I was relieved to see that the secret passage had been opened, and shone a flashlight into the dark passage, there was a stone staircase made of black stone, which led diagonally to the bottom, and the scope of the flashlight was limited, and I could not see it further down.

The fat man waved his hand and beckoned the five people who were waiting at the door of the temple in, and everyone was full of praise for my method of dividing gold and fixing acupoints when they saw that the secret passage was opened.

At this time, it was already past noon, I said a few modest words, and asked everyone to pack up, try to travel as lightly as possible, and first go outside the temple to drink some water and eat a few mouthfuls of dry food.

When I was eating dry food, Sa Dipeng asked me curiously how I found the secret passage, and it was too accurate.

I said to him, "Just look at the arrangement of the sixteen big stone pillars, you can see that the arrangement of this secret passage is a giant gate formation handed down from ancient times, why is it called a giant gate?" That is to say, this kind of mechanism is mostly used on the passage portal, and these number techniques are all evolved from Luo number 1 and the arrangement of stars in the sky. The mystery in this is deep, and you can't understand it. ”

After a short rest, I led the way down the dark passage in the temple. Underneath the entrance, a stone lever was found that could be used to open this floor tile from below. These mechanisms are so ingeniously designed that they can still be used after nearly two thousand years, and they are all very different in their construction, and although they use a lot of easy ideas, they are self-contained, and if these were invented by the Peerless Queen, then she must be an unborn genius.

At first, we were worried that there was a mechanism in the dark passage, so we were cautious when we went down, and we walked slowly with a distance, and when we went down to the end of the stone steps, we suddenly opened up in front of us, and a road about five meters wide and about three meters high appeared.

The surrounding area of the corridor is no longer pitch black stones, they are all piled up by the Western Regions Heavenly Bricks1, and the top of the head is built into a round arch, and the walls are full of strange and bright murals.

The most common ones in the paintings are the eyes, both large and small, open and closed, some with only eyeballs, and some with eyelids and eyelashes. The eyes were regarded as totems, and the passage leading to the temple and painted with so many eyes that only rulers like the clergy and the queen were allowed to enter, and they probably hadn't used it many times since it was built.

This corridor is very closed, the air is not circulated, and the color of the mural is as good as new, without the slightest peeling, which makes Professor Chen and others very excited.

Professor Chen said that as far back as the early 19th century, there were also a large number of murals in the ruins of the ancient city of Xinjiang discovered by foreign explorers, almost all of which were religious themes, but unfortunately the government did not protect them at that time, and they were completely looted and lost abroad. I didn't expect to see such a well-preserved and the oldest and most mysterious exquisite mural in the Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Western Regions, which was enough to shock the whole world.

When I heard the professor say this, I thought of the legend that the queen was a monster, this ancient city is very strange, if there are really monsters, maybe you can find some clues from this mural, and if you really run into it, you can know that you will not be defeated, so I turned on the flashlight to look at the murals one by one.

However, in all the murals of Yongdao, there is no figure of the exquisite queen at all, and the content of the paintings is some rituals, some of which are painted with a jade eyeball emitting light, and a black hole appears in the sky, and a huge eye-like flesh egg falls from the hole.

Some depict countless black monster snakes crawling out of their flesh eggs, devouring several bound slaves, and the slaves struggle in pain.

There are also paintings of black peaks, and the mountains are crawling with black snakes, and the surrounding beasts are kneeling on the ground and kowtowing to the strange snakes on the mountain.

Some of these scenes we have seen before, and the comparison of the situation depicted on the mural here further confirms Professor Chen's judgment, this kind of strange snake with black eyeballs on its head has always been regarded as a guardian beast by the exquisite people, they know how to summon and drive these snake beasts, and often use living people to sacrifice to the snake beasts.

As we walked, we stopped in front of the last painting, which showed a huge cavern, a slender staircase that spiraled down the walls.

Shirley Yang said to Professor Chen, "If you look at the origin of this cave and the name of the ghost cave clan, will there be any relationship?" ”

Professor Chen said: "It is very likely that the spiral staircase on the wall of this cave is as small as a thin line, which is completely disproportionate to this big hole. ”

I remember once listening to them tell that the legend of the ghost cave family came from the underground, I didn't think much about it at the time, I thought it was purely the ancient people's nonsense, and now I look at the murals, and I have doubts in my heart, the things in these murals, some of us have seen with our own eyes, it seems that they are not tricked to draw out to bluff people, maybe in the depths of the exquisite ancient city, there is really such a big hole.

