Chen Blind has already had an idea in his heart, he has been tight recently, and he is thinking about making it bigger, but he is not sure yet, and he refuses to make it clear to Luo Lao in advance, but when it comes to this, he has to explain it to him, and hurriedly said: "I have heard that the forest in the Mengdong River Basin is deep and dense, and it is a miscellaneous place of the Yi and Han Dynasty. However, the ancient tombs of the Yuan Dynasty are not sealed or trees, and they have always been buried deeply, and those Miao Cave barbarians will release Gu poison, and there are often demonic heresies such as falling holes and driving corpses, our forces can't cover that side, and we are afraid of making mistakes in the past, so we always hesitate whether to do it......"

Luo Lao Crooked is a warlord addicted to tomb robbing, when he heard that there are so many large ancient tombs in the "Bottle Mountain", he couldn't help but be overjoyed, he was slashed on the face before, and he fell with a big scar, and the corners of his mouth were crooked, so he got the name Luo Lao Crooked, at this time there was a burst of ecstasy, and the corners of his mouth were about to grin to the back of his head.

He immediately jumped up from his chair, this man was a bandit, and he liked to draw his gun when he spoke, drew his ivory-handled revolver, and ordered the adjutant to go back at once to gather the pistol company and the engineer battalion, and each of the engineer battalion had brought shovels, shovels, hoes, and pickaxes, and prepared a large number of explosives, and was to lead the troops into the mountains on the same day.

Chen Blind hurriedly stopped him, this matter still needs to be considered in the long run, the ancient tomb in the bottle mountain is not said to be robbed, you can't find the underground palace and tomb, no matter how much explosives you have, it will not help, and the army will inevitably alarm the local people. The shape of that belt is complicated, maybe it will be extraneous branches, and now the plan is to bring a few capable people to the advanced mountain to explore it.

Luo Lao was addicted to robbing tombs and wanted to make a fortune, and he also planned to follow into the mountains to step on the plate, so he conspired with Chen Blind, the plan was decided, Chen Blind called someone over, and gave instructions to explain, and then brought a few capable subordinates, changed their clothes, packed up, and prepared to go to the Mengdong River to find the ancient tomb of the Yuan Dynasty hidden in the bottle mountain.

Chen Blind himself pretended to be a gentleman who asked for divination, and he had three other subordinates, one was the yellow-faced and thin-skinned scheming "Hua Ma Kui", this person's ancestors were all pestles in the door of the former Qing Dynasty in the past, and he knew corpse wax, corpse poison, corpse insects and other things, and he was also a good man, and he was the dog-headed military advisor in the group of thieves in the Jieling Mountains.

Another tower-like man, born skyscraper and grounded, has infinite strength. It's a pity that he was born dumb and couldn't speak. Just because the skin and flesh around his body are like black carbon, there is also a nickname called "Kunlun Mole", which means that his appearance resembles the strange man "Kunlun Nu" of the late Tang Dynasty.

In addition, there is a young woman who was born as an entertainer in the rivers and lakes. The stage name is "Red Girl", which will make all kinds of ancient color tricks and acrobatics, and was favored by a local magnate to accept her as a concubine, forcing her father to death.

Chen Blind and these three subordinates, plus Luo Lao Crooked, dressed as merchants and merchants respectively, because the terrain of the Mengdong River Basin in Xiangxi is complex, the mountains are rugged and difficult, known as "eight mountains, one water and one field", since ancient times, the population is sparse, the government's ruling ability is weak, and the bandits are strict, so all kinds of guests who make a living often go together in groups, and the five of them disguise themselves and go on the road together, which is not easy to make people suspicious.

These five people, the three long and two short instruments, open and covert, are hidden on the body, looking at the Mengdong River to go, all the way without words, into the mountain soon, is the ancient time left Miao border wall, Miao is also called "fierce", the turbulent flow of the Mengdong River, is to the ancient cave dwelling of the Yidi, the legend of the river on both sides of the primeval forest are the ancient Miao Cave, and Wu Chu culture has mutual influence, so in the eyes of the world seems to be mysterious, here you can see the totem remains of the ancient "Xuanniao" everywhere.

Chen Blind asked Luo Lao to be crooked, and the hundreds of men and horses of the engineer digging battalion and the pistol company under his command were ambushed in the dense forest near the ruins of the ancient wall, ready to be dispatched at any time, and then a group of five people waded through the water, drilled the mountains and crossed the mountains, and went straight to the Bottle Mountain.

