Doe

"No fire talisman left?" Baili Jueming asked.

"Maybe." Yu Tingqiu rubbed the wall, his hands covered with black ash, "but it has been peeled off after too long."

More and more hairs seeped in, and some even hooked on Baili Jueming's fingers.Baili Jueming drew out his dagger and cut off his hair, saying, "It doesn't matter, just choose one."

"I see, go to the small hole." Xie Cenguan said suddenly.

"Why?" Yu Tingqiu asked.

As soon as Xie Cenguan finished speaking, Pei Zhen understood the truth and said with a smile: "Because it is a hole made by the ancestors of Baochen Mountain. First, the wide one is paved with bricks, so it must be the Masang Tunnel. Masang people To meet Tianyin, one must bring a pure yin boy with him. When walking this road, there must be a joint that needs to use pure yin blood. In addition, there are many organs on the road, and the road ahead is unpredictable. There is no pure yin boy in Baochen Mountain. They choose to open up their own. A safe road. As long as the direction of the road is consistent with the tunnel next to it, nothing will go wrong."

Xie Cenguan answered: "Secondly, the talismans engraved on the bricks are not easy to wear out, and there are no fire talismans on the floor tiles with wide holes, because the difference between the two is obvious, and there is no need to engrave fire talismans. So hurry up, you, the ghost mother really wants to come in Already!"

When everyone looked back, there was a mass of hair behind Baili Cassia, which opened and closed as if it could breathe.Baili Jueming protected Pei Zhen behind him, and was holding a dagger to confront those hairs.Mu Zhishen extinguished the torch, took out the Ye Mingzhu from his arms, and crawled into the cave.After climbing a short distance, the soil became more and more wet, and the palms and knees were all wet with mud.Baili Jueming was afraid that the ghost mother would catch up, so he kept looking back.The depths of the tunnel were dark, and he hadn't seen anyone for a long time. Guessing that the ghost mother had gone another way, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The tunnel was unimaginably long, and after climbing for half an hour, it still didn't reach the end.Knee forward was too exhausting, they rested four times.Pei Zhen recounted their route on the mud wall. According to their travel distance and direction, they should have reached a very deep place inside the mountain.The record on the map shows that the White Tower came to an abrupt end, and it didn't say how to go next.Along the way, they did not find the fire talisman left by Baili Jueming and Wudu. The deeper they climbed, the more suspicious their route was.

The front of the team stopped suddenly, and Xie Cenguan handed over Mu Zhishen's words: "There are two roads again, which one to take?"

Mu Zhishen had a fork in front of him, and both sides led to the bottomless darkness.Baili Jueming felt strange, "Shouldn't this road be in the same direction as Masang's road? How could there be a fork?"

Pei Zhen's face sank like water, "This shows that our guess was wrong."

Xie Cenguan and Chuyi went out to explore the way separately, and when they came back after half a stick of incense, they both shook their heads.On the first day of junior high school, he said that his road was bottomless, and he dared not go any further.Xie Cenguan said: "The end of this road is still a fork."

Baili Jueming said: "Tell me, is it possible that the road we are taking is the real Masang Tunnel? If it was a hole made by people from Baochen Mountain, there is no need to make a branch. The fork appears in the Masang Tunnel It is reasonable, they say, to let trespassers get lost in the labyrinth of tunnels, and only the Masang deaf know the real way."

His speculation is very reasonable. According to Panjali's memory, Masang people have a strict hierarchy, and their positions are hereditary.The son of a silversmith is a silversmith, and the daughter of a tailor is a tailor.Because of family diseases, the deaf people's children are all deaf, so they are naturally chosen as messengers to meet the voice of heaven.Then the map of West Nanda will be passed on within their family, from father to son, and from son to grandson. Only they know the right way to go.

"According to what you said, is the other road the one you opened up during your lifetime?" Yu Tingqiu asked, "Why is that road wider than Masang's original tunnel, and is it paved with bricks? If your purpose is to meet the sky Yin, why bother to repair the secret path?"

