Xiao Tian's eyes didn't leave the formation, and he said slowly: "Uncle Chang, I'm thinking that it is impossible for Mine Chief Dai and those people to hide in the mines of the Ming Dynasty, they don't know when our investigation will end, and it is impossible to start digging the roadway so many years in advance, which doesn't make sense." Dai Mine Chang dug the test shaft and finally dug through the Ming Dynasty mine tunnel, which must not be accidental, because he burned people to death, sealed the test shaft, and began to dig this tunnel. And this tunnel is not leading to the test shaft. Then his purpose must be the mines of the Ming Dynasty. In the mines of the Ming Dynasty, apart from the five-party fire array, I really can't think of anything else that attracts him. ”

"Mine Chief Dai asked the curator for this formation map back then, it must be to pass through this five-way fire gathering array, whether it is from the test shaft or the tunnel just now, there are only two targets, that is, the Shengmen marked on the map, so they will enter again now, and they will definitely go to the direction of the Shengmen. ”

After listening to Xiao Tian's inference, I couldn't help but nodded, it made sense, but what Mine Chief Dai and they were going to at the beginning was probably the blank circle in the center of the array.

We discussed it for a while, and decided to go to the center of the five-way fire array. Following the instructions of the formation diagram, we chose different forks, and just entered the first inner circle of the lane, we already vaguely saw a candle flame flickering in front of us.

Carefully and slowly approached, I finally saw that it was a stone niche carved into the wall of the tunnel, thirty centimeters high, ten centimeters wide, and about ten centimeters deep, and there was a brass lantern in it. There is no ornamentation on the lamp, but it has rusted, and the shape is very simple, and it looks at least hundreds of years old.

The wick and oil are new, and they should have been lit by Dai Mine. Oda fiddled with the lantern, and the light and shadow left a strange projection in the dark tunnel.

This shows that Mine Chief Dai and the others don't know what exactly is in the Five Directions Fire Gathering Array, and they still treat them as ghosts, otherwise there are advanced lighting equipment, so why bother to order the magic weapons in these arrays? It seems that we have to hurry.

The annotation of the array diagram is still very accurate, and the symbols of circles, water ripples, and flame patterns on the diagram are all found in the tunnel wall one by one. I also gradually understood that the circle represents the cinnabar charm, but these cinnabar charms have become ochre-colored because of their age, and the yellow silk full of cinnabar charms will rot and fall apart when the hand touches it lightly.

The flame pattern is marked with an everlasting lamp, while the water ripple refers to a small celadon wine jar, which has long since dried out, but it should have been used to hold dog blood or chicken blood back then.

In those well-hewn stone niches, there are also bronze mirrors, cloth bags wrapped in grass and wood ash, and some special runes are used on the formation diagram to represent, judging from the technique of arranging the formation, the Taoist priest of that year should have won the essence of the Longgang faction formation, and even he himself is the head of a faction It is very possible.

The three of us quickened our pace, looking for the path in the formation map to the center of the Five Directions Gathering Fire Array.

Turning around, going around a few big circles, the tunnel was still as silent as death, we didn't find any traces of Cao Team or Xiao Lei passing by, think about it, we probably passed through seven or eight forks, which one went wrong, I don't know where to turn. With such a complex structure, the probability of hitting them is really small.

"Chang, do you feel that the temperature in here is getting higher and higher?" As we entered the third alleyway, we stopped to rest for a while, Sun Ping unbuttoned his shirt and wiped his sweat with the placket.

Indeed, as he said, the temperature is at least 30 degrees Celsius or more, and my sweat is running down my neck.

"People say that the tunnels in this mine get colder and colder the further you dig them, and that this well is a bit of a wickedness. Sun Ping said as he took out the tension depth meter, only glanced at it, and dragged me over.

I glanced at it and was shocked to see that the number on the display was already one hundred and thirty-four meters.

I suppressed the surprise in my heart, took out the formation diagram and spread it on the ground, and looked at it carefully.

We walked all the way, although we did not pass through any stairs, but it must have been two or three kilometers of road, it was a very slow downhill, and our attention was all around, and it should be normal not to notice the change in height, but the key is that we are not walking a straight road, that is to say, this five-way fire gathering array is not on a plane, but a spiral downward extension, and the center of the array should be the lowest point.

I kind of understand why some of the symbols in this flat array in my hand seem to be a little incomplete, not because they were not printed clearly when rubbing, nor were they deviated from when copying, but because the original version used the depth of the virtual and real to represent the difference in the position of the magic weapon. If calculated according to this ratio, it is estimated that when we reach the center point, it should already be about 300 meters underground, which far exceeds the mining depth of the Ming and Qing coal mines.

