Mysterious Martial Arts: The Record of the Swordsman

Chapter 296: Ruins of Grass and Thorns in Autumn

Chapter 296: Ruins of Grass and Thorns in Autumn

After a loud bang, the iron door that had been locked for many years closed again. The sudden darkness was so thick that it could not be dissolved, and it instantly enveloped the two of them. Before the tall girl could even express her doubts, she was completely trapped in the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter that only existed in rumors.

The two of them were getting closer and closer to their goal.

"While our phones still have power, let's find out where the stele is hidden." The boy said as he raised his phone again.

There was a strong smell of mold and gray in the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter. The two men could only pull up their collars to cover their mouths and noses and grope forward bit by bit. However, since the previous lighting had consumed too much power, the two men could only use the dim light from their mobile phone screens to illuminate the way forward. These faint lights were soon swallowed up by the darkness, as if they had hit a high wall.

The tall girl asked with some concern.

"This place has been sealed for many years. Could there be poisonous gas left? If we die in here, I'm afraid we won't even be able to send a letter for help."

The boy calmly waved his hand and pointed at his phone, saying, "It's okay. If we notice something wrong, we'll use the phone to call the police. This is a residential area after all, and the cell phone signal can still be covered - look here, it's still full..."

But before he could finish his words, the signal area in the upper right corner of the phone suddenly flickered, and then four vertical lines of different heights began to gradually decrease, until finally becoming a straight line.

"...Well, don't panic. I brought paper and pen with me, so I still have a chance to write a suicide note."

The boy continued hesitantly.

"Besides, I checked before I came here. Although the dormitory of the Agricultural Bureau was originally called a protective air-raid shelter, in order to save costs during construction, the basement vents were merged with the air-raid shelter vents. The two were built together, roughly between Building A and Building B. Although it has become a bit dirty over the years, the ventilation problem can still be guaranteed!"

Although the preliminary preparations shown by the boy were not enough to reassure people, it at least proved that he did not rashly break into this place that had been closed for years, which made people feel somewhat at ease. The tall girl hesitated as if she had noticed something and asked quickly.

"Wait a minute, did you find out something that you haven't told me before?"

The boy groped forward in the dark air-raid shelter while calmly comforting the other person: "Don't get excited. The other things I found must be different from what you imagined. They are all fragmented clues that cannot be connected together. If I rely on speculation and intuition to explain them, it would be a bit ridiculous, right?"

The light from the cell phone was only enough to illuminate two or three steps in front of them, so the two of them walked in a deliberately regular and slow manner to avoid running into obstacles or stepping on nails that might appear in front of them at any time.

Fortunately, what they worried about did not happen. The two had been gone for several minutes, and all they could see in front of them was the flat concrete floor covered with moss. Not even a large piece of dust was seen, but instead it rolled into a strange strip-like shape.

The boy spoke intermittently.

"I heard that the things in the air-raid shelter seemed to be related to the Baiyan Cliff Cave Tomb on Lianhua Peak in Wuyi Mountain... The tomb is located on a cliff and is out of reach. It was not until September 1978 to 9, 5 that an archaeological team ventured up to excavate and clean it up..."

"I will not repeat the specific archaeological content. You can go to CNKI and read the "Brief Report on the Cleaning of the Baiyan Cliff Cave Tomb in Wuyi Mountain, Chong'an, Fujian" published by the Fujian Provincial Museum and Chong'an County Cultural Center in the 1980th issue of "Cultural Relics" magazine in 6... I also happened to chat with Mr. Mei Huaquan, one of the authors, and found out some things that they didn't write in the report..."

"This steep and rugged Baiyan Cliff Cave Tomb had been opened and sealed more than once before. According to the artifacts and traces left behind, the first wave of people should have arrived at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, opening the immortal coffin and putting in some later artifacts; the second wave of people arrived at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, and damaged part of the coffin cover; the third wave of people should have arrived at the end of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no way to know what they did..."

"The strangest thing is here. One of the groups of people must have left behind a human skeleton and then closed the coffin again..."

The tall girl frowned and asked, "Leaving a human skeleton behind? So there were actually two dead people in one coffin?"

"No, there is only one. This is what the old gentleman couldn't understand back then. Even if there are cases of stealing cemeteries and changing Feng Shui in the local area, these dead bodies and coffins have been carbon-14 dated and tree-ring-calibrated, and the age is all from the Shang Dynasty 3445±150 years ago. It is impossible that there are descendants who come to recognize their ancestors a thousand years later and are so enthusiastic about choosing an auspicious place to bury their ancestors, right?"

