Judgment Day [Unlimited]

The sun was shining at noon, and the beetles were unresponsive to the high temperature. Most of them crowded and hid in the corpse of the night watchman to sleep and escape the heat.

Fortunately, Xie Xingyin and the others responded in a timely manner, and soon everyone was pulled out of the quicksand pit.No one was injured except Boss Hou's toe was bitten by a beetle.

Just now, when Boss Hou was ups and downs in the quicksand pit, he grabbed something randomly and dragged it up together.Everyone took a closer look, and there was a surprise—the supplies stolen by the short man were also in the bunker, and the dry food and water bottles in the cloth bags were still intact.

"It seems that he and the camel may have been eaten by these bugs." Xie Xingyin said.Everyone couldn't help shivering when they recalled the appearance of that skeleton.

Fortunately, they didn't really fall into the quicksand pit, otherwise they would end up like that.

Everyone solved the water problem, and now they have found food again. The survival problem has been guaranteed, and they can finally move forward with confidence.

While walking, Lao Liang held the water bottle and drank happily, but when he turned around suddenly, he found that Xie Xingyin's expression was not right.

"What's the matter, old Xie?" He quickly asked in a low voice.

Xie Xingyin glanced at the crowd not far in front, hesitantly said: "...one kettle is missing."

"what?"

Xie Xingyin said: "We have a total of ten water bottles, six of which were stolen before. But there are only five water bottles in the bag that the short man took away. Where did the other one go?"

"This..." Lao Liang scratched his head, "Maybe he threw the empty pot away after drinking?"

"Impossible." Xie Xingyin said firmly, "Water resources are scarce here, and water storage tools are also very important. Are you the one who will throw away the water bottle after drinking?"

Won't.Even a fool knows not to throw it away, let alone a thoughtful short one.

"We speculate that he died before the wind rose on the second night. It took less than a day in total. It's not too much to drink a whole jug of water in such a hurry."

Old Liang nodded: "Yes, so?"

"I have a feeling." When Xie Xingyin said this, he lowered his voice a little bit, "...the food of the night watchman may not be stolen by the short man, and he may not even kill the man."

Judging from his short stature, it was doubtful whether the short man could kill an adult without any movement, so he didn't show any intention to kill Xie Xingyin at that time, but just sneaked out of the tent, He went straight to the camel.

Hearing what he said, Lao Liang immediately got goosebumps: "That, that, what if he really didn't kill the person?"

In fact, along the way, the murderer has always been among them?

Xie Xingyin was also a little uncertain.

Their understanding of other people is too superficial, and it is difficult to tell who is behind the scenes just from the surface.If you really want to talk about it, even Li Tiefeng, who seems upright on the surface, is possible.

The only conceivable solution right now is to search everyone's luggage.But after the things were lost on the first night, they had already searched once, and they didn't find anyone who had kept them privately.

The murderer acted very carefully, he even chose such a hidden place for throwing the corpse, and he would definitely hide the food very well, so as not to show the slightest clue.

Old Liang was also thoughtful: "If the murderer killed someone on the first night, why didn't he do it again later?"

Xie Xingyin thought for a while and said, "Each of us has a big pot of water and a bag of dry food. These supplies are enough for us to persist until the sunset. But it's only enough for one-way trip, not enough for round-trip."

Perhaps the murderer got a double portion of food, enough for the return trip and stopped.

Or maybe the murderer wanted to continue killing, but a sudden change happened the next night—the short man took the lead.

"Is it possible that because of the death of the night watchman on the first night, the short man knew that someone in the team was taking advantage of the chaos to kill people." Xie Xingyin said, "The murderer must be someone who can quietly kill the night watchman and throw the body in the cave A man of great skill."

"——The short guy doesn't know who the murderer is, but he can't handle it with his small body. Instead of staying and being slaughtered, it's better to strike first. He snatched the food and ran away on a camel alone. Anyway, no one else No one can catch up with the camel."

But at this time, the real murderer easily got double supplies, and the short man who escaped directly helped him carry the scapegoat, which saved him from being suspected, and he didn't need to act anymore.

"The murderer could be anyone." Xie Xingyin sighed and said, "Be more cautious on the road ahead."

—

At the junction of the edge of the desert and the wilderness, the desert scenery gradually disappears, and the boundless yellow sand is left behind. Some sparse shrubs.

In the afternoon, they finally walked out of the desert and set foot on the wild land again.

Shrubs and sod appear more frequently as the dry cracks in the ground become shallower.All the scenery they saw along the way seemed to be symmetrical in the center, from the wilderness to the desert, and through the desert back to the wilderness.

The improvement of all ecological conditions proves that the water source is ahead.

