Of Mountains and Rivers

As soon as Chu Huan thought of the bazooka-like indiscriminate little boy, his scalp tingled and he couldn't help hesitating: "Me? I won't..."

As a result, before he finished refusing, the elder came over.

The elder is old, and his combat effectiveness is not reflected in fighting and killing. He has been watching the little cub inside the patriarch's courtyard wall, but he also knows what happened outside.

Sometimes, if people fight together, there will be subtle changes in their feelings.

The elder looked at Chu Huan with his nose and eyes, and snorted out of his nose: "There is no end, hurry up and keep up!"

Seeing that his anger was so strong, Chu Huan couldn't help but said, "Did I just unintentionally dig up this uncle's ancestral grave?"

However, although he was not resentful of the elder's attitude of dragging two to five to eighty thousand people, his face was still kind and did not show any clues, because Chu Huan knew in his heart that there must be a very important secret of the mountain guards at the mountain gate. Although the goat gave him a face, but in this way, he accepted him.

The elder raised his neck, trembled his goatee, and said loudly: "Leave half of the people to clean, and the rest bring your fellows and come with me!"

As soon as he spoke, the tribe immediately followed up spontaneously, and Chu Huan had no choice but to follow them, and followed them down the mountain in a daze.

The way down the mountain is not easy. The stone steps here are antiques from long ago, and they are very perfunctory. In some places, they are even omitted.

The elder turned into a demon within a few steps, pointed at Chu Huan and Xiao Fang next to him, and ordered: "I can't walk any longer, go cut a bamboo pole and carry me."

Chu Huan, who was lying innocent again, was speechless.

Chu Huan felt that he was so wronged that it was going to snow in June, and he didn't want to kidnap the old man's daughter. Who would he show his father-in-law's old Taishan face?

Not to mention whether there is a girl in his family, even if there is, who wants to abduct a goat's daughter?

Chu Huan really wanted to throw back the elder's bossy boss, and slapped the old man with a smug face, but after repeating "respect the old and love the young" twice in his heart, he finally swallowed his anger and said nothing, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to go with Xiaofang To chop bamboo.

It must be that Chu Huan was used to flirting in the past. When he was young and frivolous, he was a typical "golden and jade-like appearance, but it's a waste of money". Although he didn't even bother to wash his socks, as long as he was in front of others, he would act like a peacock. Although he has passed the silly puberty now, he probably hasn't completely returned to his original nature, and there are still some traces left. Anyway, this "suave and suave" arm made the elders very unhappy.

The elder shook his two skinny and naked arms like goosebumps, trying to suppress an aura as tall and mighty as an orangutan Tarzan, then stared viciously at the only man in a shirt, muttering Said: "It's not a big girl, what kind of coat are you wearing? XX!"

Chu Huan didn't understand the last word, but according to his guess, it probably meant "sissy gun".

Nanshan couldn't stand it any longer, and stretched out his hand to hold Chu Huan, but he didn't refute the elder, he just pulled out the machete from Xiaofang's waist, raised his hand a few times, and chopped off a thick bamboo neatly, without making a sound Cleaned the ground, lifted one end by himself, and threw the other end to Xiaofang: "Elder, come up."

The elder was so angry that he blew his beard and stared at him, but in the end he still couldn't get rid of his old face. He didn't have the nerve to ask the patriarch to lift the sliding pole for him in person in front of everyone, so he slapped the back of the mallet angrily: "What are you looking at, why don't you take it?" , waiting for someone to invite you?"

The more you go down, the more rugged the mountain road is. The corpses of "Mad Dog" Mutai are piled up all over the mountain, and occasionally you will encounter some fleeing. There are often cold arrows shot out from the bushes. The others were all young and middle-aged, and the mountain guards had amazing fighting power when facing the ungrouped Mutai, and they picked up these slippery fish without any danger along the way.

They quickly descended from the halfway up the mountain to the foot of the mountain.

Chu Huan saw a huge, naturally formed Dashandong tunnel.

Nanshan said to him, "This is the mountain gate."

