Chapter 99 Midnight Cemetery Path

  "How are you feeling now?" Song Jian looked at Li Mengya with concern.

  Li Mengya shrank her shoulders, "It's much better now, but it's still very cold. I always feel like something is touching me."

  Song Jian looked around and said, "Let's withdraw first, the other side is too powerful, it seems like they have set up a formation in this forest."

  "What's with the formation?" Li Mengya looked at Song Jian curiously, "Isn't that something from China?"

  Song Jian shook his head, he had indeed seen the power of "army formations" during the Song Dynasty. Those generals who could arrange formations, such as Yue Fei and others, often managed to win with fewer troops and weaker strength. According to the words of the Song Dynasty generals, the army formations they mastered were actually just scattered and superficial. In the Three Kingdoms period, some generals could use mountainous terrain and forest formations to trap enemy soldiers in the tens of thousands. For example, in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Zhuge Liang used the Eight Trigrams formation with giant rocks to trap Lu Xun's army, although the depiction was somewhat exaggerated, but it had factual basis.

  The heyday of array tactics was during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the ancestors of military strategy, Sun Wu, perfected the art.

  Song Jian had thought that with the passage of time, by the 21st century, these skills would have long been lost, but unexpectedly he personally experienced the power of the formation.

  "It's not just a simple thing, the other side has taken advantage of the terrain to set up an ambush in this small forest. Neither you nor I understand array methods, if we rashly go in, we'll likely fall into their trap. Let's get out first and talk later." Song Jian pulled Li Mengya up and turned around to leave.

  Li Mengya didn't say much either and followed Song Jian as they were about to leave the woods.

  After walking more than twenty steps, Song Jian stopped and said, "This is bad, we're trapped."

  Li Mengya also discovered the problem, they came in, but only walked a dozen meters or so. According to reason, now they should have arrived outside the forest, but at this time, all around were trees, and more densely packed. It was clear that in the darkness, they had lost their way.

  "Song Jian, do you think those four people will die?" Li Mengya suddenly asked, she was very worried about the four companions.

  "It shouldn't be, the other party just wants to trap us and make us lose our way," Song Jian stood in the woods, carefully sensing the atmosphere in all directions.

  "That place has the warmest air, let's head there," Song Jian pointed in a northwesterly direction with his hand, but in fact, he had long been unclear which direction he was pointing to.

  Li Mengya trusted Song Jian very much, and the two of them walked in the direction pointed by Song Jian, one deep and one shallow.

  "Why aren't you affected?" Li Mengya asked aloud.

  In the darkness, Song Jian shook his head and didn't respond. In fact, Song Jian wasn't sure why he only felt cold but not terrified or frantic. Song Jian vaguely felt that this must be related to him taking five Longevity Pills and having his soul traverse over. The so-called formation was actually just using terrain and weather to affect people's spirits. Having taken five Longevity Pills at once and mysteriously traversing to this era, Song Jian's spiritual power was absolutely superhuman, which is why he wasn't affected by the eerie winds.

  Song Jian could only make such a guess, and he didn't know the specific reason either, just like he didn't know why he always seemed to sense the threat of death ahead of time.

  After walking about three hundred meters or more, Li Mengya felt that the surroundings were getting warmer and warmer, and she let out a sigh of relief.

  Song Jian furrowed his brow, this was definitely not the way out.

  "With a clang", Li Mengya stumbled and her feet made a metallic sound as they hit the stone floor.

  Song Jian grabbed Li Mengya's hand and squatted down, feeling around, unable to help but smile wryly, saying in a low voice: "It seems we've taken the wrong path entirely."

  "What?" Li Mengya also squatted down, and with a casual touch, she immediately knew why Song Jian said that, because the source of the noise was a broken iron shovel, and next to it was the freshly dug up damp soil.

  "Did you bring a lighter?" Song Jian asked in a low voice, the bright light that was just smashed by the police officer had plunged the surrounding area into darkness, and the two people were only 20 centimeters apart, barely able to see each other's face.

  "Just a lighter," said Li Mengya, "but it's a Zippo."

  "Alright," Song Jian stretched out his hand, "Give it to me."

  With a "slap", in the darkness, Li Mengya reached out and slapped Song Jian's hand, "Don't."

  In the dim light, Song Jian's face suddenly turned red, he had just stretched out his hand, but it was exactly grasping towards Li Mengya's chest.

  With a crackle, a spark of fire ignited in the darkness.

  Zippo lighters are oil and flint type lighters that can burn for a long time, unlike ordinary lighters that use gas as fuel. Those lighters have high temperatures but do not last long and are not bright.

  Two people, by the faint light of the spark, looked down at the ground and saw that more than three meters to the left, a hole with a diameter of over 70 centimeters was exposed. Around the hole were some ropes, iron hoes, bamboo baskets and other things.

  Song Jian understood that the reason this place was warm and had no yin wind from the formation was because the other party's people were going to work here. Song Jian felt the warmth of this place, so he walked in this direction, but unexpectedly, without leaving the forest, he ended up walking to the center of the forest instead.

  Li Mengya looked at Song Jian, the flames crackling and rising upwards, illuminating Song Jian's face in a blurry haze, his massive shadow cast onto the trees behind him, making them appear even more ominous.

  "Can the phone get through?" Song Jian asked.