"So after much thought, they decided to record this incident separately, thinking that they would make a separate report if they found something in the future. However, after that, they conducted surveys in many places and found nothing similar, so the case was dropped."

Three groups of people frequently visited an ancient tomb on a cliff within a thousand years. It was a cliff tomb deep in the mountains that was difficult to climb and full of dangers even in modern times. This matter was indeed strange, but in the final analysis, it was difficult to connect it with what they saw before their eyes.

"Mr. Mei was drinking water that day and seemed a little nervous when he spoke. He suspected that the clues were hidden in this air-raid shelter, and it was very likely that the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who had flowed into Fujian had stolen something from the coffin. But he kept emphasizing to me that unless this air-raid shelter was dismantled and exposed to the sun one day, he would never come in to find out what was going on."

The boy turned a blind eye to such obvious warnings and stubbornly led people into the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter. The girl was also very confused as to whether the old man revealed these contents intentionally to arouse the other party's curiosity.

"Oh, by the way, the old gentleman also lived in this community in his later years. I'll take you to visit him someday. Maybe there will be other discoveries."

The tall girl thought about it and fell silent again.

She would have known about the existence of the local boat coffins, and she had always believed that burial in cliff caves was related to the concept of the final resting place of the dead. These cliff caves obviously symbolize the ideal place for the dead to reunite with their ancestors for eternal life. They are different from the worship of "origin of the clan" and "clan cemetery", but they are not necessarily the "heaven" or "immortal world" in the modern concept.

Because concepts such as "heaven" and "immortal world" are basic concepts formed after the emergence of developed artificial religions. In primitive natural religions and clan tribes, it is difficult for people to abstract such illusory concepts from the complex and concrete world.

Unless the ancient people of the Shang and Zhou dynasties really saw something here with their own eyes, something that could be called "heaven" or "fairyland"?

Thinking of the long-standing and extremely strong religious atmosphere of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom since its establishment, the tall girl suddenly vaguely grasped some connection points between the two, but she was unable to clearly attribute the two to one thing.

If we are to attribute the two, there must be some obvious similarities. The most famous legendary miracle in Christianity, which has spread across the world, is the miracle of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Could this be a little bit of overlap with the legend that the owner of the immortal letter can change his bones and enter the underworld?

What strange things did the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom witness that made them so determined to protect these secrets with their lives...

The two walked slowly in the huge and empty air-raid shelter. After an unknown amount of time, they suddenly found a wall that was so high that the top could not be seen. The deep lines on it were slightly cracked, but it did not look like it was about to collapse, maintaining the background tone of the world before them, which was as dead and silent as death.

Obviously, the two had crossed the central axis of the air-raid shelter and came to another boundary of the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter. With the help of the dim light from the mobile phone screen, a very familiar door appeared in front of them.

"Eh? Isn't this the iron gate we just came in through?!"

The legend of the ghost wall suddenly came to mind. Could it be that they had been standing still for so long and returned to the door? Could it be that the invisible residents here did not welcome them and tried to remind and drive them away in this way?

Fortunately, the education they received stabilized the situation that was about to fall apart. They suppressed their fear with willpower and carefully observed the rusty and mottled heavy iron door. Finally, they found a seal with erased words on it. Even though it was fragile, it was still sealed and there was obviously no sign of it having been opened. It was not the iron door they came in through.

"Huh... It looks like another door, but the exterior specifications are exactly the same... Hey, are you sure you want to open it? Look, there are traces of cinnabar circles on this seal - they're all shot like this in horror movies, what if this is a suppression talisman or something?"

Seeing the girl reaching out to take it off, the boy kept talking on the side, while the girl pointed to the two seals on it very calmly: "...Have you ever seen a suppression talisman with the seal of the Revolutionary Committee on it?"

After a creaking sound, the wind of materialism finally blew into the hearts of the two people, bringing them a trace of long-lost calmness, but they never thought that the fear of the material world had already been lurking behind the door waiting for them.

They had also imagined that behind the door would be a deep tunnel, vast darkness, eerie stone tablets, or perhaps wandering ghosts hiding behind the door waiting for an opportunity to strike, but they had never imagined that behind this ordinary iron door, there would be countless dried corpses piled up like a garbage dump, with broken limbs and arms hooked together, tendons and flesh entangled with each other, skulls filling up the mountain, and bones forming a forest, all shrunken and gathered inward, with no head or tail to be distinguished, just like the intricate and tangled roots under a thousand-year-old banyan tree!

These corpses were obviously very old, because they were wearing simple clothes made of hemp and ramie, which were very different from what people wear today. The skin of each corpse was as dry as a layer of glue attached to the bones, and the eyeballs and noses were all sunken. From a distance, it looked like their faces were covered with black holes, staring at the people coming in from outside the door.

