Doe

Huangquan ghost country, Laozhai.

At the bottom of the patio stood an old stone tablet. Everyone stood around the stone tablet. Several iron chains and countless wind chimes hung high above their heads. Looking up, those heavy wind chimes were like dim stars, silent.

"Senior Brother Mu, is this the Yuchong Zhuan?" Bai Jia asked while stroking the stele.

"That's right, it's the language of the Masangu tribe." Mu Zhishen said.

The Masangu tribe is a foreign tribe similar to the Yidi Qianghu, living in the southwestern border area. This tribe was active in the Central Plains many years ago.Local chronicles record that they came west on elephants, with tattooed hair and lotus flowers in their hands. 500 years ago, the Xianmen revived, and the three thousand treasures were burned on the banks of the Yangtze River. The Masang people withdrew from the Central Plains and disappeared.Their writing has also been lost, even among the immortal sect, no one understands the Yuchong script.The master is well-informed and knowledgeable, maybe he understands something, Mu Zhishen awakened Lian Xinsuo, and asked, "Is the master here?"

Lianxinsuo flickered and went off, Jiang Ruoxu's voice was intermittent and hard to hear, Mu Zhishen called a few more times, the voice inside became hoarse and unpleasant, somehow strange.

"Master?" Mu Zhishen frowned.

The voice in Lianxinsuo suddenly became clear, but turned into a low-pitched voice of a strange man, saying something they didn't understand.

"Who?" Mu Zhishen asked, "Who is speaking?"

The man repeated the same pronunciation a few times, and his tone became more and more urgent. Halfway through the last sentence, his voice became inaudible intermittently.Mu Zhishen continued to inject spiritual power into Lianxinsuo, the lock suddenly lit up, and there was a sound of "cackling" from inside, Mu Zhishen was startled, and immediately cut off the flow of spiritual power.

Everyone looked at each other, and a disciple named Jiang Ling turned pale and asked, "What was that noise just now?"

"It seems to be the laughter of ghosts." A disciple whispered.

The ghost's body is rotting, its throat is damaged, and most of its voices are cracked and hoarse, sputum-like, just like this.

Huangquan Ghost Kingdom is originally a ghost land, and it is not uncommon to have ghosts.The strangest thing was that strange voice, someone imitated the man's pronunciation, "Hey Ranibo... what are you talking about?"

"Is our heart lock connected to someone else's heart lock? Besides us, is there anyone else in the ghost country? Is he asking us for help?"

Impossible, even the heart locks are matched one by one.Mu Zhishen tried to contact the Eighteenth Prison again, but this time even the heart lock couldn't be turned on.He had an ominous premonition in his heart, and whispered: "Stay vigilant."

Everyone nodded, at this moment, Bai Jia, who was squatting in front of the stele, suddenly shouted: "I know what is written on it."

Everyone looked over, Baijia touched the back of the stele, and said: "There are Chinese characters here, which read: Tianjixing June, seal 81 Dazhai Jiujiu, no people or animals enter. The whole family moves westward, and they will never return forever."

No wonder it is so dilapidated, it turned out to be a village abandoned by the Masang people.According to the stele, they sealed off all 81 villages.Most of the ethnic groups in the wild forest are poor, and it is really unreasonable for them to abandon such a large area of ​​land with all their heart.Could it be that something happened at that time, so that they had to close their hometown and move to another place?

Everyone talked about it, and the only consensus reached was that the ghost domain only existed after the village was sealed off.Perhaps the westward migration of the Masang people was caused by ghosts. They expected that the place would be occupied by evil spirits, so they left a stele and fled with the whole family.After they left, the ghost mother occupied the old village, and this place became the ghost country of Huangquan.

Bai Jia compared the Chinese characters with the Yuchong seal script, and said, "The Chinese characters are very rough and the traces are very shallow. It seems that they were carved in a hurry. It is definitely not left by the same person as the Yuchong seal script. Before us, another person from the Central Plains came here. , he translated Yu Chongzhuan. Is it the team of Xie Zongzhu?"

