Han Shuna's face, which was burned into a black hole by the fire of immeasurable karma, opened her mouth to me with difficulty, as if she wanted to make some sound, but the lipless mouth could only be opened in vain.
I want to ask the junior high school student next to me to see what is going on. Is there any precedent of this kind in the Karamir Mountains before, where the corpses of people who were burned to death still occur? But when I turned around, I found that the first year of junior high school who had been talking to me was gone. Only the cold wind in the cold night mixed with heavy snow flakes whizzed into the ice wall.
My heart seemed to be frozen by the wind and snow, and my whole body shivered suddenly. I sat up, and when I raised my eyes, I saw the first grader sitting next to me holding a shotgun, holding up his leather bag, drinking highland barley wine. , and looking at the place where Han Shuna's body was placed, there was no trace of snow on it. It turned out that I had just dozed off, and in such a short period of time, I actually had a nightmare.
It wouldn't be surprising if I thought about it during the day and dreamed about it at night, but the panic in the dream was really real. Maybe there was some kind of subtle omen?
On the first day of the new year, he handed me the leather wine bag: "You fell asleep just as we were talking. I think you are exhausted today. I heated the wine and you took a few sips. The god of highland barley wine will It helps you relieve your tired body."
I took the wine bag and took two big sips, stood up, and still wanted to confirm again. I had to see with my own eyes that Han Shuna's body under the snow hill had not changed before I could feel at ease.
Unexpectedly, as soon as I got up, I suddenly heard a long "whoosh" sound from behind the ice wall, and a flare rose into the night sky. This is when we set up camp. In order to prevent sneak attacks by vicious wolves, several trip-fire flares were set up on the outside. They were placed behind several ice hills, which were the only way to approach the camp from the outside.
The flare has a small parachute that keeps it suspended in the air for a period of time. The cold wind blew, and the pale flares swayed in the night sky, illuminating the originally white glacier with a shining white light that dazzled the eyes.
In this white mist of snow, a dozen giant wolves were exposed to the dazzling light of the flares. The closest these wolves were to the ice wall we built was only a dozen meters away. As expected, they came to sneak attack under the cover of heavy snow. When setting up camp, I once analyzed the glacier structure here. It has not snowed for a long time this season. The sound of light weapons shooting will not easily cause the snow on the snowy peaks to collapse, so I simply pulled out the M1911. Pulling the slide back, he raised his gun and fired. Chu Yi also raised his shotgun, pointed it at the sneaking wolf, and fired it with one bullet.
The pack of wolves approaching quietly on the snowy field may have wanted to wait until they were under the ice wall before attacking. Unexpectedly, the flare was triggered. The dazzling light overwhelmed them and they became a living target while lying on the snow.
When the fat man and others heard the gunfire, they immediately picked up their weapons and ran out to help. They fired both long and short guns and killed more than a dozen wolves immediately. The remaining three giant wolves saw that something was not going well, so they turned around and ran back. They were all knocked down one by one by the fat man with his rifle. The wolf corpses lay scattered in front of the ice wall, and the white snow was dotted with blood.
Just as the last wolf was shot by the fat man, the flares hanging in the air gradually dimmed, and the glacier was covered in darkness again, and only the whine of the strong wind and snow could be heard. In the Phoenix Shrine located on the Longding Glacier, the wind gathers below. The gaps between the snow-capped mountains are all ventilation channels that suck in the strong wind. The higher you go, the weaker the wind will be. When you reach the top of the snow peak, Basically there is no wind. This glacier is like a trumpet-shaped wind shaft with a large mouth and a narrow bottom. With the heavy snow falling, the visibility nearby is very poor.