As the evening approached, several slender white stone pillars appeared on the road ahead, and their shadows were dragged long by the slanting sunlight in the afternoon.

When they got closer, they turned out to be the stone statues of Tintin again, exactly the same as the ones they had seen on the way when they came.

The land of sunset was approaching, and seeing the statues of stone figures appeared in their field of vision again in groups, Xie Xingyin whispered to Lu Fen, "It seems that this stone statue really has some connection with the land of sunset."

If the information obtained in Humbaba's cave is true, the "suffering soul" used to water the flower of life must be obtained by killing people.

The noble didn't want to harm others, so he gave up the fruit of life.But it is not certain whether the other people present are willing to harm others.

Just in case, Xie Xingyin kept a hand, and no one except Lu Fen and Lao Liang knew about it.

There are very few people who know cuneiform characters, and it is unlikely that other people present can understand them, so Xie Xingyin has an absolute advantage in this mission.

Everyone rested under the stone statue for a while, and soon moved on.

In the evening, a rocky hill appeared in the distance.

The hill was actually full of stone statues of different sizes, lengths, and thicknesses, like mushrooms growing after the rain.

On the top of that hill stands a temple building made of stone.The temple is surrounded by countless smiling stone statues, and the atmosphere looks inexplicably solemn and a bit weird.

At this moment the sun was slowly setting, and at first glance it seemed to slide behind the mountain.

The guide walked in the front and led the way, looked up at the setting sun in the distance, and sighed solemnly: "The land of sunset is coming."

After crossing that mountain, they will soon find the legendary land of sunset.

Everyone was thinking about the elixir in their hearts, and they became excited for a while, rushing towards the hill one after another.

The hill in front of him was not too high, but the slope of the mountain made of pure rock was a bit steep, and he could only climb up it with hands and feet.

Li Tiefeng walked in the front and was the first to climb to the top of the mountain.After he stood up, he didn't know what he saw, and he couldn't help but exclaimed as calmly as he could.

Everyone climbed up the hill one after another, looked down to the other side blocked by the hill, and their eyes brightened.

No one expected to see such a scene——

After turning over the hill, a large rift valley shrouded in clouds and mist appeared in front of him.Huge cracks are entrenched in the center of the earth, as if they were split open by God with a stone axe, and the deep rifts spread to both sides to the invisible sky.

They had never seen such a magnificent rift valley, and they were shocked by the magnificent natural landscape in front of them for a while, and they were in awe. It took a long time before someone came back to their senses and said with a slap on the head: "It's over, it's over, This canyon is so deep, without even a bridge, how can we get there?"

The rift valley is so wide that you can't even see the rock wall on the opposite side, let alone go to the opposite side.

Just as they were scratching their heads, the guide spoke.

"You don't need to go there, you've already arrived."

Everyone looked up, and saw the leader standing on the highest point of the mountain, kneeling down towards the canyon.

The pale yellow sun shone on his shoulders, and the guide solemnly raised his hands above his head, spread them palms upwards, and made a few strange salutes towards the direction of the sunset.

After he rearranged his sleeves and stood up, he solemnly told the others: "The land of sunset is before your eyes."

At this time, most of the sunset had sunk, leaving only the last touch of red light.They stood on the hill, and their sight was obscured by the clouds and mist in the canyon. It seemed that the sun really hid in the deep canyon.

Sure enough, it is the land of sunset.

"You mean we're going to go down this canyon?" Someone hesitated.

Everyone stood on the edge of the great rift valley, looked down curiously, and then backed away with weak legs and feet.

The canyon is too deep, and if you fall down, you will definitely be dead. Just standing here and looking down can feel your legs and feet trembling.

Xie Xingyin also lowered his head and looked down, only to see that the canyon was surrounded by clouds and mist, and he couldn't see anything at the bottom of the valley covered by thick clouds.

Boss Hou seemed a little afraid of heights, so he stood alone with Lan Hui in the distance with his hands behind his back, and asked the bodyguard to pick up a stone and throw it down. The stone was instantly swallowed up by the clouds and disappeared.

Still unwilling to give up, he took another bigger stone and threw it down.The big boulder fell rapidly and quickly turned into a tiny dot, which was swallowed up by the clouds again without a sound, not even the slightest sound of falling to the ground could be heard.

Everyone stood on the edge of the canyon and looked at each other. No one could figure out how deep the valley was. It looked like an unfathomable bottomless pit.

"Hiss, old Xie, how deep is it? There are even clouds!" Lao Liang looked down with his glasses on his hands, marveling at the wonders of clouds and mist at the bottom of the valley.

"It's hard to say, it may be thousands of meters deep."

