The KTV scene gradually faded away, and everything in front of me was dark.
After two or three seconds, there was another "crash!" sound. The green flames lit up again, and the two little ghosts stood side by side, holding lanterns.
The back of its clothes was covered with drooping hair, and its two ears, one black and one white, were fluttering in the wind and its eyes were shining sharply. It should have been an ordinary pattern, but Lu Yingjiu could clearly see that it was blinking and breathing slightly.
Lu Yingjiu: "...What just appeared?"
The black-clad imp replied, "A fragment from the past."
"She saw me." Lu Yingjiu narrowed her eyes slightly, "Chen Minlan saw me and was aware of my existence. Did I really go back to the past?"
"Yes and no," the little ghost said, "She can hear you because of listening carefully."
Yes, the practice of listening carefully is to listen with your heart.
It shouldn't have such enormous and incredible power to transmit information across time and space.
Besides, how could Chen Yu's deeds be related to the ghosts and gods that Zhang Yu had contracted with
The little ghost saw Lu Yingjiu's doubt and turned his back.
The black fur on its back rippled, and it twitched its dog ears as it looked into Lu Yingjiu's eyes.
This should have been a normal scene.
Until one of Di Ting's eyes suddenly appeared on his body!
The eye socket was forcibly opened in the flesh, and blood immediately gushed out from the crack, dyeing the hair red.
There was a familiar metallic luster in his eyes, spinning around.
Exactly the same as Tiandao's eyes.
However, there are some shortcomings.
Those eyes looked scary, but without the usual "voyeuristic feeling", and instead of making people feel uneasy.
The little ghost in white explained: "Chen Minlan reached an agreement with Zhang Yu, contacted Di Ting, and reached a temporary contract with it. In other words, she can also use some of Di Ting's power."
"Zhang Yu has been worshipping for many years and has received great favor from the Heavenly Dao. So he lent some of his power to Di Ting, allowing it to possess power beyond that of ordinary ghosts and gods. Only then can it present the past to you."
As soon as he finished speaking, the two eyes on the Di Ting body rolled even more violently.
The blood gushed out, and it was painful to watch, as if it was parasitic on some alien object. This was both a power and a curse.
The black-clothed ghost continued: "Of course, Di Ting still cannot travel through time. It is better to say that it is your 'inner voice' that goes back to the past rather than you going back to the past."
"It was just a coincidence that Chen Minlan could detect you, a coincidence that even Di Ting didn't expect."
"Diligent listening transmits your heartbeats, allowing you to see the past. Chen Minlan, who is in the past, only noticed the voice in the mirror because she did not have the power of Diligent listening."
Lu Yingjiu was stunned for a moment.
He said, "If I go back and talk to her, is that possible?"
"Not feasible." The little ghost in white shook his head. "Even the Heavenly Dao itself cannot change the past. To achieve this point is already the limit of it... and me."
As they were talking, the appearance of the two little ghosts changed, and they gradually grew a horn and dog ears.
—This is the model of attentive listening.
The rotating eyes were on its back, and its clothes were stained red with blood.
Lu Yingjiu was silent for a while, then asked, "What do you want to tell me? What do you want me to see?"
"You will understand," the little ghost replied, "please continue to follow me."
It still walked in the dark with a green lantern, the light illuminating the white walls, black eaves and red doors.
After walking for another ten minutes, the kid blew the whistle again.
At the end of the road, another red door opened with a bang. The little ghosts stood on both sides and said respectfully, "Please."
Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian walked in and saw darkness before their eyes.
…
"Wooooooooooooooooo!"
"Ahh! There are ghosts! The walls are full of ghosts!"
“Save me, save me, save me, save me!”
The sound of rain and hysterical screams.
Then, a gentle voice came: "Xiao Han, go increase the dosage of bed 3's medicine and prescribe another box of olanzapine. When you are on duty at night, you need to replace the calming charm at the door with a new one."
"Okay." Someone responded hastily, "Doctor Zhang, will you stay in the hospital tonight?"
"No, I have other things to do, so I have to go ahead." The voice replied, "Dean Ye is not here tonight, so you should keep an eye on him."
"Okay!"
The scene in front of my eyes brightened up.
When his eyes adjusted to the light, Lu Yingjiu saw a black cloud.
The clouds were like ink splashes, the rain was dripping, and the white walls of Yueshan Sanatorium were washed by the water. I stood at the gate of the hospital, holding up a white umbrella, and waded through the puddles carefully.
