Vol 2 Chapter 24: Black tower

Seven of us searched the road in the ruins. When we met the place where the cave collapsed, we detoured. After a long walk, we came to the middle of the ancient city. The streets here are quite wide. Although the yellow sand is all over, the pattern of the streets can still be seen Come out.
However, apart from the sloping black tower, there are no other large buildings, let alone the palace, even the decent houses do not exist, they are all weathered earth walls.
Professor Chen said that the palace here may be built underground, and there is too much sand in the city. Let's go to the black tower and watch from a height to see if we can find the entrance to the underground palace.
The base under the tower and more than half of the arched stone doors are buried in the sand. The black tower is made of large stones from Zagrama Mountain. It is six stories high, slightly inclined, and still very strong. In addition to the rare construction materials, there is a black olive-shaped stone ball at the top of the tower.
Professor Chen put on reading glasses, looked up for a long time, and then looked through the telescope, and said to himself while watching: "Yeah, I never thought of it before."
I wanted to ask him what he didn't expect, but Professor Chen was short and got into the tower gate. He seemed anxious to prove something. We quickly followed behind.
The walls in the tower are densely engraved with peculiar ghost cave scripts. Each layer has a black stone statue. The first layer is a stone sheep. There is nothing special about it. The second floor is a stone figure, about the size of an ordinary person, with high nose and deep eyes, half kneeling in the tower. The third floor turned out to be the giant pupil stone portrait we saw in the unknown town when we evaded the sandstorm.
Professor Chen stopped and said to us: "It seems that I guessed right. The source of the giant pupil stone portraits unearthed everywhere is the essence of the country, and the material is the black stone of Zagrama."
Sa Di Peng asked: "Professor, what is this tower used for? Why is there a statue on each floor?"
Professor Chen said: "I speculate that this black tower is used to show the status of the ghost cave clan. The stone statues on each floor represent different levels. The first floor is livestock. If you guessed right, there should be another layer underground, with The hungry ghost in hell. The second layer is ordinary people, including all the Hu people in the Western Region, their status is only higher than that of cattle and sheep, equivalent to slaves. The third layer is the portrait of this giant pupil, I just saw it, the top of the tower The stone ball is the shape of an eye, the giant pupil stone figure and the totem of the eye shape represent the worship of the eye of this nation. Let ’s take a quick look and see what is higher in the status of Jingguo.

The fat man said: "Even my level can be guessed. I bet it must be the statue of the queen." He said he was on the fourth floor first.
I followed closely, and when I looked up, I was surprised. The stone statue in this layer, the head of a snake body, has thick limbs, the hind limbs are beast-shaped, the forelegs are human-shaped, and they hold a sword and shield, and the face is a male face. , With a terrifying look and glaring eyes, seems to be a raging vajra in an inland temple, and there is a black ball in the back of the stone statue, just like the strange snake in Zagrama Mountain.
This time, Professor Chen and others also came up one after another, and saw this strangely shaped stone statue, and wondered: "This seems to be the patron saint of the kingdom. There is also an eye-shaped black ball on the head. It seems that the ghost cave people really believe the eyes It is the source of all power. The status of the patron saint is still under the queen. It seems that the elite queen is indeed deified. Let ’s go to the fifth floor to see if it is the statue of the queen. "
Just about to go up, Ye Yixin was blown by the morning breeze on the tower, and suddenly woke up, Shirley Yang took out the kettle to feed her some fresh water. She is still very weak, but it is more reassuring than when she was unconscious, her dehydration is still very obvious, but do n’t worry about her life for the time being, since she wakes up, then use it within a day or two A large amount of cold saline is treated properly, and it will not be a problem.
We were all anxious to know what weird things were on the tower. By the way, we looked for the entrance of the ancient palace and helped her go to the fifth floor of the black tower.
In the brief process of going up to the fifth floor of the Black Tower, I thought about various possibilities, but I didn't expect the fifth floor to be empty, not even the base of the stone statue, but the cipher text on the wall was much more.
I asked Professor Chen: "Is this layer destroyed? Or stolen?"
Professor Chen hesitated for a while and said: "It's not easy to say, just look at the upper layer to know what is famous here."
The stone statue in the black tower aroused the curiosity of everyone, and could not wait to walk up the steps in the tower to the top floor. In the highest tower stood a black throne with a statue of a woman sitting on the top. Carved into a veil, you can't see the appearance, but you can see it at a glance. This stone statue is exactly the same as the exquisite queen depicted on the mural painting of the ancient tomb of Prince Gu Mo. This is the whole body of the queen.
There was a lot of discussion and speculation about what the queen looked like.
I couldn't think of it, so I asked them: "What medicine is sold in this queen's gourd? Why don't even the statue show people in their true colors?"
The fat man replied: "In my opinion, it's a mystery. What is the first beauty of the Western Regions is probably a shameless ugly monster. Otherwise, as far as it's hidden, it's afraid of people watching it? "
I said that you have a lot of virtue in your mouth. This person has been dead for two thousand years. You still see how good or bad you are. You see how things in this city are similar to those legends. In case this queen is really a monster, If you do n’t allow it, just come out and bite you, let ’s not guess, let ’s listen to what the professor said.
