Junior Disciple C

Chapter 112

A group of people were walking in the forest, with Uncle Sun as the leader. He used a sickle to open the way. As an old medicine farmer who often carried medicine baskets into the mountains, he walked no slower than young people.

But seeing this, Fang Yang took the initiative to help Old Uncle Sun carry the medicine basket, and took out his sword to help split the weeds blocking the way.

Old Uncle Sun's favor with Fang Yang suddenly improved. After walking for a while, the two became as close as grandparents.

Cao Zirui was not as sociable as Fang Yang, and his personality was introverted, but he also silently stood on the other side of Old Uncle Sun, helping to chop weeds.

Feng Ye and Hao Chen walked behind the three of them, and Hao Chen waved his fan to fan himself.

The forest was still hot and dry as usual, not much better than yesterday, and the sun was about to rise again, the hottest time of the day, but Hao Chen did not pretend to be dehydrated this time, nor did he try to make Feng Ye carry him on his back.

His dragon is wounded and needs pampering.

So Hao Chen took the initiative to propose to Feng Ye beside him: "Do you want me to carry you?"

He is reciprocating, and there is back and forth.

But Feng Ye resolutely refused: "No need."

And, deliberately kept a certain distance from Hao Chen.

Since Hao Chen found out what was going on in his mind, and he couldn't give any response, it's better to distance himself.

Hao Chen saw that the distance between himself and Feng Ye was so wide that it would be more than enough for another person to squeeze in. Sure enough, this dragon not only planned to reject him, but now he wanted to avoid suspicion with him.

Although he had expected it, Hao Chen still regretted it a little bit, maybe he shouldn't have admitted it so early, it would be better to delay it a little longer.

Procrastinate until he gets closer to Feng Ye, and procrastinate until he learns more about this man's past.

But it's a done deal, and now he seems to be able to look at the dragon and sigh through this man-wide moat.

Hao Chen sighed in his heart, and from time to time sent Feng Ye a small look full of resentment.

Feng Ye was a little uncomfortable at first, but then he ignored it, and slowly sank into his own thoughts.

It's not about the relationship with Hao Chen. This kind of personal issue can be put aside later. What matters right now is the location of the place where they are about to arrive.

There are many relics exposed on the ground in the Western Qiang Imperial City, but the appearance of each place is not the same. The most obvious sign is that there is a large pothole directly exposed to the surface. The destination where I started to ask Uncle Sun was the location of the ruins.

Uncle Sun didn't know what kind of soil it was, but he knew which ruins had the big pothole Feng Ye described. Unfortunately, the map was not very accurate, and Feng Ye couldn't find the way, so he had to ask someone else, but unexpectedly came across Bandit.

Then he followed the bandits to the underground palace full of traps, and a series of unexpected things happened.

The ruins were a trap, but the two bandits didn't know it. They stayed here only for the legendary treasure.

Speaking of which, the miraculous phenomena that Wang Wu talked about before should not be the work of Ling Yun and that monster. Even if they set traps in advance, they would not come much earlier than Feng Ye and others. It must be in the Lingxiao Sword Sect Came here after the incident was over.

Feng Ye couldn't help thinking about it. Wang Wu said that they put some pheasants and hares with ropes tied under their feet into the corridor, but only the stumps were pulled back.

This point is easy to explain, [-]% of them are the skeletons trapped in the formation, and the evil ghosts are not so easy to train, and not every person who is put into the formation can become an extremely evil ghost in the end.

The ghost-faced priests of Xiqiang have practiced for decades, but only eight of them have been refined.

This formation will fail most of the time. If there is no evil ghost who can stand up to an extremely evil ghost, the formation will not be opened, and those who fail can only be locked in the formation forever, never to be released. out.

However, the big formation has slowly decayed over the millennium, and the few of them making trouble inside made the ghost formation completely collapse.

The skeletons imprisoned by the formation were buried in the ground, and their irresistible grievances would slowly dissipate over time, and then the skeletons would turn into dust and be reborn.

It can be regarded as a relief.

Feng Ye focused his thinking on another point, the corpses of the couple who originally lived in the wooden house.

Wang Wu said that they buried the body under the cave, at the entrance of the tunnel, but after one night, the body disappeared, only the gold bracelet on the woman's hand was still in place, and there were no footprints or digging holes around. The traces and the soil where the corpses were buried are the same as when they left.

