Endless route

Chapter 260 30. Colored porcelain auspiciousness and underground waterway

The darkroom is about a dozen square meters, and each large gray brick is neatly spaced and tightly fitted. After the exit above the head was buried by Zhang Ergou, the entire space was dark and silent like a secret room.

The only exit is directly ahead.

It is blocked by several wooden boxes.

Ji Dao walked over with a crowbar, pulled open the rotten wooden box and took a look. There were some very strange things in the box, which were baskets made of vines.

These baskets are empty.

However, based on the location and purpose of the wooden boxes, it is assumed that heavy objects should be stored in these baskets.

"It's strange, there is nothing?"

Ji Dao knocked on the stone door with a crowbar and listened carefully to judge whether there was an empty space or a swamp behind the door.

Some ancient people used wooden boxes to block the door, indicating that something was chasing behind the door, but no one could tell whether it was a swamp or something else.

Zheng Yun looked around. They were now fifteen meters underground. They were in the middle of the ancient city wall. Because they were carrying oxygen bottles, they had no way of knowing whether there was oxygen in the air.

I have a lighter but I dare not light it.

There may be flammable gases in the enclosed space. Lighting a lighter may cause an explosion and blow up the oxygen bottle.

"Master Immortal, there should be an empty space behind the door, but we are full of people standing here. We have to make room to open the door. If you don't let me move, I will try to pry the door open."

Ji Dao scratched his scalp and said.

In a total of more than ten square meters of space, nine people carrying backpacks and oxygen bottles stood, each with a flashlight, illuminating the secret room and the dead faces of the Yin soldiers in white.

It’s quite a lively scene.

Water up to a meter deep has risen.

But as long as Zheng Yunjidao didn't speak, there was a sense of deathly silence in the underworld. The Yin soldiers were pale and sweating, and the ghost generals were silent and had weird smiles that made people run cold down their backs.

If there is something on the other side of the door.

I can't tell who scared whom.

Zheng Yun nodded and gave the order. Several Yin soldiers immediately crowded into the corner and stood facing the wall as if they were squeezing into an elevator.

Ji Dao immediately took action, pulled the wooden box aside, and groped for gaps in the brick wall with his hands. Zheng Yun used a flashlight to help him illuminate while staring at the bottom of the water under his feet.

The water is too clear.

The mud on the soles of the feet was also eerily black.

The ruins were discovered the year before last. Zheng Yun believed in the abilities of the explorers. Someone must have entered the real ancient city fifteen meters underground or even deeper.

Maybe someone is down there right now.

It has reached the deepest part of the ruins.

It's a pity that Nia, Jiasi Irene and others don't know the progress of other Huangbo expedition teams. They have just arrived in Nanze, and they don't know where Gubo's team is currently.

So we still need to speed up the progress.

They didn't have time to investigate carefully.

Click, Ji Dao used a crowbar to pry out a gap, and the ghost general came to help. As the gap became larger, the water level in the darkroom dropped, which meant that the water in the dark passage outside was lower.

Wow.

The stone door was pushed open a gap.

Master Ji Daoyi was bold enough to stick his head directly into the crack of the dark door, looking left and right to observe the situation in the corridor.

After looking around and seeing no light, Ji Dao put the flashlight out again and continued to observe. He lowered his voice and said to Zheng Yun: "Master Xian, I heard a sound, below us."

"If there's no danger, just keep walking."

Zheng Yun asked the ghost generals to completely move away from Shimen. They were not shameful and there was no need to hide from other expedition teams.

"Um."

Ji Dao walked into the corridor first, confirmed the direction and walked to the left. The water in the corridor was also one meter deep, and there was some dark mud under his feet, which felt soft when he stepped on it.

The width of this corridor is less than one meter. It is a narrow path within the city wall. It is unknown what its purpose is.

A group of people were walking through the dark passage with flashlights. As they walked, they heard the noise of a hammer drill coming from above their heads.

