Heaven's Formula

"Hahahaha...look at how bad you are."

"Did you drink too much horse urine yesterday?"

Not only did his fall not arouse the slightest vigilance, but it caused a burst of laughter from his teammates.

"Can this be my fault too?" The other party got up cursing, "It's a fool, why don't you try it?"

"Okay, that's how it is in winter. Frost is nothing, it's troublesome when the snow melts. Let's go, don't stop here and let others see the joke."

With the captain's voice, the laughter gradually subsided.

The team only stayed for a short while, but this time was enough for Xia Fan to climb into the towering courtyard wall and retrieve the hemp rope.

"The main hall of the Ministry of Records is just to the east of the Privy Council Mansion, and the gate is also guarded." Li Hui, who was in charge of the investigation mission, reported, "More than that, the lights in the hall are all on, and it seems that there are still people active."

"Normal, I'm afraid His Royal Highness wants to find something inside." Xia Fan looked towards the top of the hall, "We'd better go from the top of the building. According to Qianyan's memory, the terrace there can go directly to the filing room. Next, we'll look at Fang Yanni's." .”

Facts have shown that the Fang family in Lingzhou does not only produce magic sticks.

Although the eldest disciple lacked confidence in what he said, the actual effect was better than everyone expected - just as everyone walked along the wall to the vicinity of the main hall, they saw the guards above swearing and fleeing from their guard positions, followed by the guards behind him. , a buzzing swarm of bees.

"Well done, that girl." Li praised.

"Compared to the big disciples of the Fang family in its heyday, this level can only be said to be barely qualified." Qian Yan's evaluation was quite strict.

The seven or eight meter height of the Lubu Hall did not pose any difficulties for the four of them. With the help of Fang Yanni's cover, they quickly crossed the roof and entered the hall from a terrace.

It was brightly lit inside.

In Xia Fan's eyes, this place is simply a library. The hall is divided into several floors, and orderly wooden shelves and closely arranged books can be seen everywhere.

Compared with it, Jinxia City's recording department is as simple as a roadside bookstore.

I am afraid that the only thing that can be compared with it is the Book Collection Pavilion of the Luo family.

Luo sniffed lightly, frowning slightly, "It smells like blood."

"Really?" Xia Fan leaned down and looked down through the gap in the stairwell—in the hall on the first floor, there were more than a dozen corpses lying here and there, blood staining the granite floor.Some of those corpses wore the armor of the Custodian Army, while others wore the black robes of the Privy Council.

Chapter 272 The Secret Room

"Is there a fight between the two sides?" Li asked quietly.

"No, it doesn't look like..." Xia Fan's eyes stopped on a corpse that had been cut into several sections. Judging from the armor pattern, it should be an officer. Are not the same.Unless his opponent is a knives lover and can chop seven or eight knives in a second, it is unlikely to cause such an amazing effect in actual combat.

"They should have been killed by the defense agency of the Ministry of Records." Qian Yan said, "This hall has not lifted the restrictions, and they wanted to search in depth, but they turned into pieces of corpses."

The others couldn't help taking a breath.

"What does it mean that the restrictions are not lifted?"

"The custody of the Recording Department is in the hands of the chief. If he does not close the mechanism before he is taken away, the hall will be in a closed state, and anyone who enters will be regarded as a potential threat." Qian Yan said in a low voice, "And the best way to deal with threats The method, of course, is to eliminate them from the source. Did I say it? There are traps everywhere, and now they are in an activated state, whether it is the soldiers of the Imperial Army or us, there is no difference to the traps."

"Then what happened to the people in the Privy Council?" the fox demon asked in confusion.

"Probably...they were tortured to death." Xia Fan had already noticed that the black robes did not have the embroidery and shoulder strips representing alchemists. In other words, they were ordinary people recruited by the Privy Council.The guards that Xin Wu mentioned should refer to these people. "The Imperial Guard's search was hindered, and they didn't dare to wreak havoc, so they pulled these miscellaneous personnel over, and wanted to ask them how to release the agency."

Killing these people will not worsen the relationship between the court and the Privy Council.

Because they are originally non-staff personnel who can be replaced at any time.

And such an attempt is doomed to be pointless.

The Privy Council will never disclose the secrets of the Ministry of Records to those who are not sensitive.

"Let's go down." Qianyan said, "Things of high value should be placed in the underground area."

"Yeah." Luo nodded lightly, "I'll clear the way."

According to the memories of the living dead, the Lubu Hall also has more underground floors than the upper ones, and it’s not like the Luo Family Library, trying to free up as much space as possible within a limited range—its underground part is more like a secret room, There are many corridors and narrow compartments, and this design is obviously more about privacy and safety.

