Yunding Tiangong Chapter 29: Crater 2

The scale of the building complex is beyond my imagination. If there is an underground palace under these buildings, then the scale of this place may be comparable to the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum.

According to the scenes in the video of the underwater tomb, the real Yunding Palace should have been above our heads. After the avalanche, the spiritual palace above might have been completely crushed. I don't know how deep the snow is above our heads as the covering soil of this underground palace.

The flares we fired again went out in the darkness, and the darkness surrounded us again. Our light turned into a few flashlights in our hands that were obviously running low on power.

Except for Shunzi, everyone else had an almost fanatical excitement on their faces. Tomb robbing represents one of the most primitive desires of human beings , seeking wealth and exploring death. This kind of excitement is probably unavoidable for humans.

It took us ten minutes to recover and prepare to go down. Chenpi Ah Si said to Monk Hua, "Leave the useless things behind and prepare the ropes. We will go lightly."

Monk Hua started to prepare immediately. We sorted out our equipment and put some unnecessary items on the platform here to avoid unnecessary risks when climbing with heavy loads.

Then we all put on gas masks and used standard mountaineering steps, climbing down the cliff step by step using ropes.

There were a lot of dead trees below, and there was a strange smell in the air, which even the gas mask could not filter out. After everyone came down, they heard Pan Zi say, "This is a dead pit. We have to hurry. If we stay for too long, we may die of lack of oxygen. I heard it when I was in the army. Even birds can't fly over this kind of place."

That was the sulfur-containing poisonous gas emitted by volcanic activity. It was so toxic that it was hard to imagine.

Monk Hua lit up the cold fireworks with strong lighting to illuminate the surrounding environment. We looked around and saw a two-car wide stone road paved with slabs under our feet. It led almost straight ahead. This was the sacred road of the mausoleum, leading directly to the main gate of the mausoleum. Here we could vaguely see a huge black shadow at the end.

Monk Hua asked Chenpi Ah Si: "How do we get there?"

"Let's follow the sacred road and go to the imperial mausoleum first." Chenpi A Si replied.

None of us had any experience dealing with imperial tombs, and we had no other ideas at the moment, so without further ado, we followed behind and jogged all the way over.

After climbing over many dead trees that had fallen on the sacred road, we soon arrived at a stone gate. The stone was very high, a bit like the archway we see in the ancient village. This is the first stone gate of the imperial mausoleum, called the Heavenly Gate. After passing the stone gate, there will be a large number of stone carvings on both sides of the sacred road.

When they passed the stone gate, Chenpi Ah Si said, "When you come out, remember to walk backwards to avoid hitting the beheading gate."

I have seen this in my grandfather's notes. This first stone door has a very strange identity. Before this door, it was the place where the coffin bearers and the funeral procession were slaughtered. After the burial ceremony was completed, all people who went out of this door would be cut with a knife. Therefore, this door is equivalent to the Yin and Yang Gate. If the tomb robbers enter along the sacred road, or enter the first gate of the underground palace, they must come out backwards, otherwise it will be very troublesome.

Of course, few tomb robbers have the opportunity to follow the sacred path into the imperial tombs to rob them. We may be one of the extremely rare few. Those who have been able to rob the imperial tombs in the past dynasties are either warlords or tyrants. Of course, they are not afraid of the so-called beheading gate.

After passing Tianmen, there were white stone men and horses every five meters on both sides of the sacred road. We were not doing archaeology, and we couldn't move these things away, so we just went straight ahead without even looking at them.

As I was running, suddenly, the fat guy in front of me stopped. I was following behind him and bumped into him and fell to the ground.

This was so sudden that the fat guy was almost knocked down by me. I hurriedly asked him what he was doing.

The fat man turned his head and looked behind him, his face pale, and said softly: "It seems that there is a person standing on the side of the road."

The people ahead noticed that we had stopped and turned back. Pan Zi asked, "What happened?"

When the fat man told the others what he saw, they were a little skeptical. Pan Zi then said, "It must be a stone man. Did you see it wrong?"

The fat man shook his head. "It was gone in a flash. I just reacted and you looked at me. I was sweating all of a sudden. I must have seen it right."

"Did you see it clearly?"

"It looks like a woman, but I'm not sure." The fat man said, "She ran too fast, I didn't see clearly."

We all shone the flashlights towards the stone men behind us. There was one every five meters. Six or seven of them had passed by in the past moment. The woman that the fat man mentioned was not within the range of the flashlight. Maybe she was even further behind.

Monk Hua asked, "Old man, do you want to go back and take a look? Maybe it's the woman in that gang?"

Monk Hua was referring to Aning. I thought how was that possible? They went through the main gate of Yunding Palace. Even if they had successfully crossed the border, they should have been digging a hole right over our heads. They definitely couldn't be as fast as we were.

The fat man also said: "That's definitely not her. If it was that woman, I would definitely recognize her at a glance."

Chenpi Ah Si hesitated for a moment, then immediately said to Monk Hua: "You and the others go first," and then patted Shunzi: "Come with me to take a look."

? Chapter 29: The Crater

Shunzi's voice came from the darkness: "This kind of insect is worshipped as a god here because it can live for a long time. Moreover, when a centipede dies, its corpse will attract many of its kind. So we have to be extra careful when we walk and never step on them."

