Volume 2: The Ancient Country of Lando Chapter 31: Eyes

  I said that Su Qin heard something, but she squatted down and pointed to the ice layer under her feet: "You see, there's something inside the ice."

  Everyone followed Su Qin's pointing, and they all bent down to look into the ice. They saw that deep within the ice layer, there were indeed things inside, resembling black insects, densely packed with over a hundred of them. Youzi looked left and right, took a deep breath and said: "Damn it, this is really weird, how can there be so many bugs sandwiched in the ice?"

  As soon as I saw the insect, I thought of Ya Shen's "Jia Wu Zhen" technique. I think this is probably a trap set at the entrance of the underground palace to prevent theft. Now, everyone and Lan Palace are separated by a layer of ice. If we dig through the ice, we can reach the ruins of the Ya Shen tribe. Therefore, it's still better to be cautious in our actions. Since we've discovered that there are insects sealed in the ice, let's stop digging for now and observe before taking action.

  Su Qin suddenly asked me, "Long Qiu, didn't you say your father had been to the Orchid Palace? How come there's no sign of excavation here at all? The things inside that were frozen are still in their original state."

  I said to Su Qin, "This time I forgot to tell you earlier, the entrance my dad went in that year was not here. The entrance he went in that year has collapsed, and this is another entrance, only Uncle Mang knows."

  Su Qin listened to me say that the entrance my father had entered had collapsed, and after a moment of contemplation, she suddenly said: "This is not good. Although partial collapses in ancient tombs are very common, large natural spaces within mountains are different. If there's nothing special about it, they're generally very stable. I'm worried that when the Ya Shen tribe built the Lan Palace, they might have damaged the earth's pulse, and perhaps the entire Lan Palace is extremely unstable, with a danger of collapse at any time."

  I said to Su Qin, "Now it's no longer possible to consider so many things. Even if the Lan Palace collapses today, we have to go in and take a look. I think you shouldn't worry unnecessarily either. Let's put our minds on the present for now and think about what kind of tricks these insects below are playing."

  As soon as I finished speaking, I suddenly remembered that Liu Dapao had also come to Yulong Snow Mountain many years ago to find the Orchid Palace, but I didn't know if they had encountered the situation of carving ice and finding insects back then. Just as I was about to ask him, I saw Zhou Xing squat down beside me, his head close to the ice surface, saying: "These things are not insects..."

  Who knows, he just said half of what he was going to say and then stopped. I was wondering if Old Zhou had discovered something. At this time, Zhou Xing suddenly lifted his head and stared at the sky, his eyes becoming very dull. His right hand suddenly stretched out his index finger and middle finger, and dug into his own eyes.

  I felt a chill in my heart, wondering what Zhou Xing had discovered under the ice. He didn't say a word and was about to blind himself. I wanted to stop him but it was too late. Fortunately, Liu Dapao was quick-witted and swift, taking a step forward to kick away Zhou Xing's hand that was about to gouge out his eyes, then pressed him to the ground.

  Zhou Xing was stunned after being pressed down, and everyone felt strange. Just as they were about to walk over to ask him what was going on, he suddenly came back to his senses, turned his head sharply towards Su Qing and said: "Don't look down!"

  I was shocked, and saw that Su Qin had already leaned her head close to the ice surface, just like Zhou Xing earlier. Immediately after, I saw that she also raised her head in a strange way, stretching out her index and middle fingers. I knew something was wrong, so I quickly stepped forward, grabbed her arm, and didn't care that she was a woman, raising my palm to slap her.

  Su Qin suddenly woke up, staring at me blankly for a long time. I don't know what she and Zhou Xing saw in the ice layer that made them both want to destroy their own feet. Goosebumps rose all over my body, and a chill ran from the soles of my feet straight to my head.

  Youzi and Liu Dapao also got hairy, everyone retreated in a hurry, far away from the ice cave that had been dug open halfway, even the ice pick and folding shovel thrown aside did not dare to pick up, afraid that as long as they took one step closer, they would become like Su Qin and Zhou Xing, wanting to dig out their own eyeballs.

  Liu Dapao said this matter is too strange, and who knows what kind of weird things are under that ice, let's retreat a bit for now and think about it in the long run, don't get close to that place again until we figure it out.

  Everyone hid behind a snow hill, Zhou Xing and Su Qin seemed to be in poor spirits, as soon as they stopped, they sat down on the ground. I was worried that they would catch cold, so I quickly called out to Youzi and Liu Dapao to come over and help, and put something under them. Youzi held onto Zhou Xing and asked: "What's going on? What did you see just now?"

