A coral-like human body is laid at the bottom of the crystal chest. And this crystal box is called a living box according to the old man.

"At that time, I was not very ...... But as the eldest son, these are the knowledge that the family is studying are all to be involved. I don't know how much time has passed, but you don't know that...... Is it not done outside? …… It's okay not to do it. ”

The emaciated and emaciated old man stood on the edge of the living box, staring at the swimming fish, his eyes misty.

His Highness pursed his lips and wanted to patch it again.

The old man shook his head:

"There's no need to tell me that now that you're here, you'll know all this. At that time, the Second Twilight War had been over for a long time. But everyone knows that Sunset City is still restless, and many things are being prepared. His Majesty didn't participate in the study at first, I remember...... His Majesty became known later. ”

Gu Chuan wanted to ask about the crown, but he wanted to listen to the old man first.

Who knew that His Highness spoke:

"The crown of our time has always been hidden behind the murals, communicating with us with strange objects and condensation machinery. But I've heard that a long time ago, the crown was not hidden behind a fresco. ”

The old man looked up, and there was no life on his face, as if he was going to die at any moment. But he just didn't die. The light of the lantern falls on the crystal chest. The light reflected from the crystal chest illuminates His Highness's back. And the front of His Highness was dark, only a pair of eyes sparkled, and he was not overwhelmed by the darkness.

The old man suddenly laughed, and suddenly his spirit came back from a long way away. He said:

"So, so, so is the crown. I've only seen the real body of the crown when I was a child, but I can't remember it anymore. After the Third Twilight War, Her Majesty began to use murals in place of her own existence, using a condensator to communicate with us. If you are very concerned about this matter, I am not afraid to tell you that according to the internal reference information of the Round Pagoda family, the time when His Royal Highness hid the mural was after the living box was put into use. ”

Gu Chuan was shocked. The image of the crown seemed more and more mysterious to him, whether it was a person or some strange creature...... The old man has lived for more than a hundred years. Then the crown existed when the old man was a child.

"But old man, what is the purpose of the living box and the crystal box you said?"

"When His Majesty made the living box, he didn't invite and inform the Round Pagoda family, and he has been cooperating with the Yaoshi and Shiye families, I think these two should still exist now, right?"

"Yes."

The old man let out a bitter sneer:

"Good people don't live long, but disasters last for a thousand years, that's about it. The Round Tower family only learned a little bit about it when they were renovating the dungeon. We said earlier that strange things are kept in the human body, right? ”

"Yes."

"But people die, and when they die, strange things are taken out. When people go from one person to one family...... He realized that he was no longer alone, but that he needed to fight for others, and that he could not leave alone......" said the old man gloomily, "so strange things do not belong to the individual, but to the family. This is where the family idea was born...... Therefore, after death, strange things should not be left in the wilderness, but left to their relatives and friends, and finally their descendants, right? ”

"I want to ...... Yes. ”

"How does your medicine teach you how people are born? Will there be a little one who will be conceived and born in the mother's womb? When this little one is almost old...... It's coming out, and that's childbirth. ”

"This ......"

"Well, then we naturally have people who wonder why we don't do it in the human embryo? ——The fusion of strange things and people is an exploration along this line of thought, and the living box...... It is the product of this exploration. ”

The old man said.

"This ...... Do you do this kind of thing to your own children? ”

Gu Chuan was incredulous, and his face distorted.

"I didn't say I used my own ...... You can try it with someone else's first. ”

He replied.

Even after a hundred years, this long living box has not changed in any way. There was a slight amount of dust on the crystal chest, but the water inside was not turbid, and it was as calm as if it were part of nature.

The shadow of the human being, illuminated by the light of the lantern and candlelight, cast on the crystal, dancing wildly, not like a human figure.

The toeless man has the best night vision, and he leads the group of fish that follow him to run near the box, only to find several pipes in the corner of the box, which stretch from the box to the corner.

And in the corner, he ...... I touched it curiously.

The corners of the wall were wet.

This is because the water is leaking from the top. This pre-industrial underground structure would have been the case during the rainy season, but it didn't have much impact.

It's just that the rain on the ground of Sunset City is getting heavier and heavier, and there is no intention of stopping.

The dark clouds covered each other, and the world fell into the darkest hour again. Occasionally, a few muffled thunderbolts can shake the sky, causing the hurried pedestrians on the ground to raise their heads and be troubled by the sky. The potted plants or some small objects that were originally placed on the upper floor were knocked down by the rain and fell to the ground.

