1.

Lin Xiao didn't know how long he had been in a coma, he only remembered that he tried his best to prevent Hongchen from being in danger alone, but suddenly his eyes were dark, and he didn't know anything. When he woke up, he found that he was no longer in the original corridor, the familiar figure of Hongchen was gone, and there was no scream in his ears when the Yin soldiers rushed to kill, and it was so quiet that he could hear the sound of a needle falling on the ground clearly, as if everything just now had never happened.

The only difference was that the red spirit sword was no longer in his hand at the moment.

Lin Xiao raised his hand and pinched the back of his neck, which was a little painful, and supported his arm to stand up, only to feel that his head was splitting, and his throat was also very dry. He didn't come to his senses for a moment, thinking that he had been in a coma for too long and had auditory hallucinations, so he plucked out his ears and shook his head again, and the gurgling sound of running water did not disappear, but became clearer and clearer.

With such a flick of his head, Lin Xiao was a lot more awake, and then he found that the place where he woke up was by a river. As soon as his mind cleared, he remembered that this Eternal Tribulation Underground Palace was formed by connecting the underground dwellings left over from ancient times with the natural karst cave, and there was an underground river running through it. Now it seems that after being brought out of the corridor by Ye Xin, he came directly to this underground dark river.

"You're awake. A slender hand stretched out from the side, Lin Xiao turned his head to follow the prestige, and saw Ye Xin sitting next to him. The two of them didn't know where to throw the fire talisman in their hands before, and when they arrived at the new place, they didn't use the talisman paper or light the bonfire, and it was pitch black all around, with only a few faint glows. If it weren't for her voice at this moment, Lin Xiao wouldn't know if she was still by her side.

Ye Xin handed over a water bladder, Lin Xiao subconsciously received it in his hand, his eyes inadvertently glanced at her side, and saw that the ruthless blade was not contained in the scabbard, but directly inserted into the ground next to it, the blade reflected the glowing light in the hole, even in the darkness, he could clearly see that this sharp weapon was flashing a dangerous edge.

It can be seen that during the time when he was in a coma, Ye Xin has been by his side and always maintained a state of vigilance.

Lin Xiao opened the water bladder and poured a large mouthful of water with his head up, this action looked like the momentum of Ji Yusui when he drank spirits. The cold water moistened his lips, and after his mouth, he slid through his thirsty throat, and it was like sweet liquor, and a burst of sweetness appeared from the bottom of his tongue, and at once the feeling of fire in his throat was suppressed.

Lin Xiao was really thirsty, there were two rows of fierce stone statues in the corridor before, and the heat waves were blowing on people one after another, no matter how much water you had before, you should be steamed alive by the heat. He drank all the water in the bladder in one gulp, and then gasped for breath, relieving the temporary dizziness caused by his thirst.

Ye Xin stepped forward gently, picked up the empty water bladder on the ground, walked to the edge of the dark river, and filled another bag of water. The two of them didn't speak for a long time, only the sound of running water pouring into the water bladder kept ringing.

"You say...... How is Hongchen doing now?" Lin Xiao suddenly asked.

Ye Xin's hand trembled slightly, and the river splashed a little, wetting her hands and sleeves. Her whole body was hidden in the dark, so that Lin Xiao couldn't see the expression on her face, and could only hear her cold, emotionless voice ringing in her ears: "She's your sword spirit, you should know better than me - if she wasn't sure, she wouldn't choose to do that." ”

Lin Xiao didn't reply immediately, and asked again after a while: "Do you think she looks like you're sure?"

Ye Xin was silent, after a while, the water bladder was full, she lifted the water bladder from the water, took a sip gently, then turned around, handed the water bladder filled with water to Lin Xiao again, and said lightly: "I don't know if she is sure, or how sure she is." But I still say the same thing, she is your sword spirit, since she has made that choice, then what you should do is to believe in her!"

