Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 46 Tracing the source (4)
"These were all found from the cellar of Yunzhong Monastery," An Xingmian said with emotion, "it's unbelievable to say it: Although the monastery has been abandoned and the past practitioners have scattered, but the gatekeeper of the monastery who is not a monk I have always been there, and I live in the cellar, dutifully protecting the books that have not had time to be put in the library. Many times, those who claim to be knowledgeable and insightful may not be as good as ordinary people who are illiterate. people."

The last sentence was quite desolate, Xue Huaiqing heard a bit of self-blame and depression from it, and felt a little strange.Taking a closer look at An Xingmian's expression, there was a little helplessness and sadness in his eyes, but it was more of a kind of self-defeating despair.Since she met An Xingmian, she had never seen him have such emotions.

"There's nothing to hide, especially from you," An Xingmian's words made Xue Huaiqing's heart skip a beat, "Look at the books on the table, and you'll understand."

Xue Huaiqing nodded, sat down at the desk where the candle was still lit, and then habitually blew out the candle.She is a corpse dancer, and the indoor brightness during the day is sufficient for reading, but lighting candles feels dazzling.So in this gloomy afternoon without sunlight, she opened the pages of the book and opened a dark door.

The first book she saw first was called "Journey to Kyushu·Evil Events", and the author was Xing Wanli.Although she doesn't like reading, she still knows a little about the author Xing Wanli.In short, this is not a specific person, but a pseudonym shared by countless travelers throughout the ages. The series of books "Journey to Kyushu" are the geography and humanities of various places in Kyushu written by people under the guise of Xing Wanli. , The collection of landscapes is all-encompassing, and it is said that the total number has exceeded [-] volumes.

But when it comes to this thick volume of "Record of Evil Events", Xue Huaiqing doesn't understand it at all.She picked up the book carefully, looked through the catalog, and roughly understood what the book was about.The so-called "Evil Event Records", as the name suggests, records the evil customs, cult beliefs, horror legends, dark myths, etc. that existed or still exist in the history of Kyushu.Xue Huaiqing quickly saw a lot of entries in the directory that she had heard of, such as legendary dragons, witchcraft, and prominent cult organizations such as Jingmo Sect and Tiantong Sect.She also saw the entry for "Corpse Dancer" as a matter of course, and couldn't help smiling.

"Turn to that page and take a look," An Xingmian said from behind. "The meeting between you and me was originally a coincidence, but who would have thought that all of this might be an arrangement of fate?"

This sentence seems to be understood from some ambiguous angles, but Xue Huaiqing has never been a passionate person, she heard some heavy taste from the words, and quickly turned to the entry of the corpse dancer according to the catalog .This entry occupies several pages, and it is quite detailed from the perspective of a bystander. There is nothing in front of it, but some ordinary introductions to corpse dancers. Most of them are true, but there are also many fallacies. People with famous names in Wanli can't be completely rigorous, or even Xing Wanli can't understand the corpse dancers who don't communicate with ordinary people.

She soon noticed that An Xingmian had put a bookmark and a few other scattered pages on one of the pages of the book related to the Corpse Dancer.She turned to that page, and a few large characters came into view—the origin legend of the Corpse Dancer.

"You are very concerned about the origin of the Corpse Dancer?" Xue Huaiqing was a little surprised, "No one can tell how the Corpse Dancer was formed and originated, and the rumors that have been handed down are basically unfounded legends, um... For example, it is written in this book that an old man foresaw that the land of Kyushu would be destroyed, but no one believed his statement, so he began to think about manipulating the dead to be his servant—wait a minute!"

Xue Huaiqing suddenly turned pale.Before that, she had only heard some rough stories about "demonic fire pouring out and burning the earth", and she always regarded it as absurd nonsense.But now, this book not only mentioned this story, but also added some details. An Xingmian even copied a more detailed description in the scattered pages between the pages of the book, perhaps from other anecdotes An ancient book of ghost stories.Those details and descriptions were like a bucket of cold water, making her shiver uncontrollably in this early spring that was gradually warming up.

four

The following story comes from an old anecdote, and the storyteller swears that the story is not fiction, but comes from the diary left by the person concerned.Let me just listen to it.

It is said that thousands of years ago, when the conflicts among the six clans in Kyushu were raging, there was a barbarian astrologer named Hong Tianyin, who was always good at studying astrology, and also liked to tinker with various secret arts. All in all, he was a rare all-rounder.It's just that this barbarian has a problem, that is, he is overconfident. He has always believed in the results of his stargazing and divination, and he has never been willing to correct his views—even if it has been proven wrong. This problem eventually led to The tragedy of his later years.

