Hua Cheng's breath was warm, but his words chilled people's hearts.
Hiding in the main hall?
In a flash, Xie Lian immediately hugged Hua Cheng.
Of course, he wasn't hugging him out of fear. Rather, if someone truly was hiding here, undetected, they must be a powerful figure. If he noticed they'd discovered something, he might be on the defensive. If only Huacheng was hugging him, so close, it would easily arouse suspicion. It would seem more normal if both of them were hugging.
Xie Lian glanced around inconspicuously and whispered, "Where do you think it is?"
The entire hall had only one main door, the one they had entered through. The hall was completely empty, completely exposed, without a single platform or box to hide a person. Besides them, the only people inside were the petrified temple attendants.
They both whispered at the same time: "Shell."
The insides of these petrified men are hollow, which means that things can be hidden inside.
You can’t hide people, but you can hide ghosts!
After confirming that they had the same idea, Xie Lian was about to speak when he accidentally raised his eyes and saw a petrified man two meters behind Hua Cheng. His pupils suddenly shrank.
He seemed to be a young man of high status. Because the petrified figures recorded the deaths of the Wuyong people, most depictions showed them in poses like holding their heads and howling, or huddled together. This one, however, was one of the few standing figures. However, it wasn't his posture that caught Xie Lian's attention, but his face.
Although the face is blurry, it is still clear that the left side of this petrified man's face is half a smiling face, while the right side is half a crying face!
Xie Lian blurted out, “That’s it!”
He raised his hand and slashed out with a sword. Hua Cheng asked, "Brother?"
The petrified man was chopped to pieces by him, leaving only an empty shell on the ground. However, there was nothing inside. Xie Lian didn't dare to let it go and searched among the fragments on the ground. Hua Cheng grabbed his hand and said, "Brother! What did you see just now?"
Xie Lian held up a few fragments and said, “This petrified man, his face… is Bai Wuxiang’s mask.”
Hua Cheng's expression changed slightly, but he still said, "Wait."
He pieced the fragments together to form a complete face. When the two looked at it, they were both silent.
Just now, what Xie Lian saw was clearly a half-crying, half-laughing ghost face, but the face that Hua Cheng pieced together now was extremely blurry, no different from any other petrified person.
Is this an illusion? Or is this an illusion?
Sitting there would not give them any answers, so they searched the hall, smashed all the petrified men to check, but found no further clues. After pondering for a moment, they thought that someone might have already reached the mountain, so they decided not to wait for Pei Ming and headed straight for the top.
The mountain of Tonglu seemed to possess a strange allure. The two tried, but Silver Butterfly couldn't carry anyone there, and flying a sword wasn't likely either. So, they had to climb on foot. As they climbed higher and higher, the path grew steeper and colder. They first encountered a thin layer of snow, which thickened as they climbed, reaching halfway up their boots. Two hours later, the snow was knee-deep, making the climb increasingly difficult.
Xie Lian didn't feel cold from all the walking, but instead broke out in a thin layer of sweat, his face rosy white with a hint of red. He wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand and turned back to speak to Hua Cheng when he suddenly felt his feet go empty and he felt two feet shorter!
Fortunately, Hua Cheng had been following behind him and seemed to be prepared. He pulled him up with a simple pull and said, "Brother, be careful."
Xie Lian stood beside him, then looked back at where he had sunk. It had sunken into a large area, revealing a dark, deep hole that led nowhere. If Xie Lian hadn't grabbed the edge in time, or if Hua Cheng had been a little slower, he would have fallen. Hua Cheng added, "This mountain is full of pits. Just follow me and walk slowly, and you'll be fine. Brother was walking too fast just now."
It turned out that the mountain beneath the snow was incredibly fragile, riddled with potholes of all sizes. No one knew how many there were, or how deep they were. And yet, Hua Cheng even remembered their locations. Xie Lian sighed and suggested, "Okay. Let's get closer. Shouting is forbidden on a snowy mountain. If we accidentally run into something, it's hard to call for help..."
Unexpectedly, before he could finish his words, he heard a roar from above: "Is this the end yet?!"
“…”
Who dares to yell so loudly on such a steep and dangerous snowy mountain?!
Xie Lian looked up, bewildered. Amidst the white snow that blanketed the mountains and plains, two tiny black specks engaged in a clanging, chaotic struggle. One wielded a longbow, unleashing a barrage of arrows. The other wielded a horse-slaying sword, swinging it with ferocious force, blocking every arrow. The blade and the wind were shrouded in a shimmering aura. Both men cursed and yelled at each other. The swordsman swore, "I told you that guy was killed by someone else! I'm looking for them too!"
