Do people have a choice? Sometimes there is no choice, just like Cha Wenbin, he was not enthusiastic about adventure, if he had a choice, what he wanted was incantations and talismans, incense and compass.

  Push aside the pile of rubble, and underfoot is a flat relief carving. The thing depicted on it is an evil spirit. This evil spirit holds a human head in its hand, tramples two struggling people underfoot, and still bites an arm in its mouth.

  Although the relief looks ferocious, this carving skill is already a high-quality product.

  The Taoist temple, this is what Lao Dao told Cha Wenbin, since ancient times the orthodox and evil do not coexist. In a Taoist temple, a carving of an evil ghost actually appeared, which is a super rational existence. If Lao Dao didn't lie, then it's really not as simple as it looks here.

  The relief is very heavy, which is not uncommon in ancient architectural studies. Many entrances to underground palaces will be pressed with such a thing, and heaviness and enormity are their symbols, such as the good labor force of a big mountain, which can't help but do nothing about it.

  Fortunately, clever people will never be short of methods, no matter how big the problem is. The lever principle is a simple and effective method. Super quickly found a sturdy wooden beam in this rubble, which should have been a large beam on the temple's roof back then. After so many years of wind and rain, this beam still looks solid and shows no signs of rotting. This is enough to illustrate how powerful and wealthy the people who built this grand hall were back then.

  Five people worked together, and the massive stone weighing about a thousand catties was slowly moved away, revealing a deep and dark entrance. The smell that wafted out was very familiar to Zha Wenbin - it was an air filled with the scent of death.

  The winding stairs leading down, just like what's recorded in historical documents, this mountain indeed has a different kind of heavenly cave.

  The four or five lamps on the stairs, crowded together, walking up this staircase is suffocating. Lowering my head to look down, the light is swallowed up by the darkness in an instant, and I can't see the bottom.

  Desolate, except for darkness and the steps underfoot, only the "rustling" sound of footsteps accompanied people.

  Unconsciously, these few people have been walking for two hours. Every time they look down, all they see is endless darkness. What people fear most is this feeling - a road that seems to have no end, and collapse can come at any moment while walking here.

  "Where are you taking us, anyway? This godforsaken place, I don't want to stay here one minute longer." As he spoke, the frontmost Superboy had already plopped himself down on the ground. The stairs were narrow to begin with, and now that he'd stopped, the entire procession came to a halt.

  "I don't know." Lao Dao's reply was simple and concise, he really didn't know where this place was. He was no longer the ruthless and strong Lao Dao of years ago. From the moment he crawled out of that coffin at the bottom of Kunlun, he knew he was no longer the same person as before.

  "What did you bring us here for?"

  "I don't know." The answer was still these three words.

  Chao Tzu wanted to erupt, he had had enough, not just Chao Tzu, even the usually calm Cho Yung also wanted to erupt. Cha Wen Pin hastily stopped these two men, trying to ease the suppressed emotions in everyone's heart, because even he himself felt a bit unbearable.

  "Don't you find it strange? The mountain isn't that high, yet we've been walking downhill all the time. At this distance, we should be deep underground by now, but the temperature around us hasn't changed at all, and the oxygen content in the air hasn't had any effect on our breathing either. This reminds me of something."

  "What's wrong?"

  "The endless staircase, only exists in one place, that is the road to the underworld. It's said that some people, when going downstairs, will suddenly find that no matter how they walk, they can't finish walking down the stairs, so he keeps walking down, and down, until the next day, people found his corpse at the first floor staircase."

  "What he said is different from the ghost hitting the wall, the ghost is strong, and the final result of people walking is a circle, while we are walking on stairs, a staircase leading to the bottomless abyss. People going downstairs will always go down and never look back, because their exit is below. But if you turn back and walk up again, you may not be able to find your way back, so you'll be trapped to death on this seemingly simple yet complicated staircase. In short, this is a staircase leading to death."

  Death, this is a word that everyone has to face but fears.

  "So we're stuck here?" Chaozi was furious, not because he was afraid of death, but because he didn't want to die without a clear reason.

  Cha Wenbin turned around and looked at Lao Dao, now this face was familiar yet strange. Lao Dao's gaze did not dodge, the two just stared at each other like that.

  "Now, can you tell me why you brought me here?"

  Lao Dao's face was cold and he sneered: "With your abilities, can't you see through it?"