No one has ever been to Bottle Mountain before, worried about getting lost and encountering fierce beasts, and they don't dare to walk around at will, find the local mountain people who pass by and inquire, only to know that the original mountain range of Kaiba thatched flowers is called "", after the ridge is the wild place that people do not reach, "Bottle Mountain" is in the deep mountains, there are several villages in front of the ridge, Yi and Han are miscellaneous, in addition to the Han people, there are Miao people and Tujia people.

After Chen Blind inquired and understood, he knew that there were two villages in the north and south in the mountain in front of him, so he said to everyone: "The day before yesterday, I watched the sky at night, and saw that the seven stars of the Big Dipper were dim, and I thought that the South Dipper was born, and the North Dipper was dead. ”

The other four people in the inverted bucket, has always looked up to Chen Blind like a god, naturally agreed in unison, on the Huama kidnapped merchant in front of the way, cast the mountain road south, not long, sure enough, see a village, this village is located in the strange peaks and green valleys, the scenery is beautiful as in the landscape painting.

There are about more than 100 households in the village, because the local soil is more miasma, the mountain has poisonous weeds and sand stinging vipers, so the local people do not distinguish between Yi and Han, all live side by side, pedal the ladder and go up, called "pole railing", all the dwellings, all built according to the mountain, take the direction of sitting north to south, in order to avoid poisonous snakes and poisonous insects, the bottom of the wooden building of the duplex structure adopts nine pillars to the ground, the beams are crossed, so that the platform is suspended, such a building is also called "stilted building", each house is stilted downstairs, and there is a wood carving of a mysterious bird, the mystery reveals a little weird.

The group of thieves in the mountains saw in their eyes, secretly kept in mind, went to the village to start a small gong to sell business, the local people are simple, the people like to barter between them, there is very little money circulation, and the production of batik and ham, three snake wine and other things. Although it is located in the middle of nowhere, but outsiders are not rare, almost every month there are a few merchants to exchange mountain goods, it is not uncommon to see foreign merchants, each take their own mountain goods to exchange.

Hua Ma is in the grocery business, which is all bits and pieces of daily use such as needles and threads. The mute "Kunlun Mole" pretended to be a porter, and carried salt to Luo Lao, who was disguised as a smuggler and a businessman. Money is useless in the mountains, and there is no place to spend it. There has always been a barter between the mountain people and the merchants, and the customers who picked up the mountain goods exchanged for the mountain goods, and then went to the outside towns to make profits.

Due to the inconvenience of entering and exiting the deep mountains and old forests, the most valuable thing here is salt. Salt itself has come to be regarded by the locals as the hardest currency. The natives often have a saying: "three quintals of rice and one catty of salt", which can be said to be a "exchange rate" recognized by the local people.

Chen Blind had planned carefully in advance, and the things they brought were all urgently needed by the mountain people, and they were not as concerned with small profits as ordinary merchants, so they were quite favored by the people, and they did not use much effort to stop the business. I asked the local people for a few bowls of water, pretending to drink water and rest, and by the way, I inquired about the news of the ancient tomb in Bottle Mountain.

Chen Blind and others, under the pretense of looking at feng shui to find the yin house, and inquiring about the path in the mountains, really effortlessly asked some clues from the mouths of the mountain people, this Mengdong River, is a large area of lofty mountains and mountains, in ancient times there were indeed bear traces in the mountains, but now it is rare. According to legend, the ancestor of the Miao people, Miao King "Chiyou", is the incarnation of a giant bear, so this is also the name, is the origin of the cave people of the sacred mountain, there are many monuments left in the mountain forest.

The ancient Yi people live in the caves, so they are also called cave people, according to the tribe distinction, a total of seventy-two holes, there is a strange peak called Bottle Mountain, the shape is like a heavenly bottle falling to the ground, it seems to be a divine power, not like artificial, there are many unknown strange flowers and plants on the mountain, there are natural caves in the bottle mountain, the caves are vertical and horizontal, unfathomable, Xiangxi is rich in cinnabar, lead and mercury are the indispensable raw materials for alchemy, so from the Qin and Han dynasties, the emperors of various dynasties have continuously sent warlocks to come to Bottle Mountain to refine the immortal elixir, and build Taoist temples in the cave, involving famous mountains, quarrying stones, Filling it with treasures from all sides to ask the immortals for medicine is like a fairyland in the Taoist cave.