It turned out to be Nanfeng and Fuyao!
Without even considering why they were here, Xie Lian blurted out, "Shut up!" However, he reacted quickly and swallowed his words before he could even shout. If they had roared as loudly as they did, three of them yelling at each other, would this snowy mountain still be able to hold on?
Hua Cheng crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Don't they know that roaring in the snowy mountains could trigger an avalanche?"
Xie Lian said, “This… they can’t be that stupid! They should know, but they’re just like that. In their rage, they don’t care about anything else!”
Nanfeng and Fuyao were both furious, cursing and fighting. Because they were too far away, the intermittent chatter couldn't make out what they were saying, and they hadn't noticed the newcomers below. Xie Lian wanted to rush over and pull them apart, but the mountain was covered in snow, and the deep pits beneath it made it impossible to reach them immediately. He took two steps and his footing gave way again, nearly falling into a pit. He had to stop and say, "We can't let them keep fighting like this. We have to stop them!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a silver butterfly leaped out from behind him, swooping upwards like a sharp arrow. Xie Lian was startled for a moment, then his heart relaxed, thinking to himself, what a great idea! Since they couldn't go up right away, wouldn't it be better to send the Undead Butterfly up first and pass on the message?
The silver butterfly was indeed incredibly fast, arriving there in just three calls. However, before Xie Lian could deliver his message, Hua Cheng's face turned cold. He sensed something was wrong and asked, "What's wrong?"
The smile on Hua Cheng's lips vanished completely, and his expression was as cold as the snowy mountains. Xie Lian pressed on, "Sanlang, what happened?"
Hua Cheng's lips moved slightly, but before he could answer, Xie Lian suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation in his heart. He suddenly looked up and opened his eyes wide.
On the towering snow-capped mountain wall, there was a large piece of white mountain that collapsed tremblingly.
Nanfeng and Fuyao, who were fighting fiercely over there, also felt the silent pressure. They both looked up and finally realized what was going to happen.
The next moment, the mountain collapsed like a thousand-mile-long embankment, and rolled towards them with a wave of huge snow waves and roaring sounds!
It's really an avalanche!!!
Xie Lian grabbed Hua Cheng's hand, turned around, and ran. After running a few steps, he remembered that the two above were closer to the avalanche peak. He suddenly stopped and looked back. Sure enough! They both stopped fighting and fled together. Fu Yao ran only two steps and stepped into a pit. Most of his body sank into the pit, and the snow covered his chest. Nan Feng ran faster than him and turned back. He hesitated for a moment, as if he wanted to go back to save them. However, in this hesitation, a huge wave of snow had already arrived!
Just before they were about to be swallowed, Xie Lian threw Ruo Xie out. The white silk shot out, accurately entangling Fuyao and Nanfeng, and dragging them out of the sea of snow. Hua Cheng glanced at them, his eyes blazing with anger, and said, "Brother! Leave them alone!"
Xie Lian grabbed Ruo Xie tightly, dragging the two of them along as he ran, saying, “No! We’ll be buried for a hundred years if we’re not careful!”
Hua Cheng said in a deep voice: "It's too late!"
Xie Lian was shocked: "What?!"
When he turned around, he saw an overwhelming white shadow falling down on his head.
Xie Lian was still being held back by Nan Feng and Fu Yao. The cold, heavy snow waves kept rolling, separating him and Hua Cheng.
Xie Lian was tossed about, tumbling several times in the whitecaps, yet he managed to struggle tenaciously. However, the avalanche of snow was so massive and its impact so fierce that it would occasionally overwhelm Xie Lian, causing sudden bursts of suffocation. With one final cry, "Sanlang!" He finally gave way and was swallowed by the torrent of ice and snow.
…
After an unknown amount of time, the snow-capped mountains finally calmed down again.
After a long while, a patch of snow on a flat snowfield arched twice, and suddenly a hand rushed out.
The hand fumbled around in the snow for a while, then an arm emerged, followed by a shoulder, and then a head, with a face full of broken snow. As soon as it came out, it took a deep breath and coughed repeatedly.
Not long after, the man finally climbed out with great difficulty, shook his head, and sat down on the snow next to him.