When Hong Tianyin was about 50 years old, out of chance, he took in a Chinese who was seriously injured in the war and was on the verge of death.The identity of this Chinese man is no longer testable, but he claimed to be a traveler like Xing Wanli, who specialized in geography, but was unfortunately recruited by the emperor to fight against the barbarians.The Chinese traveler spent the last few days of his life in Hong Tianyin's tent, and finally died of his injuries. But before he died, he gave Hong Tianyin the geographical records he had always carried with him. The crystallization of a lifetime of hard work.

After Hong Tianyin buried the traveler, he began to read the geography book. He found that the traveler was indeed a man of real talent and learning, especially a deep study of geological changes.However, in this book, he discovered some unusual data and research, and an ominous premonition welled up in his heart.He resolutely threw away other work at hand, and started a month of calculations and verifications that lasted almost without sleep. In the end, the data gave him a nightmarish answer.

According to the research of travelers, on the land of Kyushu, there are various volcanoes, large and small, and there is even a volcano Heluo that lives near the volcanoes, but these volcanoes are not all that people know.Through decades of tireless search, this traveler proved that there are still some large volcanoes that have never erupted hidden under the crust of Kyushu—but these volcanoes are not extinct volcanoes, they are just dormant all the time and may erupt at any time.

If it's just this one discovery, it's actually not that big of a deal. After all, these volcanoes have been dormant for tens of millions of years. Who knows when they will erupt, maybe tomorrow, maybe they will sleep like that forever.Even if one or two of them accidentally erupted, it would be nothing more than a major flood or a plague of locusts.But Hong Tianyin was not satisfied with this. Through a lot of complicated calculations, combined with the changes in the earth's crust and the disturbance of the stars, he came to another fatal conclusion: these volcanoes can be artificially induced to erupt!And there are more than [-] such underground volcanoes found by travelers alone!
What's worse is that if it's just a simple eruption, at most it will destroy a city or wilderness that occupies a small part of Kyushu. Even if it is an important big city like Nanhuai City or Tianqi City, after dozens or hundreds of years of reconstruction, it will still be destroyed. Can come back to life again.However, if these volcanoes erupt at a specific moment, combined with the specific position of the stars in the sky at that time, it may bring another consequence: triggering all the volcanoes on the earth to erupt together, and causing the underground magma to erupt wildly, and at the same time Triggered submarine volcanic eruptions and large tsunamis.

——If someone has mastered such a special method to simultaneously erupt these thirty huge volcanoes scattered all over Kyushu, thereby triggering the crazy eruption of magma and ground fire, what kind of consequences will it cause?

——Will the earth be turned into a sea of ​​flames, the ocean into a hell of lava, everything in the world will be destroyed in the magic fire, and Kyushu will become a dead place from now on?
After calculating this step, although Hong Tianyin was exhausted, he was still so shocked that he couldn't close his eyes all night.At last he couldn't bear it any longer, and fell asleep for three days and three nights. After waking up, he immediately left a vague note to his wife, packed his luggage and left the house in a hurry, and began to follow the distribution map drawn by travelers, from near to Find these destructive fires hidden deep in the ground one by one from afar.

He started from his hometown of Hanzhou, then went to the icy and snowy plateau of Shangzhou, found the first three volcanoes, inspected everything carefully, and found nothing abnormal, which also made him feel a little more at ease.But when it came to the fourth underground volcano, when he worked so hard to find the ley line hidden in the depths of the mountain, he was stunned and couldn't believe his eyes.

He saw a huge, man-made cave, almost bottomless.This cave is like a sharp knife, a blood-sucking sword, deeply inserted into the most fragile part of the earth's crust, into the place that is most likely to trigger a volcanic eruption.

Hong Tianyin almost fainted at that time.This is a cave with a very huge project, and at the same time it is very well hidden. If this place is not just his destination, it will be absolutely difficult for outsiders to discover.Who dug such a deep hole here, and then hid it so carefully, what is the purpose of the people who dug these deep holes?
He left here with anxiety, and went to several other caves.Although the distance is far away and the geographical conditions in each place are very complicated and dangerous, Hong Tianyin, who is over half a century old, overcomes all difficulties with amazing perseverance. According to the traveler's map, he found eleven underground volcanoes within three years.He discovered that among the eleven underground volcanoes, three of them had already been dug into deep holes, reaching a critical point of extreme danger.This can't be just a coincidence.

