Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 324: For Your Majesty (139)

Dragon Raja 5

Auchinez paused, then immediately chuckled wickedly. “Foolish woman, how can life be boring? Only by living can you appreciate the beauty of a young woman, the aroma of lamb chops filling your mouth, and of course, the autumn in Moscow and Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. Friends—a self-deceiving word. So-called friends are a relationship, a relationship between you and others. Without you, that relationship ceases to exist. What reason is there to sacrifice yourself for a friend?”

Su Enxi had to admit that what the old man said wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Perhaps such ruthless creatures were humanity’s ultimate destiny, living a life of cruelty and ruthlessness, devoid of any illusions.

“Bellalipnitskaya, is that the name? At least Alexander Bunin could hope to meet her in another world when he died. But you, your friends are all waiting to devour you alive in another world.”

“That doesn’t matter, we’re all demons now anyway. Demons are meant to tear each other apart, not shake hands and say, ‘Comrade, you’ve come too,'” Auchinez sneered. “Bellalipnitskaya, humph, that’s just Bunin’s excuse. Those who sell their souls to the devil don’t deserve redemption.”

“Someone’s here!” Auchinez suddenly turned off his flashlight, plunging them into complete darkness, where they could only hear various eerie whispers.

There really were people, whistling and their heels clicking crisply on the ground.

The whistling sound came and went, sometimes seeming to be right behind, sometimes as if it were far away.

Su Enxi felt a chill run down her spine, nervously looking around. Then, she heard children’s laughter, a baby’s cries, and the melodious sound of a pipe organ, as if a Christmas mass was being held deep within the frozen ground. The church doors swung open, a whistler entered, and the crowd cheered for his arrival. Picked up the crying baby, whispered his name, and kissed his forehead. Every sound was so ethereal yet so real, like a grand performance about to begin, right beside them, waiting to be revealed by drawing back a mysterious curtain.

Su Enxi was a worldly person, but in this situation, a chill still ran down her spine. She clenched her teeth, but they still clenched.

Auchinez lunged forward and forcefully covered her mouth. Su Enxi was startled and reacted immediately, thrusting her long dagger straight at Auchinez’s jaw.

Blood flowed down the dagger, dripping onto Su Enxi’s hand. The two remained locked in a stalemate, with Su Enxi not going all out, and surprisingly, neither did Auchinez.

The sound lingered for a few more moments before fading away. Auchinez released her grip, muttering viciously, “Stupid woman want to kill me so badly.”

Su Enxi sheathed her dagger. Auchinez had already relit the flashlight, but with it facing down, only a small circle of light shone on the ground, though the reflection was enough to illuminate the area. He had a bloody hole in his jaw, thankfully not deep, and he frantically tore off some bandages to bandage himself.

“A ghost?” Su Enxi recalled the sound from just now, and the chill on her spine was still there.

A long-abandoned city, deep in the Siberian permafrost, children, an organ, and a joyful mass—is going down there perhaps leading to the entrance to hell?

But as an atheist, she quickly pieced together a general idea, a conjecture based on a legend from almost a hundred years ago.

At the beginning of the last century, archaeologists conducted a large-scale exploration of the Mexican rainforest in order to find the pyramids left by the Aztecs. A British expedition team was fortunate enough to find a small pyramid, which was severely weathered and exposed its black core. They set up tents around the pyramid, preparing for long-term mapping. However, on a stormy night, amidst the raging wind and rain, they suddenly saw flames rising from the pyramid. Aztec shamans sang around the fire, sacrificial victims were scalped and pushed off the pyramid, excited people sang around the pyramid, and a sea of ​​torches stretched around its base.

Because of the raging storm, they couldn’t get close to the pyramids at all. Past and the present seemed to be separated by the storm, and they dared not approach, only gazing at them from afar with trembling eyes. Those among them who could draw recorded the totems on the shamans’ bodies and the patterns on the nobles’ high crowns.

As the sun rose, the pyramids returned to silence. The explorers, still shaken, felt as if a bloody sacrifice had truly taken place during that storm, and the person presiding over the ritual seemed to be a ghost still lingering around the pyramids. The expedition dared not continue surveying, destroying the maps and retreating from the rainforest to avoid disturbing the peace of the dead. Back in England, they compared their drawings with rubbings from Aztec temples. They were identical, and their description of the sacrifice perfectly matched Aztec customs. Given that these explorers were not truly seasoned researchers of Aztec culture, they could not have fabricated such a perfect lie. This ghost story circulated among archaeologists for many years, but no one ever found the pyramid deep in the rainforest again. It wasn’t until 1963, when Philips created the world’s first magnetic tape, that a plausible explanation emerged: the pyramid’s core was actually composed entirely of magnetite, and this natural magnetic recorder captured images and sounds from thousands of years ago, which were then activated by lightning that night. What the expedition team was actually observing was merely a natural projection in the rain.

She shared her guess with Auchinez, who shook her head. “Even if the pyramids made of magnetite could record the images and sounds of that time, they’ve been exposed to the open air for thousands of years. Every thunderstorm demagnetizes them, so it’s hard to believe that a magnetic signal could last that long. You could try leaving a cassette tape outside for a year and see if it can still produce sound. I’d rather believe it really was a ghost.”

“The ghost of City 023?” Su Enxi asked. “If such a thing really exists, your Soviet captains should be among them, right?”

“Then they should go after Alexander Bunin; it has nothing to do with me.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I first met Alexander Bunin in this city. At that time, the last residents still lived there. The Soviet captains had lost their minds. They had gathered in the auditorium as hostages, and we couldn’t break in at all. Each of them could take on a field platoon by themselves. Do you know who helped us activate the nuclear fusion device in the end? Alexander Bunin was just a young man then, one of the hostages. He delivered a message to us for the Soviet captains. They wanted a helicopter, 20 million rubles, and all their troops to retreat five kilometers. But that young man said he could solve our problem. He only wanted 10 million rubles and Bella Kopnitskaya. I will never forget the greedy look on his face.”

Su Enxi was taken aback for a moment, “So his wife is a prize?”