The fat man laughed: "If there really is such a big hole in the world, wouldn't it lead to the other side of the earth?" In the future, if you want to go abroad to save trouble, you can take a plane and jump directly from this big hole, and you will be in the United States in a short time. ”

Shirley Yang turned a deaf ear to the fat man's nonsense, and asked Professor Chen: "The giant pupil stone statues of the Ghost Cave Clan are probably their true colors, and if they really come from the dark world underground, then it can explain their admiration for the eyes." ”

Professor Chen said: "There is a certain truth in what you said, and there is another possibility, this huge cave is the other world that has repeatedly appeared in the ghost cave civilization, which is what you call the imaginary space, which is likely to be an entity. In ancient times, the ghost cave people discovered this huge cave, and they could not explain why there is such a large underground cave in the world, and they tried their best to go down to the bottom of the cave to get a glimpse of it. The ancients revered the power of nature, and they may have worshipped this huge cave as a miracle, hoping that their eyes would be more developed and able to see the bottom of the cave. A few who claimed to have seen the world beneath the cave with their eyes were revered as the rulers of their clans or the clergy, and since their power came from their eyes, they saw them as a source of power. ”

When the fat man listened to the professor's words, he was greatly heartbroken, and gave a thumbs up and praised: "Okay, old man, you can see so many famous people with just one painting, and you can talk about it like there is really such a thing." If you go to a practice stall, you will definitely be able to stun a large piece of food and sell anything. ”

Professor Chen was not in the mood to laugh with him, so he casually said, "I am just a subjective speculation, and I can't do it accurately." Let's go out of the dark tunnel to see if there is such a big cave, or seeing is believing. ”

I don't know why, as soon as I heard them talk about the underground caves, I remembered the past when I saw the nine-story demon tower under the Kunlun Mountains, and I lost several comrades-in-arms that time, and since then I have been a little more afraid of the underground caves deep underground. I'm worried that the people in the archaeological team will have any accidents, if they don't have to enter the underground palace to find a water source, I really want to pull them back, since this desert archaeology has achieved heavy results, it is not bad for that cave.

I said to the professor, "The body of a daughter is not in danger. You are all people with status in society, there is no need to take risks, and after we find the water source in the dungeon and replenish it, we should go back. Now that we have found the Exquisite Ancient City, our task is completed, you can write an assessment report and submit it to the relevant departments at the higher level, and let the government solve the rest of the matter later. ”

Professor Chen shook his head, but he didn't speak, he had wanted to explore the mystery of the ghost cave civilization all his life, he had arrived here, his heart was itching, how could he agree, besides, Shirley Yang had always thought that her father's expedition had been to the Exquisite Ancient City, and she would not give up if she didn't find it, they said that they would not go back.

I had no choice but to follow them on, thinking that I had done my best anyway, and I had said everything I had to say, and if something really happened, I would have a clear conscience.

The corridor is not very long, there are no steps at the end, only a stone pillar, and there is no portal, is the corridor under this temple a dead end, just to paint the murals of those sacrificial ceremonies?

The fat man looked around, turned to me and said, "Old Hu, do you still have any tricks this time?" If you don't have a move, you can put on explosives. ”

I said, "Do you have anything other than violence?" Use your brain, take a look first, I guess this secret door will most likely fall on this single stone pillar. ”

This lonely stone pillar standing in the brick corridor is several times smaller than the sixteen large stone pillars in the temple, but the shape is exactly the same, and there are six-sided statues coiled at the bottom of the column, and the empty side is facing the narrow wall at the end.

That's easy to do, it turns out that the tail of the sixteen dragons is here. I still asked the fat man to help, according to the "dragon shaking technique" opposite to the "dragon hunting order" in the "Sixteen-character Yin Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique", and rotated the hexagonal stone plate under the stone pillar.