And the continuous whistling sound along the river gave the tired civilians a joke.

"Maybe the next day, the Rizhao River will flood Sunset City!"

"Don't you daydream...... The Xinshui family likes the Rizhao River the most, and they can raise money for their water control again, which is obviously a strange thing. ”

Raindrops from the sky poured down on the Central Prohibition Palace. In the Central Prohibition Palace, the lights are still brilliant, and there are many people who have been summoned by His Majesty.

In addition to the virtues, there were also the chief officers of the Inspection Department and the Arsenal Department, and everyone had serious faces. Lady Ogiri's status is slightly higher than that of the adjutants, but inferior to the chiefs, and she stands behind the chiefs. She glanced at the blood-clotted head on the floor, which belonged to one of Lady Okiri's most familiar maids in the Forbidden Palace, and Lady Ogi was indifferent to it.

"That's what I called you all here today."

The mural is still the same, and the strange object used under the crown, the condensator, is hidden in the platform under the mural, which is the size of a wardrobe.

The function of this strange thing is also very simple to discover.

Its full name is called the Thought Condensation Machine. As the name suggests, thoughts are transformed into words. Whoever touches it, what wants to say in his head, will be transformed into the form of a language that the person knows.

It was once collected by the family of the Twelve Days of the Heavens, and was later levied by His Majesty, and was used to speak after listening to the government in the hanging painting.

His voice was emotionless, as if he was talking about something that had nothing to do with him:

"Now that you've learned from the squire, you've learned about your Highness's disappearance, and you should understand why I called you, right?"

God is as powerful as hell.

The supreme ruler of Sunset City is wrathed.

The more insipid it is, the deeper the anger under the crown.

The three officers were silent.

Lady Ogiri observed the three chief officers and suddenly remembered an interesting thing. That is, these three chief officials have nothing to do with the twelve most powerful surnames in the inner city.

She looked at the mural again.

The crown behind the mural did not speak, only to see the lonely left eye on the mural mercilessly looking down on the beings below.

The Central Forbidden Palace fell into a terrible silence.

Finally, it was Grace who spoke out:

"I still have a question, Your Majesty."

"Ask, Criminal Division."

"Suppose we find other prisoners or others in the dungeon, what should we do?"

"If it is not the prisoner and your highness, they can be executed on the spot. You are not responsible. ”

His Majesty said flatly.

He frowned, and then asked:

"Hypothetical...... Did they disguise themselves as prisoners? ”

A cold voice came from the condenser:

"You're still young, so you don't know yet...... Treasury, I remember that your name is Yucun, and your temperament is not the same as before. When you get to the dungeon, you explain it to the two young men. ”

No one knows where His Majesty saw these people from.

He was also a young man, and he only knew that the dungeon was related to his duties, but he had not done anything about it. Yu Cun was the eldest of the three chief officers of the Treasury Division, and he was also the most burly and muscular one.

He nodded, and then led the two young men out of the middle palace and towards the apse of the Forbidden Palace.

This person can really be called Xiong Zhuang, and his bear-like body supports the loose chief robes. Two orange ribbons hung down the contours of his muscles, and his thick arms peeking out of his robes were said to have screwed off the head of a greedy officer of the Treasury Division.

The Treasury Department is the department that keeps the weapons, carriages, chariots, and war horses of the inner city, and is most closely connected with the army of Sunset City among the twenty-four divisions in charge of general administrative affairs.

After making contributions in the Sixth Twilight War, because of the heavy casualties of the surprise attack troops led by him, he was unwilling to lead the troops, and he taught himself to become a talent, and was appointed by the crown to be the chief officer of the military treasury department.

When he stepped forward, it looked like he was about to burst the floor.

There was once a merchant from the outer city who provided fodder for the Treasury Division when he first saw Yucun, and he was frightened by this huge thing with two heads on it.

Under the watchful eye of the prisoner, the three officers walked down the steps to the dungeon below. This is a special operation, and the adjutants of these three divisions are not qualified to participate, there are only three chief officers, and the personal relations of these three chief officers are good, at least they admit that they are not wrong.

Before he could speak, the chief officer of the Inspection Department couldn't wait to ask the public opinion of the Treasury Division:

"Senior of the Treasury Division, may I ask why His Majesty thinks that the disguised prisoner is not worth mentioning? Judging from the intelligence, His Highness knocked out a prisoner, changed his clothes and ran into the dungeon. ”

The prisoner's costume is divided into two layers, one for the outer armor and one for the inner robes.

