Placid Chang'an

"Brother Su, don't make trouble." Qu Ling'er closed her eyes, reached out and scratched her face indiscriminately, "Let me sleep a little longer."

The itching on his face stopped for a while, and turned to his ears again. Qu Ling'er turned her head angrily, covered her face with her clothes, and the dead pig continued to sleep without fear of being scalded by the boiling water.

Not far behind, he laughed softly, "You see, you slept peacefully in this cemetery."

A hand in front of him was still picking at his clothes, Qu Ling'er was furious, and was about to explode when she suddenly froze.

Brother Su's voice was behind him, and there was still some distance away from him... Then who is this one who is pulling his clothes in front of him? !

Qu Ling'er opened her eyes suddenly, only to see a small piece of dogtail grass coming out of the gap, and a pair of black eyes were staring at him intently!

"Ahhh!" Qu Ling'er jumped up, "Brother Su, save me, save me!"

Halfway through the run, he stopped suddenly: "Su, brother Su... have you been eaten by a tiger?"

Su Cen looked at him with a smile: "Why?"

Qu Ling'er's face turned pale, and she took a few steps back, hiding behind half of the stele and not daring to poke her head: "You must have been eaten by a tiger and turned into a ghost, this child must be a tiger spirit... Wuwuwu, Brother Su You are finally going to attack me..."

Su Cen was amused by Qu Linger's strange brain circuit, instead of defending, she started teasing her and stepped forward step by step: "Yeah, you slept so hard last night, you didn't care about me, I was killed by a tiger." Eating it will only cost you your life."

Qu Ling'er's face turned pale with fright, she wished she could tear open the coffin and hide in by herself, she closed her eyes tightly: "There is a wronged person and a debtor, you are eaten by a tiger, brother Su, don't catch me, I will burn incense for you, really No, you drag the prince down to be your companion!"

Su Cen was taken aback, then grabbed Qu Ling'er and laughed heartily, "If I really die, I will take you down first to relieve my boredom."

As the heat from her shoulders gurgled, Qu Ling'er opened her eyes timidly, and stared at Su Cen's face, which was close at hand. The nose was still the nose, the eyes were the same eyes, and her face was a little rosy reflected by the morning glow.

"Brother Su, you are not dead!"

Qu Ling'er immediately cheered, and pulled Su Cen to look left and right before she felt relieved. Then she remembered that there was a half-grown child standing beside her, in linen clothes, twelve or thirteen years old, with a basket of pigweed on her back, and hurriedly asked : "Then who is this?"

"Lu Xiaojiu," Su Cen waved at the child, Lu Xiaojiu immediately jumped forward, Su Cen patted Xiaojiu on the shoulder and said, "Xiaojiu is from Lujiazhuang, and he happened to meet us when he came out to hunt pigweed. He said he could take us into the village."

"Lu Xiaojiu?" Qu Linger's eyes lit up, "Then Lu Xiaojiu..."

Su Cen pulled her from behind before finishing her sentence. Qu Ling'er was stunned and then realized that this Lu Xiaojiu was only twelve or thirteen years old, so it was impossible for her to know Lu Xiaoliu who died 12 years ago. Cen didn't let him ask, probably because he didn't want to expose his identity and scare the snake away.

Lu Xiaojiu didn't notice these two small movements. She blinked her big eyes and looked around the two curiously: "You are not from Lujiazhuang, nor from the mansion. You really came from outside? How did you get in? "

Su Cen sensitively captured three words: "Big house? What is a big house?"

Lu Xiaojiu tilted her head, "The big house...is the big house. You haven't told me how you got in here yet?"

Su Cen knew that the matter would not be clear for a while, so he said "talking while walking", leading the two people out of the cemetery, and headed towards the ups and downs of the village not far away.

A small road leading to the village is full of twists and turns, with weeds and wild flowers on the side of the road, and the dew is not yet shining, reflecting the morning light.Lu Xiaojiu walked a few steps to pick some wild flowers, catch butterflies for a while, stop and go all the way, and walked two miles for half an hour.

Su Cen also figured out a lot of things along the way. This Lu Xiaojiu was born and raised in Lujiazhuang. She never met her parents since she was a child, and grew up with her mother-in-law. She never went out, and never saw outsiders come in.He himself said that he has seen two kinds of people in his life, people from Lujiazhuang and people from big houses. It goes without saying that the people of Lujiazhuang are the villagers of Lujiazhuang. Trivial nonsense.But the big house is much more mysterious. According to Lu Xiaojiu, the family living in this big house is also surnamed Lu, and the head of the house is Mr. Lu, who is a great kind person. He often helps the villagers like them on weekdays. They can have enough food and clothing without going out of the village, and they will send whatever mansion they need, and a road out of the village will gradually become deserted.

"The big mansion, Master Lu..." Su Cen said it silently in his heart, and asked, "Since the way out of the village is deserted, does it mean that people from the big mansion don't leave the village?"