It was Xie Lian. The feeling of digging himself out of a thick blanket of snow was almost like digging himself out of a grave. Xie Lian's face and hands were red from the cold, almost numb. He rubbed them a few times, blew a few breaths of warm air, raised his head, and looked around blankly.
In the vast white snow, there was no dazzling red color to be found.
But, if I can't find Xie Lian, I can't just yell where you are. If there's another avalanche, we'll be doomed.
He had no choice but to stand up and walk alone in the snow, calling out softly as he walked: "Sanlang? Sanlang? Nanfeng? Fuyao?"
It was strange. They were clearly on the same mountain, but now he was walking alone, and it seemed much colder than when he had been walking with Hua Cheng. Ruo Xie hadn't known when she'd let go, and Xie Lian was baffled. Ruo Xie wouldn't let go. Even if he let go, she'd still cling to him. How could this happen?
He felt something was wrong, but couldn't place it, so he continued walking in a daze. He didn't know how long he'd walked before he suddenly saw someone approaching him in the snow. He was dressed in white, his black hair fluttering in the wind. He lowered his head and walked slowly towards him.
Seeing the passerby, Xie Lian felt a slight joy in his heart. He went to greet him and said, "My friend! You..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the man raised his head. On his face was a white mask, half smiling, half crying.
Xie Lian screamed as if he had been stabbed in the face!
As soon as he cried out, he opened his eyes and sat up suddenly. After a while of panting, he realized with shock that he was no longer walking alone in the snowy mountains, but lying in a dark space.
It turned out to be a dream.
No wonder he always felt something was wrong in his dream. Xie Lian let out a long sigh and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
After groping for a while, he found what seemed to be a rock covered with grass beneath him. Fang Xin was hanging by his waist, and Ruo Xie was clearly wrapped around his hand. Xie Lian calmed himself down a bit, raised a palm flame, illuminated the area, and immediately asked, "Sanlang? Are you there?"
Unexpectedly, when the fire lit up, he immediately discovered that there was a person standing silently in the darkness next to him.
This startled Xie Lian to no end. He broke out in a cold sweat, his heart instantly tensing. With someone standing so close to him, there was no way he wouldn't be aware of it!
However, after a closer look, the cold sweat subsided. It turned out that this was not a living person, but a stone statue.
Moreover, this is not a petrified statue formed by the remains of the victims of the volcanic eruption, but is obviously a statue made by human hands.
As he shone the flame in his palm around, Xie Lian became more and more convinced.
The place where he lay was a grotto used for spiritual practice. He had retreated to such places for quiet meditation before, so it was no stranger to him. Therefore, the statue enshrined in the grotto was no ordinary statue, but a deity.
The statue stood in an arched cave, slender in figure, graceful in bearing, and elegant in posture. Its right hand rested on the hilt of the long sword at its waist, and even the flowing lines of its clothes were carved with exquisite precision. However, there was something very strange.
The face of this statue is covered by a veil.
The veil flowed like mist, covering the statue's face. It was a strange sight, but not unsightly. Instead, it added a mysterious beauty. Xie Lian had never seen a statue with its face covered before, so he instinctively reached out to remove the veil. Suddenly, a voice came from behind him: "Brother."
Xie Lian turned around suddenly and saw a figure in red appear at the entrance of the cave. It was Hua Cheng.
He immediately put the statue's face behind him and walked over to it, saying, "Sanlang! Great! I was just wondering where you were. Are you okay? Are you not hurt? That avalanche just now was so sudden."
Hua Cheng walked in and said, "It's okay. Where's my brother?"
Xie Lian said, "I'm usually fine. What is this place?"
Only after he left did he realize that this world was far larger than just a small cave. There was a long corridor outside, seemingly quite long, leading nowhere. Xie Lian had long been accustomed to Hua Cheng answering all his questions, but this time, Hua Cheng said, "I don't know. Probably somewhere beneath the snow-capped mountains."
Xie Lian was surprised. “I thought this was the refuge you were looking for, Sanlang. How could you not even know what this place is?”
This was a complete first. Hua Cheng even remembered the pits along the way up the mountain, but he had no idea where this place was. This cave wasn't small either, so hadn't he discovered it before?
Xie Lian couldn’t help but feel a little strange, but he didn’t ask any more questions. He raised the flame in his palm a little higher and asked, “How did we get here?”
Hua Cheng also summoned a few silver butterflies, letting them dance softly in a faint glow. He said calmly, "Xue Avalanche missed his step and fell into the pit."
