Bingbing and I exchanged a "seven" gesture to confirm, and she nodded firmly. We both jumped out of the car.
The old man and the child had also gotten off the car with us.
"You go ahead and sit, are you getting off so soon after getting on?" I asked, as they had boarded at the sixth stop.
"We've just arrived here," the old man said with a simple laugh.
Alright, so we had two fellow travelers. It was just that I wasn't too fond of that little boy.
Children these days developed too early and too well. They looked like children, but in reality, they understood everything and were capable of doing any bad deed. They couldn't be indulged.
Only the four of us alighted at this stop.
After the train pulled away, I used my Qi sensing technique to scan. I found that in the direction across the railway tracks, about three kilometers away, there were many flickering ghostly figures, densely packed. This must be Fengdu City. The old man and the boy seemed to have already received some guidance and walked straight across the railway tracks towards Fengdu City.
I followed the old man and asked, "Why did you get off here? Is there someone waiting for you ahead?"
"I'm not sure, sir. The Yin messengers who were escorting us told us to get on the train, and then get off at the next stop. After getting off, we should walk straight across the tracks. This is my first time dying, so I don't quite understand. I'm just following their instructions."
I nodded. "Since you have an expert guiding you, I won't ask any more questions. You two go ahead. My colleague and I still have some matters to attend to."
"Very well, sir. My grandson and I will be going now. You two take care!"
"Take care," I said, cupping my hands and watching the grandfather and grandson disappear into the mist.
After they had gone a distance, Bingbing quietly asked, "Why didn't we go with them?"
"I just feel something is a bit strange," I said, tapping my forehead with my mourning stick. "We'll go later. I can still track their movements anyway."
Beneath our feet, the asphalt road had turned into a dirt path, uneven and somewhat bumpy. I warned Bingbing to be careful not to twist her ankle. But Bingbing took a few small leaps forward, then bounced back and stomped on the ground, saying, "Brother, look! Even though the road isn't smooth, the soles of our shoes can adjust themselves. We won't twist our ankles!"
"Is that so?" I put down the cigarette I could no longer light and deliberately stepped into a small pit. It was indeed like that. The soles of the boots seemed to have some kind of radar. Upon detecting the unevenness of the ground, they immediately generated different thicknesses of sole material at various points, keeping the midsole of the boots perpetually level.
I lifted my boot and looked at the sole, but I couldn't see anything unusual. I could only say it was too sci-fi!
After the grandfather and grandson had walked further away, Bingbing and I continued on our way. Those two were not slow at all. We had to travel at a gallop to keep up. I wondered if their shoe soles also had such a function.
Not long after, we had walked about two kilometers when I suddenly noticed that in the dim yellow light ahead, there was an added touch of golden yellow, like the light scattered when the sun rises in a thick fog but has not yet dispersed it.
It looked like a city, but not quite, because the golden light was too high. If it were skyscrapers in the city, how advanced would the underworld's construction industry have to be to build such clusters of hundreds of meters tall buildings?
As we walked another five hundred meters forward, the outline of the yellow light in front became clearer. I could roughly see that it wasn't that the buildings in the city were very tall, but rather that the entire city was built on a very steep mountain. It was a bit like the mountainous city of Chongqing, but the slope was much steeper than Chongqing's!
If we entered the city and had to climb up, we'd be exhausted to death!
Walking another two hundred meters, the mist in this area had almost completely disappeared. I could even see the grandfather and grandson reaching the city gate. After being questioned by two soldiers in armor, they were let into the city.
Looking further into the city, I saw nothing but thousands of buildings leaning against the cliff face, and then densely packed staircases crisscrossing everywhere.
"Why did they build a city here?" Bingbing asked, puzzled.
"It's probably from a military perspective," I guessed. With such a steep city, it would be impossible to attack from the front...