Chapter 39 Gu Sheng ignored the gasps of surprise below…

Ignoring the gasps below, Gu Sheng gently laid the unconscious Ming Qingyuan down, then stood on the platform, looking down over the entire courtyard. Based on his previous assumptions, he had already pieced together everything.

Ming Qingyuan's desire to go to heaven was not just talk; he even occupied the Obelisk Courtyard, which shows he was serious.

Although Ming Qingyuan gives the impression of being crazy, and he is indeed somewhat insane, being crazy does not mean being stupid.

Ming Qingyuan is not stupid at all; on the contrary, he is quite intelligent, so he would not do these things recklessly.

The obelisk courtyard, the patriarch's funeral procession, and heaven—and according to Ming Qingyuan, he didn't know if he would go or come back. In the instant these pieces of information came together, a name appeared in Ming Qingyuan's mind: He Tianyou, the first patriarch.

Legend has it that after his death he was summoned by the gods to heaven, and then returned from heaven on the third day after being buried in his grave, and was resurrected.

After his resurrection, He Tianyou told believers about his experiences in heaven and conveyed God's will. He then returned to heaven and became God's attendant.

Ming Qingyuan definitely wanted to replicate this miracle.

However, the rituals of the ancient religion were completely different from those of today. Ancient rituals were generally filled with bloodshed and cruelty.

In ancient times, each ceremony had a dedicated priest, and only the priest knew the entire process of the ceremony.

There was a period in history when believers rebelled against the higher-ups of the religion. During that time, many priests died, and many rituals were lost. The remaining ones were modified and simplified.

The lost rituals included funeral rites.

Speaking of lost rituals, we must mention another legend: He Tianyou's secret chamber. There is much debate about whether the secret chamber exists, and even more debate about its purpose.

Some people believe that those secret rooms were actually ancient libraries, because in ancient times, knowledge was a luxury, so He Tianyou built those secret rooms to store books, and those books contained all the ritual procedures.

Few people support this conjecture, after all, a library doesn't sound as appealing as a door to heaven.

However, most experts and scholars who believe in the existence of the secret room basically agree with this conjecture.

Now, Gu Sheng felt that this guess was probably correct, and that the secret room should also exist, which would explain what Ming Qingyuan had done.

However, all of this is still just speculation at the moment, and he needs to prove it.

The old town of P City is both a cultural relic protection unit and a religious holy site. Every item here is a sacred object, so nothing here is allowed to be touched or moved at will.

Therefore, although legends about the secret chamber are rampant, no one actually dares to conduct any exploration work here. If anything is damaged, even if the cultural relics protection unit doesn't come after you, the believers will hold you accountable.

Therefore, the items here have basically remained as they were hundreds of years ago.

Based on the three sculptures that had already been moved, Gu Sheng deduced that there should be two more sculptures that needed to be moved, making a total of five sculptures, corresponding to the pentagram.

Based on the subtle differences between the sculptures in the square and the sculptures in the courtyard, Gu Sheng discovered the pattern.

Amidst the astonished gazes of the people below, Gu Sheng leaped from the platform onto the obelisk, and then from the obelisk onto one of the statues. He gently turned the statue's finger, and as he suspected, a mechanism was hidden within the finger. With a click, the finger shifted.

Then Gu Sheng jumped onto another statue, moved the statue's fingers in the same way, and after another click, the entire courtyard shook.

The crowd below, which had been shouting that Gu was being disrespectful, fell silent instantly.

Gu Sheng jumped down from the statue and walked to the front of the crowd. With a series of clicking sounds, the obelisk in front of him cracked open.

A door appeared before them.

Teacher Ye walked up to the door and touched it in surprise, as if it had suddenly appeared.

Standing behind Teacher Ye, Zhou Mingxin murmured, "What is this?" He had been to this courtyard countless times, but he never imagined that this obelisk could be opened.

Gu Sheng didn't have so many reservations, and he pushed the door open directly.

The scene inside was already astonishing, because there was nothing inside the door except for black walls and black dust all over the floor.

The walls looked as if they had been burned black.

Someone asked, "What exactly is this?"

Gu Sheng walked in, looked up at the small round hole cracked on top of the obelisk, and silently answered in his heart: This must be the legendary Gate of Heaven.

The patriarchs of the past were supposed to be burned here after their deaths.

The construction of this small room should be similar to that of an incinerator, but its specific usage is probably not that simple. However, this is not a problem that Gu Sheng needs to consider.

The religion believes that the soul is like smoke, so the black smoke that comes out after burning and floats out of the small hole on top is seen by them as the soul going to heaven.

But none of that matters now.

Gu Sheng came out and said to Zhou Mingxin, "Stop looking around, evacuate the crowd first, there's still a bomb here."

Zhou Mingxin realized what was happening and immediately began making arrangements, but many people were unwilling; if the place were bombed, they were willing to die with it.

Gu Sheng was speechless, but he didn't have time to deal with them.

Zhou Mingxin told those who wanted to leave to go and call for help, and he contacted the guard team to explain the situation.

Gu Sheng added from behind, "Let's go check the monitoring room first. There's definitely something wrong there. There aren't just one sniper up there, there are three, but there's no immediate danger."

After speaking with the guards, Zhou Mingxin looked at the roof and asked, "Why are those three snipers gone? And why didn't the bomb explode?"

Gu Sheng said, "Probably because they're sleepy and want to take a nap."

After saying that, Gu Sheng walked out of the courtyard.

