Chapter Fifteen: The Death of Hou Yi

  Wen Long quickly finished taking pictures and ran over a few steps, then said: "OK, the photos are all taken, the switch has also been found, do you want to first..."

  He hadn't even finished speaking when he found that the fierce gaze of several of us had already knocked him down a thousand times. He hastily covered his mouth and let out a short, small "eat" sound. Su Yi immediately reacted, fortunately this time it was just dry retching a few times. Damn it, I knew this guy wanted to ask if we wanted to eat something.

  We quickly gathered our things and put some heavy stuff in Wenlong's backpack, because after a few days of consumption, the weight of our current backpack has decreased significantly. When running through the passage, I felt my feet were a bit floating, and I could only keep encouraging myself in my heart. Fortunately, with several experiences, it was almost effortless, and I felt that even if I closed my eyes, I could run back and forth.

  After passing through the passage, we arrived at the eighth floor. I sat down on the ground with a thud, feeling like my legs had no strength left in them. The prolonged running and the exhaustion from just now made me feel as if I had been drained of all energy. All I could do was lift my eyes to look at the statue in the middle of this floor. Hou Yi is dead, a thought flashed through my mind, and then I lay down on the ground, gasping for air with big mouthfuls.

  The old man obviously reached his limit as well and said: "After taking the photos, let's rest here for today and head out again tomorrow. Wen Long, do we still have enough food and water?"

  "Wen Long said: 'Don't worry, old man, there's enough food and water. However...'"

  The old man said: "If you have something to say, say it."

  Wen Long was originally the only one standing, now he also squatted down, smiling and saying: "Old man, I think today we should not take pictures anymore, when it's time to rest, let's rest. I'm worried that if there is another..."

  He didn't finish speaking when the old man interrupted him saying: "Alright, alright... rest, rest. There's work to be done tomorrow."

  "Alright." Wen Long stood up and said, "I'm going to cook."

  After dinner, we had a good sleep. In my dream, I felt like I was back in the comfortable bed at home. When I woke up again, I only felt sore all over, this damn machine, this damn tunnel, this damn running and this damn Wu Feng. If it weren't for this kid pulling me in, I might still be looking for a job or working hard on my new job, at least I wouldn't have to come to this place where there isn't even a bird to exercise.

  Those people's physical strength was much better than mine, and when I got up, they had already started studying the carvings. Only then did I take a closer look at the carvings in this space, and indeed it was the death of Hou Yi. Hou Yi's posture should be that of falling forward, with a long sword piercing his chest from front to back. Looking back, standing behind him was exactly that regent Han Zhuo. Thinking carefully, it seems that historical stories are told like this: Han Zhuo rebelled and killed Hou Yi.

  I walked around the entire space, and the carvings all around truly reflected this historical event, but there were some differences from what I knew. On the first carving, it was carved that the one-eyed River God was kneeling in front of Nüwa, no matter how I looked at it, he seemed to be reporting a crime.

  What really shocked me was the second carving, at which Lao Ye and Wu Feng were also studying. It was Chang'e and Nüwa in conversation, of course they weren't talking face to face, because at that time Chang'e should still be on the moon. I saw their communication tool, which turned out to be video conferencing. My god, 4,000 years ago, Chang'e had already started video conferencing with Nüwa, and it was even a remote conference, but more importantly, this remote was too damn far away! How did the signal transmit?

  I patted Wu Feng and said: "Don't tell me they are using QQ."

  Wu Feng sighed and said, "I'd really like to know what communication tools they used back then. The transmission distance can actually reach as far as the moon. If I really knew, maybe the next Nobel Prize would be mine."

  I joked, "You don't have to be so down, we've got Chang'e reincarnated here, why not try hypnotizing her, maybe she'll remember what it was used for in the past."

  I saw Wu Feng wink at me, thinking it was bad, and by the time I flashed again, it was too late. The shadowless foot had already been printed on my butt. It kicked me forward, fortunately Wu Feng was in front of me and supported me with one hand.

  Su Yi was already standing behind them, her anger bursting forth as she said: "You two are not working hard, do you want to look for death?"