Ye Xin took out the flame talisman from his body, waved his hand and ignited a dark blue flame, scattering the talisman into the air, and for a while, the light was flourishing, illuminating the surrounding scene. Probably because of the visual effect brought by the environment, the water of the dark river took on the color of ink, flowing quietly, reflecting the light emitted by the open fire charm, flashing with sparkling waves, like the bright eyes of a girl.

Lin Xiao couldn't help but close his eyes, and listened intently to the sound of the water in the dark river for a while, the small waves in the river occasionally slapped ashore, and the water collided with the rocky beach on the bank, making a burst of "ding ding dong" sound, like the sound of a clear spring in the mountain valley, and also like the wind chimes on the corner of the eaves of the house.

Lin Xiao stood up, leaned over and gently patted the hem of his shirt, dusting off the dust on his clothes. "We must find the right path immediately, and then hurry up to enter the lowest level of the underground palace and take out the half of the fragments hidden here, so that we can go back to meet the red dust as soon as possible. He said.

But unexpectedly, after listening to his words, Ye Xin did not respond positively, and still sat motionless, his fingers playing with a few stones on the ground beside him, looking like he was in a fugue. This made Lin Xiao feel strange - although Ye Xin was so indifferent and indifferent on weekdays, but seeing that the long-sought remnant picture was close at hand, it was immediately at his fingertips, and suddenly acting so negatively can be said to be a bit abnormal.

Lin Xiao frowned, not understanding what Ye Xin was doing at this moment, so he reached out to her and snapped his fingers: "Hey!"

Ye Xin suddenly trembled, and the person who was like a soul leaving his body suddenly returned to his soul, which made Lin Xiao also startled. She looked at Lin Xiao in front of her, blinked her eyes suspiciously, obviously she didn't hear what he said just now, and then asked in her usual indifferent tone, "What's wrong?"

"What were you thinking just now, thinking so much?" Lin Xiao asked suspiciously, frowning.

"Nothing. Ye Xin said indifferently perfunctorily, "Let's talk about your business first, what did you want to say just now?"

"I said - we must find the right path immediately, and then hurry up to the bottom of the underground palace and take out the half of the remnants hidden here, so that we can go back to meet Hongchen as soon as possible. Lin Xiao no longer cared about those who had or didn't, so he repeated what he had just said.

"Oh, that's what you say. Although she had listened carefully to what Lin Xiao said, Ye Xin still looked like she was cowardly and didn't look very combative, and she could only hear her say: "Don't look for it, we have reached the bottom." ”

Lin Xiao couldn't help but be taken aback, and hurriedly waved his hand to light an open flame talisman, and looked around, but all he saw was the black dark river, and the layers of stone walls, and he didn't find any coffins, palaces, or tombs. "It doesn't look like it here, how can you be sure that we have reached the bottom?" Lin Xiao asked in disbelief, and was a little skeptical that this was a conjecture from Ye Xinfang's fugue.

"Before you even woke up, I was already looking around. Ye Xin sat on the edge of the river, looked at the slowly flowing dark river, stretched out his hand in the shallow water, and felt the feeling of the cold underground river flowing between his fingers;

Ye Xin gently stirred the river water while continuing: "Actually, we should be regarded as the penultimate layer of the underground palace, now we only need to follow the flow of this dark river all the way down to reach the lowest level of the underground palace. But the situation at the bottom of the underground palace is a little different from what we imagined, you have to be mentally prepared. ”

Lin Xiao couldn't help but be stunned: "What difference can it be, can the Ji family still use molten iron to seal the door of the main tomb?!"

"What it's like, you'll find out for yourself. Ye Xin said and stood up, pulled out the ruthless blade inserted in the side, put it into the sheath, and then continued to walk down the dark river; Lin Xiao came back to his senses and hurriedly followed.

The two walked along the dark river for a while, but they heard the sound of the dark river flowing louder and louder, and in the end it was no longer the light sound of "whoosh", but gradually became dull, like the sound of water suddenly falling from a high place and smashing down to a low place. But in this underground palace, where is there such a strange gap?

