Autumn and winter are getting stronger, the pale sunset afterglow is sprinkled on the stretching ancient road, the wind sweeps the dust and sand, and a few jackdaws perch on the dry branches on both sides of the road from time to time, and a few mournful cries are heard.

The originally busy official road in the Northern Regions was overgrown with weeds at this time, and Yongding Pass, which once guarded the frontier, was like a decadent giant crawling on the horizon.

Four fast horses galloped along the ancient road, startling jackdaws perched on both sides of the road, leaving behind them a splash of dirt.

"It's here. ”

Duan Feng reined in his horse, turned over and jumped off. In front of him was a moat that had long since dried up, overgrown with weeds, from which a few wild foxes occasionally emerged, and a wooden suspension bridge over the river, the slabs of which had rotted and the iron skeletons on both sides had rusted.

On the other side of the moat stood a ruined city, the walls of which had long since been crumbling and overgrown with weeds, through which a few wild beasts occasionally ran by. Only half of the city gate remained, creaking and crumbling in the strong northern winds.

The four of them tied their horses to the wooden stakes at the head of the bridge, and carefully walked along the decaying suspension bridge to the city gate, Han Qing gently pushed the city gate with his hand, only to hear a click, and then the city gate fell in response, stirring up a burst of dust.

The sun had set, the sky was gradually darkening, Duan Feng and the others came to a large mansion, the yard was overgrown with weeds, dirt and stones were scattered in the yard, and most of the roofs had partially collapsed, they found a house that seemed to be quite sturdy and planned to spend the night,

Late at night, Yongdingguan looks like a ghost town under the afterglow of the half moon, the cold winter of the northern country seems to have come in advance, the cold north wind sweeps through the lonely city, lifts the fallen leaves on the street, and the wind is mixed with the cry of wild beasts into the room. Duan Feng and the others fell asleep quietly beside the dim fire.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew open the door, and a puff of smoke and dust followed, and Duan Feng was awakened by this sudden wind. He stood up, walked to the door, poked his head out and looked, the weeds in the yard were black and swarthy in the gray moonlight, and there was nothing unusual around except for a few insect chirps, "Where did such a strong wind come from?" Duan Feng shook his head in confusion and then closed the door again, pressed a wooden stick against the door, and went back to sleep.

The north wind howled outside the room, and the door creaked, Duan Feng sat up again, looked up at the sky through the gap in the roof, and when the light was cast into the house, it echoed with the flames, "It's almost dawn, I guess I can't sleep." ”

Duan Feng got up and tidied up his clothes, sat down by the fire, and added a few handfuls of firewood inside.

Duan Feng took a torch and looked around the room, and suddenly found a dusty picture on the wall, at this time Han Qing also came over, "It's a map." Han Qing whispered and took the map down, put it on the ground, and wiped the dust.

"It looks like this is a map of the city defense of Yongdingguan, and it seems that this house should have been a command post in the first place. ”

Duan Feng looked up at the entire room, imagining that it was from here that Su Hongfang sent orders to the rebels.

Duan Feng easily found the location of the Shuaifu at that time from the city defense map, at this time the sky was already bright, and the wind outside had weakened a lot.

"It seems that we need to go to the Shuaifu to have a look. ”

According to the instructions of the city defense map, the four of them went to the Shuai Mansion, the tea and wine shops on both sides of the street that had not had time to be demolished had already collapsed, and some living utensils left over from the street could occasionally be seen on the street, and the most were scattered knives, guns, swords, and halberds, which had long been corroded and could not be used, after all, more than forty years had passed, and it had become a paradise for wild beasts, and from time to time there were wild wolves or cheetahs and other wild beasts running through the streets.

But along the way, the four of them did not find human bones, if there was a great war here, even if more than forty years have passed, at least human skeletons must exist, right? But no, only those corrupt weapons, this made everyone feel very puzzled.

"Could it be that the corpses of the year were all buried? Han Qing was the first to ask, "If the corpse was disposed of by the officials and soldiers at that time, then why did they only dispose of the corpse and not collect weapons?

This anomaly made everyone feel a little nervous, the whole city seemed unusually cold, although the sun was already shining, but the city did not feel the breath of sunlight at all, the whole city was like a bloody mouth to devour them, and they had to step by step into the heart of the city.

"We'll know soon the answer. Duan Feng looked around vigilantly, and not far in front of Duan Feng saw a white tower, saying that it was a white tower, but in fact, it had already been bad, and the spire of the tower had also fallen off, saying that it was a tower, but there was no door around it, just like a big zongzi made of stones. Facing the white tower is a large mansion, the courtyard gate is erect, more than two zhang wide, the layout of the white tower and the house is very strange.

"Who would have such a tower at the gate of their house? Liu Yuwei circled around the White Tower.

"According to the map, this should be the Shuaifu. Duan Feng gently pushed open the gate of Shuaifu, the vermilion paint on it had peeled off, leaving only some traces of black and swarthy, the stone beam above the gate was quite solid, but the soil under the beam had been loosened, and it fell to the ground with the vibration of the gate.

