Paintings of Terror

The closer to death, the faster time seems to pass, as if only a blink of an eye passed, and the sky darkened again.

Everyone is fully armed in the tent, ready to fight.

The sound of the wind gradually rose, blowing more and more fiercely, whistling, spinning, from small to large, from the ground to the sky, like a wind column erected to lift up the sky, rolling sand, gravel and dry grass to rotate crazily along with it churn.

There was no snow tonight, but the force of the storm was still majestic. It rushed all the way from the distant Kunlun Mountains, covering the entire canyon in flying sand and rocks.

Fortunately, everyone used huge stones to reinforce the tents in advance. Even so, several tents were still almost deformed by the wind. Even if everyone hid in the tents, they had to wear windproof glasses and masks. The temperature seemed to drop by more than ten degrees in an instant, making people feel a chill from the heart to the skin.

Ke Xun squatted at the opening of the tent, poking open a gap with his fingers to look out. However, the visibility was only one or two meters due to the sand and grass flying all over the sky. Two meters away, there was chaos, and it was impossible to see anything clearly.

Ke Xun turned to discuss with Mu Yiran: "I want to go out and have a look."

Mu Yiran raised her eyebrows and looked at him, waiting for him to explain.

"I want to take a look at the location of the rock platform and see how it appeared out of thin air." Ke Xun said, "Maybe I can get a glimpse of the mechanism behind the scenes from this process."

"It's too dangerous," Hua Jiqiu said after a day's rest, and now his mental and physical condition has improved a lot, and he adjusted the goggles on the outside of his glasses seriously, "The wind is too strong, and the power of a tornado is especially strong. It's scary, and stronger winds may even throw you into the sky. Xiao Ke, I know that although everyone is here with the mentality of going to death, as long as there is a glimmer of hope for survival, we should not take risks lightly."

Ke Xun looked at the elder who was supposed to enjoy the rest of his peaceful life, and suddenly thought of his father who had no chance to enjoy himself.

Taking off his mask, Ke Xun grinned at Hua Jiqiu: "Listen to you, Father Hua."

Hua Jiqiu was startled.

It's a strange feeling to be called daddy at the age of [-].

Maybe I'm too serious... Father Hua reflected on himself, this young man was obviously just discussing with his good friend just now.

Ke Xun's good friend Mu Yiran looked back at Ke Xun, pursed his lips, and swallowed back the words "I'll go with you" that he was going to say.

I don’t know how long this violent tornado, which was about to destroy the world, raged until it passed the peak like last night, then slowly fell back and dissipated. After the wind and sand calmed down, the rocky platform appeared in everyone’s sight And what appeared next was the scene of wild corpses lying all over the place.

Everyone got out of the tent and came to the rock cautiously.

Everyone had inspected this high rock platform last night, but at that time no one thought that it might be something from another world, so even the inspection was superficial.

Wei Dong looked around, rubbed his arms and said in a trembling voice, "So...we are already in another world?"

Luo Yan jumped up a bit: "So, so, everything we see now is a scene from another world?"

The dead night sky, the silent mountains, the desolate land, the deep cold, the dead creatures, and a ghostly and haunted rocky platform.

"Don't worry about that," Ke Xun stopped Wei Dongluo from looking around in fear, "Check the rock first. Brother Qin, Xiao Chun, Fang Fei, Luo Luo, you four, grab your guns and stand on the rock Four directions, pay attention to the movement in the distance, and the rest of the people check the rocks, don't miss an inch."

Hearing the words, everyone quickly calmed down, and immediately dispersed, each found one side of the rock, and inspected it carefully from top to bottom.

Ke Xun took off his gloves, touched the cold rock wall with his hands and rubbed gently, and said to himself, "What kind of rock is this?"

"It should be granite." Yue Cen, who was not far from him, answered his words.

"Granite?" Ke Xun wondered, "I remember that granite is a very hard stone, right? Why does this rock feel so brittle."

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and broke off a slightly protruding part of the rock wall.

"It's probably because of the age, so it's weathered." Yue Cen broke out in a rare sweat. Even though the rock was weathered and became brittle, Ke Xun's hands were a little stronger.

