Zhenshanhai

"Apo! Apo!"

Hearing the call from afar, the girl sat on the stone platform formed by natural weathering on the top of the mountain and responded loudly.After a while, two dirty heads poked out from behind the cliff, and Apu leaned over to help them, and pulled them up one by one.

"Apu, you climbed to the God's Cliff to play again, go back and see if your father beats you half to death."

The bold boy took a few steps forward to take a look. There was a clear and shallow white mist in front of the cliff, which did not block his sight.

Looking down the mountain from a distance, the villages and towns shrink into light-colored stains dotted on the green forest and grassland, which makes people dizzy.The boy was afraid of heights, his legs were weak and he staggered back a few steps.

The girl sat with her knees hugged. The sun had just risen at this time, and the sun behind the clouds dyed the clouds with golden edges. It was dazzling but not dazzling.

"Brother Atu, do you think the immortal will come here again?"

Ah Tu moved to sit next to her, giggling: "Grandma Sacrifice is just kidding people, are you serious?"

On the other side, Ah Shi, who was holding a straw and chewing vigorously, said, "Grandma Sacrifice serves the gods and never lies!"

Sacrifice to the mother-in-law is to sacrifice to the goddess. No one knows her age. Although she is called mother-in-law, she looks like a middle-aged beautiful woman.

Apu Dad once said when he was drunk that when his grandfather's grandfather was still alive, the gods of Damang Mountain were worshiping his mother-in-law. Now, after five generations of people have come to Apu, her appearance has never changed.

Mangshan Nineteen Town is located in the deep basin of Damangshan, isolated from the world by wild beasts.

Hundreds of years ago, the Nineteenth Town was set up by the imperial court as nineteen county magistrates. Of the nineteen county magistrates sent by the imperial court, only one took a few half-dead servants to cross Mangshan Mountain alive to take office.

The county magistrate sent someone to report back to the court, but none of the magistrates sent by the court could come in alive.

In desperation, the emperor had no choice but to decree that the descendants of the county magistrate could be hereditary as the county magistrate of the nineteenth town of Mangshan.

In the current Mangshan, the county magistrates of the nineteen towns are all descendants of the county magistrate surnamed Wang.But the magistrates of Wang County only care about the small things of disputes between neighbors and tea, rice, oil and salt, and the big things in Mangshan are decided by the mother-in-law.

The sacrificial mother-in-law lives in the Mang Mountain Sacrifice Ground. There are nineteen towns in Da Mang Mountain, spread out from the center of the Sacrifice Ground.The sacrificial mother-in-law is silver-haired and beautiful, and she doesn't go out very much except for the annual sacrifices. Mangshan people only dare to go to her if they are seriously injured.

The little dolls are not afraid, they like to listen to stories around her.

But the dolls grow up little by little, and the elders in the family are also getting old little by little. The beautiful woman in my impression called mother-in-law has not changed a bit for three, five, or even ten years. Be in awe of her.

Ah Tu shrank his neck and retorted in a low voice.

"Grandma Sacrifice said that the mountain was split open by an immortal. How big a knife would it take to split such a big mountain? Someone would have seen such a big knife, but no one has seen it with their own eyes, so it must be fake. .”

After thinking about it, he asked, "Apu, do you think so?"

The girl didn't speak, and Ah Shi stopped arguing with Ah Tu. He just wiped the straw on his clothes and handed it to her.

"Sister Xiaohua's freshly picked sweet grass is very sweet, you should try it, Apu."

She grabbed one casually, put it in her mouth, chewed out the faint grass fragrance and sweetness, and changed the subject: "If you come here earlier, you will be able to see the full sunrise."

The two boys looked at each other and sat down on each side of the girl.

"You can see the sun every day, so why come here to see it?"

"Apu, if you like it, come to my house. My mother said that you like to watch the sun, so let's open a window on the roof."

"My family can do it too! I'll tell my mother when I get home."

Nineteen towns custom, to marry a new daughter-in-law, within three years after marriage, the bride is not allowed to step out of the house before she becomes pregnant, and must be kept locked in the dark hut to avoid being targeted by evil spirits.

Ah Tu and Ah Shi both want to marry her.

The girl sighed.

"Let's go, I've finished reading, Miss Xiaohua must be waiting for us at the foot of the mountain."

As expected, Xiaohua was waiting for them at the foot of the cliff, picking half a basket of wild vegetables while waiting.

"Silly Apu, the immortals are far away from us, the sacrificial mother-in-law is telling us stories."

Xiao Hua dusted her off, "We'll go to the forest to pick some wild vegetables later, and your father won't scold people when we get back."

It wasn't until noon that Apu and Xiaohua went back with a basket full of wild vegetables on their backs.

When I got home, I saw my five-year-old brother rolling all over the floor, covered in dust.The girl put down the bamboo basket, fetched a bucket of well water and bathed her younger brother in the yard.

It is said that it is a yard, that is, it is surrounded by a fence, and the bath is just wiped with a rag dipped in water.While coaxing her younger brother to rub his body, she pricked up her ears to listen to the conversation between her parents in the main room.

A Pu has just turned 13 years old, so he can discuss marriage first.Her father is considering which house to assign her to in exchange for a bride price for her second brother to marry a wife.

At present, it seems that Ah Shi's family has the most dowry gifts, with two carts of millet, two sheep and four laying hens.But Atu's family has an older sister who is willing to exchange marriage with Apu.

Father wants to change relatives.

Apu doesn't think there is any problem, every household in Xiaolin Town is like this, the daughter's family gets married in exchange for a bunch of dowry, or returns with another daughter-in-law.

