With a click, it still felt like it had hit the watermelon skin, but because of the force, I slashed directly into the vajra that was inserted into its eyes. This slash, Xiao's roar stopped abruptly, the sound echoed in the mountains and forests, gradually from strong to weak, and after it was hit by my knife, it seemed to be fatal, gradually lowered its hands, and then fell to the ground.

I didn't let it go, and even though it fell to the ground motionless, I slashed at its head like crazy, slashing at it with a loud roar, as if this mad cry could give me plenty of strength. After a few dozen slashes, the black smoke on Xiao's body had begun to fade away, and then dissipated, leaving only a puddle of black powdery marks on the ground, and Songzi also came over at this time, comforted me softly, and then slowly took my hand and told me not to cut anymore, it was all over.

Only then did I settle down, and found that the scimitar in my hand had been cut out of several gaps in the blade, and I had cut almost every blow on the vajra just now, and I found out at this time that the vajra had been cut out of many thin grooves because of the scimitar's slashing, and it was shining and reflecting. And the vajra pierced an oval wooden plank, which looked very similar in texture to gloomy wood, and when you picked it up, it was the face of "Xiao" that I had seen earlier, but now there were no eyeballs, but only a mask made of a wooden board.

Because of the many slashes just now, the mask has already been cut to the ground by me. There were sawdust all over the ground, so I thought that the real control of "Xiao" should be this wooden mask, and this mask should be the stuff of the witch king back then, if it was as expected, because judging from the appearance and the weird pattern, it was indeed something used by ethnic minorities.

I calmed down, and my hand was so the scimitar that I had the feeling of excessive tightness when I loosened the knuckles of my fingers. I pulled the vajra from the eye socket of the mask, then stood up and kicked it hard, stomping the mask to pieces. And after this kick, I realized that my body was sore, unstable, and I fell to the ground. When I looked up, I saw that Songzi was pulling me up, and not far from Ganmu's corpse, Qin Bukong was sitting cross-legged on the ground, his eyes were full of sadness, and he looked at Ganmu's corpse in a daze.

I held back, struggled towards Qin Bukong, and then kicked him on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Then I jumped up and grabbed him by his clothes, shaking it so hard that I cried out you old brute! What did you just do? Do you know that Ganmu died because he saved you? You're good! What are you doing under that tree!

The more I talked, the more angry I became, grabbed Qin Bukong's clothes and threw him to the ground, and when I was about to punch him, I suddenly saw tears in his eyes with sadness.

At that moment, I really softened, Gan Mu and Qin Bukong have been together for so many years, and when it comes to feelings, they are naturally deep I don't know how many times, and Qin Bukong has been alone for many years, and the only one who does not leave him is this big snake that can't speak, but is extremely humane. So all this is not the result that Qin Bukong wants, Ganmu's death, the most angry person may be me, but the saddest person is none other than Qin Bukong.

Qin Bukong looked up at me, I stopped the fist that had been raised, his eyes were full of sorrow, it was difficult to detect these subtle emotions on his face that was old and covered by a beard, but at that time, Qin Bukong's eyes seemed to tell me that he couldn't forgive himself, and even he hoped that my punch could be beaten hard.

In an instant, sadness welled up and my eyes blurred again. I put down the hand that raised my fist, and also let go of the hand that grabbed Qin Bukong's clothes, and sat on the ground with a dejected ass, hugging and crying with Qin Bukong.

I don't remember how long I cried, I just remember that it was already dark when we calmed down and tried to bury Ganmu's body. Snakes are animals of nature, and unlike humans, some of us also know how to find a blessed land for ourselves before we die, so that we can use it after death. However, snakes in nature usually decay and degrade somewhere they die somewhere. Perhaps this was the fate of the man, and when Ganmu died under such circumstances, we chose to dig a shallow long pit on the spot and bury Ganmu's body in it. Each of us silently held a mound of earth in our hands, and sealed the grave. There is no tombstone, and I don't plan to worship again in the future, but after sealing the soil, Qin Bukong picked a long wooden stick from the mask of the witch king that I stepped on, inserted it into the tomb, and then hung a Gu bell on the wooden stick.

