Chapter 12 Part Eleven: The Bones Under the Secret Path

Although the ten minutes just now seemed to be in the end of the world, the feeling was not pleasant, but now it has calmed down, the situation is not bad, all the bats flew out, the afterglow of the setting sun, from the broken wall In the middle, it shot in, and when I looked out, I saw a large group of bats flying around in the setting sun, which was a spectacle. At this time, of course I was not in the mood to appreciate this kind of spectacle. I immediately went to find Di Jiadu, only to see Di Jiadu lying on the ground. At this time, he was shaking his body and standing up. He may not have seen me yet. He just shouted absentmindedly: God, Wei, I didn't mean to hurt you, I really didn't mean to hurt you!sky!

I looked at him, feeling angry and funny: Don't call God, you didn't hurt me! Tigatos looked at me at once, and the joy in his face when he saw me convinced me completely that he had no intention of hurting me, and he came up to me and took me hand. I patted him on the shoulder, wanting him to go to town with me again, but suddenly Digado cried out: Look! He yelled and pointed at me behind me. I turned around immediately, and couldn't help being stunned. That extremely tall figure was standing on a stone pedestal. The figure fell down and was broken into countless stones, but the stone pedestal was only removed by a small part. Di Jiadu and I, It can be clearly seen that the middle of the stone seat is hollow, and in the hollow part, there is a winch, and iron cables are wrapped around the winch.

Those iron cables are full of oil, but they have never rusted! Upon seeing this situation, we all froze for a moment, Di Jiadu waved his hand unconsciously: What is this? I yelled: "Fool, don't you understand this?"There is another secret room in this ancient castle. The iron cable on the winch is connected to the mechanism that opens the secret room. Hurry up! I stretched out my hand and pulled a handle from the winch. The two of us held the handle together and pressed down. At the beginning, it was very heavy, and we had to do our best to turn the handle. After turning, it was much easier. When the winch turned to the second round, we heard the rattling sound coming from the center of the hall.

Together we looked towards the place where the sound came from, and saw a square floor that was gradually warping upwards. This discovery made both of us inexplicably excited, and we turned the winch vigorously until the floor was completely erected. We rushed to the erected floor and shone down with the flashlight. We saw that there was a stone step under the floor, leading to the bottom, but we couldn't tell how deep it was, because the light of the flashlight couldn't reach it.I took a breath, and Di Jiadu hurriedly said: Don't tell me to come back tomorrow, I'm going down now!

I laughed a bit: no one offered to come back tomorrow! When I finished saying this, Tigato had already gone down. The stone steps were quite narrow, and I couldn't go down with him, so I had to follow behind him, each with a flashlight on. At the beginning of going down, it can be seen that the stone steps are artificially built. However, after going down about 30 stone steps, it has come to an end. Below is a rather narrow stone gap. The stone gap seems to be natural. of. Tigato was shining down with a flashlight, and he raised his head: there are many iron rings on the stone wall, extending all the way to the bottom.

I said: Try those iron rings, whether they are reliable or not! Di Jiadu stretched out his foot, and I took his hand. He put one foot into the iron ring and stepped on it hard. The iron ring made a rattling sound, but it did not fall off. Di Jiadu said happily: Very reliable! I let go of my hand and saw his body sinking slowly. It was as if I was watching him being swallowed by a strange black mouth. My expression was unavoidably weird. When he sank completely, when he raised his head to look at me: Why don't you stay on top, wait for me to go down and see what's going on before we talk!

Without thinking, I rejected his proposal: Of course we go down together, be careful, I'm coming! His body continued to shrink down. I stepped on the first ring with my right foot, held the stone steps with both hands, and explored with my left foot. There are iron rings about every foot, so it is easy to pass. Stepped to the second. Of course, these iron rings were artificially installed, but this passage must have been formed naturally in the mountainside, and it was definitely not artificially dug. It may have been accidentally discovered during the construction of the castle, or it may have been first After discovering this passage leading to the mountainside, and then building a fortress on it, and intentionally covering the exit of the passage, it is of course impossible to be sure now!

Tigadu is below, and I am above, moving downward in the passage on the mountainside.That passage is sometimes quite wide, and sometimes it is so narrow that you have to squeeze to go down. People who are too fat, if they don’t make it well, they may get stuck in the mountainside, no matter how difficult it is to move! As I moved down, I was calculating the number of the iron rings. We all bit the flashlights in our mouths. The passage in the mountainside was so dark that it was difficult to even breathe. I calculated that we had moved down at least two hundred hoops, and I asked: How deep is it?