"Are these the soldiers of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom..."

These corpses seemed to have been piled here deliberately, but a closer look revealed something wrong, because the floor and walls of this secret room were only barely supported by wood, and there was not a single reinforced concrete structure. Even the floor was made of dirty mud, which was in stark contrast to the solemn and solid appearance of the entire air-raid shelter. It looked more like a tomb buried deep underground.

The obviously cut hair, uniform clothing, and scattered swords and guns showed that these bodies were not ordinary people. The blood that once flowed all over the ground had solidified and precipitated over a hundred years, and had been completely contaminated by microorganisms and mosses, turning into some fluorescent green soil. With the air disturbance caused by opening the door, an extremely strong corpse odor was emitted.

The two of them hurriedly retreated outside the secret room and quickly closed the door to block out the stench of corpses. At that moment, it was as if they had returned to modern society from the depths of the tomb. At this time, the battery of their mobile phones was becoming increasingly difficult to support, so the two of them had to lower the screen brightness again, but this also caused them to still not be able to see how many corpses were stored in the cave...

"In the basement of the old Agricultural Bureau dormitory, a door was built to block the air-raid shelter; deep inside the 'Jian 802' air-raid shelter, another door was built to block the corpse-hiding cave... Why did they use such a complicated method to deal with the corpses? It is completely incomprehensible to explain it in terms of construction costs!"

The tall girl's question was interrupted by the boy's words just as she raised it.

"Is it possible that the original 'door' can no longer block certain things?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the two of them were instantly horrified. However, the ancient monument they were looking for might be among them. A huge pressure instantly came over their hearts. Whether to advance or retreat, to search or to give up, seemed to have become a watershed before them. No one knew whether after crossing it, there would be an unprecedented magnificent view or unspeakable horror.

At this moment, a series of clumsy and staggering footsteps suddenly sounded in the air-raid shelter behind him, as if someone was dragging his feet. His movements were both lazy and paralyzed, and his body was wandering in the air-raid shelter extremely inconveniently, stirring up an abnormal flow of cold wind.

The boy was quick to turn off the screen of his phone in an instant to prevent the light from attracting things roaming in the darkness. The sound of clumsy and staggering footsteps soon came in front of them and approached where the two were. The footsteps became increasingly restless, as if they were only a step away from the thing they had been pursuing, but still could not get inside, and they kept circling around more and more impatiently.

The girl instantly thought of the strange behavior before they entered the air-raid shelter, and suddenly wanted to say something, but she didn't dare to open her mouth. She could only repeat her guess over and over in her mind - I know what "that thing" is looking for!

"That thing" in the darkness suddenly let out a series of mournful cries, which sounded like the whimpering of a wild dog, or the cry of an owl circling in the woods. It seemed to change from standing to crawling with a puff of its hands, and began to move restlessly on the ground, slowly approaching the two people, as if it had smelled something on them.

The two people in the extreme darkness could only desperately cover their mouths to prevent themselves from making any sound out of fear. Their minds were extremely empty due to fear at this moment, and they suddenly understood why there were frequent complaints about dog abuse and bad smells in the dormitory of the old Agricultural Bureau!

It was clearly an abnormality in this air-raid shelter that leaked out through the ventilation holes in the underground parking lot!

She suspected that it was the stench of the corpse that attracted the monster, just like the "wild dog" mentioned in Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", which has a human body and an animal's head, chasing headless and armless corpses in the wilderness, and sucking brains from piles of corpses; the boy thought of the ghouls in Arabian mythology, these creatures have hoof-like feet, canine features, and sharp claws, and they speak in an unclear way, like moaning and crying, and their bodies are always covered with cemetery moss that they picked up when foraging.

But no matter what, such creatures should only exist in fantasy legends and should not appear in the real world!

And just when the situation was unpredictable, some harsh and annoying orchestral sounds suddenly rang out from the rusty iron gate behind them, gradually becoming thicker and thicker, as if madly pouring out from the depths of a cave, as if a group of musicians and actors who had lost their minds and limbs were desperately beating and shouting, and suddenly descended into this mysterious space - the sound was so rustling and noisy that it felt like the wind began to hit the iron gate and could break through at any time.

The tall girls only felt that what they heard was a mess, but the boys were the only ones who could distinguish what they were singing. It seemed to be a long-lost folk opera, telling the story of Nezha, the third prince, who was born as a ball of flesh without eyes, ears, mouth or nose, and whose body was cut into pieces after he committed suicide, but was resurrected by an immortal with three heads and six arms.

