After learning the news of the Japanese, early the next morning, the old man and his party rode out of Haikou, before leaving, Zhang Jianyang quietly stuffed the old man with a document bag, which contained a translation, which he made a special trip back to peek at the hurried translation last night, and the above was a briefing on the current progress of the hydrological team's work, but there was a paragraph that caught the attention of Li Lao:

Professor Saito guessed that it was an ancient species that would help to rapidly improve human life, and that it could be coveted by the emperors and Taoists of China, and that it could be arranged separately and kept secret. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"Brother, but you have an understanding?"

"The things that emperors and Taoists dream of are nothing more than elixirs, but most of them are made of metals such as mercury, not only will not strengthen the body, but will kill a lot, but Chinese medicine can reach the dream of the degree of hard to find... I have a guess, but I'll have to think twice before I can tell the owner. ”

The old man nodded, and he heard Zhang Jianyang say.

"The owner, in public and private, I will try my best to help, please be cautious and say goodbye!"

Riding all the way, for more than half an hour, Li Lao pointed ahead, and saw a large area of dense tropical vegetation, but several almost flat-topped mountains suddenly protruded on the flat land, and they were rarely connected to each other, as if a lump of mountains growing on the earth was distributed.

Lai Yu looked at it blankly, and the people and bears and these Qiongzhou natives also looked puzzled.

"Boss, that's what you said about the flat-topped mountain on Jianshi Island?"

"Oh? Looks like you all know? ”

The man-bear took over.

"Back to the east, this mountainous area is called Sheep Mountain in the mouth of our Qiongzhou people, the locals also call it Stone Mountain, and the elders call it Didong Mountain, but I never knew that this was caused by the underground fire, where many villages have lived for generations."

"Why is it called Sheep Mountain?"

"Hehe, the owner doesn't know, there is a kind of superb black goat here, sometimes the mountains are densely covered in green like black spots, so it is called Sheep Mountain. Could it be that this place was really formed by the fire erupting from the ground, as the owner said? ”

When the man and bear asked, everyone looked at the old man curiously.

"The earth under our feet is hollow, and the temperature under the ground is extremely high enough to melt everything, including these hard stones, they will move underground, just like an earthquake, it is not the death of Tang Taizong that causes the earth dragon to roll, but the movement underground, and the same goes for volcanoes, once they gather, they will be released, just like the pus bulging on a person's body, once it is broken, it will erupt. It's just that it's too hot to turn everything into fluid, and a lot of caves will form under the mountain. ”

"This time we explore the treasure of the East China Sea, is to make a fortune in this kind of mountain, just what I said, are my written knowledge, since you know here, you must be more careful, Jianshi Zhi is definitely a volcano from the shape of the mountain, and the volcano is a lot of caves, it is naturally a good place to hide things, I brought you here, is to let you have an intuitive understanding. Man Xiong, since you are familiar with it, lead the way, find a place to settle down, and say to the outside world to go to Tanmen to talk about business, and be attracted by the scenery here for a few days. ”

The man and bear took Lai Yu to take the first step, and Li Lao has been admiring the fresh air here, now in winter, but Haikou is still hot, but as soon as he enters the volcanic group, the temperature drops immediately, and the fragrance of various ancient trees and plants comes to his face.

It took a while for the bear to come back alone.

"The owner, the village in front is called Longmen Village, and there are only a few dozen families in it, but it seems that something has happened, a few families are crying, and the village chief refused me, but I told the situation and allowed us to live in their house, and I guess I heard the word business and wanted to make some money."

"Well, we are determined to succeed in this trip, since we are going to the Dragon Cave, we will enter the Dragon Gate first, and lead the way in front."

Walking along the dirt road in the countryside, there are towering ancient trees on both sides, and you can only vaguely see the towering volcanoes in the distance, until you reach the end of the dirt road, a majestic mountain peak appears in front of you, which is really like a broken pillar.

A small road along the dirt road, there is a stone house village at the foot of the mountain, the path is the only passage into the village, the two sides are piled up with stones into a small city wall, the stone house is all enclosed, there is a white-haired old man standing in the middle of the road, Lai Yu is next to him, the two are talking and laughing, seeing the old man's people and horses arrived, they hurriedly greeted them.

"Listen to this little brother, you are their owner, and the old decay Ji Fangsheng is polite."