There is only one side of the mountain that can be climbed, and the jagged cliffs on the other side seem to go straight up and down. If you want to go up the mountain on this side, you have to pass through the "mountain gate". This is an excellent checkpoint.

Before Chu Huan had time to admire, the elder came down from the bamboo pole vigorously. He sniffed vigorously, but made no sound, but his face began to look ugly.

Xiaofang suddenly shouted: "Ai Gu!"

He took a step forward and came out more and more, rolling and crawling, and ran out, brushing aside the grass half a person's height.

The corpse hidden there immediately caught everyone's eyes.

It was a young man as pale as a vampire. His upper body was bloody and bloody. From the waist down, most of it was cut off by a sharp weapon, leaving only half of his leg hanging on his body alone.

His face was covered with blood, and he could not die anymore.

On the way down the mountain, Nanshan told Chu Huan that the gatekeepers can't leave the gate at ordinary times. Only three days a year, when the gate is naturally closed, they can pass through the gate in one direction and go to the Liyi tribe for a short rest.

Otherwise, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, as long as the mountain gate is open, they have to stay up and prepare to face the enemies from outside.

Chu Huan couldn't imagine what would happen to him if he could only rest for three days in a year and only have three days of peace and leisure?

Every second I can't wait to break it in half.

Nanshan knelt down and looked at the wound on the gatekeeper's body, he didn't say anything, he just reached out to wipe the blood on the young man's face, closed his eyes, and patted Xiaofang on the shoulder.

The grass at the foot of the mountain was very wild, and they were as tall as half a person. As they waded through it, they soon found more corpses, those of the gatekeeper, those of "mad dog", and those of flat people...

As the dawn fell, the grass was filled with secret sorrow and tragedy.

Although she had a premonition, everyone still couldn't accept what she saw with her own eyes. Xiaofang led a few people to check the corpses one by one, trying to find one that was still breathing.Chu Huan followed Nanshan and the elder all the way through the mountain gate.

Then he was almost shaken.

The majestic mountain gate silently faced the direction of the rising sun, and the faint light of dawn hit the huge bluestone, reflecting a faint halo, shining like a treasure.

There was a gatekeeper leaning sideways on the mountain gate, his messy long hair blocked half of his face, he stared blankly at the direction outside the mountain gate, his stiff and convulsive hand was still pinching a lifeless dog "Mad Dog" Mutai.

The knife in the gatekeeper's hand was inserted into the throat of "Mad Dog", and there was a black hole in the middle of his throat, which was probably caused by a wind arrow.

His blood glued himself and the mountain gate tightly together, and his standing posture was unswervingly stubborn and loyal until death.

And under the mountain gate, there are densely packed mountains and plains, all of which are the corpses of "mad dogs" and flat people, overlapping each other, and the grass is not visible. The day and night have passed, and there are still streaks of blood floating in the endless gurgling river.

The hillside looks like an ancient battlefield where the wind roars and horses neigh, and it also looks like ghosts and ghosts in the world.

Only then did Chu Huan realize how small a part of the enemies surrounding the mountain today are.

Without the obstruction of this mountain gate, they would be powerless to face it.

The elder closed his eyes and muttered words, which were ancient sacrificial words that Chu Huan could not understand, as if he was saying goodbye to the souls that lingered in the air.

At this time, a clansman ran in yelling suddenly: "Patriarch! Patriarch! Luge is still alive..."

Nanshan turned and ran, Chu Huan hesitated for a moment, but did not follow.

The elder glanced at him: "What are you looking at?"

Standing in the middle of the mountain gate, Chu Huan looked at the boundless world, and suddenly asked, "What's outside?"

The elder was silent for a while, and there were only the two of them left now, so it was rare for him not to choke with Chu Huan.

After a while, the elder said: "There are some mountains like this. There is life on the mountain, but there is no life on it, and people can live on it. There are also places where there is more death than life, and people can't live. A place is made of life." Turning to death is called "falling". If there are too many falling places, many things that you can't imagine will be born. They will all come to snatch life, and we have to fight until one side kills the other. What do you mean by that? Are you talking?"

Chu Huan: "Either you die, or I live."

The elder glanced at him with a half-smile, and said eccentrically: "You have everything there, inexhaustible, and I find it ridiculous that there are such words."