She looks familiar.
She is in her sixties and has gray hair at the temples, but because of her outstanding temperament, she looks younger in a pure white dress without any sense of incongruity.
Lu Yingjiu whispered, "She is Zhang Nianyun."
That is Ye Feng’s second wife.
Zhang Nianyun headed towards the mountain.
It was raining, and the stone road in the mountains was very slippery. She was as light as a deer, with a white umbrella shining brightly under the gloomy sky.
At first Lu Yingjiu was a little confused: Di Ting should be traveling in the mirror, and there is no mirror on this mountain, so how could he see Zhang Nianyun
Jing Xian guessed: "There is water in the mountains, and the reflection of the water surface may be similar to a mirror."
"It's possible. The power of Di Ting is really strong." Lu Yingjiu said.
The stagnant water is everywhere, and coupled with its ability to hear what's going on, it's truly terrifying.
Lu Yingjiu thought, no wonder Zhang Yu worshipped the Way of Heaven so much, the ability to listen to everything he heard was incredible. Moreover, Zhang Yu would definitely benefit from it in other aspects.
Zhang Nianyun walked along the mountain road towards the bottom.
This is the road for worshipping the mountain, leading to the 35 snake-leaving pavilions. He had passed this road before when he fled the village, and seeing it again now, he couldn't help but feel a little emotional.
It's just that we don't want to worship the mountain now, and it's getting dark. What is Zhang Nianyun doing alone in the mountain
Feeling very tired, Zhang Nianyun put some talisman paper on himself.
When the sky got darker, she prayed to the gods, and her steps became lighter and faster, she didn't know how many times faster. In addition, she was familiar with the mountain roads and often took shortcuts. In just half an hour, she had passed the first eight snake pavilions.
Then Zhang Nianyun stopped at one of the ten pavilions.
There are four rest cabins here.
He also lived in Lu Yingjiu.
She entered Ye Deyong's room, opened the basement, and went down the stairs. Her small bedroom was at the bottom.
The house is neatly arranged.
She opened the wardrobe and took out a tin box from under the layers of clothes.
—It was the box full of photos of Lu Yingjiu.
She hesitated for a long time, wrapped the box with a silk scarf, held it in her arms, and walked out of the cabin.
Then she just held the iron box and continued on the mountain road.
For nearly two hours, the sky was dark, and the white umbrella was like a mountain flower, dancing in the wind, climbing one steep slope after another. Relying on the good night vision of the spirit, Zhang Nianyuan walked quickly in the mountains and saw more than 20 pavilions in the distance.
Open the door to the basement and go inside to find the lounge.
The sofa is soft and a few lamps gently illuminate the carpet.
There is a door in the inner room.
Zhang Nianyun folded the umbrella, shook off the crystal raindrops on the umbrella, and gently leaned it against the corner.
She walked slowly to the inner room and knocked on the door: "Deyong?"
"Ah." A voice responded from inside the house.
The door lock clanged, and the door opened, revealing an old and serious face.
Ye Deyong.
He asked, "Why so late?"
"There is a patient in the hospital who suddenly fell ill." Zhang Nianyun said, "It will take some time."
Ye Deyong nodded slightly, and the two of them went into the house.
The scene turns and the angle changes.
This time, Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian were looking at the two people through a small mirror in the room.
There was a satellite map of the mountains on Ye Deyong's desk, various obscure runes were hung on the walls, and the bookshelves were piled high with books.
He drew many lines on the picture and the font was densely packed.
Packaging of instant coffee, bags of soaked tea... He had been working for a long time, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Lu Yingjiu knew what Ye Deyong was planning.
He wanted the Spider Queen to invade the mountains and parasitize on the snake's body so as to revive Ye Feng who died in the mudslide.
Zhang Nianyun's eyes scanned his work. The light in the room was dim, and she didn't have much expression. A drop of rain flowed down her hair and across the tiny wrinkles beside her nose.
After a long pause, she whispered, "Do you really want to do this?"
"I didn't hold him back," Ye Deyong said. "No matter what, I will bring him back."
Even if it was the ghosts and gods who betrayed the contract, even if it was sacrificing the sanatorium and the villagers who he regarded as his life.
He and Zhang Nianyun had no children, so he treated Ye Feng as his own.
The lights in the house flickered.
Both were speechless.