"No, none of them are proficient in Yuchong Zhuan." Mu Zhishen shook his head.Before encountering this monument, no one knew that Huangquan Ghost Country was related to the Masang Black Sect, which had long since disappeared.Mu Zhi said in a deep voice: "This stone tablet is a warning. The person who translated the Yuchong script intended to warn those who come after me." Otherwise, there was no need for that person to engrave Chinese characters on the stone tablet. With such scribbled handwriting, he must have encountered something at that time.He was reminding them that the village was dangerous.

The length of the Chinese characters is a bit shorter than that of Yuchong Zhuan, Bai Jia said: "Tsk, half of them haven't translated, so I don't know what they wrote."

After discussing it, we decided to take a look inside first.They made full preparations this time, and the disciples they selected were all high-ranking masters of the sect, far stronger than the previous Yuxie tribe. If something was wrong, they would carefully decide whether to go deeper.

Bai Jia and Mu Zhishen led the way, and everyone climbed up the enclosure and marched in the corridor.They went up to the second floor, and the wooden boards under their feet made a harsh crunching sound as they stepped on it, and everyone couldn't help but try their best to take their steps lightly.It was dark in the distance, except for their breathing and footsteps, there was no sound at all.Wind chimes are hung on the cornices, which are iron blue and rusty.On the side of the horse corridor is the house, with dilapidated doors and small moth-eaten holes. Looking through the holes, it is so dark that you can't see anything clearly.The other side faces the patio, and the rainwater is pouring into it crazily.

Jiang Ling lowered his voice and said, "It's so dark."

"It's really strange, we entered the Eighteenth Hell, and suddenly we went from Tiandu Mountain to the deep mountains and old forests in the south." Someone said.

Mu Zhishen shook his head, "That's not the case, the ghost country of Huangquan is not in the world."

"What do you mean?" A commoner asked in surprise, "Isn't the ghost country of Huangquan the ghost domain of the ghost mother? Could it be that it's really a hell?"

"Of course not. If it's an underworld, it must at least have a bull's head and a horse's face, right?" Bai Jia shrugged, "'The ghost kingdom of the underworld is not in the world' is what the great master said. He didn't explain it, and we don't know what it means. Maybe it's just a sentence Hidden words, there is another mysterious and profound meaning behind it. But this sentence is very reasonable, because according to our today's footsteps, there are at least a dozen miles. A large land boundary can definitely be seen in the sky of Yujian. But from the north to the south, the sect has never searched such a large ghost domain."

"It's strange, where can such a large area be hidden?"

Jiang Ling touched the painted railing, his hands were wet from the rain.The disciples lit up the lanterns, and a few bright lights rose up in the darkness, flickering and flickering, like the eyes of ghosts.The sound of the rain was torrential, and the old village was extremely silent. It seemed that only the sound of rain was left in the world.

Mu Zhishen divided the people into two teams, and asked a junior to lead a group of people to search the first floor, and he led people to the second floor, and the two teams searched for the octagonal bronze mirror separately.Mu Zhishen first searched for the first room on the right, stretched out his hand to push the door panel, but did not push.

"Is it locked?" Bai Jia said from the side, "The door latches of this old village are all horizontal bars, just poke a knife in and remove it."

As he was about to draw his sword, Mu Zhishen frowned and shook his head.

"The door is the wrong weight," he said.

As soon as he said that, Baijia immediately knew something was wrong.Mu Zhishen raised his hand to take over the lantern from the junior brother behind him, bent down to look at the crack of the door, and said calmly, "There is someone behind the door."

Someone, or a ghost?Bai Jia looked at Mu Zhishen, who had no expression on his face, and his tone of voice seemed to say "the weather is fine today".He looks very calm, and it is a good thing to have such a calm companion, but Bai Jia always feels that he is just plain expressionless.Maybe even when death was imminent, he still looked expressionless.

Bai Jia looked over his face, and there was indeed a tall figure behind the crack of the door, leaning against the door panel, motionless.

