Mo Mo wasn't sure if this was the guesthouse where Hu Bayi and his group stayed in the original novel. After all, in the original story, Hu Bayi and his group decided to enter Longling based on the advice of Old Liu from that guesthouse. When Mo Mo heard someone call out to an old man named Old Liu, he felt there was no doubt that it was the guesthouse. After all, Hu Bayi had led the way, and with Old Liu from the canteen, it was almost certainly the guesthouse. He figured they would be entering the mountains soon.
(End of this chapter)
Chapter 101 Dragon King Temple
Longling, also known as Shepanpo, is a cluster of scattered earthen hills.
One mound after another, with a huge difference in elevation, the mounds are fragmented by rain and strong winds, with countless deep gullies, and some places have an outer shell of soil, but it breaks down with a step, revealing a sinkhole inside.
Two hills that look very close in a straight line actually take half a day to walk from one to the other.
Around nine o'clock in the morning, Mo Mo and his group left Gulan County. They took a car wherever they could, and walked wherever there was no road access. By the time they arrived at Longling, it was already getting dark.
The reason Mo Mo and his group went to Longling was that last night, while they were having dinner at the guesthouse, they chatted with Lao Liu. After they talked about their experiences in the Yellow River, Lao Liu told them about the Dragon King Temple.
That year, a great flood occurred, and the Gulan River was shallow, washing a dragon king with an iron head ashore. Before liberation, most people were superstitious and believed it was the Dragon King in disguise. They tried to send the Dragon King back into the river, but before they could even act, the dragon king died. People lined the riverbank to burn incense and pray; it was a massive, unprecedented scene. Old Liu was one of those who joined the crowd to witness it.
Later, someone funded the construction of a Dragon King Temple in Longling using the fish bones of the Iron-Headed Dragon King. Hu Bayi, combining this with the legend of the large tomb in Longling that Lao Liu had mentioned, believed that his peers were using the Dragon King Temple to carry out tomb raiding business, so he decided to go and see the Dragon King Temple.
The Dragon King Temple actually has a connection with Shirley Yang and Hu Bayi. The person who funded the construction of the Dragon King Temple was Jin Suanpan. Jin Suanpan, Tie Motou, and Liao Chen were all Zhang Sanye's apprentices. Hu Bayi's half of the sixteen-character Yin-Yang Feng Shui secret technique came from Zhang Sanye. It was also he who left behind the six-character taboo: "Unity brings life, separation brings death."
Unfortunately, the three brothers were so focused on saving people that they broke this taboo. Iron Grinding Head, one of the three, was hit in the vital spot by a hidden mechanism in the coffin lid and died on the spot. The other two had experienced many storms, but they never expected to capsize in a ditch.
Afterwards, Liao Chen and Jin Suanpan discussed it and realized that according to their master's words, "If we are united, we will live; if we are separated, we will die." They figured that if they went to raid tombs again, it would probably not end well. It seemed that they could no longer do tomb raiding.
Having witnessed the suffering of the common people over the years, Liao Chen realized that no matter how great his abilities, he could not save millions of people. He believed that the sea of suffering was boundless and that there was always a way back. He decided to take the urn containing Tie Motou's ashes to a temple in Jiangnan to become a monk and repent for his past deeds with the help of the ancient Buddha and the green lamp.
Jin Suanpan didn't want to become a monk or remove his talisman. He figured that since he couldn't do tomb raiding anymore, he could still go back to his old profession as a merchant who made money and could still help the poor and needy. However, natural disasters were frequent, and business wasn't easy. Besides, every habitual thief has an addiction, and what other business in the world could make money as fast as tomb raiding? Relying on his exceptional intelligence, Jin Suanpan saw the Yellow River floods and the widespread famine, so he continued to secretly engage in tomb raiding.
Just as the Yellow River was flooding, Jin Suanpan was helping people in need along both banks of the river. He happened to come to Gu Lan in Longling. He remembered something that happened a few years ago. He had learned from a merchant that there was a Tang Dynasty imperial tomb hidden in the rugged and winding Snake Coil Slope in Longling, not far from here. Then he wanted to see the big fish by the river. So he said he was willing to pay to build a Dragon King Temple to enshrine the fish bones and ask the river god to bless the local area with good weather and a good harvest. He also made up some excuses to make people believe that the location of the fish bone temple must be built in the mountains, otherwise there would be floods. This is the origin of the Dragon King Temple.