The fat man squatted under the ice wall to take shelter from the wind and said to me: "Commander Hu, this time we have given the wolves a slap in the face. I hope they don't dare to come again. I can finally sleep peacefully. I will go back and sleep first." Okay, if anything happens, call me again. I was just dreaming about marrying a wife, and I woke you up just halfway through the marriage. I have to continue working on the sequel when I get back…"
I told the fat man not to underestimate the enemy. It would be too late to sleep until the day of victory. Now this is far from over. When the wolf skin of the white-haired wolf king is peeled off and hung on the wind horse flag, they will be invincible. First, there is no need to worry.
At this time, Chu Yi said: "Brother Duji is right. These wolves are very cunning. We need to be careful that they attract our attention here and other wolves come up from behind. Once we get close to the evil wolf, You can’t use guns, otherwise you will accidentally injure your own people.”
With the reminder from our guide, Chu Yi, we all felt that this was possible. Chu Yi knew the habits of the wolves very well. Judging from the small-scale contact just now, the wolves would definitely divide their forces and attack our retreat. Our camp was set up next to the main tomb of the Reincarnation Religion. There were ice ditches on the far ends of both sides, making it difficult to pass. Although there were mechanisms equipped with flares at the front and rear, we couldn't fully count on them to work.
After thinking about it for a while, everyone decided that instead of staying here and being disturbed all night long, it would be better to go up and catch the wolves off guard before they could attack from behind.
Chu Yi estimated that the main force of the wolf pack was behind us, and the wind was against them coming from there. The sound of gunshots and the smell of humans would be detected by them. The wolves must be trying to take advantage of us to be paralyzed and relax after our victory. Suddenly, Pounce. If we want to catch them by surprise, we have to confuse them, and we have to act quickly. Once they notice a change, it will be difficult to eliminate these evil wolves tonight.
Shirley Yang said that wolves have very strong senses. Since we are downwind, we are easily exposed. How can we confuse them?
Chu Yi didn't answer, he jumped out of the ice wall, dragged the nearest wolf corpse back, and asked everyone to wipe some wolf blood on their foreheads. According to local legends, among all things, only the human soul lives in the forehead area. The evil wolf is a hungry Shura ghost. Its nose and eyes cannot feel the human body, but can only see the human soul. Moreover, people and animals need to survive after death. It takes a day and night for the soul to leave the body, so the blood of the recently deceased wolf also contains the wolf soul. Apply it on the forehead to cover the human soul, and you can confuse the wolves.
I thought that although this legend may not be true, smearing it with strong wolf blood can indeed hide the smell of humans, so I followed what Chu Yi said and inserted a paratrooper's knife into the wolf's neck. The wolf had just died a few minutes ago. It was not frozen, and its blood was still steaming.
Everyone dipped three fingers in blood and dabbed it horizontally on their foreheads. Then they took their weapons, turned off the light source they carried, and quietly touched the ice slope behind them. This ice slope is located approximately in the center of Longding Glacier. There are many undulating ice slopes on this ancient glacier. We didn’t pay attention to it at the beginning. We just felt that this raised ice slope could shield the wind and snow, so we camped at the foot of the slope. It wasn’t until Shirley Yang and I confirmed the location of the nine-story demon tower in the ice bucket that we felt it. This ice slope is unusual, and it is probably the place where the glacier crystal corpse is buried.
Everyone wrapped Uncle Ming and Axiang in the middle, lying on the ice and snow, bending under the ridge of the ice slope. Our equipment was enough to cope with the polar environment. The altitude of Longding is not high, and there is a saying that "it is warm after the wind and cold after the snow." The real cold wave will come only after snowfall, and the wolves will retreat into the forest before the snow stops, otherwise they will all be killed. Cold wave freezes to death. Although it was snowing heavily at this time, it was not too cold, but even so, lying in the snow on the ice was still bearable.
I pressed my hand down to signal everyone to stop. The first year of junior high school and I covered our mouths, only exposing the wolf blood on our foreheads, and then we stuck our heads out of the edge of the ice slope to watch what was going on down the slope. If the wolves come for a sneak attack, this will be the place they must pass.