This is very bizarre, let’s not talk about whether those skeletons can escape from the formation, even if they escape, they only know how to eat the living, and they probably can’t do it. Dig out the corpse and take it away. It was such a complicated thing to leave the gold bracelet on purpose, and finally rebury the soil and clean up all traces.

Feng Ye frowned. He had seen a lot, and he had seen a lot of strange monsters and monsters, but he couldn't figure it out for a while, and couldn't figure out what would do such a thing.

His eyes just drifted to the old man Sun Huan who was chatting with Fang Yang in front of him. What kind of supernatural phenomenon is there in Longqiu? Like this kind of medicine farmers who have been in the mountains all the year round, they should not be completely unaware. Maybe Old Man Sun knows some more detailed clues .

So Feng Ye suddenly interrupted the conversation between Fang Yang and Uncle Sun, and asked: "Uncle Sun, we are new here and we are very unfamiliar with Longqiu. Could you introduce us?"

Uncle Sun happily agreed: "No problem. Although this Longqiu is sparsely populated, it has large mountains and forests, and there are many interesting places."

Before Old Uncle Sun was about to introduce the landscape, Feng Ye interrupted again: "We are particularly interested in the stories about gods, gods and ghosts. Can Uncle Sun tell us?"

"Stories about gods, gods, ghosts..." Old Uncle Sun stroked his beard for a while and thought, and replied, "Don't tell me, there are quite a lot of supernatural legends like Longqiu, all of which are buried under the ground. Because of the imperial city, do you know about the Western Qiang Imperial City?"

All four of them nodded. They didn't know about it at first, but they were introduced by the two bandits, and they went to the underground palace in person, so they knew a little about the Western Qiang Imperial City.

"The Xiqiang imperial city is roughly divided into four parts, east, west, north, and south. The north and south are okay. They are the places where ordinary people of Xiqiang live, but the east and west city, the west city is the residence of the priests of Xiqiang, which is the place you were just now. , are all the sites of Xiqiang priests, and it is said that they are used for priests to study magic arts."

The priest of Xiqiang lived in the west of the city, so his ghost refining formation was also set up in the west of the city.Feng Ye knew this a long time ago, so he didn't make a sound, and continued to listen quietly.

"Actually, I just saw your ruins on the west side, and I was a little worried, because I heard that the ruins on the west side are haunted, and I can always hear noises from the ground at night, as if something is trying to crawl out of the soil. Didn't you see this happen after a night there?" Old Uncle Sun asked.

The four of them didn't answer for a while. They not only met the things that Old Uncle Sun said were making noises underground and were trying to crawl out of the soil, but they also fought. They were those skeletons.

Both Fang Yang and Cao Zirui are not good at lying, so Feng Ye set an example and replied with a smile: "I didn't meet them, but I met a few wolves."

"That's good." Uncle Sun felt relieved, and he continued: "Let's talk about the east of the city, the ruins you are going to are in the east of the city, and we have almost set foot on the range of the east of the city. The east of the city is used to The place where sacrifices are made to the gods is the Naga, the snake god worshiped by the Xiqiang people."

"There is no sound underground in this place, but it's even more terrifying." Uncle Sun made an exaggerated expression, and he lowered his voice: "There are...monsters that can eat people in the soil here."

There are... monsters that eat people?

Fang Yang and Cao Zirui looked at each other, they couldn't believe it, they knew that there were skeletons that could eat people in the underground palace, but how could there be any monsters in the soil?Together, they looked down at the ubiquitous soil under their feet, and suddenly felt a little lost.

But Feng Ye frowned. Could it be that the man-eating monster in the soil has something to do with Xi Rang?

Hao Chen also squinted his eyes when he heard that. He waved his fan and observed the surrounding soil. The soil was lush and full of vitality, without any trace of evil.

He can't even notice the abnormality, unless the evil spirit is stronger than him, so he can disguise it in front of him.

But this is almost impossible. What kind of evil spirit can be higher than the god of heaven?

Old Uncle Sun was afraid that these people would not believe him, so he added on his own: "In the past, the tradition here was to bury dead relatives and friends in the mountains and rivers of Longqiu, set up a monument, and come to pay respects from time to time."

