The alternating footsteps of Su Wu and An Gang sounded in the darkness.
Not long after entering the cave, An Gang regretted it.
He had a creepy feeling that there were many eyes all around him watching him silently, but it was even dark here, so he could only follow Su Wu with his voice.
"Jun Zhuzhao, it's too dark here, I can't see anything!
Let’s not go too deep and leave first!” An Gang shouted at Su Wu who was walking ahead.
Su Wu's calm voice reached his ears, calming his mind a little: "What are you afraid of? If it doesn't work, we will turn around and go back. It's okay, Mr. An Gang!"
An Gang subconsciously nodded in agreement with Su Wu's words,
The next moment, he turned around and looked back——
Obviously we haven't gone far yet,
But now we can no longer see the light projected from the cave entrance!
An Gang trembled in his heart, and he no longer dared to agree with Su Wu's words, and continued: "It's too dark here, you can't see anything, Zhuzhaojun!"
"Just follow me and walk forward."
Su Wu's response reached An Gang's ears.
He still remembered that Zhu Zhaojun clearly had a fire starter in his hand, and An Gang saw him using it when they were eating outside at noon.
Why is it that in such a dark environment, Zhu Zhaojun refuses to blow out the fire ignition and lights up anything at will to illuminate the surrounding environment?
Thoughts are spinning in my mind,
An Gang accidentally stepped on a stone on the ground,
The whole person's center of gravity was unstable, and he stumbled sideways and fell!
Bang!
The pain he expected from hitting the hard rocks on the mountain wall did not appear.
It was as if I had collided with the flesh of a living person,
Didn't feel any pain at all!
what happened?
An Gang is horrified!
At this time, Su Wu's voice sounded from beside him: "Are you okay? Mr. An Gang."
"It's okay, it's okay..." An Gang responded subconsciously. After he said the words, he realized that Zhu Zhao was actually standing next to him, and he had just bumped into him?
No wonder I didn't feel any pain...
An Gang still felt something strange subconsciously,
But he couldn't think of much at the moment, so he quickly apologized to Su Wu: "Did I bump into you? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
"It doesn't matter."
Su Wu shook his head,
Let go of the hand holding An Gang.
He turned his head to look at the inner wall of the cave just a stone's throw away from him.
——Purple-red weird lines are all over the mountain wall, and pieces of ‘stones’ that resemble human limbs, organs, and even complete human shapes are inlaid on the mountain wall.
With the flow of purple-red veins, these stones are also slowly squirming!
Come closer and see,
Su Wu could even see the subtle expressions on those people's faces. When he looked at those 'human-shaped stones',
They will also open their eyes and look at him!
He took An Gang and continued walking forward,
The ‘human-shaped stones’ on the mountain walls on both sides also gradually changed.
The 'human-shaped stones' that appeared at the entrance of the cave were all men with buns tied in sticks, or men with shaved heads, samurai. 'They' had vivid expressions, and they looked at Su Wu and Su Wu who walked into the cave with fear.
An Gang,
The lips move,
The limbs are stretched hard,
He wanted to break out of the stone wall and asked Su Wu for help.
The further you walk into the cave, the 'human-shaped stones' on the surrounding mountain walls are not just men, they are also
A woman wearing Wu costume also appeared;
a fat woman in shabby clothing;
Children and the elderly gathered together.
The expressions on the faces of these 'human-shaped stones' have solidified. They are inlaid on the mountain wall, motionless, like exquisite and detailed relief sculptures.
Mixed in among the many "human-shaped stones" are various stones shaped like internal organs and human limbs.
But some internal organs are too big,
They don't look like human organs, but rather like the internal organs of some huge beasts.
These viscera-shaped stones reminded Su Wu of the gutted horses in the abandoned village.
The followers brought by the Taira clan's ghost warriors to the deserted village disappeared without a trace.
Watanabe Tsuna and Hiromasa have been dragged into Rashomon and are destined to die.
The warriors they brought were not selected for Rashomon, but there was still no news.
These two groups of people should have been taken away by the evil spirit surrounding the deserted village that could turn the soil into quicksand and bury people without a sound. They were most likely dead and turned into stones on the mountain wall.
