The cave passage zigzagged all the way down, our group walked for about half an hour, and it was not even at the end, I looked at the altitude table, showing 5021 meters, and we actually descended more than 220 meters vertically.

Just when I began to feel a little irritable in my heart, the old knife who walked in front cheered: "There seems to be a light ahead!" ”

We looked closely, and sure enough, not far ahead, a halo in the shape of a hole appeared.

Half a minute later, we finally emerged from the almost desperately long cavern.

But we immediately smelled a strong smell of blood, and Shen Tangzhi shone it on the ground with a flashlight, and let out an "oops".

As soon as we looked, the ground was full of twisted and broken corpses of the Black Ruba Snake, a blur of flesh and blood, and the place where Shen Tangzhi was standing was the place where the snake corpses were the most.

Shen Tangzhi is also a rare courage among women, but he still frowned and jumped out of the pile of snake corpses, and found a relatively clean place to settle down.

Lao Dao quipped: "Section Chief Shen, aren't you a forensic doctor, are you still afraid of these things?" ”

"Is it strange? I'm scared of spiders. Shen Tang looked at the snake blood and flesh foam on his shoes with disgust.

I used my flashlight to shine around, and I saw that there was a high cliff above our heads, a layer of mist shrouded in the air, and the cliff wall spread out on both sides, and the lampposts of the flashlight dissipated, and there was no way to reach the edge.

I pointed to the top of my head: "These Black Ruba snakes must be the group that chased us before, and they fell directly from above and smashed into such a look." ”

I figured that our current position was in the empty cavern hall.

It was much warmer down there than in the cavern passage, and the ground here was no longer covered in ice, but exposed white-brown rocks that faintly glowed with a faint glow - this was the source of the faint light we had seen earlier.

The rise in temperature has made the ice no longer exist, and it has also formed a layer of mist above our heads, and we are confused by the mist when we are above, and we only feel that the bottom of the cliff is unfathomable, and now it does not seem to be too exaggerated, which is about 300 meters deep.

However, the entire cavern hall was indeed huge, and we shone forward with a strong flashlight, and the pillar of light disappeared into the hazy white halo emanating from the four walls of the cavern, but we could not see the opposite rock wall.

And we didn't find any signs of man-made markers, it was empty, and Larry and Hyde were suddenly a little unsure of where they were heading.

But I, Lao Dao, Shen Tang, and the three of them have their own understanding of tracking, and they are showing their abilities at the moment, and after a while, Lao Dao was the first to find Tenzin Kawa and others to leave traces.

The snow-capped mountains are too clean, and the soles of everyone's shoes don't have any mud stains that are common in other terrains, that is, ice and snow, but when the temperature rises here, the ice and snow all melt, and the footprints are difficult to find, and the snake blood and snake corpses in this place are even more difficult to distinguish.

The old knife can only find a general direction, but at this moment, we can only choose to believe him 100%.

There was silence in the cave hall, and the footsteps of the five of us could be heard far away, and there were echoes, and white mist floated around them, blurring the pillars of light from the bright flashlight, and it was dimly like walking in the clouds.

Lao Dao and I remembered what we had happened in Blackwater, the fog was much thicker at that time, but in order to avoid some possible dangers, the five of us were close together, and we were not allowed to be alone.

After walking for another ten minutes, we suddenly heard something else besides our own footsteps.

Immediately afterward, someone in front shouted in Sherpa language.

Presumably the person in front also heard the noise and asked who was behind him, but for some reason, Larry pursed his lips tightly and did not answer.

I had no choice but to respond in Chinese.

"Yoshimitsu, is that you?"

The answer in Mandarin was immediately heard in Tenzin Kava's voice.

More than ten seconds later, in the mist ahead, several pillars of light with powerful flashlights were revealed, and we quickened our pace, and the two groups of people finally met.

But after Tenzin Kawa and his party saw the faces of several of us, they all suddenly stopped, and their faces showed stunned and even somewhat panicked expressions.

And the rest of Tenzin Kava's guards, including even Jiajie and Siko, raised their weapons towards us!