"Sister Cen, tell me, if I break and break like this, will I tear down this rock platform alive?" Ke Xun said while continuing to peel and peel the crisp skin of the rock wall.

"..." Yue Cen couldn't help sweating again, "Your idea is also very creative, maybe you can really try it."

Ke Xun put on his mountaineering gloves again, and began to scrape rocks boldly.

"Ke Er, what are you doing?" Wei Dong noticed that Ke Xun was tossing around like sand and stones, and hurried over to have a look, "Fuck you, you are trying to tear down rocks with your bare hands?!"

"If the answer is in the rock, that's the only way," Ke Xun said, "Come and help."

"I have an engineer shovel in my car." Mu Yiran said beside him.

"I'll get it!" Wei Dong hurried over and came back with several shovels in his arms, "Boss, you are too thoughtful, you really have everything in the trunk."

Everyone took the shovels and started to scrape the rock wall together.

Pawing and pawing, Ke Xun suddenly heard "Hey": "There seems to be scratch marks on this rock wall!"

Mu Yiran came over and pointed the flashlight at the place Ke Xun pointed out to him, and he saw a few scratches that didn't seem to be formed naturally.

"Everyone, be careful when you shovel, don't damage the notches below." Mu Yiran reminded everyone.

One after another, everyone found nicks in different places on the rock wall, and as the area of ​​peeling became larger, more nicks were exposed, and it became more and more certain that these traces hidden under the rock surface were all Man-made.

With this discovery, everyone moved more cautiously and quickly. It took more than two hours to clean up all the rock skins within reach.

Under the light of the flashlight, the ancient and simple patterns revealed their mysterious features.

The lines of these patterns are simple and neat, the composition is strange, like words and paintings, and the most frightening thing is that each symbol is like a living creature, but every living creature seems to be a dead creature.

The icons on the rock wall seem to be showing the behavior of a group of living corpses.

They are doing incomprehensible movements, and they are in unimaginable scenes. Every movement is so twisted and weird that it doesn't look like normal human beings can make postures, and every movement is lifeless.

Everyone watched with a chill from the bottom of their hearts.

Hua Jiqiu worked hard to overcome the strong psychological discomfort caused by the picture, and while holding his glasses, he took a closer look and said: "The style of these rock carvings is the same as what I saw when I was invited to work with my unit. There are some similarities in the style of rock carvings in Damaidi."

"Barley field?" Ke Xun asked.

"It's a petroglyph belt," Hua Jiqiu said. "There are more than 1 prehistoric petroglyphs, and those paintings are probably about 3000 to 4000 years ago. picture……"

As he said that, he took out his mobile phone, rummaged through the photo album of the mobile phone for a while, and then handed it to everyone around him: "Here, I took some pictures on the promotional coloring page, look, the rock painting on this photo It is presumed to be a rock painting from the Xia Dynasty, and there are some icons on it that are similar to the style of the icons in front of us, aren’t they?”

"Indeed." Shao Ling nodded first, and then looked at Mu Yiran.

Although Mu Yiran is not a painter, he is an art dealer and an excellent appraiser.

"That's right," Mu Yiran's answer confirmed the judgment of Hua Jiqiu and Shao Ling, "It is indeed the same style, and it is very likely that it came from the same era."

"These icons seem to describe a scene of prayer-weariness." Hua Jiqiu put away his phone, and with a flashlight on, he moved his face closer to the engravings on the rock wall for a closer look.

"What is prayer-weariness?" Ke Xun asked.

"It means praying to ghosts and gods with witchcraft." Hua Jiqiu stretched out his hand and gently stroked the scratches, wiped off the dust on them, and continued to examine carefully, "Look, some of these symbols are like people, and some are like beasts. , Some are like plants, some are like characters, and among them, these human-like icons move very strangely, and the twisted angles of their limbs cannot be made by living people at all."

"So... so what does this mean?" Li Xiaochun who didn't know when surrounded him trembled and asked.

Hua Jiqiu turned his face, retracted his chin, lowered his head, and looked over the glasses: "It means that these 'people' were forced to break their necks, limbs, and even their torsos, and put them in such a posture. "

Luo Kuo sat down on the ground with a "plop" and his legs were limp, his voice trembling like dry grass in the wind: "They...why did they do this?"

