I live longer than the incomparable

I don't know when, the rumor that "there is a witch who is very good at divination in a shrine in Xijing" began to spread in Beijing.

No one knows her origin, and no one knows where her divination skills come from.

In the beginning, it was she who said strange things to the believers who came to visit the shrine.

Such as: "You will encounter good things today." "The child will be born smoothly." "Don't go out at night recently." and so on.

What is surprising is that these strange words she said seem to have really come true to those people.

Especially the man she said "don't go out at night". He encountered strange things when he returned home from a night visit a few days later, and even stayed in bed for several days because of it, until the family heard from him: "Go Invite that Miko from Xijing here..."

During the day, I went to the shrine to invite the servant, and waited until the sun went down in the shrine before inviting the maiden.

"Someone cast a curse," she said after seeing the sick man. "I'm not good at breaking curses."

Having said that, at the begging of his family, the miko helped the man.

When the man got up from the bedding, he wanted to use money to thank the witch for her treatment, but she refused.

"If you must be grateful, then give me a bowl of your blood." She said, "The god I serve is a different god."

Therefore, people speculate that the gods who need to be worshiped with human blood will probably only be gods such as the God of Fujin or the God of Fuchong.

And these are either evil gods or ghosts and gods.

But the "divination" she did is not so much divination, but prophecy is more appropriate.

But everything she said would come true.

Naturally, there are not a few people who dismiss it, but there are also many people who can believe it. After all, even if it is a sorcery, as long as it can achieve its purpose, there will be countless people flocking to it.

This is no longer a secret. In the Heian era, cases of killing people with curses were extremely common everywhere.

And this kind of thing, although there are many people who hate it, there are also many people who flock to it.

This strange priestess never walks in the sun on the grounds that the god she enshrines does not like the sun. If she goes to her in the daytime, she will only rarely invite her in to block the sun and use a candlestick for lighting. in the dimly lit room.

And if you want to deliberately ask her what she specified, most of the time you won't get the answer you want.

"I've said it before," she would say whenever someone gets such an answer and hangs their head in frustration in front of her, "Divination relies on 'fate'. Forced fate is an unfulfilled wish." .”

Regardless of whether the person who came to fortune-telling got what he wanted, she would take a bowl of blood from the other party as promised.

Even so, the number of people going to the shrine for divination has not decreased, and even increased. At the beginning, the dilapidated shrine with no birds at the gate, now has to line up to guard the torii gate, just to wait for that time to ask her Opportunity for divination.

The attendant that Wu Mi summoned happened to be someone who was afraid of such things, so when talking about this weird priestess, it was equivalent to classifying her as a monster in the bottom of my heart.

In the end, he raised his eyes timidly, carefully checking the face of the young new Patriarch.

"You..." He asked tentatively, "Do you also want to go to divination?"

Hearing this, Wuqing raised his brows slightly, and what flowed between his well-shaped brows and eyes was his own thoughts.

"Get the car ready." He said softly, "I'll see her tonight."

——*——

In the old shrine, there is a woman dressed as a priestess sitting in the room.

She is the beautiful but weird "Prophecy Priestess" who is both godlike and demon-like in the recent rumors - Eight Hundred Bhikkuni.

This is not her original name, and the so-called "different gods" are not actually enshrined in this shrine.

At first, she was just an ordinary human being.

In the small fishing village where she was born, almost everyone in the village relied on fishing for a living, and the food caught by such labor was only enough to maintain food and clothing.

Therefore, once any unexpected natural disasters and man-made disasters occur, it is impossible for the family to have enough savings to deal with such disasters.

A girl who had a sudden illness and could only be locked up in a room to resign herself to her fate, met a kind doctor who was traveling around.

The doctor was just passing through the fishing village and wanted to find a family to stay overnight, but he heard that a girl in the village had a sudden illness, so the kind doctor knocked on their door, comforted her father, and said to him: " I will try to heal her."

The doctor who saw the girl had never seen such a strange disease before.

But physicians had developed a prescription in the early years that seemed to provide some relief to her ailments.

The kind-hearted doctor who did not ask for anything in return treated her for several months and used up all the herbs he picked on the road, but her body still did not fully recover, so he said to the girl and her family: "I need to go back to Kyoto to get some Here comes the medicine."

