According to Wang Chengbao's original plan, what he wanted to go to most was the village where the old village chief died, but because although China and Vietnam had a truce at that time, small-scale conflicts on the border still occurred from time to time, and it had become a blockade area, and ordinary people could not enter it at all, and the Qin brothers did not remember the specific location of the village, so after some discussion, the investigation team decided to go to the mysterious Miao ancient village first. It has become clear that the Miao ancient village is actually the Miao village where I met Ashina.

Their route was almost the same as when I went to Miao Village, first to the Wenshan Miao Zhuang Autonomous Region, and then to the mountainous southwest of the country.

Although Qin Guiren had made a lot of marks when he left the Miao ancient village before, after all, a year had passed, and the marks were made in the deep mountains and old forests, so they also took a lot of twists and turns in the process of finding the Miao ancient village, and I will not repeat the ups and downs along the way.

All in all, when they arrived at Guzhai, it was already two days later.

The ancient village is located between two mountains, and my father and others can clearly overlook the entire landform of the ancient village standing in the depths of the dense forest on the hillside.

Qin Guiren pointed to an open area like a small square in the center of the ancient village, and said that it was the place where the villagers worshiped the bronze coffin. He still remembers that when the villagers saw a young woman walking out of the bronze coffin, they were not surprised but rejoiced, and the adoring eyes were as if they had met the gods in their hearts. After the woman walked out of the bronze coffin, the six villagers who carried the coffin quickly resealed the bronze coffin, and it seemed that they did not intend to carry the bronze coffin back to their hometown, but carried the bronze coffin to an extremely remote ancestral hall-like wooden house in the ancient village. Afterwards, after a long time, they didn't see those villagers come out, Qin Guiren and others felt weird, so they hastily evacuated the ancient village. Now, when he faces this ancient village again, his curiosity is still the same, but this curiosity is always mixed with many elements of fear.

Now, Qin Guiren has three professionals specializing in history around him, and he hopes to get a reasonable explanation for all these bizarre events from the mouths of these three people.

That night, they did not rush to the ancient village, because they were not sure that the villagers would welcome them.

My father originally planned to enter the ancient village to investigate, but was unanimously opposed by Wang Chengbao and the Qin brothers. Because my father was still a staunch atheist at the time, he didn't really believe the Qin brothers' words, and the Qin brothers and Wang Chengbao, as witnesses and believers respectively, insisted that this ancient village hid some secrets that could not be revealed, and if you rashly entered the village, it was very likely that you would encounter danger, and even if you didn't, the expedition was likely to be blocked by the villagers. Therefore, Wang Chengbao decided to sneak into the wooden house where the bronze coffin was hidden at night. In this regard, although my father was opposed, but he was helpless, after all, the minority obeyed the majority, in order to ensure the unity of the team, my father decided to act according to Wang Chengbao's plan.

They first closely monitored the ancient village for a whole day, and found that no one entered or left the wooden house with the bronze coffin that Qin Guiren said all day long, so late the next night, they sneaked into the ancient village while the villagers were asleep and came to the wooden house.

The wooden house is built on the mountain, the area is not large, and it is only about 60 square meters by eye. When they came to the door, everyone was stunned for a moment, and it turned out that the doors and windows of the wooden house were engraved with totemic-like runes. That's right, it's this kind of rune again, it looks extremely familiar to Qin Guiren, and I can't help but think of the rune that Ashina once drew on my face.

Wang Chengbao and my father looked at these runes for a while, but no one understood them, at this time, my father asked Duan Yuwen: "Duanzi, you specialize in the history and customs of ethnic minorities, come and see, can you understand the things on this?" ”

Duan Yuwen stepped forward to look at it for a long time, but also frowned, and said, "This ...... I can see it too clearly. ”

Wang Chengbao said disdainfully: "I still specialize in the history and customs of ethnic minorities, which is useless at all." ”

The five of them hesitated for a moment, and Wang Chengbao said: "Forget it, it doesn't matter what he is, whether it's runes or words, let's go in and talk about it." ”

There was no lock on the wooden door, and Wang Chengbao tentatively pushed the door, and the doorshaft let out a piercing moan in the silence of the night. Everyone's hearts tightened, holding their breath, but fortunately, nothing happened. The five of them bravely walked into the wooden house, and as soon as they entered the house, a musty smell rushed to their faces, and it seemed that the wooden house had not been opened for a long time.

At first, everyone was worried about whether there would be anyone in the house, but the strong musty smell seemed to indicate that there was absolutely no one in the house, and the air here was very muddy and smelled of earth.

As soon as he entered the door, Wang Chengbao couldn't wait to turn on the flashlight and shine around the room, but found that the whole room was empty, there was nothing, but there was a stone cave more than one meter high and half a meter wide on the wall opposite the door. Everyone looked at each other, this was completely different from the situation they had imagined in advance, they thought that when they opened the door, there would be an ancestral hall-like room inside, dedicated to the recognized ancestors of the Miao people, Chiyou, or other ancestors, etc., and then in the center of the room was the strange bronze coffin, but at this moment they were presented with a completely different scene.