Professor Chen has not spoken since he was on the sixth floor of the Black Tower. He has been connecting these clues in his brain. At this time, he has almost thought about it. After listening to our inquiry, he said: "I said before , This stone tower is likely to be a spiritual symbol, with obvious hierarchical characteristics, from high to low, it is expensive and cheap. The nationals of the exquisite country are mainly composed of the ghost cave tribe. This nation has long been extinct. No one of them has been unearthed, so it is impossible to infer the origin and background of this race. Our biggest discovery so far is that this race uses the eye as a totem. This is definitely a major breakthrough in the study of ancient Western civilizations. With this basis, many puzzles that have puzzled scholars for many years will be solved. "
The fat man asked again: "Why is this fifth floor empty?"
I suddenly thought that we were in the tomb of Prince Gu Mo and listened to what Shirley Yang said, and could not help but blurt out: "Imaginary space!"
Professor Chen nodded slightly and said, "It is precisely above the patron saint that there is an indescribable imaginary space, and the queen is above it as if she is in total control of this unknown space. There is also a top of the tower An eye-shaped totem, which shows that the queen ’s power also comes from her eyes. "
Hearing this, it is inevitable that there will be some hair in everyone's mind. Does this world really exist in such a space beyond human common sense? And the queen can control the alien world through her eyes. Isn't she really a monster? Fortunately, she is dead.
Professor Chen saw that everyone was worried, and continued: "You don't need to be nervous. Most ancient rulers used these myths to fool the people, so as to consolidate their dominance, just like the emperors of the Central Plains, all said I am a real dragon emperor, and I am entrusted to the sky, but in fact, it is just a means of fools. This queen never shows her face, pretends to be a ghost, but it is not surprising. But these monuments are very important for studying ancient history and culture. Very high value, this stone tower is very significant. "
We saw that there was nothing else in the black tower except for the stone statues, and we looked down at the city from the tower. We saw that the entire capital city was mixed with the yellow sand in the desert. The outline of the ruins of the ancient city was also the shape of a huge eye.
Professor Chen just stopped and asked me: "Brother Hu, your views on Feng Shui are quite brilliant. What do you think of the Feng Shui in this city?"
I thought the first priority now is to find the water source in the palace. Why did this old man test me again? Does the professor think that the queen's tomb is just under the palace? Then carefully watch the geographical situation around.
I pointed to the two mountains of Zagrama in the north and said, "Professor, look, the black mountains are mostly like a black dragon in a desert, but unfortunately the middle is broken, and a dragon turns into two snakes. In my humble opinion The valley in the middle was artificially excavated, and the stones from the mountains may have been used as raw materials for the black pagodas and stone men in the city. In ancient times, emperors all began to prepare for themselves one hundred years after they ascended the throne. The mausoleum, if this ancient city really has underground water veins, echoes with this Zagrama, forming a static and moving trend. Presumably, the elite queen is also a talented and strange person, knowing that the black dragon is not good, he will mobilize manpower to cut this black dragon Nail it and let it guard its own mausoleum forever, this city has formed an excellent treasure. If the tomb of the queen is really in the city, the scale must not be small, so I do n’t understand one thing, Professor, you said Her palace is underground, and I think the tomb is also underground, which is somewhat embarrassing. "
Professor Chen praised: "Sure enough, I think the royal palace and the ancient tomb are indeed underground in the city, but they are not crowded together. It may be divided into three floors. The ground floor is the castle and the underground floor is the royal palace. The deepest, It is the mausoleum of the Queen of Excellence. The power of the Jingjue is powerful, driving the hundreds of thousands of slaves in the surrounding small countries, and even the Nazagrama Mountain can open a valley abruptly. Although the underground palace and mausoleum are large projects, they are also It can be done. "
Legend has it that explorers have visited this ancient city more than once, but the yellow sand keeps moving and they cannot be found at all. Some of them may have entered the underground palace, but it is completely impossible to confirm, and naturally they cannot see that they are from Where to enter the underground palace.
Knowing that the king city is at his feet, he couldn't find the entrance, and it was terribly anxious. We looked at the street under the tower, street by street, and finally found a stone building above the ordinary house in the city, which was also covered with a layer of yellow sand. If you look carefully, it is really not easy to find .
It seems that this is the only clue. We hurried to the front. This building seemed to be a temple, also made of Zagrama black stone. The stone door caused a giant beast to open its mouth. The fat man and I dug a passage, and everyone put on gas masks and advanced with cold fireworks.
The stone hall is very grand, with 2,816 giant stone pillars, but the door is blocked by yellow sand, and there is no sand in it.
The deepest floor in the hall is enshrined with a jade eyeball. There are also natural red threads and blue pupils in the jade.
I can't help but see, obediently, this thing is definitely worth the price, but it's just a look, a touch, and it's a real artifact. If you don't see it with your own eyes, how can you get the world? There are such treasures.
The fat man couldn't hold back, and wanted to carry the jade eyeball down and put it in his backpack. How many times did the Zhilian force, the eyeball would be rooted on the floor, and would not move at all.
Professor Chen was afraid that the fat man would be brutal and ruin this ancient god. He quickly pulled him away so that he could not be moved. Shirley Yang found that there was a groove in the jade eyeball, which had a strange shape, and it was very similar to the fat man's jade. He said to the fat man: "Try to put your family heirloom jade on it. This seems to be an institution."
The fat man was overjoyed. He took out his jade pendant from his arms and pushed everyone else to the side. He inserted the jade pendant into the groove of the jade eyeball: "If this is right, then this big eyeball is Laozi's, who robs Do n’t blame Lao Tzu for being rude.
His grandmother, this is really a good thing, Laohu, this time we really sent it. "