On the dark earth, there were only snowflakes flying all over the sky. I looked for a long time and found nothing. The sky was thick with lead clouds, without any light, and the visibility was really low. At this time, Chuyi tugged on my sleeve and slowly pointed his finger down the slope. I followed his hand and watched intently, and saw a few small green lights flickering in the windy and snowy night. Because the snow was falling so heavily, it would have been almost invisible if Chu Yi had not pointed it out.
I turned on the low-light flashlight and waved it at the fat man and others behind me, which meant that I had discovered the lurking wolf pack and was ready to fight. At this time, the guide Chu Yi who was lying on the ground suddenly jumped up, rushed down the ice slope, and ran straight towards the few strands of green light in the darkness.
I don't know why he did this. Could it be that there was a sudden change? But we couldn't let him go into danger alone, so he took the M1911 and raised his wolf-eye flashlight and ran after him. Behind me came the calls from Fatty, Shirley Yang and others: "Come back quickly, what are you two doing?"
On the first day of the new year, I ran to a place and stopped. I followed him and stood still. I was about to ask him what was going on, but I found seven or eight giant wolves lying in the snow. The wolf necks were cut off by sharp dental knives, and blood flowed out. , some of them were still alive, staring at us with vicious eyes, but they were bleeding too much and could no longer move. Death can come to them at any time. Those green wolf eyes we saw on the edge of the ice slope were theirs.
On the first day of the new year, he squatted down and looked at the wound on the wolf's neck: "It was the white-haired wolf king who did it. They won't come again tonight." After that, he used the hidden knife to stab the wolves that were not dead one by one, and told me Return to the back of the ice slope together.
When we told everyone about the situation, everyone felt baffled. Obviously our estimate was accurate at first. The wolves wanted to sneak attack from behind, but I don’t know what happened. The wolf king killed so many of his kind in a row, and then quietly retreated. Chu Yi, a guide who was very familiar with wolf nature, didn't know why.
Shirley Yang stepped on the ice slope under his feet and said to everyone, there is a high probability that under this ice layer is the nine-story demon tower we are looking for. According to the custom of the Demon Kingdom, only the king and the evil god can be buried in the tower after death. For example, the high-status clergy of the Reincarnation Cult are not qualified and can only be buried in the ice caves surrounding the holy land. In the long rap poem of the Great King of the World's Enemy-Conquering Orb, the White Wolf is a demon slave of the Demon Kingdom. The King of the Enemy-Conquering Orb once led an army and fought many fierce battles with the wolves led by the Wolf King.
Although the demon kingdom has been destroyed for a long time, the ancient contract between the monarch and the wolves may not have expired, and the wolves are still burdened with the ancient curse. Perhaps the Wolf King discovered that this was a demon tower dedicated to evil gods, so he had to abandon his original plan and killed several wolves for sacrifice. This is somewhat similar to the ancient legend of wolves by American Indians, Kunlun Mountains Does this also exist in Karamir?
Listening to what Shirley Yang said, I remembered that in the tomb of the Ghost Mother of the Great Phoenix Temple in Kunlun Ya, there used to be a huge wolf skin and the wall carvings of driving the wolf slaves, so the possibility that Shirley Yang mentioned should exist. .
Since the wolves will not attack again tonight, they can sleep peacefully. Tomorrow they will have to excavate the glacier crystal corpse, so everyone returned to the camp to rest.
I suddenly remembered that nightmare, and I always felt that it was very inappropriate not to confirm Han Shuna's body, but it was best to let Uncle Ming know about this matter to avoid any misunderstanding. I advised Uncle Ming to incinerate her body overnight and take the ashes back.
Uncle Ming was confused at this time and was about to agree, but the guide Chu Yi strongly objected: Han Shuna has been dead for less than a day and night, and her soul has not left yet. If the body is burned with fire, her soul will also feel the torment of karma. The suffering is not good for the deceased and will bring disaster to everyone.
