Chapter 1: The Hexagram of Life and Death

The moment I fell into the water, I was quite calm, and I paddled my arms unhurriedly and swam in the icy water.

However, I made a fatal mistake, I thought that there was only a distance of more than ten meters left to reach the opposite bank, so I swam in the direction of the starlight, and just a few meters after swimming, I felt a huge suction force in front of me pulling me down, I quickly turned around, but the suction force was too strong, and I desperately paddled my arm to no avail.

I felt my body falling and falling rapidly, oh no, did I swim into the drainage channel of the dark lake?

My body began to spin, I felt like I was being sucked into a strong vortex, and I quickly held my breath, hoping that the passage was not too long and would not end up in the sinkhole.

However, I was soon disappointed, my body had been surrounded by cold water, as if I had been stuffed into a huge container, I couldn't breathe, I felt my chest tight, my head swollen, and the boundless darkness surrounded me.

My mind started to get confused, my body didn't listen, I felt my heart stop, my blood clotted, my consciousness became foggy, and I thought it was over.

Suddenly, a few auras of light swirled in the distance, and a smoke-like substance flew out of my body to merge with those rays of light, and I felt like my soul had left my shell......

In the boundless darkness, there was a cloud-like mist of light swirling and swirling, and in the distance, a colorful cloud floated towards me, constantly changing shapes, sometimes like a fish, swinging its body and swimming over, sometimes like a sheep, lazily approaching, sometimes it took on a human form, moving very slowly and slowly. I reached out and grabbed it, but I couldn't reach it.

The body seems to be very heavy, and it seems to be very light, rising and falling in the dark, and beneath it is a bottomless abyss......

Just floating, always keeping a distance from the clouds, feeling that the body can't be controlled, and it can't rise or fall.

I didn't bother to stretch out my hand and try to clear my mind, where am I now? What kind of state am I dead? or alive? What does the cloud represent? Is it the light in the darkness or my soul?

I remember that I seemed to have participated in an expedition, and now it should be in the dark lake of Longqiao, we are divided into three groups, me and Professor Wan are in a group, what am I doing? By the way, I left Professor Wan, and I groped for a path in the dark alone, the stone wall was very slippery, and it was very difficult to walk, as if my hand slipped and fell...... So I'm supposed to be in a deep pool now, but how can I not feel the water, but in the night sky?

The clouds descended towards me, finally froze into a human form, like my own silhouette, and finally turned into a puff of smoke and flew into my body. It seems to have some sense, but the whole body still can't move, and the eyes can't open, but the meaning gradually becomes clear.

Trying to open his eyes, he found that there were dancing flames around him, far and near, and his body began to gain weight, supported by a hard thing.

I struggled to open my eyes, and I really saw the firelight, scattered in the darkness, and as the firelight pulsed, I felt something move and whisper, but my body couldn't move, I could only look around me by rolling my eyes.

Yes, it seems to be alive, in a huge cave, I am ** all over, with the amulet given by Tang Wanli around my neck, lying on a stone bed, looking around with a sense of déjà vu, the swaying light is the torches inserted around the cave hall, not far from my left There are a few figures holding a fork, with the flickering of the firelight, the hungry ghost with green fangs is beating.

On the right side of the body is a flat terrace, and there are two stone chairs, one large and one small, in the middle seat, on which sits an "Indian chief": wearing a feather crown, two long golden chicken feathers fly out of the feather crown, and the face is tattooed with a blue-purple pattern like a beast, so it is impossible to see the age. He was actually wearing a dress made of silk with a large tiger embroidered on it.

Tiger! My nerves throbbed, as if something was coming to mind.

Behind the "chief" stood a warrior armed with a long axe, and suddenly felt that the shape of the axe was a bit like the strange axe found in the sinkhole.