  He rubbed his temples and turned his head towards the direction of the ice wall, suddenly saying two words: "Eyes..."

  Su Qin was also dizzy and seemed to have a lingering fear of what had just happened, her face was pale. I didn't know what Zhou Xing meant by "eyes", so I asked Su Qin, and after she told me, I finally understood. It turned out that the small black dots under the ice were not a swarm of insects, but frozen eyeballs!

  Because these eyeballs were buried very deeply, they could only be seen when one got close. Strangely, these eyeballs seemed to have a kind of magical power that could penetrate people's hearts. When Su Qin clearly saw that these things were eyeballs, she lost her self-consciousness and felt dizzy, thinking that the sunlight in the sky was very dazzling. Suddenly, she involuntarily lifted her head to look towards the direction of the sun, and then a strong idea would emerge that made her want to dig out her own eyes.

  I was horrified, thinking that the things under the ice were insects, but I didn't expect them to be eyeballs. What's even more terrifying is that anyone who sees these eyeballs will inexplicably lose their senses and gouge out their own eyes. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed that such a thing existed in this world. Under the thick ice of this snowy mountain, what kind of eerie power is hidden? Is it the frozen eyeballs that are playing tricks? Where did those eyeballs come from?

  Liu Dapao pondered for a moment, then said to us: "Just now under that layer of ice, there's probably some kind of strange thing, it's precisely that thing that's causing trouble. And the eyeballs in the ice shouldn't have been there originally, but were left behind by those tomb raiders who tried to dig open the entrance to Lan Palace over the past thousand years or so, just like us."

  Originally, Liu Dapao had been fighting in the Yunnan region for many years and had heard many strange rumors. It is said that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, a cave owner with witchcraft appeared in the Nanman region, known as "Aqi Dawai". This Aqi Dawai was born to conquer the south and north, plundering many gold, silver, and jewels. According to legend, this person was extremely greedy, regarding wealth as his life, and even after death, he did not want to give up the wealth he had accumulated in his lifetime. Before his death, he ordered people to put all his treasures into his tomb, to be buried with him.

  He was worried that after his death, people who knew the location of the tomb would have ulterior motives and steal his treasure. So when building the tomb, he had three great witches cast a spell with him at the entrance of the ancient tomb, called "Fa Si Gu". Anyone who tried to peek at his treasure would be cursed by "Fa Si Gu" after digging a hole, pulling out their own hair and throwing it into the hole. The person's soul and resentment would also fall into the grave with their hair, accompanying the great king of Aqi for burial. The more hair in the cave, the stronger the resentment, until some people who didn't know what was happening hadn't even had time to dig a hole before being infected by the resentment at the tomb door and pulling out their own hair.

  Liu Dapao suspected that under the ice layer, there must be similar magic, only the legendary hair-pulling had turned into eye-digging. This Lan Palace was definitely not just for us to enter, and the frozen eyeballs below were probably left by our predecessors.

  Youzi listened and felt quite annoyed, wiped his sweat and asked Liu Dapao: "What should we do now?"

  Liu Dapao shook his head, indicating that he also didn't know how to deal with this situation. I only felt my brain getting bigger, thinking that the Lang Palace of the Ya Shen tribe was indeed not simple. Not to mention the countless deadly paths hidden inside, even a single path leading to the tomb could stop the footsteps of thousands of grave robbers for centuries.

  However, we still have to enter this Lan Palace. It's best if we can take a step ahead of the "Black Button". Firstly, we can explore the depth of this ancient tomb, so that when the time comes, we can make better use of the geographical advantage to deal with this foreign gang. Secondly, by walking ahead of the Black Button, we can also set up an ambush in advance to deal with them.

  At present, only Su Qin and Zhou Xing have experienced the eye-catching trap under the ice. However, Su Qin is still reeling from what happened earlier, and her mental state is extremely poor. To understand the specific situation, she should ask Zhou Xing. But this Zhou Xing is acting very strangely at the moment, seemingly freed from his previous encounter, yet his mind remains unfocused.

  I thought of Zhou Xingping, who was a very cautious person. Even if he didn't know the path under the ice, he wouldn't be so easily intimidated by the hundreds of eyes staring at him from beneath the ice. I don't know if he had any worries on his mind, but it seemed that since he parted ways with Wei Chuijiu at the foot of the mountain, his whole person became dispirited and lost.

  I know this is not the time for joking, everything must be clarified, everything must be laid out in the open. Otherwise, if something unexpected happens again in the future, everyone will definitely be exhausted from fending it off and making mistakes. So I asked Zhou Xing: "Old Zhou, are you hiding something from us?"

