Tomb Raider: I Am Hu Bayi's Cousin

Chapter 752 Three Tribulations? Calamities?
Needless to say, the blind man and the young man only trusted the knife in their hands.

Hu Ming is a little better, but he will never hesitate to use modern weapons when necessary.

As for Wu Xie, although he learned knife skills from the blind man for a while, in the end, Wu Xie was not cut out for unrestricted combat.

To date, the big white dog's leg has never been seen to hurt anyone.

Fat guys are the only ones who are indecisive and resort to using explosives to clear the way; this has almost become their defining characteristic.

The fat man tightened his belt, trying to hide what had made his waistline much larger.

……

The towers here were built for a specific purpose and were never intended to be strictly off-limits to outsiders.

Hu Ming and his group were all experienced, and within minutes they easily found the deeply hidden entrance next to the central burial mound.

The passage beneath the hard cover was extremely narrow, barely enough to accommodate the fat man's body.

The group landed one by one.

All the tiles and wooden structures were covered with a thick layer of bronze, and even after hundreds or thousands of years, the internal structure remains very well preserved.

However, under the light, a colony of fungi could still be seen growing on some of the wooden structures.

Clearly, due to the limitations of the technology available at the time, this area eventually became damp.

The interior structure of the ancient pagoda is mostly made of wood. Even though a layer of varnish was applied to prevent oxidation, it is not much better under the corrosive effects of time.

Structurally speaking, this floor is probably the top floor of the ancient pagoda. The space is relatively narrow and there is almost nothing superfluous except for three statues of gods enshrined on a shelf in the very center of the space.

The statue was covered with small mushrooms, indicating that the material used to make the statue was mostly organic.

"It's a statue made of human skin that's been peeled off... Judging from the size and the material, it might be the skin of a seven or eight-year-old child."

Covering his mouth and nose, Hu Ming stepped forward to touch him and said confidently.

It's worth mentioning that as soon as they entered the ancient tower, they could smell a strong sulfur odor.

This is the smell from deep within the rock strata.

"The skin of a seven or eight-year-old child..."

Several people grimaced.

Well, to put it simply, hearing that the statues in this kind of eerie place are made of the skin of a young child is somewhat unsettling.

However, considering the Golden Boy Cult's identity as a cult, one can't help but feel a little suspicious...

Have you ever seen a cult that genuinely practices worship of God?
How can you call yourself a cult if you don't involve some bloodshed and cruelty?
The group observed carefully and found that the light was directed to the area beneath the caisson ceiling, where a plaque hung above the horizontal beam, bearing four large gold characters: "Qingyang's End Calamity".

"The final calamity of Qingyang!"

Wu Xie pondered for a moment, then his face lit up with joy!
Finally, there's something he knows!
but
After watching for a while, the group showed no intention of asking any questions. Instead, they made a move to descend to the next floor via the spiral staircase leading down to the caisson ceiling.

“Ahem, wonderful!” “My esteemed brothers, please look at this plaque. Do you know that the Qingyang Final Calamity is the end of the three calamities in ancient religious mythology, namely the Qingyang Period, the Hongyang Period, and the Baiyang Period?”

"And this first tribulation..."

Wu Xie quickly coughed lightly, drawing everyone's attention.

"The first calamity began with Fuxi and ended with King Ji of Zhou, lasting a total of 1,866 years. This is the Qingyang Calamity."

The young man glanced at Wu Xie, interrupted him directly, and quietly finished Wu Xie's sentence.

"Gah?"

Wu Xie was dumbfounded. Was this script being played out incorrectly?
"First of all, nephew, when it comes to the study of ancient papal myths, the blind man and I definitely know more than you do."

"Secondly, this involves the Golden Boy Cult, a hybrid that combines Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Believe me, even Fatty knows more about it than you do..."

"at last..…"

Hu Ming smacked his lips and said, "Leaving aside King Ji of Zhou for now, at least on the point of Fuxi, my brother and I can tell you with certainty."

"Fuxi has absolutely nothing to do with the end of the Three Tribulations. He didn't have such a theory. These are just interpretations by later generations."

Hu Ming patted the bewildered Wu Xie and then turned back to point at the three statues.

"Do you see these three statues?"

"The Golden Boy Cult was a hybrid product. Due to the limitations of the era, its doctrines were quite diverse in order to attract as many followers as possible."

"For example, these three statues are the three saviors in the final calamity of Qingyang according to the Golden Boy Sect's doctrine: Dipankara Buddha, Fuxi, and the Queen Mother of the West..."

"Moreover, I can tell you with certainty that the depth here is definitely more than three layers. In other words, the next layer is definitely not the Red Sun's final calamity that you expected."

Even without prior knowledge of the structure of this strange underground bronze tower, Hu Ming could easily draw conclusions based solely on the various signs he encountered upon entering and the feedback from the sounds he heard—

This underground bronze tower is terrifyingly deep!
Carefully descending the decaying stairs, I reached the second floor, where the structure was noticeably different from the first.

The most striking feature is the height; just by looking at it, you can see that the spatial structure of the second floor is almost twice that of the first floor!
"A thousand great calamities!"

Wu Xie shone the light on the plaque and murmured the large gold characters on it.

Wu Xie's expression turned strange. He glanced at the group and saw certainty on Hu Ming and the blind man's faces.

Wu Xie was, after all, a college graduate, the blind man was a returnee from overseas, and no one could fathom Hu Ming's knowledge base. All three of them knew exactly what the "thousand numbers" meant.

The thousand is an ancient Chinese unit of measurement. In essence, it is an incredibly large unit of measurement, approximately 10^1048576 (upper number) + 10^75 (middle number).

If each level of this tower represents a calamity, and each calamity is measured in a unit of measurement, wouldn't that mean...

Wu Xie was startled. These units of measurement ranged from the largest, thousands, to the smallest, infinitely close to nothingness, 10^-24, or Nirvana's Silence—there were over sixty levels in total!!!
Based on current rough estimates, each level of the tower is twice as tall as the one above it.
Wu Xie simply couldn't fathom how deep this tower must have gone; could it have reached deep into the Earth's mantle? Was this truly an engineering feat achievable by humankind?
As expected, following closely behind Hu Ming and the young man who were leading the way, we arrived at the next floor. When the lights shone on it, the plaque still displayed the large gold characters: "Great Calamity!"
The height of the third floor is twice that of the second floor!
"Holy crap, at this rate, just how many stories does this damn bronze tower have, and how deep is it?"

Wu Xie shouted in horror!