After a while, Ye Deyong looked at the iron box brought by Zhang Nianyuan and asked, "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
Lu Yingjiu couldn't help holding his breath.
Sure enough, Ye Deyong also knew about his affairs.
"… It's okay." Zhang Nianyun shook his head. "There are a lot of tools here. I want to make a spare key for the box and ask you to keep it."
This was a quite normal sentence, but Ye Deyong noticed that something was wrong.
Zhang Nianyun was a very careful person, and she would never lose or damage the key. Moreover, she only trusted herself to open the box, and even Ye Deyong did not have the power to do so.
Ye Deyong asked again: "What happened?"
"Just in case." Zhang Nianyun said, "Just in case."
She said nothing more, picked up the box and went to another room.
He used the heavy key to open the iron box, and inside were photos of Lu Yingjiu - photos of her when she was a child.
From the age of one to seven or eight: Zhuang Xue took him to the park in a stroller, he built sand castles on the beach, he stood on the street corner watching other children play hopscotch, he carried his schoolbag on his way to school…
On the back of the first photo, it says: 1/59
Seeing this number again, Lu Yingjiu felt emotional.
He didn't understand what she meant when he first saw her. He just felt that Zhang Nianyun was despicable. She actually secretly monitored him and Zhuang Xue for such a long time. It was horrifying.
He now understood that this 1/59 referred to the unfinished sacrifice, and he was the last sacrifice.
There were footsteps behind me.
Ye Deyong still came over, stood beside her, and looked at the photo together: "He has grown this big?"
"Yeah, he is about the same age as Ye Feng." Zhang Nianyun stared at him intently and smiled, "You didn't expect that time would pass so quickly. We are already grandparents."
I don’t know if it was Lu Yingjiu’s illusion.
Her face was… almost gentle.
Ye Deyong snorted, "When have I ever denied that I'm a grandfather? It's because you love beauty all day long." He took Zhang Nianyun's shoulder and said, "When Ye Feng and his problems are resolved, I'll go with you to relax."
Zhang Nianyun glanced at him and said, "Come on, old man, you still want to go out and play?"
Ye Deyong smiled rarely: "Isn't this for you? Where do you think it's better to go, in China or abroad, which direction is better? Grassland, sea or desert, it's up to you." After saying that, he leaned over to kiss her cheek.
"Okay, okay." Zhang Nianyun also smiled and pushed him away. "It's all a matter of time, don't plan it so early."
After saying this, she seemed to think of something and her face went blank for a moment.
"What's wrong with you today?" Ye Deyong asked, pulling a chair over and sitting next to him. "You're easily distracted when you talk, with the keys and that expression on your face."
"It's really okay." Zhang Nianyun smiled and shook his head, "When you have time, just say less and help me make the key."
So the two of them sat side by side, feeling quite cozy.
Little did he know that a few years later, before the promised trip could be realized, Zhang Nianyun committed suicide in this basement.
Ye Deyong summoned the Spider Mother to resurrect Ye Feng, and kept his secret for the next few years until the disease took him and his guilt away. Ye Feng took his ashes and scattered them into the sea, disappearing without a trace.
Lu Yingjiu’s eyes went dark.
The screen disappears.
When he could see clearly again, the scene in front of him was completely different.
The rain came down in torrents, the water rushed through the windows of the sanatorium, and there were flashes of lightning and thunder.
Low air pressure will make you feel sleepy.
A nurse yawned and walked into Zhang Nianyun's office with a pile of documents. She said, "Doctor Zhang, Dean Ye is not here today. The director asked me to tell you... Doctor Zhang? Doctor Zhang?"
Zhang Nianyun looked straight out the window without blinking.
Lu Yingjiu followed her gaze.
In the iron-blue sky, there is a huge eye!
It did not look in Zhang Nianyun's direction, but turned coldly, as if looking for something somewhere else.
Lu Yingjiu knew that it was looking for him.
That's why he has no memory of this incident... At that time, he was still young and should have no ability to resist at all.
The nurse couldn't see the eyes and shouted again: "Doctor Zhang, what's wrong with you?"
Zhang Nianyun stood up suddenly!
The wind was strong and howling outside. She didn't even have time to put on her coat. She hurriedly grabbed an umbrella and ran out.
In the forest, thousands of trees were bent by the wind. She summoned her spirit and strode into the wind, her skirt ruffled by the wind.
