Overlord

To prevent demonization!

When I first saw my father's corpse, I was puzzled. Why was he in the Dragon Transformation Pool? Now, upon reflection, it must be that he, or they, discovered something, perhaps the reason for demonization. Therefore, either he himself or someone in the team, after his death, submerged his body in the Dragon Transformation Pool to prevent demonization.

Now, the focus of my confusion has shifted to "demonization" again. What triggered the demonization of these people? I believe my father and his team must have discovered something in the tomb.

Did the person who last reached here in their team also undergo demonization? What is the connection with Bashu and the Cao family? These bright and dark clues are intricate, with many threads interwoven, no wonder Er Ye calls it the "Thread Cluster." I sighed inwardly; I thought they had already learned enough, but there are still many suspicious points. Er Ye and my father went much deeper than we imagined.

Facing the contents in the cauldron, even Hansheng showed some taboo. Naturally, we dared not continue to investigate, all gathering in front of the bronze door. The bronze door had turned black with rust. On both sides were crisscrossed palm-wide door bolts. In the middle of the bronze door, there were many grooves and small holes. The door bolts were interlinked through a mortise-and-tenon structure, designed with great ingenuity.

Looking at the intricate door lock, Big Head couldn't help but exclaim, "How many treasures must be hidden to warrant such heavy locks."

Just as I was about to go up to study it, Hansheng suddenly solemnly bowed to the bronze door. I was stunned for a moment, preparing to follow suit, but Big Head pulled me aside and whispered, "This is a solemn bow. Don't make a fuss; watch." I saw Hansheng kneel down, bowing his head with a solemn expression. Afterward, he stood up, took a step back, and performed "one bow, one kowtow" in sequence, repeating it until after "three bows, three kowtows" before standing up.

At the same time, the bronze door echoed with a "clang" sound. The door bolts were triggered by a mechanism, coming out of the mortise-and-tenon, revealing a palm-sized round hole slightly to the left of the center of the bronze door, with carved symbols around it, and inside, there seemed to be a bronze ring.

Big Head, with wide eyes, asked, "Hansheng, is your relative inside? Is the door opening for him?"

Hansheng, with an unusually solemn expression, reached into the door hole, pulled something out, and then retreated. Somewhere, there was a sound of gears triggering, and then everything fell silent. I frowned, wondering if this ancient door had rusted shut over time. At that moment, without warning, the bronze door shook, and then slowly swung open, revealing a dark passage.

Seeing the open bronze door, I couldn't help but be amazed. Although the door wasn't very tall, it was surprisingly thick, more like a thick copper wall.

Big Head leaned in to take a look but found that the flashlight had no reflection inside. He sighed, "It's quite spacious." 

Hansheng silently assembled his long spear. Big Head and Xiao He, alarmed by his actions, also quickly prepared their equipment. It was a signal that something significant was about to happen.

The hall had rough stone slabs on the floor, irregular and deeply engraved. Other details were obscured. Big Head and Hansheng led the way, muttering, "Why can't we see the end, and do you feel a bit cold here?"

Even before he mentioned it, I felt a chill rushing towards me when we entered through the bronze door. The air seemed to carry an indescribable strange smell, possibly toxic. I said, "Shine the light to the side."

There it was.

The flashlight revealed a row of bronze lamps with extremely exaggerated shapes, resembling the mythical creatures described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Behind the lamps was an endless darkness. I saw that all these lamps had large bowls on top, and I suggested, "Go over and take a look. Since this place is so spacious, there should be a unified lighting facility."

There was still deep oil in the bronze bowls, and the cotton wick on top showed signs of burning. Xiao He took out a match and flicked it a few times. A blue-green flame the size of a soybean appeared on the cotton, and then after a couple of flickers, it began to burn.

"This is not the usual flame color." Xiao He exclaimed.

Taking advantage of the strange blue-green light, Big Head walked backward, wanting to see what was there. Hansheng suddenly grabbed his collar, bewildering Big Head. Turning to him, I asked, "What are you doing?"

"Look at your feet."

Big Head looked down, and in front of his feet, the stone slabs disappeared, revealing an endless darkness. Hansheng blew the lit match forward, and we saw it draw a large arc before plunging straight down, the spark shrinking until it disappeared into the darkness.

Big Head quickly stepped back, swallowed hard, and patted his chest afterward, saying, "That scared the hell out of me."

