Observing the surroundings carefully, I found that the colors of the plants here were different from those I had seen before.
While walking, the hairy man in the lead suddenly stopped.
He looked ahead warily, squatted down, and put his ears to the ground.
After listening carefully, he turned his head and pointed to the tree, then took the lead and quickly climbed up the tree.
Yang Jiu glanced at Wen Qingzhu, and with her consent, he led them all to climb the tree.
About a quarter of an hour later, the sound of rustling leaves came from the front, and someone was breaking through the trees and running towards this side.
In just a few breaths, a jackal with green eyes and gray fur appeared in front of him.
They rushed past and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Only the rolled up leaves slowly fell in the air.
Silence returned to the forest, and the hairy man climbed down, followed by everyone.
Wen Qingzhu sniffed, and there was a strange smell lingering in the air.
"What's wrong?" Xi'er found Wen Qingzhu staring in the direction where the jackal disappeared.
"It's okay." Wen Qingzhu turned around and pointed inside. Maybe she was too preoccupied.
Going deeper, the lingering smell from before becomes stronger and stronger.
Wen Qingzhu began to worry and shouted for Yang Jiu to come over.
"Did Madam find something wrong?" In fact, Yang Jiu himself was also very worried.
Wen Qingzhu pointed at the air: "You should be familiar with this smell. You must have encountered it before when you marched with the Marquis and others, right?"
"It's black oil." Yang Jiu touched his chin, "It's just that this place is full of mountains and forests, and the trees are lush. Black oil is usually found underground. Only by accident will others discover it."
Wen Qingzhu stopped and carefully felt the direction from which the smell was coming.
Finally feeling the origin of the smell, Wen Qingzhu pointed in a direction and said, "Master Hou and the others must be over there!"
Everyone stopped and turned to look at her, especially the hairy man.
He pointed in the direction ahead in confusion, meaning that he had seen Fu Lie there.
Wen Qingzhu went over and explained to him. Although Mao Ren didn't understand, since they had found the direction themselves, he would just follow them.
Having found the correct direction this time, Wen Qingzhu and his party began to speed up.
At the same time, at the foot of Maze Mountain.
The night watchman appears again, three of them this time.
The leader still held the disk, pointed in the direction of Wen Qingzhu and the others and said, "The holy stone is sensitive again, right here!"
"But the place where the holy stone lost its induction is far away from this maze, and if someone comes into the maze, there's no way we wouldn't know about it!"
The leader raised his head, looked at the mountain in front of him, and said solemnly: "The holy stone has always appeared. I haven't sensed it for so many years. I thought I would never find it again. Now the holy stone has appeared again, that is Since the guidance of the Witch God is in our maze, it will be easier!"
After putting away the silver plate, the leader waved and led the people into the maze.
Following the direction pointed by Wen Qingzhu, Mao Ren led them forward, avoiding many traps along the way.
At this time, not only Wen Qingzhu, but everyone else was thinking about who Mao Ren was.
They were moving very fast, and Aji followed them, looking at the hairy man with increasingly horrified eyes.
This maze is the only way to enter the mountain. Apart from the special guides of the Wu clan, only the night watchmen who created this maze are most familiar with it.
Aji, the leader, has seen a lot of people, and they usually have special personnel to train them, and they are basically in their thirties.
Based on Aji's observations, he was sure that the hairy man was definitely not the leader.
Then he can only be—
When he touched it, Aji accidentally tripped over a stone and fell to the ground.
Although there was a thick layer of dead leaves on the ground, he was caught off guard and fell down, causing quite a stir.
Everyone looked at him sideways. Aji ignored the pain and crawled to his feet. He quickly lowered his head to cover the fear in his eyes.
Wen Qingzhu slowed down, walked beside Aji, and saw through his mind at a glance: "Who are you afraid of?"
"No, no! Madam, you misunderstood! We are all our own people here, how could a villain be afraid of anyone!" Aji didn't dare to raise his head at all and hurriedly denied it.
Unfortunately, his nervous hands betrayed him.
Wen Qingzhu smiled and looked in the direction Aji had just looked at.
His eyes happened to fall on the hairy man.
"You know who Mao Ren is." Wen Qingzhu's tone was very sure, and he quietly put a hand on Aji's shoulder.
Aji, who was already jealous and nervous, suddenly had a hand reach out from his shoulder. He was so frightened that his legs weakened and he simply knelt down.
Except for Mao Mao and Mao Mao, everyone else stopped and turned to look at Aji.
Aji, who was kneeling, put his hands on the ground and began to tremble all over.
The hairy man at the front felt that they had stopped, so he also stopped and walked towards Wen Qingzhu.
He can't speak, but he can still make sounds.
A questioning sound came from his throat.
Unexpectedly, Aji suddenly raised his head, with tears and snot running down his face. He kept stepping back and shouted: "Don't come over! Don't come over!"
The fear contained in the voice made people's eardrums tremble, and Aji could be seen staring at the hairy man with a bone-deep tremor on his face.
Wen Qingzhu asked Mao Ren to step back. Aji felt slightly better, but he was still shaking badly.
"Aji, who is the hairy man? If you don't tell me, I will let him carry you."
Aji immediately shook his head, knelt in front of Wen Qingzhu, and said with fear and exasperation: "Madam! He is a night watchman! He is so familiar with the maze and can perfectly avoid all traps. Only a night watchman can do this!"
"Is he a night watchman?" Wen Qingzhu looked back at Mao Ren and found that his eyes were very confused.
