Shén Fó Dòng (Cave of Gods and Buddhas)

  I don't know why, but in some dimly lit spaces, looking at the Buddha statues on the wall, the scene that flashes through my mind is from Journey to the West where the demon Yellow Browed Monster uses Tang Sanzang's sincere heart to set up a small Thunder Sound Temple, luring the four master-disciple into the temple. Inside, each of the Buddha statues had either furrowed brows or angry eyes, or were benevolent like the Tathagata, but all consistently exuded an evil aura.

  This is what I feel at this moment, the devoutly extreme Buddha cave, the Buddha master carved on the stone wall gives me a sense of evil. Staring at the Buddha statue for a long time, I finally realized where it was wrong, it was its mouth corner, slightly raised, as if with a sneer, looking down on the people kneeling in front of it. At this time, Old Iron had already put aside his hunting rifle and knelt devoutly on the ground, muttering to himself, completely immersed in the thought of seeking Buddha's blessings.

  I took another look around the surroundings, but there was nothing special about it. The cave wasn't deep and you could see to the other end with one glance. If not for the Buddha statue carved on the stone wall, this would probably be just an ordinary mountain cave. Seeing that Old Iron still wanted to stay a while longer, I turned around and walked out, only to find that Lu Xun had already put away his phone and was still gazing up at the gigantic human-shaped image above.

  After rushing for a whole morning, I was quite tired. I put down the backpack on my shoulder and sat on the ground, rummaging through the mineral water. Before I even opened it, I heard a muffled hum from inside the cave. My heart skipped a beat. Before I could react, Lu Xun, who had been holding his head up, darted past me like an arrow and rushed into the cave. I immediately scrambled to my feet and ran in after him.

  Only to see Lu Xun running to the bottom of the cave, but Lao Tie was nowhere to be seen. His hunting rifle was still lying in its original position, and there were even marks left by Lao Tie's kowtowing on the ground in front of the Buddha statue. Lu Xun walked over and asked: "Where is he?" This was also what I wanted to ask, wasn't he the first one to come in? But I only differed from him by three or four seconds, and after a slight turn in my mind, I understood, "Did you see Lao Tie when you came in?"

  The expression of raising an eyebrow continuously told the answer, this space is limited, and you can see the whole picture at a glance. I was sitting at the entrance, and Luchu was standing outside, and we even heard the muffled hum of Old Iron just now, so we rushed in, but unexpectedly, Old Iron disappeared out of thin air in this short period of time. How is that possible? These four words appeared on my and Luchu's faces at the same time. Even if I was thinking wildly about Journey to the West before, it was just because I was influenced by Sanfengzi's crazy talk. This Buddha statue carved on the stone wall can't really make people disappear like Huangmei Guai did!

  He walked to the entrance of the cave, looked out, and then came back in. He stared at the ground in front of the Buddha statue, his eyes scanning every inch. I immediately understood what he meant and joined him in searching around.

  It's impossible for a person to vanish into thin air, and the last groan as well as the unmoving rifle on the ground are enough to prove that Old Iron has met with an accident. This situation is the last time he didn't even struggle, what could have caused him to be like this? The first intuitive feeling is that it was the wild man's doing, the events that occurred before and after have confirmed that we were being stalked by a wild man, and it had already appeared more than once beside us.

  But if it really was the wild man, that means we previously found the traces disappeared in the marshland not because it crossed the marsh but because it had been hiding and following us all the way here waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  But the question is how did it manage to make Lao Tie disappear from under our noses?

  I exchanged a glance with Lu Xun, his mouth moved slightly, and our thoughts coincided without prior discussion.

  Secret passage!