It's just that the lyrics are out of tune, and the parts that originally praised Nezha's youthful heroism have been deleted. Instead, they praise his inhuman features and unconventional deeds. The monologue describes in detail the tragic scene of blood flowing all over the ground when Li Jing cut open his flesh ball, and the evil thoughts of the immortal when he reshaped his body in the thirty-three days, as if only such characteristics can be regarded as the gathering of "supreme virtues"!

The more disturbance the monsters around them made, the more violent the noises behind the door became. Noticing the noises behind them getting stronger and stronger, the two men realized that something was trying to break out of the door, so they ignored the monsters still staggering around and quickly held on to the iron door tightly, enduring the vibrations caused by each impact.

After a moment, the iron gate was motionless again. What was even more magical was that the sounds the two men heard when they put their ears against the iron gate and the solid wall disappeared as soon as they moved a little further away, and they could only hear them clearly when they got closer again.

When the two of them listened closely again, the door's banging became even more noticeable, and the rustling dust flew over their heads and pressed on their shoulders and necks, making them almost vomit blood.

They only felt that the rolling waves were getting louder and louder, as if a lively and bustling event was being staged in it, mixed with kowtows and heads banging their heads to express gratitude, burning incense and praying, and mumbling. They could also hear the trembling sound of the medium cutting the head with a sharp knife and the blood spilling. Everyone was just devoutly waiting for the arrival of some "big shot".

At this moment, the noises from the door finally changed. They were uniform footsteps, moving in a rhythmic manner, as if they were walking slowly from the depths of the corpse-hiding cave. The heavy and steady sound could be heard as someone carrying something heavy on their shoulders, and the rippling sound was even clearer than that of a carriage or horse. But the two people outside the door clearly remembered that the depth of this corpse-hiding cave was not that large, and it definitely could not hide anything other than the densely packed, arm-crossed mummies!

"Oh!"

A loud bang exploded in the cave, as if an iron door was slammed open. The two people in the darkness were expecting the feeling of flying backwards and losing weight, or the tragic situation of being crushed by a heavy object, but with their hands, they could still feel that the iron door in front of them was closed, and there was no sign of anyone opening it.

Suddenly they thought that what was opened might be another door...

The hurried footsteps floated in the darkness, seemingly lighter than normal people's footsteps, but the sound of landing was heavier, as if he had stepped beside the two people in one step, making a series of crackling and collision sounds, and there was a hint of anger and ferocity in the low howls and whimpers, as if he was angry at the other party for invading his territory, while the other side was as steady as a rock, and the crisp sounds like whips and tips flew everywhere.

On one side there were the deafening sounds of gongs and drums, and on the other side there were the crackling and noisy sounds. The two felt as if they were schizophrenic, knowing nothing except the darkness before their eyes, and unable to understand anything. Only the girl heard some familiar noises from the noise on one side.

"Open the door for me! Get out now!"

The faint sound was not the sound of a bell, but the sound of keys colliding at the waist. At this moment, it sounded clear and leisurely like a mountain spring. The two of them rolled towards the sound without hesitation, and then staggered towards it desperately. They tried their best to open their eyes, and finally saw a trace of light emerging. Suddenly, a surge of strength surged in their bodies, supporting themselves to stagger forward.

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The feeling of suffocation filled their hearts and lungs, and their breaths were full of the smell of iron. Then they finally rushed to the edge of the gate and stepped into the basement of the old and shabby dormitory building. The gentle light immediately enveloped the two of them. And behind them, there was another violent collision sound, and a figure suddenly approached them, and even fell to the ground because he couldn't stop his steps, and his arms tried their best to close the iron door in front of him.

The boy and the tall girl were not stupid. They grabbed the iron door handle at the same time and locked the heavy iron door leading to the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter tightly.

And in the glance before closing the door, they seemed to see that in the vast space of the "Jian 802" air-raid shelter, there was a strange figure with a beast's head and a human body lying on the ground, roaring softly as if facing a great enemy, and on the other side was a group of wooden zombies in black robes and green boots, carrying a sedan chair and walking out of the corpse-hiding cave. The scene was so evil that it was difficult to describe for a moment.

The man who fell to the ground was an old man in his sixties or seventies, wearing a security uniform that had been washed to a pale color. The flashlight that was originally slanted across his waist was now tightly grasped in his hand. There were criss-crossing claw marks all over the flashlight, and his arms were also covered with dense, fresh wounds. They were flipped out in the air like a baby's mouth.

"why is it you again!"

The old security guard stood up while enduring the pain and glared at the two men. He waved the broken flashlight back and forth in their faces. After a moment, he fixed it on the boy's face. His tone became more and more angry. "Okay! I've felt that there was something wrong with you since I was a child. I didn't expect that after all these years, you could still trick me!"