But the doctor who left the fishing village to get the medicine never came back.

Not long after he left, the girl felt that her body seemed to regain strength, not only that, her five senses also became extremely sensitive.

The girl's father, happy for his daughter's recovery, caught fresh fish for her, but when the fish was brought to her, she didn't have any appetite for them.

Compared with the smell of fish, what came into her nostrils was more the smell from her father - because she was accidentally scratched by the reef while fishing, it was particularly obvious... the smell of flesh and blood.

——She had a desire for that taste.

The girl who realized that she had such a terrible idea fled the fishing village alone one night.

She was afraid that she would not be able to restrain the urge to hurt her father, and she was also afraid of becoming a "monster" herself.

She wanted to go to Kyoto to look for the doctor, and wanted to ask him why she became what she is now, but on the way to Kyoto, she saw some blood-stained rags—the clothes the doctor was wearing when he left. Such fabrics and colors.

Even now those colors have been infected by the mottled black and red blood and the soil on the ground.

She found the bones of the doctor - who had been eaten by wild beasts in the forest before returning to Kyoto.

The girl was at a loss and shed tears. She knelt beside the doctor's corpse, picked up the bones and rags, and then dug a hole.

When burying the doctor, she found some broken notes from the doctor's side—but the girl couldn't read, so she didn't know what was written on it.

She just vaguely felt that she should keep those broken papers by her side.

Maybe... she could find a way to restore her body to normal.

With this in mind, the girl still came to Kyoto, but the bustling Kyoto was completely different from the small fishing village she grew up in. The wheels of the bullock carts were turning slowly, and the people sitting in those carts were people she had never seen before. The nobles I have seen.

She thought of retreating from such a strange place, but she was brought back to the shrine by an old witch. In the dilapidated shrine, which could barely accommodate people, only she and the old witch lived. .

This kind of life lasted for several years. The midway girl ran out of the shrine because she couldn't control herself, ran into the noble son who was visiting home at night, and almost killed him.

But fortunately, at the last moment, she still controlled herself, let go of the young man under her body, and fled back to the shrine before his attendants called for guards.

Her body was stained with the other party's blood, and the smell of blood on her body was particularly strong, but the old witch probably became dull in all aspects because of her age, so she only asked her if she was unwell.

The girl who thought she would be expelled continued to stay in the shrine.

The old witch was also a noble Ji Jun when she was young, but she had to come to this shrine to make a living because of her family's decline. She has lived here alone for too long, so when she saw the girl, Take her back to the shrine.

When the girl asked if she could teach herself how to write, the old witch happily took out the pen and ink she had brought from home when she was young.

"I'm getting old..." the old witch said to her, "so I seldom write any more."

In fact, she just didn't know what to write.

The boring life day after day obliterated her delicate and raised heart, making her the tired and old woman she is today.

When she was about to die, the old witch told her: "Actually, I have always known that you are probably... not an ordinary human being."

The old witch smelled the blood on her body, and also heard the footsteps of her sneaking away from the shrine at night, and she didn't know where she was going-she even heard the rumors that began to spread in the middle of the capital at night, attacking the night visitor rumors of a monster who sucked the other's blood.

"Are you... a monster?" the old witch asked her.

The girl didn't know how to answer her.

"Actually, it's okay," the old witch probably didn't need her answer, she seemed to be muttering to herself, "At least...you have always...stayed with me in this dilapidated shrine... ..."

She was too lonely, so even though she knew that she might be taking in a monster that sucked human blood, she still didn't say anything.

When the girl hugged the old witch's body and felt her body temperature slowly disappear, she suddenly understood this truth.

It turns out that for human beings, loneliness is more terrifying than monsters.

——*——

In front of the torii gate of the shrine, an ox cart with wisteria flower family crest stopped.

She heard the sound of the wheels turning, the sound of someone getting off the bullock cart, and the voice of a young man from the yard to her room and the room.

That is a waka.

It's amazing that Yaobikuni felt as if he had heard this waka somewhere.

Men in Beijing will visit their favorite women in the evening, and most of the gifts are waka or flower branches, but as we all know, if you use waka made by others to give to a woman, most of them will be rejected.

Naturally, Wuyou knew this very well, so what he gave to Babaichuni was obtained from his own memory, the Waka that Guiwu Tsuji gave her when he first met Babaichuni. .