My father and Duan Yuwen checked the other corners of the room, while Wang Chengbao walked straight to the entrance of the stone cave and illuminated the dark entrance with a flashlight, while the Qin brothers stayed aside and did not speak.

The cave is so deep and steep that the light of the flashlight can't reach anything in the cave. Wang Chengbao put his head into the hole and sniffed it, then retracted it and said suspiciously: "This seems to be a cellar." ”

"Cellar?" Everyone was surprised, but when you think about it, there's nothing impossible. Because first of all, the ancient village is located between the two mountains, on the way to come, we will find that most of the mountains here are not high, not the kind of peaks with an altitude of more than 1,000 meters, but just a hill similar to a hill, the mountain stone is not hard, it is very easy to dig, it is very suitable for building a cellar, but because the slope is steep, it is rainy here all the year round, in order to prevent the rainwater from flowing into the cellar, it is also reasonable to build a small wooden house as a shelter from the rain.

Wang Chengbao pointed to the entrance of the cave and said: "The smell of dirt in the house is coming from this stone cave, you also saw it just now, this small wooden house is built on the mountain, and the back of the wooden house is almost attached to the entire mountain, I think this hole may lead to the mountain." ”

My father didn't believe it, so he ran to shine a flashlight, and found that there were indeed some stone steps at the entrance of the stone cave that extended diagonally downward, and then turned his head and asked Qin Guiren, "Are you sure that the bronze coffin was carried into this wooden house at that time?" ”

Qin Guiren nodded firmly and said: "I remember very clearly, it won't be wrong, at least before we left, the bronze coffin was carried into this wooden house, of course, if the bronze coffin was carried to another place later, then I don't know what to do." ”

Wang Chengbao said on the side: "It doesn't matter if it has been carried away or not, if the bronze coffin has not been carried away, it must be in it, if it is carried away, there is no inside, so it is useless to say anything else, let's go down now and see if everything is understood." ”

After Wang Chengbao finished speaking, everyone was a little hesitant, especially Duan Yuwen, he was the youngest of these people, and he had experienced very few things, at this moment in an unknown Miao ancient village, and listened to the bizarre experiences told by two veterans, and now he was asked to walk into this deep cellar so unarmed, he felt a little scared.

Wang Chengbao was very angry when he saw everyone's hesitation, and said, "What's wrong? Scared? Why are you so daring? Lao Qin, you two brothers have been soldiers anyway, and they are on the battlefield, don't you dare to drill such a small cellar? ”

The bloody nature of being a soldier is the most unbearable, and Qin Guihe's temperament is very impulsive, and he said: "Who is afraid? I'll go first! As he spoke, he bent his waist and wanted to drill into the stone cave.

Qin Guiren grabbed his younger brother and said, "Don't be impulsive, I'd better go down first." ”

Qin Guihe pursed his lips and said, "Brother, do you still score points for drilling a cellar?" What if I'm the first to go down, can there be any monster coming out of this cellar? ”

In this way, several people went into the cellar with flashlights.

The depth of the cellar is far beyond everyone's imagination, walking along the stone steps, walking for no less than five or six minutes, the oxygen around is becoming more and more scarce, the more to the bottom, the more dilapidated the stone steps become, walking and walking, Qin Guihe in front of him was a little stunned in his heart, and said: "Where does this cellar lead, why is it so long?" ”

Everyone ignored him, Qin Guiren wanted to say a few words to appease his younger brother, but he couldn't say it, so he had to continue to walk silently.

After about a cigarette, the angle of the cellar to the bottom of the cellar gradually flattened, and the originally narrow passage suddenly became wider, and everyone came to a small open area, but here, there was still no trace of the bronze coffin around, but there were more than a dozen large jars piled up in the corner of this small space.

The jar was brown and red, covered with dust, and seemed to have been left for many years. My father said, "It seems that this is really an ordinary cellar, probably for winemaking." So saying, he walked over to the pile of jars.

Sure enough, as soon as you walked into the jar, you could smell a faint aroma, and amazingly, it turned out to be a smell similar to milk. When the Qin brothers heard that it was wine, they immediately became interested, and stepped forward and said, "It is said that the wine in the old cellar is the most mellow, let's taste a few sips and it is not a big deal, right?" ”

My father was also deeply attracted by this aroma, so he didn't stop it, and the Qin brothers opened one of the jars, and just wanted to dip their fingers in a little taste, but Wang Chengbao stretched out his hand to stop him, and said, "Wait, I always feel that something is wrong." ”

As he spoke, Wang Chengbao took a flashlight into the jar, and everyone couldn't help but gasp for air, only to see that the liquid in the jar was pitch black, and a huge worm-like insect was slowly wriggling in it.