The boy instantly got rid of his guilty conscience and trembled as he raised his phone to shine it at the other party, trying to distinguish the old security guard's features. After a long time, he said, "Ah? I... I seem to have really seen you somewhere..."

The old security guard rubbed his bruises in disgust and replied, "Did you really forget? When you were little, I worked as a security guard at Yuqing Primary School across the street. When I told stories, you were the one who listened most enthusiastically and refused to go home. As a result, I was complained by your parents several times."

"Later, a child from the primary school mysteriously disappeared, and I was interrogated by the police station for several days as a suspect. When the then principal heard about it, he was afraid of getting into trouble, so he fired me overnight. After that, I could only do odd jobs everywhere to make a living."

The boy opened his eyes as if he had suddenly realized something. "I remember now. No wonder he looks so familiar! Security guard, can you explain to me what happened? Oh no, first tell me what happened in our elementary school!!!"

The boy could no longer control his desire to explore the secret that had been buried deep in his heart for many years. He felt that he was only one step away from the truth, so he displayed his amazing momentum and grabbed the other person's hand. Even the old security guard who had been aggressive was stunned.

The tall girl on the other side was watching all this coldly, thinking quickly in her mind, and soon said something that made the other party feel guilty.

"Yes, tell me now. I don't believe that so many strange things in the world are so coincidental and related to you. Strictly speaking, if you are not an insider, you may be the mastermind behind it..."

The old security guard looked at the two men with strange eyes, raised his head and wanted to say something, but lowered his head again after a moment and looked at the two men with a playful eye, as if what they said overlapped with his thoughts in some way.

The old security guard hesitated for a moment and spoke to the boy first.

"I actually don't understand what happened in your elementary school. But that night, I did see something shaped like a birdcage suddenly appear behind the wall, reach out and grab the child away."

The boy suddenly woke up and shouted.

"That's right! A monster like a birdcage, with its arms outstretched to grab people through the wall! That's what I saw when I was playing football that day, but no one wanted to believe me! It turns out that day was not an illusion!"

The old security guard laughed coldly, "You are a child, of course no one will believe what you say, and who in the world looks like a 'birdcage'? When I was at the police station, I also told them that there was a monster outside the school playground with a thin head and a thick waist, and arms more than ten feet long, and it could stuff people into its stomach and make them disappear with just one hand - but no one believed this. I studied it for a long time but couldn't convince myself. It wasn't until I watched the 1998 Spring Festival Gala that I roughly figured it out. It was clearly a person who was 'sitting cross-legged like a bell'!"

At this moment, the world seemed as unreal as a dream, and the tall girl quickly changed the topic to the part she was concerned about.

"Uncle, you haven't told us what happened in the air-raid shelter yet."

The old security guard turned around and limped away. The two men hurriedly followed him, listening to his intermittent speech.

"I can't really explain what's going on here, but I heard from the old people living near the church that these 'long-haired' people cast spells before they died, and their souls hid in the corpse-hiding cave to avoid being captured by the underworld. Therefore, the ghost messenger could only linger in the human world, and finally became a beast with a human body and lost his mind."

"But I happened to see what was going on inside. The so-called ghost messengers and spirits are nothing but folk fabrications. The parade inside is clearly the Spring Parade of the Chai Gun Society in the early years!"

The boy explained that Chong'an has always had the custom of gathering together to pass on poles, firewood sticks, farm tools and all daily necessities on the sixth day of the second lunar month and selling them in the city. In the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), the government increased taxes on the people, and Chong'an was in turmoil. A group of Zhai bandits took advantage of the opportunity of the Firewood Stick Association to gather and sneak into the city, cut poles and start an uprising to attack Chong'an County. This Zhai religious uprising happened less than two years after the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and it caused great panic among the Qing rulers, and the suppression was also very cruel.

It was after this uprising that the government issued a strict ban on the Chaigunhui's parade, and ordered that the sixth day of the second lunar month be renamed the Chaitouhui. They tried every means to tamper with all traces of the event, and now only the local proverb still sings the story of "The northerner, the first to get hit, is beaten into the city with a bamboo pole."

The old security guard said slowly, "Among this group of Zhaijiao, there must be people who fled from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. They hid in Wuyi Mountain and only vaguely knew that the old Heavenly King had passed away. They were not aware that Tianjing had fallen and collapsed, so they have been thinking about picking up the banner of rebellion and leading the troops northward."