Aji immediately pointed at the hairy man and shouted: "He is really a night watchman! I guarantee it with my life! He must be a night watchman! No one has ever seen what a night watchman looks like, but he has! They are all covered with blood. It’s black! Some people have hair as long as him!”
"Are you sure?" It's not that Wen Qingzhu doesn't believe Aji, but Mao Ren is really simple.
According to the information she learned, night watchmen are extremely cold existences. They carry out the orders of priests with strange methods, and it is said that they have never failed.
Naturally, the failed night watchman is dead.
Aji crawled in front of Wen Qingzhu and said in horror: "Madam! I won't admit it! It was that night! The night watchman suddenly came to our village. If I hadn't been in the toilet that day and witnessed this scene, I wouldn't have been there at all. You don’t know what a night watchman looks like!”
After a moment of silence, Wen Qingzhu replied: "Mao Ren has no ill intentions."
"What if he is pretending!" Aji still refused to believe it.
Wen Qingzhu narrowed his eyes: "No one can escape my eyes, and along the way, I can be sure that he has lived in this mountain for at least ten years."
"I don't believe it!" Aji turned around and started to leave on his knees.
But Yang Jiu suddenly landed in front of him and looked down at him: "You have to believe it even if you don't believe it! Since Madam has let you go, I can naturally not let you go."
"Madam!" Hu Sen, who had been silent all this time, suddenly walked out.
He looked at poor Aji with compassion: "I think what Aji said is true. Madam, don't you think he is too familiar with this place? And most of the night watchmen are talented, so Mao Ren doesn't agree with this condition."
"But he is useful to us now." Wen Qingzhu only said this sentence, and the meaning was self-evident.
Hu Sen was silent for a while and said slowly: "You can't blame Aji for this matter. The reason why he escaped that night was because he hid in the cesspool all night. He saw with his own eyes that the whole village was How did you die?"
After a moment of silence, Wen Qingzhu turned his head and left a message: "You are responsible for watching him from behind."
"Thank you, madam!" Hu Sen cupped his hands, turned around and helped Aji up.
After walking for more than an hour, Wen Qingzhu found that the holy stone in his purse began to heat up again.
She immediately tightened her grip and lost her voice, saying in a low voice: "Believe it or not, I will smash you!"
I don't know if it was due to induction, but the heat of the holy stone slowly dropped.
Wen Qingzhu then ordered Yang Jiu and the others to speed up.
In the middle of the maze, the three night watchmen suddenly stopped.
The leader was surprised: "There is no reaction from the Holy Stone again!"
"Impossible!" the black cloak on the left said sternly.
The black cloak on the right said solemnly: "Could someone control the Holy Stone?"
The three of them were speechless for a moment, which was even more impossible!
But if not, what can stop the Holy Stone
There was silence for a long time, they couldn't continue to waste time like this.
The leader asked the person on the right: "Lao Ba, let me decide. We must give an explanation to eldest brother about this matter."
The black cloak on the right stretches out his right hand, which is covered with long black hair, about an inch long.
After moving his fingers and calculating for a while, he pointed in a direction: "Over there!"
The other two people had no objection, nodded and followed the direction he pointed.
On a dark cliffside, Fu Lie led his people to collect several large bags of black oil.
Everyone's hands were stained with black oil.
The air was filled with a disgusting sour and rancid smell, but everyone tried their best to endure it.
If you want to get the black oil, you must keep going down. Above the place where the black oil emerges, there are the corpses of various animals.
Those close to the oil are about to turn into powder and merge with the rocks.
But at the top, there are corpses of animals and plants that have only been dead for a few years, and they smell terrible.
If there hadn't been a cliff here, Fu Lie and the others wouldn't have been able to collect black oil that could burn for a long time with just the tools in their hands.
The forest here is very dense with water vapor, making it difficult to light a fire, let alone setting it on fire to drive away wolves.
But now that they have this black oil in their hands, not only do they not have to worry about it at night, but they can also burn a safe place.
As the sky slowly darkened, Fu Lie selected a vent and directed his subordinates to pour the black oil at a fixed point.
When night fell, he immediately ordered people to light the black oil.
It was late August, the night was dark, and they had to get the fire started as soon as possible.
In less than a quarter of an hour, a fire broke out in front of them, and the fire began to spread downwards.
Although it is very slow, it can at least burn.
The fire slowly started to rise, and the thick black smoke gradually rose, blending into the night.
Wen Qingzhu and the others, who were just outside the ten-mile mountain road, suddenly smelled a strong burning smell.
The hairy man was the first to stop. He quickly climbed up the tree and stood at the top of the tree, looking far away.
The bright fire was burning in front of them, and at the same time, it was still filling their eyes slowly.
The hairy man climbed down quickly, gestured, and made a warning "ho ho" sound in his throat, his eyes full of anxiety.
Wen Qingzhu was shocked. Could it be that Fu Lie and the others had already taken action!
"Quick! Go over there!" Wen Qingzhu pointed to the right direction where the wind was blowing toward the south.
They must go north as soon as possible, but they are facing the fire and must escape from here first.
Under the leadership of Mao Ren, everyone ran wildly.
But the fire obviously didn't spread in one direction.
Thick smoke quickly billowed in, and Wen Qingzhu and the others could also see the light of the fire.
Mao Ren suddenly stopped, turned around and pulled Wen Qingzhu on his back. He also tucked Xi'er under his arm and began to run towards the east quickly.