The strange story of Huai'an Inn

It is a tree, but it is not a tree.

The broken blood, muscles, trembling fat, and the veins and vessels passing through them are all wrapped with intermittent wood, compounded together in an uncomfortable and rough way, constantly oozing out wet fishy mucus.As if half animal, half plant.

Thousands of roots mixed with pink flesh and black cracked wood spread out on the dark earth, as if climbing out of the deepest core of the earth, spreading fine blood threads that exude a strange red light , shaking the ancient and mysterious pulse.They rose from the ground, tangled in chaos into a majestic giant column, and rushed towards the endlessly spreading void and chaos above their heads.

At the highest point, endless tentacle-like branches exploded in all directions like a dizzying, sinister sky.Those branches that reflect the sticky luster occasionally tremble nervously, shaking off acid rain-like mucus.

This is a picture beyond human cognition, filthy and charming, magnificent and terrifying.

Chong Liu looked up and felt the aura of that giant falling down like a mountain crumbling, capturing his entire mind.

Countless burrs suddenly seemed to surge into his blood, stirring under his skin, as if about to burst out.A strange sense of familiarity that seemed to be buried deep in his mind made him extremely confused.

Until a hand rested on his lower back, pulling him out of that strange mental state and falling back to the ground.

Chong Liu looked into the shopkeeper's concerned eyes in shock, "Boss...is this our locust tree?"

"Well, this is what it really looks like." Zhu Helan raised his head, looking up at the sticky and scary giant tree with a gratified and even proud expression, "It seems to be in a good mood today."

"...do you know how it feels?"

The shopkeeper shrugged his shoulders in a normal way, "I raised it with my own hands, of course I know."

With one hand... raise up...

How long did it take to raise it to such a big size? !

Chong Liu stood where he was, watching the shopkeeper slowly walk towards the giant tree.The branches closest to the ground suddenly started to dance, like huge arms flying around the shopkeeper, dancing with hands and feet.

The shopkeeper turned around and looked at Chong Liu.The countless strange branches behind him are like black evil flowers slowly blooming.He asked, "Liu'er, are you afraid?" Chong Liu swallowed, and nodded guiltily.

He could feel the hunger overflowing from the giant tree.A black hole of hunger that can never be filled.

He could also feel the filthy smell of blood and life being swallowed, corroded, and digested.It looked docile and non-aggressive in front of the shopkeeper, but Chong Liu knew that in its eyes, he was just food, not enough food to fit between his teeth.

This thing... a casual slap can knock Chong Liu to the ground like a fly.People are like ants, and this scene is a perfect description at this time.

If it weren't for the imprint written by the shopkeeper's blood on the palm of his hand, I'm afraid he would have turned into a pool of flesh and blood on the ground...

However, Zhu Helan smiled, "It's good to know that you are afraid, which means that your mind is still clear. Remember, if there is any accident in a while, leave here immediately and leave me alone. If possible, lock the door when you go out, and then go to Song Mingzi calls for help."

"Yes..." Chong Liu replied worriedly.

The shopkeeper knelt down on the spot and opened the package.He picked up a clay pot, took out some off-white powder from it, and started to sprinkle a line on the ground.The line was stretched long, separating Chong Liu and the shopkeeper.Then, the shopkeeper took out some branches that were fixed with strings and had strange shapes like runes, and placed them on the ground on the side of the shopkeeper and the locust tree in a seemingly random but carefully designed way.

The shopkeeper picked up the jar with some ashes left, and passed it to Chong Liu through the thread, and said earnestly: "Pay attention to this thread, if there is any disconnection, it must be repaired immediately. At the same time, you must continue to recite The incantation taught to you cannot be stopped for a moment."

Chong Liu held the jar, stood outside the line, and saw the shopkeeper take out the last thing from the package.

A mask, a black goat mask.

Reality and dream overlap again, which one is dream?

Is all this really real now?

The shopkeeper put on the mask, and suddenly he seemed to be another person.

The face disappeared, leaving only a red-clothed wizard with a red thread tied to his hands and a gorgeous female robe, who possessed some mysterious power.

Since ancient times, when performing sacrificial ceremonies, witches and blessings are not separated from each other.If the shopkeeper is a witch, Chong Liu's role is probably Zhu.

The shopkeeper made a gesture to Chongliu, and Chongliu immediately began to sing the congratulatory speech written in an unknown language taught by the shopkeeper.

That strange language is full of difficult swallowing sounds, and even vocalization methods that are not used in ordinary speaking.But after being sung coherently, there is also a weird and unique rhythm.

Accompanied by Chong Liu's singing, Zhu Helan opened his hands.The red string on the wrist hangs down with the wide sleeves, like a pair of red wings.Then, the solemn and sacrificial witch dance began slowly with the wriggling and round dance of the huge branches.

Witch dance is different from ordinary dances, every movement has a symbolic meaning, and has a history that the audience cannot fully understand.A witch dance is a way for wizards to talk to gods and communicate with all the forces that originally existed in the universe. It is a complex harmony where only one voice can be heard.

The dancing steps were agile, the red rope was flying in the air as if alive, and the red clothes turned into a melancholy and beautiful wind.Chong Liu unconsciously adjusted the rhythm of his chanting, and those exotic syllables combined with the sound of Zhu Helan's footsteps on the ground, subtly and naturally.It's like finding some sort of resonant rhythm.

And that giant tree became a little restless.The branches above the head, which were originally still, also began to squirm.Muscles and fat stretched and trembled, mucus fell like autumn rain and landed on his face, causing a slight tingling sensation.