That was literally what he did.

The barrier door of Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni was closed tightly, but soon someone knocked on the barrier door—it was the attendant who came to visit her midwife Mitsuki, and on the paper stuffed in through the crack of the door, it wrote He sang the waka that he was chanting just now.

Eight Hundred Bhikkuni suddenly had a very strange feeling, something seemed to appear in her mind, probably the figure of someone—and someone she had never seen before.

Such a sense of weirdness caused Babaichuni to open the barrier door, and said to the attendants at the door: "Please come in, your master."

Everything was as expected, and even if the situation changed, the eight hundred bhikkuni would definitely not refuse his visit—even if it was their first meeting.

A young man with seaweed-like long black hair sat upright in front of her, and the eight hundred bhikkuni's eyes fell on his face, and his gaze was firmly fixed on his eyes.

The young man in front of him has a pair of extremely unique red plum-colored eyes.

—The color of blood.Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni suddenly thought so.

"I heard that you are very good at divination." When she was watching Wu Mi silently, Wu Mi said, "Can you do a divination for me?"

In fact, after hearing that Babai Khuni needs to collect the blood of the people who come to the divination after the divination is over, Wu Mi can roughly guess what kind of situation she is in now.

The current situation is indeed different from what he remembered, but it is not that there has been a change without grounds, but more like...the situation between him and the eight hundred monks has been reversed.

The Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni who was supposed to eat mermaid meat and obtain perfect immortality turned into a ghost.But Wu Mi, who had turned into a ghost because he killed the doctor halfway, ate mermaid meat this time.

So the situation between them has been reversed, and each has what belongs to the other.

When Wu Mi was thinking about these things, something appeared in the mind of Babai Bikuni—something that should not be owned by her today.

The memory that popped up crazily in her mind was exactly in line with the memory that Wu Mi had obtained, the memory that belonged to the eight hundred bhikkhuni who ate the mermaid meat.

Eight Hundred Bhikuni fell into silence, she began to think about why this happened, and also began to think about whether the Wu Mi in front of her also had that memory.

So she said, "I see you."

Wucan laughed: "I'm sitting right in front of you."

But the eight hundred bhikkhuni shook her head, and she said softly: "I saw it, killed the doctor, turned into a 'ghost', was beheaded by the user of the sun's breath, and shattered into one thousand eight hundred Yuan……"

Following the words of the eight hundred monks, Muyashiki's face became more and more ugly, and the relaxed smile disappeared without knowing when, replaced by the haze overflowing between the eyebrows and eyes.

He kept drinking in a low voice: "Enough!"

Eight hundred bhikkhuni's voice stopped abruptly.

When he understood that each of them seemed to have memories in the same timeline, Wu Mi's arrogance that he thought he was in control of everything seemed to be dispelled in an instant. With a voice, he said to Eight Hundred Bhikkuni: "You are no longer a human being, are you?"

The maiden in front of her lowered her white eyelids, and it seemed as if she couldn't feel any warmth on her body, as if her whole body had also merged into the cold darkness.

"Yes," Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni said calmly, "It's not anymore."

She became a "ghost", and in the memory she just obtained, the one who became a "ghost" should be the ghost Wu Tsuji in front of her.

Seeing her silent, Wu Mi's eyes dimmed, but a smile appeared on his lips, and he said, "You must be very happy, right?"

As if celebrating her from the bottom of his heart and wanting to share this joy with her, Wuyou said to her: "You don't have to be tortured by the pain of eternal life, and you can't find a way to let yourself die in your whole life. Now If you want to die, you just need to stand under the sun..."

"It's so easy," he sighed.

The eight hundred bhikkhuni could hear the cynicism in it.

Rather than sitting here with him, what she wanted to do more was to beat him up.

The moment such a thought appeared in the mind of Eight Hundred Bhikkuni, his body moved as if uncontrollably.

Wu Mi, who has just obtained immortality, has almost no difference from ordinary humans except that he cannot die. However, the eight hundred bhikkhuni who has become a "ghost" has a power that humans cannot match.

——The power that belongs to the hunter.

When Wu Mi watched in shock as Babai Khuni's hands grabbed him by the neck and pressed him against the wall, he subconsciously wanted to call for help—but before the shouting sound escaped from her throat, she used The other hand blocked Wu Mi's mouth, preventing the voice from leaking out.