That was the only way to think about it. Otherwise, someone had to have brought them here on purpose. At this point, Xie Lian couldn't help but think of the dream he had just had. A slight chill ran down his spine, and then he remembered something else. "We're here, but where are Nanfeng and Fuyao?"
When he mentioned those two, a fierce look flashed across Hua Cheng's face, but then he said nonchalantly, "They were buried in the snow. Don't worry about it. They're priests anyway, so they can't die."
Xie Lian didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He said, "Even though they won't die, if no one digs them out, being buried for decades wouldn't be easy. Maybe they fell in too? We should look here first. By the way, Sanlang, did your Silver Butterfly hear what they said when it went up there earlier?"
Hua Cheng sneered, "It's nothing more than a quarrel. What good words can you expect to hear?"
Xie Lian, however, felt it wasn't that simple. Otherwise, there was no explanation for Hua Cheng's sudden change of expression after the undead butterfly flew past. Even now, as Hua Cheng sneered at them, his gaze was extremely hostile. But since he didn't say anything, Xie Lian didn't ask any further questions. The two of them continued along the cave corridor.
After walking for a while, they found that the terrain of the cave under the snow was far more complicated than they had imagined. It was not a single road leading to the end, but many branching roads leading to different caves of different sizes.
Each grotto houses a statue of a deity. Some are young, some are young. Each one has its own unique posture: lazily reclining, some leaning as if drunk, some sitting upright, some dancing with a sword... Their clothing is also ever-changing, ranging from gorgeous clothes to plain clothes, ragged clothes, and even half-naked clothes... And the quality varies greatly. Some are poorly crafted and extremely crude, while others are exquisitely crafted, so fine that it's outrageous. They probably weren't made by the same craftsman, but the sheer number and variety of these statues is truly spectacular. As Xie Lian gazed at them along the way, he couldn't help but exclaim in amazement, saying, "This is a cave of all gods! I wonder who chose to build it here? It must have been an extremely devout believer."
However, all the statues had one strange thing in common. They were all covered by a veil, their faces obscured. Some even covered their entire bodies, revealing only the hem of their skirts or feet. Xie Lian was genuinely curious and wanted to remove the veil from one of the statues to see what was on its face, but Hua Cheng said from behind, "Brother, I advise against that."
Xie Lian turned around and asked curiously, "Why? Sanlang, don't you think there's something strange about these statues?"
Hua Cheng walked up with his hands behind his back and said, "Precisely because it's weird, it's best not to. Since the face is covered, there must be a reason for it. The head and face are where the human spirit gathers. If it's removed, and these weird statues gather the spirit, who knows what will happen."
After a pause, he continued, "Brother, aren't you looking for your two servants? Since you haven't found them yet, it's better not to touch them for now to avoid unnecessary complications."
While this may sound strange, it does make sense. If removing the veil awakens the statues, that wouldn't be fun at all. Xie Lian wasn't one to hesitate, so after thinking about it, he lowered his hand and said, "I'm just a little curious about what kind of gods these are."
What was also strange to him was that with Huacheng's personality, he wouldn't be afraid of unnecessary complications. If he wanted to watch it, he could just watch it. He didn't expect that she would use this reason to persuade him.
Hua Cheng said casually, "This is the border of Wuyong Kingdom. Perhaps it's the statue of Prince Wuyong. It's not surprising."
Xie Lian said, “I’m afraid not.”
Hua Cheng said, "Oh? How do you know?"
Xie Lian looked at him and said, "From the murals we've been following, I can see that the clothing styles of both Crown Prince Wuyong and the people of Wuyong are quite distinctive. After all, this country was established two thousand years ago. Their clothing styles are ancient, crude, and a bit wild, unlike the meticulously crafted clothing styles of these statues. Therefore, I believe these statues have nothing to do with Crown Prince Wuyong. It's even possible that they weren't created by the Wuyong people at all."
Hua Cheng smiled and said, "Really? Brother is really considerate."
Xie Lian also smiled faintly and said, "No, not at all. It's just that the style of these statues, whether it's the carving, the clothing, or the handling of details like the clothing lines, all resemble the style of later generations, and it's the style I'm more familiar with... the style of Xianle Kingdom."
Hua Cheng raised an eyebrow and said, "It seems that my brother is quite accomplished in this area."
Xie Lian said, “No, no. I’ve seen so many statues of gods that I’ve definitely gained some insights.”
Although he didn't know why, he had a hunch that something was amiss with Hua Cheng. And at this point, he finally realized what that something was.
It was a kind of vague tension.
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