It was from a corner that the people outside found the prisoner's armor, and the robes and masks inside were missing, that they deduced the general process of His Highness's escape.

The three of them descended the stairs and came to the dungeon where Gu Chuan had been staying. They walked along the number, and naturally discovered the anomalies of cells 73 and 74.

"Have you ever moved your pink head and thought about it? What are the costumes of the prisoners wearing? Is this really a garment that people can wear? ”

Yucun sneered as he walked.

He was stunned, opened his eyes, and said:

"Indeed."

Not to mention that the outside is tightly sealed, leaving only eye holes, it doesn't look like heavy armor for people to wear at all, and the robes and masks inside almost block breathing. I am afraid that there is not one in ten thousand who can withstand this kind of clothing.

With that, he lowered his head and entered cell 73 from the bent bar, where he saw two corpses.

The chief inspector of the inspection department entered cell 74 and, when he came out, said:

"This should be the place where the bicycle inventor was imprisoned in the filing, and he escaped."

And Yu Cun continued to say to the two:

"The so-called prisoners are not human beings...... You don't need any sympathy, and if you encounter something wrong, you can die on the spot. ”

The dimly lit dungeon leads to the endless depths.

A little rain is leaking out of the crevices in the rock below, pouring on the scarce moss in the ground and flowing down the mud into various places.

Outside, under the living box, which is as splendid as the Forbidden Palace on the ground, the old man who began to tell the secret of the past said the same thing:

"The prisoners you meet out there aren't really normal people."

"Not a normal birth...... What is the meaning? ”

Gu Chuan asked cautiously.

The old man did not linger under the box, and continued to lead two young men and women and a toeless man to the end. The living boxes placed in this long corridor returned to darkness.

"The so-called living box was originally born from a terrible imagination, that is, to fix the strange object in the way of 'blood inheritance', is this more superior than implanting the strange object in the body?"

"This ...... Can it be done? ”

"I don't know if I can do it...... "I only know that His Majesty has tried." And, here's the proof of trying! That's something I learned later...... For a long time, humans have discovered strange and strange things from the bodies of animals. If you've studied the science of strange things, you'll know that nature has actually proven that strange things can exist naturally in animals. For example, the tail is a strange thing that replaces animal bones. Therefore, they cut this strange thing that can grow in the human body into the womb of a pregnant woman, trying to get a natural ...... Beyond people. ”

"Beyond the ...... of people"

His Highness's eyes flickered, and he repeated the word in a whisper.

"Yes, beyond people...... People who are born with the ability to do strange things...... And not people who need curiosities. What is it like? Haha......"

The old man sneered:

"Sheep horses and water asses can be crossed to make mules...... There are also animals in nature that eat strange things by mistake and continue to live and reproduce. So why can't people and things interbreed? People are also things, but they are things that move. I remember the arguments of the miscellaneous scholars in the city at that time, I remember very well...... It's always been clear...... They say that all things are one, and that they are the result of the harmony of water and earth...... The first element is called water, and most of the light things in the world are water. The water will evaporate into gas and become the wind, and the wind will condense into clouds, and the clouds will condense and fall to the ground to become rain, and the rain will become water. The second element is the earth. Metals can grow in the soil, trees can grow, and ceramics can be fired, and different soils have different water contents, and soil and water can give birth to all things. The reason why people want to drink water is because they are made of water. People want to eat the crops that grow in the field because they need to eat the power of the earth to make up for their harmony with the water and soil. ”

"Isn't water and soil mud when they are together? Are all creatures thrown off by a handful of mud? ”

Gu Chuan said with a smile.

"How do you know?"

The old man turned back in surprise and opened his cloudy eyes, scars looming under the dirty hair.

"They say that all living things are mud. The same is true of strange things, people and strange things can be mixed together...... I do not believe, but His Majesty seems to believe, and wants to reconcile man and things...... Make people who are beyond man. They came up with a lot of results. ”

The old man slammed open the door at the end of the living box, revealing a large expanse of things lying side by side on the floor.

"First of all, there are indeed several strange things that will be passed down with the blood of the human body and passed on to future generations."

His Royal Highness raised the lamp, and the toeless man and Gu Chuan opened their eyes together, only to see ...... lying on the ground People with deformed shapes that look different.