"The dragon qi enters the hole, the yang is only one meridian, and the yin is not five points," based on the "dragon shaking technique", in fact, it is just a reversal of the order of turning the stone plate in the temple before.

We finished turning the last square of the stone plate, and the brick wall in front of us opened in response, and the fat man picked up the assault rifle and took the lead out of the brick road, while the rest of the people waited for the fish to come out.

Everyone came to the outside, looked around with a flashlight, although it was an underground building, the surrounding space was grand, although the carved beams and painted pillars had peeled off, but they could still see the gorgeous atmosphere of the year, and it was really in the underground palace.

We seem to be in the main hall of the underground palace, and the exit of the brick wall is behind a throne carved out of jade, and this dark wall is very exquisitely repaired, and it is completely impossible to see that there is a secret door behind the jade seat in the hall.

Finally, we came to this palace, which was once the only one that existed in the legend, and in order to see carefully, we used a qiē lighting device with us, and we saw that the throne and floor of the main hall were all jade. The chain of the lamp on the top of the ceiling had also rotted and broken, and had fallen to the ground, and there were still a few gerbils crawling in the corners, and it seemed that there was a lot of air in the place. In addition to some jade products, pottery, wood, iron, bronze, silk fabrics and other objects have been damaged by air erosion.

For us, this situation is a mixed blessing, the good thing is that since there is flowing air in the underground palace, it means that it is connected with the underground water vein, and Ye Yixin's fate has been picked up.

The worry is that the antiquities in the dungeon are more severely destroyed, some clay pots have rotted out of shape, and they become powder when touched, and there are countless rusty mottled armor blades scattered around, such as tentacle arc swords, crane beak giant axes, arc back concave blades, and there are all kinds of strange plaques and buckles rich in national characteristics on the armor, and the owners of these round shield scimitars are not even bones, and if you look carefully, you may be able to find a few mutilated skulls.

I don't know when it started, and a lot of gerbils came in. Gerbils usually feed on the roots of desert plants and insects in the desert underground, and they like to grind their teeth with hard objects, and many things in this underground palace are gnawed by them.

The best preserved in the main hall belongs to the jade throne, the top of the jade seat is engraved with a red jade eye, the whole body of the seat is inlaid with gold and silver, carved with fairy mountain clouds, flowers, birds, fish and beasts and other things, the pedestal is a large piece of white jade like goat's milk, in the main hall with black tones, it is particularly eye-catching.

Seeing this dilapidated situation, the fat man was disappointed, sat on the jade seat, patted the handrail and said: "This is still worth a little money, and the rest will be sent to the scrap recycling station directly." ”

I thought to myself that this grandson could not change his loose temper anywhere, unorganized and undisciplined, and I had to scare and scare him, so as not to make Shirley Yang laugh at them, so I said to the fat man: "I said Comrade Wang Kaixuan, this is the position where the exploiting class of the feudal dynasty sits, and you must not forget that you are also from a revolutionary cadre family, and you sit there, do you want your principles and stand." ”

The fat man laughed: "Come on, old Hu, are you still pretending to be a political commissar?" What years have you had to stand, do you think this jade throne is worth a million dollars? …… Hey, this head is a little bigger, and it's really hard to move back if you don't break it up. ”

I then said to the fat man: "Don't think about how it moves back first, I tell you that you don't believe it, this jade seat is where the queen of the essence sat before her death, maybe her ghost is wandering in this underground palace, for thousands of years, it has been lonely and lonely, just you are sitting here, maybe you will let the queen see it, she must think, hey, this big fat man is really good, there is so much fat meat all over his body, come on, leave the son-in-law who is the essence of the country to intervene in the door, forget it, there is nothing to gnaw two molars." ”

These words didn't scare the fat man, Ye Yixin was already barely able to walk, Shirley Yang had been supporting her, and when I heard that the ghost of the exquisite woman was still in this underground palace, Ye Yixin rolled his eyes and was frightened and fainted.

