Yu Qinglian.
Yu Qinglian.
Ji Wuyou's nose and mouth were tangled by the dense and thick hair, which pierced his skin and caused blood to flow. He raised his hands vigorously, using all his strength to make the sound of the bells spread.
Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling.
Through the tiny thread that opened the mouth of the jar, he stared at the figure with his red eyes.
The light was bright, and she finally turned her head on the wall. She took one last look in the opposite direction, but her expression could not be seen clearly in the shadows.
Before Ji Wuyou's joy began to rise, it was extinguished by a bucket of cold water.
She jumped out from the wall.
Jumped out.
Didn't come back.
Boom.
His arms finally lost their strength, his fingers loosened, and the bell fell to the ground.
Ji Wuyou's face was stiff and pale, staring blankly outside, his bloodshot eyes were empty and even without tears. The body of the man in the jar twisted, filling the space, surrounding and devouring him. His brain had long been occupied by fear, a blank. He was going to die, die on this night, die in this jar, die in cold despair. He had encountered many life-and-death moments when he was a child, but never once, he was so scared like this. Perhaps it was not fear, but confusion and panic.
Because... ...there was hope.
Click.
Hot tears fell. He whimpered like a child in the jar. The feeling of suffocation became more and more obvious. He and the man were pressed skin to skin. Just when he thought he was about to die, the wooden board pressing down the jar was suddenly pushed away.
The man in the jar trembled all over, as if he had encountered something extremely terrifying. His hair retracted and quickly turned into a pool of blood. Ji Wuyou survived the disaster and coughed violently, coughing out a few long and thin hairs that turned into blood on the ground.
Something hit his body, little by little. He looked up in a daze and saw dark clouds and it started to rain.
A black rain, muddying the world. He heard various painful roars from afar, and heard ghosts running in panic. The huge raindrops hit his body, hurting him, but he couldn't feel the pain now. The boy slowly stood up from the jar, his body covered with blood and scars.
The sky and the earth were empty, and his sight was also empty.
It was such a short moment, but it seemed like a lifetime, giving him a memory that was like being reborn.
He walked forward aimlessly. At this moment, he heard the man's voice again.
"So what is your wish now?"
The world-weary young man in the temple walked out slowly in the rainy night. He was wearing a black umbrella and a green dress, and he seemed to blend into the rain. His footsteps stepped on the grass. Ji Wuyou's face was covered with blood and rain, but his eyes were still red, looking at him fiercely.
Zhang Qingshu smiled, his eyes full of condescending sarcasm: "Is it still the same ridiculous answer now?"
—My wish now is probably to surpass Zhang Yiming.
—I want to surpass you, and one day I will be able to stand beside you with dignity, as an opponent, or as a friend, instead of being the pitiful person I hate now. On that day, will you all look at me seriously
... ... Take a good look at me.
Ji Wuyou said nothing, lowered his head, clenched his fists, and just walked forward. Every step he took left a deep and shallow red mark on the mud. His clothes were wet, and so were his hair.
Zhang Qingshu: "You can't get out. This is underground, full of demons and monsters. If you are caught, you are doomed to die."
Ji Wuyou stopped and looked up, the rain flowing down the boy's pale face.
Zhang Qingshu said calmly: "See? At the critical moment of life and death, the only one who can save you in the end is yourself."
Ji Wuyou tilted his head, his eyes were numb, and he spoke in a hoarse voice: "Then what should I do."
Zhang Qingshu had been waiting for him to say this for a long time. He looked tired, folded his umbrella, turned it into a pen in his hand, and pointed to the south: "The existence of this village is a sin. If it is a sin, there is no need for it to exist. It's easy to get out, just destroy this place."
"There is a jar in South Village. It is the source of all evil. If you smash it, everything will be over."
Ji Wuyou loosened his grip little by little. His eyes, which had always been clear and frightened, now showed a hint of hidden struggle.
Zhang Qingshu said lazily, "I know what you are thinking. If you destroy this place, the people who came in with you will be buried forever with the evil spirits. You can't do it. But, there are only two paths in front of you. Either you destroy this village, or this village destroys you."