Indeed, West Nanda is full of dangers, and naturally it is best to solve it quickly.It's just digging a secret passage, why do something flashy?

Pei Zhen suddenly asked: "Do you still remember how wide and how high that road is?"

Baili Cassia is roughly compared.

"It seems that it can just accommodate a cart," Pei Zhen said in a deep voice. "That road was not only built to meet Tianyin, he also transported things. The bricks were laid for driving."

Xie Cenguan whistled, and teased, "Unexpectedly, senior Baili, you can steal other people's celestial daughters in the dust mountain, but also steal the treasures of other people's holy places."

"Shut your mouth." Baili Jueming kicked him.

"It doesn't have to be to send things out," Pei Zhen shook his head, "It may also be to send things in."

Send something in?It's even more strange that something so big has to be sent in by a cart.

Baili Jueming interrupted Pei Zhen's thoughts, "Come on, I can give you anything. Now our question is: which way to go?"

No matter what, it must be safer to follow the path opened by Baili Jueming before he was alive, and it doesn't matter if it takes a little more time.The trouble is that the ghost mother is likely to go that way. If they go back, they are likely to meet the ghost mother head-on.After thinking about it, it seems that the ghost mother is more terrifying than the maze. Everyone turned their heads and looked at the forked road again.

"Make a decision as soon as possible," Mu Zhishen reminded in a low voice, "There is a maze here. Once the ghost mother opens the ghost domain, the space will be disordered, and we will not be able to leave."

When he said this, the atmosphere became a little more heavy.

The two roads are almost identical, and there is no trace of Masang's ancestors passing by.The only way now is to experiment one by one and see which is the right path.Every time they pass through a fork, a token is buried in the mud wall.On the one hand, this is to record the route, and on the other hand, it is to prevent the ghost mother from identifying their direction and following them.The golden arrow was buried at the first fork, the luminous pearl was buried at the second fork, and Yu Tingqiu’s hairpin was buried at the third fork... After passing through four forks in a row, they returned to the second fork where the luminous pearl was buried. .

"Go back to the fork in the Golden Arrow and take another road." Pei Zhen said.

"Why?" Baili Jueming asked.

"It's just a gamble, I'm not sure." Pei Zhen restored the tunnel map on the mud wall again, "Senior, do you still remember that the Masang Chronicle we got in Yinmu Village, they named the year after Sanyuan 28, every year 28 years of reincarnation. In the eyes of the Masang people, time is cyclical, with no beginning and no end. This is also the characteristic of Ghost Mother Ghost Domain, where time and space are chaotic, with no head and no tail, and no way forward.”

Pei Zhen connected the second fork with the fourth fork, which is the road they just walked.

"Look," Pei Zhen pointed to the three forks they passed, "here is a 'circle'."

Yu Tingqiu leaned his head over and stared at it for a while, "What do you mean, I don't understand."

Xie Cenguan explained lazily at the side: "A cycle is a circle. There will be no starting point and no end point in the maze. All the roads branching off from the fork will be connected with other roads to form a perfect circle."

Pei Zhen nodded, "So in this maze, there can be no dead end. A dead end is a dead end, an end point, which is not in line with the beliefs of the Masang people. Now we have gone through a circle, the left side of the second, third, and fourth forks The roads together form this circle. Then there are only the right roads of the third and fourth forks, two roads, if one of them leads to Tianyin, then the other will be a dead end. Such a situation is impossible Yes, no matter how many forks are diverged among them, they will all be connected in the end to form a circle."

Baili Jueming suddenly realized, "And the last lonely road is the Masang Tunnel that really leads to Tianyin."

Xie Cenguan shook his head and sighed, "So as long as you choose the right road at the first fork, it's fine. If you take a fork in the road, all the fork roads will be fork in the road, and you won't be able to get away until you die." Huan Ye', also said 'Yuan Ye, Miao Ye'. Some people go the wrong way, can't walk anymore, and return to the original road, naturally they will not believe that the other road has no forks, then he will lose his audience with Tianyin fate."

What fate, isn't this a joke?Baili Cassia couldn't believe it.Go back to the first fork, take another road, and travel for an hour, but there is really no fork in the road.The front was dimly lit, and it was actually the exit.

