Daomu Biji Volume 8 Chapter 33

Ghost took us out of the cave without even lighting a torch and we walked up the huge rock.

When Fatty put on his clothes, his neckline was still covered with mud. He was already tired of scolding and gestured to me several times, asking if I wanted to subdue him but I shook my head. Ghost's previous agility and the demeanor of keeping his distance from us gave me a very strong feeling—even if he looked like this, his skill must be above ours.

Just imagine, this person stayed in the mountains for such a long time and didn't leave. Obviously, he was vigilant of his surroundings and it was impossible to fully relax even when he saw an old friend. Although he walked casually, his awareness must be very high, and if Fatty wanted to attack, I didn't think the probability of success was high.

I couldn't talk to Fatty about this and could only ignore him and tell him what happened at that time. Fatty said, “Damn. I tied him tightly, how did he break free? Surprisingly, that guy wasn't a pushover. Is your face all right? “

“Maybe he had a knife on him.” I said, “We didn't frisk him, which was clearly a mistake. Time was too short.”

“It's bone contraction.” Ghost said, turning back to look at us. He was far away from us, but he clearly heard, “Wu Sanxing, don't you even know that?”

I knew that I shouldn't talk anymore, and immediately said, “No, I was on guard, it wasn't bone contraction.”

When Ghost didn't speak again, I made a move to Fatty not to say anything else.

After walking for more than ten minutes, a cave appeared in the rock face.

When we walked into it, we saw that it was full of clay pots. Ghost picked up a branch from the side, stretched it into one of the pots, lit it, picked up the other pot filled with water, and poured it on the wall.

I knew what he wanted to do, and immediately went to help. Soon the water seeped into the rocks.

The lighted branch leaned against the rock wall, and we immediately found that the whole rock was full of strange shadows.

After soaking in water, the whole wall presented a translucent texture like jade.

“These are the stone men.” Fatty said, “Fuck me, there are so many. If they come out, we're done for.”

“Do you know how many of these things are in this stone? Do you know the real origin of them?” Ghost asked Fatty.

Fatty shook his head: “Isn't this the mountain god here?”

Ghost shook his head and looked at me. I didn't show whether I knew or not, just touched the rock wall and looked thoughtful.

“These are all people.” He said.

“I'll start with how this demon building was constructed. When we conducted archaeological research on it, we made several speculations." He said, “We believed that there were a large number of underground karst cave systems in this area of Guangxi, and Zhang Jialou probably used one of these systems to develop deeper in the whole underground mountain range. But then we carried out various kinds of exploration on the mountain here, and found that the dark cave system here was too complicated. With the construction scale of the Yangshi Lei drawings, it took too much manpower and material resources to build such a huge building in the cave.”

It seemed he was truly a member of the archaeological team, and my guess was close.

“At first we thought it really wasn't feasible. It was just a tomb of the Zhang family's ancient building, not the imperial tomb. Not that financial resources were a problem, because it was really difficult to estimate how much money this kind of tomb raiding family had, but it was mainly a matter of convenience. In that world, as long as it wasn't the emperor, it would be very difficult to carry out such a huge project in secret.

“But after we explored in the mountains, we found a problem that surprised us—the vegetation on the mountains here was very strange.

“Especially the vegetation near Yangjiao Mountain was different from other places. In particular, the types of trees were all of very good wood.”

When I heard this, my heart thumped and I already understood what he meant. I said: “I heard that there was a big fire near Yangjiao Mountain during the Ming Dynasty.”

“Yes.” Ghost said coldly, “This was what they had planned for a long time.”

The ancestors of the Zhang family had planned to move Zhang Jialou to the mountain as early as the Ming Dynasty, so they burned the mountain forest and planted wood that could be used in a thousand years.

What kind of spirit was this? How terrible was the family that would carry out a hundred-year-old plan?

“Nearly a thousand years after planting these woods, they grew into a whole mountain forest near Yangjiao Mountain, and craftsmen could use the local materials after coming in. You'll find that there are many shrubs here, because they were very careful to cut the trees down evenly.

“But even if all the wood could be obtained locally, it was almost impossible to transport it into the underground karst cave. Because this kind of large building needed a whole wood beam, it was impossible for this huge wood to pass through such fine caves. The best way, of course, was to use underground rivers, so that once the wood was thrown into the water, it could flow into the hole. But such conditions are rare and not desirable. They looked for underground water systems everywhere, but the terrain here is too high and this is the highest place in the Guangxi mountains so it was impossible.”

“You'd never be able to guess how the Zhang family transported the timber.” Ghost said, “Right under this rock, there's a deep vertical hole, which almost directly reaches the bottom.”

“The grave robbers' tunnel technique.” I said.

Ghost nodded, “Uncanny workmanship. The problem was how to dig this hole. Even if there were a large number of people, it would take many, many years to dig such holes in those days.

“All the wood was hoisted from this cave to the underground cave. Moreover, they also found a lot of strange ironware in the mountain crevices here which looked like very long spoons. They brought a lot of rain water from the mountain into these gaps and we thought it was to accelerate the dissolution of the karst caves, which was also a measure laid out in the Ming Dynasty. We also found the same ironware near the entrance of the cave. Do you know what this means?”

I shook my head and he said, “This hole was washed out by thousands of years of rain. They set up a copper ball at the entrance of the cave and made a mechanism. After knocking off the rocks on the surface, the inside was full of easily dissolved limestone. The copper ball was very heavy and when rainwater was concentrated in this hole by the ironware, the rock below decomposed and became brittle. The weight of the copper ball itself would crush the whole rock and for nearly 1,000 years, the copper ball has been sinking continuously and finally penetrated the dome.”

When you want to make a hole in a mountain, and you have nearly a thousand years, many things are easy for you.

As I listened, the chill got worse. Was this possible? My first thought was that it was too mysterious, but my experience told me that it was absolutely possible. And it wouldn't even take that long if the current stayed stable and contained certain chemicals. It may only take a few years to drip through a stone. This was also the cause of frequent landslides in many places.

I woke up under a mudslide. There was a lot of vegetation there, and according to logic, debris flow will not occur on such a large scale because there are many cracks in the rocks. This premise was true.

And the most terrible thing was, why would anyone have such an idea?

What we want to know is: what kind of people were they? What kind of life did they live? What was the purpose of this terrible design?

“I'm sure they didn't just find such a place, because in the past thousand years, there have been too many changes, and this place may be one of the ones they chose.” Ghost said, “There are many such places in Guangxi, but it will eventually escape the development of tourism and various industries and will remain a wild place in a few years' time. It's likely that only the hinterland of the Shiwan Dashan will be left. “

“Have you proved all of this?” I asked, because a lot of things couldn't be speculated.

Ghost only said, “No, you will believe me after listening.”

“Basically all our judgments could be reduced to facts, but when the explanation got to this point, there was a big problem.” Ghost patted the edge of the rock, “That is, what's going on in this mountain? We did a lot of research on these rocks and soon found a very terrible truth, and then we discovered the truth of the whole mountain." He said, “Now watch, I want to let you have a look at what this mountain is. Why else would I say they'll die when they enter the building?”

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Chapter end