It was getting late, and I was sad in my heart, not to mention that I was not lightly injured, so we had no extra experience to dig up the stone box, so Songzi proposed that we take turns to rest for the night at the pavilion stele in Boyatai tonight, and wait until tomorrow morning to dig again. Finding a way out of the forest at night seemed to me to be a difficult task, but strange to say, since we eliminated the "Xiao", the forest in front of me felt that it was not so difficult to distinguish the direction, and the pine nuts have been supporting me, and at the same time leading the way, leading us out of the woods.

That night we were on the small pavilion in Boyatai, looking at the river on the left and the lake on the right. Thinking about it, it turned out to be all water, but the moon was reflected in the lake, but not in the heart of the river. And this Boyatai was originally a freehand to a pair of soulmates who are friends with each other, but now Ganmu is dead, maybe Qin Bukong and I just found out that this beast who has been with us all the time and can't speak silently is also our bosom friend at this moment, but we can't find it anymore?

It was said that we took turns to rest, but that night, none of us slept.

The next morning, everyone still couldn't get out of the gloomy mood, maybe the most self-blaming among them was Qin Bukong himself, this time he brought Ganmu out, it was originally his idea, Ganmu's death was also the most direct relationship with Qin Bukong. But I never asked Qin Bukong what he experienced at that moment when we found him, his dazed and enjoying appearance. In fact, if he didn't say it, I could roughly guess that it must have been when the beehive fell down at that time, that is, Xiao deliberately used this trick to make the three of us scatter, and Qin Bukong may have met me or Songzi pretended to be "Xiao" after escaping the pursuit of the wild bees, and he didn't distinguish it for a while, so he fell into the other party's way, so that he went farther and farther, and in the end, he directly entered another world where he was in a trance and couldn't distinguish between truth and falsehood, and he couldn't hear our shouts at all.

And Songzi and I are lucky, we just noticed it earlier than Qin Bukong, otherwise, we might be in the same situation, and this team will be self-defeating. When I think of this, I don't think I can blame Qin Bukong too much, after all, the result of all this is also what he is unwilling. And since Gan Mu died, Qin Bukong's mood has been very low, he has never said a word, and he has not even drunk a sip of water.

So when digging the box, Songzi and I took turns digging and let Qin Bukong stay on the side to rest. Qin Bukong didn't take a look at the place we dug from beginning to end, but kept leaning against the tree, looking at the little river surface that could be seen through some gaps in the distance, maybe the rapid flow of the river was making him think about something, and I didn't bother to ask, for a person who has suffered a heavy blow in his heart, the best way to heal is to be quiet.

After a busy morning's work, we finally dug up the stone box from the ground of the circular clearing, and the shape of the box was the same as the one we had found before, except that this one seemed to have a drier skin, and did not want to be something that had been buried in the ground for thousands of years. After opening the box, we took out the wax beads as usual, and the buzzing feeling seemed to announce our victory, but what was the meaning of such a victory after losing a comrade-in-arms? At the bottom of the box, there is a carved wooden ring, the texture of which still seems to be the same gloomy wood that has not rotted for thousands of years, and the ring is like a key chain, one of which is carved out of the groove of the finger held in the hand, and on the other side is worn eight long, curved things that look like the nails of some large animal.

Matsuko said, if you guessed correctly, this should be the fingernails of the big crocodile, unlike other animals, this kind of nail is not a thin layer, but a conical solid, presumably the crocodile's claws are also an important weapon for its attack. I took the ring in my hand and shook it, and found that it didn't shake because of my shaking, but more like using some kind of carpentry technique, welding my nails to the wooden ring, grasping the side with finger marks, and even feeling that it was a rather strange weapon.

On the inside of the wooden ring, there are carved symbols that look like characters, like Chinese characters, one after another, and there are eight of them in total, but I don't know them at all. Crooked, some resembling earthworms and others resembling small snakes, it is possible that it is a kind of hieroglyph similar to ancient China.

Since I can't understand it, I haven't studied it deeply for the time being, and I plan to take it back and study it again. After checking the box and finding that nothing was missing, Songzi and I reburied the stone box, and then called Qin Bukong, who was in a trance, and prepared to go home.