After walking around for a long time this time, Zheng Yun estimated that he was about to reach Chen Tower, the east city gate, when Jidao suddenly stopped.

"Master Immortal, you can go down here." Jidao pointed out a square hole that was completely filled with water. There was a rotten wooden ladder hanging at the entrance of the hole, which was also a passage reserved by the ancients.

"Down."

Zheng Yun nodded.

They were wearing a full set of diving equipment, and their backpacks were also specially made to be waterproof. They had just returned from a deep-sea floating city, which was just a dark water hole. There was no psychological pressure at all when they dived.

But the Yin soldiers came first.

The three Yin soldiers immediately jumped into the hole. The water looked very clear, but the actual depth was at least six meters. Zheng Yun and others followed closely behind. There was also a tunnel below.

Ji Dao led the way again, with his hands on the wall of the narrow corridor, and swam toward the west in a weird posture. He swam more than twenty meters in one breath, then walked down a narrow stone staircase from north to south, and entered a wide hall.

It was completely flooded.

The color of the water is slightly green.

The flashlight light refracted in the water, making the entire hall sparkle. Deep in this ancient city, which was built nearly five hundred years ago, all the furnishings and objects were soaked in water and rotted.

Only the gray bricks remain unchanged.

Other objects were incorporated into the silt.

This seemed to be a place where supplies were stored within the ancient city wall. Everyone used flashlights to scan the surroundings. The clear water had an excellent view, and there were a large number of rotten baskets buried in the mud at the bottom.

There are also many rotten swords and guns.

and a large number of porcelain vases and earthen jars.

Zheng Yun kept observing the mud under his feet. The route they took was very narrow and there were no footprints in the mud. In other words, no explorer had ever walked this route.

"Master Immortal, as long as this place is accessible, we can directly enter the underground waterway. There is a well in front."

Ji Dao spoke through the intercom. After leaving the narrow corridor, he could only dive down using a swimming style similar to a dog paddle.

"Let it take you."

Zheng Yun took the initiative and asked the ghost general to grab Ji Dao's backpack and act as a propeller to lead Ji Dao forward.

Everyone dived from the southeast corner of the hall to the northwest corner. When their feet touched the mud, they were already twenty-five meters underground. They drilled into the end of the ancient city wall at an extremely efficient speed.

The ancient city wall has a foundation several meters thick. If they walk out of the city wall at this moment, as long as they can resist the pressure of the swamp, they can walk along the buried streets and alleys, "fly over the eaves and walls" of the green brick and tile rooms, and pass through the swamp directly to the Dusi Mansion.

It's a pity that no one can resist the pressure.

I don’t want to be blindly drilling in the swamp.

"The mud is a bit thick."

Ji Dao stretched out the crowbar and poked.

There is more than one meter of mud in the hall. They have to clear the mud to one side to expose the well.

"There seems to be something."

Zheng Yun dived to the surface of the mud and reached out to lift a white object wrapped in mud. He thought it was a small fragment, but he couldn't stop mentioning it.

The object was one meter high. After shaking it in the water to shake off the mud, I discovered that it was actually a narrow-necked porcelain vase, and it was not blue and white but colored porcelain, with landscapes and a few deers painted on it.

Turn the porcelain bottle and observe.

The deer were running away.

But it is not a hunting picture. In addition to deer, there are other animals escaping, and on the other side is a glow in the mountains.

"What is this statement?"

Jidao stared at the porcelain bottle and muttered that the city was abandoned earlier than 1800, around the middle and late Ming Dynasty. These objects should have been left behind at that time.

Or maybe earlier.

It is difficult for them to date this kind of environment.

"You don't know him either?"

Zheng Yun stared at the rays of light, feeling that the pattern seemed to be a metaphor for some information, but why did the ancients paint such a pattern that looked like a 'disaster' on the bottle?

The glow usually represents auspiciousness.

There is an auspicious sign appearing in the mountains in the east, and the painter focuses on depicting the frightened beasts in the mountains running away. It seems that he wants to express the overwhelming force of the auspicious sign, so is it an auspicious sign?