Hong Tianyin came to a conclusion that he didn't want to believe but had to believe: There was a group of people who were carrying out a huge project aimed at destroying Kyushu.They may have calculated it independently, or they may have stolen the achievements of the travelers, but no matter what, they found these dormant monsters and tried to wake them up.Judging from the scale of those caves, it is obvious that the people who dug them had planned for a long time, and most of them still had strong financial resources, able to drive a lot of manpower, so that such caves could be dug.Facing such an opponent, he felt a complete sense of powerlessness.According to the progress of the "enemy" project in his imagination, as long as there is enough financial support, all the caves can be excavated in about ten years. By then, it will be the end of Kyushu.

After thinking about it, he felt that he could only tell this matter to the maharaja of the barbarian tribe, or the emperor of the Hua tribe, the emperor of the Yu tribe, or any king who had the ability to stop it all, and then use the power of the country to stop it.Although as a lonely genius, he has always looked down on those vulgar people who are fighting for power and profit, but at this moment, he has no choice.

Hong Tianyin returned to Hanzhou in a melancholy mood, ready to ask the Maharaja to tell him about the fatal crisis.However, as soon as he returned to his hometown, he received a piece of news like a bolt from the blue: his wife was arrested and beheaded by the Maharaja. Chinese traveler.A villain who has always had a bad relationship with him denounced him. The majesty sent people to raid his house and copied out the geographical notes left by the traveler to Hong Tianyin. There are many geographical maps and detailed descriptions of Hanzhou in it. In their hands, it is of great benefit to them to fight on the grassland.

This time the evidence was convincing, Hong Tianyin's wife didn't know how to argue at all, and when asked about her husband's whereabouts, she couldn't answer at all.When Hong Tianyin left home, she only left a hastily written note, on which there were only the words "Leaving home on important matters, return date undecided", how could she explain it.Naturally, Hong Tianyin was characterized as a traitor of the Litonghua clan, and his wife and his disabled nephew who had been attached to him for many years and was taken care of by his wife were all beheaded for public display.

Finally, Hong Tianyin was lucky. With his own wisdom and a little good luck, he escaped from the hunt, crossed Hainan and fled to Zhongzhou to hide for a while.A few months later, he returned to Hanzhou, passing through piles of bones that no one picked up in the grass along the way, and finally came to Beidu City.There, his wife's head was hung high above the head of the northern capital, and hung together with the heads of other so-called traitors. The crows had already eaten all the flesh and blood, leaving only the ferocious skeleton, which made him completely unable to stand in the crowd of skeletons. identified her.As mentioned earlier, Hong Tianyin has always been a withdrawn person. His wife is almost the only person in the world who can understand him and tolerate him. The two of them have lived together for most of their lives. recognized her from her skull.

There is no doubt that Hong Tianyin's disposition began to distort from this moment.Unlike what Xue Huaiqing heard before, Hong Tianyin had no intention of persuading others to flee with him at all, he himself voluntarily gave up on the world.

He took one last look at the row of skulls, turned and left Beidu, never looking back.Five months later, after an unimaginably difficult trek, he arrived at the most precipitous peak in the snowfield of Shangzhou——Mucuo Peak.According to his calculations, if a disaster that destroyed the land really happened, Mucuo Peak may be the only place where one can escape, even though this high and cold mountain was originally a place of death with almost extinction.I don't know if the transition from death to life is the favor of fate or the mockery of fate.

All in all, Hong Tianyin came to Mucuo Peak alone.Although as a barbarian, his health has always been good, but in this place where even Kuafu can't survive, one can imagine his living conditions alone.One month later, when he was struggling to find food on the mountain, he accidentally slipped down the ridge. Fortunately, the snow was so deep that he didn't fall to his death. However, he accidentally found several frozen dead bodies in the snowdrift. .At that moment, an unprecedented and wonderful inspiration flashed in his heart: Although I don't want to be with any living people anymore, I can find a way to manipulate the dead to be used by me.

Anyway, living alone is lonely and boring, Hong Tianyin immediately began to study this method of manipulating the dead.He is an all-rounder, has a deep knowledge of secret arts, and also knows a lot about witchcraft and voodoo in wild lands. In the end, he used some incomplete materials to drive the long-lost Yuezhou away. The corpse dance was restored, and added its own improvements, forming the prototype of the corpse dance that has been handed down to this day.

(End of this chapter)