"Of course not, they have..." Midway through Lu Xiaojiu's words, her face suddenly changed, and she changed the subject abruptly, "Why do you only ask me about the things in the village? Tell me about the things outside. .”

Su Cen smiled, thinking that the kid was quite vigilant, he didn't press every step of the way, picked up a few interesting and interesting things in Chang'an City, and coaxed Lu Xiaojiu to stop picking flowers and catching butterflies. He stared at Su Cen without blinking, obviously attracted by the outside world.

Su Cen smiled and said, "Since you like going outside so much, why don't you go out and have a look?"

Lu Xiaojiu's shining eyes dimmed instantly, she pursed her thin lips and struggled for a moment before saying, "We can't get out."

"Why can't you go out?"

Lu Xiaojiu sighed maturely, "My mother-in-law won't let me go out, and the people in the village say I can't go out, and there is a mountain god on Blind Mountain who will eat people who pass by."

Su Cen said: "But isn't that a legend? No one has seen it with their own eyes. Didn't we come in properly?"

"It's not a legend!" Lu Xiaojiu insisted solemnly, "I've seen it! Everyone in our village has seen it! Some people found corpses eaten by the Goddess of the Mountain on the mountain. They were all bitten with missing arms and legs. Some of them lost half their heads! And those who were bitten to death would turn into ghosts, walking back and forth on that mountain road, picking and catching passers-by and feeding them to the Goddess of the Mountain!"

"As for how you came in," Lu Xiaojiu lowered her head and thought about it seriously, "Maybe it happened that the mountain god was asleep when you came? Or maybe she was full and didn't want to eat you for a while?"

Su Cen frowned slightly, and thought to himself, he always thought that the legend on Mount Moshan was a rumor that three people became tigers, and it was not credible, but the rumor would not reveal a dead body, if it was true as Lu Xiaojiu said, then there must be something something.It's just that it's really a wild beast, or someone has hidden evil intentions is still open to question.

I remember that the villagers of Jinghe Village said at the beginning that they were afraid of entering the village because of the coffins in Lujiazhuang.Now it seems that the people in Lujiazhuang are afraid to leave the village because of the rumors about the Goddess of the Mountain. People outside can't come in, and people inside can't go out. No one will know what happened in the village.

It's no wonder that he searched all the files of Dali Temple but couldn't find any records about Lujiazhuang. This village is basically out of people's sight and out of the laws of the Great Zhou.

Then he and Qu Ling'er were able to come in, was it really just because of luck?

"But it won't be long," Lu Xiaojiu said silently with her head down. "Sooner or later, I will go out and have a look."

"What?" Su Cen was taken aback.

"Brother Su, look!" Qu Ling'er said suddenly.

Su Cen looked up, and before he knew it, they had already arrived at the entrance of the village. At a glance, there was no difference between the huts and thatched huts outside.The only thing is that there is a coffin parked in front of every household, showing a gloomy dark red color under the bright morning light, as if soaked in a layer of blood on the surface.

Lu Xiaojiu stopped in front of a low wooden door, and said to the two, "Here we are."

He took the key and opened the door and took two people in, and then bolted the door from the inside.

"I'll go to the backyard first." Lu Xiaojiu pointed to the straw basket behind her, "Sit down wherever you want, you're welcome."

Seeing Lu Xiaojiu leave, Qu Ling'er came to Su Cen's side and whispered, "This village is so strange."

Su Cen looked around and nodded.

"Have you noticed the color of the coffins outside?" Qu Ling'er looked at the courtyard door, "Did you..."

"It's red paint." Su Cen said.Just now when Lu Xiaojiu opened the door, he touched the coffin, and it didn't have the so-called sticky feeling, but it had a faint stale smell after rotten wood. "Painting red paint on the coffin can protect the coffin from rot, but These red paints have been exposed to the sun for too long, the surface is mottled and peeled off, and the inner layer is soaked in the coffin, so it looks like blood."

Qu Ling'er felt at ease, but still frowned and said, "Placing a coffin at the door is unlucky enough, what do people here think?"

"The coffin is not the strangest thing." Su Cen narrowed his eyes slightly, "Have you noticed that there is no sound in this village."

Qu Ling'er was taken aback for a moment, then suddenly felt shuddering.

This hour should have been the busiest time in the village, cooking fires, shouting, cocks crowing and dogs barking, but at this time the village was surprisingly quiet, as if they hadn’t woken up yet, every house closed their doors, dead silent .

Qu Ling'er also involuntarily lowered her voice: "Brother Su, do you still remember?"

Su Cen nodded. People in Jinghe village once said that people in Lujiazhuang would disappear during the day, and it really doesn't seem like there are people in the current situation.

Where people live but there is no breath of living people, how can it be called a village?

Su Cen was in a trance when Qu Linger suddenly pulled his sleeves. When he turned around, he saw Qu Linger's open mouth.

Following Qu Ling'er's gaze, Su Cen couldn't help being slightly taken aback.

Just a few steps behind them, an old woman appeared silently, with silver hair and a stooped back, staring straight at them with a pair of deeply sunken eyes.