  Everyone had already felt that something was wrong with Zhou Xing, and when I asked the question, they also turned their heads to look at Zhou Xing.

  It turned out that Zhou Xing didn't want to say much, but instead changed the subject and said: "The strange thing just now has something to do with sunlight, we can try again at night."

  I saw him say firmly, so I asked him: "Are you sure it can be done tonight?"

  Zhou Xing nodded and stopped talking, so everyone had to rest in place and wait for nightfall. After dinner, I fed Su Qing some hot soup, and she seemed to be a little better. Worried that she would catch a cold, I let her hug the snow python to warm up. Su Qing said, "You're wearing a fire robe, don't worry about me, go take care of what you need to, we still have a mission tonight."

  Unconsciously, the sun had already slanted to the west. Liu Dapao called out to Zhou Xing to come and set up his tent with him. I and Youzi Zhang were busy preparing equipment for tonight's action, as well as a stove for warmth. As expected, tonight would be a sleepless night.

  It soon got dark, and to ensure safety, we divided into three groups again. Liu Dapao stayed at the campsite to guard the supplies and provide backup, while the remaining four of us returned to that ice sheet. Zhou Xing and Youzi did the digging work, while Su Qin and I lit the way for them and kept an eye on their movements. If anything abnormal happened again, we would rush forward without hesitation to rescue them.

  The snow mountain was extremely cold at night, and if there wasn't anything special going on, people generally wouldn't be moving around. Fortunately, we were wearing the fire-resistant clothing made of snow python skin, so we didn't have to worry about anyone being unable to withstand the nighttime chill. Youzi and Zhou Xing quietly made their way back to the spot they had dug halfway through earlier, waited for a short while, and after finding nothing out of the ordinary, poured the ginger juice on again and resumed digging with their shovels.

  I stared at the two of them with Su Qin, not even daring to breathe. The safety of these two people now depends entirely on us. Fortunately, Zhou Xing's judgment was very accurate this time, and the pitfall under the ice layer seemed to have a close relationship with sunlight. At this moment, they continued digging, and there was nothing unusual.

  This ancient tribe is indeed very mysterious, who would have thought that they were born in that barbarous era and already knew how to use the sun's energy to cast spells. If it weren't for us having a few more eyes on our heads, we might have fallen here today.

  With the help of ginger juice, Oil and Zhou Xing quickly dug through this layer of old ice. The many eyeballs that were dug out were not dared to be moved by anyone, but were wrapped in cloth and thrown aside and buried. Under the ice was a wooden board made of Kunlun iron tree, which could not be pierced with an iron hoe, so they had to dig open some of the ice layer and pull out the wooden board.

  The wooden board opened, and the entrance to the cave was revealed. We were worried that there might be miasma below, so we didn't dare to approach it closely. Instead, we sat on one side and let the entrance air out for a while, allowing the turbid air that had accumulated over several thousand years to dissipate.

  Su Qin said to me: "Now that the entrance of the underground palace has been opened, let's go in after it airs out a bit, lest we have too many nightmares."

  "Right, I think we should take advantage of the darkness and make a dash for the tomb entrance. Once inside, we can avoid being affected by that spell again when the sun comes up."

  I nodded and said to the crowd: "Once we enter this cave, we have to say goodbye to safety. We must be careful and cautious in everything we do after entering."

  Everyone then packed up the tents and other items, hid them in a place, and after checking all the equipment, estimated that the air quality in the cave was almost good enough. They put on gas masks and descended into the cave one by one. Liu Dapao led the way with his bow and arrow in one hand and a candle for detecting air quality in the other. The others followed closely behind him, carrying flashlights and guns.

  This is a tunnel that extends into the interior of the mountain, deep and dry, with an eerie atmosphere, and it's unknown where it leads. Our group slowly made our way in, paying attention to any possible movements around us, moving extremely cautiously. The snow python, on the other hand, walked quite leisurely, occasionally shaking its head and looking at everyone, and then suddenly seeming to discover something interesting, darting forward several meters.

  It wasn't long before the space in front of us suddenly opened up, and we saw several large connected spaces appear, each with stone pillars supporting them, and below that were many stone pedestals about one meter high. Su Qin swept her flashlight around and said to us, "This should be where the Ya Shen tribe held sacrificial rites before building the Lan Palace, it's a site of witchcraft relics, but such a large altar is rarely seen."

  Having said that, she suddenly thought of something and walked straight towards a altar in front.