What does this auspiciousness mean?

Is it the enlightenment of a master, the birth of an immortal, the ascension of an emperor, or some kind of auspicious vision of heaven and earth?

"Isn't it related to the swamp?"

Ji Dao has never seen such a pattern, but considering the current situation of Nanze Ancient City, he can guess towards the quagmire.

The sudden appearance of the swamp was a strange phenomenon in itself, although the result was that the ancient city of Nanze was submerged.

"First dig out the passage."

Zheng Yun held the porcelain bottle and shook it. The weight was estimated to be less than twenty kilograms, and he couldn't guess what was inside.

"Um."

Ji Dao led the Yin soldiers to take action.

There were many such porcelain bottles and rotten miscellaneous things in the mud. After a short search, I found a porcelain bottle with a broken neck and no cork, but it was empty inside.

In addition, Ji Dao also pulled out some white human bone fragments, as well as some kind of black-green swamp algae that was at least three meters long, indicating the existence of ecology here.

Especially a human skull.

The atmosphere in the venue suddenly dropped to freezing point.

Zheng Yun and Jidao didn't even want to say anything because the reason why this man's skull had not been degraded was because it happened to fall into half a broken earthen jar. The scene was extremely strange.

Although it might just be a coincidence.

But it looks like a human head in an earthen jar.

This scene reminded Zheng Yun of the floating city in the deep sea. Those large blue and white porcelain bottles with broken necks were all brought up from the bottom of the sea by jellyfish, probably for the purpose of feeding on evil things in the bottles.

It may also be another case. The jellyfish grew out of the inside of the broken porcelain bottle. The seabed was densely covered with porcelain bottles, causing the jellyfish to swallow the porcelain bottles as they grew.

"Master Immortal, I touched it. There is a stone cover."

Ji Dao buried his whole body into the mud, holding the lid with both hands and stepping on the ground with his feet to try to lift the lid.

But one person is not strong enough.

The ghost generals came together to help, and they lifted the stone cover. However, after such a big move, the mud in the hall became extremely turbid, and Zheng Yun and the others could not even see each other clearly.

"Master Immortal, there is also water down there, do you want to go down?"

Ji Dao looked through the turbid water with a flashlight and found that the water in the well was relatively clean, indicating that the stone cover was well sealed.

"..."

Zheng Yun looked around the hall and had to admit that this environment gave people a strong sense of insecurity. There was always a vague danger lingering in the silent corners of the muddy water.

Separated by a wall is thirty meters of swamp.

It is also the ancient city of Nanze that was completely buried.

Thanks to the ancient city drawings, they are about to enter the underground waterway of the ancient city, but at the same time, they are getting closer and closer to the truth and danger of the ancient city of Nanze being left behind.

An ancient city of the Ming Dynasty that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. In ancient times, it was bustling with people and extremely prosperous. However, for some reason, it died overnight and was forced to be left behind.

This situation is different from the past.

Its level of danger and weirdness far exceeds that of ordinary dangerous places with ghosts and ghosts. In fact, it is more similar to the ancient city of Red Mist, involving the most secretive past in history, the rise and fall of the city, and the safety of hundreds of thousands of people.

The closer to the truth.

The sense of awe in Zheng Yun's heart became stronger.

There is no reason why he should not be in awe. Anyone who is familiar with history will know what it means to leave a big city behind.

Even the ancient Ming Emperor would have to bear great pressure if he wanted to order a city to be abandoned. He would have to use the whole country to find a way to save it before issuing the order.

The end result is in sight.

The Ming Emperor could not save it.

In other words, the entire Ming Dynasty, which has mastered countless means, has not succeeded in saving this ancient city...

Now Zheng Yun only hoped that the reason why Nanze was left behind was because the swamp flooded the city, and it was just the strange phenomena in the world that forced the emperor to have no other choice, and it had nothing to do with any other ghost.

This is also the current consensus.

