Chapter 1 Prologue: Crossroads
To the south of Yunling is the dividing point between the East Yunnan Plateau and the Hengduan Mountains.
Crustal movements during the Cretaceous period caused the area to fold and uplift, forming rolling mountains with an average altitude of more than two thousand meters.
Because of the complex geographical environment and dense fog, there are large areas of inaccessible primitive mountain forests.
There is so much water vapor in the forest that even the skylight is blocked by the dense vegetation, leaving only the deep green depth and humid silence.
At this time, a college student carrying an alloy trekking pole emerged from the depths of the jungle, walking alone and hobbling on thick piles of rotting leaves, and stopped at a slightly flat spot, his face pale.
On the 3rd of last month, it was revealed that the Linchuan Orphans and Disabled Welfare Home used substandard decoration materials, causing many orphans to suffer from leukemia.
As a result, the local Explorers Club decided to organize a live broadcast across no-man’s land, intending to use the popularity of the Internet to raise funds for these children.
Because it was summer vacation, college students signed up to participate in this event.
At first, their crossing went smoothly.
After all, most of the people in the club are adventure experts and they are fully equipped, so they were talking and laughing along the way and there was no sense of urgency to enter no man's land.
But as a strange mountain fog suddenly hit, everyone in the team was separated.
In fact, before setting off, they had already mapped out a detailed survival route and return route, and made a copy of the map for everyone. Even if they got separated, they could just stay where they were and wait for the fog to dissipate.
But the problem is that after the fog clears, college students find that their compasses spin faster than Doraemon's bamboo dragonfly, and the satellite phone freezes directly, making it impossible to confirm the direction or contact the outside world.
And in this mountain forest, both the ground and the tree trunks are covered with moss. As far as you can see, everything is deep green and densely packed. Not to mention the direction, even the spirit will become trance after looking at it for a long time.
Coupled with the thick fog that persists and the lack of daylight, it is not easy to trap a person to death.
"Throw away your shoes..."
The college student stood among the dark green ancient trees and murmured, throwing the crutch out.
Shoe throwing is a "professional skill" in adventure activities. It is used to identify the direction, but it does not have to be shoes, it can be anything. It is a unique skill to press the bottom of the box.
What its scientific principle is, no scientists can say clearly yet, but its greatest effect is that it can perfectly reflect the despair of people when they are lost.
At this time, heavy fog rose again in the mountains, visibility dropped rapidly, and the humidity even penetrated through his jacket and adhered to his skin, taking away his little remaining body temperature.
What's even weirder is that as he moves forward step by step, the thick fog floating in the mountain forest gradually turns blood red.
The college student turned a blind eye to this and walked down the wet slope, passing through the hanging old vine branches until he stepped on a stone path that should not be in this place.
Then he saw a stone sculpture lamp in front of him, with a fluttering blue flame dancing in the lamp, which seemed to have not been extinguished for thousands of years.
"I knew I shouldn't eat those cute-colored mushrooms."
"It's good now, we've reached Hyrule."
The corner of the college student's mouth twitched.
He had been lost for two days and his reserves were almost exhausted.
The good news is that there is nothing else in this primitive mountain forest, but fungi are growing everywhere. He had previously cooked a pot of fungus soup on the stove, and now he attributed everything in front of him to fungus poisoning.
However, after walking on the mountain road for so long, his desire for flat land drove him to continue moving forward.
Passing through layers of vines and ancient trees, and stepping on the rotten leaves covered with water vapor, unexpectedly, a larger slate floor appeared in front of them, and it was built very smoothly.
It's just that there is too much water vapor in the forest and the effect of moss makes the footing very slippery.
This stone floor is not empty. There are some collapsed walls and ruins around it. You can vaguely identify arch bridges, green tile roofs, square stone platforms... and various broken bricks and tiles. Everything is covered with moss and looks ancient and desolate. If you add a ruined temple, it will be the same as the ancient temple in Liaozhai.
But the most eye-catching thing is the two huge statues of gods standing behind the ruins of the wall.
A statue is wearing strange clothes, the robe does not look like a robe, and the clothes do not look like clothes. It sits up on the ground, with its head drooped. It is not a Buddha, let alone a Taoist priest. It is looking at the ground expressionlessly.
The college student is 1.83 meters tall and can barely reach his feet. He is like an ant underneath him.
The fallen leaves in the primitive mountain forest are thickly accumulated, but they are not on the statue. Instead, they are piled around. Even moss does not grow on the statue.
Turning around to look at the other one, it was even weirder.
It is not humanoid, it can only be regarded as humanoid, standing upright, as huge as a towering ancient tree, full of fangs, pupils turned up, it seems to be smiling or crying, and it is skinny, with eight fingers intertwined and twisted, and the posture is like Extreme pain, but also like extreme joy.
The two statues, one on the left and one on the right, faced each other, as if they had just had a fight, and the winner was already decided.
From a human aesthetic perspective, beauty is good and ugliness is evil. That means evil wins over good.
The college student looked up at the two huge statues and felt uncomfortable all over. So he wrapped himself in his jacket and crossed them, walking straight into the depths to see if there was dry space ahead where he could pitch his tent.
And just as he quickened his pace, he kicked something, and something flew out from the sole of his foot.
Check out the 16-9 book bar and see the correct version!
When he caught up and picked it up, he discovered that it was a half-volume ancient book that was in pieces.
Because the thing felt real when it fell into the hand, it meant that the book was not an illusion of eating fungi, and the college student couldn't help but shudder.
In such a humid environment, there is a problem in itself for an ancient book to exist for such a long time but not rotten.
Sometimes the source of people's fear is not because of what they saw or heard, but because they felt an extreme irrationality.
What's more, this is still a remote mountain and old forest that is rarely visited by people.
He didn't know where he was going, so he started to feel a little discouraged.
But before he paused for too long, the college student discovered that there was a gap between the mountain walls in front of him that could barely pass through. Through this gap, what was exposed behind the mountain wall was no longer a dense mountain forest, but a large area of farmland.
"Hey, I walked out?"
"I just said, throwing shoes is technology!"
The college student immediately put the book in his pocket, ran over impatiently, and deftly squeezed out of the gap in the mountain wall.
There were people working in the fields, which made him feel very happy.
When he borrowed his cell phone to call the police, the crispy college student's life was saved.
However, when the college students who had survived the disaster ran closer happily, they found that all those people were sallow, thin, and stooped.
Moreover, they wore coarse linen brown clothes, wide and crotchless trousers, and they all had long beards and wrapped their heads with cloth towels.
The people working in the farmland also noticed him at this time. They were stunned for a moment and immediately showed surprise on their faces. They came over to him while speaking in obscure dialects. One of them seemed to be a little happy.
Before the college student could react, he suddenly felt dizzy and fainted on the field ridge uncontrollably.
"Ancient...ancient people..."
"How can people get lost on such a big road..."
While muttering, a buzzing sound came from the walkie-talkie on the college student's arm, and then a voice he had never heard before appeared and spoke a string of syllables he had never heard before.
(It’s a new hell track, and it’s new again. Please collect it and read it!)
(End of chapter)