"The custom of burial has never been found to be a problem, because if it is buried, it is buried, and it will not be dug up easily. But it was about six or seven hundred years ago, and I can't remember exactly how far away. Anyway, there was a family, The old man in the family passed away."

"Their family is a big family in the village, and there is no shortage of gold, silver and jade objects. When the old man was buried, he put a lot of gold and silver in the coffin. But the old man has just been buried for a month, and his family's business has been increasing in the past month. The worse it gets, I don’t know if it’s because of his business problems or some other reason.”

"But the male owner of the family believed Mr. Feng Shui's words, and felt that the poor business was due to the poor selection of the location of the ancestral grave, so he planned to move the grave of his old man just after a month of burial."

"It's disrespectful to disturb the ancestors at will. No one has ever done such a stupid thing as exhuming the corpse, but the master is determined to dig up his father's grave for his own business."

"Everyone scolded him for being unfilial, but they couldn't say anything about him, so they all came to watch on the day when the grave was moved, but the digging didn't matter. A strange thing happened. The corpse buried in the soil disappeared." Uncle Sun Spread your hands.

"Why is the body gone?" Fang Yang hurriedly urged when he heard the wonderful part.

Old Uncle Sun already regarded Fang Yang as his own grandson, he smiled kindly at Fang Yang, and continued unhurriedly: "The thing is so bizarre, not to mention the corpse, even the nanmu coffin that wraps the corpse, the coffin All the silk and satin cushions are gone.”

"Is everything gone?" Feng Ye suddenly asked, "Is there no gold or silver?"

"I was just about to talk." Uncle Sun said, "There is nothing left, except for the gold and silver buried in the coffin. This is the most amazing thing about this matter. Everyone looked at the coffin It's gone, I thought it was done by some unscrupulous tomb robber."

"However, all the gold and silver are buried in the ground properly, so it is absolutely impossible to be a tomb robber. Tomb robbery is nothing more than making money. Who would take away the corpse and coffin instead of taking the good gold and silver?"

"Everyone couldn't figure out why, so they reported it to the officials, and the officers and soldiers came to investigate, but they didn't find any results, so this matter became an unsolved case. But by coincidence, not long after this incident, another incident happened. The disappearance of the body."

"The corpse this time is a newly married daughter-in-law. She died just one day after passing through the door, and was buried immediately. The husband's family said that the bride fell ill. Can the mother's family believe this kind of nonsense? The daughter who was raised so well suddenly disappeared. They don't care about any taboos, they will open the coffin for an autopsy, so that the government can find out how his daughter died."

"When the coffin was dug that day, many people surrounded it. What happened? Just like the old man from the rich family last time, the body disappeared even with the coffin, and only the jade bracelet brought by the bride from her natal family was left to bury her. In place."

"This corpse has only been buried for a day, and it disappeared without anyone noticing it. This thing really doesn't seem to be done by humans. The more people thought about it, the more panicked they became. Some people simply went to their ancestral grave and wanted to dig it up. look."

"After digging, I discovered that the ancestral tomb that my family worshiped every year, unconsciously, the bones and coffins of the ancestors disappeared, and only some burial ornaments remained."

"There are more and more people digging coffins. All the corpses buried in the east of the Xiqiang ruins city are gone. The situation is exactly the same. The valuable gold and silver are intact, and there are no traces of digging in the cemetery, but the soil The body in there just disappeared."

"This incident became more and more evil. Everyone said that there were monsters eating corpses in the soil. After this incident, everyone dared not bury the bones of relatives and friends in the soil. They would be eaten even if they were buried. There were no bones left, so we changed it to cremation later, and being burned to ashes is better than being eaten."

Uncle Sun's narration came to an end, and no one spoke.

Although Fang Yang and the others reacted a bit slower than Feng Ye, after listening to Uncle Sun's detailed explanation, they also realized that this matter was exactly the same as that couple who were buried by bandits.

All the corpses disappeared, and there was no trace of excavation, only valuable gold and silver remained in place.

Valuable gold, silver and jade articles... Feng Ye rubbed his chin in thought.

Wait, he suddenly realized that he might have focused on the wrong focus. The focus was not on valuable gold and silver, but on gold and silver that is not easy to digest.