As the saying goes, do as the Romans do. Although we don't believe in this rule, it's hard to refute, so everyone had no choice but to come to Han Shuna's body. I asked Uncle Ming if I could not cover the body with a blanket, but roll it up and wrap it. Doing so would only have advantages and no disadvantages. Uncle Ming was silent for a moment, then nodded slowly.
I pushed aside the raised snow on the body, and as soon as I touched the blanket with my hand, I felt a chill in my heart. The blanket was set up in an empty arch, and the body covered underneath was gone. I suddenly took off the blanket, and at some point, a not too big ice hole appeared underneath, and there was a huge ice crevice further down.
Could it be that Han Shuna's body fell below? Everyone rushed to gather around to watch. I held up the wolf-eye flashlight and shined it down, and found that under the bottomless ice abyss, a figure flashed into the darkness. I hurriedly followed the flashlight beam and saw a woman hanging on the vertical ice wall between the ice cracks with her hands and feet. Although her back was to us, her hair already showed that she was Han Shuna.
The fat man raised his rifle and wanted to shoot. I stopped him and shouted below: "Han Shuna, where are you going!"
Han Shuna obviously heard our voices and felt several flashlights shining on her as she slowly turned back from the ice wall. Her face, which had been burnt to black coal, was gone, replaced by a pale white face, but her big white face only had two rows of teeth, and no eyes or nose.
Han Shuna looked back from the vertical cliff of the ice abyss, her face covered in white. The distance between her and us was already close to the limit of the range of the wolf eye beam. In order to see more clearly, I lay on the edge of the ice cave with all my body, and tried my best to reach down with the flashlight. Although my vision was blurry, I could already feel it. It turns out that the "woman" on the ice wall is no longer human.
Uncle Ming also held up a flashlight to look down, but when he saw Han Shuna's face, he was so frightened that he froze. His hands and feet suddenly became weak. The flashlight in his hand rolled over and fell into the ice crevice. If Peter Huang hadn't pulled him , even people almost fell into the ice crevices below.
Han Shuna, who suddenly had a white face, was frightened by the fallen flashlight, and quickly crawled to the bottom of the dark ice abyss, and soon disappeared into the darkness.
We leaned over to look at the fallen wolf-eye flashlight, hoping to see the depth of the ice abyss, but after the flashlight fell, it turned into a small flipping bright spot, getting smaller and smaller, and finally… Swallowed into the darkness below. When Fatty and I saw how deep the ice abyss was, we couldn't help but think of that ghost cave.
At this moment, Shirley Yang fixed a bundle of climbing ropes on her body with a quick hook and said to me: "Let's follow quickly." Judging from her posture, it seemed that she was going down to the ice abyss to chase Han Shuna. As soon as I changed my mind, I understood what Shirley Yang meant. I don’t know what happened to Han Shuna’s body. Although she fled into the depths of the ice abyss as soon as she saw everyone, that direction happened to be inserted diagonally under the ice slope. Nine-story demon tower, is she heading straight for the glacier crystal corpse?
We had to find Han Shuna before the situation worsened. I immediately prepared the rope, turned on all the light sources on my body with Shirley Yang, and fell down the rope. However, the ice surface in the ice abyss was extremely slippery and there was no support point to stand on. The blue fluorescent tubes and tactical spotlights on his body reflected a strange and blurry light on the mirror-like ice wall, making people wonder where they were. As soon as they reached a depth of more than ten meters, they felt that they were about to lose their sense of direction. .
Had to stop momentarily to confirm location. This narrow abyss of ice seemed endless.
Shirley Yang said that there is at least a few hundred meters of depth below, and the deepest point may be the remaining water veins of the lake in the Sea of Disaster. Uncle Ming's flashlight fell into the water, so it disappeared. As he spoke, he turned on a fluorescent tube and threw it to the bottom of the ice abyss. After a long time, the blue fluorescence disappeared from sight. We put our ears against the ice wall and could vaguely hear the sound of running water coming up.