Master Zhang passed down two Vajra Umbrellas to the three of them. One of them was an ancient artifact passed down from the Tomb Raiders, and this one was in Liao Chen's hands. The one that Jin Suanpan carried was made in the Ming Dynasty, and its material and craftsmanship were no different from the ancient umbrella. It was also an extremely rare self-defense weapon. However, Jin Suanpan's umbrella had been lost, and Liao Chen's umbrella was now in Shirley Yang's hands.
Shirley Yang's maternal grandfather should be Liao Chen's apprentice, Partridge Whistle. This is why Shirley Yang's father was so determined to find the secret of Jingjue Kingdom. Partridge Whistle was a descendant of the clan that moved out of the Ghost Cave. Their clan was afflicted by the evil curse of the Ghost Cave, and they suffered unspeakable pain when they died.
Therefore, strictly speaking, Shirley Yang and Hu Bayi can be considered to be from the same school.
At the foot of Longling Mountain lies a small village with about twenty households. When Mo Mo and his companions arrived, it was already late, making it difficult to find the Fishbone Temple. Moreover, the mountain path was treacherous, and they could easily fall into a ditch if they weren't careful. So, the four of them decided to stay overnight in the village and deal with whatever came up the next morning.
So the four of them found a house nearby, explained their purpose to the owner, and said that they were on their way out of the village and had nowhere to go, so they wanted to ask for lodging for the night, but they would not stay for free and could pay some money.
The owners of the house were an elderly couple. Seeing the large bags and bundles that Mo Mo and his three companions were carrying, along with two lively white geese, they were puzzled and wondered what our group did for a living.
The fat man quickly put on a smiling face and said to them, "Grandpa and Grandma, we're on our way to visit some old comrades from the army. We just happened to be passing by and missed our lodging. You see, we're just traveling, it's not easy for us. Nobody brings their house with them when they travel, right? Could you please be kind and find us a room so the four of us can make do for the night? Here's twenty yuan for you." After saying that, without waiting for whether they wanted it or not, he took out the money and stuffed it into the old couple's hands.
The elderly couple saw that we didn't seem like bad people. Although Mo Mo looked a bit too young for the group, he had a natural aura of goodwill about him, so they readily agreed to give us a room, even though it seemed like no one had lived there for several years.
As the four were talking, the elderly couple fried some eggs and made two flatbreads for Mo Mo and the others, then brought them into the house.
The four thanked the host repeatedly, and while eating, they tried to get closer to him, asking who had lived in the house before.
Unexpectedly, the old man and woman burst into tears when asked this question.
They said this house originally belonged to their only son. Ten years ago, their son went into Panshe Slope to look for a lost lamb, but he never returned. The villagers searched for three or four days but didn't even find his body. They assumed he had fallen into a sinkhole in the earthen embankment and into a maze-like cave in the mountains. Their only son was gone just like that, leaving them without anyone to care for them in their old age. Over the years, they had barely managed to survive with the help of their fellow villagers.
The four of them felt a pang of sadness upon hearing this, for nothing in this world is more painful than a parent outliving their child. So the three of them chipped in some money for the old man, while Mo Mo gave the couple two or three thousand yuan. The old couple were extremely grateful, saying they had met such kind people.
Taking this opportunity, Mo Mo and his companions asked about the situation. The old couple told them that there were no Tang Dynasty tombs at Panshepo. They had only heard from the older generation that there was a large Western Zhou Dynasty tomb, and that the tomb was haunted. They said that even in broad daylight, people would encounter ghostly walls on the slope and get lost at the bottom of the ditch. If they were lucky, they would be rescued by someone, but if they were unlucky, they would be trapped and die inside.
The locals call this area "Panshe," meaning that the roads are complicated and it is easy to get lost. Longling Maze Caves refers to the caves in the mountains, which are crisscrossed and are simply a natural maze.
As for the original site of the Fishbone Temple, it does still exist, but it has been abandoned for decades. Leaving the village and turning over two mountain ridges, there's a deep ravine. The Fishbone Temple is at the end of that ravine. When the temple was built, the merchant who funded it said it was a feng shui location, and that building a Dragon King Temple there would guarantee favorable weather. However, after the temple was built, nothing changed. Heaven would send rain when it wanted, and if it didn't want rain, it would bring drought for years. Burning incense and offering sacrifices was useless, so the temple's incense offerings died out, and few people went there anymore.