My voice echoed loudly in the tunnel, and Di Jiadu said: I can't see it, it seems to go straight to the center of the earth! I said: No, this cliff is about 300 feet. I think it may lead to the sea. Di Jiadu's voice, very excited, said: Yes, the sea, I have smelled the breath of the sea! When Tigadu said that, I just felt funny, but when we continued to move down, I did smell the breath of the sea. We kept falling, and the rust on the iron ring seemed to be getting worse and worse. Finally, under the light of the flashlight, we saw water, and after a while, we were already standing on a huge rock.

And at this time, we also saw clearly where the shelter was. It was a rather large cave. In front of the big rock we were standing in, there were several huge rocks in the sea. There are bridges connecting them, but all the bridges are broken. The cave does not have a passage leading to the outside. If there is not a passage leading down from the top of the mountain, the entire cave is sealed. What kind of danger, I don't know. We strafed with flashlights and saw a big rock in the cave with a huge iron box. Such a huge iron box cannot be moved into the cave at all, it must be built by transporting materials into the cave.

The big iron box is three meters high, five or six meters long, and nearly four meters wide. It can be seen that it is connected with iron plates one by one, but the rust on the iron plates is already quite large. thick. Beside the big iron box, there are two other small iron boxes. The size and shape of the two small iron boxes are exactly like two iron coffins. As soon as I saw the three large and small iron boxes, my heart jumped involuntarily. I looked at each other with Di Jiadu. From his excited expression, I could see that he thought the same as me, that is : Our exploration is about to come to fruition, the secret we are looking for must be in these three iron boxes. Naturally, we have grounds for thinking this way, because this cave can only be reached through a secret passage, and the entrance of this secret passage is so secret, if the things in the cave are not extremely confidential , how could it be placed here? Di Jiadu stretched his hands forward, looking at him, as if he was about to jump into the water and swim to the big rock, but I immediately reached out and grabbed him: What are you going to do? Di Jiadu yelled loudly. As soon as he yelled, the sound echoed hollowly and strangely in the cave. He said: "What am I going to do?"Of course, he swam forward to see what was in those three iron boxes! I illuminated it with a flashlight, and the seawater in the cave seemed pitch black. I admired Di Jiadu's courage to jump down without thinking, and I said, "How can you be sure that the seawater is not dangerous?"I reckon we'll have to go up there, get enough lighting, and get going! Di Jiadu hesitated for a moment, but he immediately shook his head: No, I don't think there will be any danger. You see, we only need to swim more than twenty feet to reach that big rock! I didn't answer him right away, but just bent down and put my hands into the sea water. The sea water is very cold. Of course, no matter how cold the sea water is, considering the physique of me and Dijiadu, it is possible to support swimming more than 20 feet. questionable. But I always have a feeling that there is some kind of unfathomable crisis hidden in this dark sea water.Of course, that's just my feeling, without any factual basis, but this feeling makes me be careful. I scooped up the seawater with my hand, a small cup of seawater was in the palm of my hand, it looked very clear, but the seawater looked dark because of the light problem. I took out a few more sheets of paper, rolled them into a ball, and threw them into the water. Di Jiadu looked at me with an impatient expression on his face, and I glared at him: like this kind of cave, there are often invisible dark eddies in the water. , when you step into the water, the dark vortex will drag you to the bottom of the sea! I looked at the balls of paper floating on the water, they were all facing the same direction, slowly floating forward, I can see that there is indeed an undercurrent in the seemingly calm sea water, but this slow undercurrent will definitely not cause trouble. affect anything. When the ball of paper floated near the boulder, before I could make a sound, Di Jiadu had already said loudly: "Okay, I don't see any danger!" As soon as he spoke, he was no longer visible, and slipped into the water. When he slipped into the water, his body sank slightly, but then he floated up and swam forward quickly. In less than a minute, he had already climbed the big rock! Holding the flashlight high, I also swam forward. The water was very cold, but the water journey was very short. After a while, I also walked on the big rock. We took off our wet clothes, wrung them dry, and spread them on the rock. Then, we began to inspect the three iron boxes.The three iron boxes were all locked, and the locks of the two small iron boxes were on the outside. I only stretched out my hand and twisted it a little, and then the locks were connected with the lock ears and twisted off together. Following my example, Di Jiadu also twisted the lock of another small iron box. He and I each opened the lid of a small iron box, because we each lifted the lid of a small iron box. , the lid of the box was lifted, blocking the view, so we could only see what was in the iron box in front of each other. The two of us moved almost in unison. I lifted the lid of the box, looked into the