Han Shuna moved diagonally downwards. We descended vertically. If we wanted to catch up with her, we had to swing sideways. We gave it a try, but the ice wall was too slippery to achieve . In the end, we had to rely on tools. We tried to use a mountaineering pick to carve the ice wall and use the force to move inward, but as soon as we carved it, we found broken ice. It keeps falling down, and the ice abyss shows signs of cracking.
Longding Glacier is at a special altitude and is a low-altitude glacier. There is a surface melting period of two to three months every year, but the ice layer in the middle, which is several hundred meters thick, will never change.
But the timing of our visit was not quite right. It happened to catch up with the end of the melting period and the early stage of the cold wave. It was the most vulnerable time period for the main glacier. In addition, there were countless natural ice buckets, ice leaks, ice cracks, and There are hundreds of tombs of the Samsara Sect. It can be said that the ice layer is similar to that of a hornet's nest. On normal days, it is okay to say that September is the most vulnerable time to collapse. Although there have been no major geological changes in thousands of years, unexpected disasters may occur in this catastrophic ocean at any time.
However, everything has its two sides. The fragile period of the glacier is very beneficial for digging the nine-story monster building under the deep ice. If we do it after the cold wave, it will be very difficult.
Uncle Ming, Fatty and others above were worried about our safety and shouted loudly for us to go back and stop chasing us, it was too dangerous.
It didn’t matter if they shouted like this. The sound from above was blown down by the wind. Shirley Yang and I felt that the entire ice wall was shaking. We quickly used flashlights to signal and told them not to shout in the ice cave, otherwise the ice wall would be destroyed. If the ice breaks apart and avalanches, we will all be buried alive in this cold, dark ice abyss.
Our movement speed on the ice wall is slower than expected, and it is impossible to move laterally. In addition, the environment in the ice abyss is too dark and complex, and the soldiers are very fast. If we lose the opportunity, we will not be able to catch up. . Shirley Yang shook his head helplessly at me. It seemed that he had to give up the pursuit. It was better to go up first and then think of a way.
We twitched the climbing rope and prepared to return to the ice cave, so we used the flashlight to make the sign of the cross at the people above. Fatty and others understood, so they helped us. Shirley Yang and I gradually ascended, because we could not stop on the ice wall. Stop your feet and push with your feet when you get close. Your body will be suspended in the air and spin around involuntarily.
When I turned around, I suddenly saw a woman lying on the dark ice wall on the side. Half of her body was hidden in the gap in the ice wall, and only a small half of her body was exposed. Her face was white and there were only two rows of teeth. Judging from her hair and yellow clothes, she was none other than Han Shuna.
I thought she had gone deep into the ice abyss, but I didn't expect that there was an inconspicuous gap on the ice wall not far from us, and Han Shuna was hiding in it. Just when we gave up tracking and were about to return to the top, she suddenly appeared again. What did she want to do?
I pulled Shirley Yang's arm, and they both stopped at the same time. Shirley Yang also saw Han Shuna crawling out of the ice crevice, and was equally surprised. I had wrapped the wolf eyes around my arm before, but now I raised my arm and shined it directly at Han Shuna.
In the dark and cold ice abyss, even the wolf's eyes could only see less than twenty meters, but this distance could just illuminate the ice crevice where Han Shuna was. "Han Shuna"–until we figure out what she is, let's still call her that–seems to have no reaction to the beam of the tactical flashlight. She lies on the ice crevice and leans out half of her body, then does not move. .
Since Han Shuna's face has no facial features and two rows of teeth are open, we can't see clearly whether her expression is sad or angry, and the two sides are just deadlocked in mid-air. I gradually lost my composure. That guy couldn't be human at all, nor did she seem to be a stiff-jointed corpse. But no matter who she was, she definitely had no good intentions.
I pulled out my M1911 and prepared to shoot. Before I pulled out the safety, I felt someone tap my shoulder. Shirley Yang said from behind me: "Don't shoot, it will cause the ice wall to collapse."