This was inevitable, since Jin Suanpan's purpose in building the Dragon King Temple was simply to cover up his tomb raiding; it had absolutely nothing to do with feng shui.
After eating and drinking their fill, Big Gold Tooth saw the stone tablet in the courtyard and deduced that there must be a large Tang Dynasty tomb in Longling. So the group went back to the house to discuss it.
The four decided to rest and recharge tonight, and tomorrow morning, whether it was Dragon Ridge or Coiled Snake Slope, they would explore the area thoroughly. Besides, there might be many undiscovered antiques in the village; they would visit the local villagers' homes on their way back.
(End of this chapter)
Chapter 102 Ghost Tomb
The next morning, Mo Mo and his group got up early, packed their things, and followed the directions they had found out the day before. They left the village, crossed two mountain ridges, and headed to find the Fishbone Temple.
The two mountain ridges sound simple, and the straight-line distance may be very short, but in reality, they are not easy to cross.
When Mo Mo and the others arrived here yesterday, it was already dark, and apart from Mo Mo, no one else could see the surroundings clearly. Now, with the dawn breaking, Hu Bayi and the others were finally able to see the true face of this place. All they could see were ravines crisscrossing the mountains, and fragmented earthen plains, ridges, mounds, and gullies standing all around.
Although this is not the Loess Plateau, the surface is covered with a large amount of hard yellow mud due to the influence of the Yellow River floods. The wind is like the sculptor's knife, cutting and carving the originally undulating mountains, forming countless ravines and wind tunnels. Some of the ravines are so deep that it feels like you don't even need to look for yourself if you fall in. You can just burn some incense on the mountain during the Qingming Festival every year.
The natural environment here is harsh, the land is vast and sparsely populated, the wind howls through the mountain gullies, like the wailing of evil spirits, the mountain ridges are full of caves of all sizes, bottomless, and from a distance they look like the hillside is covered with black spots.
Following Hu Bayi and his companions' pace, they walked for nearly three hours before finally finding the Fishbone Temple in a mountain gully.
The temple was even more dilapidated than Mo Mo and his companions had imagined. Although they had heard that the Dragon King Temple had been without worshippers for decades and were somewhat prepared, they were still surprised to find that the temple was almost falling apart. Mo Mo estimated that if it weren't for the support of the plot, the Dragon King Temple would have collapsed long ago.
Fishbone Temple consists of only one hall, with no distinction between front and back, east and west wings. The temple gate is long gone, but at least we saw the skull of the Iron-Headed Dragon King Fish, whose mouth served as the temple gate.
The fat man tapped it with his entrenching tool, and it made a clanging sound; this bone was really hard.
The four examined it closely and found that the fish skull was completely different from ordinary fish bones. Although it had no flesh, it still looked ferocious and ugly. If Mo Mo were to give this fish a rating, it would be ugly.
The clay statue of the Dragon King inside the temple has long since disappeared, and the floor beams are covered with dust and cobwebs. However, inside, it is not apparent that the beams are made of fish bones; it is estimated that the fish bones are encased in the bricks and tiles.
The walls weren't completely peeling off yet, and you could barely make out the four large characters "风调雨顺" (meaning favorable weather and abundant harvests). There were several nests of mice on the ground, which scurried away in fright when they saw someone coming in.
Mo Mo and the others lingered in the temple hall of the Fishbone Temple for a while, since the dilapidated temple might collapse at any moment, and a strong wind might just blow the roof off.
After leaving the Fishbone Temple, Hu Bayi looked at the surrounding terrain and laughed, "If the location of this Fishbone Temple is a good feng shui spot, I'll go back and tear up my book 'The Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique' to burn as firewood." Then he explained the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique to Fatty and the others one by one, which made Fatty and Big Gold Tooth admire him greatly.
Finally, Hu Bayi concluded that the temple was set up by their colleagues to cover his tomb raiding. Hu Bayi insisted that anyone who could find the tomb must be a seasoned expert who would adhere to the rule of not taking one thing and not the other.
While they were chatting happily, Mo Mo had already kicked open the hole behind the altar, and Hu Bayi and the other two quickly surrounded it upon hearing the sound.
"Master Mo, you're amazing! You found the tunnel so quickly. Now that we've found it, let's get started!" The fat man gave Mo Mo a thumbs up.