It was a spine-chilling sight, as if the whole sky was squirming and shuddering.After watching for a long time, you may even start to feel dizzy and lose your balance.

In the middle of nowhere, Chong Liu could hear a heart-shaking low growl, like the roar of magma surging deep in the earth when it was about to erupt.

The subtle sense of calm before was rapidly diluting, and something dangerous and unknown was awakening.

Chong Liu noticed that somewhere in the line, it was broken by a gust of wind.

He immediately ran over and sprinkled the ashes in the jar to fill the gap.

But then, another vacancy appeared on the other end.

While staring at the line closely, Chong Liu was trying to recite the mantra uninterruptedly, and was a little flustered for a while.He saw the tens of thousands of branches, like winding tentacles, gradually descending from the dome, falling to the ground like upside-down fireworks.But for some reason, those tentacles couldn't cross the line drawn by the shopkeeper.

The frequency of fractures was getting faster and faster, Chong Liu's clothes were soaked with sweat.

At this moment, the shopkeeper suddenly pulled out the knife he had used to cut his palm from his sleeve, and cut a long wound on his arm neatly.

Bright red blood flowed from Zhu Helan's raised white arm and gurgled onto the ground.

Chong Liu noticed that the blood on the ground was quickly sucked clean by something underground.

Three or four thinner branches wrapped around Zhu Helan's bleeding arm, and seemed to be digging into the wound, devouring his blood.Zhu Helan endured the pain of being further torn apart from the knife wound, and loudly ordered something in a language that Chong Liu could not understand.

At that moment, a strong, extremely smelly and corrupt wind burst out from the direction of the locust tree, and the ashes on the ground were blown away in an instant.

Before Chongliu had time to think about whether to run or not, he heard the shopkeeper let out a long howl, whether it was pain or anger.

Chong Liu raised his head and saw a branch hanging above the shopkeeper's head, and at the end of the branch there was something like a petal made of flesh and blood that slowly opened.Countless translucent red, silky tubes dangled from the petals, and suddenly attached to the shopkeeper's head.

As for the shopkeeper, he looked very painful, his eyes were closed tightly, but the wound was no longer visible on the arm that was still bleeding just now.

Chong Liu saw that something was being injected into the shopkeeper's head in those thin tubes.

When the shopkeeper let out a suppressed cry of pain again, Chongliu still had no choice but to leave the shopkeeper and leave.

"Master!!!" He tried to pull the shopkeeper out of the branches that were being wrapped layer by layer. He even touched the shopkeeper's hand, but then, a soft branch tightly strangled his waist. .

He screamed in fright, but his body was already lifted off the ground.Several more branches entangled from all directions, trapping his hands and feet.He was like a bug caught in a spider's web, unable to move at all.

Yet he didn't even have time to feel afraid.

There are six big eyes, looking at the depths of the fleshy branches, there seems to be a... huge eyeball.

An ancient, instinctive, evil eye with indifference.

It's looking at him.

The tree was staring at him.

And the moment Chong Liu's eyes met the blood-red, goat-like eyes with horizontal pupils, countless thoughts, suddenly flooded into his mind.

Countless pictures, countless scenes that he couldn't understand at all, countless music and chanting enough to make people crazy, countless memories that didn't belong to this world at all, were forced into the depths of Chong Liu's skull.

He saw a scarlet prairie with huge, fleshy masses surging in the sky.Countless tentacles hung down from the fleshy mass that covered the sky, like a dense black forest devouring the grassland. (Note, this scene can be seen in my "Black Hole Falling" article Red Earth Unit)

He saw the depths of uncharted deserts, where forgotten cities laid out their shattered remains to the empty sky.In that city, the bones buried by the wind and sand had crooked and twisted bodies, which did not belong to human beings at all.

He saw huge worms entangled on the ground that had just been born, and their mouths covered with circles of sharp teeth adsorbed on the still hot lava land, injecting their offspring into the depths of the ground.

He also saw an island.

An island lost in the mist.

The island is a temple that has collapsed for hundreds of millions of years, with huge sloping walls and strangely angled roofs.A gigantic black shadow squatted at the highest point of the temple, slowly spreading its fleshy wings that covered the sky and the sun.

He also saw a light, a light of incomparable brightness, incomparable dazzling, filled with a magical color that he could not name.

In that light there was a figure.

Against the light, his face was completely invisible.But just seeing this figure, there is a terrible feeling that his mind has been ripped open.

He wanted to escape, but there was nowhere for him to escape.

He couldn't escape from his own brain.

"You have to stop it."

A thought, a thought without a sound, filled his thoughts.Then, Chong Liu felt his body begin to fall rapidly.

He screamed, only to find that he had no throat and no ears.

He kept falling, falling, falling, as if there was no end to it.

Then he saw it.

The person he and the shopkeeper have been looking for is someone who spreads weird dramas in the name of Layman Luzhou. .

Not one, but four.

Two men and two women, all living near Tianliang City.

But among these four people, only one played a key role.He looks unremarkable, about 27 or [-] years old, and looks like an ordinary scholar.But Chong Liu could see the thick, cocoon-like yellow filaments on his body.

And among his internal organs, those Tai Sui who are constantly wriggling and deforming...

The author has something to say: So the little (not) locust tree finally officially appeared~~, its prototype is the black goat cub in Robert Bullock's "Notebook in the Abandoned House", the mother god Shab Nicholas offspring.