Both of the little urchins were extremely excited. They exchanged a glance and saw that there was indeed a stone tablet in front of the cave. The tablet was old and dilapidated, with a line of characters faintly engraved on it. The writing was blurry. Maxwell walked forward and gently brushed the dust off the tablet with his small hands, and then the characters on it became clearly visible. However, the writing style was neither regular script nor clerical script, and the strokes seemed to be connected one by one like drumsticks.
Maxwell's eyebrows slowly furrowed together. He remained silent for a long while.
Doha asked, "What characters are these? Do you recognize them?"
Maxwell shook his head.
Doha laughed and said, "Why have you been looking at them for so long if you don't recognize them?"
Maxwell said with a solemn expression, "That's exactly why I'm looking at them." His serious look on his face was quite intimidating. Doha had grown up with him and had never seen him with such an expression before, so he couldn't help but feel a bit scared.
Doha asked, "What's wrong with you?"
Maxwell slowly said, "I don't think this is a forbidden area. Tell me, was this the stone tablet you saw last time?"
Doha nodded and said, "Yes, it's exactly the same."
Maxwell stared into his eyes and said, "Look carefully again. Is it really the same stone tablet you saw last time?"
Doha stood in front of the stone tablet and examined it carefully. His two eyebrows also slowly furrowed together. Suddenly, he said, "Damn it, this stone tablet is really not the one I saw last time. There are more characters on this one." Then he turned to ask Maxwell, "How did you figure it out?"
Maxwell smiled and said, "I heard Aunt Li Si mention what the stone tablet in front of the forbidden area looked like. Aunt Li Si said that there were nine big characters engraved on the forbidden area stone tablet, which read 'Tiyun Valley Forbidden Area, Those Who Trespass Will Die'. Aunt Li Si made it very clear that there were nine characters. But look at this stone tablet here. There are four lines, and even if there are only five characters in each line, that's still twenty characters. So it definitely isn't the Tiyun Valley Forbidden Area."
Maxwell explained everything clearly and logically, and Doha nodded in admiration repeatedly. If someone had heard this conversation, they surely wouldn't have thought it was coming from the mouth of a six-year-old child.
Suddenly, Doha remembered something and his face turned pale. He said, "Oh no."
Maxwell asked, "What's the matter?"
Doha said with a mournful face, "Just now, I... I already entered our Tiyun Valley Forbidden Area. Didn't you say that those who trespass will die? What... what should I do?" His mouth puckered up and he was about to cry.
Maxwell couldn't help but laugh and said, "I thought it was something really serious. Let me ask you, did you enter the forbidden area?"
Doha replied, "Yes."
Maxwell asked again, "It says 'Those Who Trespass Will Die' on the stone tablet outside the forbidden area, right?"
Doha replied, "Yes, you already know that. Why are you asking?"
Maxwell laughed and said, "Well, are you dead then?!"
Doha thought for a moment and said, "No, I'm not. So—"
Maxwell laughed and said, "Those words on the stone tablet are just to scare little kids."
Doha's face gradually brightened up and he said, "So, should we still enter this cave?"
Maxwell said, "Sure, why not? Are you scared?"
Doha's little face flushed red and he said loudly, "Scared of what? I have a gun." After saying that, he strode into the cave.
Maxwell laughed heartily and followed him in. The cave was pitch black inside and it was impossible to tell how deep it was. Doha lit a fire striker, and under the illumination of the firelight, it could be seen that the cave wasn't too high. The cave walls were obviously formed naturally, without any traces of being hacked or chiseled. However, the firelight was limited and it was impossible to see the end at a glance. Doha felt a bit scared. He took out the foreign gun with his left hand, opened the safety, and was ready to shoot at any time.
After walking forward for dozens of yards, the terrain became higher and higher. After walking a few more yards, suddenly, there was a bright light in front of them, and they found themselves in an extremely large grotto.
There were more than ten tallow candles as thick as an arm burning around the grotto, lighting up the huge grotto as bright as day.
Apart from the cave they had entered from, there were four stone statues each two zhang high in the four directions of southeast, northwest in the grotto. There was a cave behind each stone statue, which was just a bit smaller than this grotto. The stone statue in the east had a dragon's head and a human body, was fully armored, with its left hand clenched into a fist and its right hand empty, as if it had been holding some weapon originally. The stone statue in the west had a tiger's head and a leopard's neck, and was holding a pitch-black spiked club in its left hand. The stone statue in the south had a bird's head with a pointed beak and red bill, looking fierce and terrifying, as if it was about to devour people. The stone statue in the north had a small head and a small mouth, with a hunched back and a bent body, and its two small eyes were staring straight ahead.
Maxwell laughed and said, "Doha, look. Doesn't the one in the north look like a turtle?"
Doha took a careful look and nodded with a laugh, "It really does."
The huge grotto was empty and silent.
Both of the little urchins were a bit apprehensive in their hearts. Suddenly, they heard the sound of iron chains dragging on the ground in the middle of the grotto. They were both very curious and walked towards the source of the sound.
When they walked to the middle of the grotto, they saw a one-zhang-square hole on the ground. There were five thick iron bars as thick as cow legs lying across the hole. The two ends of the iron bars were tied with iron chains respectively, and fixed on both sides of the hole with iron pegs. It seemed to be a dungeon for imprisoning prisoners.
The sound of the iron chains dragging on the ground was coming from this dungeon.
Maxwell and Doha walked up to the dungeon, bent down, and looked by the candlelight on the top of the grotto. They saw that the entrance of the dungeon was small but the inside was large. It was about three to four zhang wide and seven to eight zhang long inside. A middle-aged man in tattered clothes was walking back and forth in the room. His hands and feet were all bound with long iron chains, and every time he walked, the iron chains dragged on the ground, making a clattering sound.
The middle-aged man seemed to sense that someone was peeping. He suddenly turned around, his eyes shining like lightning, and shouted harshly, "Who the hell are you, sneaking around like that? Come out!"
The shout was as loud as thunder, making their eardrums buzz.
Doha cursed, "Damn it, his voice is so loud."
The two of them peeked in, and the middle-aged man also looked up.
When the man saw that it was two children, a look of surprise appeared on his face. For a moment, he forgot what to say.
After a while, he suddenly opened his mouth and cursed again, "Tell that old thief Lei Hu that if he wants me to reveal the secret of the Seven Yin Beads, he can go ahead and dream about it. Don't even think about it."
Maxwell and Doha exchanged a glance and thought to themselves, "So he was locked up here by Grandmaster."
Doha cursed, "Damn it, he's still being so arrogant even in this situation. I'll ask Grandmaster to teach him a lesson another day and let him know how powerful our Moving Mountain Sect is."
The middle-aged man's eyes were spitting fire as he cursed, "You two little bastards. If I get out of here, I'll gouge out your eyes, flay your skins and pull out your tendons..."
Doha also cursed back.
Maxwell pulled Doha's hand and said, "Doha, it's getting late. We should go home now, or Aunt Li Si will be worried and will have to look for us everywhere."
When Doha heard him mention his mother, he immediately stopped cursing. He pointed at the middle-aged man in the dungeon and said, "You damned bastard, wait. I'll come back another day and teach you a good lesson."
The two of them stood up. Doha was about to leave when Maxwell grabbed him.
Doha was impatient and said, "Didn't you say we should go? Why are you pulling me?"
Maxwell's face was solemn. He stretched out his index finger and pointed at the shadows on the ground, whispering to Doha, "Look."
Doha looked down and immediately his hairs stood on end. He saw that beside the shadows of himself and Maxwell, there was an extremely huge shadow.