The cold wind at Kunlun swept up the snow particles, making it hard to open your eyes. Tang Ren, wrapped in a sheepskin jacket, pushed open the wooden door of the inn. The proprietress who was calculating the abacus behind the counter suddenly raised her head, and the silver bracelet on her wrist made a crisp sound - the Taotie pattern engraved on the bracelet made Qin Feng's pupils shrink.
"One bowl of mutton soup, with more chili!" Tang Ren pressed his frozen hands to the edge of the fire, and suddenly a few sparks burst out from the charcoal ash. Su Chen stared at the yellowed "Kunlun Immortals" on the wall, and his fingertips touched a spot where the ink was smudged - there was a flapping paper crane added with cinnabar.
When the proprietress brought the soup, her palms were exposed. Tang Ren suddenly grabbed her wrist and said, "Sister, your skill in cutting mutton must have been learned in a grave, right?" The porcelain bowl smashed to the ground, and the mutton soup splashed out in the shape of the Big Dipper.
There was a sound of knocking on the wooden window from the second floor. When Qin Feng rushed up, he saw the bed curtains flying. Under the pillow was half a copy of "Yu Gong Jiuzhou Tu", with blood writing on the back: "Nine Cauldrons Stabilize Kunlun, the Dragon Vein Begins Here."
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Before daybreak, Tang Ren was awakened by the sound of bells in the yard. Seventeen oxen had copper bells tied around their necks, and the herders were wrapped in fur coats and had Luoyang shovels on their waists.
"The bell sounds wrong!" Qin Feng snatched Su Chen's binoculars. The bells of each ox sounded in a rhythmic rhythm, and when connected together, they sounded like the rhythm of the Gu Gua in the Book of Changes. Tang Ren grabbed a snowball and threw it at the head ox. The frightened oxen broke through the fence and ran away. The wheels of the carts covered by hoof prints were revealed in the snow - two deep marks pointed directly to the mouth of the snow.
When chasing the glacier fault zone, the fur hat of the herder was blown away by the wind - it was Lao Zhou! He took out his earth rifle and laughed: "Don't move! Q organization is not looking for Jiuding, we can change the place..."
The snow leopard's roar interrupted his voice, and the moment Lao Zhou turned around and fired, the ice layer collapsed.
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After falling into the cracks in the ice, everyone was shocked by the scene before their eyes—nine bronze pillars were arranged in the shape of the Eight Diagrams, with rusted iron chains wrapped around the pillars and a frozen corpse tied to the end. In the corpse's arms, there was a jade box engraved with a picture of Dayu controlling the flood.
"This is the missing geologist in 1953!" Su Chen pulled out the work permit from the frozen corpse's inner bag. When Tang Ren pried the jade box, he touched the mechanism, and the bronze pillar suddenly turned, and a star map was projected on the ice wall. Qin Feng counted the positions of the twenty-eight constellations: "Turn the jade box to the dangerous position!"
The ice cracked open a secret passage, and as everyone slid into the belly of the body, a large piece of wool fell off Tang Ren's sheepskin bag. At the end of the secret passage, nine broken tripods formed a circle, and the tripods were filled with coagulated black blood.
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Old Zhou approached with a torch, his face frightened by frostbite: "Give me the jade box! This will open the altar of Zhou Zi..." As soon as he finished speaking, Qin Feng threw the jade box towards the cauldron formation. The moonlight shone in from the cracks in the dome, and the fragments of the Nine Cauldrons suddenly reflected dazzling spots, forming a complete picture of the exotic beasts in the Classic of the Sea on the ice wall.
"It turns out that the Nine Cauldrons pattern is a map!" Su Chen touched the ice wall, "The Queen Mother's Palace is right here..." Tang Ren suddenly screamed, his palms stuck to the ice wall - black blood gushed out of the cauldron and climbed up his arms along the patterns.
Old Zhou broke the ice with his crazy laughter, revealing piles of modern explosives under the altar. Sinuo flew through the snow mist, and her wing tip swept across the fuse: "The game is over."
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When Qin Feng pulled the fuse, a thunderous roar came from the top of the mountain. Tang Ren dragged his arm corroded by black blood and rushed towards the bronze pillar: "Let's die together!" The moment the pillar fell, the fragments of the Nine Cauldrons burst out, forming a Hunyi pattern in the avalanche air wave.
Everyone was blown away by the wind, and before Su Chen fell unconscious, he saw Lao Zhou being pierced by an ice spike. In the collapsing snow curtain, the last prophecy emerged from the tortoise armor in the jade box: "On the day when the Nine Cauldrons are reunited, China will have a new body."
A month later, in the Xi'an Antique Market, Tang Ren fiddled with the missing ear of the tripod: "Can this thing really be exchanged for an apartment?" Qin Feng suddenly pressed his shoulder - the cover page of the "Kunlun Chronicle" on the stall was painted with Sinuo's origami dragon.