After nearly a thousand years of operation in many dynasties and generations, the cave of Bottle Mountain is already full of palaces, and the towers and palaces are better than the world, but the immortal elixir has not been refined. Until the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan people were brutal, the cave people in the mountains could not bear the tyranny, gathered the crowd to rebel, the soldiers would exterminate the cave people in a big way, the killing was tragic and abnormal, the cave people in each cave were almost slaughtered and exterminated, and the Yuan army was not adapted to the humid and hot environment in the mountains, the plague spread in the army, and the losses were also very heavy, and the generals who commanded the troops died here. In order to suppress the cave people, so that they will never rebel, the Yuan people will use the bottle mountain as a tomb, bury the fallen soldiers, the rare things in the cave Taoist temple, are used as a burial vessel, and the remaining cave people are slaughtered and buried, with copper juice molten iron and boulders to seal the mountain, the tomb is buried deep in the big hidden, not sealed and not trees, so that future generations can never find the tomb and the underground palace.

These legends, among the mountain people, word of mouth for hundreds of years, all know that there is a huge ancient tomb in the bottle mountain, but it is limited to this, no one knows the detailed content, after all, the cave people in the cave were almost all killed, Chen Blind has long heard about it, and now he has gone to the local area to investigate, and further confirmed that the legend of the ancient tomb of the bottle mountain is not groundless, and set out some little-known inside information.

The locals saw these merchants, as if they were going to Bottle Mountain, where did they think that this was a group of tomb robbers, and kindly advised, the forest around Bottle Mountain is steep, because there are many precious alchemy stones in the early years, so it attracted a lot of poisonous insects and spirits to gather nearby, that fierce place, it is really extremely dangerous, if the living people pass, at least nine out of ten must be sent away.

Blind Chen hurriedly explained: "It's just that outsiders passing by here, hearing the strange name of this bottle of mountain, can't help but be curious, so I asked a few more words." We are all people who run the rivers and lakes to do business to make a living, how dare we go to walk around the ancient tombs. After that, I discussed with the mountain people and wanted to spend the night in the village.

The elders in the village told Sù Chen Blind and others that there have always been rules here, and they never refused to leave outsiders to spend the night in the village, just because the bandits have made too much noise over the years. As the saying goes, "thieves come like combs, soldiers come like grates, bandits come like shavings", the sound of the horse is a tragic bloodbath, so the gate of the village should be closed at night, and no half of the foreign guests should be left to prevent thieves from mixing in and out of the outside. Although I see that you are all honest people who do small business, and you are by no means a horse thief who kills people and oversells goods, I still can't make an exception for you and break the rules, and I advise you to take advantage of the dawn to hurry out of the mountain.

Luo Lao has a bad temper, he is usually used to commanding, and when he saw that the people in the village refused to keep them overnight, he had never seen Diao Min who dared not give him Luo Dashuai face like this, and scolded your grandmother, so he wanted to pull out his gun and crash a few. Blind Chen knew that Luo Lao couldn't hold his breath, and was afraid that he would leak his plan to hide it, so he hurriedly held down his hand, and carefully asked the natives about a few roads around, and hurriedly led everyone away from the village.

Walking into the mountains and forests, the sun was already slanting in the west, and Luo Lao asked Chen how the blind man was doing now? There is no place to stay in the barren mountains and mountains, so it is better to go back overnight and directly raise troops into the mountains and go to the bottle mountain to have a so-called "military exercise."

Chen Blind looked at the shadow of the sun, estimated the time, pondered for a moment, turned around and said: "Luo Shuai doesn't have to be in a hurry, it's dark early in this mountain, I'm afraid I won't be able to go back tonight, I just learned from the mountain people that there is a coffin of a mortuary, it is better to go there to deal with it for a night, and then go to the mountains early tomorrow morning to watch the shape of the bottle mountain, and see if the ancient tomb can be found." ”

The coffin is another name for Yizhuang, which is simply explained as "the hotel of the dead", and there are many Han people in several villages in this vicinity, who either avoid military service, or run over to rent and tax arrears, and a small number of people who go back and forth between the villages to do business. Due to the different burial customs of Yi and Han, once these people die in the mountains, it is equivalent to dying in a foreign land, this kind of encounter is very taboo in the old concept, and they all hope to bury the bones back to their hometown, but the mountain road is rugged and far away, and it is extremely difficult to transport the body out of the mountain, whether it is carrying the corpse or driving the corpse, it is only once again in half a year. Prior to this, the dead bodies that had not yet been transported out of the mountain were stored in the "Yizhuang", which was called "saving the foundation", and the various villages pooled money to hire people to guard them full-time, and similar places were very common in the mountainous areas of Xiangxi.