It had been three days since the Bone Split, and Ji Ge and his party were marching towards the deepest part of the wildfire wasteland.

On the side of the road, from time to time, you can see the remains of the loess buried, but the wind blows a corner of the body. There were animal bones, but more human bones, and the skeleton's hollow eye sockets were overflowing with sand, and occasionally one or two bright and hideous red scorpions crawled out.

The old woman seemed to be deliberately slowing down, and except for the fact that she would disappear for a while and bring back some water to quench their thirst, they had to find food on their own. Ji Ge's mouth still has a bitter taste, and when he sees these barbed tails, the most common sand scorpions in the wasteland, he can't help but feel sick to his stomach, and secretly swears that he will never eat the meat of this thing again.

For a few days, the hungry teenagers couldn't hunt any animals at all, and the grass-haired chickens in this wasteland who would only hide their heads in the sand and wait for death had been extinct for I don't know how many years, after hearing the old woman's seemingly unintentional words.

"These cute little scorpions don't look very good, but they are a rare kind of slightly venomous scorpions, the meat is edible, and the taste is ......," she said, and she sighed her wrinkled lips with endless aftertaste, as if it was a great pleasure just to think about it.

So, a few teenagers who were hungry and anxious didn't care about the nausea, stepped on it, opened the hard shell and stuffed it into their mouths......

If you don't mention the taste of its fishy and astringent teeth, this kind of scorpion meat is still very full, and a group of teenagers have survived these reptiles in the past few days.

"Hey, hey, haha......" The old woman couldn't help but laugh maliciously every time she saw the wonderful expressions of several teenagers. Along the way, this kind of sharp and ear-numbing laughter kept lingering in Ji Ge's ears.

After another day, the old woman's laughter finally stopped. Once again, the teenagers were shocked by what they saw!

A majestic mountain burst into their eyes, Ji Ge had never seen such a huge peak, and the mound he saw along the way could only be regarded as a small slope in front of it!

The swarthy mountain is like a behemoth entrenched there, a wide and steep stone staircase stretches upward, and at the end of the stairs that can be seen as far as the eye can see, you can see an ancient castle with great work! If you think of the mountain as a monster, then this magnificent castle is the giant head of this behemoth monster!

It crawls silently in the depths of the wasteland, as if it has fallen asleep for eternity.

The teenagers stood at the foot of the mountain and looked up at the brainchild of these poor generations, and they couldn't help themselves for a long time.

The old woman squinted at the castle on the mountain, and muttered angrily, "Isn't there anyone who comes out alive to pick up the wind for the old woman?" she kept cursing in her mouth, and her body suddenly floated to the bottom of the stone steps.

At the foot of the staircase, a scarecrow with rough workmanship was inserted, and a few birds squatted on it to play, which looked out of place, and a small bell hung around the scarecrow's neck.

The old woman stood with her hands behind her back, pruned her pale and shriveled mouth, chewed heavily, and with a "bah", spit out a large mouthful of thick phlegm and sprayed it on the bell around the scarecrow's neck.

"Whoa......

The scarecrow shook violently, and the bell around his neck sounded pleasantly, but it frightened the poor birds into a scurry, leaving only a lump of white bird droppings on the scarecrow's head. The bell rises in the wind and constantly reverberates on the mountain.

The thick iron door of the castle was opened, but before the boys could see the figure come out, a cold word sounded in their ears.

"Hmph, bitter woman, I can smell the smell of corpses on your body from afar. Hmm, I brought back a few seeds, but I'm very diligent!"

Next to the scarecrow, a gushing ash gas twisted and swirled into a young man. The young man's face was gloomy, his face was pale, and there was a strange black line under his puffy eyeballs, and he was coldly mocking at the moment.

"Hehe, I brought it back with me, and I'll leave it to you now. I'm going to feed my little boys, I haven't seen you for a long time, and you must want to kill your mother-in-law!" The old woman didn't care, and in the blink of an eye, she flew into the gate of the castle in the blink of an eye.

Several teenagers looked nervously at this young man who looked even more terrifying than the old woman, and did not dare to move. The young man frowned, glanced at them, pointed to the top of the mountain and said impatiently, "Now, you climb up from here, and if you can't get up before dark, I'll throw you down the mountain!"

Before the words fell, the young man left the foot of the mountain with a few ups and downs. Several teenagers looked at each other, and when they saw Ji Ge walking up the stairs without saying a word, they also hurriedly climbed up.

This thousand-layer staircase was really a little out of reach for these teenagers, Ji Ge gasped, and beads of sweat fell down, wetting the stone steps. After most of the day, he had only climbed about a third of the way, and he was as tired as a dead dog, and he longed to lie on it for the rest of his life. The others weren't much better than him, especially the only girl among them, whose face was flushed and looked like she was about to faint.

But they are all insisting, the words of the indifferent young man are still in their ears, if they can't reach the top of the mountain before dark, they will be thrown into the abyss, and they will definitely be crushed. Ji Ge gritted his teeth, with a hint of perseverance in his eyes, and used his hands and feet together, struggling to climb up.

Soon it was dark, and the five teenagers, even the girl, insisted on climbing up with the help of others. Their hands and feet were worn out, and their flesh and blood were blurred, staining the stone steps with mottled blood.

Several people looked at each other at the top of the mountain, and there was something more in their eyes. They are all secretly grateful to the old woman for her deliberate polishing on the road, so that their physique is much stronger than before, and the most important thing is to survive in the desert with more tenacity, so that they can grit their teeth and persevere, and complete this seemingly impossible task.