As he spoke, he turned on the flashlight. As soon as the flashlight was turned on, the green sea of stars around him immediately disappeared and suddenly turned into endless darkness.

The protective coloration of these centipedes is so powerful that we would not be able to detect them if we did not turn off the flashlight. I couldn't help but feel scared. If I had accidentally pressed one to death while crawling just now, not only would it be disgusting, but I might have died here.

We gathered our minds and continued to climb slowly up the stone steps. We carefully passed the hot spring area. The number of stone centipedes gradually decreased, and later on we could no longer see them. Obviously, as Shunzi said, the ecological links of the snow-capped mountains all revolve around the hot springs.

But the scene just now was so spectacular. If I had the chance, I would really like to take a few more glances. It is hard to imagine that such ugly insects can form such a beautiful scene. This world is really very strange.

Without the stone centipede, our speed became relatively faster, but the darkness above seemed endless. I didn't know when we could walk out of the gap and reach the other exit of this natural drainage path.

The fat man asked as he climbed up, "By the way, old man, I want to ask you something. What did you tell us about the nine dragons carrying corpses at the station? I was listening the whole time, but I never heard you mention it again."

Chenpi Ah Si stopped and looked at him, then looked at Monk Hua, motioning him to speak. Monk Hua explained, "We don't know either. All our information comes from the dragon fish. Nine dragons carrying the corpse may be a lost funeral system. The original text seems to say that the coffin of Emperor Wannu was carried by nine dragons, and nine dragons guarded his body. No one could get close. However, the Jurchen language is almost lost, and I don't know if what I translated is that meaning."

Then he read the original text aloud to us. The Jurchen pronunciation was so unfamiliar that I didn't understand anything at all.

"Wow, if the words on this fish are real, then if we want to open the coffin of Emperor Wannu, don't we have to learn from Nezha and fight the Third Prince of the Dragon King first?" Ye Cheng joked.

"Then don't worry about it. I think this Nine Dragons Carrying a Corpse Coffin is something like nine dragons carved under the coffin. It's just a token of our appreciation." The fat man said, "If there really is a dragon, we'll be rich. We can catch one and put it in the Forbidden City. I guarantee there will be a huge crowd of people. We'll make tens of thousands of dollars just by collecting tickets."

I said, "You are so useless that you only care about money. If you can really catch a dragon, you will be the Monkey King. I have never seen a Monkey King with your body shape."

The fat man was furious when he heard this and cursed: "So what if I'm fat? I rely on this fat to go up and down the world. If I shake it, the wind and clouds will change suddenly, and if I shake it, the earth will shake - oops!"

Before the fat man finished speaking, a gust of wind suddenly blew over from the side of the cliff, almost making him fall down. I quickly grabbed him and pulled him back to the cliff. Turning around, I saw that the gap had ended in front of me. The stairs had reached the end of the gap. If I walked further, there seemed to be a large space outside, but it was pitch black and I couldn't see anything clearly.

We're here! I was suddenly excited.

Several people stopped talking and covered their heads to the edge of the edge. There was a protruding rock there, and we climbed up. Monk Hua first lit a cold firework and shone it around. Except for the cliff where we were standing, there was nothing in front of us.

Then he threw the cold firework down the cliff. The cold firework fell straight down and suddenly turned into a small dot. He watched it get smaller and smaller. When it fell to the ground, it was almost invisible.

We were amazed. What on earth was ahead of us? It looked like a huge basin surrounded by cliffs.

"Flare." Chenpi A Si said.

"Bang!" Immediately, a meteor-like flare slid in a long arc and shot into the darkness in front of them, shooting out 160 to 170 meters and starting to descend. Then a dazzling white incandescent ball exploded, and the light suddenly illuminated the entire darkness in front.

I wanted to raise the telescope and look forward, but when I raised my hand halfway, I froze. Suddenly, I couldn't hear any sound and time seemed to freeze.

Under the illumination of white light, an extremely huge crater with a diameter of at least 3 kilometers appeared in front of us. The huge basin formed by the giant gray basalt was like a giant stone bowl, and we stood on the wall of the bowl on one side, like a few small ants, extremely small.

"I didn't expect to be connected directly to the volcano." A voice came from the side, but I couldn't tell who this person was. The only thing in my mind was the spectacular scene in front of me.

If the Hydra cypress and the ancient bronze tree only give me a sense of miracle, then this crater basin buried underground is simply a trace of God.

The basin is covered with a large number of dead trees. Obviously, this crater was once exposed to the atmosphere. It must have been an "underground forest". It may be due to volcanic eruptions or sudden volcanic activity that the trees here were sulfided to death. Now the remains of the forest still stand in the basin.

"Look there," someone continued to shout, but I could no longer tell who it was. Then two more flares were fired, flying towards the top of the crater.

Under the enhanced light, we saw a magnificent complex of buildings emerging deep in the central underground forest of the volcanic basin. The huge black stone city was shrouded in darkness and our entirety could not be seen.

Could that be our destination this time, the eternal mausoleum of Emperor Wannu? The underground palace of Yunding Tiangong is actually in the crater?