"If we hit a trap..." Li swallowed.

"Then it will become the same as the people below." Xia Fan affirmed.

"Don't worry." Qian Yan stepped forward, "Most of the documents stored in the upper area are local reports and records of evil spirits. I remember that they could even be freely inspected by government officials at that time. Presumably, there will be no place in this kind of place. A life-threatening organ—"

Click.

Before he finished speaking, everyone heard a very slight tremor.

I saw that the stone slab under Qianyan's feet sank an inch.

Almost at the same time, bursts of cold air surged from her feet, and the white air quickly condensed into ice, extending to near her knees.

Then Qianyan walked out from the ice - only half of the crystal ice mold remained on the ground, keeping the stone slab in a sunken state.

"Okay, I was careless...Correction, they have renovated the above facilities."

Xia Fan let out a sigh of relief, "Luo Qingqing, then I'll leave it to you."

The group of people did not go down the stairs, but directly dropped to the edge corner of the first floor with the hemp rope, avoided the guards guarding the hall, and entered the basement without a sound.According to Qianyan, there is more than one road leading to the underground. The recording department in charge of this place can selectively open a certain passage, or seal all the passages. Except for a very small number of people, no one knows the specifics of these passages. Where to go, what institutions will be encountered on the road.

Xia Fan originally thought that this journey would be extremely thrilling, but... the result was quite different from what he expected.

"There is something wrong with the ground in front, it's best to avoid it."

"Then build a bridge, and be careful not to slip. Frost formation!"

"The lamp post on the left has something like evil spirit inside."

"It's probably a combination of the soul-gathering talisman and the magic weapon, Xia Fan, use the shock technique to break it."

Luo Qingqing and Qianyan dismantled these traps in sevens and eighties with each other.The former is responsible for searching and positioning, while the latter proposes countermeasures based on their own knowledge.As long as the two agree, the discovered trap is no longer a threat.

As for Xia Fan and Fox Demon, they became tools to solve problems.

"Okay, that's amazing..." Li couldn't help shaking his tail and said, "Do you two know everything?"

"It's because you think the mechanism is too difficult." Qianyan sighed, "In the end, they are just dead things. They seem ingenious, but their inability to change flexibly has already limited their upper limit. Even if it is a spell The organ and the driving thing are just a few soul-gathering talismans, which can't compare to the magic weapon and the big formation driven by the warrior. No matter how powerful the defense is, once there is no person as the core, it is destined to be easily broken. "

"Back then, when the Fang family and the army fought against the alchemists of Yongguo in Wuya City, the entire city was turned into a magic circle. When a storm blew up in the city, the flying sand and rocks it raised could kill people. And..."

Looking at Qianyan who was talking about the past, Xia Fan suddenly realized that the coldness was only her illusion, or because of her memory problem, she refused to get too close to those living dead, but in fact, she was quite willing to speak.

Think about it too, no matter who has seen so much, they will always want to show off.This has nothing to do with age, but human nature.

"It's no surprise that you can feel the traps of the Soul Gathering Talisman. How did you detect those ordinary traps?" Li curiously asked Luo gently.

"It's very simple. Placing them requires a cavity, and the airflow in these places will be different. Qi can reflect this change, and it's hard for me to describe it in words..." Luo thought for a while, "It's like a gentle water flow There is a fork with a different flow rate in the middle. Theoretically, if the ability to sense Qi is cultivated to the extreme, you can also capture this difference with your senses, but now that you can see it with your eyes, the difficulty will be much reduced."

Her footsteps suddenly stopped, "There is a change ahead."

Sure enough, after turning a corner, a stone door appeared at the end of the passage in front of him.

"Are we... here?" Xia Fan asked.

"Why don't I remember that there was such a door in the passage before?" Qian Yan took two steps, "There seems to be some kind of mark engraved on the door..."

Xia Fan also saw it, "The three-bar runes... are the lines of the gossip."

"Two long and one short, the short is in the middle, the hexagram image is Lihuo."

"You don't need to use fire to open this door." He took two steps forward, tried to push, and the stone door opened in response.

This result made everyone stunned.

At the same time, accompanied by four light bangs, the torches on the wall were lit, and a dark room with a square of a hundred feet appeared in front of everyone.

"No, this is not an underground library." Qian Yan's tone suddenly became serious.

"Then where are we?"

"I don't know... I've never been to this kind of place before." She shook her head slightly and said, "This passage is a dead end. I'm afraid we chose the wrong fork."