"Didn't what just happened make you understand? They chose to abandon you because you are not that important."
"You were born unloved and have always been abandoned. So why do you still pursue the love of others? Why do you still give others the opportunity to abandon you?"
"Surpassing Zhang Yiming—Do you know who your Senior Brother Zhang Yiming is?"
Ji Wuyou clenched his teeth. Every word Zhang Qingshu said was like a knife, cutting another deep wound on his already scarred soul.
Zhang Qingshu probably said so much for the first time, and the more he spoke, the more irritated he became. He always had this moody attitude, world-weary and indifferent, not like a villain, but more like a down-and-out scholar. Speaking of Zhang Yiming, he calmed down again, his eyes fell on Ji Wuyou, and smiled: "Yunxiao's chief disciple, the first in the Heavenly Test, Pei Yuzhi, a humble person like you, how could you possibly surpass him."
Boom, like a thunder exploding in the mind.
Ji Wuyou suddenly raised his head, his eyes were red enough to bleed, and his voice didn't sound like his, he spoke word by word: "What did you say?"
A black rain, an eternal night is coming.
Zhang Qingshu smiled: "He is Pei Yuzhi, a name I have heard of. As a disciple of Yunxiao, how could you not have heard of him?"
"So now, do you still think he treats you sincerely?"
"You are just a poor fellow he saw during his training. If he really wanted to help you, with his supreme status in Yunxiao, he would naturally arrange the best mountain, the best master, and the best fellow disciples for you. However, he didn't have any of them. He just watched you being bullied and ridiculed for fun, and then he came out to help you out out of boredom."
"You are an ant that he rescued when he had nothing to do. So your life and death are like an ant too."
"He brought you out, but he didn't protect you. He didn't care about your life or death, so why do you care about his life or death?"
Ji Wuyou felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
Zhang Qingshu's voice was still as low and hoarse as before, as if he was sick.
"Pei Yuzhi did nothing wrong, so how can you be considered wrong for doing this?"
"Gratitude and grudges are too cheap in the face of life and death. If you don't work for yourself, you will be punished by heaven and earth. Staying alive and becoming stronger should be your most original and essential desire when entering the world of cultivation."
Zhang Qingshu's figure was almost transparent in the rain. Finally, he smiled faintly and said in a voice that only he could hear: "Besides, they are so passive because she is here. How can you kill Pei Yuzhi outside this underground world?"
Ji Wuyou felt his mind was in a daze, but something in his heart was awakening. Amidst the violent storms and the howling of ghosts, the world was crumbling and cracking, a bloody darkness, and someone pointed out a way for him.
Pei Jing waited for the rain to stop. This punishment rain had been falling for quite a long time, and he didn't know who that crazy scholar Yan was punishing.
After the rain stopped, Pei Jing planned to set off. Before leaving, Zhao Youqing suddenly changed her mind, walked out of the cave, and said to Pei Jing: "I want to go with you?"
Her idea became inexplicable, and Pei Jingxian asked: "Why?"
Zhao Youqing looked outside, not knowing what she was thinking. She only said, "Nothing. I'm just curious. I want to see what the place that has been rumored to be a forbidden area in the village looks like."
Pei Jing thought about it and smiled brightly: "That's fine, it will be more convenient for me if you lead the way."
Zhao Youqing smiled a little palely: "In this place, I won't call you by your name, I'll just call you Little Master."
Pei Jing thought it was a bit amusing. The little master was quite cute. It was much more convenient to have Zhao Youqing leading the way. At least he didn't have to worry about getting lost or being discovered by some big ghosts along the way.
Walking towards Nancun, there is no day or night in this place. At a certain time, it is pitch black.
After a rain, the ghosts all hid in their houses and refused to come out. The paper money on the ground became thick white after being soaked in water. After passing the entrance of the village, there was another mountain road to the other side of the village.
The mountain road was the same as when Pei Jing came here, with coffins piled up like stairs and bones all under the soil.
Zhao Youqing was used to all this and was absent-minded, not knowing what she was thinking about.