The air gets more humid as you go forward, and you can faintly hear the sound of rushing water.In front of the exit cave, there are many strands of vines hanging upside down, some of which are still blooming with purple flowers.Baili Jueming was suffocating in the tunnel, and was about to go out when Xie Cenguan rushed over, grabbed his skirt with one hand, and covered his mouth with the other.

Baili Jueming was thrown by him, and his whole face was buried in the mud.Your uncle, Baili Jueming cursed inwardly, what the hell?As soon as he raised his head, he saw a pair of pale bare feet standing in front of his eyes.Pei Zhen stared at those feet, gestured backwards, Mu Zhishen put away the Ye Mingzhu silently, everyone held their breath, and the tunnel fell into deep darkness.

It's the ghost mother.Baili Jueming recognized it immediately, it was the ghost mother's foot.

The soles of the feet were covered with mud, but the ankles were white and shiny.Baili Jueming remembered that day when she was standing on the arrow rest, her ankles were so pretty.

Why doesn't she wear shoes?Suddenly he felt sad.

The ghost mother paused for a long time, so long that Baili Jueming thought she was going to bend down the next moment and show her terrifying face to the entrance of the cave.Just when Baili Jueming was depressed to the extreme, the ghost mother moved, she turned, left, and disappeared into Baili Jueming's narrow field of vision.They waited for a while to confirm that there was no sound outside, and then walked out cautiously one by one.

After exiting the tunnel, it suddenly became clear that this was the bank of an underground river, the river splashed against the mud bank, and many burnt candles and incense sticks were inserted on the stone wall.Pei Zhen looked around and stopped at the place where the ghost mother was standing.What was she looking at just now, after stopping for so long?After thinking for a moment, he pushed aside the dense green vines like a curtain, and saw two crooked Masang feather insect scripts on the stone wall:

fraud.

There is no defect in the strokes, and it is much neater than the blood characters on the burden before.The ghost mother lost her sanity because supporting the huge ghost country consumes spiritual power, and flesh and blood can make up for her deficiency.The boneless man in Mujiabao and the countless ghosts in West Nanda, she kept eating, it seems that she has regained her sanity a lot.Pei Zhen frowned. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. What does she mean by engraving "liar" everywhere?

He looked around and tapped on the stone wall on the other side. The sound was solid and solid, and there should be no secret passages inside.

At this moment, someone gasped.Chu Yidao: "Everyone, please look at the bottom of the river."

Pei Zhen walked over and tried his best to see that there were many black corpses and soaked ashes at the bottom of the river, entangled by aquatic plants and midges, fish and shrimp wagging their tails in the empty eye sockets.

"It seems that this is the place where the Masang people sacrificed the Chunyin boy." Baili Jueming's face was sour, maybe it was because of the Chunyin boy that he thought of Xunwei.A pure yin physique is not good for life anywhere, either they will be caught as a furnace, or they will be taken as a sacrifice.Everyone turned to the stone wall, and the incense sticks obliquely inserted above looked like someone's finger bones, which were scorched black.

Pei Zhen lowered his eyes and sighed, "Burning your fingers for incense and burning your body to make offerings, the ancestors take this as sincerity."

In the past, in order to show piety, people not only burned incense and worshiped fire, but also cut off fingers, arms, and even burned their bodies as offerings.This barbaric and bloody custom is not only in Ma Sang, but also in Taoist sects in the past, and it gradually disappeared later.It turns out that Ma Sang brought the pure Yin boy here not to open the channel for some mechanism secret technique, but for sacrifice.Pure yin blood is pure and beautiful, and it is the best choice for sacrifices. Masang people burn their fingers and bodies to make offerings to show their piety.

There is a deep ditch under the stone wall, and many earthen jars are densely packed.Baili Jueming went down and got it back, they opened it to check, and found that it contained some unformed bones of babies.

Pei Zhen silently covered the bones with a white cloth, and sighed: "Masang sacrifices once a year, and sees Tianyin once a year. There are not enough pure Yin boys in the village for them to sacrifice."

