Chapter 283: Secret Room
Zhou Qing and Tang San climbed down the ladder for nearly ten meters and finally reached the bottom.
Because the hole above was covered by the bookshelf again, the light here was dim - there was a slight light source behind the two people.
The two turned around and saw a passage about 20 to 30 meters long. They raised the Soul Guide Zhuge Divine Crossbow II and pointed it at the front and back respectively, keeping alert at all times.
The two are back to back.
Tang San took a step forward, Zhou Qing took a step back, and they moved forward along the passage together.
After walking through the passage, Tang San was the first to see the scene inside the secret room—
There are human skin masks hanging on the walls all around!
That is definitely real human skin!
There are four skeletons placed in the corner of the wall. The bones are old and new, of different lengths, and are made up of bones from different people!
In the center was a low desk, surrounded by four narrow beds, on which lay four pale, even bloodless women, wrapped tightly in thick black quilts.
In addition, the secret room was filled with a strong smell of blood, which was disgusting.
"vomit--"
Zhou Qing retched, turned around from behind Tang San, raised his hand and fanned his nose, frowning, "No one? But why is it so smelly here? The smell of rust in the blood almost makes me feel like my brain is pressed into rust, and the rust is soaked in shit and urine."
Zhou Qing walked forward and saw the appearance of the four women clearly, his eyes trembling.
These were the other pregnant women he and Ning Rongrong rescued at that time!
"Pale face, no breath, dead." Tang San took a quick look and sighed. Seeing Zhou Qing's gloomy face, he asked in confusion, "Do you know them?"
"They are just like Aunt Wang, they are pregnant women from the countryside who were brought to Luoxing City by the people from the City Lord's Mansion..." Zhou Qing said in a calm voice, describing the situation at that time in detail. There was a hint of self-blame in his tone.
He thought they could return safely.
but--
not at all.
Perhaps, he had already guessed that a similar situation would occur, but he held on to a glimmer of hope... thinking that he had a mission to accomplish... thinking that he could not help others in his lifetime... and so on, with many excuses.
"Brother Qing?"
Tang San patted Zhou Qing on the shoulder and consoled him, "This is not your fault. It was Darles and the guy hiding behind the scenes who did it."
"You're overthinking. I won't blackmail myself."
Zhou Qing shook his head slightly, but his eyes became more sharp, "It's just that after seeing them die, I felt a little emotional, and I became more clear about what I wanted..."
As soon as he finished speaking, a faint bloody aura flowed on Zhou Qing's body surface. The martial soul of his blood circulation system actually took the initiative to possess his body and started to operate together with the Xiantian Neijing Diagram. It was as if an invisible vibrating force burst out.
Like fire and stars, surging and endless!
"Brother Qing!"
Tang San keenly sensed this invisible force. The blood flow in his body suddenly accelerated at this moment, and even his mental strength began to vibrate slightly.
If he hadn't had the protection of the Xuantian Gong and the two martial souls' innate skills to operate, he would probably have fainted by now.
And he immediately realized that this was the kind of "belief" that Zhou Qing talked about...power!
Faith? How appropriate!
In Tang San's perception, this force was invisible and intangible, and had no soul force, mental force, or blood force as its carrier. It could spread directly from the body to the outside, shaking not only the spirits of others, but even the deeper souls.
"Feel sorry."
Zhou Qing immediately stopped running the Xiantian Neijing Diagram, and then this invisible and intangible power of faith dissipated. "Unconsciously, I used this power again, and it was still in my sober state... I have a little understanding. This power is also closely related to the 'qi' and 'field' we set, but-"
His eyes fell on the four pale-faced women again, and Zhou Qing shook his head secretly, "It's not appropriate to talk about this now. Let's take a closer look at why these women died."
When the quilt was lifted, revealing the full appearance of the four women, Zhou Qing and Tang San were both furious.
A huge incision was made in the abdomen of each of the four women, with their intestines, stomachs, etc. mixed together, and four underdeveloped fetuses were placed inside.
"Not a son of man!"
Tang San gritted his teeth and cursed out loud, calling the person who committed this crime a beast.
This shocking scene also made Zhou Qing's head shake, but he could only endure the pungent stench and asked Tang San to take out a pair of fire tongs from Yue Ziming in the twelfth floor - as a blacksmith, the corresponding forging tools must be carried with him.
Holding the fire tongs, Zhou Qing endured the physical and psychological discomfort and gently fiddled with the wound of one of the women, his eyes gradually becoming solemn.
Then, he checked the inside of the wounds of the other three women, but there was a look of doubt on his face: "The uterus that nurtures the fetus is gone. The purpose of the person who did this was to obtain the uterus of the pregnant woman."
"What do you want a pregnant woman's uterus for? For medicine?"
Tang San thought of the placenta.
The so-called placenta, also known as the afterbirth or the fetal membrane, is more commonly known as the placenta.
The Compendium of Materia Medica explains its name as follows: "The purple river cart is the first of the earth and the sky, the ancestor of yin and yang, the beginning of heaven and earth, the embryo is about to appear, and when the number of nines is enough, the fetus will ride on it and travel to the Western Heaven Buddha Kingdom, the South China Sea Fairy Mountain, and drift in the Penglai Fairyland. It is called the river cart because it is thousands of miles long.
As for its medicinal effects, "Compendium of Materia Medica" also has some comments:
During pregnancy, the umbilical cord is attached to the mother, and the fetus is attached to the mother's spine. The child is protected by the mother, and the father's sperm and the mother's blood are combined to form the child. Although the child has an acquired form, it actually has innate energy, which is obviously incomparable to other metals, stones, plants, and trees. Its nourishing effect is extremely important. Long-term consumption can make the hearing and eyesight sharp, the beard and hair black, and prolong life.
Therefore, many dignitaries in his previous life would specially purchase placenta, and even some sects that were good at refining medicine would go down the mountain regularly to purchase it.
But placenta is the placenta, not the entire uterus. It will fall off when the fetus is born. Why should we dig out the entire uterus?
This is really too cruel.
"Do you still remember the three books you saw on the desk at that time?" Zhou Qing asked after a moment of silence.
"Remember, it's "Pregnant Women's Fetal Health", "Fetal Development", "Hypothetical State Before Soul Awakening"..."
Tang San stopped talking abruptly, and after a long while he said, "Brother Qing, what do you mean?"
"Just looking at 'Pregnant Women's Fetal Health' and 'Fetus Development', we can't see any clues, but combined with 'The Hypothesis of the State Before the Soul Awakens' and the current situation of the four pregnant women's bodies without their uteruses, we can make a conclusion."
Zhou Qing clenched his fists. "What is the state before the martial soul awakens? Where is it located? It's not me who first thought of the concept of 'Soul Palace', but I was the first to define this term.
In the library of the Notting Martial Soul Branch Hall, the series of books titled "The Origin of Martial Souls" were written by the Fallen, and when I sorted them out, I found that one book was missing..."
(End of this chapter)