The old man and Li Lao hurriedly dismounted and returned the salute, not wanting to hear the Hebei accent in this remote mountain village, although it was not pure, but it was also surprising, this old man had a high nose and single eyelids, long hair hanging down, a coarse cloth dress hunched back, and the crutches in his hand were deeply clubbed in the ground.

When he saw that the old man was surprised, he laughed.

"Does the owner feel strange when he hears an old accent? The big man came over and said that he wanted to spend the night, and it was inconvenient to receive outsiders because of some bad things that had happened in the village recently, but when I heard that it was a fellow villager from Hebei, I greeted him here. ”

"Old man, what you said must be a Hebei accent, I don't know when you arrived here?"

"Hehe, grandpa Tai's generation, that is, Emperor Daoguang, was demoted to this point, grandpa Tai was a literati who hated officialdom, so he simply resigned and took the whole family to escape here, but there is a family rule, that is, when people of blood meet, they can only speak Hebei dialect, and they can't forget their ancestors."

Li Lao walked over and hugged the old man's house, and ordered the eighth child to send some gifts and money purchased from Haikou.

"Old man, my owner likes to make friends with the old man the most, this Li Ye is a Taoist living immortal, curing diseases and saving countless people, you can accept these gifts, I have to bother you these two days."

"Don't dare, don't dare, just why do you have to stay overnight, there are friends from afar who don't say it, although the old man has long been a wilderness person, but this is the way of being a human being."

"Old man, don't shirk it, the owner is a filial piety to you, they all say that thousands of miles meet the old know, and now you have to add a hundred years of sewing neighbors, it will be a beautiful talk in the future, I am from Shandong, let's count it according to the north, and it is also a fellow countryman, hehe, you don't have to shirk it."

After Mr. Li's words, the old man happily led everyone into the village, which is really a world of stones, and the inhabitants of the volcano group know how to use the wealth left by nature to form a rare stone building complex in the Central Plains. Moreover, this is not as closed as the old man imagined, for thousands of years, Qiongzhou has experienced three major migration waves, namely the Qin and Han dynasties, the Tang and Song dynasties and the Ming Dynasty, plus the Tang and Song dynasties after the demotion of officials in Hainan Island, so it brought the civilization of the Central Plains.

Among them, religion bore the brunt, and the seeds of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism took root and blossomed on this isolated island, and the integration and improvement of generations of cultures created unique living customs.

The old man and Li Lao admired these stone houses all the way, all of them were taken from volcanic stones, some were neatly cut but of different sizes, and some were simply piled up in a seemingly chaotic manner, but they were so tightly knit that it was difficult to insert a piece of paper. The volcanic stones, many of which are perforated structures, are the best natural building materials and have been used by the inhabitants to build sheepfolds, walls and steps that have been used for generations.

But the quiet little mountain village had more discordant sounds, and heart-rending howls came from several stone houses, and the old village chief frowned and waved his hand to say that it was okay, and then led everyone to continue to move forward.

After a while, I arrived at his house, only to see that the wall here is neat, although the stone is of different sizes, but the polishing ground is smooth, push open the door, the main house is a horizontal house and two rooms, into a concave layout, the same all are made of stones, the top is paved with tiles, there is a wooden structure in the house, the inside is very simple, a hall and three rooms, a round table and bench are placed in the main hall, a shrine on the wall enshrines the tablets of the ancestors and ancestors, a couplet on the left and right, one room on both sides of the room is used for reading and writing, and one is placed with a wooden bed.

As soon as the old village chief entered the door, he called his youngest son to come out to greet him, this man already has the characteristics of Qiongzhou people, with a collapsed nose and double eyelids, not tall and thin, as soon as he heard his father greet him, he was stunned for a moment, and when the old man greeted him, he knew that it was a fellow countryman, so he happily went into the house to clean up.

In this way, the old village chief, the old man and Li Lao sat around the round table in the house, and the rest of the people set up a small table in the courtyard to chat and have fun, and after settling down, the old village chief spoke.

"Zhou Dongjia, our village is not as good as the city, one is located in the mountainous area is sparsely populated, and the other is short of water and land, this hospitality can not be discussed, fruits, vegetables and mutton are the best hospitality."