Shirley Yang was so anxious that he stomped his feet: "Can you two not mess around?" I don't look at what time it is, so I don't come and help. ”

I saw that the fat man was in trouble again, and I didn't dare to quarrel anymore, so I lifted Ye Yixin up in the past, put it on the fat man's back, and let him carry it. I've never seen such an uneducated person as you, you are a widow in the country when you are the queen, the husband of the queen, that should be called ...... What's it called? I don't think it's supposed to be called a colt, right? ”

Shirley Yang saw that the fat man was still nagging, and he was so angry that he couldn't help but say, "Call the eunuch." ”

Hao Aiguo died in the archaeological team, the atmosphere was very depressing, and it was really inappropriate to laugh at this time, so I forcibly held back and searched in the vast underground palace with everyone to find a place with a water source.

The palace under the ancient kingdom is not as big as I imagined before, only the main hall is quite large, the side halls on both sides are relatively simple, the gate and stone steps of the front hall are sealed by sand, close to the gate of the front hall, a black stone top was destroyed by explosives, which shows that someone has entered this underground palace before, look at the damage to the stone gate and traces, are not recent, not to mention more than a few decades of history, it is likely that the owner of the black and white photo has done it, and now this gap has long been buried by the yellow sand.

After looking at the side halls on both sides, I turned to the apse, which was the resting place of the royal family, and there were several jade-fenced fountains, but they had long since dried up. As the group walked and watched, Shirley suddenly said, "Listen, is there a sound of running water?" ”

I pricked up my ears and listened, and sure enough, the sound of the water was murmuring not far away, and I saw that the direction was behind the dormitory, and then everyone quickened their pace, and followed the sound of the water to a cave behind the hall.

The cave is very low, go down very deep, come to a natural stone cave the size of a stadium, although it is natural, but obviously after artificial trimming, the ground is very flat, there is a small underground lake in the hole, a convex ground rises in the lake, like a small island in the middle of the lake, only ten square meters in size, the flat lake is like a mirror, surrounded around.

For a week, our group only drank the minimum ration of water, let alone in the desert, and it was enough to drink only such a little water a day, when we saw the cool groundwater, we were all in a hurry to plunge our heads into it.

Shirley Yang stopped everyone: "This water source has been abandoned for many years, and I don't know if it is dead water and living water, not to mention that the underground river is constantly diverted, and the current groundwater may not be the same as two thousand years ago, the underground of the Western Regions has the most sulfur, what if the water is poisonous, let's take a look first." ”

I took a closer look and saw a few small colorful fish swimming in the water of the lake, so I smiled and said, "I am too worried, there are fish in this lake, and there must be a spring in the depths, which is living water and will not be poisonous." ”

As soon as these words came out, the rest of the people couldn't care about anything anymore, rushed to the lake and drank water, and all poured their stomachs round, still feeling that they hadn't drunk enough, until they moved and flowed out of their mouths, and then they stopped.

Ye Yixin has dehydration and can't drink a lot of water directly, so Shirley Yang used salt and a pot of water to give her little by little. We drank so much water that we couldn't move, so we had to rest on the spot.

I had never felt that the water tasted so good, so I lay on the ground with my stomach up, my eyes closed. At this time, all around was quiet, and I seemed to hear the sound of water flowing in the distance, and it seemed that there was more than one water vein in this underground palace. The little lake where we drank was very quiet, and the sound of the water being heard in the apse came from the source of the water farther away, which was supposed to be a very large underground river, perhaps the Zduan Dark River that bypassed the Zagrama Mountains.

While I was thinking about it, I suddenly heard a "huh" from Shirley Yang, and my voice was full of surprise, I hurriedly sat up with my hands on the ground, and asked her what was wrong, Shirley Yang pointed to the bulge in the middle of the lake, and motioned for me to look over there.

Professor Chen and the others also sat up from the ground, and everyone looked in the direction pointed by Shirley Yang and saw an incredible scene.

On the convex ground in the lake, I don't know when, it has been crawled with a dense layer of cyan mayflies, there are as many as tens of thousands, their bodies gradually turn gray-white, one by one from the shell wriggling and crawling out, the molted insect body seems to have a lot of fluorescence, shining, as brilliant as the starry sky, the insects stretch their wings just gotten, and after a while they can fly to the sky.

At this moment, countless large rats rushed into the cave from all directions, these rats were not afraid of humans at all, they turned a blind eye to us people, jumped into the lake without hesitation, swept away, rushed to climb the convex ground in the middle of the lake, greedily grabbed the insects that had just withdrawn from their shells, and kept sending them into their mouths to eat.

