Six Days in a Deserted Village (Part 9)
As the parade began, there was a tremor in the north of the village, and then the land collapsed in front of a small hill, and a temple grew out.
The temple was built with pitch-black bricks and stones, with ferocious creatures carved on the eaves and pillars. The main door was wide open, fine dust was flying in the air, and a huge coffin was lying in the darkness.
There were not many people near the temple at this time. The villagers were all participating in the lively parade ceremony. The team would walk from the beginning to the end of the village and would arrive at the temple gate as night fell.
The players knocked down a few scattered villagers without much effort, but were wary of the thick shadows in the temple and hesitated at the door.
Highly suspected to be the BOSS’s lair.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhang Hao waved his hand to brush away the dust in front of him, turned around and said to everyone: "Isn't it too risky? How about we..."
In a blink of an eye, Xu Wei carried the shovel on his shoulder and walked in with a swagger.
Others: “…”
Perhaps because it only appears once every fifty years, the sanitary conditions in the temple are not very good. There are still some old bloodstains and suspicious stains. The space inside is not large, and the large coffin in the middle alone takes up two-thirds of it.
According to villagers, sacrifices are performed outside the temple and few people would approach the ancestors directly, as this is extremely disrespectful.
But under the thick dust, Xu Wei found a very faint mark, as if it was brushed by the corner of clothes, or someone was careless and missed a mark when covering up the footprints.
Has anyone come in early?
But the temple is only opened once every fifty years, and it was hidden underground before that. Could it be that someone was guarding nearby, waiting for someone to appear in the world and get there first?
She remained calm and motioned to the others: "Let's get started."
Open the coffin.
The sealed coffin is not easy to open. Even after thousands of years, the temple seems to have the magic power to isolate time, making it still strong.
After working on it for most of the day, I still can't open it.
Lu Qian has gone from being fearful when he first arrived to being impatient: "This thing can't be opened. How can you use a shovel to pry open a coffin?"
Xu Wei has been looking at the layout of the temple.
It was very simple. Apart from the necessary cushions and altars, there was nothing else. There were no tablets or statues of gods as in every household.
It seemed very deserted here, and I didn't sense any ill will or prying eyes as soon as I came in.
It's like an ordinary temple, the only difference is that it can emerge from the earth.
What concerned her was the route of the parade - every fifty years, the villagers would go back and forth along the fixed village road like they did today, and then arrive at the designated temple gate.
This means that the location of each temple is fixed.
Another idea suddenly occurred to her.
If it is just a mechanical device, supplemented by advance preparation, manpower can also do it.
She walked quickly to the mark she had just noticed and bent down to search.
Out of reverence, few villagers would venture into the temple, let alone grope around the coffin.
Someone slipped in when the temple door was just opened.
Or...slip out.
She felt a bulge nested in the bottom of the coffin that felt a bit like iron.
She tried to push the iron block, and the inside of the coffin shook violently, as if something was pushing out.
"Oh my god, what's going on?" Lü Qian hid behind Zhang Hao in fear, "A corpse has risen?"
Xu Wei gritted his teeth and pushed the iron block all the way to the bottom.
“Crunch—”
The coffin lid, which was originally tightly closed and everyone tried to pry it open for a long time but couldn't, suddenly opened automatically.
Everyone retreated almost in a state of alert, guarding against the attack that might come at any time.
Compared to the others who were cautious, Xu Wei was quite bold. She stood up, dusted herself off, took a few steps closer, and looked straight into the coffin.
Empty.
The bottom of the dark coffin was empty, even somewhat clean.
The Yuezu God, who had been fanatically worshipped by the villagers for a thousand years, doesn’t even have a corpse?
Is God a hoax?
Lu Qian was so shocked that he couldn't speak: "No, no..."
"Don't think too much," Xu Wei leaned into the coffin, his eyes swept across the hidden corner, and reached out to twist out a broken red rope, "The body should have been here before."
The red rope is old and shows signs of wear and tear.
She raised her hand that was twisting the rope and looked at it in the not-so-bright sunlight.
It was similar to the red string tied to the wooden plaque she found from the little boy in the tomb, and also similar to the one the village chief had...
The clues are intertwined like silk threads.
She began to feel around again: "Look, there might be some mechanism."
Everyone searched in the temple.
Soon, Lu Fanye found a floor tile of a different color under a corner of the altar, and there seemed to be less dust on it than other places.
With a light press, the sound of gears immediately rang out from underground, and the entire temple was shaken in a small range. Large flakes of dust fell from the beams, and the air was filled with tiny dust particles.
"Cough, cough, cough..." Chen Yu covered her mouth and fanned herself fiercely, "I finally know why there is so much dust as soon as we got in."
Before she finished her words, the shaking of the temple suddenly increased, as if it was an earthquake. The people inside almost lost their footing. Then, there was a loud bang from the ground, and the temple also shook.
"boom!"
The temple that had risen as the procession began collapsed back into the ground.
The gate was suddenly sealed, and the earth wall ten meters underground blocked out all the light, and the temple fell into silence for a moment.