Everyone, including Gu Bo, believed that this was a natural disaster similar to the diversion of the Yellow River, except that what flooded Nanze was a swamp, leaving a complete city to future generations.

"Get off."

Zheng Yun nodded and continued to accelerate.

Jidao pulled open the porcelain bottle on the side and jumped directly into the well. Zheng Yun only saw the light beam in his hand swaying in the turbid water, and disappeared into the mud after a few flashes.

"At least fifteen meters deep."

Ji Dao's voice sounded.

Zheng Yun swam down after him.

The well was long, narrow and deep, and he could only see Ji Dao pointing his flashlight downward, pulling on the walls of the well and quickly reaching the bottom.

There is a wide space below.

Five meters below is the bottom of the ancient city. Walking out from the gate of the city wall, they can walk on the gray brick roads dating back more than 400 years and enjoy the historic streets of the ancient city.

Fifteen meters and ten more meters would reach forty meters underground, which was completely underground even in ancient times.

Zheng Yun quickly dived to the bottom of the well. An east-west sewer was right in front of him. It was two meters high and wide. The ground and walls were very flat, with no sign of being crushed.

Sewers are strong.

Can withstand the swamp above.

At this moment, half of the sewer is water, and the other half is black sludge that is obviously different from a swamp.

"Master Immortal, I heard someone's voice. Someone is in the underground sewer. Let's hurry up and go to Dusi Mansion."

Ji Dao listened for a moment and then quickly reminded.

Zheng Yun nodded and ordered all the Yin soldiers and ghost generals to come down. The ghost generals took Ji Dao and went deep in the direction he pointed.

Dusi Mansion must be one of the most critical places in the entire ancient city. Expedition teams from the East and the West can all think of this. It is a must-win place for the Gubo and Huangbo in the early stages of exploration.

They all came earlier than me.

However, the ancient city of Nanze was so huge that it was comparable to a modern small town. It was difficult for them to accurately find the Dusi Mansion from the complex underground water system without drawings.

If we follow historical practices, the east and west should be able to quickly narrow down the scope. The ancient city of Nanze faces the south and faces the north, with the sea to the north, so the Dusi Mansion should be in the south of the city.

As long as they walked along the central axis of the ancient city and tested each one one by one, they would find Nanze Dusi Mansion sooner or later.

And indeed it is.

The location of Nanze Dusi Mansion is indeed in the south-central part of Nanze Ancient City, but Zheng Yun doesn't think they can get in quickly because the entrance to Dusi Mansion is not in the first-floor sewer.

Zheng Yun did not study it carefully, but he knew how complicated the sewers were. Underground cities were no joke. The sewers in Nanze could accommodate the daily living of 100,000 people.

Zheng Yun had previously speculated that it was precisely because of the swamp ecology and the soft coastal geology of Nanze that when Nanze was built, several layers were built in order to stabilize the city foundation.

Moreover, the ground is soft and it is easy to dig. It is easy to dig down more than ten meters. Just lead a river and throw mud into the river. It is estimated that the city foundation can be dug out in less than two years.

While thinking.

Everyone swam deep into the sewer.

The sewers are not all half water and half silt. There are several corners leading to other places, and there are more silt deposits that even fill the corridors, and there is a certain pattern.

The east-west sewers have less silt.

There is a lot of silt in sewers running north to south.

It should be because groundwater is flowing. Nanze's sewers are probably connected to the sea. The outlet is blocked by silt, but there is still water that can slowly seep out.

The water in the underground sewer must have seeped down from the swamp and then seeped in between the bricks. Because of the existence of this water, even if there is a broken swamp, it will be difficult to flood in.

If you say it from another angle.

The water is really, really clean.

The penetration effect is comparable to that of a water purifier.

While Zheng Yun was thinking, he had already followed Ji Dao for two or three kilometers. Ji Dao was leading the way well, but suddenly he stopped at a fork, and Zheng Yun looked over him.

There was a flashlight in front of me, shining from the left hand side of the fork. The distance was no more than 200 meters.