Chu Huan didn't answer, pretending he didn't hear it.

After a while, he asked again: "The mountain guard... what do you do now?"

"Follow." After the elder finished speaking, he turned and walked into the tunnel.

After the elder entered the mountain gate, he did not go straight along the way they came, but led Chu Huan into a crooked small cave. Chu Huan pressed the lighter and lit it with a small flame. See you, muttered twice, that is, "troublesome outsider" or something like that.

Then, Chu Huan heard the sound of Lingling water.

Soon, he discovered that the lighter was useless.

When the stone room in the cave came to an end, Chu Huan saw a lake. A soft milky white halo naturally appeared on the lake, illuminating the surroundings. It seemed that there was a thin layer of green smoke floating on the water surface, which made people see After reading it, I felt a sense of comfort and peace in my heart.

Chu Huan was stunned: "This is..."

The elder replied: "In your words, it's called Shanquan."

Chu Huan: "..."

What a useless sentence.

The elder said again: "It is the essence of the mountain. You are right to call it a holy spring—well, they are here."

The sound of footsteps came from the cave, and Chu Huan turned his head, only to see Nanshan leading people in, and several tribesmen were carrying Lu Ge, who he had met once, but did not see the big snake.

This time, Ruge didn't get mad because he didn't see Chu Huan at all.

He couldn't see anything.

When the mountain guard found him, he was coiled in the middle by the big snake he raised. The big snake was riddled with holes from the wind arrows, and he had been dead for a long time.

Luge's eyes were closed, and there were dried bloodstains running down the corners of his eyes. Only the shallow and rapid ups and downs of his chest could make people see that he was still alive.

Ruge seemed to hear the sound of water, turned his head slightly, opened his mouth slightly, but made no sound.

Nanshan put his arms around Luge's shoulders, carefully pushed his smudged long hair behind him, and whispered into his ear: "Luge, the holy spring is here, did you hear it?"

Luge raised a hand with difficulty, grabbed Nanshan's clothes, and squeezed it hard.

Nanshan said, "Okay, I'll let you meet the next patriarch."

After he finished speaking, he walked to the edge of the water and knelt down, and put the front end of the patriarchal scepter of the mountain guard into the water.

There was a soundless ripple in the water, and Chu Huan saw that the top of the scepter submerged in the water actually condensed into a flame-shaped bubble.

The elder on one side also knelt down, with his forehead pressed against the shore, in a posture of throwing himself on the ground.He began to chant incomprehensible incantations, and the calm water surface soon became noisy with his ups and downs, and there were continuous and powerful waves.

Nan Shan bit his own finger and dripped a drop of blood into the mountain spring.

The blood condensed into the water and did not disperse. It claimed to be a small ball and was wrapped in a strange bubble. Then, as if the surface of the water suddenly boiled, a large number of bubbles were violently produced.

Immediately there was a "crash", and something broke out of the water. Chu Huan was taken aback, thinking it was some kind of water monster. He thought of the mutant crocodile that could emit suspected infrasonic waves, and immediately tightened his hands beside him, and stepped back cautiously half a step.

However, when the water splashed, Chu Huan was shocked to find that a person came out of the water.

Chu Huan was not shocked by the appearance of a person in the water. The point is that this person looks almost exactly like Ruge.

He was completely naked, standing on the water with his feet hanging in the air, floating there quietly, his pale skin glistened with water, like a finely carved doll, with a dark red between his brows, as if it had just dripped from Nanshan Mountain The drop of blood in the water.

Gradually, that little bit of red penetrated into the center of his brow, he opened his eyes, his eyes moved slightly, and he just... came alive.

Chu Huan's eyes wandered back and forth between the people in the water and the people on the shore, and his world view was once again shocked.

What's happening here?A person "grown" in the water?A Luger "grown" in the water?

But the one on the shore is still alive, so which of the two is Luge?

He once joked that the gatekeepers were born from mitosis, but he never thought that they were born from human clones!

The cloning equipment is still a pool of lake water, an unknown species of wood, a drop of blood, and... an old man with a goat face?