"Where is the old man, it's too late to thank you, it's just that I see that the land in Qiongzhou is fertile like a country of abundance, why is there a shortage of water and land here?"

"Zhou Dongjia doesn't know, we have these stone mountains for thousands of miles here, if God gives a piece of fertile soil under the stone mountain, but the land is thin, there are still stones under the soil layer, and the other side of the fork of the dirt road is also our cultivated land, sometimes in order to reclaim some land, the whole village has to move large and small stones."

"And there is no river here, the wellhead is also pitiful, the depth of the well is several times that of other places, every day in order to carry water to walk several miles, so every family has a large water tank, when it rains but happy, the rain can be drunk after precipitation. Therefore, we marry girls here not to look at gold and silver, but only to count the water tanks, and the most of them are rich people, alas, you may not think of it at all. ”

"Old man, how is your harvest?"

"This is not bad, although this is full of stones, but the soil quality is very good, the fertility is strong, the yield is high, and we residents can live with food and clothing."

At this time, the youngest son Ji Bin came in and turned around twice to stop talking, the old village chief sighed, the old man and Li Lao are also people with eyesight, and they were about to avoid it, but they were stopped by the old village chief, Ji Bin saw his father nodding to himself, so he whispered.

"Father, the boss of the Zhao family and the Sun family in the village just called me out, saying that they plan to invite a Taoist priest to come over tomorrow, and they also plan to send the heirs of the family to take turns guarding the tomb, and ask if our family wants to take the lead."

"Alas, that's the only way, in this way, tonight Zhou Dongjia and Mr. Li sleep in your side room, and the others are assigned to your brothers' homes, all of whom are fellow villagers and should not be neglected. Tomorrow, our family will take the lead, and you brothers will go to the tomb to discuss it for themselves. ”

The old man felt strange when he heard it, and Li Lao was also curious, so he simply asked the old village chief directly what happened and whether he needed help.

After hearing this, the old village chief burst into tears and arched his hand to express his gratitude.

"I won't tell you the truth, strange things have happened in the village in the past few days, a few days ago, the children of the Zhao family and the Sun family climbed the mountain to play, but accidentally fell to their deaths, but on the night of the burial, the coffin was opened and the body was gone, we looked around for a long time and did not find any clues, these two families have been crying for several days."

When the old man heard this, he dared to meet the tomb robber? But this poor mountain village must not have any valuable funeral, the old village chief used the word "again", is it still a common thing?

"Old man, does this happen so often? Is there a hole in the stolen tomb? ”

"The owner doesn't know about this place, our land is already scarce, and the soil layer is all stones, and you can't enter the soil at all, so you can only use these stones to make a sarcophagus, and then unify it in the stone area even if it is buried, and the ancient sarcophagus is full of plants, and it can be regarded as one with this earth."

"But since last year, as long as there are dead people in the village, there will be this phenomenon of opening the coffin and throwing the body, it will definitely not be done by wild beasts, the sarcophagi here are all made of stones on the spot, and the sarcophagi made of these stones are tightly seamless, even if they are soaked in water, they will not leak, because the stones are hard and toothy, and can only be opened by manpower."

"Do you want to send someone to catch the thief?"

"There were, but even after guarding the first seven days, I didn't see the thief appear, but as soon as the person left, the sarcophagus was still opened, which is really weird."

The old man looked at Li Lao and asked if it had anything to do with witchcraft.

"In my opinion, it may not be, if it is witchcraft such as Maoshan, head lowering, and Gu Xia, it is possible to steal the corpse of a child, because it can be used to raise ghosts, but it is easy to attract suspicion in this kind of small village, because they must first obtain the birth date of the child who died young, and then they must steal the corpse that night, otherwise they will not be able to hook the soul after a long time. The corpses of adults are even more useless, and besides, the old man said, there have been those who have been guarded for seven days, and the corpses have long been rotten and stinky in such a humid environment, and as far as I know about witchcraft, I do not use the magic of rotting corpses. ”

Li Lao suddenly thought of something, so he asked the old village chief, what do the dead people have in common, the old village chief heard it, called his son Ji Bin, the two thought for a long time, and came to a very strange conclusion.

"Four people died last year, and this year it is two, to say that the physical condition and age are different, but they all died by accident, not from illness, this is a common point, and besides, the old man suddenly thought that they had all been to the stele cave before they died."