Hua Jiqiu shook his head: "After all, my research direction is only the customs of the year, and I only know some superficial aspects of other historical aspects when I go out with the unit occasionally, so that's all I know. As for why I do this, I dare not lie."

"Dancing is the oldest form of witchcraft. The original meaning of the word 'witch' is people dancing." Shao Ling continued, "There are countless schools of witchcraft. I think, maybe in a certain In a certain type of 'culture', the dance danced by living witches is used to communicate with the heavens and gods, while...the dance danced by "dead witches" may be used to communicate with the earth and ghosts."

"Xiao Shao's words are justified." Hua Jiqiu nodded.

"Then... what is depicted on this rock wall is a scene of witches praying through ghosts?" Wei Dong couldn't help but licked his dry lips, and took two steps to the side.

It was obviously just a cold moment, but it made people feel chilled to the bone.

"Why are these pictures engraved here?" Zhu Haowen raised a key question, "And, after the rock wall is weathered, why haven't these engravings been weathered away?"

"Usually such things are carved on caves or mountain walls for the purpose of recording or passing on," Shao Ling said, "In addition, they are also carved on sacrificial vessels, which may play a role of blessing. As for why these nicks have not been weathered away, I guess it may be because some kind of force has set up a protective layer outside the nicks in a certain way."

"If that's the case, then is this rock platform just an ordinary rock, or... a vessel for sacrifice?" Ke Xun looked up at the top of the rock platform, and then at everyone, "Could this rock be—Jiuding?"

This guess made everyone's eyes startled, "Maybe we should try to climb to the top of the rock platform to have a look," Shao Ling said, turning to look at the car, "Unfortunately, although the car body is already very high, it is far away from the rock. The top of the stage is still far away.”

"I brought climbing equipment." Mu Yiran said suddenly.

"But who can climb rocks?" Shao Ling asked.

"Me." Mu Yiran said.

Shao Ling opened his mouth, but didn't say a word for a moment, he just stretched out his hand to show his thumbs.

Mu Yiran was going to pick up tools from the car, but was stopped by Ke Xun: "I'm afraid it's too late tonight, and it won't be long before dawn, and we're not sure when this rock platform will suddenly disappear. What if it suddenly disappeared while you were still on the top, wouldn’t you just fall off? Climb tomorrow night, and you’ll have one night to spare.”

Mu Yiran looked at the worry in his eyes, and smiled: "Okay, tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, I will climb up with you. I don't trust you to do it alone. If this rock platform is a sacrificial vessel, it may be very dangerous to go up." Ke Xun said again.

Mu Yiran smiled again: "Okay, let's go together."

Ke Xun looked at him a little strangely, feeling that since coming here, his boyfriend has been obedient, doting and gentle to him.

"Then what else can we do now?" Wu You asked.

"Take these pictures," Ke Xun said, "We can study them carefully tomorrow during the day, and maybe we can find some clues from them."

Fortunately, the camera function of everyone's mobile phone can still be used, so all the icons on the four walls of the rock were carefully and clearly photographed one by one.

Not long after the filming was finished, thick fog suddenly appeared in the canyon. Everyone worried that it would be dangerous to get too close to the rock platform, so they returned to the tent and looked out.

In the dense fog with visibility of only half a meter to one meter, the shadow of the rocky platform gradually became invisible. When the sky dawned, the rocky platform disappeared silently with the thick fog.

The author has something to say:

Father Hua: Xiao Ke, Xiao Mu, you two are really close friends.

Ke Xun: ...Yeah, our relationship has already become a negative distance, about minus... 15 centimeters.

Big brother: 15.2cm.

Ke Xun: ...

Father Hua: It's really rare. I envy your friendship.

Weidong: ...Everyone, come and see, there is an honest man here!

Luo Wei: Uncle Hua may not even know that my husband and I have completed an invisible car in front of his eyes.

Shao Ling: ...I'm a bit envious of the length...

Wu You: Hey, Mr. Shao, you changed into a pair of elephant-nosed underwear with a longer nose?

Shao Ling: ...shut up!Do something to open your eyes!