box, loosened my hands, and there was a bang, and the lid closed again, shaking the rust on the iron box. down. The two of us immediately looked up at each other, his expression was extremely weird, and mine, I believe, was equally weird, because I could feel that the muscles on my face were acting in a regular manner without being controlled. convulsions. After half a minute, the two of us watched, and finally I spoke first, and I said: "What's in that box of yours?" Di Jiadu asked back: What about yours? I said: A pair of human bones! Di Jiadu smiled wryly, pointed to the iron box in front of him, and said, "This is also inside!" When I saw these two small iron boxes, I felt that their shape and size were just like two coffins. However, I never imagined that there are really two sets of human bones inside the two iron boxes. Just now, when I opened the iron box, I saw the dense white bones, and I was really taken aback, so I let go of it suddenly. I believe that the situation of Di Jiadu is the same. At this time, we said a few words to each other, and we all calmed down.After calming down, the dead bones naturally cannot frighten us, so we opened the lid of the box together. This time, I used a little more force. After the box cover was opened, I pressed it down, and with a slap, the rusted iron chain broke, and the box cover fell on the rock. A splash of water, slipped into the water. I looked at the bone in the iron box. Obviously, the iron box was used as a coffin, because I immediately found that there was something lining under the bone, probably silk or something like that. Those silks and satins, of course, have rotted long ago. The white bones are quite long, and must be the bones of a disabled person, because there is only one leg, and that leg bone is very long, and there are no toe bones. I was watching, and Tigatos cried out: it is the skeleton of a one-legged man! I froze for a moment and looked up at him. He was talking to me, but the flashlight in his hand was shining into the iron box, and he was still bowing his head. So, the one-legged man he was talking about was obviously referring to the skeleton in the iron box in front of him. And in the iron box in front of me, there is also a one-legged man! I hurried over to him and looked at the iron box in front of him. Yes, the bone in the iron box is also a one-legged man. It seems that the two bones are about the same size. I bent down, and the light of the flashlight moved slowly over the bones. There was such a foul stench rising from the iron box that I tried to cover my nose with one hand. There is no doubt that it is a human skeleton. There are seven holes in the skull, two rows of teeth, thin and sharp, and the sternum and spine are very strong.The arm bones are fairly long, especially the finger bones. However, below the waist, I can't help but feel a little puzzled, the two bones are the same, the pelvis is quite small, and the long and separate leg bones have as many as six or seven knots, this is not like human leg bones, human The leg bone, which is connected by a socket, has only three segments, and this skeleton has no foot bone. At the very end, it is a rather flat bone. Moreover, I also understood the true meaning of the three words Di Jiadu called the one-legged man for the first time. He was justified in saying that the skeleton was a one-legged man, not a one-footed man. A one-legged person refers to a person who originally had two legs and lost one later, but a one-legged person refers to a person who was born with only one leg. Now, the bones in these two iron boxes are obviously two people who were born with only one leg, because under the pelvis, there is no trace of another leg, that strange, multi-jointed leg bone. , stretches straight down along the center of the pelvis. After I shined the flashlight on the bone from head to toe, I straightened up: Di Jiadu, look, what kind of bones are these, and what should this person look like when he was alive? Di Jiadu's face was also full of doubts: This man is tall, taller than you and me, and he only has one leg He said while gesticulating, and then shrugged: He only has one leg, of course he can only jump and walk, look at his leg bones, I think he must have a very high jumping ability When he was talking here, I interrupted him: I don't agree with your statement! Di Jiadu looked at me, and I said: Look at his foot bones, there are no toes at all, and such a flat foot does not have a high jumping ability. Any animal in the world that is good at jumping needs to borrow its feet. The movement of the muscles of the body makes the body jump up. Di Jiadu looked at the bones in the iron box, and then at me. Suddenly, his breathing became rapid, his lips moved, and he wanted to say something but he didn't make a sound. I know that he must have thought of something, and I can be sure that what he thought of must be extremely weird, otherwise, he would not have such a horrified expression. I said: What did you think of? Di Jiadu pointed to the white bones in the iron box, and then hit his head with his hands. After a while, he said: "That must be my fantasy!" I urged him: What on earth did you think of? Di Jiadu said: I think, we are all wrong, this man, he has no legs at all! I was stunned after hearing this, what does this mean?This person has no legs at all?Obviously there is such a long leg bone, how can there be no legs?However, at that moment, my brain seemed to be hit by some kind of force, and then, suddenly, I thought of it! The difference from Di Jiadu is that Di Jiadu