Chapter 125 Startling Secret
Li Mu was a person of boldness and super skill. Without any hesitation, he walked down the stairs which was like a rampway.
The stairs were not too long, only with over twenty steps, which linked to an underground backroom with hundreds of square meters.
The backroom was rather big supported by six stone prism pillars. The wall was not exquisite-built but absolutely stable. The blue brick walls were walls and uneven, on which torches hung. Above the four upper corners of the room, there were blowholes. So it was not too stuffy, but dampness mixed in the air.
Casing a glance, Li Mu could conclude that the backroom had not been built for a long time.
In the backroom, Li Mu unexpectedly found piles of gold and silver jewels and treasures, as well as various jade wares.
In addition, there were various weapons shelves where many extraordinary weapons were placed, including broadswords, Qiangs, swords, halberds, axes, axe-spears, hooks, steel forks, to name but a few. In the northwest corner of the backroom, there were almost a hundred of giant wooden box with oil smell. Li Mu opened one of them and found fine stainless steel weapons in it. They were mainly broadswords, swords and armors rubbed with oil and well preserved.
“Nearly a hundred boxes of weapons are more than sufficient to equip an army with over one thousand soldiers. Ma San is just a ruffian. How can he have such things? Will he want to rise in rebellion?”
Li Mu became more curious about it.
He realized that he might have accidentally broken something.
Finally, what drew Li Mu’s attention was a small building like an altar placed in the middle of the backroom.
The little alter was about 2 meters divided into six floors. It was big on the bottom and small on the top. It was built by white marble. In four directions, there were small square steps led to it. Besides, various patterns were carved on the marble delicately. Obviously, it was not carved by an ordinary stonemason.
On the top of the altar, there was a jade stone table with candles, sacrifices, and the like. Nothing special.
He stepped back and carefully observed the various patterns on the stone layer of the altar.
They were all pictographic patterns without words, which depicted various scenes like certain religious sacrifice ceremonies, such as wors.h.i.+pping the heaven, consecrating livestock and ritual ceremonies. The systems were relatively complete. The image appearing most in the patterns was a black ball with three tails. It looked like a totem.
Apart from it, Li Mu did not find anything special.
Judging from the general layout of the entire backroom, Li Mu thought it was more like a secret branch of heresy.
However, he could not find anything merely from the altar.
Li Mu’s attention returned to the gold, silver and jewelry and weapons in this backroom.
“I have to think of a way to bring these things out to Taibai County.”
Li Mu made a decision right away.
No matter what the ruffians used these weapons for, one thing was certain—they did not use them for a good purpose. If their scheme was successful, it would be definitely a disaster for common poor people. Since all the ruffians were dead, he should utilize these wasted materials. Taking them to the Taibai County to protect the border and the people there was a good way to make use of them.
The matter had to fall on the Heartless Scholar, Zheng Cunjian.
Li Mu pondered and checked the things in the backroom. Then, he knew all very well in his heart.
Next, he came to the little sacrificial altar in the middle of the backroom and looked down from it. He looked carefully again to check if there was left out.
One more check and he found no things missing.
Li Mu had a clear plan in his heart. He took the candlestick to weigh it in his hand and took a glance at the stone table on the altar subconsciously.
What? On the surface of the stone table, there was another carved painting.
Compared with the patterns on the altar before, the pattern was more distinct in terms of carving skills or pictures. It showed a scene of heaven wors.h.i.+p. A group of people dressed in strange black clothes were surrounding a strange metal behemoth and wors.h.i.+pping something. The carving lines were so vivid that it was almost lifelike in appearance.
Around the metal behemoth were placed various sacrificial offerings, such as cattle, sheep and other livestock, and many kinds of rare animals that Li Mu failed to name them. They were not ordinary things obviously. Even the living people were used to be sacrificial offerings. It was really a vast and sacrificial ceremony.
“The metal behemoth is a bit interesting. Look weird. Why is it like Transformers? Haha…”
Li Mu noticed that the object that the black-clothes people wors.h.i.+pped was kind of familiar.
Moreover, the more he looked, the more he felt familiar.
Wait!
This stuff… how… did it seem…
Li Mu suddenly widened his eyes.
He was shocked, because with more looks, the so-called metal behemoth looked like a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p… No… to be accurate, it was like a high-tech metal detector.
Bracket, solar panel, radar, metal track!
My!
Li Mu almost exclaimed loudly.
No! Was it really… an alien detector?
He could not believe his eyes.
In order to ensure that he was not mistaken, Li Mu took a torch from the wall in the backroom and looked more closely with the torch.
Yes, it was definitely an alien detector.
And, to be sure, it must be a detector from the Earth.
Because after observing carefully, Li Mu, from the metal behemoth of the picture in the jade tabletop, saw tow tiny but extremely familiar four letters—NASA.
NASA, the abbreviation for National Aeronautics and s.p.a.ce Administration of the United States.
In the world, there was not such a coincidence as it.
The shape of this metal was like a s.p.a.ce detector. And it was more than that. The four English letters on it shared the same order. To say the least, it would be a coincidence if only one or two letters were the same. But the four letters were exactly of the same order, which could absolutely explain something.
