Chapter 27: The Origin of the Divine Race

  Wu Feng didn't say a word, but instead pulled out a digital camera from his backpack and shook it saying: "This thing, this thing is unconscious. It's mechanical."

  I shook my head and said, "It's useless. Although digital cameras don't have consciousness, since our perceptions are illusions, the images we see should be illusions too."

  Wu Feng smiled and said: "Who says it's just for looking? I thought of a method that might work."

  Su Yu flew up with a shadowless kick towards Wu Feng, saying: "Speak quickly, don't drag it out like Bai Jian. It's almost boiling over."

  I went, where did I grind. Wu Feng didn't let me refute, and continued to say: "We can take a photo in one place, then turn to another direction, because the conditions for producing hallucinations have changed. Originally, the hallucination on that photo should disappear, so when we look at the photo again, can we see the real situation?"

  "Let's give it a try." I agreed, "This method might actually work because the ancients didn't have this technology and could only rely on their naked eye to sense things, of course they couldn't break through the formation, but cameras really don't have consciousness."

  These people are absolutely the type to take action, as long as they have a method, they immediately start working. Wen Long put his compass that was still finding north on the ground, making it a sign. Wu Feng picked up the camera and took a picture in that direction, although what we saw through the lens was the same as what our eyes saw, but when he turned around and looked at the camera again, I found him unexpectedly excited.

  "He shouted loudly: 'It's done, what the hell is this thing?'"

  I took a step closer to him, looked at the camera, and the photos inside were no longer of the desert, but of some stone pillars. The four stone pillars in the photo were arranged in a row, one of which was relatively close to us, while the other three were far away, with one of them being partially blocked by the closer one, only showing a little edge.

  I said to Su Yu: "Is there a way to record this?"

  Su Yi immediately pulled out her notebook and pen and said: "Don't worry, I've studied painting."

  "I just knew this guy was a multi-talented type, and with a slightly exaggerated tone of praise, he said: 'I didn't expect that our Miss Su would be a talented woman, admiration, admiration. So remember to label all the pictures with numbers.'"

  Su Yibai gave me a glance and said, "No problem." She took the camera and started taking pictures. She was indeed an expert in this area, and it only took her a short while to finish drawing the basic situation. The rest could be painted without using the camera.

  I took the camera and handed it to Wu Feng, saying: "At a 45-degree angle, take another picture, capture the entire circle, then draw all the pictures together. We need to form a 360-degree three-dimensional image with no blind spots."

  With the discovery, everyone's movements were very quick. After Wu Feng took a photo, he handed the camera to Su Yi and let her draw it down. She tore off each drawing as soon as she finished and gave it to me. I was responsible for sticking those drawings together according to the proportion to determine which pillars were overlapping, and then we stuck them together. In this way, after more than half an hour, we finally completed a panoramic view of the stone pillar chart.

  I pointed at the largest stone pillar in the first picture and said, "You see, this pillar is closest to us. The impact we are experiencing now should be caused by this pillar."

  I said as I adjusted the map according to the direction of the compass on the ground, and then said: "You see, it's this direction, that pillar is in a slightly biased position from us." Others didn't speak, at this time, in this kind of place, they knew that I was the only one who could unlock this formation.

  I held the map in my hand and formed a circle, continuing to say: "You look at this No. 3 map again, there is a stone pillar closer to us, that is, according to the map, it should be in that direction." I pointed along the direction of the stone pillar, then said to Wu Feng: "Stand in my position and take a photo in that direction."

  Wu Feng quickly completed the task, handed me the camera, and I saw the photos on it. After comparing them, I found that they were indeed correct. That stone pillar was standing right there. My heart was filled with excitement. Who invented the camera? I'll definitely look it up on Baidu later and thank his ancestors for eight generations.

  I pointed in that direction and said, "We'll turn our backs to this largest pillar, then take a few steps in that direction to see if we can get out of the illusion. Now all we can say is heaven bless us."

  The old man stood up at this time and said: "Since there is a direction, try it. It's better than sitting here waiting for death."

  I thought for a moment and said: "Wen Long, there's something I need you to take care of."

  Wen Long immediately became spirited, tasks always excited him. He busied himself responding: "If there's something to be done, I guarantee it will be completed."

  "I want you to get some rope and tie everyone together, so that if someone gets into trouble while we're moving forward, we can help each other out. Remember, keep a similar distance from each other, I'll take the lead because I need to scout ahead." I paused for a moment before continuing: "Also, this time when we move forward, you walk behind me. Remember, no matter what kind of danger you see me in, don't make a sound or try to rescue me. What looks like danger to you might not be anything on my end. Unless I shout for help myself, I trust that your mental toughness is the best among us and you can handle it."

  Wen Long nodded and said: "No problem, these are all very simple things. However, when something dangerous happens, you're sure you don't want me to save you?"

  I nodded confidently and said: "Don't worry, the danger you see is just an illusion. In fact, we are just walking on a very flat stone array."