Ye Xin walked in front, and suddenly stopped his pace at this time and said, "We have arrived." ”

Lin Xiao looked around, they were now standing on a huge rock protruding from the road, dead on three sides, and looking at a black cliff, the dark river flowing behind them and falling into the abyss below. "You said that the last floor of the underground palace is here, but this is obviously a dead end!" Lin Xiao was already a little confused, and this time the second monk was even more confused.

Ye Xin didn't even bother to turn her head back, waved her hand and struck the open fire talisman in her hand into the air, and the talisman was full of fire under the urging of the magic power, illuminating the scene in all directions, and then she gave way to the side slightly, motioning for Lin Xiao to stand in her position, and then said coldly: "Look below." ”

Lin Xiao stood in the position where Ye Xin had just stood, and with the help of the fire light from the open fire talisman in mid-air, he looked down from the boulder, and suddenly the whole person was stunned in place-

The bottom of this boulder is not a cliff or an abyss, but the environment is too dark, so it looks bottomless. I saw that it was about four or five zhang deep below, and there was something like a mirror that reflected the light emitted by the open fire talisman, but it was a dark lake, and the water of the dark river flowed down from the gap on the edge of this huge rock and merged into the lake below.

Directly above the lake, there hung a coffin, and the reason why it was clearly recognized as a coffin was because the coffin was a clear golden yellow, which should be made of golden silk nanmu, which made it a sharp contrast to the black surface of the lake. Each of the four corners of the coffin is tethered to an iron cable, which extends and is nailed to the surrounding rock wall, allowing the coffin to float above the surface of the lake.

"Do you understand?" Ye Xin's indifferent voice sounded in his ears again, still cold and without any emotion, "The bottom of the Eternal Tribulation Dungeon is not the palace or the main tomb we imagined at all, but a lake!"

Lin Xiao retracted his head, and before he could move his gaze up, he saw eight vague characters engraved on the huge rock under his feet. He squatted down, stretched out his hand to brush away the moss marks on it, and through the light of the open fire talisman in Ye Xin's hand, he saw the content of those eight words clearly-

The stagnant water of the lake has no return!

2.

The words "there is no return" always reminded Lin Xiao of the experience of "strolling" on the "road of no return" when he was in the ancient tomb of Xiaohan, which did not give him a very good impression, so he directly and selectively ignored the four words on the slate. He was lying on the boulder, with only half of his head exposed, and kept looking at the coffin hanging below.

Now it seems that the remnant picture is undoubtedly placed in the wooden coffin of Jin Sinan. Ye Xin also leaned down, slowly crouched to Lin Xiao's side, and lay down with him. "What we should be thinking about now is how we can go down from such a high place and get the remnant picture out of the hanging coffin. ”

"Under normal circumstances, I could have jumped into that lake, swam to the bottom of the coffin, opened the coffin from the bottom of the coffin, took out the remnants, and then came up with the Red Dust Sword. Lin Xiao said, "But first, Hongchen is not by my side now, and I can't come up if I go down; If you go down rashly, maybe before you get the remnant picture, the person will already be on the bottom. ”

Ye Xin nodded: "And I feel that the iron chains at the corners of the coffin should have a certain weight limit, if you rashly apply external force on the coffin, the iron cable is likely to break, and the coffin is bound to sink into the water, and it is difficult to guarantee that it will not trigger other mechanisms in this lake." ”

"In other words, we have to land on that coffin without touching the water of the lake, and try not to put our weight on it. Lin Xiao summed up the words of the two, and then scolded secretly: "Hell, how can this be done?!"

