The sudden appearance of dark brown on the ground gave me a sense of foreboding.
Because there was a layer of dust on the ground beneath our feet, the liquid picked up the dust as it flowed, making its original color unclear.
Since I didn't know if the liquid was corrosive, and to prevent it from being some kind of trap, I followed its trail and crept behind the statue.
We were not far from the mountainside, and the rocks behind us were arranged like steps, one after another, and the liquid flowing to my feet was the liquid that had flowed down from those steps.
When I was in the passage, the liquid I saw was covered in dust, and the stone wall in front of me was stained red. This red liquid was flowing down from the third step.
The gas mask I was carrying had a very strong filtering effect. I hadn't smelled anything before, but after I saw the blood-red stone wall clearly, I gently lifted the gas mask, and a strong smell of blood rushed into my nostrils.
Jiang Man was worried about me coming to check alone, so she came over and took a look, then became wary as well: "Duan Shenxing, is this blood?"
I felt nauseous from the smell of blood and put my gas mask back on: "That's right! But how come there's blood here?"
Hearing our conversation, the monkey chimed in from behind, "Young Master Duan, do you think it might be like the trap we encountered in Li Fan's camp? We accidentally triggered it, which is why the blood is flowing out, just to scare away tomb raiders?"
"No, the blood flow here is too high, and we didn't show any signs of triggering any mechanisms before."
I looked at the blood-stained mountainside and took out a rope from my bag: "You guys come and help, I need to go up and take a look!"
"Brother, is this really necessary?"
Lin Que looked at the increasing pooling of blood at her feet and said nervously, "Didn't you just say that we need to focus all our efforts on capturing Duan Jinyan and not be distracted by other things?"
"The blood here is too strange. If we don't investigate it thoroughly and continue forward, I'm afraid we'll encounter danger!"
As I spoke, I had already reached the front of the mountain wall, tied the rope into a knot, and swung it out to hang on a rock above.
As I said, I was being extremely cautious while moving forward and didn't notice any traps or mechanisms. But after getting here, there was a lot of blood on the ground. This is too strange. I have to find out the truth before I can continue forward with peace of mind. Otherwise, if we encounter danger, we won't even have a safe way out.
When Manjing and the others saw that I was about to climb, they came over and helped lift me up to the first step. I grabbed the rope and continued to climb.
Soon, I climbed to the third step, and under the light of my headlamp, three corpses came into view.
The bodies were piled together, and from where I stood, I couldn't see their faces clearly. However, they were all dressed in the same black training uniform.
Seeing me standing still, Jiang Man asked from below, "Duan Shenxing, what's wrong up there?"
I climbed the steps and shouted back, "It's nothing, just a few corpses that match the monkey's description. They should be people from Ping'an Village."
"People from Ping'an Village?"
After hearing my words, the monkey immediately raised his crossbow and pointed it around: "How come they're here? Could it be that they were trying to ambush Duan Jinyan, but accidentally spotted us instead?"
"Impossible! If the people from Ping'an Village really set up an ambush here, the rift valley where they laid the spider webs would be the best ambush location. They wouldn't need to go to such lengths! Besides, Ping'an Village's purpose is different from ours. They came here to guard the second gate of the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace. The roads here are interconnected, and they can't achieve the desired effect by ambushing on the roads. They have no reason to do that!"
Jiang Man paused for a moment: "If they wanted to ambush us, they should have charged out and fought to the death. How could they kill their own people just to leave the corpses here to scare us?"
While Jiang Man was speaking, I walked over to the corpses and reached out to examine one of them: "These corpses are already cold and their limbs are stiff, which means they've been dead for some time! Although the low temperature here will accelerate the stiffening and cooling of the corpses, it must have been at least five hours ago!"
After hearing my words, the monkey looked up and said, "Young Master Duan, your analysis is wrong! The bodies are already cold, so shouldn't the blood have congealed? Since these people have been dead for so long, why did they only start bleeding after we arrived?"
"I also think this is a bit strange, but my deduction should be correct!"
Jiang Man taught me all the knowledge I gained about autopsies, so I asked her, "Jiang Man, have you ever heard of any way to make a corpse bleed after it has stiffened?"
"Blood takes 8 to 10 hours to coagulate after death. Even in this low-temperature environment, it won't coagulate that quickly! Check the bodies above and see if there are any purplish-red lividity lesions on the skin below!"
Jiang Man paused for a moment: "We need to determine their cause of death before we can deduce the reason for the bleeding from the bodies."
After listening to Jiang Man's words, I shone my flashlight on the three corpses. The three of them were stacked on top of each other, with the bottom one lying on his back and the two above him lying on top of him. Within the range of the light, none of the three had any obvious fatal wounds. Blood was flowing from under their bodies, trickling out along the low-lying areas of the steps.
Without finding any external injuries, I carefully lifted one of the corpses, just in case there were booby traps or something similar underneath, like the traps Duan Jinyan and his men had set up.
In many regions, there's a common expression to describe something as very heavy: "deeply heavy." This phrase is actually used to describe a dead person. Normally, it's easy for an adult to carry a living person of similar weight, but it's much more difficult to move a stiff, dead person.
After confirming that there were no traps under the corpse in front of me, I tried to lift it up. I knew that dead people were quite heavy, so I put extra effort into lifting the corpse. Unexpectedly, this directly lifted the corpse out of the way.
This feeling is like lifting a piece of rotten wood. It looks big and heavy, but it is actually so rotten that it is as light as a sponge.
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