So is the gatekeeper an artificial human, or is it not human at all?

Nan Shan beckoned to the people in the water: "Luge, come here."

With only one breath left on the shore, Ruger tilted his head slightly, struggled and stretched out a hand, and Ruger in the water stepped across the water surface as if defying the wind, walked ashore, and knelt on one knee in front of the current patriarch of the gatekeeper.

Two equally pale hands held together.

The current patriarch of the gatekeeper showed a relieved smile on his embarrassed face, and then his head suddenly sank, and he leaned softly in Nanshan's arms, and the hand held by the man in the water loosened his strength.

He held the hand of a new life and went to death.

Then, the people of the Liyi tribe walked to the river, bit their fingers, blood fell into the water one after another, and one after another came out of the water.

Some of them have a drop of blood between their eyebrows, and some have several drops of blood between their eyebrows.Among them, Chu Huan saw Ai Gu near the mountain gate, and saw the unknown young man nailed to the mountain gate...

They all walked behind the new Ruger and stood in a row in silence.

At some point, Nan Shan approached Chu Huan and said, "That's how the mountain guards came here."

Chu Huan's eyes hadn't left the lake yet, and he asked like sleepwalking: "How did it come about? Did it come back from the dead? Or...replication?"

"No," Nanshan said, "I miss you."

Chu Huan turned around suspiciously. At this moment, he met Ruge's eyes not far away. Ruge's eyes were still not very friendly when he looked at him, but the original astonishing hostility was gone.

This new Luge didn't rush over to shout and kill, but just stared at Chu Huan with a gloomy expression.

Chu Huan asked subconsciously: "Miss?"

"The mountain guard puts his longing into his blood, and it will awaken the holy spring's memory of that person. The two effects will create a new person. This is how the gatekeeper is born from generation to generation." Nanshan said, "But you The appearance of the person I miss is different from his real appearance, and the memory of the holy spring is mixed together, so although the newborn person is very similar to the original person, they are not the same—in fact, we are the same , although children may look very similar to their parents, they are not the same person, there is no same person in the world.”

Chu Huan involuntarily brought Nanshan's cloudy words into his own ethics, thinking, according to this, is the holy spring a mother, and these mountain guards by the river are fathers?Those born with several drops of blood, because of the miss of several people... have many fathers?

This idea was almost absurd, Chu Huan quickly shook his head and threw it out, feeling that this method of birth cannot be called "reproduction" at all, and it is inappropriate to use the old social ethics.

The mountain guards who were still outside came in in twos and threes, and moved the original gatekeeper's mutilated body to the holy spring.

The people of the two tribes washed the dust of the dead together by the holy spring, sorted out the remains, and stripped off their dirty bloody clothes, as if to respond to the saying "It's so clean to come and go naked".

Nanshan washed the dead Luge's hair himself, and tied his long hair into a neat bundle.

From the beginning to the end, no one spoke, and they seemed to be conducting a quiet and solemn ceremony.

Chu Huan stood beside him quietly. From the beginning to the end, he never had the thought that "life should be sacred" like at this moment, and because of this, he felt some kind of unspeakable guilt.

Until the end of this long cycle of life and death, the new gatekeepers will gradually disperse under the leadership of the new patriarch, and the mountain guards will take away the dead bodies as usual.

Only then did Chu Huan come back to his senses, and found that he had been motionless for a long time, and his legs were numb.

Nanshan tugged at him: "We're leaving."

Chu Huan responded, but just as he turned around, suddenly, a drop of the lake water soaked in the aftertaste of boiling just now splashed on his hand. Chu Huan had just experienced a big battle, no matter how easy he was, it was impossible for him to The oily skin wasn't even scratched, and there happened to be a small wound on the back of his hand at this time.

The drop of water seemed to be alive, when it touched the skin, it immediately penetrated into his wound, and the blood that had stopped was drawn out.

Chu Huan: "Hey, I admitted the wrong person..."

He didn't know what would happen to his outsider's blood when it fell into the water, so he quickly reached out to wipe it off, but the water droplets wrapped in blood were very clever, and automatically avoided his hand, and sank straight into the water.

"Clap" sound.