  Wen Long immediately started doing things, and our backpack originally had a climbing buckle, which was taken out and tied to the waist. Because there was no climbing rope, Wen Long dismantled two ropes from the flying claws and tied them together, making a 20-meter long rope for us to tie up. This time, I was the first, Wen Long was my rear guard, followed by Lao Yezi, Su Yi, Wu Feng still at the end.

  I asked Wen Long to take a few road signs, which were placed on the ground and marked with a camera. I then turned around to check until one of the signs was facing the stone pillar closest to us. With my back against that sign, I confirmed our direction again and reminded Wen Long: "Remember, now you can't trust your eyes, can't trust your ears, can't trust your intuition, only trust me."

  Wen Long patted me on the back and said, "Don't worry, I trust you."

  I walked straight forward, at least that's how I felt. Wen Long left me more than five meters of space to move forward. I estimated that after advancing two or three meters, I would make a landmark, take a photo, and then turn around to check the direction and distance again. Until the rope was pulled tight. I knew that Wen Long had followed closely behind me in this direction.

  After adjusting two or three times, I suddenly felt that the scenery around me began to blur and didn't seem so obvious. I let out a long sigh of relief. My heart was secretly delighted. After walking another two or three meters forward, the desert scene had completely disappeared. In front of me were rows of towering stone pillars and those glowing plants on my head. I completed the first step.

  A refreshing breeze arrived, making me feel so comfortable. Without the dryness of the desert and the scorching sun, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Turning back to look at Wen Long and the others, I couldn't help but be secretly shocked. From my perspective, they were just walking slowly towards me on flat ground, but it was clear that they hadn't yet escaped the desert's illusion. I saw them drenched in sweat, as if they had just been pulled out of water. This breeze truly has the power to change one's fate. I finally understood how great Zhuge Liang's Eight Trigrams Formation was.

  I pulled on the rope, letting them slowly move in my direction. Before long, Wen Long arrived first. He immediately said loudly: "I'm going, it really came out."

  The old man behind him heard the voice, but he hadn't come out of his reverie yet and said: "It can't be, it's over so soon? This formation is too petty."

  "It's not that simple, we've just taken the first step correctly, there's still a long way to go."

  After a while, everyone gathered together again, this time much better, the hallucinations faded a lot, and people's spirits also recovered. After replenishing some water, I carefully observed the arrangement of the stone pillars again, and roughly had a basic understanding of how to get out. We shortened the rope, spaced three meters apart, and I continued to lead the way. Two steps forward, three turns around two, four choices for the edge, five retreats backward. The broken book was indeed true, after walking for about half an hour in this environment, we finally walked out of the red sand array.

  Looking back at this array, I found that these ancient people were really amazing. This space is just a circular shape with a radius of about 200 meters and a height of more than three meters. It's not too big after all. In the middle position of the top, I saw the round hole where we fell down. Dozens of cylindrical stone pillars connected the top and the ground, they were not thick, just as thin as a small cola bottle, arranged in a staggered manner. Looking back, we were actually confused by these simple things, it's really miserable.

  Su Yi walked out of the formation and immediately distanced herself, only then did she turn her head back to look and say: "Unbelievable, just these broken rocks, trapping us inside, almost didn't make it out?"

  Wu Feng also came out at this time. More accurately, he was pulled out by Wen Long. He stared blankly at the formation and then asked me: "I'm saying, if we break through this formation, is it useless to us now?"

  I shook my head and replied, "No, as long as this formation isn't broken, it's always effective. So it's better not to get close, just in case something goes wrong again and you fall into it, there won't be anyone to save you this time."

  Wu Feng immediately took two steps back and said: "Isn't that saying, this thing not only hasn't lost its spirit, but also has the possibility of causing us trouble?"

  I said: "You can say that, but what's bothering us now is not this broken formation, but how are we going to get out of here?"

  "Find the organ." Su Wei replied immediately, "This is all basic procedure, look at the wall, these..."

  She didn't finish speaking and got stuck, I immediately looked at the wall and found that there were indeed many carvings on it. Although this carving master should not be the same person as last time, it is clear that this guy is also a master. The carvings here all use relief method, it seems that due to the larger space, for creation, of course, relief can better reflect the character's demeanor.

  The bas-relief in front of us, if I were to describe it, is a family portrait, a divine family portrait. The center of the entire painting is that statue outside - Pangu, he alone occupies one-third of the entire painting with his massive body, and is also the largest figure in the painting. With a human face and dragon body, compared to those smaller figures next to him, it's truly majestic. When I say those are smaller figures, it's not an exaggeration at all - on Pangu's left side is a male figure with a human face and snake body, who is only about half of Pangu's height and much thinner. If Pangu were a tank, this little guy would be at most a regular jeep.

  The sculptor's delicate carving brought out the facial features of this person, and I recognized who it was at a glance. It was Fuxi. On the right side of Pangu is a female sculpture, also with a human face and snake body, slightly smaller than Fuxi. This image has appeared before us many times - Nüwa. Heaven, the three main gods of Chinese mythology, Pangu who created heaven and earth, the two emperors Fuxi and Nüwa, are all here!