  I hastily raised my hands in surrender and said: "Your Majesty spare my life, I know I was wrong." After finishing speaking, I pulled Wu Feng and walked towards the third carving.

  This time it's still a picture of Nuwa, only the person kneeling has changed, that is Han Zhong. I saw Nuwa bestowing a sword on Han Zhong. Wu Feng nodded and said: "Indeed, the one who wanted to kill Hou Yi was not Han Zhong, but Nuwa."

  I said: "No way, Nüwa can guess what you're thinking."

  Wu Feng said, "It's not a guess, but an inference based on history and the narrative here. You should have heard the story of Nüwa creating humans, right?" I nodded without speaking, waiting for Wu Feng to continue. Sure enough, he went on, "If Nüwa had truly existed back then, she would have been the true ruler of humanity at that time. Hou Yi and Han Zhuo were just human rulers. From the diagram, it's clear that they were all under Nüwa's direct management."

  I digested as much of what he said as I could and then said: "So you're saying that at the time, the king of humanity was appointed by Nüwa."

  Wu Feng nodded and said: "It can be said that after Hebo and Chang'e reported different things to Nüwa, Nüwa decided to let Han Zhuo replace Hou Yi."

  "I said with some doubt: 'Then why didn't she take the initiative herself?'"

  Wu Feng thought for a moment and said, "You've actually asked the right question. Why did she want Han Jue to take action? If she had taken action herself, it should have been easy to get rid of Hou Yi. What is she thinking?"

  We continue to look down with these questions, and the content below is relatively simple. Han Zhuo gradually strengthened his power and then rebelled, successfully killing Hou Yi. The last carving is exactly what the statue reflects - Hou Yi died, and Han Zhuo became the king of the new generation of Xia Dynasty.

  The old man didn't say anything after looking at the carving. He just asked Wu Feng to take pictures of all the details. He sat on one side, seemingly thinking about something.

  Wu Feng finished taking the photo and walked over, asking: "Old man, what are you thinking about?"

  The old man looked at him and then asked us, "Have you discovered a strange phenomenon?"

  We shook our heads together and I said: "Old man, your scope is too narrow. To be honest, what's not strange about the things we see in here?"

  Wen Long nodded, seemingly in deep agreement, and said: "Yes, yes, old man. This place has overturned all the things I knew before. This strange phenomenon really makes us unsure of how to respond."

  The old man waved his hand to stop our discussion and said, "What this place is showing should be the story of Hou Yi. Now that we've arrived here, Hou Yi has died, I think this story should also come to an end. But there's still one more level, so what will be over there?"

  I was stunned for a moment, and the old man made perfect sense. The story has already ended, so what should be put on the last layer? At this time, Wen Long patted his thigh and said, "Hey, old man, I thought it was some kind of phenomenon, but if we go up and take a look, we'll know."

  I really admire this straightforward thinking guy, he doesn't follow others' rhythm to think about things, he just thinks about how to solve the problem in front of him as quickly as possible. Maybe this personality is suitable for working with old master who has many ideas. Old master patted his thigh and said: "Right! How come I didn't think of that? Let's go!"

  We quickly gathered our things and were about to enter the entrance right next to the last carving, where the button was on the hilt of the sword in Han Lian's hand. Wen Long pressed the button, and we rushed towards the next target again. After resting for a night, my energy was full, although my whole body still reminded me of overexertion from time to time with soreness, but the joy of leaving this broken place supported me to speed up constantly.

  A bright light has appeared ahead, the silver glow of that plant. I accelerate my speed again and dash into that space at high speed, then "whoosh" and dodge to the side, avoiding a desiccated corpse sitting not far from the entrance of the cave.

  "Ah!" "Oh!" "I'm going!" "Is this a mistake?" Old Master, Su Xi, Wu Feng, and Wen Long rushed out of the cave one after another, bringing with them a mixed symphony. Old Master even used an extremely exaggerated waist-twisting move to dodge the mummy at the moment he rushed out, which was completely unbecoming of an old man. The result can be imagined - he is now holding his waist on one side and shouting in pain.