In fact, even if all the attendants who were guarding outside were called in, they would not be opponents of Eight Hundred Bhikkuni at all.

She is the primordial ghost in this world, and she also replaced Wu Mi to obtain the "king" who is enough to create the blood of other ghosts.

"Are you shaking?" Eight Hundred Bhikkuni asked him softly.

Muyashiki's eyes were wide open, and the expression on his face was enough to be called "fear". Although he was defeated by the swordsman Ji Kuniichi of Breath of the Sun in his memory, But that kind of future is still too far away from the misery of the Heian era.

The current Wu Mi is just an ordinary person who has just eaten mermaid meat, and has not even completely separated himself from the cognition of human identity.

"Wu Mi," Babai Khuni softly called his name, and said to him, "It's so strange, why do I like people like you?"

There was a bit of doubt on the thick and beautiful face of the eight hundred monks, as if he really couldn't understand his feelings in the memory.

It has only been four or five years since she changed from a human to a ghost.

Even for human beings, such a period of time is not really very long—for the short life of human beings, four or five years can even be said to be fleeting.

But the eight hundred bhikkuni felt that it had been a long time, so long that she began to get tired of such days.

It wasn't that she felt bored, but that she felt irritated—an indescribable sense of irritability that forced her to settle down and sit in the room.

Because she felt that if she didn't let herself stay in a quiet place and forced herself not to go out, maybe she would lose control of herself.

I couldn't control that... the terrifying thought that rose from the bottom of my heart, wanting to destroy something, tear something apart.

She always restrained herself from looking at the human beings who came to ask her for divination, because once she looked at their skin, seeing the soft skin and the blood vessels flowing under it, it was the instinct of "ghosts" It will begin to erode her sanity.

Just drinking blood... is not enough.

Those desires for flesh and blood spreading from the bones will not be satisfied by those blood at all.

Even if someone would come to seek divination from Eight Hundred Bhikkuni every day, they would still bring her the reward she wanted.

But the eight hundred bhikkhuni knew that she had to restrain herself—once she started, there would be no day when she would stop.

No matter what kind of desire/desire it is, if it is not controlled, once it is allowed to grow at will, it will definitely become something that even oneself cannot control.

So in order not to turn herself into a irrational ghost, she has always locked herself in this small shrine, restraining those crazy and terrifying thoughts.

Until the young man in front of her arrived and sent her a Waka—a Waka that was enough to fill her mind with a memory that didn't even belong to this world.

Muyashiki thought that he would be killed, but when he saw that the eyes of the eight hundred bhikkhuni were terribly dark, and when a crazy ferocity appeared in those originally calm eyes, he closed his eyes.

Then a soft laugh was heard.

"Without any preparation, did you just come to me directly?" Wu Mi heard the voice of Babaichuni, and she said, "You really... make me not know what to say."

Wu Mi could even faintly hear a sigh of helplessness, causing Wu Mi to open his eyes. He stared blankly at Babaichuni, watching her let go of the hand that was holding him against the wall.

He didn't stand still for a moment, and fell directly to the wall.

"..." This is definitely the most embarrassing moment for Wu Mi over the years.

He even felt that he was seriously ill before, and he rarely even stepped out of the door, and he was not as embarrassed as he is now.

Wu Mi even forgot why he came here, and what the eight hundred bhikkhuni in his memory should look like, but what he can know is that the eight hundred bhikkhuni in front of him...has a uniqueness that he has never seen before. scary eyes.

And Wu Mi did feel the killing intent. When that hand grabbed his neck and tightened his fingers inch by inch, while he felt suffocated, there was only a blank in his mind.

When he fell and sat by the wall, Wu Mi suddenly thought——

In his memory, when Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni was killed, the thoughts that came into her mind were also the same as his?

Is the self who has turned into a ghost in memory as scary as the eight hundred bhikkuni in front of me?

When Wu Mi's thoughts didn't know where to go, Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni knelt down on one knee in front of him, and put his hand on the side of Wu Mi's face.

She softly tucked Wu Can's long hair behind her ears, and said to him: "Leave the reward to yourself for now, and I will take it back when you come to see me again next time."