The old knife scolded, and also picked up the gun: "Damn, this is going to be hard!" ”

I quickly waved my hand to stop and confronted Tenzin Kava, "Sir Tenzin Kava, what do you mean by that?!" ”

Tenzin Kava's face was as cold as ice: "Who is the person hiding behind you?" ”

Someone hiding behind you?

Where are we hiding?

Except for the old knife with this gun, Shen Tangzhi and I subconsciously looked behind us, but saw the bearded Hyde standing in place, and Larry hiding behind Hyde, only exposing his two feet.

I also wondered, "Larry, what are you hiding?" ”

But as soon as I said the name, the guides and guards on the other side who could understand Chinese let out an exclamation in unison!

Tenzin Kawa shouted, "Get out of him!" Larry is dead! ”

When this sentence came out, I was full of excitement and pulled Hyde over, and Larry, who was standing behind Hyde, still stood motionless with his head down.

All I could hear was what seemed to be muttering to himself, but unfortunately it was Sherpa that I couldn't understand.

At this point, I also saw that Larry didn't seem quite right, so I pulled Hyde and slowly backed away

"Look at him from under the armpit of his right hand!" Tenzin Kava's voice came.

I tried to raise my right arm and look at Larry through the creaky nest, just as Larry looked up—

I saw an ulcerated face, no longer able to distinguish its features, and it was not a human face, like a mouse without skin, and in the place of the mouth was a cylindrical mouthpart with a ring of jagged fangs.

People who acted like me, as well as Shen Tangzhi and Lao Dao, only heard Lao Dao scolding angrily "wocao", and raised his hand to shoot Larry's chest, and Larry fell to the ground in response.

But from under Larry's mountaineering suit, a black shadow emerged, and with a scream that was not like a human voice, he pounced on the old knife!

"Give me death!"

The old knife was not merciless, and with two more "dada" shots, he directly knocked down the monster that was flying towards him from mid-air.

The monster groaned a few times, curled up in a ball on the ground, and stopped moving.

Only then did we see its appearance clearly, the limbs of the monster were similar to kangaroos' anti-articulation shapes, slender and curved, the front end was four sharp claws, only half the height of a normal person, the back was rickety, like a little old man, the face had no facial features, the cylindrical mouthparts had irregularly arranged triangular pointed teeth, the whole body had no skin, ulcerated, and covered with blood.

Looking at Larry's corpse again, all he saw was a shriveled human skin in a hiking suit.

At this time, Tenzin Kawa and his party also stepped forward, and after checking it, he looked at the monster on the ground that had begun to rot into a pool of blood, and said to us: "This is a traveling ghost, everyone in Tibet knows this legend, but I didn't expect it to be really encountered by me." ”

Tenzin Kawa said that the traveling ghost is said to have slipped through the net when King Gesar killed the demon in ancient times, and is a kind of trolls who, after gnawing on the flesh and blood of the deceased, will gain part of the memory of the devoured person, and even think that he is the deceased. The traveling ghost will continue to assume the identity of the deceased, approaching passers-by and wrapping the deceased's relatives and friends, staying until late at night, skinning them and eating them raw, and then using their skins to disguise themselves as adults, and then repeating their old tricks.

I was a little strange about the "Tibetan area" in Tenzin Kava's mouth, but when I thought about it, the southern foothills of the Himalayas are actually considered southern Tibet.

And on the way, according to Larry, who has become a traveling ghost, then Tenzin Kawa and these people consider themselves to be descendants of the Tangut royal family, and he may also see the legends of Tibet from the perspective of outsiders.

I asked him why the monster showed its original form when viewed from under the armpit of his right hand.

Tenzin Kawa Dao, a person who believes in Tibetan Buddhism, believes that there are three fires burning on the body, one on the head and one on both shoulders, which is a natural Buddha fire, and is not afraid of any demons during the day, and will not become weak until the night, at this time it is impossible to distinguish the devil, and can only be identified by the Buddha barrier under the right arm.

I nodded, and then asked, "Didn't you say we were friends?" Why did we all set off in the early hours of the morning, leaving only the four of us? ”

When I asked this question, I deliberately glanced at the two Irishmen standing on the side, and saw that these two white men had obvious eyes flashing, and did not dare to look at me.

