Human bone cart

Zhai Ting had just fallen down and didn't know where she hit her body. Although she didn't look any pain, she was limping when she walked.

At this moment, he was walking slowly forward, with no intention of looking at the burial objects on both sides.

Some of the wooden boxes were open, covered with a thick layer of spider webs, and some bead chains hung from the edges, so casually that they seemed to have no value at all.

"Where is she going?" Gao Wenwen looked at her back and saw that there was no obvious exit, so he stopped and watched what she was going to do.

Ding Can looked up at the palace in front of him. Logically speaking, there were no hills on the ground. Although they went underground through the air-raid shelter, they actually did not descend too much.

But the underground palace in front of him had a very high ceiling, more than ten meters high and extremely empty, making humans standing in it look very small.

If it is really a tomb, we can definitely go further inside. At least we haven't seen any coffins or other items yet.

There are stairs leading upwards in front of the underground palace. The most obvious decoration is a chair made of gold placed on the top of the stairs, which is magnificent.

There are blurry murals on the side walls of the underground palace. It is strange that other objects are well preserved, but the murals seem to have suffered severe corrosion. The surface is covered with a layer of dark dust, and the content on them is almost indistinguishable.

Yang Qi found a cleaning tool nearby and after sweeping it a few times, a green color was revealed. The underground palace was not completely sealed. It was probably the oxidation of the pigment on the surface that created the current appearance.

After everything was cleaned up, the contents on the murals could be used to piece together the origins of the gradual rise of Nanhu Kingdom's national strength.

The first painting on the far right is mostly filled with a bustling crowd. If you look closely, you can see that everyone is wearing shackles on their hands and feet, and the other end of the chains are connected to the hooded person in the lead.

Those people wore swords on their waists, but there were no sheaths covering them. Under the illumination of the eternal lamp, they seemed to show a layer of lustrous luster.

They should be the enemy prisoners of war captured that year, and these people must be the Nanhu soldiers who were responsible for escorting them.

In the next picture, the prisoners of war and slaves were brought to an open space stained with blood. They changed from standing to lying on the ground, their bodies covered in blood, having been beheaded and lost their lives.

As for the people standing next to him, who were wearing scimitars and whom Ding Can had just thought were soldiers, Ding Can now realized that their identities were not those who killed enemies on the battlefield, but butchers with superb anatomical skills.

With the curved dagger in his hand, he cut the human body into several pieces with a flick of the knife. The broken body of the prisoner was placed at each person's feet.

Like a butcher cutting up an ox, the meat on the legs was removed cleanly, leaving a clear pair of leg bones to be collected.

The human body parts except the leg bones were hastily thrown into another deep pit that had been dug, and this place directly became a huge mass grave.

After simple processing, these bones were integrated together and sent to the wizard for selection. Ding Can took two steps forward and read the contents of the next mural in full.

A huge tripod with four legs is placed on the circular altar, and a three-story pavilion is carved on the top.

On the bottom layer, there are humans leaning on the railing and gazing into the distance. They have obvious hair crowns on their heads. If you look closely, you can see that they are holding candlesticks in the shape of ghost hands in their hands.

On the second floor, there were clusters of strange beasts climbing up. Some of them had their front paws already on the edge of the top floor, and their faces looked a bit ferocious.

But there is nothing at the top, and no one knows whether the person standing on the top is a god or some other identity. The Nanhu Kingdom respects witches, so perhaps it is some kind of existence that wizards believe in.

At each of the four legs of the giant tripod stood a great wizard, with some colorful bird feathers on his head. He held an instrument in his hand, raising it high above his head with both hands, his lips slightly open, chanting a spell.

In front of them, the human leg bones contained in the huge cauldron were almost overflowing. It was unknown how many people had died as a result.

There was a fire burning underneath, with leg bones being steamed inside and white smoke rising into the air. This was the exorcism ritual mentioned by the village chief, which was performed before making the bone cart.

It is not only to avoid ghosts from causing trouble, but also to pray for the next battle.

After the mysterious wizard ceremony, the craftsmen embedded the leg bones into the wheels, and finally made it into the shape of the human bone car seen before.

The human bone chariot shown in the mural has been beautified. The main body is not just made of wood, but is also inlaid with various gems on the sides.

In the war scene, the soldiers riding on the human bone carts waved their swords and moved forward, and they were invincible against the enemy. It was as if they were assisted by God and easily won the battle.

During the final celebration ceremony, the king stood in the center. The officials in front of him were much smaller, but the wizards standing on both sides were almost the same size, which shows the status of wizards in that dynasty.

However, on the surface of the mural, the wizard part seems to be more blurred, as if it has undergone more severe wear and tear.