Hu Bayi shoved his way to the side of the cave, shone his wolf-eye flashlight inside, and said, "This is truly superb skill. Little Fatty, Master Jin, look at how this cave was dug. It's so well-dug, with every ridge and line clearly visible. The round parts look like they were drawn with a compass. And the shovel marks on the cave walls are all one after another, so perfectly symmetrical."
Big Gold Tooth, being from a prestigious family, certainly knew some skills and praised it repeatedly, but Fatty couldn't figure it out.
The fat man wasn't annoyed by this. Holding the two large white geese, he said, "It's time for these two to go. Let them be the scouts." However, Hu Bayi stopped him. After all, the cave had been sealed for years, and foul air had accumulated inside. They should wait until the foul air dissipated before sending a goose down to scout.
So the four of them took out some food and started eating. During this time, Big Gold Tooth asked, "Since the mountain is hollow, why go through all the trouble of digging a tunnel in Fishbone Temple? Wouldn't it have been better to just find a cave and dig it in?"
Mo Mo replied, "Although there are karst landforms here, and they are widely distributed and quite large in scale, based on the information we have gathered, we can make the following judgment: whether the locals call this place Dragon Ridge or Coiled Snake Slope, the place name is not important; it just describes the complex terrain. The most important point is that almost everyone who knows about it says that the karst caves in this mountain are a maze, and the name Dragon Ridge Maze comes from this."
After listening to Mo Mo's explanation, Big Gold Tooth and Fatty suddenly understood.
Finally, the four of them discussed it and decided that Mo Mo, who was driving two big white geese, would lead the way, with Fatty and Big Gold Tooth in the middle, and Hu Bayi bringing up the rear, as they entered the tomb.
After entering the tunnel and advancing for a while, the group found themselves blocked by stone slabs on all sides. However, they did not panic, as they all knew Mo Mo's abilities. Mo Mo would not disappoint them. Although he did not know which way was the right one, his divine sense had recovered somewhat. So, with a thought, he found the correct exit and even knew exactly how many of the human-faced spiders were in the nest.
A few minutes later, Mo Mo led Hu Bayi and the others to the entrance of the Underworld Palace. They put the white goose inside to test the air quality. The traps and mechanisms inside had been mostly destroyed by Jin Abacus.
After two or three minutes, Mo Mo pulled the white goose back and, finding nothing amiss, crawled out of the tomb-raiding hole and arrived at the Underworld Palace. The Underworld Palace of this ancient tomb was quite large, covering an area of two hundred square meters. Mo Mo and the others used their wolf eyes for illumination and looked around. Hu Bayi and the others couldn't help but ask, "Why is there no coffin in the Underworld Palace...?"
Mo Mo scanned the area with his divine sense and discovered that there was also that mysterious power suppressing his divine sense here. It seemed that this place was probably similar to the Jingjue Ancient City.
Despite their doubts, Mo Mo and the others decided to continue. Hu Bayi took out a candle and lit it in the southeast corner of the Underworld Palace. Although the candlelight was weak, the flame was straight and showed no signs of going out. Hu Bayi and the others looked at the candle and felt relieved. They called out and walked towards the front hall.
Upon entering the front hall, Hu Bayi and his companions were once again taken aback, as the front hall was even larger in scale, but the pavilions and halls were only half-built before construction was halted, and they have remained so ever since.
Hu Bayi pointed to the fountain in front of him and said, "Look at this little fountain, this is what is commonly known as a 'coffin spring.' In a feng shui tomb, if there is such a spring, that is truly exceptional. Moreover, the water flow of this spring is always the same, never overflowing or drying up, so this burial site has the appearance of a vessel in feng shui. Its source is from the sky, like the waves of water. This kind of inner concealment is extremely suitable for burying women, and their descendants will surely receive blessings."
Finally, the four of them wandered around the tomb for a while but didn't find anything, so they had to return to the side of the tomb's tunnel. They walked and talked, and before they knew it, they had returned to the Underworld Palace. Hu Bayi had only said half of what he was saying when he was suddenly interrupted by Fatty, and Big Gold Tooth also put his finger to his lips, making a shushing gesture.
Hu Bayi looked up and saw a "person" appear in the southeast corner of the Underworld Palace, behind the candlelight. The candlelight flickered in the corner of the Underworld Palace, making the corner of the wall sometimes bright and sometimes dark. A huge and pale human face appeared at the edge of the shadow, while his body was hidden in the darkness outside the range of the candlelight.
Mo Mo knew that it was just a face, and that this was actually a ghost tomb.
