New York, Midnight in Manhattan, in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington Crossing the Delaware.

A cloud of smoke rose in front of the Assassin Ahai, who had dodged out of the showroom.

"Stop!"

Qin Beiyang and Jiuse followed Ah Hai and rushed out of the museum and returned to Fifth Avenue in the moonlight.

Walk along the east side of Central Park into a shabby, low-rise neighborhood. In early spring and April, when the night was warm and cold, many blacks were warming themselves by the fire on the street, and they watched in amazement as two Chinese chased them by, as well as a large dog with a red mane.

Harlem, New York, is home to tens of thousands of blacks from the South, and is full of filthy slums.

Ah Hai takes refuge in a crumbling building. The drunkards came out to block the way, and he punched them more than three feet away. This is the cecum that has not been digested by the dark night of New York, which hides filth and smells bad......

The corridor is like a labyrinth, the terrain is getting lower and lower, and after walking a few steps, it feels like a grand underground cemetery, just full of dark-skinned living people.

The Assassin Ahai fled to the end of the tunnel, where there were no more inhabitants or people, only an ancient stone door.

A tall man in a black robe, with a medieval sword in his hand, stands majestically like a gatekeeper.

It's a white man.

Ah Hai thought he had run into Western antiques in the Metropolitan Museum again. But the man blinked and burst out, "Ho's there?" ”

The gatekeeper stared at Ah Hai viciously, and the sound of hurried footsteps sounded behind him—the two legs of a man and the four legs of a beast.

Qin Beiyang and Jiuse are about to catch up.

With no other way out, he quickly approached the gatekeeper. Just as the other drew his sword and was about to split his skull like a watermelon, the dagger with the tusk handle sliced through his throat with ease......

The sword fell first to the ground, followed by the heavy gatekeeper, and it collapsed like a high wall.

Half a minute later, Qin Beiyang and Jiuse arrived, there was a white corpse lying on the ground, another dagger cut the throat, the stone door opened a gap, and Ah Hai had fled into it.

Qin Beiyang raised his head again and saw a sign on the lintel - it seemed to be a pyramid, with an eye open in the middle.

The one-eyed pyramid?

This logo is so familiar!

Walking into the stone gate and through a deep corridor, a noisy human voice sounded......

Qin Beiyang dodged and hid in a dark corner by the wall, only to see the steps going down one step at a time, full of people in black robes. The underground steps descend in a circle, and there is a circular open space at the bottom, which is shaped like the "Colosseum of the Tomb Beast" of the "Heavenly Academy".

At a cursory glance, there were about a hundred people in the venue, and it seemed that there were no women, and all of them were white. Most of them are fifty or sixty years old, and the younger one is also a big beard. Either dressed in black robes, overalls and artisan uniforms, each carrying a toolbox. Under the circular wall, there are many strange objects, all covered with oilcloth.

Qin Beiyang wondered in his heart, this is an underground boxing match? Or is it some kind of secret religious ritual? It seems more like the latter.

The spotlight in the center of the field was lit, and on the intricately carved back chair, an old man in a black robe sat upright. The hood covered his head, and he couldn't see his face clearly, only a handful of white, black and half-white beards were clearly European and American.

Behind the old man, there were three white-robed people standing in turn, one holding a compass, one holding a ruler, and one holding a book. There is a symbol on their white robes, but it is a combination of a compass, a ruler, and a book.

Behind the three white-robed men, there were twelve men with swords in their right hands and crossbows in their left hands. They were all dressed in modest artisan attire and wore thick caps on their heads. A flag hangs overhead, and the pattern is the "One-Eyed Pyramid".

A European man with a crossbow?

Qin Beiyang remembered something, looked at the twelve men carefully, and sure enough, he recognized a face - half a year ago, on the same day that Germany surrendered, in Kyoto, Japan, Professor Yamamoto's secret laboratory, Haneda Taiki came to visit with a European craftsman - his name is Schmidt, his German surname, which means craftsman. This guy also shot marbles with a cross bow, which made Qin Beiyang's eyes glow.

By the way, isn't the symbol on his crossbow the "one-eyed pyramid" in front of him?

That night, Taiki Haneda said at the izakaya that this person belonged to the "gatekeeper" of the "Craftsman Alliance", also known as the "Sword Bearer", who was responsible for guarding the gate of the Alliance, holding a sharp sword in his hand, and only members of the Alliance could pass through the gate.

The sword-wielding man who was killed by the assassin Ah Hai at the door just now was also the gatekeeper of the Artisan Alliance?

Where is Ah Hai? Qin Beiyang quietly swept around, and there was no trace of more than a hundred or so men in black robes or craftsman clothes. After all, the appearance of Chinese is clearly distinguished from that of Westerners, and there is a clear gap in physique and shoulder width, not to mention an obvious scar.

One of the "gatekeepers" holding a crossbow and a sword, Schmidt, who had visited Japan, walked up to the old man on the back chair, first lay down and kissed the old man's boots, cleared his throat, and said aloud in standard German: "Tonight, at the World Congress of the Craftsmen Union, we are gathered in the North American Temple, and we will first invite two craftsmen and sages to ......."

At the same time, two huge portraits descended from the dome of the circular underground palace, in the black and white style of European copper engravings, all of which were portraits of human heads-

The one on the left looks like an ancient Greek, with deep eyes, a high nose, and curly hair hanging down to the forehead; The one on the right is actually Chinese, but it is according to the image of China imagined by foreigners, with exaggerated hanging eye corners and sparse beards, fortunately not drawing the Qing Dynasty braid with a money rat tail, but according to the appearance of the ancient Han people with a bun on the top of the head.

Schmidt continued: "I would like to invite the Great Venerable of the Craftsman Alliance to speak! ”

The so-called "Great Venerable" is the old man who sits on the back chair. He made a faint voice, German with an Austrian accent? Qin Beiyang grew up in standard German in elementary school and couldn't hear it clearly.

Schmidt said on behalf of His Holiness: "Members of the Craftsman Alliance! Great craftsmen from all over the world, please chant in unison the artisan motto - the craftsman will die, but the work will live on. ”

"The craftsman will die, but the work will live on!"

The entire Rotunda is available in different languages, from German, English and French to Italian, Spanish, Russian and even Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Greek and Polish......

Qin Beiyang, who was hiding in the corner, looked down at the calm and silent Jiuse. I thought that 1,200 years ago, the Qin Clan's tombsmith clan that made nine colors had long since turned to dust, but this small town tomb beast would never be destroyed, which just happened to implicitly fit this adage!

The craftsman will die, but the work will live on!

Daddy Qin Customs also has a sentence - "If you don't go crazy, you won't survive!" ”

The two sentences complement each other, like the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.