"The locals are quite clear about the events leading up to and following the rebellion of the Zhaijiao sect. Their ancestors all remembered that before the Qing soldiers massacred the Zhaijiao sect members, a group of them carried a strange statue of a deity and went deep into the mountains with music and drums. The Qing soldiers were unable to do anything to them with their swords and guns, so they stopped chasing them out of fear and watched them disappear into a hilltop from afar..."

The girl finally sorted out the logic and summarized some of the sequences.

"Uncle Lu, so the strange people knocking and banging in the cave are most likely the remnants of the Zhaijiao sect. They have no direct relationship with the battle of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom entering Fujian?"

The old security guard shook his head. "No, those tangled bodies are probably from the Zhaijiao sect. They only raised the banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom before they died, so they are remembered by people. But the weird people playing the music here may not be them..."

"What does this mean?"

"Think about it, the Zhaijiao's attack on Chong'an County was like trying to fish in troubled waters. They couldn't even gather enough men, horses and weapons. How could they have sent out a force at the most critical moment just to welcome the gods into the mountains? The locals said that this welcoming team in black robes and green boots was actually the ghost soldiers of King Wuyi. The reason why swords and guns were completely ineffective was because these people had long since become ghosts."

The boy shook his head and retorted, "That's impossible. If it was a ghost army passing through the border, it would be fine, but how could they take away a living person in broad daylight?"

The old security guard shook his head and said, "If you really don't believe me, forget it. Old people in Chong'an have all heard of this group of ghost soldiers in black robes and green boots. They were first seen after the Qing army entered the pass. They also took away many living people in the county..."

As they were talking, they had already arrived at the security room where the old security guard was. They saw the window covered with old picture calendars. As the wooden door opened, they saw an old-fashioned wooden table with two drawers and a dressing table, and a bed that could only accommodate one person. An old radio was placed at the head of the bed, and it looked like it had been forgotten by time many years ago.

"What you want is actually in my hands."

The old security guard let the two people into the room and said this without thinking, and then added, "But you have to think clearly. After reading this, some things cannot be reversed."

The direction the old security guard pointed was right under the bed. The boy hurriedly lifted the sheets and leaned over to check. Sure enough, he saw a broken stone tablet hidden under the bed. On it were bits and pieces of information about them, and doggerel in the format of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's official writings and hadiths, describing how they had experienced hardships and dangers in Wuyi Mountain and found a way to let the old Heavenly King return to the world. Unfortunately, they were blocked by the Qing demons, and now they can only use their bodies as a shield to protect the essence of the secret decision. Even if they die, they will not be reincarnated until someone passes the news back to Tianjing.

Unfortunately, the part at the bottom that recorded the essence of the secret decision was abruptly cut off and smashed into pieces with a heavy hammer, leaving only half of the broken stele at the top. The message that they had risked their lives to send out was no longer of any meaning.

"Don't look at it. I smashed it in the 1960s. The things on it are not something that outsiders should know, so it can't be kept."

The two men's eyes lit up instantly. For students of the history department, the part on the stele was already extremely precious.

"Uncle Lu, the thing is here with you! Why did you hide it under your bed?"

The old security guard sighed heavily and said.

"I didn't intend to look for this thing. I just thought that this stele would contain the information I wanted, but it turned out to be a little off. Not only did I waste my efforts, but I also had to hide from others."

The tall girl asked doubtfully, "So what were you looking for originally?"

"Well, it's about the outcome of a great war in the early Qing Dynasty."

"That's easy. Let's go to the historical archives and look for it for you! What's the exact time? What's the location? What's the age?"

The boy patted his chest and promised, trying to bring the two closer together.

The old security guard lowered his head and remained silent. After a long while, he replied, "No need. You won't be able to find out about this."

The boy said in confusion: "Ah? Unless someone deliberately concealed it, how could no one know about it? Besides, if the whole world was kept in the dark, how could you be sure that this happened?"

The old security guard smiled coldly, as if he was too lazy to communicate with them: "Everything in the world has a beginning and an end. Since I know that this incident has happened before, it must have an end. Isn't this true?"

"The logic is correct...but knowing the beginning but not the end doesn't make sense..."

The boy seemed a little embarrassed. Even though the situation was not in his favor, he was still unwilling to admit the other party's twisted logic. The old security guard continued with some displeasure.

"If I say that the disappearances at Yuqing Primary School are related to what I'm investigating, do you believe me?"

The boy shook his head decisively: "That's impossible. The disappearances happened in the 1990s, and the incident you're investigating happened in the early Qing Dynasty. The time period doesn't make sense. If these two incidents are related, wouldn't it be possible to reverse time and confuse the cause with the effect?"

The old security guard took a deep breath, then said to the two in silence: "What if I say that what you are questioning is true?"