Pei Jing found all kinds of twisted and hideous corpses in the forest. Some had their eyes gouged out, some had their stomachs ripped out, and some had twins stitched together to death. He thought, the people in this village really deserved to die.
A broken arm fell from a tree branch, and Zhao Youqing was hit on the forehead without noticing.
She looked up and found that the arm had been rotting for many days and was emitting a foul odor, but the clothes were intact. The style was very familiar to her, after all, it was the palace embroidery that had remained unchanged for hundreds of years.
Zhao Youqing thought about it carefully for a while, and remembered who this was, with a complicated expression.
Pei Jing also noticed it, and after observing it, he found that the five fingers of the arm hanging on the branch were broken alive. "This death is too tragic."
Zhao Youqing said sullenly, "This is a maid from the Liguo Palace. I don't know how she was dragged down. I tried to save her, but it was useless. In this place, it would be easier for her to die."
Pei Jing: "Yeah, it's such a hell of a place. If you stay there for too long, you'll go crazy."
Zhao Youqing looked at him and said nothing.
Pei Jing thought for a moment and said seriously: "You have a really good attitude."
Zhao Youqing: "I don't think you are praising me."
Pei Jing: "No, I was just praising you, but I have a question. You are not happy in the village, you don't want to go back to the earth, and you don't want to reincarnate. You said that you are still obsessed—"
"Is there anyone who hasn't been killed yet?"
Zhao Youqing smiled with her eyes curved, "Your thoughts are really the nature of a young man. If you still have an obsession, it means you have a great vengeance that has not been avenged. It's great to be able to take revenge and repay kindness." But soon her smile faded, "It's a pity that women's obsessions are usually not about revenge."
Pei Jing knew that he should shut up now.
Zhao Youqing just glanced at him. After living for four hundred years, she no longer had the mood to express her emotions to others.
The more Pei Jing interacted with Zhao Youqing, the more he felt that she gave him a very familiar feeling. Tired, exhausted, not interested in anything, and world-weary...
Like Zhang Qingshu.
In a sense, they are quite similar.
Zhao Youqing said that there was a ruin in front of Zhang's house. In fact, Pei Jing could guess that those ruins should be the traces of the most original Zhonglian Village, and Zhonglian Village was originally located in the deep forest and valley.
After passing Nancun, he saw a river ahead. The water was green, boiling and surging, with a few pieces of bones swimming down from upstream from time to time.
Zhao Youqing was stunned for a moment when she saw the river, and said, "Luckily I came with you. It's been so long, I almost forgot the existence of this river. Without me, you might not have been able to find it after searching for a long time."
Zhao Youqing took a step forward and bit her finger. A drop of blood gushed out from her fingertips and fell into the green river water. Her blood dripping into the boiling hot river water seemed to be imprisoned by ice. Crackling, crackling, soon, a bloody icy road spread from one end of the river all the way to the other.
"Go ahead, and pay attention when you walk. Don't listen to anything and don't look at anything. There are monsters in the river that are good at spying on people's hearts. They will confuse you and drag you into the river."
Pei Jing nodded: "Yeah."
He didn't have any demons in his heart, so it was easy for him to go through this confusing illusion. Pei Jing walked over the bridge, and from time to time he looked down at the ghost at the bottom of the river. Across the green water, he and the monster with a human head and a turtle body looked at each other in silence.
The monster blew a bubble and felt hopeless.
So Pei Jing chatted with it as he walked.
"Brother, isn't it bad for you to spy on other people's minds every day here?"
The monster blew another bubble.
"Brother, do you know how much your behavior is despised in our world?"
The monster didn't want to talk.
Pei Jing chuckled: "But it's okay. Soon this village, this river, and even you will no longer exist. Hurry up and blow more bubbles."
monster:"... ... "
The bubble burst and it got angry.
So when Pei Jing was halfway there, he heard all kinds of voices, most of which were from his master and ancestors.
"Pei Yuzhi, are you tired of living? Go to the hanging bridge and face the wall for three months!"
"Read the sutra ten times. If you are not convinced, read it twenty times!"
"If you bully anyone in Jingtianyuan again, I will break your legs!"
