Chapter Thirty-Three Downfall

  The old professor took out the bronze box, slowly opened it, and pulled out a sheepskin ancient scroll. Lele was very close this time, so she could see clearly that the box had dense and intricate ancient characters carved on its surface. Lele had been studying ancient artifacts with the old professor since childhood. In the center of the box, there was also a painting of an infant ghost face, with an extremely strange expression and a strong sense of three-dimensionality, making it seem as if there really was a baby ghost face on the box at first glance!

  She only needs to take a look at the things of past dynasties, and she can guess roughly. Lele took a glance at the bronze box's color, the greenish-black patina on its body told her that it was definitely not a fake, and the color could only be formed by years of aging, estimated to be from the Western Zhou period. But now she was puzzled, during the Western Zhou period, Guangxi was still in the Stone Age culture, and had not reached the Bronze Age, so how could there be a bronze box in Guangxi?

  The old professor took out a sheepskin ancient scroll and slowly looked at the dark cave with coffins hanging on the cliff, Lele felt curious and glanced at the sheepskin ancient scroll, which was filled with dense and mysterious ancient characters. Lele could only vaguely recognize a few words, while the rest were too profound to understand.

  "So it was like this, here is a long-lost Qigong escape art"! Gu Professor said.

  Two students followed Professor Gu, one named Xu Wen wore a pair of golden-rimmed glasses, with curly hair and a melon-seed-shaped face, his chin's beard was as black and dense as a black goat, so he got the nickname "Goat Brother". The other one was very thin, with a pale complexion, typical Lin Daiyu style, would fall down in the wind, but he could eat a lot, whenever he saw someone, there must be snacks or something on his hand, so Lele called him "Pig Brother".

  The goat looked puzzled and perplexed.

  "Teacher, this place looks ordinary, how can there be something like Qimen Dunjia?" asked Goat Brother. Professor Gu looked at Goat Brother with a somewhat dispirited gaze and said:

  "There are thousands of cave entrances arranged in a peculiar pattern, but only one is the real entrance to the tomb of the demon king. The other entrances either hold coffins for slaves who were buried alive or have hidden mechanisms and crossbows. Even without these mechanisms, these thousands of entrances can still confuse us to death."

  The goat brother knew that Professor Gu's stubborn personality would make him dare not speak again after scratching his head, and Professor Gu cleared his throat.

  "The cliff burial in Guangxi cannot be detected by traditional geomancy or the Luoyang shovel, it is suspended on the cliff, and ordinary tomb raiders are deterred by its height, so the cliff burial culture is relatively well preserved, and there is no sign of any tomb raider's destruction here."

  "Grandpa, how are we going to find the entrance to the Demon King's tomb?" Lele chimed in and asked.

  "Hmm... Professor Gu murmured, pointing at the sheepskin ancient scroll."

  "This is a map of the tomb, although it only has a few dozen words, but it details the structure and mechanisms of the ancient grave. If I didn't have this sheepskin scroll, I wouldn't dare to disturb my old bones!"

  He finished speaking and raised his right hand, pointing to a place on the cliff.

  "Look, there is no other way. The seventh hole on the 18th floor is actually the real entrance to the Demon King's tomb. This hole is arranged very secretly. If we didn't have this sheepskin ancient scroll, even if we walked here, we wouldn't be able to continue."

  They entered the tomb of the demon king, six people in a row, without encountering any corpse puppets. I'm not sure what the reason is, and Hei Zi didn't die either. The "person" who died in the man-eating blood vine forest was also a fake corpse created by Xi Bi. Le Le and his group were trapped in the four-dimensional space by Liu Lao Tou's group and were split apart, their life or death unknown to this day. Le Le was misled into an illusion by the ghost-faced mask until we came over and brought him out. As for Professor Gu's team, they seemed to have been dispersed, and Liu Lao Tou and Hei Zi are also nowhere to be found!

  Lele let out a long sigh of relief, her face recovering its color. Women are fine, they can pour their hearts out to others, but men are different, they have to bear everything themselves, and if they pour their hearts out to others, they might be called "cowards"!

  Luo Luo finished speaking, and I had doubts in my heart. If it was true that Professor Gu's life or death was unknown, then Da Gui's special ability would become useless. How could they be so familiar with the situation here? There were only two possibilities: one was that Professor Gu might not have died yet, and he didn't know what method he used to get out, so Da Gui could sense his presence; two was that You Shui Tou and the others were familiar with the Yao Wang Tomb. The only reason they could be so familiar with the tomb's terrain was that they also had a map of the Yao Wang Tomb! Although You Shui Tou looked like a fool, he was actually very meticulous in his thinking. If he really hid a map, I estimated it would be difficult for me to discover it!