Marriage should be a big deal for a girl of Apu's age.She also knew that Miss Hua next door was waiting for her to choose between Ah Tu and Ah Shi.

Xiaohua is the most iconic girl in Xiaolin Town.

She is two years younger than Xiaohua, her appearance can only be considered delicate, her face is always flushed, her brown eyes are not too big but they are bright and bright.

Although Xiaohua is beautiful, her family is poor. Her mother is a widow and she has a young brother.

Both of Apu's parents have older brothers and sisters, she is luckier than Xiaohua.She can choose first, as long as she chooses one, the other will go to Xiaohua's house to hire.

But she doesn't want to.

She was supposed to marry and have children. Like A Niang, she married a man who occasionally drank and beat his wife, and had three sons and two daughters.Then the eldest daughter is married off, and the dowry in exchange is given to the eldest son to marry a wife.Then the second daughter changed relatives and the second son changed a daughter-in-law back.

She won the praise of her neighbors and envied her full of children and grandchildren, happy and happy.

Such a cycle goes on and on, human relations in the world.

But she doesn't want to.

The Nineteenth Town is separated from the outside world by a Damang Mountain, and the news inside and outside the mountain is not communicated with each other. Even if there is information exchange, it has been delayed for at least three to five years.

As long as the county lords of the Wang family pay enough taxes to cover the court, they will close their doors and concentrate on living their own lives, regardless of trivial matters.

For the people in the village and town, Mangshan is the whole world.For Mang Shan, offering sacrifices to the mother-in-law is the supreme authority and the spokesperson of the gods.

People in Mangshan worship their mother-in-law in awe.

Po likes her.

Since childhood, A Pu has been brave and stubborn. He climbed mountains and fished in rivers.

Every time her father heard this kind of talk, he would go to the firewood room and beat her with a firewood stick. As soon as he beat her, he would run to the sacrificial mother-in-law. No adult would dare to go to the sacrificial mother-in-law's place.

When the little monkey was seven or eight years old, he heard his mother discussing with his father in the house, saying that she was not like an ordinary woman, and she was afraid that she would not be able to get married in the future, so she might as well send her to another town as a child bride while she was young. Money to supplement the family.

The girl was ignorant but vaguely aware of the uneasiness. She ran to her mother-in-law to ask for help. She couldn't express herself clearly, so she simply repeated what her parents had said. The mother-in-law kept her for half a month.

The Apu who came out from the god sacrifice later was still the original Apu, but it was a little different.

She combed her hair smoothly and tied it up, revealing a red and smiling face; she could smile brightly and shyly apologize coquettishly after getting into trouble; Looks so cute and cute...

The neighbors in the street began to say that she was "lively and lovely", and my parents stopped talking about the child bride.

"Grandma, I went to see the mountain split by the immortal again."

A Pu lay on the reclining chair of the sacrificial mother-in-law, "Do you think the immortal will come again?".

The beautiful woman is making medicine, she has loose silver hair, is dressed in white cloth, and has a small yellow flower picked by Apu from the wild in her ear.

"Now in this world, there are no immortals, only immortal cultivators. That mountain was split by ancient immortals."

A Pu turned over, lay down and asked, "Is there any difference between a fairy and a cultivator?"

"The difference is huge..."

People in the nineteenth town of Mangshan said: there are immortals in this world.They are handsome and beautiful, wearing beautiful fairy clothes and flying in the sky, with great magical powers.

Although no one has seen it.

But Apu believes that the mother-in-law has seen it.

The sacrificial mother-in-law said that what people said was true, but the immortals here are not immortals, but cultivators of immortals.The more refined and profound their cultivation, the more powerful they will be.The goal of an immortal cultivator is to leave this world one day and ascend to immortality.

Apo listened with gusto.

The mother-in-law also told her that to cultivate immortals, she has to go to different immortal gates to learn spells, and after she is finished, she can fly to the sky and escape from the earth.

"Then can I enter the immortal sect to practice?" The girl asked, leaning on the back of the chair.

After the mother-in-law finished her work, she brought down a small bronze cauldron from the silver-white stove, and poured out a bowl full of black and bitter concoction.

The girl frowned and acted like a baby with a bitter face: "Mother-in-law, can I not drink? It's too bitter..."

The beautiful woman put it in front of her.

"This is the last bowl. Drink it obediently. Don't you want to worship the immortal sect? Today's immortal sect has a heavy root. If it wasn't for the parents' deep cultivation base to conceive the congenital god fetus, or the day after tomorrow, the mortal body would come up with it There is no one in a million who can cultivate spiritual energy."

As soon as Apu sat up, the reclining chair creaked, and she said in surprise: "Grandma, can I have a bone to cultivate immortality after drinking this last bowl?"

"It's not that easy, there are still two steps to go."

The silver-haired beautiful woman handed the bowl to her, and the girl closed her eyes and gulped it down fiercely, her mouth full of the familiar bitter taste.

The medicinal juice flowed into the intestines and stomach, and the bitterness spread from the stomach to the whole body along with the hot feeling, and finally penetrated into the bones, making her shiver.

After finally slowing down, she picked a few candied dates from the stone table and stuffed them into her mouth. The girl asked, "Which two steps?"

The sacrificial mother-in-law did not answer, but turned her head to look in the direction of Xiaolin Town.

"Apu, you have been here for five days, you should go back."

When the girl left, the silver-haired woman walked towards the vast high platform of the altar behind the house, and the semicircular light mask glowing with cyan ripples and fluorescence lit up, and then disappeared in the air for a moment.