Chapter 818 Underground Cave

Latest website: Seeing the Taoist priest in purple leave, Ji Han took out the time and space compass in his bag.

Sure enough, the direction pointed on the compass happened to be the hole in Stone City.

Chen Ke first used two lighting rods towards the dark entrance of the cave, but due to the long stairs below, he stopped before the light was too far away.

The four began to take out the lighting equipment needed for exploration from their backpacks.

Chen Ke looked down with his flashlight, but except for the long steps extending downward into the darkness, he couldn't see anything else at all.

"Brother Ji, do you think those soldiers would really live in a cave like this?"

Ji Han put on his backpack again and shook his head:

"To be honest, I don't really believe it. It's really inconvenient to get in and out of this cave. Moreover, the fellow Taoist just concluded that this might be the residence of those soldiers because of the many bones underneath. I think it's more... It could be where they buried their bodies.”

Because they were far away on the border of the Western Region, they could not return their corpses wrapped in horse leather even if they died in battle, so they were all buried in such a deep pit.

However, this idea does not seem to be valid, because if we only follow the bones, it seems that there is no need to dig so deep. Now we can only go down and take a look to find out.

Song Qian asked:

"Brother Han, do you think that the little Taoist priest who came here just now has something to do with us?"

"I'm afraid this is just a coincidence. I don't understand why he came to such a remote place, but I can't say why. I don't seem to have any resistance to the little Taoist just now. I feel like we've hit it off. He shouldn't be a bad person."

Eggplant joked:

"He really doesn't look like a bad person, but he has a big appetite. He finished two large packages of pork jerky after chatting for a while."

Song Qian worriedly said:

"I just felt a little worried after hearing his last words. He seemed to be going to do something dangerous."

Eggplant waved his hand and said:

"Let's take care of our own mission first. We don't have the energy to take care of others right now. As for coming back alive, I used to say it wouldn't be a problem when we were having fun."

Ji Han stopped Eggplant before he was about to drive:

"Let's check things out first. If we are really destined, maybe we can see him again after the mission is completed. Let's go."

Song Qian was the first to walk down the steps at the cave entrance, followed by Ji Han and Chen Ke, and finally Eggplant.

The four of them already have some experience in this kind of dark and confined space. There are no falling rocks on the stone steps under their feet. It seems that the geological environment here is relatively stable.

It can be clearly felt that the temperature inside the cave is much higher than outside.

Except for the steps at the foot, which are paved with gravel, the rock walls on both sides are very neatly cut, and vague traces of man-made work can be seen.

Chen Ke judged:

"Brother Ji, we may have a problem with our judgment of this cave. Although the building at the entrance and the steps at the foot were built later, the stone wall below seems to have been excavated a long time ago."

Eggplant carefully followed behind him and slowly followed:

"speak English."

"In other words, the builders of this cave and the builders of Stone City outside may not be the same group of people. The latter just used the space here."

Ji Han had thought of this. After all, digging such a large underground space at that time was still very resource-intensive.

For the remnants of the Tang Dynasty who were clinging to the Western Regions, this was obviously impossible.

It would certainly not be meaningless to excavate such a huge underground space in such a place. The only possibility I could think of seemed to be: tombs or underground civilization sites.

Eggplant complained while reminding:

"Hey, it's this kind of place again. It's wrong. Didn't the Taoist priest just say that you can see the bones if you walk a few dozen meters down? How come it's so clean after walking for so long?"

Although they only met once, the Taoist priest really had no motive to deceive them. The only explanation is that something happened here later.

Song Qian, who was walking at the front, raised her hand and said:

"Shh, it seems we're at the end of the road ahead."

I saw that the stone steps had reached the end at this moment. Further forward was a huge flat stone plate, and beyond was an endless darkness. It seemed that there was still a lot of space outside.

"Then this is probably where fellow Taoist was talking about, but there should be some bones here."

Chen Ke threw a few more lighting rods towards the outside of the stone plate and saw that there was a small gentle slope below the stone plate. There were no living creatures around, so the four of them jumped onto the slope one after another.

Only then did he see clearly that there was a three-way intersection on the hill, and there was a road along the wall that continued forward in the direction down.

There is another vertical road on the left side of the road that continues diagonally downward, but there are still a lot of stones scattered on this road. It seems that this road was previously blocked by a stone wall, but There is still a gap half a meter wide on it.

This time he brought all the supplies, so Eggplant shot a flare directly into the air.

The main purpose was to clearly illuminate the upward path, but under the illumination of the white light, everyone discovered that there were several forked paths leading upward, connected to many wide cracks.

Ji Han nodded and said:

"I see. If you put it this way, it's really possible for those soldiers to hide down there. There must be more than one way out here. Looking at the direction, the forked roads should all lead to the ridge. Good guy, tunnel warfare is just a joke for them. Understood."

Ji Han took out the space-time compass and checked the direction, and found that they were indeed not heading upward, but towards the originally sealed fork on the left.

In order to reduce the risk of collapse below, Chen Ke carefully kicked down the left side of the stone wall, leaving room for four people to pass.

But they found that on the other side of the collapsed stone wall, there were many bones scattered on the ground.

Eggplant said curiously:

"It stands to reason that when a soldier dies, he must be buried anyway. Why are these all dead inside? Since they have time to build a wall, why don't they take these bones out?"

Song Qian guessed:

"Maybe it was because there was a bloody battle at the time and I didn't have the energy to worry about it. Later, the place was captured by the Tibetans, and there was no one to deal with the corpses."

Chen Ke lowered his head and briefly inspected the bones and the clothes they were wearing, then shook his head and said:

"No, these are not the bones of Tang soldiers. These are the bones of Tubo people. But this makes even more sense. In the end, Tubo occupied this area. How could their corpses be sealed inside without being processed? What? Everyone, wear some masks, maybe there may be some germs here, so in order to ensure that people outside are not infected, we sealed them inside."

As he spoke, he took out the air detector and checked it.

Ji Han remembered that the stone wall he just saw was not completely sealed, and guessed:

"It's not that complicated. You and the others don't even have armor on them, and the wall is not sealed. I guess they secretly took apart the wall and touched it a little bit, but they didn't survive in the end."