couldn't make a sound for a while after thinking about it, but I immediately cried out, saying: "That's right, that's not a leg, that's a tail!" Digato looked at me: So, what is this man like?Dragging a long tail? I realized that my voice sounded similar to moaning, but I insisted on finishing my sentence, and I said: Di Jiadu, that is not a beast tail, but a fish tail. This man has a human upper body and a fish lower body. He is a mermaid!A mermaid that lives in the sea! Di Jiadu's hands were waving meaninglessly, and he didn't know whether he was excited or happy. He muttered in his mouth: Mermaid, yes, he is a mermaid! At this time, the only thing I thought about was to sit down, so I sat on the edge of the iron box. Mermaid, the term, will not be unfamiliar to anyone, or in other words, mermaid is easier to make people feel familiar. A mermaid is a monster that is half human and half fish. Many voyagers insisted that they had seen a mermaid, but their words were denied by scientists. Scientists said that the mermaid that the voyagers saw was actually a species of dugong. walrus. However, that kind of walrus is a bloated and ugly thing. Anyone can tell how different it is from the legendary mermaid! However, the voyagers can't refute the denial of the scientists, because no one can say what the real mermaid is like, and no one has ever tried to catch a mermaid! Of course, the ocean is so vast, and human knowledge of the ocean is so weak that no biologist dares to say that all the creatures in the sea have been known to humans, but mermaids are always considered nonsense. However, if the two bones in the iron box are not mermaids, what are they? I sat on the edge of the iron box, resting my head on my hands, and Tigato just stood there blankly, neither of us wanting to talk. After a long time, I stood up. I put the flashlight on my face. As soon as I stood up, the flashlight slipped and fell, almost sinking into the sea. I quickly bent down and caught the flashlight. Because my action was too hasty, I touched the iron box with my body, knocking down a lot of rust, and I turned on the flashlight, and when I turned around, I found that there was a word engraved on one side of the box. I hurriedly said: Come and see, there are words engraved here! Di Jiadu also squatted down quickly, and we all saw the handwriting, but most of the handwriting was covered by rust. We worked together to remove the rust with our hands. On one side of the iron box, several lines of writing were engraved. Although it was already blurred, it was still legible when you carefully read it. It took us about half an hour to finish reading those few lines. Di Jiadu and I looked at each other in blank dismay. We guessed right, the white bones in the iron box were indeed the bones of two mermaids! The words cast on the iron box read: Petain’s body, he is my friend, no one knows his existence, but he does exist, I believe he is one of the only two mermaids left in the world , he is really a man, although half of his body is a fish, may he rest in peace! I immediately went to another iron box and wiped off the rust with my hands.That's right, there is the same record on that box, but the name is different, it is called Beth, and it may be a female mermaid. Di Jiadu straightened up and said: We originally wanted to find the secrets of the three ships, but unexpectedly found the skeletons of two mermaids. I took a deep breath: this is an extremely great discovery, Tigadus, and I think it is very close to the purpose of our exploration, do you remember, Vestagadus, your ancestors, until now , Still living under the sea! Di Jiadu frowned: You are too sure, you should say that you have seen him at the bottom of the sea! I said: Well, no matter how you say it, it has something to do with mermaids, and mermaids live in the sea! Tigadu screamed: But what you met was a human, you never said you met a mermaid! His emotions seemed very excited, and I knew the reason for his excitement, I quickly waved my hands and said: I didn't say that your ancestors were mermaids, but one thing cannot be denied, that is, Di Jiadu once had a relationship with this Mermaids make friends! Di Jiadu nodded, and I said again: We have no way of knowing where he is and how he found those two mermaids, and we don't need to go into it, but I think he must have been with those two mermaids for a period of time! Digardo seemed extremely reluctant that one of his ancestors was a mermaid, so he rolled his eyes: so what? I said: so how?He might be at the mermaid, learning how to live in the sea! Di Jiadu opened his mouth wide, and then quickly closed it again. His chest heaved and heaved, and after a while, he said: You said, he has been living in the sea, until now? I spread my hands: That's what you said, I just said that I saw him in the sunken ship at the bottom of the sea! Digardo said sharply: What difference does that make? I laughed happily: There is no difference at all, it is you who insisted on distinguishing these two terms! Di Jiadu was stunned for a while: he really has that ability?Live in water, and live so long? I felt a little cold, so I picked up the wet clothes on the stone and put them on. Only then did I remember that there was still a big iron box. We haven't opened it to see what is in the box! Originally, the big iron box was so huge that we should not have forgotten it as we were walking around next to the big iron box. However, the two skeletons found in the small iron box were too shocking. So much so that we temporarily forgot about the big iron box.