After a while, Chen Yu spoke with a trembling voice: "Yes, is there anyone still alive..."
An angry response came from the other side: "What are you thinking? I won't die even if you die!"
It’s Magoichi.
The others seemed to be brought back to their senses by her sharp retort and responded one after another.
"Luckily, everyone is fine. Let's find out if there is an exit."
"No, where's the boss... where's Lu Fanye? Why aren't they talking?"
When the temple was falling out of control, Xu Wei was right next to the coffin. He lost weight for a moment and subconsciously held onto the coffin. Unexpectedly, his body lost its balance due to the inertia of the fall and rolled directly into the coffin.
Lu Fanye was right next to her at the time, and he hugged her almost immediately and fell in together.
The coffin was big enough for three people to lie down in. Before the two could even stand up, they triggered some mechanism and the bottom of the coffin became empty, and the coffin rolled down the stairs that suddenly appeared.
Xu Wei's first reaction was to protect Lu Fanye's exposed back of the head, but the other party also struggled to free up a hand to protect hers.
My body hit the hard stone slab and it hurt, but fortunately the steps were not long and the rolling stopped quickly.
There was a flashlight prepared at the transfer station in the backpack column. Xu Wei immediately summoned it and illuminated the surroundings.
A passage made of stone bricks, with stairs going down a few meters from the location of the coffin. On the left is a small door that is slightly open.
She walked up the stairs and tried to listen to the noise outside for a while, then knocked on the stairs, but still got no response from anyone, so she gave up.
Lu Fanye stood beside the small door and shone a flashlight inside the door.
It was too dark down there. The light from the flashlight could only help them roughly observe the surroundings, but it was completely impossible to determine the direction. What if there was something lurking in the darkness...
His brows were furrowed.
Xu Wei walked down the stairs and skillfully held his five fingers, his palms dry and warm: "Let's go, we've already come down, we can't go back."
His brows relaxed a little, and he raised his hand to illuminate the soles of his feet with the flashlight: "I'll illuminate the nearby areas, and you illuminate the distant areas."
"good."
Being tens of meters underground, it was cold, damp, and surrounded by thick darkness like ink. It was very likely that they were still in the lair of the BOSS, so everything was full of unknowns.
Xu Wei trembled a little, but the excitement that followed almost swept away his reason.
Eager to try.
She reluctantly suppressed the desire in her heart, not wanting the inexplicable emotions to affect her thoughts again.
In the darkness there was only the sound of two people's footsteps, one step at a time, like stepping on people's nerves.
"Are you okay?" Her voice was trembling with excitement.
Lu Fanye didn't say anything, but the coolness that spread across her palms again answered her.
Stimulated by the coolness, Xu Wei regained some of his rationality and patiently walked forward with him.
Walked a long way.
This corridor is extremely long, as if it had been dug through the entire village, leading from the northern hillside to the other end.
Where would it be?
Don't let her down.
The corridor finally came to an end, and a faint light came from the corner.
Xu Wei couldn't wait to pull Lu Fanye over.
The hurried footsteps were very obvious in the extremely quiet corridor, and there were subtle noises coming from near the corner as if in response.
The other party was a little flustered.
“I found you!”
She suddenly jumped out of the corridor, took out a dagger and jumped forward.
"Bang!"
"Huh?" Xu Wei was surprised.
The old man, who was over sixty years old, had his head pressed on the desk, his hands were tied behind his back, and the pen he was holding slid out a thin black line on the notebook.
Next to it, a black and white TV was playing an old war movie from decades ago.
This is still a corridor, but it has been decorated into a living room with a sofa, TV, desk, bed, and the long-lost electric lights in the village.
The old man was very weak, or perhaps he was at the age of death, and he could only make slight groans when he was pressed under the body.
Xu Wei let go of his hand, picked up his notebook and took a look at it.
The handwriting was crooked and the content was difficult to make out even under the light, but the time was clear, and it was recorded once a month.
"On July 23, my mother passed away. On June 11, my father sent me food, but my sister argued with me. On May 30, my mother fell ill and there was no medicine."
A very concise account involving three family members.
"This month's entry hasn't been finished yet. Let me take a look. August 5, sacrifice... Both words are written wrong. Sacrifice begins, prepare to open the door." Xu Wei raised an eyebrow when he read this. "What door do you mean by open? Is this some kind of code?"
The old man lay on the table and pretended to be dead.
The other party ignored him, and Xu Wei didn't care either, wandering around in this small one-bedroom apartment.
Even after coming here, she still didn't feel the slightest bit of being watched, and the old man was extremely weak.
This passage was sealed and there was no way to get anywhere else, but she didn't believe that so much trouble was made underground just to trap a dying person.
There must be another road leading to her destination, and the opening of this road is related to the scene in front of her.
Xu Wei suddenly turned around and caught the old man off guard.
She looked at the face in front of her with inquiring eyes, which looked 70% like the village chief.
"Who are you?"
"The village chief's father? Or...his child?"
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