"Yikes! Why is this place so dark? Donnie muttered as soon as he stepped onto the grotto door. Anne and Stern, www.biquge.info the pen "Fun", followed and stood in a passage at the entrance of the grotto. The scale of the grotto is relatively small, and the four people are huddled together at the mouth of the passage less than two meters wide, looking at the rainy world outside.

"It's raining at the right time! There's nowhere to go. ”

Stern couldn't help but mumble as he looked at the pouring rain outside. He found that not only the outside, but also the inside of this grotto was a water curtain cave - toot... Honk... Honk. There was the sound of rain dripping on the stones, and when I looked up, I saw that there were several small holes in the roof of the grotto, from which most of the rain was dripping.

Everyone was drenched before they even entered the grotto, and Stern was no exception, and the grotto had four cross-shaped entrances and exits, and the cold wind from outside kept pouring in in all directions, and he couldn't help but sneeze.

"Shall we move in a little bit, it's very windy and a little cold outside." It was Anne who spoke, and she noticed Downey and Stern shivering, who forcibly handed Anne his jacket to protect him from the rain as he ran through the rain. Now he was wearing only a thin shirt, so it was no wonder that he was sneezing from the cold.

"But it's too dark inside to see anything."

Anne couldn't bear to watch the old wound not healed, and the new wound Stern was frozen at the door, so

"Then give me matches, and I'll find a shelter from the wind inside, and find some dead leaves to make a fire by the way."

Stern answered, told Anne to be careful, and handed her the only packet of matches he had left.

"Oh no!" Anne snorted in horror from the depths of the cavern, followed by the crash of falling to the ground. Thinking that Anne was in some danger, Stern drew his dagger and immediately rushed in, asking her, "Anne, what's wrong?" What happened? Where are you? ”

"Sergeant, I'm here! I tripped up! Oh, my God! There seems to be a person lying on the ground! ”

When Stern heard this, he took three steps and two steps to find Anne who was crouching on the ground, and Donnie and Kansa followed.

Anne lit a match, and from the dim light of the match, Stern saw that there was indeed a man on the ground. But he looked closely, and it wasn't Professor Morrill they were looking for.

"Oh my God! How can there be people here? Donnie cried out as soon as he saw the man on the ground.

Indeed, it is even more unusual to see a person in this abandoned grotto that has been abandoned for hundreds of years than to pick up a piece of gold on the road.

Anne lit a dry stick that she had picked up, as if it had been used by the people on the ground. The grotto suddenly lit up a lot.

Stern saw the man's clothes in the light, dressed in black, and his body under the clothes was so thin that it looked like he had been dead for a while. Then he turned the corpse over and found a creepy dry corpse face! The skin and flesh of the face are all sunken to only a thin layer of skin, and the two eyes that remain open have sunken into the sockets, which looks very terrifying against the backdrop of the light!

But after Stern carefully identified it, he shouted in surprise: "This? This... This seems to be a Chinese! ”。

"What? How do you see that? ”

"First of all, this must be an Asian, I had a few dealings with Chinese businessmen when I was doing business in Phnom Penh, Chinese I still have a good understanding of the appearance characteristics of the Khmers." Then Stern pointed to an object in the man's hand and said, "In addition, you can see the black clothes he wears, and the things he holds in his hands, only Chinese have." ”

Anne looked in Stern's direction, and sure enough, she saw that he was holding a disc-shaped object in his left hand, which was covered with dense black lines and Chinese characters. Anne recognized this thing as very familiar, a unique Chinese instrument, but she couldn't remember it for a while, so she took it from the hand of the dried corpse and looked at it repeatedly.

"This is the compass, a kind of artifact they invented, which is said to be used to distinguish geographical locations." Stern said.

"Yes, that's right, as soon as you say that, I remember! When I was studying at the college, I often heard that there is a mysterious profession in China, that is, there is a type of person who takes this compass to the newly built buildings, cemeteries, and the foundations of the houses to be built, etc., to measure feng shui, which is said to predict the good or bad of the location, the good and bad influence on people, and so on. I didn't believe it at the time, so I didn't take it seriously, but I didn't expect it to be. ”

"In fact, the compass was transformed from the compass they first invented, and they have a strange set of theories about many things that science cannot explain, many of which involve the compass. However, this is limited to use in their country, but how did they get here now? ”

"What can't science explain? Sir, what do you mean by what science can't explain? Donnie also came over, but he was too timid to look at the dried corpse, but he became interested in the function of the compass.

"This... You might have to ask the one lying on the ground, I don't know so many weird things about them. ”

"I thought we were the first to arrive at this reincarnation temple, but I didn't expect that even Chinese would come to this place." Anne sighed.

"Annie, can you tell how long this Chinese has been dead?"

"It's hard to say, if the professor was here, he might have been able to tell the exact time. However, I see that the clothes on his body have not rotted, and it is estimated that he is about the same as the French soldiers in World War II, within a few decades. ”

As soon as Anne finished speaking, the flame on the stick was suddenly blown by a gust of wind that pierced the hall, and was almost blown out. I saw that Anne hurriedly protected her arm to protect the only remaining bit of fire.

Stern looked at the dried corpses on the ground, and the more he looked at them, the more he felt panicked, just like the dead corpses of the soldiers under the giant banyan tree, he always felt that he would be "resurrected" at any time! So he looked out, and the rain outside the grotto didn't seem to be abating, and it seemed that he would have to stay here for a while. So he proposed that the body be burned on the spot, firstly, to reduce the suffering of the deceased, and secondly, to seek peace of mind.

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Donnie nod his head violently, and agreed with his proposal, only to hear Anne say that he would wait a little longer.

Turner asked her what she was going to do, and she saw Anne carefully groping around the dried corpse and saying, "This Chinese can come to this place alone, which means that his origin is definitely not ordinary, and he must have some records about Reincarnation City, which may help us find the professor or leave Reincarnation City." ”

"You really inherited the professor's style, and you are very interested in the things on the corpses."

Stern joked that as he finished speaking, he saw Anne pull out a leather-wrapped object from under her dry corpse clothes. Then she threw the torch at the corpse, and it burned in the wind blowing in from outside the grotto, crackling and smelling of oily smoke.

Everyone couldn't stand the disgusting smell and turned away from the burning, dried corpse.

But at this moment, Stern clearly saw a strange smile on the face of the dry corpse......