Behind the stone gate is a long corridor.
If a living person enters, the airflow will bring up dust, so people can only move forward by covering their mouths and noses.
When people walk in a depressive space, they feel that even the timeline has been stretched infinitely, as if it will never come to an end, and the further they go, the more depressed they become.
I don’t know how long I walked, but the light of the torch suddenly swayed slightly.
Noticing the slight change in the torch in his hand, Jin An paused.
Mr. Yiyun: "What's wrong?"
Jin An thought: "There seemed to be a breeze blowing just now. This place should be connected to the outside world."
His guess was correct. When they reached the end, they saw an underground palace complex half buried by yellow sand. There was a new gap in the palace complex blown out by explosives, and the dark night starry sky on the ground could be directly seen.
This is where the wind from outside blows in.
When they climbed out of the cave along the yellow sand slope, they suddenly appeared on the Gobi desert, with the Desert Ear behind them.
"Why are we back on the ground again?"
At this time, Ayimaimaiti carried the earless Abbas on his back, and others also came out, staring blankly at the vast world of yellow sand in front of them.
"The underground building just now should be the shrine where the high priest of the Wu'er clan and the priests live. These priests claim to be extraordinary and are the envoys who walk in the world on behalf of the gods. There must be a special passage to the God's Ear Heaven
The temple in the pit, they should enter the tiankeng through the temple to hold various sacrifices and major celebrations." Jin An looked up at the dark sky and expressed his conjecture.
Such an explanation does make sense, so no one refuted Jin An.
"These Wuer clan like to live underground and build their houses and shrines underground. Why did I suddenly think of an idiom called digging one's own grave? If I hadn't known in advance that this was the ruins of the Wuer clan, I would have been there just now when I was at the shrine.
I thought I was entering some huge mausoleum, but these Wuer clan actually built such a large palace complex underground."
After Jin An marveled, he looked towards the direction of the camp in Desert Ear: "Come on, let's go back to the camp first. I just observed the celestial phenomenon. This time we went down to the tiankeng and came out. Three people have passed outside.
It will be dawn soon around the hour."
These Wuer clans regard the Desert Ear Tiankeng as a god. There are no buildings in the Desert Ear. The Wuer clan's buildings are built around the Tiankeng. The closer to the Desert Ear, the higher the status.
The sinkhole in Desert Ear is huge, and they still have a long way to go if they want to return to the temporary camp in Desert Ear.
On the way back, Mr. Yiyun frowned slightly, thinking about things.
"Master Yiyun, do you have something to say?" Jin An looked at Master Yiyun strangely.
Mr. Yiyun: "Have you ever felt that the sudden madness of Abbas and the others, leading us to discover the Yin-Yang Twin Road, the Tiankeng Temple, the Stone Gate, and the Wu'er Temple...these things were all set up by the veterans who had escaped.
It's a trap used to deliberately delay time, disrupt our vision, keep us busy from beginning to end, and have no free time to think about flaws, so that we can't chase them immediately?"
When Jin An heard this, his face was stern: "These veterans have many secrets. We still haven't figured out what the corpse oil that the people of Laughing Corpse Manor are using for generations has been refining."
"Actually, their next whereabouts are not difficult to guess." Jin An smiled slightly, with calmness and confidence on his face.
Mr. Yiyun became interested: "Oh? How do you say this?"
The two of them were talking while walking in the cold winter wind. Ayimaimaiti and the others followed them obediently, but secretly they all pricked up their ears to listen to the conversation between the two in front.
Jin An: "I didn't detect corpse oil on those veterans along the way. It was probably because the fire at Laughing Corpse Manor a few days ago was too sudden, and they were unable to go down to the ancient tomb under the dry well to take out the corpse oil...
…”
"...So, their next whereabouts are not difficult to guess."
"One, maybe they are going back to the Laughing Corpse Manor to retrieve the corpse oil that is very important to them, and then use the corpse oil to plot something we don't know about."
"Second, perhaps because they were concerned about the safety of their companions, they did not rush back to the Laughing Corpse Manor to retrieve the corpse oil. Instead, they went directly to chase those people from the northern grassland, intending to rescue them, and waited until all thirteen brothers were here.
Then we went back to Laughing Corpse Manor to retrieve the corpse oil. Seeing that we were not in a hurry to save people, they deliberately diverted us away and went on their own to save people. This is not impossible."
"Let's split the two probabilities half and half."
"If you want to capture them, the safest way is to return to the Laughing Corpse Manor and wait quietly. No matter what the possibility is, they will definitely return to the Laughing Corpse Manor to get the corpse oil in the end."
"Taoist Master Jin'an's analysis makes sense." Mr. Yiyun nodded thoughtfully.
