Wuniang said, "In the cave we entered, apart from some people who died from the massacre, most of them may have died from the epidemic. In the early stages of the epidemic, there were fewer deaths, and Paititi still had the power to kill the dead." The corpses were placed in the tombs of the temple. Later, when the plague spread and there were too many dead people, the living began to flee. There may be many dead bodies like that of the priestess left in the ruins of the building."

Qi Xuansu nodded in agreement.

There are similar traditions at home and abroad in ancient and modern times. In the East, Taoist temples and temples are chosen for temporary resting, while in the West, people are simply buried in churches. It seems that the temple in Paititi is no exception.