We saw many big rats swimming in the lake, and it seems that these rats must have eaten here often, otherwise how could they be so skilled, thinking of the indescribable disgusting here, they opened their mouths and vomited, and spit out the lake water in their stomachs untouched.

When the rats had eaten their fill, they swam back to the shore and scattered.

Chu Jian picked up the broken stones on the ground and wanted to throw them out to drive away those big rats that were walking slowly, I stopped him, the rules passed down from my grandfather's generation in our family, the people of the old Hu family are not allowed to hurt the rats, anyway, these rats have no quarrel with people, just let them go.

The fat man scolded: "Lao Hu, you fucking this is called appeasement and adultery, it turns out that this water is a place for rats to bathe and eat, but the fucking disgusting me, I drank it violently just now, and I don't know how much mouse feces and urine mouse hair I drank down." ”

I said, "Don't mention it, the more you think about it, the more fucking disgusting it becomes, let's stop staying here, change places." ”

No one wanted to drink the water here, so we had to continue to look for the underground river in the depths of the cave, there was no other way here, only a passage, and the sound of flowing water came from the other end of the passage.

As we walked along the road, the more moisture grew, and the four walls became more and more humid. On both sides of this passage there were many artificially dug stone chambers, all equipped with iron fences and large locks, and there were many torture instruments in them, which seemed to be used to hold prisoners, but now they have become rat nests, and the ground is black and full of rat droppings.

Going to the passage in the cave, walking hundreds of meters away, I finally saw a turbulent dark river across the entrance of the cave, this is the Zduyi Dark River that has flowed under the sand sea for thousands of years and has never dried up, the river is not only large, but also very deep, and at its end it will merge with the Tarim River.

However, the inland rivers in the Xinjiang desert have a characteristic, that is, no matter how large the river flow is, it cannot rush out of the desert and enter the sea, and the inland rivers and underground rivers of these deserts will eventually be slowly swallowed up by the desert.

On the other side of the river there is another large cave, connected by a black stone bridge, also made of black stone from the Zagrama Mountains, flying over the raging waters of the Zdow River.

In front of the cave at the other end of the black bridge, there is a jack gate, which is half hung up with a large iron chain with the thickness of a human arm, and a huge stone is placed underneath.

Professor Chen was taken aback: "I found that the stone door of the underground palace was blown open earlier, presumably someone had come in. This gate is so thick, and it is the deepest part of the third layer of this underground palace, it is very likely that this is the resting place of the Absolute Queen. ”

In ancient times, the countries of the Western Regions often set up the tombs of royal family members in the city, instead of building mountains as mausoleums and repairing tombs according to the mountains like the Han people in the Central Plains, which we have learned in the ancient city of Xiye before, and the ancient tomb of Prince Nagumo was built in the holy well of the old city, so it is not surprising that the professor thinks that the ancient tomb of the exquisite queen is under the underground palace.

It's just that everyone thinks it's a little too smooth, there have been expeditions to this underground palace before, and this cave is not hidden, it must have been discovered by predecessors, could it be that the people who entered the queen's mausoleum died inside? What's in there? Could it be that the giant cave in the mural is also in it?

May I ask Professor Chen what he means, to go in or not to go in?

Professor Chen said without hesitation: "Enter!" I must go and see if the tomb of the Absolute Queen has been stolen or vandalized, and if I don't look at it, I won't be able to die, and if this old bone is buried in it, it will be considered a well-deserved death. I'm so old that I don't care about anything, but you kids are still young, so don't go, I'll just go by myself. ”

Shirley Young was loading her camera with new film, didn't lift her head, and said, "Of course, I'll go too." She said it lightly, as if she hadn't thought about whether or not she wanted to enter the tomb of the Absolute Queen, but only a question of whether she would be the first or the second to go in.

As soon as I saw that this was the case, I couldn't help but go in, and if the two of them had a mistake, I was at ease, so I let the fat man stay and take care of the three students.