Wu Mi left the room with a pale face.

When he was leaving, Bhikkhuni Yabai opened the barrier door, and she stood at the door watching Miyashiki Mumi's footsteps and even staggered into the bullock cart until the family crest on the bullock cart disappeared from her sight.

Bhikkhuni Babai suddenly thought, so this is the feeling... The feeling when Wu Mi strangled her neck in memory is probably the same as when she strangled Wu Mian's neck just now.

——*——

Miyashiki Mumi no longer wanted to see Eight Hundred Bhikkuni.

Originally, he thought that he would see the eight hundred bhikkhuni with empty eyes, calm and gentle in his memory, just like in the memory he obtained.But Wu Mi never imagined that what he saw would be such an existence.

What made him even more unacceptable was that in front of her, he had no power to fight back.

Wu Mi was very angry.

This kind of anger made him anger the servants and maids around him, he yelled at them casually, and drove them all out of his sight.

But even so, his anger could not be extinguished—because these angers were not caused by those servants.

In Wu Mi's memory, the eight hundred bhikkuni who ate the mermaid meat is obviously also a very powerful existence, and he can even guide his future master, Ji Guo Yan Sheng, to practice swordsmanship (this is the ghost dance Tsuji Wu Mi from the It was read from the memory of Ji Guoyan Sheng who has become Hei Si Mou).

But Wu Mi, who ate the mermaid meat now, really has no chance to react in front of her.

The great humiliation kept him awake at night, and it also drove him to Abe Seimei's mansion, hoping that the other party could teach him to practice onmyoji.

In her memory, Eight Hundred Bhikkuni seemed to have a certain kind of thought about the now-famous great onmyoji, Abe Seimei, so that she would often think of him many years after his death.

Although Wu Mi didn't have a good impression of Abe Seimei, but if he could use this to make Yao Bikuni unhappy, then this little condescension is actually nothing.

However, when he came to visit with a gift in person, what he got was the maid in Abe Seimei's mansion declined.

A beautiful woman in Tang clothes stood at the door of the closed mansion and said to Wu Mi: "The master already knows your purpose of coming, but there is no relationship between you and the master, so please go back."

Before he had time to say anything, Wu Can's face turned blue.

Although I have always heard that Abe Seimei has little contact with other people, but he thought that with his status as the head of the birth house, even if the other party is really unwilling, he will still give him some face—he has never I never thought about being Abe Seimei's apprentice, but I just felt that the yin and yang skills of the eight hundred monks in my memory were so superb, and I had a good relationship with Abe Seimei, so Abe Seimei must have taught her.

So according to this principle, he can also learn some yin and yang techniques from Abe Seimei.

Originally, he went to visit Abe Seimei on Tsuchimikado Road to stop his anger, but unexpectedly, he was blocked by the other party's anger again. Thinking of Wu Mi here, he became even more angry-but he still had to find someone to teach him Own yin and yang.

In this world, there is not only Abe Seimei, a great onmyoji, who is as famous as him, but the great onmyoji Ashiya Michimitsu, who is despised by most people because he is better at killing people with curses, is also a choice?

What's more... If he gave up now, wouldn't the face he lost be lost in vain?

So Wuyou sent someone to test Ashiya Doman's thoughts in advance, and after confirming that the other party was willing to teach him, he personally brought a gift and visited again.

Facts have proved that Ashiya Domitsu is indeed much better at speaking than Abe Seimei, and he can do more things than Abe Seimei.

Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, as long as it is something Ashiya Doman finds interesting, whenever someone comes to ask him, he will agree to it.

Some time ago, he agreed to a nobleman's request to curse and kill his brother, but it was a pity that the nobleman's brother went to see Eight Hundred Bhikkuni during that time, and got a reminder from her—although she couldn't solve the curse. However, she told the nobleman's elder brother: "Go to Master Seimei, there are only a few people who can cast such a curse that I can't undo... There are only a few people in this world."

It is impossible for Abe Seimei to use curses to kill people, so now the only one in Beijing with such strength is his old rival Ashiya Michimitsu.

Later, Wu Mi heard about this incident while listening to Ashiya Doman's chat, and some unpleasant memories almost broke the string called "reason" in his mind again.