Tenzin Kava, on the other hand, smiled and whispered to me, "This is a small test. ”

Seeing that I had an expression of "you are a liar", Tenzin Kawa added: "Didn't you write me the words "Land of Heaven and Sea"? I'm curious to know if you really know the inside story, or if you've just heard those four words. ”

This sentence shocked me!

I don't want to speculate on Tenzin Kava's original intentions, but it was nothing more than a reason to deceive me, and as for the real reason why he would not let us follow, he could not tell me.

However, Tenzin Kava's words inadvertently revealed a huge secret, which was also the reason for my shock.

It turns out that the "Land of Heaven and Sea" is not the ancient country of Somol!

Along the way, I almost thought that we were about to discover the legendary and mysterious ancient kingdom of Somer, and that the ancient kingdom of Somer was located in the "Polar Sea of Heaven" in my dream, which was the "Land of Heaven and Sea" mentioned by the mysterious brother and sister in the archaeological notebook that Shen Tangzhi and Hyde showed me!

However, Tenzin Kava is reminding me that I understand the true meaning of "the land of heaven and sea"!

Could it be that this ancient country of Somol is really just a legend? And isn't it actually the so-called "land of heaven and sea"?

In an instant, I recalled my strange dream, the portrait of the ancient scroll, and the contents of the mysterious archaeological notebook.

I can only be sure that I can straighten out my logic by believing in the truth of what is in it – but how can I be sure that my dreams are real? This is simply not verifiable.

But I had a vague sense that I was starting to get closer to the truth – I had always had a lot of confidence in my sixth sense.

Therefore, I signaled Shen Tangzhi and Lao Dao to calm down, although Tenzin Kava is now pretending to be confused, but at least there is no hostility, we can wait and see what happens.

I looked at Tenzing Kava's side, excluding the two Northern Irishmen, including Tenzin Kawa himself, there were only 9 people left.

There were only 3 guards left, including Jia Jie and Si Ke;

The Sherpa guides were left with Lob, Yale, Gililla, and Poche, a total of 4 people.

And we quickly learned why Tenzin Kawa, who left about two hours earlier, stopped here.

Of course, they did not deliberately stop and wait for us, but because there was another cliff ahead.

And Tenzin Kava did not have enough ropes, and they were still about thirty meters away from the bottom of the high cliff.

The shimmering white-brown rock on the cliff was not impossible to start, but it was a bit like a stalactite, and it was slippery to the touch, and they had tried to climb it with their bare hands, but one of the Sherpa alpine collaborators had already stumbled and fell off the cliff.

The alpine team's freehand climbing ability was already the strongest among all the people present.

"We used to divide into two teams and go along both sides of the cliff, trying to get around this cliff or find a way down it, but ......" Tenzin Kawa shook his head, "this cave hall we are in has been cut in half by the cliff, and we have to go down, so we have to go down the cliff. ”

"But now that you're here, it's fine, you must have brought a climbing rope, right? We only need thirty meters! ”

The rope we had with us just made up for the missing stretch, but to be on the safe side, I let the old knife drop a cold flame before we could start the official descent from the cliff.

The pale red cold fireworks streaked through a red smoke trail, illuminating the scene under the cliff, and all of us looked at it with an "ah"!

At the bottom of the cliff, about a hundred meters away from us, there was a white minaret, and the ground around the minaret was full of white bones, and the minaret itself looked like it was built with bones.

In addition, we finally got a glimpse of what the cave hall looked like: it was a funnel-shaped cavern, the widest at the top, and the narrower it was the further down it went, until it reached the point where the minaret towered, only about 100 meters in diameter.

"There's another cave entrance on the other side."

Shen Tang's eyes were sharp, and he saw that in the rock wall behind the spire at the bottom of the cliff, the entrance to another cave was revealed.

Lobu, the oldest guide in the group, squinted at the spire below for a moment, and there was fear in his voice: "That seems to be ...... Runner Bone Tower...... Jazz—"

"Needless to say, Siko, you go down first." Tenzin Kawa raised his hand to stop Lobu's words and ordered.

Siko, Tenzing Kava's personal guard, heard the order and was the first to climb down the rope without hesitation.