The fat man was reluctant to hear it: "Why is the job of this nursery aunt all mine?" If you go in, I don't worry, I'll go with you, or we won't go in. Rest assured, I will not take any of the gold and silver treasures in there. ”

When Chu Jiansa Dipeng and the others heard that they would not take them in, they hurriedly pleaded, no matter what, they wanted to go in and have a look, this opportunity was too rare, they had traveled thousands of miles through the black desert, and how much hardship they had endured to come to the Exquisite Ancient City, how could they not look at this most important queen's mausoleum? And if something happens, you can also help everyone.

Everyone is going to go this time, so what about Ye Yixin, who is weak and awake for a while and confused for a while? Ye Yixin added some cold salt water, and at this moment he already had some strength, and said to everyone: "You must not leave me here alone, my body is fine, I will go in with everyone." ”

I saw that this was troublesome, no matter how big my ability and the fat man were, we couldn't take care of five people, not to mention that there were all old and weak women and children, and the big man Chu Jian could still help us.

I said to the people, "Why don't you do that, I'll go in alone first, and if there's no danger inside, we'll go in together." If I go in for more than four or five hours and don't come out, don't wait for me, don't enter this tomb again, and get out of here as soon as possible. ”

The fat man said, "No, if you want to go with the two of us, you can take care of it." ”

I patted the fat man on the shoulder: "I'll be alone, my life is fine, in case I have three long and two short, you have to take everyone out safely." ”

Shirley Yang said, "Okay, don't be so tragic, I'll go with you." ”

I thought I misheard: "You go with me?" Don't be kidding, if there is any danger, I will easily get out by myself, you go with me, I'm afraid I won't be able to take care of you. ”

Shirley Young said, "I can't say who will take care of whom, and I can't let you venture into the Queen's tomb by yourself anyway." Saying that, she took the sporting rifle in Chu Jian's hand, pulled the bolt with a bang, and saw that the bullet was full, so she pushed the bolt and loaded the bullet.

The two of us were busy packing up the equipment we had applied, and the fat man whispered to me, "Hey, Lao Hu, I think the way she looks at you lately isn't quite right, isn't it a little interesting to you?" Where did this start to stick? ”

I laughed and scolded: "I think you have fucking bad eyes, I didn't even see it, you can see it?" I'm not interested in her, we don't dare to ask for a woman who is too strong. Besides, our old man wants to see me bring back an American girl, and he has to dismantle me. ”

The fat man said: "It's good that you have this awareness, I'm really afraid that you will find such a daughter-in-law, people like her will look down on anyone with two stinky money, fuck, how did you say that sentence before?" The little leather shoes rattle, and the bourgeoisie stinks. You're going to have to resist the onslaught of sugar-coated shells. ”

I loaded the assault rifle I had picked up in the valley by the grave robbers, carried the explosives and the sapper shovel on my back, replaced the flashlight with a new spare battery, and held the gold talisman made of the pangolin's claws in my hand for a while: "Please bless you." ”

At this time, Shirley Yang also finished cleaning up, she asked me if I could see the internal structure of this tomb, I said: "I have never heard of this kind of tomb under the city, if I want to look at the structure of a tomb from the outside, I must go through guò to find the leyline, check the shape shì, find the star peak, distinguish the water source, measure the direction, determine the acupuncture field, study the depth and so on, and use these feng shui techniques to determine the age and internal structure of the ancient tomb, but this tomb is under the city, such an ancient tomb, I have seen it for the first time, there is a bridge and water in front of the tomb door, which is not in line with the feng shui theory, I really can't see what is famous in the tomb. Let's be careful after we go in, especially be careful not to trigger any traps, and the most important thing to watch out for is the kind of strange snakes with black eyes on their heads, they move very fast, and it is difficult to dodge. ”

Shirley Young nodded, and walked across the stone bridge first, I followed closely, and under the watchful eyes of the other five people, the two of us crossed the black stone bridge one after the other, and got under the jack gate.

1 is the number of the five elements that evolved from the "Hetuluo Book". The Book of Hetu Luo is a famous legend about ancient Chinese civilization and the source of the five elements of yin and yang.

1. The rectangular pale yellow adobe bricks used to build the city wall in the ancient Western Regions are mixed with rammed earth, cow dung, cool sand, etc., which are dry and solid, and do not crack for a long time.