Ye Xin said: "I don't think it may be impossible. ”

"Tell me what you think. Lin Xiao looked back at Ye Xin's expressionless delicate face, "In my opinion, not to mention the trouble of getting pictures at the back, how to go down is enough for us to have a headache." ”

Ye Xin said: "We can use a rope to hang one person down first, and the other person to tighten it on it, so that we can ensure that it falls on the top of the coffin and will not touch the lake, and the weight of the human body can be borne by the rope and will not be applied to the coffin board." ”

"That's a good idea, but the point is where do we go now to find a rope long enough to hang us down?" Lin Xiao asked rhetorically.

A smile suddenly appeared on Ye Xin's indifferent face, and she reached out to her waist and took out a bundle of silver threads as white as snow, which were soft to the touch. "Have you ever heard of the Ice Silkworm in the Far North, born on snow mulberry, small and non-poisonous, but the silk produced is so tenacious that even a single filament cannot be easily broken? My 'Heavenly Silkworm Rope' is all made of the silk of the Arctic Ice Silkworm, and its toughness is enough to bear the weight of you and me, and it should not be a problem to hang a person who stretches four or five feet. ”

Lin Xiao's face showed joy: "There are you, sisters, then I will pull the rope on the top, and you go down to get the picture." ”

Ye Xin's smile suddenly disappeared, and his face turned slightly pale: "No, I'm afraid of water!"

Lin Xiao couldn't help but feel embarrassed, thinking: "You are not even afraid of killing people in a girl's family, but you are still afraid of water?!" But he didn't directly express this idea, but just asked in a different way: "It's okay for me to go down, but the key is that you can hold me?"

Unexpectedly, Ye Xin nodded: "If you try to lift your breath and lighten your body, I should be able to hold you." ”

"Don't 'should', it's not a good joke about this kind of thing!"

"Okay...... I'm sure I can hold you!"

Having said that, Lin Xiao can't be reluctant anymore. He took the "Heavenly Silkworm Rope" handed over by Ye Xin, split the silver thread and wrapped it around his waist one by one. Ye Xin helped him tie the silk cord tightly, and also tied a knot firmly behind him.

Ye Xin coiled the knot and said: "Be careful after going down, if there is anything wrong, call me, I will pull you up immediately, don't fold your life below, for the sake of that half of the residual picture, it's not worth it." ”

Lin Xiao suddenly glanced back at her and asked, "Why are you suddenly so concerned about my life and death?" ”

Ye Xin was wrapping the other end of the "Heavenly Silkworm Rope" around his hand, so that he could pull the rope tightly later, and when he heard this, he couldn't help but pause, and there was a faint flush on his face, and then he said in a somewhat strange tone: "Do you think I really care about your life or death? I'm just concerned about the other half of the remnants of your body, in case you accidentally die below and trigger the 'Parallel Talisman' in the Qiankun bag, wouldn't I fall short." ”

Lin Xiao couldn't help but be stunned, he was also asking casually, but he didn't expect Ye Xin to be so outspoken. He watched her tie the knot on herself, then wrapped the other end tightly with her hand, pulled the rope to test her toughness, and subconsciously shouted: "Ye Xin." ”

Ye Xin raised his head with a blank expression.

Lin Xiao removed the Qiankun bag that had been tied around his waist, opened her, took out the half of the fragment in front of her, and stuffed it into her hand under her stunned gaze.

Ye Xin was frightened by Lin Xiao's behavior, and almost threw the half of the remnant picture into the lake: "You...... What are you doing?!"

"What if...... I mean, if something really happens to me down there and I can't get there, you're going to walk out on your own with this half of the remnants. I let go of the signal flare before I came down, and the disciples near the Ziyang Divine Sect should come to answer it soon, you give them the remnants, don't reveal your identity, and leave quietly. Lin Xiao said quickly.

Ye Xin's voice trembled, and she didn't know if she was excited or angry: "You...... You are really crazy! You recognize clearly, I am a member of the Demon Sect in the mouth of your righteous path disciples! You actually believe me? Do you think it is possible for me to hand over the remnants to you? Do you think it is possible!"