The four of them came to the courtyard, facing the gate is a gate wall, the wall is painted with a white tower and the white tower outside the door echoes the same, the style is the same, is a miniature version of the zongzi, the lower base of the tower is engraved with a string of strange characters.

The four of them bypassed the gate wall and came to the middle of the courtyard, which was discovered by everyone, the courtyard was very large, with a width of thirty or forty zhang, like a small martial arts arena.

Facing the door wall, through the martial arts arena is a row of rooms, the center is a main house, the two sides should be partial rooms, half a zhang shorter than the main room, and then on both sides are two roads more than one zhang wide leading to the back of the main hall.

The walls around the courtyard are carved with murals, although the murals are covered with dust, but all the murals are intact, the content of the murals is a neatly arranged group of soldiers, each soldier with a solemn expression, holding a weapon, eyes looking straight ahead, ready to attack, all the characters appear lifelike, as if the real world is reflected.

"No, the soldiers here are all sucked into the murals, right?" Liu Yu said jokingly.

Duan Feng glanced at Liu Yuwei, and then turned to look at the murals, these murals are simply too realistic, how can there be such a fascinating carving technique in the world, is it really as Liu Yuwei said? Duan Feng touched the murals with his hand, there was nothing strange, just like ordinary murals.

"Come and see!" Su Yanjun's voice came from the side room near the right.

Hearing the noise, everyone hurriedly ran to the room, and it turned out that there were several complete human skeletons in the room chaotically. The four of them looked around the house, and found several maps hanging on the walls, as well as several other corpses.

"It should have been full of maps. Duan Feng pointed to the dense nails on the wall and said.

"It seems that this should be the command post of the Shuaifu. Han Qing said.

"I finally saw the shadow of a person, even if it was a corpse. Liu Yuwei said, "The whole city is too weird, I don't know if I think this is a ghost town?"

"Why should there be two command posts in a city?", Duan Feng looked at the rest of the room with questions, hoping to find clues.

Suddenly, a map on the wall caught his eye, because the four corners of the map were nailed, and the paper of the map was obviously much better than the other maps, and the pattern on it was still clearly visible.

Duan Feng took down the map and found a strange square brick on the original wall, the size and shape were no different from the surrounding bricks, the only difference was that the color of this square brick was darker, while the other bricks had already changed from the original dark blue to light blue due to age.

"Maybe this brick was the same as the surrounding bricks, but the owner didn't expect time to lighten the color of the other bricks. ”

Duan Feng tentatively touched the mark with his hand, and the square brick suddenly fell in, and then the wall shook for a while, and a stone door opened from the wall on the right hand, and behind the stone door was a stone room. The four of them curiously took the torches and entered the stone chamber.

Duan Feng used torches to light the torches on both sides of the stone steps, and the entire stone room suddenly brightened. Walking down the narrow stone staircase, I turned around a stone wall, and the chamber suddenly became empty, about twice the size of the room above, and several corpses lay next to the stone wall. The four of them descended the stone steps and jumped over the corpses to a table with a chair across from it, on which sat a skeleton in armor.

"This is supposed to be an underground command post, but I don't know how these people died?"

Duan Feng looked at the dead bones strangely, there were no traces of a fight around, and the stone gate was intact.

"Judging by the fact that these bones are complete, these people did not experience combat at the time. Han Qing said, "But according to the situation at that time, the battle should have been very tragic, why did these people hide in the stone chamber of the Shuai Mansion?"

"Maybe they hid here when they learned that the rebels were defeated. Su Yanjun said.

"In that case, when the officers and troops withdrew, why didn't they go out, but were trapped and died here?" asked Han Qing.

Duan Feng looked at the armored skeleton: "If you can know the identity of this person, then everything will be easy." ”

Duan Feng and the others searched around the secret room for something that could show the identities of these people, but they found nothing, except for these few corpses, there were some dishes and chopsticks for eating, and there was nothing left.

After a period of searching, Duan Feng confirmed that he could not find any valuable clues, so he left the secret room and came to the room. Just when the four of them were at a loss for what to do next, there was a burst of sounds outside, and Liu Yuwei came to the courtyard to look around, but did not find anything suspicious.

Suddenly, Liu Yuwei felt a vibration on the soles of his feet, the originally neat bluestone brick ground became uneven, and the whole ground seemed to be sinking, and suddenly a black hand came out of the ground and grabbed Liu Yuwei's feet and neck, Liu Yuwei's body trembled, screamed, and flew back into the room, only to see that the entire courtyard had been turned over, and a rotting zombie continued to pour out from the ground.

Liu Yuwei hurriedly closed the door, and Su Yanjun found a wooden stick to open the door, "Now I finally know where the corpses of those soldiers went." Liu Yuwei brought tables, chairs and benches to block behind the door, and at this time, zombies continued to stretch out their arms and try to climb in through the window, Duan Feng, Han Qing and others either slashed with swords or smashed with sticks, only to see a section of the severed arm fall into the room, bursting out of a stream of black liquid, emitting a foul smell.