On the smaller stone chair on the left sits a Taoist in ancient costume, who also wears a crown hat on his head, but it is made of yarn and lined with ribs, like an ancient official hat, but the dynasty is not visible. He wore a belt inlaid with jewels around his waist, and his clothes were embroidered with patterns, but instead of a tiger or gossip, it was a long-tailed bird.

There was also a young man in a white robe and long sleeves standing next to the green-robed Taoist, who was looking at me curiously at the moment, his eyes full of anxiety. Around them stood several figures with weapons in their hands, almost all over their bodies, with only a linen skirt wrapped around their waists.

I finally remembered that the environment here was very similar to what I saw in the "Three Eyes Cave", but what I saw in front of me was much more regular, and there were more people, could it be in the Three Eyes Cave?

Then I'm in a dream now, and some time ago, didn't I always have these images wandering in my head: white tigers, tribes, mysterious primitives.

Or maybe I am dead, and my soul has wandered to the underworld, and if it is the underworld, then the "chieftain" in front of me is not the chief, but the king of Hades, and this blue-robed man wearing an official hat is the judge. I remember falling into the water, my soul was out of my body, so yes, I'm in Hades now.

Knowing this fact, I fell into a deep sleep disheartened......

When I woke up again, I found that there was an extra blanket on my body, so I felt a lot warmer, and the scene in front of me seemed to be brighter, and then I heard the sound of my own heartbeat, and I was still alive!

The thinking is getting clearer and clearer, and I can finally think about the problem calmly, yes, I should still be alive now, but I don't know where I am?

The body can also be turned slightly. There were still those people in the hall, and when they saw my body turning, the frozen air in the cave flowed again, and the moment they met the eyes of the white-robed young man, I saw a smile in his eyes but immediately regained nervousness.

The man in the green robe didn't look at me, his eyes fixed on a small fire pit, and the fuel in the fire pit turned out to be coal. In the burning coal pile was a white mass, which looked like the shoulder blades of some kind of animal, and the man's gaze fell on the white bones. The "chief" didn't look at anything, probably sitting for too long, leaning back on the stone chair with his eyes slightly closed. It was only then that I saw a black bear skin on the stone chair.

With a "bang", the white bones cracked, but they did not explode, and the bones were covered with large and small cracks. The muscles on the green-robed man's face twitched, his eyes looked at me, two cold lights pierced my heart, and I looked blankly at the young man, his eyes full of horror.

The chief was awakened by the crackling sound, and looked at the blue-robed man with wistful eyes, as if waiting for an answer. The green-robed man's mouth opened, but he didn't speak, his face had returned to calm, his eyes closed slightly, and he pondered.

After a few moments, the man in the green robe opened his eyes and looked at me again, this time very carefully, and after examining it from head to toe, his eyes stayed on my face. He stared for a moment, then turned to look at the young man, saw his expectant look, and finally turned to the "chief" and said a word, not a language I could understand.

However, it was these words that eased the tense atmosphere in the cave hall, and I heard the white-robed young man breathe a deep sigh of relief, and I also felt the danger far away, and mustered up all my strength to sit up from the stone bed.

The man in the green robe slapped twice, and two young women in linen skirts and shawls came in from the side hole, holding a wooden plate in their hands, although the light in the hole was very dim, but when they approached, I was surprised to find that the exposed skin of these two women was so fair, as transparent as mutton fat jade, and the blood vessels and even bone shapes in the skin could be clearly seen, and the eyes were also transparent glass beads, light blue-green, and the hair was silver-white, like transparent elves under the reflection of the firelight.

God! What kind of race is this, is it in heaven or hell, or in another world? What's going on? I kind of doubt my current situation, am I really alive?

The woman handed me a tray with my clothes on one plate and a few kiwis and two steaming balls on the other.

I put on my clothes first, but instead of my expedition suit, I wrapped myself in a blanket over my body to keep me warm. Seeing that I had no intention of continuing to dress, the woman in sackcloth placed the tray with the expedition suit on the stone bed and stepped back, and the second woman in sackcloth handed me the tray with food.