Whether it's a corpse, a wooden coffin, or the silk clothes wrapped around the corpse, those are all things that can be easily digested, but gold and silver are not.

Hard metal stones were the hardest to break down, so they were left in place.

But this is not quite right, eat it and eat it, why should it be left intact?

It should leave some traces anyway, what is it that is causing the trouble?

Feng Ye stared at the dirt under his feet in a daze.

While he was in a trance, Old Uncle Sun suddenly pointed to the pothole in front of him and said, "Here we are, this is the ruin with the big pothole you mentioned."

They walked and chatted for a while, and before they knew it, they had arrived at their destination.

The location of the soil.

Resting soil... Endless soil...

Suddenly, a glimmer of inspiration flashed through Feng Ye's mind. It might not be some monster hidden in the soil that eats people. The soil itself has the ability to digest. Could it be...

Feng Ye vaguely had a guess, he raised his head and looked in the direction of the ruins ahead, this glance made him freeze in place immediately.

Don't have any doubts anymore, his guess was right.

here is...

"Jiubuya." Uncle Sun introduced to everyone.

In front of me is a pothole with a diameter of about 30 meters. Judging by the smooth trajectory, it is probably not natural and should be dug out manually.

This pit is about ten meters deep, not as deep as the underground palace they went down before, but there are no criss-crossing passages under this pit, it is just a simple pit.

There is lush green grass growing under the pit, which can be seen at a glance.And somewhere on the edge of the cliff, there is a stone platform that protrudes to the center of the pit. It is not wide, and it is a bit too small for a person to walk on. It is not very long, about six or seven meters.

This stone platform hangs alone above the pothole. It could be called a bridge, but the length is not enough. This length can't even cover one-third of the diameter of the pothole. I don't know what it is for.

"Jiubuya? Why is it called Jiubuya?" Although he just heard an incredible story, Fang Yang's attention was immediately diverted when he saw something new. He asked curiously.

"As the name suggests, because this place can only walk nine steps." Old Uncle Sun pointed to the protruding stone platform.

"Can only walk nine steps? I'll try!" Fang Yang was full of curiosity, but also had a strong spirit of exploration. He wanted to see if the stone platform really could only walk nine steps.

Fang Yang's mobility was extremely strong, he had already taken two steps forward before he finished speaking, and Old Uncle Sun had no time to speak at all.

However, before he actually walked up to the Jiubuya cliff, Feng Ye suddenly stretched out his arm to stop him.

He was very determined to stop Fang Yang, who was caught off guard and bumped into Feng Ye's arm, causing his chest to hurt a little.

Fang Yang rubbed his chest and wanted to ask Feng Ye, but Feng Ye didn't even look at him. Feng Ye stared at Jiubuya with an inexplicable solemn expression.

It seems that Jiubuya Feng Ye must know.Hao Chen thought to himself.

He also suddenly became curious, wanting to know what is so weird about this place.

Just in time, Old Uncle Sun's slow explanation finally came: "He was right to stop you, you can't walk casually on this Jiubuya."

"Why?" Fang Yang asked.

"Because nine is an extreme number. In the concept of the Xiqiang people, after nine, there is nothing left. After nine steps, it is a dead end, nothingness, and...death." Uncle Sun stroked his beard He sighed, "What do you think this pothole is for?"

"What are you doing?" Fang Yang asked in a daze. He was confused by Old Uncle Sun's explanation.

"The pot." Old Uncle Sun sighed, "Now the bottom is covered with grass, but thousands of years ago, the bottom of the pit was full of poisonous snakes."

"The Xiqiang people attach great importance to the ritual of worshiping the gods. The way they offer tribute to the snake god is to push the tribute up the nine-step cliff. After nine steps, they fall to the bottom of the cliff. Even if they don't fall to death, they will be bitten to death and swallowed by poisonous snakes. "

Pushing the tribute up the Jiubu cliff... This means that the tribute must be alive, and looking at the length of the Jiubu cliff, it doesn't look like the Jiubu of some four-hoofed livestock. Could it be that...

Fang Yang's eyes widened, he couldn't believe it.

Uncle Sun confirmed Fang Yang's guess: "Those who were pushed up to Jiubuya are all living people."