Merchant of the Underworld

Bright red gravels line both sides, extending far to the end.

A rough calculation shows that at least hundreds of stone statues were chopped into pieces by the sword energy!

As I continued walking along the flat road among the gravel, I couldn't help but murmur to myself: "That old Taoist would never use his sword for no reason to fight those stone men. Could it be that the stone men on both sides were alive at that time?" Aggressive?"

correct!

When I killed the giant hand Aoi before, I stabbed the stone man with a knife, and there was indeed a lot of blood oozing out.

When Liang Mingli used the air bubbles to lift up the stone figures, they were also covered with bloodshot eyes. From this point of view, these stone figures were by no means just burial objects.

The gravel-strewn corridor extended forward for seventy or eighty meters, and a large pit suddenly appeared in front of it.

The big pit was as smooth as a mirror, with a diameter of twenty to thirty meters. It was like a big bowl standing in front of you!

I looked around with a flashlight and found that the surrounding stone walls were all sunken inward in the shape of a bowl, as if they had been squeezed in by air waves. There seemed to be a shadow under the bottom of the bowl, but it was too far away to make it clear.

The surrounding passages are all blocked by giant bowls, and there is no other way but to cross the deep pit sideways.

The entire giant bowl seems to have been polished for many times, and the light can shine through, just like the deep crater where a meteorite hit the earth in prehistoric times.

I hung the flashlight on my shoulder, pulled out my two swords, squatted down, and stepped in cautiously.

Whoosh...

As soon as I stepped into the bowl of noodles, my whole body slid down quickly, like a slide.

I clenched my swords tightly and stared straight ahead.

The speed became faster and faster, causing a cloud of dust to rise.

At this moment, I am getting closer and closer to the black shadow at the bottom of the bowl, and it turns out to be a person!

Wearing an apricot Taoist robe, with silver hair, his back was turned to me, making a strangulation gesture.

Seeing that I was about to slide to the bottom of the bowl and hit the man, I quickly used my hands hard and nailed the two knives into the rock with a click.

The huge downward force was stopped at once, and my body suddenly leaned forward, all the force was on my wrist.

I quickly took out my two swords and rolled them around several times before I could barely remove the impact.

I dusted myself off and stood up. The yellow-robed Taoist was only two meters away from me.

I circled around him extremely carefully, and then I realized that the Taoist was just a mummy. Although he has been dead for many years, he still maintains his standing posture.

Perhaps because of the extreme dryness here, the bones did not rot, but were dry and clinging to the skeleton. He has silver hair, a short beard, and many small black spots on his face. He put his two index fingers together with one hand, and stretched his other hand forward.

The withered hand stretched forward was tightly grasped, as if it was grasping something important, and there was a small piece of golden dust lying across the foot.

I took two steps forward and looked carefully with my flashlight, only to find a talisman stuck on his chest.

The talisman looked very familiar, and upon closer inspection, it was exactly the same as the three spiritual talismans left by Taoist Master Bai He.

The small golden fragments were slightly shaped into strips, like a shattered long sword.

It seems that this guy was killed by Taoist Master Bai He, and even the sword in his hand was shattered into smoke and dust.

This giant bowl must have been the result of a fierce fight between the two.

To be able to fight so fiercely with Taoist Bai He, and even force Taoist Bai He to use a magic talisman, is enough to show that this guy's ability is definitely not weak.

I wanted to take away the magic talisman, but I stopped halfway.

This old guy has been dead for more than 1,300 years, but his bones are still intact. It's good to have this talisman to hold him down. If I take off the talisman and he is resurrected like the Dragon Roar Guard, I may not be able to deal with him!

I don’t know if Jiang Dayu can bear it when he sees this talisman...

I glanced at the magic talisman again with some regret, flashed the flashlight around, and found something that seemed to be under the dust a few meters away.

I walked over and kicked it, and the thing emerged from the dust. It turned out to be a small piece of yellow silk with the word "Shenlong" written on it.

When the flashlight swept down, I found that small pieces of cloth like this were all over the floor, scattered in a circle around the yellow-robed Taoist priest.

It must have been during the fierce fight between the two that the silk cloth fell out and was immediately torn into pieces by the sword energy.

I picked it up and took a look. Most of them were written with handwriting. The fonts were very beautiful and had a bit of a domineering air.

The silk cloth was embroidered with dragon patterns, and there were two pieces of silk with red seals printed on them. Although the seals were not complete, they could still be roughly seen.

"After being ordered by God, I will live long..."

Isn't this the imperial seal?

After Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, he ordered Prime Minister Li Si to make the Emperor's Seal out of He's jade, with eight seal characters engraved on it, which read, "I have been ordered to be with Heaven, and I will live long and prosperous." Since then, it has become a token of the rule of all kings.

The jade seal passed through thousands of years, and finally in the late Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Emperor Li Congke of the Later Tang Dynasty burned himself with the treasure, and there has been no trace of it since.

If this is really the mark left by the imperial seal, then this yellow silk...is the imperial edict?

I turned over and looked at the back. The silk satin was embroidered with a five-clawed golden dragon. It was indeed for the royal family.

Imperial decree? How could this old Taoist carry an imperial edict?

I searched around with a flashlight, picked up all the small pieces of cloth, and slowly pieced them together using my antique dealer's skills.

This is indeed an imperial edict, but it is not issued to any minister, but is begging for sin from heaven.

It would be more appropriate to say that it is 'begging for sin'.

Judging from the signature, it was Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, who wrote this begging for sin.

In the early Tang Dynasty, the jade seal did not fall into the hands of the Li family. Later, after Li Jing won the war against the Turks and Empress Xiao returned to the Central Plains, the jade seal was handed over to Li Shimin.

But at that time, he had carved another jade seal, which was rarely used throughout his life.

Why is it used here?

I read the contents of the imperial edict with some confusion, and was immediately surprised!

Li Shimin said that his "ineffective supervision and improper supervision" resulted in "criminal minister Wei Zheng, privately killing the dragon, and blasphemy against heaven."

Now that he was fully aware of his guilt, he personally smashed Wei Zheng's tombstone in the temple and begged God not to blame him and to protect the Li family in the Tang Dynasty.

Wei Zheng and Li Shimin have always been known as models of loyal ministers and wise kings.

Most people know that Wei Zheng was listed as one of the twenty-four heroes of Lingyan Pavilion and was named Zheng Guogong. Li Shimin regarded Wei Zheng as a mirror that could reflect his own shortcomings. He listened to Wei Zheng's advice and listened to everything. Since then, the monarch and his minister have become a legend in history.

But few people know the story that after Wei Zheng died, Li Shimin smashed his tomb in anger, dragged Wei Zheng's body out and whipped it.

Even people who are familiar with this period of history describe this incident as Li Shimin blaming Wei Zheng for recommending the wrong person and getting angry.

But judging from the writings in this imperial edict, there is something else hidden.

Isn't Wei Zheng's killing of the dragon a legend? Is it really true?

No wonder there is a group of Dragon Roar Guards among the ancient ruins. It turns out that they received the secret order from Li Shimin.

So, the yellow-robed Taoist priest and the Dragon Roar Guard are in the same group, and their purpose of coming here is to worship the dragon?

But in the legend, wasn't the one Wei Zheng killed the Dragon King of Jinghe?

The Jinghe River is thousands of miles away from the Wusuli River, so how could they come here?