  Li Mengya took out her phone, looked at it and shook her head. "The other party's machine has a very large power output. I estimate that the entire Tiger Hill area's signal is being blocked."

  After some thought, Song Jian said in a low voice: "Let's go in."

  Li Mengya patted the gun at her waist and nodded. Although Li Mengya was timid and shy, her marksmanship and martial arts skills were not to be underestimated. In terms of martial arts, Li Mengya had never compared herself with male colleagues, so it was unclear who was better. However, among female police officers, she was absolutely number one. As for marksmanship, Li Mengya had always been far ahead of other police officers, regardless of gender.

  At this moment, Li Mengya's hand touched the standard police pistol at her waist, and she felt slightly calmer.

  Song Jian held the lighter and approached the cave.

  The tunnel is dug at an angle of about sixty degrees with the ground surface.

  "I'll go first," Song Jian snapped the lighter shut, pulled out a wake-up pill from his pocket and swallowed it, then pulled out two sachets of incense, handing one to Li Mengya while keeping the other for himself.

  Inside this sachet, apart from stimulating medicines like musk, menthol and peppermint, there is also sulfur which can ward off poisonous snakes and insects because these poisonous creatures are most afraid of the smell of sulfur.

  Turning over, Song Jian's head was down and his feet were up, and he crawled into the cave.

  Li Mengya followed closely behind Song Jian, her hands slightly trembling. This was a graveyard after all, and just thinking about it made Li Mengya feel terrified.

  After crawling down diagonally for over 40 meters, the soil started to get wet and sticky. After moving forward for more than two meters, I suddenly arrived at a stone-paved tomb path.

  "This is actually a passageway," Song Jian was surprised in his heart, it seems that the other party is very familiar with this ancient tomb.

  They crawled forward for over ten more meters, and the terrain began to open up. The two of them could now stand upright and walk.

  Li Mengya reached out and grabbed Song Jian's collar.

  Song Jian knew Li Mengya was timid, he reached out and grasped Li Mengya's small hand.

  In front of him was a straight stone-paved path with no forks, and the other party must have passed by. Since they had passed by, there was bound to be no danger, so Song Jian was still very reassured.

  After walking for over a hundred meters, there was a wall in front of us. The wall divided into two forks.

  Song Jian stopped in his tracks and stood in front of the wall to listen carefully. Seeing that there was no movement around him, he took out a lighter and lit it.

  "Which way should we go? Left or right?" Li Mengya asked.

  Song Jian squatted down and said, "Take a look at their footprints."

  Two people holding lighters searched around on the ground for a while.

  "That's strange, how come there are no footprints on either of the roads? Even if the other person didn't have mud on their feet, for a road that hasn't been walked on for thousands of years, as soon as you step on it, there should definitely be some marks." Song Jian was puzzled.

  "Is that so? Did we take a wrong turn? They didn't come here?" Li Mengya looked around at the two roads and asked.

  "It's impossible, I paid attention when we came in and there was no fork in the road." Song Jian's tone was very certain.

  "Huh? There's a chalk mark here," Li Mengya continued, and in the faint light of the fire, she actually saw a mark on the wall.

  Song Jian walked over and smiled, "It was left by Li Zhixin for us. So that's how it is. Neither of these two paths are correct. The real passage is actually on this wall."

  By the faint light of the Zippo lighter, the two people soon discovered a handprint on the wall.

  The wall is covered with dust, so at this moment the handprint is very clear.

  Song Jian stretched out his hand and pressed it onto the handprint.

  With a loud clang, Song Jian felt the mechanism under his hand suddenly sink down.

  "Then, 'sha... sha... sha...' "

  A very faint sound of flowing sand echoed around.

  Song Jian pulled Li Mengya, slightly away from the wall, quicksand was the most commonly used material for making mechanisms in ancient times, using the lubricity of quicksand, it can achieve the effect of four ounces moving a thousand pounds.

  The wall made a "hissing" sound and then cracked open a stone gate that was over one person wide.

  The sound of flowing sand soon stopped, and the stone gate began to close slowly again.

  Song Jian pulled up Li Mengya and quickly stepped into the stone gate.

  Inside suddenly became empty and spacious, while in front of them, a faint glow of fire was transmitted.

  "They're ahead," Song extinguished the fire extinguisher, "Let's go quietly, the other side has a master."

  Li Mengya nodded and patted the gun at her waist, indicating to Song Jian that he could rest assured.

  Song Jian secretly thought about it and indeed, when it came to this kind of struggle in the tomb passage, Li Mengya was probably even more formidable than himself. After all, Li Mengya's marksmanship had already reached an extraordinary level, so even Sun Tian wouldn't be a match for her in this situation.

  Unless the opponent has reached the stage of transcending the mortal realm, it is rare for a warrior to escape the bullet fired by a divine marksman within a distance of ten meters.

  The surroundings seemed like an empty royal palace, and from the distant place with firelight, came the sound of "thud thud thud" as a hammer struck against stone.

  Song Jian and Li Mengya quietly approached, only to see seven or eight torches standing in the distance. Around the torches, there were thirteen people standing, among whom was that mysterious female doctor, Ling Su.

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  Staying up late is harmful to the body, everyone should cultivate the habit of going to bed early and getting up early.