  In front of the three major main gods, there were a few smaller human-faced snake-bodied guys. It seemed that these were all grandchildren. These small generations had different shapes and could no longer tell their gender.

  "You think these guys might be a family or something?" I asked, "Why does this carving look more like a family portrait."

  Wu Feng had already started taking pictures with his camera, and the old man looked at him and said: "Let's assume they are a family for now. You see, if we follow what we've seen outside, this should be Pangu."

  It must be him, I thought to myself, while also secretly being terrified. The old man pointed at the other several human-headed serpent carvings and said: "These few have some that we've all seen before, Fu Xi and Nü Wa, should be no problem. And these smaller ones also have a certain origin, Zhu Long, Erzhong Shen, Gong Gong, etc., in the Classic of Mountains and Seas they are also depicted as such."

  "My goodness." I said: "This is simply a family of gods, these guys are all ancient Chinese gods."

  "That's right," the old man replied. "In fact, in China's ancient divine records, mainly based on 'Shan Hai Jing', there are many different spirits recorded, some with human faces and horse bodies, some with human faces and bird bodies, but most commonly, they have human faces and snake bodies. It seems that they probably all came from the same place."

  I pointed at the carving and asked: "So, does that mean our ancient gods actually existed?"

  Everyone fell silent, and the old man thought for a long time before saying: "If we say that all the carvings here reflect some reality, then we can only think that ancient gods are real, they really exist in this world."

  "Come quickly, look over here." Su Xi had already run a short distance away from us and was waving at us to come over.

  I walked over and found that there was also a carving here, which was a dragon, but it seemed to be slightly different from the usual image I saw. The main body of this dragon was a conical thing, looking like a shuttle on a loom. If you consider its three-dimensional shape, I think using an iron disc to describe it would be more fitting. It should have been moving at high speed, and the carver's technique brought out this feeling perfectly. Around it was a ring of misty airflow, which formed a rough dragon shape. Behind the mist, there seemed to be a picture of something round exploding.

  I pointed at the spherical explosion and said: "What is this? Dragon fart?"

  Su Yi patted the air with her foot on my butt and said: "What are you thinking, how can this be let...let...that go."

  I heard Wu Feng burst out laughing behind us. Sure enough, the guy had already turned around to take pictures. The old man also followed over. After looking at this carving, it seemed that there was no new discovery, just staring blankly.

  "Old man." I interrupted the old man's thoughts, then said: "This dragon... thing, what does it mean?" I saw Su Yi glare at me, so I glossed over it.

  The old man said: "Explosion, it seems like something exploded, the specific situation is not very clear at present. Can't make random inferences either, next one."

  Wu Feng said while taking pictures, "A dragon is also an animal, putting that thing there is also acceptable, why did Bo Jian say something about the dragon's thing, and you immediately kicked him in the butt."

  Su Ai pinched her waist and glared at Wu Feng with one eye, then pulled me quickly down to the next carving.

  Being pulled by the girl's hand, this should be the first time, before it was always me who took the initiative to hold the girl's hand, being held by the girl is really a rare occurrence. But this environment seems not quite right, the silver plants on the ceiling do have a moonlight flavor, but the atmosphere here, I feel like there's something eerie about it, although this place shouldn't have any buried corpses. Anyway, being pulled by the girl to walk, still feels a bit dreamy.

  "Hey." Su Yi's voice broke into my reverie, "What are you thinking about? Take a look at what this means?"

  I only just realized that I had arrived in front of another carving, and Su Yi had long since let go of my hand. I hastily lifted my head, pretending not to notice the situation. This carving was a bit hard to understand, because I saw that the arrow-shaped thing had stopped moving, and after the mist around it disappeared, it didn't look much like a dragon either. However, its stopping position left me baffled, because there was nothing around it, just some small dots on the wall indicating something, and then large swaths of blank space. The feeling was like taking a very large sheet of industrial graph paper, drawing an iron hoop in one corner, and then dotting a bunch of unevenly-sized points above it.

  I stared for half a day, and I really couldn't tell what this thing was. All I could do was scratch my head and say: "This thing looks like a fly landed on a sesame seed cake."

  I was all set to welcome Su Wei's kick, because usually when I say something like this that has no bounds, she would come up with a move. However, this time she didn't lift her foot, but instead looked at me carefully and said: "Although it feels like you're talking nonsense, I've been looking for half a day and still can't find a suitable description to refute you. Let's just say what you said is right."

  We continued to look down, and this time the thing was even more incomprehensible. It was still a sesame seed cake with a fly on it, but the difference was that two balls flew out of the fly this time. The two balls split into two sides and flew around a circle. From the composition, one of them is very close to us and feels very big, while the other is very far away and feels very small. They should all be flying at high speed, as they have already become elliptical in shape and are also hairy-edged.

  I was stunned for a moment, this thing seemed familiar. I looked at Su Yi, she was also looking at me, and suddenly I remembered where I had seen this thing before. I couldn't help but exclaim loudly: "Black Hole!"