"Although you are a member of the Demon Sect, but I have been with you for so long, I know that your heart does not belong to the Demon Sect. Lin Xiao's tone was still very calm, "Do you remember when I was in the ghost market of Moon Song City, I asked you why you told me about the 'Four Volumes of Eternal Night', and you said to me, 'You believe me'......!

“...... I believe in you!"

Ye Xin was already frozen in place, and what made her react was a kiss that Lin Xiao suddenly imprinted.

In an instant, Ye Xin's head was blank, and she only felt a moment of warmth between her lips, and Lin Xiao had already come up and kissed her lightly on the lips, and they were separated with a touch. He smiled slyly, stood up, walked backwards to the boulder, and said, "Don't forget to pull the rope!"

The speed of the celestial silkworm rope sliding faster and faster, Ye Xin only felt that his wrist suddenly tightened, came back to his senses, and hurriedly pulled it, and the silk rope continued to vibrate and tighten violently. Lin Xiao's weight and the force generated when she fell was a little more than she imagined, she couldn't hold it steadily, she was taken two steps, and hurriedly braked her steps hard, only to hear a faint "plop" sound below, Lin Xiao's position had already passed the coffin, and her calf was directly submerged in the water.

The moment they entered the water, the hearts of the two people above and below sank. If there is any poison in this water, or if there is something vicious, then in this way, Lin Xiao's life is already hanging in the balance.

Lin Xiao took a deep breath and calmed down, feeling that there was no discomfort on his calves, and there should be no toxins in the lake water. Thinking of this, he first breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to grab the rope and pull himself up, but he found a huge force under his feet that dragged him directly into the water, and not only did he fail to get out of the water, but his lower body also followed into the water. The deeper the body enters the water, the greater the force.

At this time, Ye Xin on the cliff also felt a huge force coming from below, and he actually dragged her out a few steps. She hurriedly leaned backwards and fell down, so that her body formed a certain angle with the ground, so that she could exert force under her feet, and she stopped her body.

The silkworm rope tightly squeezed into Ye Xin's palm, and the tiny silk rope was like a sharp blade in the tense situation, directly cutting her palm, and blood was dripping in an instant. But Ye Xin couldn't care about the pain in her palm right now, she clenched her teeth, pulled out the ruthless blade and plunged it into the ground not far away, got up with one hand, roared, and dragged the entire heavenly silkworm rope back three steps in a row.

At the same time, Lin Xiao transported the true qi in his body from the dantian, traveled to the "sea of qi in the body", tried his best to lift his qi and light his body, and with the pull of the heart of the leaf above, he rose up, lifted the lower body out of the shackles of the lake, turned over and jumped with the silkworm rope to the golden silk nan wooden coffin.

Ye Xin felt that the pressure of the silk cord suddenly decreased, and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, only then did he realize that his underwear had been soaked with sweat, cold and sticking to his body, the wounds on his hands were also constantly bleeding, his arms were sore, and the whole person was indescribably uncomfortable. But she still clutched the rope that strangled her hand, and asked loudly, "Lin Xiao, how are you?"

Lin Xiao pulled the rope and tried his best to put his weight on the flexible silkworm rope instead of the coffin board, but he found that his legs soaked by the lake water were like hanging a scale, and he couldn't help but be taken aback, and when he heard Ye Xin's question, he shouted and replied: "I'm fine, but I can't get into the water anymore - this lake is a pool of stagnant water, and there is no buoyancy at all!"

Ye Xin only felt that her heartbeat suddenly leaked, and she realized that the words "stagnant water of the hidden lake" on the stone slab were not describing the static state of the lake, but explaining the nature of the lake. The "dead water" in Lin Xiao's mouth is not the kind of non-flowing pool or lake water in the usual sense, but that this lake is a dead area, and those who enter it will inevitably be swallowed up by the lake, and there will be no bones.

The stagnant water of the lake has no return!

Jumping into the lake of "cannibalism" rashly, isn't it "no return"!

【To be continued】