Chapter 273 "From Between"

"But there are no other branches along the way." Li puzzled, "Although there are some twists and turns, I'm sure I haven't seen any optional forks."

Xia Fan thought for a moment, "Anyway, the mechanism has been lifted, so let's go back the same way first. By the way, we can check to see if we missed any details."

This proposal was unanimously agreed by all.

However, before taking two steps back, Luo stopped lightly.

This time, a rare surprise appeared on her face.

"What's the matter?" Xia Fan stepped forward to take a look, and then froze in place, only to see that the passage that was there just now no longer exists, replaced by a brown stone wall.

"Fuck..." He couldn't help blurting out.

"It's not an illusion," Li Xin said, "This wall is real."

"It was a bend here before, and we only saw the stone gate after we turned around."

The four of them now realized that the purpose of turning the passage here was to lower the stone wall in an imperceptible situation and cut off the retreat of trespassers.

"Stand back." Luo lightly summoned the dragon scales, and stabbed at the stone wall!

After a burst of sparks, the flying sword sank deeply into the wall, leaving only a small gap.There was no light from the fire, indicating that the thickness of the stone wall was beyond imagination.

This is probably the reason why Luo Qingqing failed to notice something strange here.

It is itself part of the subterranean construction.

It is not difficult to set up a dragon breaking stone alone.

The difficulty lies in how to make it close silently under such a slight movement.Thinking about it now, it should be the muffled sound when the stone door opened, masking the noise from behind.

"From this point of view, we can only move forward," Xia Fan said.

"To that house?"

"Well, I think... the front may not be a dead end. If the design here is just to trap the intruders, there is no need to build a dark room with its own lighting. There is also the fire symbol on the door It's also very strange, it should not have been engraved for no reason."

"There is no better choice anyway." Qian Yan nodded, "Let's go."

Returning to the stone room again, Xia Fan finally had the time to look at its layout carefully—in addition to the four large torches on the wall, there are also four stone barrels below, and the two are facing each other, which seems to mean something.But this is not the most special, beside the wall to the left of the gate, stands a huge statue.

The statue looks like a monster squatting on the ground, with a beast head, long hands and feet, and something like wings behind it.In the dim light of the fire, its mane-covered face unexpectedly looked human, especially its pair of big eyes, which looked like protruding human eyeballs at first glance.

I don't know which sculptor has such a bad taste, and carved a beast head in such a terrifying and weird way.

On the other side, the fox demon has already opened the stone barrel.

"There's something...something wrong with it!"

Luo hurried over gently, frowned and sniffed, "The barrel is filled with kerosene."

Xia Fan's heart sank.

He came to the other side of the wall and opened the stone bucket, which was full of black, thick and smelly liquid, which didn't even have a trace of reflection under the light of the torch.This kind of semi-fluid, which is almost a slurry, as long as it sticks to the body, it will burn almost endlessly.

Xia Fan glanced at the torch above his head, "This room is marked with the meaning of leaving, you don't want to say that it is actually a torture room, and we will all be burned to death when the time is up?"

Even if they were lucky enough not to be burned to death, the hot air and the extremely hypoxic chamber would make life worse than death.

"Just in case, I'll freeze them." Qian Yan said.

"Well, let's do this first. If you can't find an exit here, let Dragon Scale cut a passage directly on the stone wall." Xia Fan turned around, and suddenly a chill rushed from the soles of his feet to his head!

At some point, the statue's eyes changed their orientation, from looking up to looking down.

Delusion...?

No, he had specifically looked at those protruding eyeballs at that time.

The black hole before was clearly not facing everyone.

And now, it seemed to be staring at them.

"Stay away from the statue!" Before he had time to think about it, Xia Fan shouted, "There is something wrong with that thing!"

At this moment, the statue moved.

It leaned forward and grabbed Qianyan who was closest to it—if its huge palm caught a living dead, it felt like it could crush her into a meat paste in the next second.

"Shock technique, Liuguang!"

"Immortal art, dragon scale!"

Xia Fan and Luo reacted gently.

The flickering electric current and the two flying knives shot at the statue at the same time. The former had little effect, not even slowing down its movement a bit. The latter did have an effect, creating a palm-width groove on each of the statue's shoulders. .This precise strike also involved its forward posture, and its outstretched claws brushed past Qianyan.

Qian Yan snorted coldly, raised her fist and swung it towards the opposite door—hard ice gathered in her palm, and it became a huge "ice hammer" in the blink of an eye.

Hearing a bang, the statue was knocked back and fell to the ground.