  As we walked further down, the stench of rotting corpses grew thicker and even our gas masks couldn't filter it out completely. On both sides of the Ghost Path's stone walls were densely packed with ancient texts, all in Old Zhuang script, the characters twisted like snakes, eerie and strange. Lele had studied archaeology since primary school, so she could recognize a few words: "Raksha Ghost Path". I couldn't understand it, but I didn't bother to study it further, lest I get more headaches. I just kept moving forward quickly, my eyes scanning the surroundings like a wolf's.

  Nor did we know how many big turns and small turns we had taken, the wolf-like light in front of us suddenly dimmed, and a flame shot out from somewhere, the scenery around our eyes suddenly became wider and brighter.

  I saw the scene in front of me clearly, and I was shocked to the point where my mouth was wide open and I couldn't say a word. This scene is really something that can't be expressed in language! At this moment, we are standing on the last tiny platform of the ghost road, and below our feet is an irregularly shaped deep pit with a depth of at least 300-400 meters, covering an area as large as five or six international football fields. The bottom of the pit is emitting a fiery red glow, but it's too far away to see clearly, and the air around us has become much hotter. On the walls of the deep pit, there are bronze iron chains as thick as my arm, extending all the way down to the depths below. Along the walls, there are large and small black holes, some as big as coffins, others only the size of eggs. The wind blowing through these holes makes a haunting and terrifying "whooshing" sound, making people feel very uncomfortable.

  "Is this the mass grave? Why isn't there a single corpse?" I said, looking at the scenery below. After a long time, she didn't respond, and I felt her hand holding the equipment bag trembling.

  I turned my head to look at her, and found that she was lifting her head, with a face full of fear, her lips trembling, her eyes red, and tears flashing. I felt curious, and reflexively lifted my head. Just this once, I was so scared that my scalp exploded, almost fainting on the spot! All I saw was that more than a meter above my head, thousands and thousands of terrifying mummies were hanging upside down like dried sausages, wearing ancient soldier armor. The armor had been rusty and rotten after thousands of years, their expressions extremely ferocious, their mouths open incredibly wide, 180° inverted, countless empty and resentful eyes staring straight at me, I was so scared that my hair stood on end!

  "Grandpa!" Lele suddenly squatted on the ground and shouted out in a daze.

  I came to my senses from the shock and looked in the direction he was staring, and indeed among the densely packed hanging corpses, I found three modern people hanging upside down. One had a thick black beard, which was Mountain Goat Brother, one was emaciated, who should be Pig Brother, and another had a square face with wrinkles like ravines, around 70 years old, emitting an aura of righteousness all over his body. Their faces were pale white, the kind of pale white that dead people have after they die, their bodies covered in black shell-like things, their bellies cracked open by the shell-like things, and their internal organs and intestines had flowed out, swaying back and forth in mid-air with thousands of dried corpses, it seemed like these three people were beyond saving!

  The pain of watching loved ones leave this world is the most painful, perhaps some people can't feel it for a while, but the remaining time will increase the suffering of these people.

  Lele could no longer control her emotions, and like a madman, she jumped up and rushed out to jump into the deep pit in front of her. I was shocked and thought that if she really jumped down, her bones would be shattered into 50 or 60 pieces, and she would definitely not survive. I quickly grabbed her body, which had already jumped halfway out, and pulled her back, pinning her to the ground. To prevent her from breaking free, I held down her hands and feet, but she continued to struggle desperately. My strength was considerable, but a crazy person's strength is even greater! I thought this wasn't working, so I needed to think of a way to calm her down. After thinking for a moment with my right hand, my brain suddenly lit up.

  "You'd rather die than find the one who killed your grandfather and avenge him? You can't just die like this, can you?" I said to her.

  Lè Lè's spirit was dazed, her head shaking left and right, her mouth chattering non-stop with crazy words "Grandpa... Grandpa... Hehe... Hehe"! I took a look at this and thought it wasn't good, if she keeps thinking like this, this time she might really go crazy! A knife hand was on her neck, one heavy strike, in an instant her eyes rolled up, her head tilted to the side, and she fainted!