Before I could put away the pistol, the faceless Han Shuna suddenly seemed to be electrified. She jumped out of the ice crevice where she was hiding, spread her arms and legs like a big white lizard, and crawled towards me quickly with a few swipes. Come over.
Seeing that something was not going well, Shirley Yang and I did not dare to neglect at this time. We quickly pulled down the climbing rope in the lock and quickly raised our bodies up the ice abyss. It was best to lead Han Shuna to the glacier.
Although we ascended quickly, Han Shuna climbed even faster on the ice wall. When she was less than five or six meters away from the ice, her big white face could already reach Shirley Yang's shoes. . Everyone on the glacier saw it clearly. Fatty and Chu Yi ignored Uncle Ming's obstruction and reached into the ice cave with their guns and fired volleys. The bullets hit Han Shuna in the face.
I looked back and saw two holes in Han Shuna's white face. Her body was also knocked downward by the impact of the bullet. She fell several meters and hung on the ice wall. The face without eyes and nose looked up, and the two holes in the face healed immediately. At this time, the ice abyss was indeed shaken by the gunfire, and broken ice kept falling. Han Shuna seemed to be trying to avoid the falling hard ice, and hid in the ice crevice in a flash.
Shirley Yang and I took the opportunity to climb up to the top. When we looked down, some large ice blocks collapsed from above and had blocked the ice crack. It is no longer possible for us to find Han Shuna from here. But the cracks under the glacier were so complex that who knew where she would come out from, and bullets seemed to have no effect on her.
In this windy and snowy night, too many unimaginable things happened. However, midnight has just passed, and there is still a long time before dawn. It is difficult to predict when the wind and snow will stop. It seems that there is no chance of sleeping peacefully tonight. .
Everyone blocked the ice cave and returned to the tent to keep warm. After struggling for half a night, although they were tired, they couldn't fall asleep. They gathered around and talked about Han Shuna. Peter Huang said: "Maybe she was not burned to death, but was seriously injured, buried in the snow and came back to life…"
The fat man said: "How is that possible? Lao Huang, please don't think about it without thinking about it. We all saw it with our own eyes. One-third of his head was burned off. If he didn't die, I'm afraid no one would die that day. Look at her face Most of the white things have white hair, so they must have turned into snowy mountain zombies, which are very, very difficult to deal with."
I don't think it's that simple. Shirley Yang asked Axiang if she had seen anything special, only to learn that Axiang didn't dare to open her eyes and look.
Everyone talked about their own reasons, and after a long discussion with no result, the guide Chu Yi suddenly clapped his hands – Tibetan lamas often do this when discussing Zen, to express sudden awakening, or to deepen their memory. When Chu Yi was young, he often went to the mountains with lamas to collect herbs, and he developed this habit. It was obvious that he had thought of something at this moment.
So we stopped talking, and Chuyi said to everyone: "It must have been entangled by Xue Maitreya. Two years ago, comrades from the Geological Survey Institute encountered this kind of thing at Mojia Cliff in Kunlun Mountains. , but there is no precedent in the Karamir area. Xue Maitreya in Kunlun Mountain is more terrifying than an evil ghost, and her body will grow bigger and bigger…"
On the first day of the new year, he was about to tell the story about Xue Maitreya's harm to humans and animals in the Kunlun Mountains, but he suddenly stopped. At this moment, his expression seemed to become rigid. Uncle Ming, Axiang, and Peter were sitting beside him. The same goes for Huang, who all stared at the top of the tent behind us, as if there was something scary there.
I hurriedly turned around and looked back. I saw two huge handprints pressed in from the outside of the canvas of the tent. There was also a huge circular mark in the middle. It looked like a human face without facial features pressing on it. It was larger than a normal human body. The scale was twice as big, and it seemed like something was trying to break the canvas with its hands from the outside and get into the tent. Those two big hands were so big that it made the tent sound like it was being pressed down, and it would soon collapse.