  Su Yi was the one I admired the most. In that high-speed movement, when she first saw the mummy, she miraculously stopped in her tracks, squatted down on the spot, and covered her eyes with both hands. The whole process took only a second. Wu Feng, who was closely following behind, failed to brake due to inertia and crashed into Su Yi's back, then pounced towards the mummy. This guy was quite something; he made a big turn in mid-air, shifted his body slightly to the side, and landed on the ground beside the mummy. He rolled away from the mummy with the momentum. Wen Long reacted quickly, making a standing jump over Su Yi's head, then landing in a standing position right in front of the mummy. Fortunately, the mummy was seated; if it had been standing, it would have probably pounced into Wen Long's arms.

  We were all panting heavily, our breathing accompanied by the old man's "ah yo" sound. Wen Long was the first to recover and shouted loudly: "Damn it, not just one."

  "Ah!" I heard Su's sharp cry, which suppressed Wen Long's roar. I looked carefully and indeed there were not just one, but six such mummies in this space. Only this one was sitting, the others were lying down. The feeling was extremely eerie. At that moment, my first thought was to find the exit as soon as possible and escape from this ghostly place, but when I looked around at the walls, I discovered that there were no doors anymore, including the entrance we came in through, which had somehow become a wall at some point.

  "I'm going!" I said loudly: "This broken place, there is no exit."

  I saw Su Fu suddenly summoning some unknown power, taking a step from where she was crouching to right in front of me, and then grabbing my collar, saying: "You didn't make a mistake, did you? What's going on with no exit?"

  Wu Feng also caught his breath and looked at the walls around him, saying: "It's not just the exit, even the damn entrance is sealed off. Are you sure you brought us the right way?"

  "Don't panic." The old man struggled to get up, holding his waist and walking over to say: "Maybe there's some mechanism, we can look for it. We can't give up just because we haven't found an exit yet. Otherwise, we might really end up like these few dried corpses."

  Su Wei probably remembered the environment she was in at this time, and let out a scream before hiding behind me again. "This kind of thing... won't come back to life, will it?"

  Wen Long said: "Sister, what are you thinking? This thing is already dry like a compressed biscuit, how can it possibly come back to life."

  I silently cursed Wen Long a hundred times, why did he have to use that example, the compressed biscuits we just ate were already bad enough. Disaster struck again, Su Yi was originally standing behind me and was made to vomit once more by Wen Long's words, she had been tightly grasping my sleeve when she moved behind me earlier, now she was vomiting on my back, wet and smelly. My god, what did I do to deserve this?

  Wu Feng looked at me with a rather amused expression and said with a smile, "I say Wen Long, when you give examples, try to make them a bit better, okay?"

  Wen Long looked at me, then at Su Yi, and hastily said: "Sorry, sorry, I made a mistake. I'll take responsibility for moving these compressed biscuits to the side so they don't make you feel sick."

  "Dragon. I really want to thank your eight ancestors!" I complained helplessly to Dragon, while enduring the heavy wetness behind me.

  Wen Long burst out laughing and moved the few dried corpses to a corner. Su Yi spat for a while, probably having nothing left to spit out, before letting me go, rinsing her mouth, turning around, and apologetically saying: "Sorry about that, wait a minute, I'll wash you again."

  "I said: 'Forget it, let's just think of a way out first.'"

  I observed this space for a bit. The statue in the center is slightly different from the ones in front. The statues on the previous levels were all carved directly into the ground, but this one actually has a pedestal. The statue depicts an ancient male figure. When I first saw this statue, I suddenly felt that my arrival at this place might not be a coincidence, but rather fate.

  Su Yi also saw the statue and said, "No way."

  Wen Long and Wu Feng had just moved the few mummies to one side, while Old Master was still squatting on the ground rubbing his waist. No one had time to look at this statue, but when they heard Su Yi's words, they gathered around again.

  Wen Long took a glance at the statue and said, "I'm saying, little brother, you're not reincarnated or anything, are you?"

  Wu Feng said: "Fortunately, I pulled you out of your house. Otherwise, I really thought you were the reincarnation of this stone statue."

  I took a closer look at the stone statue and said, "It's not exactly the same either."