It became a ‘killing stone’.
so,
The killing stone is actually transformed from a living person?!
Those ‘five internal organs stones’ and ‘placental stones’ are probably actually the internal organs of humans or animals?!
The ‘Killing Stone Mine’ itself is extremely strange,
it never dies,
Always ‘alive’?!
The so-called ghost king "Tamazo Mae" was exterminated by Jianzhen, and the nine tails combined with the Dongliu Island iron ore vein to form the killing stone vein. Is this also false?!
But - Grandmaster Kotetsu's ancestors clearly participated in the battle to annihilate Tamamo-mae.
What secrets are buried in this?
Go to the end of the cave,
Ahead is a huge stone chamber.
There are many traces of digging in this stone chamber.
The faces of the 'human-shaped stones' connected to this ashlar room are lifelike, but they will never give people the impression that they are real people - the human-shaped stones here are too exquisite, and living people will not look like them.
Exquisite.
These ‘human-shaped stones’ at the end,
It is exactly the same as the 'human stone' that Genji sent to Yasutuna Sword Forging Factory.
——The two may be the same thing.
In the corner of the spacious stone room, there are hammers, chisels and many other tools for mining ores.
On the flat mountain wall where many 'human stones' and 'five internal organs stones' were stacked and inlaid on the side, fireplaces were dug out one after another deliberately, and there was a lot of charcoal piled in the fireplaces.
There was even a pool on the ground, filled with smelly black liquid.
Several stone tables lie around the black liquid,
On the stone table, there are iron felts, axes, hammers, iron poles, gloves and other items.
All the furnishings in this stone room gave Su Wu an extremely familiar feeling.
——Such items are clearly the kind of furnishings found only in a blacksmith shop.
There is no shortage of smelting furnaces and calcining furnaces,
There are many kinds of blacksmithing tools such as iron felt, hammer head, iron rod and so on!
There is even a hill-like pile of charcoal in the corner of the stone chamber!
There must have been someone here who forged something with the help of the killing stone here!
Maybe swords and weapons,
It could be any other iron tool!
Su Wu saw a rectangular hole like a shrine dug out on the stone wall facing the cave passage. There seemed to be something vaguely inside.
There is an oil lamp hanging above the 'shrine'.
"An Gang, we may have discovered something amazing.
As a knife maker,
This is simply the dream of all swordsmiths!" Su Wu looked at the oil lamp opposite and spoke to An Gang. He let a hint of vibrato appear in his voice to show that he was very excited.
Hearing his words, An Gang's whole body tensed up immediately: "Yes, what is it?
Zhuzhaojun, what you see in front of you may not be true.
may be false,
Don’t believe it!”
In such dense darkness, An Gang couldn't see at all.
He relied on himself and others, thinking that Su Wu was in the same situation as himself.
Neither of them can see,
How did the other party see those 'remarkable things' and 'the dream of a swordsmith'? It was obvious that Mr. Zhu Zhao was bewitched by some terrifying existence!
"wait for me here,
You'll know what I saw later..."
Su Wu didn't explain much to An Gang. He patted the other party's shoulder and walked away from him.
An Gang reached out to grab him, but only caught a handful of air.
Previously in the cave passage, Su Wu did not light the lights so that An Gang could see the surrounding scene - the reason was that the conditions of the 'human rocks' in the passage were too scary!
They are literally real people who are about to turn to stone,
There are still blood stains on the body!
When An Gang saw this scene, he was afraid that he would faint from fright.
But after arriving at the end of the passage, the 'human stones' here all looked like what An Gang knew a 'human stone' should look like. Their faces were exquisite and 'lifelike', and each of them had their hands clasped together, without any sense of terror.
On the contrary, there is a strange and magnificent beauty.
Regarding the current scene, Su Wu felt that An Gang would still be frightened after seeing it - how could there be such a large number of "human rocks" here?
But he shouldn't be so frightened that he fainted.
"Zhu Zhaojun, be careful in everything!
Don’t be impulsive!”
An Gang was still shouting from behind, hoping to pull Su Wu back.