Seeing this, Yang Qi speculated, "The tomb was designed because chariots played a crucial role in national wars, so they were considered for burial. However, the wheels were composed of human bones, so they were not included in the burial objects."

The Nanhu Kingdom was officially destroyed in a major earthquake later. It is not difficult to infer that this tomb was built and completed earlier.

With such a large scale, the owner of the tomb might be an emperor of one of the previous dynasties.

"What do you think possessed Zhai Ting that forced her to come here?"

Gao Wenwen asked himself the question, then snapped his fingers and suddenly thought of something: "Could it be related to the human bone cart in the village? Maybe they've been out for a long time and wanted to find their own kind, so they were drawn to this place."

But if there was anything wrong with the old chariot, it could only be the leg bones on the wheels, which seemed inconsistent with the current situation.

On the other side, Zhai Ting had already climbed the stairs and walked to the golden chair, but did not sit down. She just rubbed the back of the chair in circles.

Several people stood in the center of the underground palace. They didn't know what she wanted to do. They were a little wary and didn't approach her casually. They just watched quietly.

It wasn't until Ding Can narrowed his eyes and noticed that her fingertips stopped at the handle of the chair that he realized something was wrong: "Be careful!"

Zhai Ting pressed one of the gems on the handle of the golden chair to activate the mechanism. A vibration was heard under her feet, and a stone slab opened to both sides.

After receiving her reminder, the others anticipated it and did not fall. Just when they were feeling lucky that they did not get into trouble, they saw Zhai Ting walking forward with unfocused eyes and walked into the open cave.

A downward staircase was revealed. It turned out that Zhai Ting had no intention of launching a sneak attack. She just wanted to get over there by herself and did not take them seriously at all.

The underground palace was quite bright, and it was almost impossible to see the whole picture below from above. There were only very vague outlines. After observing for a while and finding nothing wrong, the few of them slowly followed.

The inner room below was much smaller, and Zhai Ting looked like she was looking for something inside.

The most obvious thing was a light that was flickering regularly. Ding Can was wondering about it. At first he thought it was an insect with the habit of luminescence. When he got closer, he found that what was lying on the ground was actually a mobile phone.

As for the flash, it was a signal for a message. Since they came in, there was no sign of anyone else entering here except them, but the cell phone did exist. Could it be that someone really arrived here earlier than them?

Ding Can took the mobile phone in his hand. It was the old-style slider phone that was popular more than ten years ago. After sliding it, you could directly enter the main interface without a password to unlock it.

There are still raised nine-square buttons on it, but fortunately it still has basic Internet functions.

The new message was from a commonly used chat software. She hadn't even opened the chat content of a single contact, but she asked the question just by looking at the online name note above.

“This, this isn’t…”

"What is it?" Gao Wenwen couldn't wait any longer and walked over. On the small screen, he saw the names of people from several teams.

Although I was unable to remember all the names in just over a day, it was enough to prove something.

Moreover, the last reply time for the chat messages at the top of the software is basically before yesterday.

Ding Can swiped down, found the chat interface with Mu Mu, clicked on it, and flipped through the chat content. It was almost the same as what Mu Mu had described before.

Gao Wenwen's eyes widened: "Is this Wang Zhi's phone?"

The village chief's nephew passed the exam to leave Nanhu Village a long time ago and went to work in a big city outside. Although he has not returned home for many years, he has always made his own contributions to the construction of the village.

It is undeniable that the influx of visiting tourists has indeed brought a lot of income to Nanhu Village.

I had only heard from Mu Mu before that Wang Zhi was a very difficult person to contact, because he was said to be too busy with work.

Then according to common sense, he should be working in a company now, so how come his cell phone appears here?

Especially the models of mobile phones are the most incomprehensible. After all, people who work normally in modern society can hardly get anywhere at work without smartphones.

Could it be that there are two mobile phones, and this one is specially used for foreign tourists visiting Nanhu Village.

The information inside is very easy to find, but there is a lot of registration information in the mailbox.

Although Nanhu Village is not well-known on the Internet, there are a large number of people who use the Internet. No matter how niche it is, the number of people who know about it is still considerable.

The number of visitors each year is just a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of registration emails, which shows that there is still some kind of screening mechanism involved.

But what exactly the similar characteristics are, based only on the information in the registration form, it is impossible to tell. Gender, region and background, there is basically no similarity.

Even the purpose is still unknown. If it is to take life, homicides have been very rare in recent years, otherwise it would have attracted the attention and concern of the relevant departments long ago.

Ding Can shifted his gaze from the electronic screen to look at Zhai Ting who was a few steps away. Perhaps the next clue would appear on her.