The wind and sand at night were very strong. Jin An raised his hands and covered his face tightly to prevent the sand from being blown away and eating a mouthful of sand: "However, the method of waiting for the rabbit I mentioned has one biggest drawback."
Mr. Yiyun: "Is it too much of a waste of time?"
Jin An smiled: "That's what's good about talking to smart people. It's easy to understand. Yes, our trip to Laughing Corpse Manor is too time-consuming."
"And there is no guarantee that we will be able to defend those veterans in a short period of time."
"If those veterans rescue people first and then return to Laughing Corpse Manor, or if they die in the desert forever without being rescued, we will never be able to defend them. Although this method can give the greatest chance of defending those veterans, the timeline is stretched.
If it’s too long, there’s a small chance of failure.”
"So I think it's better for us to continue on the road to find Baizu. We will definitely run into those people from the northern grasslands. Finding these people is equivalent to finding those veterans who escaped."
Mr. Yiyun carefully thought about the feasibility of this matter, and finally nodded slightly: "This is indeed a good suggestion.
While talking about walking, a group of people walked more than ten miles at night before reaching the desert ear camp.
Master Yan and the mountain guard, who entered the stone gate before them, were also already in the camp.
Those who were fascinated by the veterans and kept wandering in circles have been exorcised by the monks and are now sitting on the side with ugly expressions. Even Jin An and the others only raised their eyelids when they came back.
People asked Jin'an for their safe return.
Except Chibber.
"Young Master, Taoist Priest Jin'an, you are back. Just now I only saw Yan Kuan and the others coming back, but not you guys. But I'm worried about you, old slave. I hope you come back safely. I hope you come back safely." Qi Bo led the sheep and
The camel came with a happy face.
At this time, Ayimaimaiti and the others wanted to shamelessly continue to come over, but were driven away by Jin An. He had something to talk about next, but these people could not be trusted and could not stay around to eavesdrop.
"Old Sadiq, Ilham, when those veterans of Laughing Corpse Village escaped, you were near the shed. Did you see what happened specifically?" Jin An asked the three heads directly in front of Mr. Yiyun and Qi Bo.
camel.
When Jin An asked, Old Sadiq immediately said with exaggerated grievance: "Taoist Jin An, there are too many devils in the desert, it is safest to be with you! After we were awakened by the screams, we were still a little bit brainy at that time.
I was confused and didn't wake up completely. I seemed to see the old soldier with a disfigured face. I don't know what he did to the bonfire, and the bonfire suddenly turned into a ghostly green color like a will-o'-the-wisp."
"At that time, we just took a look and were fascinated. We kept walking in the dark desert alone, looking for everyone we were separated from. If Qibo hadn't arrived later and rescued us in time, we would have kept walking in circles.
Got down."
Ilham and little Sahaf on the side also nodded, saying that the scene they saw when they punched the wall was the same as that of old Sadiq.
Jin An pondered: "Those veterans didn't kill anyone before they escaped? Didn't they do anything to the camels?"
The three camels shook their heads and said that the veterans only took away the camels they had raised and did not touch other people's camels. They were probably worried that touching other people's camels would make a noise and attract the attention of masters such as Jin An and Yan Kuan, so
Only take away the camels they have raised.
As for why the veterans didn't kill anyone before escaping, it's actually easy to understand. It's important to escape at this time, and it's not appropriate to make extraneous matters. If they kill all the people, Lord Yan will be furious and will not follow the earless Abbas into the sinkhole.
Instead, he launched a relentless pursuit of them. I'm afraid it would be difficult for them to escape tonight.
Watching Jin An talking to himself with the three camels, Master Yiyun and Qibo did not have any expressions on their faces. On the contrary, they shocked old Sadiq and young Sahaf. Sure enough, both of them understood what they were talking about.
human dialogue.
At this time, Qi Bo spoke: "Sir, before you return, Master Yan and his people have already discussed tomorrow's itinerary. They plan to continue deep into the desert basin along the dry ancient river to search for Baizu.
.”
After listening to Qi Bo's words, Mr. Yiyun subconsciously looked at Jin An: "As expected by Taoist Jin An, every step of everyone here has been predicted by Taoist Jin An."
Jin An: "This result is not surprising at all. After all, Mr. Yan doesn't look like a fool. There are many of them, and every step is considered further than us."
Mr. Yiyun: "Taoist Master Jin'an is too self-effacing."
…
…
There was no communication between several people all night.
The next day.
At dawn, the camel team, which had resupplied water, started on the road early in the morning, taking advantage of the cooler weather.
Perhaps there were still many secrets hidden in the Desert Ear sinkhole, but the food they carried did not allow them to waste time on unimportant side issues.
The deeper secrets of this sinkhole can only be explored again when we have the opportunity in the future.
To be continued...