In the afterglow of the setting sun, the students began to dismantle the stage on the playground, and laughter could be heard from time to time. The one-day cultural festival is too short, but it also leaves everyone who attends it with a feeling of unfinished business.
After listening to what Xia Qiu said yesterday, Liu Lingmei's reaction was unexpectedly calm. But the more she behaves like this, the more worried Xia Qiu is, because she knows her very well. She is timid and likes to think wildly. Why does she behave so differently this time
Liu Lingmei could not fully understand what Xia Qiu said, let alone accept it, so she chose to temporarily isolate that part of the memory and not touch it. She needed time to think about the whole thing, but one thing she knew was that her friend was involved in great trouble.
Yangliu Street, old house. Enter the corridor from the door and go straight. There is a sudden noise in the study on the left. The black wooden bookcase slides aside. A thin boy wearing big glasses appears behind the bookcase. That boy was Min Endong. While he was flipping around on his tablet computer, he walked out of the secret room behind the bookcase. Behind him, Super Terminal MM was running in an orderly manner.
After hearing from Dong Muya that her friends from another world had conquered two cities in the Qi Lie Formation, he became even more impressed by her group of friends. On the other hand, he wanted to take a long-term approach to the investigation of the remaining three cities.
The first one to make some gains was Shuicheng Dongyao. This city had always been the one he was most interested in.
Dragon, the legendary ancient beast, is a rare animal that combines strength and beauty, and at the same time possesses extremely high wisdom. The Amber Dragon King actually gave up his divine status for love, which added warmth and romance to this perfect and cold mythical beast. It was such a legendary Dragon King who single-handedly brought Shuicheng Dongyao into its heyday.
The picture that is currently opened on Min Endong's tablet is the portrait of the Amber Dragon King that he asked for from Dong Muya. Compared with the portraits he had searched for, he looked more like a foreign movie star in this portrait. His slightly curly hair and deep facial features conflicted with humans' inherent impression of the Dragon King.
What caught his attention in Dongyao City was probably the period of history before the Amber Dragon King took over the city. At that time, Dongyao was still a veritable water city. There was nothing but a huge lake, and the mermaid clan who once governed it lived at the bottom of the lake.
After this period of investigation, Min Endong found records of the time when the mermaid tribe lived at the bottom of the lake. At that time, they cultivated thief coral polyps at the bottom of the lake. The thief coral polyps are similar to the coral polyps in the human world, but as they grow, they will grow along the shelf you build for them, and eventually devour the shelf completely.
The mermaid tribe uses this characteristic of coral polyps to build their own colorful caves at the bottom of the lake. These caves are called coral houses. It wasn't until the Amber Dragon King took over that they gradually abandoned the coral houses at the bottom of the lake and moved to live on the ground. The coral houses left at the bottom of the lake have long been dilapidated and forgotten due to their age.
It is recorded that among the coral houses built by the mermaids, there is a labyrinth path connecting the tunnels, leading to the lake bottom temple that enshrines the mermaid tribe's treasure, the Fish Roof. It is said that this fish habitat rock was transformed after the death of the ancestor of the mermaid tribe. Before the Amber Dragon King took over Dongyao, the shamans of the mermaid tribe held a worship ceremony in the temple every year to pray for the spirit of the ancestor to protect the mermaid tribe. The balance prospers.
Every hundred years, an unprecedented memorial ceremony will be held. Except for Dongyao, mermaid tribes from other places will also gather here to offer sacrifices and a young mermaid girl to the ancestor as his next son. A companion for centuries. The selected girl will be taken to the lake bottom temple by the mermaid clan shaman and locked in the room dedicated to the fish habitat rock. The fate of the girls is self-evident. No matter what god takes them away, they will eventually die alone due to hunger and cold.
The name of this fish habitat is a piece of basalt, which is the same as the array material that Min Endong previously analyzed existed in Dongyao, Shuicheng City. The only problem is that the entrance to the temple at the bottom of the lake has been passed down from generation to generation by the mermaid clan witches. Today, there are no clan witches among the mermaid clan. How to find the lost path leading to the temple has become the biggest problem. .
After hearing about the bottlenecks encountered in the investigation, Qian Qi hurriedly wrote a letter to his father and asked for help in launching an investigation in Dongyao Shuicheng.
The lifespan of the mermaid clan is equivalent to that of humans, so even the oldest elders in the clan were not yet born when the last large-scale memorial ceremony was held. Not to mention the legendary labyrinth, even the general process of the ceremony There are only some vague concepts.
The Amber Dragon King had no choice but to send his men to sneak into the bottom of the lake to search for clues. It would take a long time to find records about the temple at the bottom of the lake from the ruins, or to find an entrance that might connect to the labyrinth path.
Yuchan remembered that when she was a child, she often played hide-and-seek games with her friends at the bottom of the lake. They used the ruins of the coral houses remaining at the bottom of the lake as cover to chase and play with each other for most of the day.
Once, while playing hide-and-seek, she randomly found a shabby house as usual. As soon as she hid behind a large mirror in the shabby house, she saw bubbles of different kinds emerging under her feet.
In fact, it is not unusual for bubbles to appear at the bottom of the lake. It is probably caused by the loosening of the underground soil. She subconsciously tapped the bubbles with her hand a few times. Just when she thought she was just being paranoid, she was sucked in by a strong force. She felt that she had slipped into a downward tunnel, rolling and falling until she finally landed.
It was a rock cave at the bottom of a lake that was extremely icy and cold. When I breathed lightly, there was a misty breath in front of me. There was a thick layer of ice on the ground under my feet, and icicles hung on the roof of the cave. The structure of the rock wall inside the cave is very strange. It seems to be a special kind of rock. There are light spots in the dark blue, making the whole space like a night sky with bright stars, and the Milky Way-shaped belt on the top of the cave seems to be guiding. Those who come walk along it.