Hansheng looked into the distance and said, "Let's light up the bronze lamps first."

These lamps were strange; we didn't know what oil was burning inside, emitting eerie blue-green light. This reminded me of a story I heard a long time ago.

In ancient times, there was a river of unknown depth where people claimed many aquatic monsters dwelled. An old man lit a rhinoceros horn to illuminate it and saw strange lights underwater. In the middle of the night, he dreamt that these creatures spoke to him, saying, "We are separated by life and death. Why do you illuminate us?" The old man woke up not long after and hiccupped.

This old man, equally reckless as Big Head, survived, or else he wouldn't have died. I should consider whether to tell this story to Big Head. The key is the burning rhinoceros horn, also emitting a blue-green light. Perhaps there is a connection between the two.

We lit all the bronze lamps on both sides. The bright light illuminated the darkness around us, revealing a shocking and unimaginable scene. We were wrong from the beginning. The Temple wasn't at the highest point of the terrain; instead, it was not an "entrance" but an "exit." Behind us, the ancient temple had been covered with a layer of dark thorns. Sharp copper spikes were hung with some tattered black things, and the wall had large patches of dried bloodstains flowing down.

We were standing in what seemed to be the backyard of the ancient temple. The yard wasn't large, with a big toon tree behind the lamp man. Its branches were covered with red ropes tied with bells. Besides the ancestral temple behind us, the other three sides were deep, bottomless abysses, and two rather large stone tablets stood at the very front.

Without me saying anything, Xiao He had already loaded the illumination shell and fired it at a diagonal angle. The illuminating fuel burned at the highest point, radi

ating a dazzling light, imprinting an even more magnificent and incredible scene in my mind. I believe everything seen today will be unforgettable for a lifetime.

We initially thought that the temple was at the highest point, which is why it was pitch-black around. That was only half correct.

Under the illumination shell, a bottomless underground rift like a giant dragon lay in front of us, winding on both sides without an end in sight. And we, this temple, were situated on the back of a gigantic stone statue. The stone statue was lying next to the rift, with half of its body hanging over the edge.

We began walking towards the ancient temple and started climbing its back. It's hard to imagine how large this giant beast is. How much manpower, material, and wealth were consumed to construct such a massive stone creature? I couldn't help but feel a chill; this level of architectural ability exceeded the level it should have been at that time. How did the ancient Bashu ancestors create this?

We were now standing on the neck of the stone beast. At the forefront was a large stone beam extending out. At the end of the beam was a hideous head, which, from my angle, looked like a hornless dragon with its head raised.

Xiao He exclaimed, "It's a Ba Xia!"

After his remark, I instantly remembered the record about Ba Xia, "Sixth son of the dragon, turtle-like appearance, likes to carry heavy loads," which indeed matched the characteristics of Ba Xia. So, the soldiers commanded by the "Engineer" to dig were for this Ba Xia? Could we infer that the mysterious corpse in the ancient temple was also taken away by the Engineer?

"Come and see." Big Head suddenly shouted at us.

In front of the stone beam, there were two stone tablets. Big Head stood in front of one and shouted, "Good heavens, what is this thing?"

On the stone tablet were densely packed meridians. I took a quick glance and was utterly shocked. I couldn't believe it, rubbing my eyes and muttering, "Am I seeing things correctly?"

"Hurry up, I'm so anxious." Big Head urged beside me.

I calmed down a bit and pointed to the stone tablet, saying, "Remember the Qi Men Dun Jia I mentioned when we were trapped in the Stone Forest? In its early days, there were more than four thousand formations. Later, through the efforts of Feng Hou, Jiang Taigong, and Zhang Liang, it was refined into the Yin Yang Eighteen Formations we see today. And what's carved on this stone tablet is the complete Qi Men Dun Jia formation, no, even if it's incomplete, it includes most of the formations that have long been lost."

It's incredible; how could there be a complete Qi Men Dun Jia here? Qi Men Dun Jia was simplified into seventy-two formations during the Yin and Shang dynasties. Were the existence of these Bashu ancestors even more ancient than that time?

In my mind, scenes flashed by like a passing panorama—Qi Men Dun Jia, Yellow Emperor, Classic of Mountains and Seas, Kunlun Mountains, various ghost tribes. All of this seemed to have surpassed my imagination. My head hurts...