Li Mu looked at it dozens of times to make sure he was not mistaken.
From the proportion of the figures on the pattern, the metal s.p.a.ce detector was a dozens of meters high at least, like a small building of six or seven floors. It was huge in size. Of course, it was Li Mu’s a.s.sumption of the detector’s appearance. But as for what type it was, whether it was manned,
Or to be more specific, whether it was a s.p.a.ce shuttle or an unmanned detector, he was not sure.
After all, no one knew how many detectors had been thrown into the depths of the universe, publicly or secretly, by the giants of science and technology on the earth, and even what NASA had done.
But, Li Mu did not care about them.
What he cared most was why this suspected s.p.a.ce shuttle or s.p.a.ce detector—or, just calling it s.p.a.cecraft—came to this planet, and how it came.
Did it drift here by itself?
Or was it rolled into certain s.p.a.ce channel during its floating in the universe, and then fell right onto this world?
This issue was of great significance to Li Mu.
If it was the former, it meat that the earth was not far from the Martial Art Star. The human beings on Earth had entered the era of launching detectors in outer s.p.a.ce no more than a hundred years. Even if the detectors in the pattern on the stone table was just one of the earliest detectors which were launched from the Earth, it just floated in the universe for a hundred years at most. How far could it float to in the universe in such a drifting way, even in a hundred years?
The closer the Martial Art Star was to the Earth, the less difficult it was for Li Mu to have more hopes to return to Earth in the future.
On the other hand, if it was the second possibility that the s.p.a.cecraft was swirled into certain s.p.a.ce channel, s.p.a.ce crack or black hole during the voyage, and then landed on the Star, it did not have any reference value for Li Mu.
Another question also drew Li Mu’s interest.
What was the ident.i.ty of these people in black who wors.h.i.+ped the s.p.a.cecraft as a totem?
Were they the people from the Earth in the s.p.a.cecraft?
Or… Were they original inhabitants on this planet?
At that moment, numerous thoughts appeared in Li Mu’s head.
Although his head was crammed with a myriad of thoughts, he could not figure out a clear one.
Sure enough, what he saw on the patter on the stone stable had too many impacts on him. Li Mu had not dreamt that he could find some traces of the earth on this planet.
He stepped down from the altar and took a closer look. He found that on the stone floors of the altar, the three-tailed black ball appearing most frequently was like the freehand pattern on the satellites or detectors.
Li Mu took a deep breath and operated Xiantian Skill. He sat down on the top of the altar, forcing himself to calm down.
First of all, no matter what the truth was, the earth’s civilization appeared on this planet. It was a piece of good news. At least, it showed that there wasn’t no connection between two planets but some tiny link. Tiny as it was, it was worth exploring for Li Mu, who was eager to go back to Earth.
Secondly, the scene where the black-clothes people wors.h.i.+pped the s.p.a.cecraft indicated that in the world of martial art, there were still a group of people, no matter they were mad, from heresy, or the descendants of the earth, having some understanding of the s.p.a.cecraft.
“I have to think of a way to find the black-clothes people painted on the pattern.”
Li Mu made up his mind in his heart.
It was a pity that in the manor tonight, Ma San and all of other ruffians had been killed by the woman in white, and no living thing left. Otherwise, Li Mu could have known some clues from Ma San’s mouth.
“Ma San is definitely related to the black men of the picture on the stone table. Even maybe he is one of them. So it can explain why Ma San, such a little ruffian, was able to gather so many people work for him, have such a manor, and own a lot of gold and silver treasures and sophisticated weapons.”
Li Mu sorted out the whole thing gradually.
“So to trace the whereabouts of the gang of black-clothes people, I should start from the people around Ma San.”
“Well, Granny Cai once said Ma San made a great fortune in the recent one and a half years. So he joined the black-clothes people organization in the last one or two years. Or he was supported by the black-clothes people. I only need to check the people he contacted frequently in these years, and I will be able to dig out clues.”
“It is said that someone in the town government supports Ma San. So is there any black-clothes people lurking in the government?”
His eyes shone brighter.
Nothing in the world was difficult for one who set his mind to it.
As long as he continued to look into it, he was able to dig out some clues.
Li Mu gradually got an idea.
But at that moment, Li Mu changed his face.
His ears were keen about sound. If he concentrated on listening, he was able to distinguish the sound of ants’ crawling 100 meters away. Even in the unintentional state, he was able to hear the sound of wind blowing and gra.s.s moving within 20 meters.
At that moment, Li Mu clearly heard that a sudden footstep rang outside the backroom.
The sound of footsteps was son intensive that Li Mu thought at least forty or fifty people came there. What’s more, he could hear the sound of armored friction came through air vaguely. It seemed that some warriors in the Joint-qi level also came there with light steps. Judging from the sounds together, the military guard of the town government had arrived.
“Block the entire manor. No one can get in or out.”
“Check! Check to the bottom of the truth. Don’t let go of any traces and glues. Who is the murderer?”
“Your Honor, here is an entrance to a backroom?”
“The archers keep the entrance. And some come down to have a look.”
Hurls and noises came from the ladders of the backroom above.
——