Pei Jing was stunned at first, but then he reacted and almost laughed out loud. Is this really a demon that confuses people? It feels like it is here to act cute, but no, it is here to act stupid. Maybe these words taught by the elders are too childish, and the bubble monster can't stand it anymore, and the style of the painting changes to become charming and ambiguous.
"Pei Lang, I like you." An unknown female cultivator.
"Young man, would you like to come with me?" This is a young lady from the human world that I met during my travels.
"Sir... ... um..." The temptress who came to seduce him.
Even Yu Qinglian's voice was imitated.
"Yuzhi, I have been pleased with you for a long time."
Pei Jing gave Bubble Monster some advice: "Don't you know that I am a clean-handed person who never gets involved with women?"
And forget about Yu Qinglian. Being liked by her is not just ambiguous, it's terrifying.
It was the first time that Zhao Youqing saw someone chatting with the monster under the river. She looked helpless and pushed Pei Jing forward. She was a ghost, so there was no obstacle for her here.
She said to the monster who was blowing bubbles in anger at the bottom of the river: "You are trying to confuse him with the person he wants to save. That's the one he loves."
What the hell. Pei Jing was frightened.
"Don't hurt me."
He was already a little confused by Chu Junyu's affairs, and then he was confessed to. Even if it was an illusion, he couldn't bear it.
Pei Jing lowered his head and apologized to the monster under the river: "Brother Pao, don't listen to her. I was just passing by here. There's nothing much to say. I just wish you a long life."
Zhao Youqing couldn't help laughing and said, "Little Master, are you scared?"
Pei Jing had a headache: "I beg you to shut up."
Why do all of them keep repeating and even hinting that he likes Chu Junyu? It's poisonous!
Who likes who after all
After crossing the river and landing, they saw a barren forest in front of them. It was gray and there was mud on the leaves of every tree. A crack snaked from the depths of the forest to their feet. The mountains collapsed and the ground cracked. The forest was dark and the blood color of the years had not faded.
Zhao Youqing's smile gradually faded and her eyes looked forward.
It seemed as if I had traveled through time and space and returned to that night.
Black rain poured down from the sky, the ground shook, and the air was filled with blood and smoke. All I could see was a turbulent scene, and what filled my nose was suffocating mud. The screams of life and death struggled lingered in my ears.
In extreme panic and panic, she subconsciously yelled out his name.
The moment he closed his eyes, the sky and the earth closed together and the whole world collapsed.
Go down to the ground.
Her fingers grasped the tree next to her, but the tree slowly sank. She thought she would fall and get hurt, but she didn't. There was a young man in the air, his clothes were melted by the rain, his cheeks were thin and pale, and his eyes looked down with boredom and silence.
At the moment when she fell into darkness, someone granted her eternal life without pain.
He gave me the last mercy.
Pei Jing noticed her expression and asked, "Do you want to wait a little longer before we go in?"
Zhao Youqing shook her head, her fingers trembling, but the smile on the corner of her lips was still as cold as usual: "No need, I wasn't afraid of this place when I was a human, so why would I be afraid now that I'm a ghost?" Her eyes fell on the ground. This place was too shocking for her, and any slight change would not escape her eyes.
Zhao Youqing said: "Someone got here before us. Guess who it is."
Pei Jing was stunned: "The one you are talking about, the Zhang family?"
Zhao Youqing smiled and said, "Yes." Her fingers stiffened inch by inch, and her voice trembled as she whispered, "Little Master, please stop him."
Pei Jing tilted his head: "What?"
But before they stayed in front of the mountain for long, a crackling sound suddenly came from the river.
The ghost blood froze into ice, and passages snaked across the green river.
On the other side, a group of ferocious evil spirits, crawling on all fours, with green faces, fangs, and red eyes, ran towards them.
In the distance, there was an old man's roar.
"Can you come and go as you please in the forbidden area?"
Pei Jing reacted quickly and immediately grabbed Zhao Youqing's hand and ran up the mountain.
“Go!”
Author's note: Uh, only half... See you tomorrow.
I remember I said I would send out red envelopes, so please leave a message in this chapter. Happy New Year~