Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 171 Blood Sacrifice of the Ancestors

Ran Qing once again received guidance from the destiny card.

There is indeed an evil ghost underground who has been cursed by the owner of the destiny card.

At that time, in a trance, Ran Qing saw a pale, beardless face wearing a black robe.

"...Could it be Taoist Zhang?" Ran Qing murmured.

He looked at Long Zongshu and asked, "Zongshu, does it mention where Taoist Zhang was buried after his death?"

Ran Qing suddenly thought of a possibility.

Long Zongshu looked at the inscription again and hesitated, "That... it's not mentioned there, but according to the old rules, fallen leaves return to their roots, so Taoist Zhang's body must be sent back to his hometown."

At this moment, Little Cotton suddenly made a sound.

"Ran Qing! Mo Li! Come and look, there's a hole here!"

Little Mianhua's voice came from behind the stone pillar. Ran Qing and the other two hurried over and found that behind a stone pillar, there was a cave formed by stone arches.

The pitch-black cave is only about one person high. The land inside the cave sinks and extends underground. It is even paved with stone slabs, making it look like a man-made building.

Ran Qing and Mo Li raised their flashlights at the same time and shone the light into the cave.

But at the end of the winding cave was an empty underground cave.

There are many strange words and patterns carved on the stone walls of the cave.

Ran Qing and Mo Li looked at each other, and Ran Qing said, "I'll go in and take a look."

Mo Li immediately shook his head: "Let's go down together, we can't separate."

Long Zongshu also agreed. This place was so strange and dangerous that they couldn't act separately. He went back and helped his cousin up.

At this time, Long Zongshu's cousin had woken up, but his eyes were still a little dull and his thoughts were a little confused.

He recognized Ran Qing and the other two, but he spoke incoherently, as if he was crazy.

"Zong Shu! Ran Qing! And Mo Li!"

The dark-skinned young man smiled happily and clapped his hands, saying, "We meet again, everyone is reunited!"

"I saw you all died, we all died together! Hahahaha..."

The dark-skinned young man was crazy.

Ran Qing shook his head and said, "The evil spirit has entered his brain and he is a little confused."

"I fed him some incense ash from a ghost walker to help him expel the evil spirits."

"In two hours, he will gradually regain consciousness."

In this way, four people and a dog entered the cave one after another.

The low cave continued to go down, and when they walked underground, they found that there was a large space in the cave in front of them.

However, the ground of this cave is dry and hard, without any moisture.

When the flashlight shines on the stone wall, you can see many ancient characters and patterns engraved on the cave wall.

Ran Qing took out two shriveled longans from his backpack, crushed the shells and threw them out.

The longan fruit core was spinning, and this time it finally had a target, rolling towards the depths of the cave.

Finally it hit something and stopped.

Ran Qing and several others lined up and walked forward. Ran Qing walked in front. The light of the flashlight in his hand shone on a strange stone platform standing in the dark and dry cave hall.

In the center of the stone platform, there is a human-shaped groove.

Several people were stunned when they saw this scene.

Long Zongshu looked confused. "Isn't this the Demon-Suppressing Stone Forest that suppresses the evil lord? Why is there an altar here?"

This human-shaped depression was clearly an altar used by the Zangke people for blood sacrifices. Although a long time had passed, a strange black and red hue still remained within the groove, as if it had been soaked in blood for years and had become one with the stone platform.

It can be foreseen that in the ancient barbaric era, many Qiangke natives were pressed on this stone platform as sacrifices, their throats were slit, their blood was drained, and they gradually died while howling in pain, becoming blood sacrifices to the evil lord.

There was a certain eerie and bloody smell that everyone seemed to be able to smell.

This empty underground cave became even more eerie and terrifying.

Mo Li suddenly thought of something. She ran to the edge of the cave and pointed the flashlight at the words and pictures on the stone wall.

She said, "These characters and pictures seem different from the characters used to suppress demons in the stone forest outside. They don't seem to be the same language..."

Ran Qing walked over and observed carefully. He didn't understand ancient Chinese, but it was indeed as Mo Li said, the two scripts were slightly different.

The writing in the underground caves looked more like pictures and were very intuitive. He didn't understand classical Chinese, but he could tell that the character with wings and an oval representing the belly on the stone wall must be a bird, and the character with a semicircle representing the belly, four lines representing the feet, and two lines representing the horns must be a cow.

There are many crude and simple texts like these pictures on the stone walls.

However, the words engraved on the stone forest outside did not have such pictures. They were real words, but they were difficult to understand.

Long Zongshu whispered, "Could it be that someone first worshipped the Evil Lord here? This is really an altar."

"But later, other natives came and occupied this place. They drove away the natives who originally worshipped the evil lord and built a stone forest to suppress the evil lord below..."

In the wild and primitive period of the Qianghe people, different ethnic groups and tribes lived in the mountains and forests, and the natives fought against each other.

It is common for one ethnic group to wipe out another.

Even the most powerful ancient Yelang Kingdom recorded in the Qiangke region eventually disappeared silently, and even the written language was cut off.

Long Zongshu's guess is indeed a possibility that fits the current situation.

If the natives who worshipped the evil god were driven away or even exterminated, the new natives would certainly not continue to worship this evil god.

In the old days, the natives of Zangke all had their own beliefs in evil gods.

To defeat the enemy tribe, you must also suppress and drive away the evil lord they worship, otherwise you will be retaliated against.

Mo Li and Ran Qing carefully read the words on the stone wall. Although they could not understand ancient Chinese, this kind of text was too intuitive and simple.

Almost half a picture.

Half guessing, half guessing, I can be sure of one thing.

“…These natives are worshipping a snake god!”

Ran Qing murmured with a slightly changed expression.

The most common type of text that appears in the pictures is a thick, curved line with no limbs and many eyes painted on it.

It should be a giant python.

This thing is the evil god worshipped by the natives.

Long Zongshu was stunned for a moment, and the tall and thin student's face changed drastically: "Could it be the mountain we encountered just now?!"

After they entered the tiankeng, they were chased by the strange mountain road.

Later, the giant snake chased to the edge of the stone forest and forced several people into the stone forest.

Judging from the noise we heard at the time, the snake was huge and heavy, and was definitely more than four or five meters long.

I'm afraid it's extremely huge.

But an ordinary snake, no matter how big it is, can't be that heavy... At that time, several people felt that there was something wrong with the snake outside.

Now the stone carvings found in the cave...

Ran Qing was about to speak when a low and strange sound suddenly came from the ground outside the cave. It was exactly the same sound they had heard, which seemed to be coming from the mountain.

And what came with it was the rustling sound of a huge heavy object sliding on the ground and snake scales rubbing against stones.

That strange giant snake is coming!
(End of this chapter)