I first took a steaming large ball, which was covered with a large leaf, and when I peeled back the leaf, it was actually a white rice ball. The entrance is fluffy and fragrant. The rice dough is also wrapped with wild chestnut meat, which is like a rice dumpling for the Dragon Boat Festival, but the shape is different. At this time, I was really hungry, and I quickly finished eating two rice balls and ate all the kiwi fruit.

During this process, the man in the green robe always looked at me without saying a word, his brows were tightly locked, and he looked full of contradictions. The young man looked excited, but tried to refrain from showing it too much, and the chief left the hall with the support of the guards.

When the green-robed man saw that I had finished eating, he waved his hand, and two of the four people standing on the left side came over and helped me off the stone bed. Only then did I see their clothing and appearance, these were two men who were almost all **, and I could see from their slightly flat breasts and strong muscles.

Their skin is also very white, but not as transparent as the woman just now, plus there are many striped patterns on their bodies, and some blue and purple patterns are tattooed on their faces, so they really look like blue-faced and fanged ghosts from a distance in the dark light.

Their hair was also silvery-white, but it was interspersed with twine, and it was tied up in a high bun, like horns growing on their heads. The same rag skirt just covers the buttocks. He was not tall, only to the base of my ears, but his eyes were blazing, lean and powerful.

Seeing that they meant to take me somewhere, the young man seemed to want to say hello to me, hesitated, turned and left with the green-robed man.

Two of the four led the way with torches in their hands, and I was almost able to walk on my own, with the two men who had supported me before following me. There are three forks in the hall, and we head towards the leftmost fork. The cave was dark and quiet, but the person leading the way in front of me seemed to see it clearly, walked freely, and stopped from time to time to wait for me.

On the way, I met several more women, whose skin was as transparent as the previous two, who stood sideways when they saw us coming, they were of relatively small stature, and when I passed, they would quietly glance at me with the same transparent and amazed eyes, and then quickly bow their heads, and whisper as I passed.

After about five minutes, the two men who led the way stopped in front of a wooden door, and when they opened it, there was a small stone chamber with a stone bed on the inside of the cave wall, but much smaller than the one in the hall, barely enough to fit my body. In addition to the stone bed, there are two stone benches, the so-called stone benches, in fact, are just two large stones that have been smoothed on the top, and there is a hemp skirt on the stone bench, and nothing else.

One of them stuck a burning torch into the stone mortar on the cave wall, and then stood by the door, like a guard and a servant waiting for orders, while the other three withdrew.

After a while, another woman in sackcloth came in with a tray, on which was still a sackcloth but much larger than the hemp skirt on the stool. The woman spread the sackcloth on the stone bed, and it turned out to be a bedbed sack.

I kind of regret that I didn't wear my expedition outfit, so it's better to have an extra layer of clothing.

The woman turned to leave after putting her things away, and hurriedly raised her head as she passed me, with a shy smile on her face, her eyes were quite large, her teeth were very white, her figure was slightly taller, her hair was pulled up, and her long, slender neck could be seen, which was the most beautiful of the transparent people I had seen today.

I carefully observed the layout in the stone chamber, in addition to the stone bed and stone bench, there are painted patterns on the stone walls, which are still dominated by the image of a tiger, and there are more than a dozen strange-shaped symbols, which look like Bashutu language. There is a big bamboo pipe poking in at the top of the cave, and when you walk in, you feel a slight breeze, and it is a ventilation device, no wonder you don't feel chest tightness in such a deep cave.

There was a small door in the cave wall, I don't know what was inside? I was so dizzy that I didn't bother to move.

The man, who could not tell whether it was a guard or a servant, stood for a while by the door, and saw that I had no orders (how could I have commanded him? he did not understand their language at all, and even if he did, he did not know whether he was a guest or a prisoner), took out the torch from the mortar, walked out of the stone chamber, closed the door, and the room was dark again.