This kind of life has been going on for decades. No matter how good Ashiya Doman is at yin and yang, he is still a human being after all. Before he died, he said to Wu Mi: "Although I knew from the beginning that you are holding a certain For some purpose, but I still promised to teach you, do you know why?"

Wu Mi froze for a moment, he really didn't know.

"Because..." Ashiya Michimi's eyes fell on his face, and he said, "You are a very interesting person. You are one... who can bring me a lot of fun..."

When he heard this, Wu Mi actually didn't want to listen anymore, even if he didn't show it on the surface, but relying on Ashiya Michimitsu's understanding of him, he was able to see through Wu Mi's thoughts immediately.

——That's it, I will always be self-centered, and only see what I want to see in my eyes, so I will never feel lonely at any time, and I will not be like humans like them... ... Feeling lonely.

Whether it is Abe Seimei or Ashiya Domitsu, they are born different from ordinary people. Living in this world, the most unavoidable thing is loneliness.

——*——

"I thought you wouldn't come again."

Decades have passed since the last time Yabaichuni and Ubayashiki Muyou met.

After that, Muyashiki never came to this shrine again, and the eight hundred bhikkhunis never stepped out of the shrine.

But even so, she still saw Abe Seimei.

Because of Ashiya Michimitsu's spell, Abe Seimei, who solved the incident, brought Minahiro to visit her.

Unlike the eight hundred bhikkhuni in memory who met Abe Seimei when he was young, when the current eight hundred bhikkhuni saw Abe Seimei, he was already a famous onmyoji.

But even so, they became friends, and even in the decades that followed, Abe Seimei and Yuan Hiroya would come to the shrine to drink with her.

Over the years, Eight Hundred Bhikkuni has been secretly changing her appearance—in order not to be too conspicuous, she also made her appearance look slowly aging, although slower than ordinary humans.

When I saw Abe Seimei for the last time, the great onmyoji broke through her disguise and said to her, "Please let me see your original appearance again."

As a result, the wrinkles on Bhikkhuni's skin slowly disappeared, her skin became smooth, and her appearance changed from old to young.

Abe Seimei watched her changes quietly, and suddenly laughed, he said: "Just keep it like this... don't care about anyone's eyes, just follow your own ideas... live freely..."

If you want to follow your own ideas, you cannot live freely.Babaichuni thinks that the reason why human beings are distinguished from evil ghosts and monsters is precisely because of their unique talent of being able to suppress the "evil thoughts" in their hearts.

So even though the body has become a "ghost", the eight hundred nuns still hope that their hearts are "human".

However, if one can suppress one's nature and live according to one's own will—this is probably what Seimei refers to as freedom.

When Abe Seimei died, the eight hundred bhikkhuni asked him if he wanted to continue to live in another way.

For example... accept her blood and live as a ghost.

But Abe Seimei refused. He said: "I have a lot of regrets, and there are many unfinished things, and I have nostalgia for this world, but these are not reasons to forcefully continue a life that should have ended here."

"But all human beings will usher in such a destination, just as the beauty of a blooming cherry blossom is also because it is short-lived and regrettable...Leaving with regret and nostalgia is not a kind of pain, on the contrary, it is a kind of pain. Happiness." Abe Seimei said softly: "Yaobai, let everything end before getting tired of this world."

Eight Hundred Bhikkuni was silent for a long time.

The eight hundred bhikkuni in my memory who ate mermaid meat and gained an immortal body has long since lost any nostalgia for this world—but she can't die, and she can't redeem herself.

However, the current Eight Hundred Bhikkhuni is not tired of this world - she is even looking forward to the future, looking forward to the future that is completely different from her memory.

And one of the important reasons that made it different - now it is still Miyashiki Mumi, who is also the one she wants to see again.

Having obtained the perfect immortality that once made her fall into despair, and the perfect immortality that he has been longing for in memory, what does Onimai Tsuji look like now?

And just as she was thinking like this, and even planned to move out of the shrine because of Seimei's death, before looking for a new place to live, when she saw Miyashiki Mumi for the last time, her shrine ushered in the last person guest.

His black hair fluttered slightly in the evening wind, and the dark color of the night was reflected in the red plum-colored eyes. He just stood there, as if they were the same when they first met.

The only difference is that Wu Mi stretched out his hand to her this time.

He softly called her name: "Eight Hundred Bhikkuni..."