Yuchan couldn't help but walk in the direction pointed by the Milky Way. After a while, she was frozen all over and her lips turned purple. She remembered that she faintly walked into a room at the end, and vaguely saw a black rock embedded in a huge crystal. She lost consciousness from the cold and fell down.
When she woke up again, she was already lying on the shore, surrounded by her playmates. Most of them thought she was dead just now, and they all cried in tears. Now they saw that she was okay, and they all screamed again. Laughed loudly.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen a mermaid that can drown!”
"It wasn't drowning, she just passed out in the water."
"That's water sickness!"
"Hahaha… "
She only remembered the children she was playing with saying these words as a joke. She was too young at the time, and no one believed what she described about what she experienced at the bottom of the lake. Gradually, she herself chose to forget about the events at that time and never mentioned them again.
But now, when she heard that Demon King Fox and Qianqi were looking for clues about the temple at the bottom of the lake, she thought of the cave she saw at that time. But when she ran directly to the Amber Dragon King, her words were unfounded. I was afraid that no one would believe her. In order to confirm that her memory was correct, she had to find the shabby house at the bottom of the lake again. As long as she could find it, there would be no one there. Would say it was just a fantasy from her childhood. Although she knew that the boy who was the Demon King Fox already had a crush on him, Yuchan still couldn't stop her urge to help him.
She changed into clothes that allowed her to move in the water. She recalled the waters where she played in her childhood and dived to the bottom of the lake, trying to find the broken houses where she used to hide during hide-and-seek games.
In the world under the lake, the light becomes soft after being refracted by the layers of lake water. The underwater creatures are covered with a layer of fluorescence, especially the aquatic plants that dance with the water waves, which are very beautiful. Yu Chan carries a lamp made of luminous pearls. This kind of lamp is made of metal wires wrapped around the luminous pearls one by one into a circle, and then circled at the top to form a handle for easy carrying. The light of the luminous pearl is more intense in the dark, so it is suitable for use underwater.
Yu Chan found a shabby house built by coral polyps, and felt that it was near the cave where she fell into when she was a child, so she searched for it one by one. Suddenly a dark figure flashed out from an incomplete door. Yuchan subconsciously covered the lamp in her hand with her clothes, and then hid behind a ruined building to watch.
The black figure looked around and then swam in one direction. The sixth sense told Yu Chan that the black shadow must be related to the temple at the bottom of the lake, so she decided to follow the black shadow to find out. The dark figure chose to go ashore in a sparsely populated place, took out a set of clothes that had been left there behind a rock on the shore, put them on, and walked towards the market.
When there was enough light on the shore, Yu Chan recognized that although the man was also a mermaid, he had a strange face, which made him feel even more strange. She followed him all the way to a hotel in the market. That hotel was the largest in Dongyao. The owner also ran a mermaid slave trading business and was very wealthy. The hotel is bustling with people, and there is an endless stream of guests. Foreigners check in every day.
Fortunately, the catfish boss has always been greedy for Yuchan's beauty. Although there are many mermaid slaves resold by him every day, it is still rare to see someone with Yuchan's appearance, figure and talent. On weekdays, Yu Chan felt disgusted when she saw his fat face and his flat mouth that would spit out foam whenever he spoke, and she even avoided his advances. But today, in order to get clues about the mysterious man from him, she had no choice but to put on a smile.
"Brother Catfish!" Yuchan walked to the counter with a smile and said to the catfish spirit inside.
"Hey, isn't this Xiao Yuchan? We rarely see you! You don't even come when I invite you to come. What happened today?"
When Catfish Spirit spoke, not only did his mouth bubble, but the two whiskers on the corners of his mouth also swung up and down. Yuchan's stomach turned upwards and she almost vomited it out, but she still had to force herself to smile and continue. Said: "It's been a long time since I last saw Brother Catfish. Have I missed you? I see your business here is really getting better and better!"
"No, it's annoying that the business is so good. I've hired several guys and they're still too busy. Let me see, sister Yuchan, don't go to the song and dance department in the palace. Why don't you come and be my boss's wife!" As he spoke, he stretched out his big fat hand, took Yuchan's hand and touched it.
Yuchan lowered her head pretending to be shy, but actually she didn't want to look at his face any more, and then asked: "I seem to have seen the person who just walked in, but I can't remember it for the moment. Who is that person?" ?”
"Which one?" Catfish Spirit touched Yu Chan's soft hand again and asked.
"That's the one in gray clothes just now. He belongs to the mermaid tribe like me."
"That's one of my big suppliers. They bring me many mermaid slaves from outside every year." The catfish spirit deliberately lowered his voice and said mysteriously, "To say that that person is really heartless. He spends all his money buying and selling his own people. Make money, and make money with such peace of mind.”
"No! Then did he come alone?" Yuchan asked in agreement.
"No, there are two people accompanying us, but they don't talk much!" The catfish spirit rolled his eyes and seemed to have regained his senses, and asked, "Sister, why are you interested in him? Although the mermaid looks like him There are not many rich people, but how can a person like that be worthy of my sister? To say that I can really treat you well, I have to be... "
"Hey, Brother Catfish, I suddenly remembered that I have something else to do, so I won't tell you anymore! I'll come and play with you next time!"
Catfish Spirit wanted to continue talking, but was interrupted by Yuchan. She pulled her hand out, looked back with a naughty smile, and walked out of the hotel, leaving behind the fat catfish whose bones were brittle and couldn't recover for a long time.