After a long standoff, the old security guard seemed to have made up his mind and said to the two, "I have always suspected that the monster who took the child away was someone from the early Qing Dynasty. The child was taken back hundreds of years ago, so he suddenly disappeared without a trace and his whereabouts are unknown. His disappearance has an unclear relationship with the truth of the war that the old man has been pursuing for many years..."

Einstein once said, "Time is a profound illusion." This is a view shared by most modern physicists, but for historians, it is an absolute fallacy.

At this moment, as the barriers of time and space were instantly shattered, the two seemed to be trapped in a bottomless quagmire. Huge doubts filled their minds, but in the face of the old security guard's confident expression, they could not utter any forceful rebuttal.

In just a moment of hesitation, the old security guard took out a stack of folded, yellowed, and worn thin paper from the dressing table drawer and handed it to the two people.

"I won't say much. You two should leave your names and phone numbers and leave quickly. I was also negligent in what happened today. Fortunately, the community property management didn't find any problems, so I won't report it."

After saying this, the old security guard turned around to adjust the radio, and the two men hurriedly picked up ballpoint pens and left their names and phone numbers on it.

The boy wrote his name as Du Heng, and the tall girl wrote his name as Yan Han. Then the boy took out his cell phone and took many photos of the stone tablet while the security guard wasn't paying attention, preparing to quickly leave this unpredictable basement and inexplicable night.

"Wait a minute, what did you just take a picture of?"

The old security guard seemed to have eyes on his back. He turned around and said to Du Heng leisurely. The boy hurriedly explained with a bitter face: "Uncle, I just saved the photos of the cultural relics. This should be okay, right? Otherwise, wouldn't my trip today be in vain?"

The old security guard smiled strangely and shook his head, then said to the boy: "I'm not trying to stop you, I just want you to see clearly what you are photographing—"

The last syllable of these words was dragged out for a long time, as if deliberately whetting the appetite of the two men. The boy raised his mobile phone doubtfully and opened the photo album, confirming that what he had photographed was an unremarkable ancient stele, but they were stunned the next second.

As I zoomed in with my fingertips, I saw clear, high-pixel photos that showed every crack and damage on the stele clearly. However, the ancient stele that originally recorded the information left by the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had become completely different in content. It was turned into a stone tablet praising the government. It stated in the tone of the magistrate of Chong'an County in the early Qing Dynasty how they eliminated a group of evil people who misled the people and restored peace to the county!

The boy couldn't believe his eyes at all. He immediately crawled under the bed and pounced on the stele. He carefully stroked every stroke on it with his fingers. Then he was sure that this was not a trick. The stele suddenly turned into something completely different!

“…What…what’s going on?!”

The old security guard sat firmly in front of the mirror, lit a cigarette, and asked another question.

"Let me ask you again, who was Hong Xiuquan? And how did he die?"

But it was this simple question that caused the two to erupt into an extremely strange argument.

One says that Hong Xiuquan was the chief military advisor of the Hongbing Uprising of the Dacheng Kingdom that swept across the southeast in the late Qing Dynasty, and was eventually captured by Qing soldiers in Xunzhou and disappeared; another says that Hong Xiuquan was the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and died in Nanjing in the third year of Tongzhi. Afterwards, the young Heavenly King Hong Tianguifu ascended the throne, and all military and political affairs were under the control of the Loyal King Li Xiucheng, but soon after, Tianjing fell and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement failed.

But the strange thing is that the boy seems to be very unfamiliar with the name of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It seems that he has spent a lot of effort to dig out some clues and traces from the corners of his memory.

Even so, he still stared at the tall girl with wide eyes, as if blaming her for forcing a false history into his mind.

There is no doubt that the history in the eyes of the two has begun to deviate, which makes the boy doubt the memory he is proud of. The tall girl also uses rigorous logic to constantly question the other party about the details of the uprising in the Dacheng Kingdom. The boy is shocked to find that no matter how hard he thinks, he can't remember the outcome of the uprising.

So he quickly opened the search engine on his phone, but could only find a few records about the Hongbing Uprising. It was as if all the encyclopedia websites had become large marketing accounts. They kept saying over and over again that this uprising changed the direction of modern China, but none of them could clearly explain how the uprising ended and how it changed things...

Looking at the information on the phone, the girl actually felt dizzy. The knowledge about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in her mind began to blur and turn into some messy content that disappeared completely. Other news about the Dacheng Kingdom spread like wildfire.

The old security guard shook his head at her: "You must have left a fake name just now, right?"

Then he slowly stood up and unfolded the folded, yellowed and old stack of thin papers on the table bit by bit. He saw that the signatures of the two people only occupied a very small area, and the folded and hidden area was filled with signatures of various notes of varying complexity, from brushes to fountain pens to cinnabar handprints. From a distance, it looked like a huge indenture.

