Plague Doctor

Low and frantic murmurings faintly echoed in this underground passage.

But the Colorful Cat, Yu Chi, Kezia Mason and Gu Jun have been walking for half an hour without end. They turned several turns and saw no one. The electric lights on the wall are exactly the same, and the vibrations are still going on. And this The faint sound has always been this far away, as if there has been no change.

Once here, there is another passage connecting eight directions, and there is also an iron staircase leading down.

However, this was probably not the place where they first came. The iron stairs were in different condition.

It was also because of this that the colorful cat, also known as Wu Shiyu, had to admit the fact that, well, he was lost.

"Meow." She spread her paws and fell in the middle of the passage to express the fact that she couldn't lead the way and that she needed to take a rest.

"Don't you feel anything?" Gu Jun asked. He didn't feel anything himself. His perception here was very confusing.

Wu Shiyu shook her head. She thought she had it, but just like a carrot hanging in front of a horse, if you take another step, you will be further away. She thought the best way would be to make the horse's mouth longer, or have a long tongue like an anteater, so that it could eat.

Gu Jun looked around. He felt a panic just now. Something was happening...

There is only less than an hour and a half left.

Kezia Mason also seemed to have no idea. She was very interested in the electric light on the wall, which was a novelty for her.

"Captain Gu, I have some ideas." Yu Chi walked to the wall at this time, "Come and take a look at the carvings on these walls. I have been paying attention to them for a long time. From the entrance of the stairs to the bottom, all the way here, the wall The body is covered with carvings.”

"Yeah." Gu Jun naturally noticed it. In fact, he had talked with Yu Chi before and thought it was part of the ceremony or the decoration of the altar building.

But now Yu Chi has some new ideas. His face is flushed and he is scratching his beard. He has a lot to say, but it is difficult to organize the words because of his abnormal ptsd.

"These are rock paintings, they are symbols, they are also words... How to say, how to say, rock is a visual medium! So all these images carved on rocks and mountain walls in ancient times, whether they are figurative images or geometric symbols , can be regarded as marks and symbols.”

Gu Jun nodded, "Understood."

"Meow." Wu Shiyu over there was also listening. This is easy to understand. Men and women are all human beings.

"Symbols are words..." Yu Chi scratched his head, "It should be said that there are three oldest written languages ​​​​in human civilization, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform, and Chinese characters - oracle bones. These are all hieroglyphs. developed in the past.”

Through the hazy light, Gu Jun looked at the detailed symbols on the wall, "Yu Dui, do you want to say that these symbols on the wall actually have literal meanings?"

"Yes, I wanted to say this. These minutes may be a whole incantation, or a sacred inscription, or record some history."

Yu Chi said, his eyes a little fanatical. If he could extract all these symbols, how much could be discovered.

But Yu Chi didn't just want to say this, "I know some linguistics. The more I looked at the wall, the more I found some ancient hieroglyphs. Look, that is the word 'worm' in oracle bone inscriptions. Hieroglyphics It’s a descriptive image of objects, concepts, and behaviors that look like a bug.”

Gu Jun could indeed see traces of it, like a bug, a snake, or an iron hook that would only be found in later generations.

Thinking about this matter carefully, I felt some inexplicable surges in my heart.

Although the characters they use now have evolved, they were probably used when their ancestors were still living a life of eating hair and drinking blood.

Among the three oldest hieroglyphics, it is the only one still used by humans.

What does it mean when they appear on the wall here?

"From the entrance of the iron ladder to the bottom, I found that the oracle bones appear less and less, the Sumerian cuneiforms appear more and more, and then the Egyptian hieroglyphics are the most, and the oracle bones are almost invisible. I guess this is related to time, The further inside you go, the earlier the text and symbols on the wall were born.”

"Captain Gu, everything will go back to the beginning of human civilization. We, the people at the end of civilization, will go back and connect the beginning with the end."

"Writing is one of the beginnings of civilization, and writing can be regarded as an important information technology."

Yu Chi spoke in confusion, but he also expressed his meaning: "The belief of these Locust God believers is not that simple. It may not be just about a bunch of bugs, but it is related to the power of time and space and the power of civilization development. That's the only way. That's how their altar needs to be built. I feel like we're already on the altar."

science and technology? This word made Gu Jun's brows wrinkle a little uncomfortably.

Technology is the means that humans and Yithians rely on to fight against the forces of darkness...

"Meow?" Wu Shiyu asked, so what should we do to reach our destination?

Or have we already arrived, and now we are pounding, smashing, biting and gnawing on the wall. This counts as destroying the altar?

"She's asking what to do." Gu Jun could only hear this.

"Let's go along the timeline and go back!" Yu Chi said while reaching out to touch the symbols on the concrete wall. "These symbols have their birth order. Human beings existed before the emergence of civilization. Primitive humans and apes ...Look, there are almost no hieroglyphics here, but there are a lot of Stone Age symbols. This is the aurochs carvings, this is the feather pattern - every

There are three or four branches on them, all of which are Mesolithic rock paintings..."

Only Yu Chi knows this archaeological knowledge here.

So Gu Jun couldn't give any advice, Kezia Mason stood aside and didn't even understand, and Wu Shiyu just let it go.

"Yu Dui, please lead the way." Gu Jun said, "Maybe this is the reason why you are here... We all have our own reasons."

"Okay, let me give it a try. This is the Mesolithic Age..." Yu Chi walked a short distance to the other seven intersections, groped for the symbols on the wall, and judged the time points represented by each direction. Some The intersection was to the Neolithic, which was the future for the Mesolithic.

And if they want to go back in time and return to the starting point, they need to take the intersection that leads to the Paleolithic Age.

However, there are three passages, all with obvious and comparable numbers of Paleolithic symbols.

But among them, there is only one passage with oracle bone inscriptions with the word "worm", the only oracle bone inscriptions.

"This word has always appeared and has never disappeared." Yu Chi scratched his head and said, "It shouldn't have appeared. It shouldn't have appeared a long time ago. Even Egyptian hieroglyphs are gone. How could there be oracle bones in the Paleolithic Age? Unless... …It transcends time.”

Gu Jun looked at the word "worm" like a snake and a hook.

Are the followers of the Locust God transcending time? Or are they the intruders?

There was less than an hour and ten minutes left. Now that they had chosen this passage, the three people and the cat took another step and walked towards the depths of the passage.

I just don’t know if they were fish that took the bait after eating insect bait.

Love the Plague Doctor.