Chapter 45: Skull Grass Thicket

  Liang Zi grew up in a military compound, so he was no stranger to guns. I saw him loading bullets and checking the gun bolt with a pleased expression on his face.

  After collecting the spoils, Zhou Huan surprisingly took out that "Xian Shan Fu Hu Tu" from a backpack that Zhang Zhuang had confiscated after we were captured, and carefully examined it with Hei Lian.

  Every time I see this picture, I feel very uncomfortable. All the things that have happened recently are caused by this picture. I really don't understand what's so special about it. I've looked at it several times and didn't find anything interesting.

  After Zhou Huan and Hei Lian finished their research, we dug a hole and buried all the equipment that we couldn't take with us. On one hand, we didn't want to leave any hidden dangers behind; on the other hand, when we come back, we can still use them.

  Next, we didn't follow Zhang Zhuang's route as before, but instead walked to the riverbank again. To be honest, I'm really dirty now and seeing water makes me want to wash up, but thinking of that terrifying monster fish, I don't dare get close to the water source. So everyone continued along the riverbank once more.

  Always walking with my head down, nothing unexpected happened along the way until after two o'clock in the afternoon when the direction of the river began to turn left and a clearing appeared in front of us with no trees at all, only weeds as tall as half a person.

  Looking forward in the direction of the empty land, a very majestic mountain peak appeared in front of me. The trees on this mountain are not thick, basically all as thick as thighs, but extremely dense, and it's estimated that walking inside is also very difficult.

  I looked up again, and the whole person was stunned. The cliff is very steep, and one eye can't see the top. The middle of the mountain is shrouded in thick dark clouds, and it's unknown how high it is. It looks like this mountain directly inserted into the sky.

  The current sunshine is very bright, it's a typical scorching day, I really can't explain why the mountainside above halfway is all dark clouds, but if I'm not mistaken, this must be that so-called Lao Ye Mountain.

  I was just about to go ask others for their opinions, when I found Liangzi there with his neck stretched out and his mouth wide open, apparently also shocked by this strange and magnificent mountain peak.

  "How could you have thought of it! You said this mountain can be how high?" I asked with a smile.

  "Ah, how high is it supposed to be?" Liang Zi asked back without looking at me, still tilting his head.

  "Are you out of your mind? I'm asking: how high do you think this mountain can be."

  This time I raised my voice a bit higher, and Liangzi reacted by lowering his head, turning around to look at me. I found that his mouth was still open, and his eyes were wide with surprise.

  "What's wrong with you? Are you scared of mountains or do you think your physical strength isn't good enough to climb?" I asked irritably.

  "My god, Mr. Qiu Ye, you can't be oblivious to this, right?!"

  "You think I'm stupid, the whole mountain is covered in dark clouds from halfway up."

  "Come on, what's going on!" Liangzi seemed very anxious, one hand on my shoulder, the other pointing at the giant peak and saying: "Take a good look, isn't this the mountain in the painting?"

  I listened to him finish and suddenly felt a thrill, quickly went to take a closer look, this look was also shocked that the mouth could not be closed. I just went to see that dark cloud earlier, didn't pay much attention to the shape of the mountain, now it seems exactly as Liangzi said, that painting I have seen many times, the picture is really identical to the scene in front of my eyes.

  The most important thing is that the empty space in front of me without trees, typically where the old man in the painting strokes the fox, I rubbed it for half a day and found out that the painting was not just an antique, but actually a map. I said why so many people with identities were fighting for it.

  "How's it going? Did you see clearly?" a voice came from behind.

  As soon as I heard the voice was Zhou Huan, I turned around and found her with a smug expression, rolling up that painting, probably having just looked at it again.

  "Miss Zhou Huan, isn't this a bit too much? Why didn't you tell me the true purpose of this painting earlier? Do you really think we're one of your own?" I asked indignantly.

  Zhou Huan didn't mind my tone at all, rolled up the conversation and put it in her backpack before slowly saying to me: "Of course I'm one of your own people! It's not that I didn't tell you, it's just that you've never asked me!"

  I see this woman has returned to her cunning and deceitful appearance, with a belly full of anger that can't be vented, she sat on the ground with a thud and continued to ask: "Alright, now I'm asking you, what's next? I don't think this painting will bring us here just to end it, where is our final destination?"

  Zhou Huan saw me starting to pout, and continued smiling as she said: "Not bad, you've suddenly become a lot smarter, don't worry, I'll try my best not to keep secrets from you in the future. As for where we're going next, of course it's there."

  Zhou Huan finished speaking and pointed to the top of my head. I looked at where she was pointing and indeed saw a dark forest in the midst of the black clouds on the mountain peak. Seeing that dark forest, I felt that nothing good would come out of it, and estimated that we would encounter more troubles ahead.

  It has come to this point now, and afterwards, there is no need to consider anything else, because I simply don't know what will happen next.

  Everyone rested in place, replenished some food and water. Although I was a bit depressed in my heart, I couldn't lose my temper in front of Zhou Huan. The weather was so hot that it was about to kill me. After eating a few mouthfuls, I lay down on the ground with Liangzi to rest and accumulate some physical strength for climbing mountains later.