Zhou Mingxin chased after him and asked, "What are you going to do?"

Gu Sheng said, "Go and rescue those two archbishops."

Zhou Mingxin seemed to only then remember that there were still two bishops to rescue: "Then I'll arrange for someone..."

Gu Sheng interrupted him: "No need. To avoid alerting them, I can go alone. Don't worry, it won't take long." He looked at Zhou Mingxing, "You should first figure out how to get rid of the 'drug' in Ming Qingyuan's heart."

This is indeed an urgent matter.

Zhou Mingxin stopped and looked at Gu Sheng as he left, saying, "I entrust the archbishop to you. Please do your best to save them."

Gu Sheng didn't speak. In his mind, a three-dimensional map of the entire city instantly unfolded. Since the two sculptures he had just moved were correct, it meant that his judgment about the five secret rooms was correct.

The entrance to the secret chamber is in those churches.

Behind each of the five churches in a corner of the city are cemeteries, and these cemeteries are not for just anyone to be buried in; only historical figures are buried there.

The entrance to the secret chamber is inside those tombs.

Gu Sheng found the entrance in no time. After solving a few puzzles that he thought were very simple, he successfully rescued the two archbishops.

At that time, two fully armed bandits stood beside the bishop, but subduing them was not difficult for Gu Sheng.

However, contrary to Gu Sheng's expectations, there were no books in those five secret rooms. Those secret rooms looked like prison cells and places of worship.

The walls of each secret chamber were filled with countless white bones, which showed how horrific the events that had occurred there were, and it's no wonder the believers rebelled.

Ming Qingyuan survived, and the bullet in his heart was successfully removed. He will be executed after the trial.

The monitoring room was reportedly fine, and the people inside were safe. The only problem was that the monitoring signal had been replaced, and they were only watching a video that was being played repeatedly. Given that there would be a long moment of silence during the ceremony, they did not notice anything unusual.

The people who hijacked the signal were found in a van near the monitoring room. They were asleep when the guards found them, just like the three snipers on the roof.

The guards still don't know why they suddenly fell asleep.

After handing the two archbishops over to Zhou Mingxin, Gu Sheng left P City.

He came here with the intention of traveling, but ended up encountering such a terrible situation.

Then, about a week later, Zhou Mingxin called and said that Qingyuan was about to announce its verdict, and asked if Gu Sheng wanted to come and see.

Gu Sheng initially wanted to refuse, but after thinking for a moment, he agreed.

Gu Sheng arrived a day early on the clergy's special plane, but he was late on the day of the trial. By the time he arrived, the verdict had already been read. In short, it was death penalty, to be carried out immediately, but not very immediately, probably in about two days.

At Gu Sheng's request, Zhou Mingxin arranged a meeting between Gu Sheng and Ming Qingyuan.

In the inquiry room, everyone else had left, leaving only Gu Sheng and Ming Qingyuan gazing at each other through the glass.

Ming Qingyuan did not become depressed because of the impending execution. In fact, he smiled happily when he saw Gu Sheng.

“I knew you would come to see me,” he said, looking at Gu Sheng.

Gu Sheng looked at Ming Qingyuan and said, "You seem to be in a good mood."

Ming Qingyuan laughed even louder: "It's nothing, I just lost to you again, I'm used to it."

Gu Sheng said, "I actually came here to tell you something." His eyes were filled with pity.

Ming Qingyuan frowned as he looked at Gu Sheng's expression: "I thought you had a question for me."

Gu Sheng looked puzzled; what question did he need to ask Ming Qingyuan?

Ming Qingyuan frowned even more deeply: "Don't you want to know where I saw that ceremony?"

Gu Sheng looked enlightened, then he opened his left palm towards Ming Qingyuan and drew a symbol on his palm with the fingers of his right hand.

Upon seeing the symbol, Ming Qingyuan's eyes widened instantly. He whispered, "Impossible." He looked at Gu Sheng, "How did you find it?"

Gu Sheng shrugged and said, "Is it that difficult?"

Gu Sheng was actually very curious about where Ming Qingyuan learned about the ancient funeral rites.

Moreover, Gu Sheng always felt that he had missed something while searching for the secret room, and he always felt that there should be another secret room.

Who says that a secret room built according to the pentagram must have five rooms? After all, it's common knowledge that the Four Heavenly Kings have five rooms, so it's also normal for a secret room built according to the pentagram to have six rooms.

Gu Sheng arrived a day early in order to search for the missing secret room.

Persistence pays off. After Gu Sheng had explored the entire old town, he returned to Preaching Square. Looking at the sculpture in the center, he suddenly realized that the last secret room was beneath this sculpture, and the entrance was inside the obelisk.

The obelisk courtyard was temporarily closed due to the previous incident, but Gu Sheng still managed to sneak in thanks to his connection with Teacher Ye.

However, he did not find the entrance inside the obelisk, but found it behind a statue, which was clearly tampered with.

After entering the secret room, Gu Sheng became even more certain that someone had been here, and that person was not Ming Qingyuan.

Just as Gu Sheng had imagined, this place was a huge underground library, and the books here included not only ancient ones, but also modern ones.

The books were arranged chronologically. Gu Sheng flipped through the latest one, which was published last year and contained notes left by the deceased patriarch.

So the patriarch actually knew about the existence of the secret chamber, and it shouldn't be just the patriarch; the archbishop should also have known.

This is probably why they don't allow people to investigate the old town.