"So?" Baili Jueming frowned.

"So they forcibly dissected sixty unformed fetuses during the cloudy year and the moon and the sun, and made mummified corpses and put them in jars. When they couldn't find the pure Yin boys, they brought these mummified corpses to Xi'an Tuo for offering. offering."

Marsang has been sacrificed for thousands of years, and the ashes and corpses that have been aged for a long time have already rotted into river bed silt.Everyone was shocked when they heard this, and they didn't speak for a long time.This is the sacrifice of the ancestors, even in the Central Plains, it is even worse. Ma Sang only kept a small part of this bloody tradition, and passed it on until they were wiped out.

Seeing the gloomy atmosphere, Xie Cenguan made a joke on purpose, "This is the altar of Xi Nanda, it should not be far from that 'Tianyin', should we burn something to worship? A chicken is good. Compared with us stinky skins, gods must prefer roasted chicken. Senior, where is your chicken?"

Baili Xiaoji poked out a buttery little head from Pei Zhen's skirt, and glanced at him lightly, her small mung bean-sized eyes seemed to have a hint of contempt.

"It's Xunwei's chicken, if you touch a feather of it, I'll make you bald." Baili Jueming threatened him.

After driving all night without sleep, even the ghost's limbs were going to be stiff, so everyone decided to rest here for a while.Everyone lit a bonfire and changed their clothes. Pei Zhenquan sat under the stone wall and closed his eyes to rest.Baili Jueming went to the water to wash his face, rubbed off the mud sticky on his face, and while washing, he suddenly found that something was wrong, his own reflection face in the water was clean, he touched his face, the mud had just been half washed .

He looked at his own reflection, which stared straight at him with an extremely ferocious expression.

"Senior, are you fascinated by your own beauty? It took so long to wash your face." Xie Cenguan came to join in the fun when he saw his reflection in the water.He didn't look at Baili Jueming's drooping face, but only saw the shadow in the water, he thought Baili Jueming was stern against the water, and shouted: "No, no, senior is bewitched."

"I fell under your spell." Baili Jueming said angrily.Reaching into the water, grabbed Reflection by the hair and slid him out.That's not a reflection, but a potential underwater monster.Baili Jueming pressed it on the river bank and said, "This grandson wants to ambush me."

The evil monster couldn't stop struggling, squeaking, and stopped when it saw Pei Zhen, opened its mouth, and said in Baili's voice: "Daughter-in-law, sooner or later I'll take care of you."

Pei Zhen: "..."

Xie Cenguan was startled, "Who does this grandson call his wife?" He was stunned for a moment, then looked at Baili Jueming, "Why does he imitate your appearance and voice and call my son his wife?"

Everyone knows that evil monsters are transformed from Yin Qi, they can spy on other people's thoughts and minds, and they can parrot their tongues.Xie Cenguan turned pale with shock, unable to understand what he saw and heard, he looked at Pei Zhen again, who folded his hands and closed his eyes with a calm expression.

Bailijue understood Xie Cenguan, and slapped the monster with a big mouth, "Rogue, can you call me a daughter-in-law!" He pressed the monster's face, and flames burst out from his palm, and the monster merged into one instantly beach black water.He said: "The underground river is connected to the river above. This grandson probably washed down along the water. On the first day of the new year, go into the water to see if there is another grandson like him."

On the first day of junior high school, he was ordered to go into the water.

Baili Jueming walked in front of Xie Cenguan. Xie Cenguan was much shorter than Baili Jueming in physical form, and Baili Jueming's condescending posture was so arrogant that people bowed their heads for no reason.Baili Jueming said: "Xie Cenguan, your son Pei Zhen will be my man in the future. It's best if you agree, if you don't agree, I will kill you. Also, although my uncle wants to marry Pei Zhen, you still have to control me It’s called Zuzu, we’ll talk about our own generations from now on, you know?”

Xie Cen laughed angrily, "Baili Jueming, do you know who you are marrying?"

Baili Jueming was stunned for a moment, "What do you mean?"