As the thin paper was completely unfolded, the old security guard gently flipped one side and respectfully fixed its two upper corners with clips, then hung it just right in front of the table. Countless signatures were instantly covered on the back, leaving only a yellowed, old picture on the front.

"Fortunately, our sect master had anticipated this. He said that as long as someone has written a name or made a mark on it, no matter what pseudonym one has, it will only delay one's entry into our sect for a short while, and one will eventually be accepted..."

The boy covered his head with his hands in extreme pain, as if thousands of silver needles were piercing his head and stirring it. The extra knowledge that came out of nowhere was tormenting his spirit, but it was an irreversible process anyway.

He fumbled frantically in his pocket and then found a piece of paper - it was the suicide note he had written in the dark when he was dying. It recorded their discoveries in the cave. But now all the words about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom suddenly disappeared, replaced by crooked characters that no one could understand. After careful identification, they seemed to be the two words "Jingqi".

"…What kind of cult are you? Death Note?!"

The old security guard took a few deep puffs of the cigarette in his hand, then placed the cigarette butt face down on the table, bowed respectfully, and spoke slowly.

"I don't know the name of our sect either. I only know that once you sign your name on it, many things will become very different from those of ordinary people. Not only will the things you know be different, but even a lot of common sense will be overturned..."

"I am 73 years old now, and I only know to keep looking for the outcome of the war in the early Qing Dynasty. It feels like what I am doing now can affect the direction of this event - this is strange, right? But if I tell you that before I went to Shenyang for tourism at the age of 64, all the history books about the Qing Dynasty recorded that Dorgon was killed in court by Shunzhi and his head was sent to the border, would you believe it?"

"You two have released the things in the 'Jian 802' air raid shelter. I don't know if I can stop them if I risk my life tonight... Since this matter is caused by you, it is fate that I tricked you into joining me. If I don't come back tonight, the outcome of the battle in Chong'an County in the early Qing Dynasty will be pursued by the two of you."

After he finished speaking, his tone was solemn, like a warrior by the Yi River in the wind, and then he smiled with a hint of expectation and kindness, pointing to the portrait and said: "Before I leave, go and pay homage to the ancestors of our sect."

The two looked up and saw that the front of the painting was a freehand style of mountains, flowing water, and clouds and mist, which deliberately ignored the difference in relative size between the characters and the scenery.

Behind the scroll is a towering, majestic peak, with countless evergreen pines and cypresses shading it. At the highest point stands a Taoist in green with his hands behind his back. With just a few strokes, his appearance is sketched as if he is detached from the mundane world. There is also an ancient sword hanging in front of him. For some reason, although he looks otherworldly, he gives people the feeling of looking down on others.

In front and behind the Taoist, there are several figures with different postures, all in the form of children. One is cute and adorable, tiptoeing on the green rocks, one is calm and wooden, sitting cross-legged under an old pine tree, and the other is graceful and unrestrained, with arms stretched out like a dragon or snake lurking in the abyss. Although the three of them are all in their childish state, for some reason, even through the scroll, one can sense the majestic aura of a master, only slightly inferior to the Taoist in green.

"These are our sect's founder and three great masters. The great battle in the early Qing Dynasty was related to these people. And this young man practicing martial arts you saw, it is said that he founded the Hongmen lineage that has lasted for hundreds of years..."

Without needing to point it out, both of them could sense that in the painting, only the face of the martial arts boy was a little blurry, and the color of his figure seemed to be unable to withstand the ravages of time and began to fade.

The old security guard seemed to have put down the burden in his heart. He sprinkled the powder on the wound on his arm, and then his arms shook with a series of crisp sounds of bones cracking. He walked deep into the basement wearing only a sweatshirt.

The two men stared at the old security guard in amazement, and suddenly realized that his figure and appearance were much younger than they had imagined. Except for the wrinkles on his face that made him look like an old man, the body under the security uniform was strong and powerful and full of explosive power, comparable to a man in his forties.

The two people in the room looked at each other, and hurriedly followed behind and asked: "Uncle Lu, is there anything else you want to explain? We are still confused about this matter!"

The old security guard stopped and thought for a long time, and finally left a confusing sentence. When they were not paying attention, the figure of the martial arts boy in the picture suddenly became clear and blurred.

"Well, let me think about it..."

“I can only say that ‘we’ may be a group of people standing at an intersection, looking at both the south and the north, both the beginning and the end, so no one can understand the whole picture…”

"Since that parade of gods can continue to this day, then the battle in the early Qing Dynasty may not have been decided yet..."