  Cha Wenbin also smiled coldly: "You're not Old Knife, I've calculated it, he's long gone from this world. But on you, I can feel a familiar aura. Let's lay our cards on the table, I don't like guessing back and forth."

  "Haha!", Lao Dao suddenly burst out laughing, "Cha Wenbin! Do you know where this is? This is the Abyss of Death, this is Tu Bo's dojo. Without you, I wouldn't be able to open this door. If I couldn't open this door, I wouldn't be able to return. And if I didn't return, none of you would be able to leave!"

  "What's the relationship between me and this door?"

  "Yes, it matters a lot! Want to know what ultimately happened to that damned old man?"

  "Which old man?" Cha Wenbin didn't understand what he was saying, but one thing was certain: he knew that this matter might have something to do with himself.

  "Right, I almost forgot that you lost that memory. Cha Wenbin, I have to say, your lives are really good. Want to find back that memory? If so, go look for it below, he's just a descendant of Tuber."

  Zha Wenbin smiled and said: "Gu Di Tubo, then who are you?"

  "Who am I? Haha, if I told you this trash, if it weren't for you, all of history would be changed, do you believe that? You have no choice, if you don't continue, I'll destroy you, and naturally, you'll also be destroyed! You can die, but I cannot die. If I died, you'd go with me too. This lifetime, you won't understand, next lifetime, the next next lifetime, you still won't understand!"

  "Go die!" Chaozi couldn't take it anymore, and before he knew it, he had rushed to Lao Dao's side. With a fierce push, Lao Dao's body stumbled on the narrow stairs without railings, and in an instant, he vanished into the darkness. In this desolate world, Lao Dao's laughter still echoed loudly, but it grew weaker and farther away, as if he had really fallen into a bottomless abyss.

  "Chaozi, have you gone mad? Do you know this is murder?" Zhuo Xiong grabbed Chaozi's trembling body and roared, this was a living person, just pushed down like that.

  "He's not human, but he's not a ghost either. The real Old Knife is already dead, he's not Old Knife, it's just that I find him very strange, I couldn't see through him." Cha Wenbin crouched on the ground, his eyes somewhat dazed.

  "What now? Should we go back or keep going?" asked Zhuo Xiong.

  Looking around at the bare walls, he looked up and then down, still in darkness. For the first time, Zhang Wenbin's heart didn't know which direction to go. Suddenly, he stood up and said: "We are brothers who have been through thick and thin together. The path I am about to take is a dangerous one, and I cannot bring you all along to take risks with me. If you can make it back, continue on your way back. Remember to take care of my son after you get out, but if you find that going up has exceeded the distance back, don't go any further. I will wait for you down below."

  After finishing speaking, Cha Wenbin jumped towards the darkness beside him and disappeared before everyone could react. There wasn't even a sound of him humming as he left like that.

  Was that sentence considered Cha Wenbin's will? Leaving the three people stunned and at a loss, Chaozi was the first to react. He also wanted to jump down, just like when he was at the top of the waterfall, he thought about following Cha Wenbin, but Zhuo Xiong held him back.

  "Let me go! If you're afraid of death, you can leave!"

  "Slap!" This was the first time Zhuo Xiong had ever hit someone, and he gave Chaozi a loud slap. "What did Wenbin say? Let's find an exit, if we can't find one, he'll wait for me downstairs. It's not that I'm afraid of death, it's just that I have to listen to him!"

  People always say it's easy to go up the mountain, but hard to come down. But is going up these stairs really that easy?

  One step at a time, they climbed the stairs, each step so hard to accept. They were inexplicably led here, and Zha Wenbin jumped down just as inexplicably. If Chaozi hadn't pushed Lao Dao's hand, would Zha Wenbin have left? But this world has no ifs!

  The existence of the Way is not bound by past and future, nor is it bound by life and death. Its existence is at all times, its existence fills every invisible corner. Whether it's hell or death, Zhang Wenbin has already made preparations, the cycle of death is forever inescapable, just like everything they are experiencing now.

  It's human nature to knowingly walk into a dead end, still trying and testing. Unbeknownst to them, when they return to the starting point from the end, all it takes is one glance from the outside to gain clarity.

  Cha Wenbin walked this road, and it was like this.

  He saw something in the eyes of this "old knife", but what that thing was, only he himself understood. So he chose such a path, if he really walked away from Wen Bin, would the world really stop?

  read3;