Although they had already seen the castle at the foot of the mountain, they were shocked when they looked at it up close.

On the gate of the castle stood a huge black skull, which was terrifying and shrouded in a chilling mist, as if it were about to devour all living beings that entered the castle. The young man leaned under the skull and closed his eyes, as if enjoying the cold breath of the skull.

"Come up, follow me. ”

The young man left a word, turned around and walked into the door.

Ji Ge looked up at the huge skull, thought about the movements of the young man just now, hesitated for a moment, and walked under the breath of the giant skull.

"It's so cold......" Ji Ge quickly ran out, his lips were blue, his hands were folded, his body was trembling, and there was frost condensed on his eyebrows. It was as if the cold air had penetrated into his bones and frozen his soul!

The rest of the people were also eager to try, but when they saw Ji Ge's embarrassed appearance, they suddenly stopped and followed honestly.

The young man glanced back at Ji Ge's stiff body, sneered, and said nothing.

The castle is home to a vast complex of palaces, each one a hundred times larger than the Golden Grotto where Ji Ge grew up with a small gangster!

They walked along a path, and on both sides of the road were a few strange flowers with strange shapes, and Ji Ge could clearly see that there was a pale finger in the soil under the flower, which was not covered by the soil, and was exposed. The young man of the Yin Owl walked into a small palace with a few teenagers, and walked towards the empty hall, and ordered, "Take them to settle down, and tomorrow they will be led to the main hall with this group of people", and then they hung them in the hall and left.

A few people looked left and right in the hall, and Alec suddenly stabbed Ji Ge with his hand, touched Ji Ge's cold body, shrank back, and asked in a low voice, "Who is he talking to?" What should we do now?"

Ji Ge shook his head, he didn't know what to do, he looked around in the lower hall, sighed, and curiously reached out to touch a few statues in the center of the hall that didn't know what they were and had wings.

"Little doll, the stone carvings here can't be touched, there are mechanisms!" slowly walked out of the shadow behind the hall an old man on crutches persuaded, knocking on the back of the rickety from time to time. "It's an old bone, it's a little inconvenient to walk now, cough cough ......"

Ji Ge was startled, and immediately retracted his hand and looked at the old man who suddenly appeared in front of him.

The old man was full of gray hair, and he was very careful in combing, and although his clothes were simple, they were neatly cared for. He bent over, laboriously pulled out a bag full of things from the darkness, looked up, and smiled kindly at them.

If the teenagers hadn't met him in such an eerie place, they would have regarded him as an ordinary little old man everywhere.

"It's time for today. You too...... Eh, come with me. ”

The old man sighed deeply, suddenly covered his mouth, coughed violently, and when he came to his senses, he took a candle and slowly walked out of the palace and headed towards the back cliff. Several people followed closely, and in this strange and complicated labyrinth-like place, if they didn't have an old man, they probably couldn't find a way out for a few days.

The old man's body was quite tough, and he walked steadily with every step of his crutches. When he reached the back cliff, he opened the black bag, took out a wad of yellow paper, lit it with a candle, and scattered it into the sky. The tissue paper that carried the old man's emotions was burned into a little ember with a little fire, like thousands of butterflies flying up to the already dark sky, and some fell into the endless abyss, but they all disappeared in a flash.

Originally, the old man was going to throw away the last thing under the bag, but his hand suddenly stopped, and he looked at the tired appearance of Ji Ge and the others who had just climbed up from the bottom of the mountain, hungry and thirsty, and sighed: "Forget it, it's better for the living to be full than for the dead, anyway, the old man will deliver it every month, and they shouldn't be too hungry below." ”

He spread out the bag, and inside were some cooked chickens and geese, which looked very attractive to the young men, who had been taken prisoner first and then taken captive by the madwoman. They don't know how long it has been since they've had a good meal.

"Eat, boys, you have to pass a pass tomorrow, eat more to have strength. The old man touched the poor girl's head distressedly, and when he saw a few people secretly swallowing saliva, he told them to eat quickly.

The hungry Ji Ge and they got permission, took a piece of meat one by one, and sat on the ground to eat it.

The few people quickly ate the roast chicken completely, and Alec even licked the greasy oil from his fingers into his stomach.

On the edge of the back cliff there were low huts crowded together, and the old man took them into the huts that would belong to them, and when he left, he instructed: "I will pick you up at dawn tomorrow." Listen to the old man's advice, it's best not to think about running away, the abyss under this cliff doesn't know how deep it is, and try not to come out at night, the people in this place have a very strange temper. ”

Ji Ge looked at this and then it was his own cabin, there was only a wooden bed in the small room, a bath bucket in the middle, and not even a table and chairs. The bathtub was already filled with water, and there were some herbs and other grass roots that Ji Ge had never seen before, and the whole bucket of water showed a pleasant pale green.

Ji Ge took off his clothes that were about to turn into mud shells, took a comfortable bath, and rubbed off the foul-smelling filth that made his scalp tingle. The medicine in the bucket made his body warm, and even the cold breath that was exhaled by the skeleton not long ago seemed to be driven away a lot, and the dark wounds in his body gradually healed under the soaking.

After washing, Ji Ge felt that his body was fluttering, and a wave of sleepiness that had accumulated for a long time swept over. He collapsed on the bed naked, and before he had time to think about what had happened one after another these days, he fell asleep in a daze.

He slept very soundly this night, just like when his father had to tell stories every day to lull him to sleep, and he forgot all his troubles.

Ji Ge had that dream again.