So when the tunnel of the Ming Dynasty was dug so deeply, it must not be for coal mining, Longgang Taoist priests put down this five-party fire array, the amount of work is amazing, this is not a year to complete.

We dare not delay, bury our doubts in our hearts, and speed up our progress. But the further we went, the higher the temperature, and soon a few of us took off our coats, leaving only a single coat, but this single coat was already soaked with sweat. The trouble is that it is becoming more and more difficult for us to breathe, and it is estimated that the oxygen content below is too low.

After twenty minutes we finally turned into the last inner circle, and beyond that there should be the unmarked area in the center, and we had to stop for a short rest, the hot and humid ground seemed to be a steamer on a fire, and my strength slowly disappeared in this smoldering.

Sun Ping and Xiao Tian's situation was not much better, leaning against the cave wall and gasping for breath, as if they had been fished out of the water.

"Lao Chang, you just wait for us here, the temperature is too high, maybe there is a geothermal hot spring or something, Xiao Tian and I will go in and have a look, and then come back to you." ”

I waved my hand at Sun Ping and stood up hard, "I'm fine, we can't be separated, the real test has just begun, let's go." ”

If we hadn't held the array diagram in our hands, we would never have found that the tunnel in front of us was the innermost layer. This tunnel makes no difference except that it is slightly wider than the one outside. We scrutinized the final cave wall for a while, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

On the other hand, Xiao Tian, who was walking in front, seemed to have found something and hurriedly called us over.

Xiao Tian used a flashlight to shine on the stone wall of the tunnel, and we suddenly found that there were obvious traces of excavation here, and the stone wall should have been dug into about two meters as a whole, forming a cave two meters high and three meters wide, which was obviously not for the purpose of digging out the passage, looking at the neatly placed excavation tools on the side of the wall, and the stones built up against the wall, I understood that this should be a mining site.

I picked up a stone, much heavier than coal, and looked closely, the section glowed with a metallic luster, although the surface has not been polished, but it is still as delicate and moist as jade, this is undoubtedly a piece of fine coal jade.

The rough stone in his hand weighs at least four or five catties, which is still the smallest piece of the small stone pile. I leaned down and picked up two more pieces from the stone pile, the same cut section, the same reflection of the metal, this place was all coal jade, although I could not tell whether there was a water urchin in it, but this size of the rough stone, must be worth a lot.

I remember Director Qi said that the coal essence jade absorbs the essence of the surrounding coal seams, and a piece can be dug out of a mine tunnel of tens or even hundreds of meters, but how can so many people be dug up here?

I stood up and walked into the innermost part of the mine, where the stone wall was one person high, covered with coal ash, perhaps due to the high temperature and humidity, and the whole was a thin mud, and it seemed that the work had been stopped for a while.

I put on my gloves and vigorously wiped the muddy water off the stone wall in front of me, and soon, under my gloves, pure black satin crystals were revealed. Suddenly, the reflection of the flashlight became shining, covering the entire cave with a faint halo.

Sun Ping stood next to me, opened his mouth in disbelief, and asked me, "My God, is this all coal essence jade?" No wonder Dai Mine Manager took such a big risk and spent so much time, and they must secretly dig a hole in. ”

"People die for money, the old saying makes sense, but I don't know if Dai Mine Chief and they can escape this catastrophe. But Lao Sun, pay attention, the mud on the wall is estimated to have been smeared by Dai Mine Chief and them later. ”

"Are you afraid that we will come in and discover these secrets?" Sun Ping said as he rubbed out a two-foot-square wall of coal essence and jade.

"Probably not, you think, this mud must have been up for a while, the innermost layer has dried, and at that time, how do they know we're going to come in? There's no need to cover it up, unless it's ......."

As the two of us were talking, suddenly the miner's lamp above our heads and the flashlight in our hands flickered brightly and dimly, and we could even hear the slightest sound of the filament.

Is there no electricity? This thought has just flashed, and it has been denied by myself, it is impossible for the lighting equipment of several of us to run out of electricity at the same time, right? Sun Ping and I subconsciously took two steps back, but at this time, the bulbs of the miner's lamp and the flashlight suddenly became many times brighter, and the original pale yellow pillar of light turned into a white that was completely impossible to look at, illuminating the entire cave as if it were daytime.

But the dazzling light lasted less than a second, and then the sound of light bulbs popping one by one, and soon everything fell into endless darkness.

(The karmic retribution of the Three Realms is born of the mind; if there is no mind, in the Three Realms, that is, out of the Three Realms.) The three realms are the three poisons, greed is the realm of desire, hatred is the realm of color, and ignorance is the realm of colorlessness, hence the name of the three realms. As a result, the three poisons, the severity of the industry, and the retribution are different, and they are divided into six places, hence the name of six interests. --"The Theory of Breaking the Phase")