So they shone their flashlights over, and only then did Big Gold Tooth and the other two see clearly that the stone face was actually a relief carving on a huge stone sarcophagus. This sarcophagus was enormous. However, Hu Bayi and the others were even more horrified, because when they first entered the Underworld Palace, the palace was completely empty. There was absolutely no such large stone sarcophagus. It, like the stone wall sealing the tunnel, seemed to have suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Big Gold Tooth, a connoisseur, glanced at it and said, "This stone sarcophagus dates back to the Western Zhou Dynasty."
Hu Bayi and his companions found this even stranger, so they said to Big Gold Tooth, "If I remember correctly, shouldn't we be in the underworld of a Tang Dynasty tomb right now? How come there's a Western Zhou Dynasty stone sarcophagus in a Tang Dynasty tomb?"
Seeing this, Mo Mo said, "If I'm not mistaken, we've encountered a ghost tomb. Our top priority now is to get out of this ghost tomb."
The three of them thought it made perfect sense, so they began to rack their brains to figure out how to break the Ghost Tomb. Seeing that Hu Bayi and the others had been thinking for more than ten minutes without coming up with a solution, Mo Mo drew his sword and swung it. The two large white geese fell down with a thud, and the coffin in the tomb chamber slowly dissipated.
It took the three of them four or five seconds to come to their senses, and then they looked at Mo Mo with faces full of admiration.
Mo Mo walked to the entrance of the tomb raider's tunnel and shone his wolf eyes on it. The area below, which had been completely turned into a tomb passage, had disappeared. The tunnel was filled with mud, and it was the same tomb raider's tunnel from before.
Since they did not leave again, they were not trapped by the Suspended Staircase. Their physical strength was excellent, so Mo Mo once again took the lead and jumped into the vertical shaft of the tomb.
They continued forward through the tunnel for several dozen meters until they reached the cross section of the tunnel, which was the place in the original novel where Hu Bayi and his companions encountered the human-faced black antlers.
(End of this chapter)
Chapter 103 Fragrant Jade
Before even entering the cave, Mo Mo spotted the human-faced black snake not far away. Since he was already able to see in the dark, the human-faced black snake hiding not far away was almost like being illuminated by a searchlight in Mo Mo's eyes. Of course, Mo Mo also saw the wooden building.
At the cave entrance, Mo Mo stopped and waited for Fatty and the others. Two or three minutes later, the three of them arrived behind Mo Mo.
"Master Mo, why did you stop? Is something wrong?" The fat man, who was following behind Mo Mo, asked him.
"There's something going on in the cave ahead. I'll go check it out first. You guys follow behind and be careful." After saying that, Mo Mo took his small Tang sword and walked out of the cave.
Mo Mo sensed them and thought to himself, "There's one above my head, two beside the cave entrance in front, and five more inside the cave. Are there more than Hu Bayi and the others back then? But unfortunately, they're useless against me."
Just as Mo Mo walked under the human-faced black spider, the black spider finally moved and sprayed viscous spider silk onto Mo Mo beneath it.
Mo Mo had seen it long ago. Just before the human-faced black snake spit out spider silk, he swung his Tang sword and continued walking forward. It wasn't until Mo Mo had taken three or four steps that the human-faced black snake fell into the hole with a thud.
Mo Mo felt that killing them one by one was too troublesome. He then remembered that the lair of the human-faced black worms was built on wooden structures and was covered with a mixture of pine resin and butter. So, he took out a white pill about the thickness of a finger from his pocket.
The ingredients of this white pill are very simple, mainly white phosphorus and some flammable materials, and then it is wrapped in a layer of wax. When it is thrown out and hits something, the wax seal on the outside will break and then burn rapidly.
Mo Mo stopped twenty meters away from the wooden building, tossed the phosphorus pellet in his hand, smiled slightly, and then threw the pellet toward the wooden structure.
The phosphorus pellet shattered against the wood with a snap and then quickly burst into flames. The wood was coated with pine resin and butter, so it ignited instantly. In less than a minute, the entire cave was illuminated by raging fire. Given what had happened, how could Hu Bayi and the others remain seated? They all rushed towards Mo Mo.
The three were startled by the dead human-faced black spider halfway there, but after realizing that the human-faced black spider was dead, they quickly ran towards Mo Mo. Although the three were somewhat surprised, they were not too astonished. After all, Mo Mo could even cut down the huge Iron-Headed Dragon King, let alone this spider that was only the size of a washbasin.