  Zhou Huan didn't rush us either, in any case it was impossible to reach the summit tonight, so we rested on the spot for about an hour, feeling that the temperature had weakened a bit, before getting up to prepare to climb the mountain.

  If I want to climb up that old mountain, I must get through the grass in front of me. Looking at the weeds that are more than half my height makes me feel nervous.

  The ground in the forest is basically all rotten leaves, although it's not very good to walk on, at least you can see the surface. But this dense thicket doesn't have a single gap, I really don't know what will appear inside.

  Afraid to return, the road still has to be walked. Liangzi and Heilian are leading the way in front, cutting down the weeds with their daggers as they walk, and the speed of progress is very slow. Walking on it feels either very soft or very hard, uneven and bumpy, and I don't know how it was formed.

  Liangzi is not as nervous as I am, chopping grass while chatting with Heilian from time to time. I found that the longer I spend with Heilian, the less annoying he becomes. At least now he can communicate normally with Liangzi, occasionally responding with a "hmm" or an "ah".

  As I walked, I found that although the ground was covered with grass roots and couldn't be seen clearly, there were many small hard earth packages on this cut-down road, which were very numerous, and it was a bit painful to step on them.

  I was just about to take a closer look when I heard Liangzi, who was walking ahead of me, shouting loudly: "What the heck is this? Ahh, my foot..."

  Hurry up and look up, only to find that Liangzi was actually sitting on the ground, scolding and taking off his left shoe.

  I quickly walked up and asked: "What's going on, refusing to leave?"

  "What the heck, I don't know what poked my foot." Liang Zi said while taking off his shoe, and a super strong stinky foot smell immediately spread out.

  "Ah, this, sorry about that, haven't washed my feet for several days, oh dear...!" Liang was originally going to explain the foot odor issue, guessing it was because his soles hurt badly, and was using his hands to pry them open to take a look.

  I looked at him like that, it didn't seem like he was pretending, pinching his nose and squatting down to check, just saw a small hole pierced on the sole of Liang's foot, with fresh blood flowing out from that hole.

  Zhou Huan saw that he was indeed injured, so she took off her backpack and pulled out a small first-aid kit, found hemostatic powder and bandages, and endured the strong stench to treat his wounds.

  "Sorry, little sister-in-law, I've caused you trouble." Liangzi said with a red face, possibly feeling embarrassed that his feet were facing Zhou Huan's face.

  Zhou Huan ignored him, and the wound didn't seem too serious. She quickly dealt with it, then stood up, raised her head, and took a few deep breaths, probably to relieve her suffocation.

  I didn't see anything else, so I asked Liangzi how he got stabbed?

  Liángzi also couldn't explain clearly, just said that something was stabbed a little bit, so I went along the path he had walked before to search, and found in the roots of the weeds on the ground, there was indeed a protruding object about 2-3 cm long, like the tip of a pen.

  I used a dagger to dig it up a few times and felt very solid, so I reached out to pull the remaining half of the grass root, only to find that the grass root was not much underground, and with a bit of force, a large piece of grass root along with the mud was pulled up by me.

  Throw the grass root in your hand to one side, and then go see that place on the ground, it feels very strange, because before only a sharp object was exposed on top, now several roots have appeared, lined up together.

  What the hell is this? I crouched down again, inserted the dagger into the soil to pry it open, and then a particularly terrifying thing was pried out by me. After seeing clearly, I was so scared that I almost didn't sit on the ground, and quickly got up and retreated backwards.

  I never thought that this thing would turn out to be a skull, and judging from its shape, it should be the upper half of a human skeleton. The thing that pierced Liangzi's foot was precisely one of the exposed hard ribs.

  Actually, for me now, facing this skeleton won't be particularly scary, it's just that things happened too suddenly and I didn't expect it at all, which gave me a fright.

  Liang Zi found it was a skull, and he was so scared that he quickly retreated to the side, cursing loudly: "Damn bad luck, how could this be a skeleton!"

  Zhou Huan and Hei Lian obviously didn't expect it either, it can be seen that these two have no fear of this skull, but more of a curiosity about its appearance.

  The black-faced captain walked to the side of the skull, squatted down, and didn't even use a dagger. He stretched out his hand and dug into the ground beside it. Before long, he had excavated an entire skull.

  I thought that the next thing to come out would be an arm or a leg bone, but unexpectedly, Hei Lian's captain continued to dig up another skull from the soil.

  What the heck? Are they going to die together as a couple or something? I'm getting anxious too, so I went over and squatted down to help. However, I didn't dare use my bare hands, instead I held onto my dagger to dig at the soil beside them.

  I dug twice and felt something was wrong, when the thing in front of me appeared, I was completely stunned, shouting loudly: "What's going on? How many skulls are there?"

  As one skull after another was dug up, I felt that something was wrong. My back began to sweat profusely as I vaguely sensed that the hard little earth mounds I had encountered in the grass thicket were also skulls.

  The more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed. So I got up and ran back along the way I came, then squatted down and randomly found a small mound of earth to dig into. Soon my idea was confirmed - under this mound was also a skull.