I went out with everyone, quietly, without making a sound.

As we walked through the dilapidated streets, my heart immediately tugged.

The ancient emperors lived deep in the royal city, with fine clothes and jade food, wine ponds and meat forests every day, but they did not expect that at the foot of the Son of Heaven, there were still slums.

It is precisely because of this that the emperor asked naively "why not eat minced meat".

Soon, at the mouth of a T-shaped alley, our team collided head-on with a group of red-eyed Jin soldiers.

"Kill them all—" the woman ordered with a wave of her hand.

The people around us rushed forward and fought with the invaders.

"Follow me." As soon as the battle began, the woman grabbed my hand and quickly ran to the left side of the road.

"Leave them alone?" I asked in a low voice.

She replied in a low voice: "That's not the point, go out of the city first, stay in the green mountains, and don't be afraid of running out of firewood." ”

At the fork in the road, another group of people answered.

We entered a rudimentary tunnel together, hurried for nearly half an hour, and when we went out, we were already outside the city.

"The city is broken, the defenders are scattered, the capital has fallen, and the enemy's flag has been planted on the top of the palace." Someone reported it to the woman.

"That's how it ends." The woman nodded, and waved the man to stand down.

When I looked back, the city was filled with smoke and dust, shouts and cries of killing, and people on the top of the city were constantly jumping with their lives and being mercilessly shot by the invaders.

The cruelty of ancient warfare lies in the fact that no matter whether they win or lose, it is always innocent people who suffer, and there is never an exception.

"Let's go to a place, where the sun sets, all the way to the west." The woman said.

I didn't ask too much, my heart was already very heavy.

Judging from the history books, the "Jingkang Difficulty" is just a fragment of the war, and it is no different from other changes in the country. However, when I stood here and saw the city occupied by outsiders and the slaughter of the defenders and its inhabitants, it was as if I had witnessed the end of hell.

The people of the earth will never stop killing each other, which is determined by the residual "animal nature" in the human mind itself.

In the past, due to the backwardness of means of transportation and communication, human beings could only fight on adjacent lands.

Today, with the advent of aircraft, aircraft carriers, *, and nuclear weapons, humanity is able to conquer between several continents. The tools have advanced, but the thinking has remained the same, still following the bad habits of thousands of years, relying on war to solve all major contradictions.

I am truly disappointed in my own kind and filled with sadness for the future of the planet.

We set off in a horse-drawn carriage and quickly moved away from the capital, leaving behind the war of blood and fire.

"You're so strange that you haven't asked me where I'm going. Aren't you afraid that I will take you to hell? In the bumpy car, the woman asked quietly.

I smiled wryly and shook my head: "This is already hell, is there a more terrible place?" ”

The woman's eyebrows raised and she nodded heavily: "Of course there is, death is not terrible, it is just a short-term pain." It is precisely because of the almost unattainable threshold of 'death' that people do not experience the pain of 'immortality'. In fact, 'immortality' is more terrible than 'death', and it kills all hope for people. I guess that the ancients were aware of this a long time ago, so they left the idiom 'life is better than death'. ”

"The long is life, and the short is pain; The short is life, and the long is painful. I answered with a quote from a writer.

"That's right, when life is incomparably long, pain becomes a meaningful thing, and you can be sure that you are still alive." The woman seemed to have an idea.

Scorched wood has always been in my hands, but it's more like an advanced puzzle, and I can't find any feasible clues from the puzzle, and it's really "obsessed".

Positioned from the direction of the sun, the carriage did go all the way to the west.

On the way, there were several groups of invading troops and scattered defenders, but they were all killed by the woman's entourage in the blink of an eye.

I wanted to get out of the car to help, but was pulled by the woman: "Let them go, it's all irrelevant." ”

From her eyes, I saw her indifference to life, as if it was ants or wild beasts that were fighting outside the car, not her own kind.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"You're finally thinking about it? Next, is it to ask where we are going? The woman smiled and teased, then rolled up the sleeve of her left wrist and showed me the inside of her left arm.