His voice echoed in the cave.
Su Wu had walked into the cave and approached the 'shrine' on the stone wall facing the cave passage.
The location where the 'shrine'-like rectangular cave was dug was not too high. Standing in front of the stone wall, Su Wu was able to look straight at the 'shrine' and see what was inside the 'shrine'.
There is a piece of yellowed paper in the shrine, with a series of bloody words on the paper.
The overwhelming malice and obsession burst out from that series of handwriting,
When it fell into Su Wu's ears, it turned into countless sharp screams: "True, true? The Buddha is actually a demon?!"
"Is it really like, really like? Buddha is actually a demon?!"
"Is it really like, really like? Buddha is actually a demon?!"
Alarm bells rang in Su Wu’s heart,
In an instant, he lifted up his sword of wisdom——
Use the sword of wisdom,
Thousands of demonic thoughts turned into ashes!
He stared at the line of writing inside the 'Buddha niche': Zhenru, Zhenru? Buddha is actually a demon?!
The writer didn't know that he had gone astray in practicing Buddhism, so he left behind this question that contained overwhelming malice and obsession.
Or maybe he has set up a question here, leaving it to those who come after him - behind the blank sheet of paper, there is something vaguely there. If this is a 'question', I think only by solving the question can I pick up the white sheet.
Paper.
Su Wu reached out to take off the white paper.
But he just put his hand into the Buddhist niche,
The surrounding human stones and internal organs all squirmed, clustering like quicksand around the arm he stretched into the Buddhist niche. He could use his sly power to forcefully peel off the white paper.
But who knows if peeling off the white paper like this will trigger other changes in this killing stone vein?
Therefore, Su Wu thought for a while and gave up using brute force to untie the paper for the time being.
He stared at the column of blood letters,
After thinking for a long time,
He opened his mouth to explain: "Don't look for others, they are far away from me. Now I go alone, I will meet him everywhere."
He is exactly me now, and I am not him now. How should we meet in order to achieve agreement with Ruru."
What Su Wu said was a Buddhist verse left by a Zen master in the Tang Dynasty when he was enlightened.
These eight Buddhist verses explain exactly what "True Suchness" is.
Suchness is all the empty earth and all things that are real and not empty.
This is what I saw and heard at this moment.
it's me'.
But ‘I’ am not really who I am,
I am just a part of the truth.
Suchness is all things in the eyes of all living beings, and all living beings in the eyes of all living beings.
But it’s not all things in my eyes, it’s not all sentient beings in ‘my’ eyes.
This is true.
The Zen master who left these eight lines of Buddhist verses was named Dongshan Liangzi, and his birth and death years were before "Jianzhen". Su Wu assumed that it was "Jianzhen" who left this question, so he used these eight lines of Buddha's verses.
The verse is a response to the 'True Question'.
If "Jianzhen" just wants to leave questions to test latecomers,
His answer already fits the question and can pass the 'True Question'.
However, if ‘Jianzhen’ himself falls into the inner demons,
Because leaving this question would trigger the phenomenon of Li Gui guarding dormant in the killing stone veins, Su Wu felt that he could not resist Jianzhen's confused inner demons, and he would immediately take An Gang out of here.
Never think otherwise!
The only people who know the traces of this vein of killing stone and hold the secret key to enter the vein are Axiong and Toshio Inoue.
Even Toshio Inoue is just a supplement, just taking care of this thing on behalf of Axiong!
Monks related to A Xiong,
The most famous one is naturally ‘Jian Zhen’.
This is also the premise for Su Wu to make the assumption. Recall that 'Jianzhen' once gave Ah Xiong a 'Tie Binding Rope', and he might have made something with his own hands using the killing stone. All of this is consistent with Su Wu's assumption.
Fit!
After uttering eight verses of Buddha's verses,
Su Wu stared at the 'Buddha niche' intently.
The white paper in the 'Buddhist niche' remained silent, but the obsessive atmosphere seeping out of the row of bloody words on the white paper suddenly subsided a lot.
Looking at the Buddhist niche, a smile appeared on Su Wu's face.