"A thousand meters?" Old Liang was dumbfounded.

The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, is just over 800 meters high.The height of thousands of meters is equivalent to a three- to four-hundred-story high-rise building. If it falls, there will be a big hole, and it is estimated that the bones will be broken into powder.

"Then how are we going to get down? There's not such a long rope, it's not that long to connect the strands of hair, right?"

Looking at the bottomless abyss in front of them, everyone frowned, helpless.

After so many days of trekking through wind and rain, seeing the land of sunset is close in front of them, they don't know how to go down.

It is definitely not possible to use a rope, let alone whether there is such a long rope, even if there is, it is impossible for them to climb up along the original path of the rope after they go down.

"It's getting dark, let's look for clues nearby to see if there is any other way." Xie Xingyin said, "There are so many statues and a temple here, maybe there will be a road dug by hand. "

The others also felt that what he said was reasonable, so they left the edge of the canyon one after another, intending to take a look at the temple made of stone.

The style of the temple is very old, with some green moss growing on the base of the stone wall, it seems that no one has been there for a long time.

Around the temple, there are ten particularly thick and elongated statues, which are evenly arranged around it, smiling towards the temple.

Everyone bit the bullet and ignored the weird stone statues outside, stepped on the old stone steps, and filed into the temple.

The size of the temple in front of them was not large, and as soon as they entered the door, they found that the center of the hall was also full of human-shaped stone statues.

What is even more strange is that the stone statues outside the hall are all placed upright, with one pillar supporting the sky, while the stone statues in the hall are crooked.

"Hey, why are all the stone statues down here?" Someone asked.

The stone statues in the main hall are protected by walls, so they are not easy to be eroded, and they are not likely to be blown down by the wind.Rather than saying that they are tilted due to age, it is better to say that they are deliberately placed so crooked.

Xie Xingyin walked around the hall for a week.The stone statues in the center of the hall seem to be arranged in a disorderly manner, but this chaos is not unreasonable chaos, and it gives people a sense of order, and I don't know what it is for.

Seeing that the hall was full of such stone statues, the others were a little puzzled, and they separately searched for clues in the hall.

Everyone's initial guess was secret passage.Will there be a secret passage in the temple that can go directly down to the bottom of the valley.

The structure of this main hall is extremely simple, there is not even a side hall, only this square hall.

Soon, everyone turned the temple upside down and searched every inch of it carefully, not even a single brick was spared, but nothing was found.

Strange, is there no secret passage in the temple?

While the others were rummaging around, Xie Xingyin suddenly noticed that Lu Fen was standing alone in the center of the hall, not knowing what he was looking up at.

Following his gaze, Xie Xingyin raised his head and saw the roof of the temple.

The roof of this temple is not completely airtight, and there is a large circular hole in the center.The hole was artificially dug, perhaps for lighting.

Fortunately, the climate here is dry, otherwise the stone statues would have been corroded by the sun and rain every day.

Xie Xingyin thought about it, when he suddenly heard an exclamation from above his head.

"There are words here!"

The others looked up, and it turned out that Li Tiefeng had climbed to the top of the tallest stone statue at some point.

He clasped the stone statue tightly with his two legs, hugged the column with both hands, and shouted loudly: "There is a word on the top of this stone statue! Quickly see if there are any on the other stone statues!"

Thanks to the fact that these stone statues are strong and strong enough, even a man as big as Li Tiefeng climbed up and showed no signs of breaking.

Lao Liang raised his head and glanced at Li Tiefeng, who was on the Ding Dingren's pillar, showing a disgusted expression.

Seeing this, some of the better ones followed his example and climbed up the stone statue.

"It's here too."

"I have this too—"

Sure enough, words were also engraved on top of the heads of other stone statues.

Xie Xingyin could climb trees, but the stone pillar in front of him was smooth, so it was a bit difficult to climb up.He picked a short stone pillar, stepped on the stone man's facial features, climbed up to take a look, and found that a cuneiform character was engraved on the top of the stone figure.

Everyone didn't know cuneiform characters, so they copied out the words on the stone statue in detail, and wrote them on the pillar with black carbon ash.

Xie Xingyin jumped off the pillar, walked to the stone pillar that entered the door, and looked around the hall clockwise.

The others stared at him silently, watching him make a complete circle in the hall.

"Well, do you see anything?" Old Liang asked.

"It really seems to be one sentence." Xie Xingyin looked a little hesitant, as if he felt strange.

Everyone else looked at him curiously:

"What did you write?"

"It's a riddle." Xie Xingyin carefully translated it, "It literally means - when the stone people meet, the steps leading to the garden of the gods will appear."