There was a pale cyan tattoo, probably because of the age, the lines had become light, but it was possible to tell what it was.

I was slightly surprised, it was an animal tattoo, but the animal did not appear in the Central Plains at all, but in the northernmost part of Europe, near the Arctic Circle.

It was a polar ice wolf, with a brutal temperament and huge lethality, and even the huge polar bear had to avoid it honestly when it saw it.

"Of course you know it, unlike most people who think of it as a northern wolf or a desert jackal." The woman said.

I nodded: "Yes, polar ice wolf, no one here will ever see each other in their lives." So, are you-"

The woman rolled up the sleeve of her right wrist again, and on the inside of her forearm was a string of symbols and Arabic numerals.

It was in Russian, meaning "ice wolf", and the Arabic numerals that followed it were "1991".

Anyone who follows the international situation understands what the figure 1991 means for the great powers of the North. It represented the disintegration of one of the largest alliances in the world, and immediately after that, the Emperor of the North rose to prominence with the formation of the "Arctic Ice Wolf 1991" special forces to compete with the Pentagon's "Navy SEALs".

"I see, I know." I nodded slowly, "You're the real prisoner of time." ”

This tattoo represents that she is from the same place as me.

If you can't go back to where you are, you will become a prisoner of time, an "outsider" of this era forever.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

This is indeed the second question I want to know, and I didn't ask it before because I didn't know the real identity of the other party.

"Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, the cliff cave full of murals." She replied, "Or, you have a third question, who am I?" Call me Lotus, the Chinese name sounds the same as my original name. ”

In the other country, the pronunciation of "lotus" is similar, and it should be a name such as "Sava, Nava, Jiawa".

"Ah, by the way, in order to survive here, I have had some cosmetic surgery myself to get rid of my original appearance and be consistent with the locals. Every time I see myself in the mirror, I want to die right away. Lotus laughed.

This is actually not a funny thing, but now, you can only rely on forced laughter to offset the bitterness in your heart, otherwise what can you do?

I stretched out my hand to her: "I'm Long Fei, I'm lucky, I'm lucky, I'm lucky...... Over here. ”

Lotus reached out to shake my hand, her fingertips cold, and she had the same physical characteristics as many of the people of the northern powers I had come into contact with before.

"Indeed, it's a blessing to be here, it's a real blessing." Lotus said.

The two of them are also "prisoners of time", and if they can't get out of trouble, they may be prisoners for life.

"I couldn't take that thing, I tried many times, but none of them worked. I also secretly observed, and it seemed that only the emperor could pick it up, but at that time, the emperor's expression was very painful, as if he was tearing his heart. Lotus said, pointing to the scorched wood in my hand.

I put the scorched wood on the coffee table in the carriage and nodded and replied, "It's true that when you pick it up, your body will have a severe pain reaction, but now it's much worse." ”

"Why?" Lotus asked curiously.

I put that reaction down to telepathy, and I've seen a lot of this in the past, and it's basically in the realm of metaphysics, but it's understandable but not loverable.

In any case, with Jiaomu in hand, the study of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang is one step closer.

After a day of traveling, the sun went down, and the convoy chose a small dilapidated village to settle down in a slightly more spacious house.

Under the dual effect of silver and sharp blades, the family obediently left without causing any trouble to the convoy.

In troubled times, silver and knives are two indispensable tools for survival, and this is the reality of *nakedness.

The entourage lit the fire and cooked, while Lotus and I climbed up the wooden ladder to the roof platform.

Thousands of miles in the desert, with no end in sight.

Looking to the east, the capital that was engulfed by the Jin people has long been out of sight. In an era when information could only be transmitted by post stations and letters, hundreds of miles apart were like two worlds. The people in this small village had no idea about the fall of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty and the capture of two generations of emperors. In their minds, the emperor will always be high and passed down from generation to generation, and the world will always belong to the Zhao family, which cannot be changed, just like the trip of the sun and the moon, starting from the east and falling from the west.

Soon, when the sun had set completely, twilight quickly set in, enveloping everything in there.