Judging by the fatigued appearance, it should be a dead person, but I don't know if the corpse will be picked up halfway.They are not afraid of picking up dead bodies, they are not vegetarians.Baijia invited people, and everyone pushed the door panel hard together, and with the strength of breastfeeding, they pushed out a gap for one person to pass through.When I entered inside, I found that there were tables, chairs, boxes and other things piled up behind the door panel, and a hideous corpse was squeezed among them.

Bai Jia frowned, "Looking at his clothes, he is a disciple of Xianmen, so he must be from the previous team. The last team came more than ten years ago, why hasn't he rotted?"

The corpse's skin was intact, its face was very clear, its eyeballs were protruding, and it looked like it was gnashing its teeth.The disciples entered the door one by one, all startled by his death.Everyone checked the furnishings in the house with lamps. The place was full of dust, and there was a thick layer on the floor, like a layer of salt spread all over the floor.Several tables and chairs were placed against the wall, and the firepit in the middle was a bit overheated. The iron pot and several porcelain bowls were placed upside down on the ground.

Bai Jia turned over the pot and bowl, and it was empty.The civilian husband was eating dry food, looking around while eating.There is a statue of a deity on the wall, with eleven faces, male and female, the bottom four coral-colored angry faces, the second layer three black silent faces, the third layer three golden smiling faces, and the top one It is white and has no facial features.All the faces are superimposed on top of each other, forming a tower.The smiling face on the third floor is looking at them with a half-smile, which looks weird.

"Having a dead body is not a good thing." Bai Jia said, "They used to rest here, and they rested for about half a stick of incense, and ate something to fill their stomachs, and soon encountered an accident."

"How do you know it's half a stick of incense time?" Jiang Ling asked him.

"It takes about half a stick of incense to cook noodles and meat," Bai Jia picked up the empty bowls, "the bowls are empty, and there are oil stains. They have traveled all day, are very tired, and eat very cleanly."

Mu Zhi squatted down and touched the old wooden floor. His fingertips were red and stained with blood.

"Just when we were full of wine and food, something came outside." Bai Jia said, "That thing must be very fierce. They couldn't deal with it, so they built tables, chairs, boxes and cages to block the door and prevent it from coming in. A senior sacrificed himself, Stand in front of the door, and the rest escape." Baijia pressed down the wind lamp, and the light illuminated the blood-stained wooden floor, and the blood spread all the way to the door leaf of the inner room. other rooms.

The man swallowed his dry food and said in horror, "Is that thing still here?"

"Don't be afraid," Jiang Ling patted him, "Senior Brother Mu is the descendant of Lei Fa, and the sect evaluates him as top-ranking. Apart from Senior Brother Mu, we are all top-ranking, and we are more than enough to deal with evil spirits who have practiced Taoism for 100 years together. Go up There are no more than eight people in that team, so it’s hard to avoid.”

"But Sect Master Yu and Sect Master Xie are both here, can't they join forces to deal with that evil spirit?"

"Sect Master Xie was about the same age as us more than 20 years ago," Bai Jia pointed to the bowl on the ground, "and he should not have been here when the mutation happened. Sect Master Yu and his clan disciples, Sect Master Xie should take the remaining three to other places."

Mu Zhishen motioned to Baijia, and Baijia aroused Lianxinsuo, and asked, "Junior Brother, how are you doing?"

Another team's voice came from the lock, "We found the bodies of Yu Xie and his family. They are the seniors of the previous team. There are five in total."

Mu Zhishen said: "Okay, you guys come up and join us."

"Yes."

Baijia knew Mu Zhishen's intentions, since there are ghosts here that Yu Lianhai can't deal with, it's not a good strategy to act separately.They marched in the direction where the blood was spreading, pasting spells to ward off evil spirits along the way, and at the same time telling the team coming down from the third floor their direction of travel.

The inner corridor is very narrow, and almost only two people can walk side by side.It was still Mu Zhishen and Bai Jia who took the lead, and the others followed.Halfway through the walk, the team upstairs came down and followed behind.At the end, the front suddenly opened up, and it was another small house.The inside was full of rice and flour bags, and Bai Jia poked open a few bags, and they were all moldy.It seems to be the granary of Laozhai, the bloodstains disappeared here, as if the escaped people disappeared out of thin air.