"This time, when we get to the Mogao Grottoes, I think we will be able to solve some problems, because we have scorched wood in our hands - the wisdom of two people is always greater than that of one person, isn't it?" Lotus asked.

In the dark, her facial features became blurred, like a photograph eroded by time.

"Yes, the problem will always be solved, as long as there is enough persistence." I say.

"Would you like to hear how I got here? At first, I told everyone about it, trying to make everyone else understand how weird it was, but now, I don't want to talk about it anymore, because everyone doesn't understand it, and thinks I'm talking about the Book of Heaven. Over time, I became suspicious of those things, and even thought that I was a local in the first place, but my brain was broken—I had a high fever and burned out, so I had those strange tattoos and ideas. It's like a neurosis, it's not that everyone is crazy, it's that I'm crazy. Lotus said.

"Okay, I'd like to listen." I nodded.

The following is Lotus's story, the most crucial of which is that she was personally commissioned by the Emperor of the North to set off to Hong Kong Island to receive a painting.

The task was originally very simple, the payment for the painting had been paid, and the address of the seller was very detailed, on the top floor of the Central Building on Hong Kong Island, the name of the company was "Masterpieces of Great Power", and it was a well-established transnational cultural trading company that was officially registered and legally operated.

Before she set off, she didn't have any mental pressure, because she was a highly trained spy who flew around the world dozens of times a year, and was extremely familiar with the routines of business trips. It can be said that she has arranged her itinerary carefully, and all the round-trip tickets have been booked, and she is expected to return safely within forty-eight hours and deliver the ancient painting to the Northern Emperor.

The journey from the north to the "Great Power Masterpiece" company on Hong Kong Island was no problem, and it was no different from any previous business trip.

This kind of task was so common that Lotus felt a little bored and couldn't understand why the Northern Emperor had entrusted such a simple task to himself.

On the top floor of Central, Lotus met the owner of the "Great Power Masterpieces" company, a shrewd and capable middle-aged man, and then verified each other's identities and began the handover of ancient paintings.

Herein lies the problem: as Lotus scrutinizes the painting with a microscopic magnifying glass, there is a sudden power outage on the top floor, followed by a critical situation in which the power gate explodes and the wires catch fire.

Everyone rushed out, but only Lotus was not in a hurry. She unhurriedly rolled up the ancient paintings, put them in a stainless steel protective cylinder, and hung them diagonally on her chest before leaving the company hall.

As a spy, she has a wealth of experience in dealing with such emergencies, not only carrying a laser flashlight with her, but also following the safe passage icon in the building's corridors, entering the staircase and quickly descending the stairs.

What she didn't expect was that at the end of the building's walking ladder was not the hall on the first floor, not the parking lot, or any street, but the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.

At that moment, she felt like she had fallen into an ice cave in the North Pole, and she was cold from head to toe in an instant.

The name of that painting is "Rebounding Pipa Picture", and she, as a modern person, certainly knows where the scene is depicted in this painting. So, before she could settle down, she went straight to Dunhuang to find the mural.

At that time, Dunhuang was dilapidated and desolate, and it belonged to the jurisdiction of the party.

After three months of wandering the Mogao Grottoes, Lotus finally learned from a Tibetan monk that the bouncing pipa diagram was not an ordinary mural, but full of mysteries, from which one could lead to another world. The key to unlocking this secret door is to find the legendary "Scorched Wood". As for the whereabouts of "Jiaomu", we have to go to the capital to find out.

Lotus returned to the capital, relying on the wisdom of modern people, which can also be said to be cunning, and soon rose to the rivers and lakes of the capital, and gathered a large number of dead party henchmen under his hands. During this period, she found out that Jiao Mu was on the star-picking tower in the palace through the relationship of Wazi Lane. She explored the Star Tower several times at night, and found scorched wood but could not take it away. Later, she spied and saw that only the emperor could pick up the scorched wood. She is a spy, and once she finds something wrong, she no longer acts rashly, but always observes and waits for the opportunity. In the end, with the occurrence of the "Jingkang Difficulty", I appeared.