—She was almost running on the stone road.
Pavilions passed by her one after another, the rain hitting her so hard that she couldn't breathe. She ran to about twenty pavilions without stopping, opened the door of the basement, and rushed into the innermost part with a wet and cold body.
Lu Yingjiu had been to that inner room.
The inner room is a wide space, more than a hundred meters deep.
The walls were covered with photos of the mountain worship team, and there was also a monument to commemorate those who died in the mudslide. At the end was a regular black stone tablet.
This is a stone tablet used to worship the Heavenly Dao. It is 10 meters high and engraved with words as fine as a mosquito's foot.
The handwriting is disorganized.
Some characters are extremely elegant, just like the authentic works left by calligraphy masters; others are childish and cute, as if they were written by children.
Zhang Nianyun threw the white umbrella aside, panting, and walked to the stone tablet.
In the ground in front, the iron box was opened, and Lu Yingjiu's photos and densely packed information were piled together, with empty pens scattered all over the ground.
She has been doing research here for some time and hasn't had time to clean up, so the place is in a mess.
Zhang Nianyun sat down among the pile of materials and looked at the stone tablet.
The stone tablet was extremely tall, and from this angle it looked as if it was about to topple over. At this moment, the words on the top of the tablet flickered slightly, emitting an unsettling light.
—The way of heaven is restless.
That's why its eyes appear on the horizon.
Those eyes have been moving for a long time, and there is not much time left.
Zhang Nianyun didn't know what he was hesitating about.
She finally got here, but did not move for a long time. Instead, she reached out, pushed aside the documents, and picked up the photos of Lu Yingjiu one by one.
She had looked at the photos many times and even remembered the order clearly. She stacked them in chronological order in her hands, forming a thick stack.
“…” Lu Yingjiu frowned slightly.
What is she doing
After the photos were arranged, Zhang Nianyun looked at them silently.
In one photo, Lu Yingjiu was just a newborn baby, and Zhuang Xue was holding him in her arms on the hospital bed with a smile on her face.
Like the other photos, it was taken secretly, from outside the ward window, and is a bit blurry.
Zhang Nianyun reached out and gently touched the baby's hand in the photo. He didn't know what he was thinking of, but a smile appeared on the corner of his lips.
-As before, she showed a gentle expression that Lu Yingjiu could not understand.
This expression was very similar to the one she had when she looked at Ye Feng.
Just a watcher.
She flipped through the photos one by one, going through the years since he was born.
Watch him build sand castles, watch him play hopscotch by himself, watch him do his homework seriously, watch him squat on the roadside and look at the goldfish sold by the vendors...
This may sound strange.
Zhang Nianyun watched him grow up.
His fingers carefully touched every detail.
Until the last photo, the back of Lu Yingjiu was frozen on her way home from school.
The runes on the stone tablet fluctuated even more violently, and the Heavenly Dao became extremely manic.
Zhang Nianyun folded the photos again, locked them back in the iron box, and said to himself: "It would be great if you could meet Ye Feng. You will definitely be good friends with him."
What she didn't know was that by coincidence over the years, Ye Feng really knew Lu Yingjiu.
During the time when Lu Yingjiu was at his lowest point, Ye Feng would ride his broken bicycle downstairs every day to wake him up.
The two, one discovered the truth about the resurrection, one destroyed the mountains invaded by the Spider Mother, and one worked in a bar and an office. They were very good friends.
The stone tablet flickered, as if urging.
Zhang Nianyun finally made up his mind and took out a military knife from his waist bag.
The saber was thin but had a blood groove, a first-rate weapon. She gently turned the blade, a cold light flashed, and whispered: "If I could..."
She paused.
I didn't say the last word.
She pointed the saber at her heart, without hesitation, stabbed it in cleanly and quickly, then pulled it out fiercely.
Lu Yingjiu's breathing paused.
It turned out that Zhang Nianyun committed suicide at this time.
Perhaps she had already realized this result, so she asked Ye Deyong to get a key so that she could continue to use the photo.
A large amount of blood spurted out and splashed on the stone tablet.
She prayed to the gods, and remained conscious despite her fatal injury. Her trembling fingers were stained with scarlet, and she wrote something on the stele stroke by stroke.
This is unimaginable perseverance and calmness.
The body continued to lose temperature, the fear of death was enough to engulf everything, and a cold feeling spread throughout the body.
At this moment, she could actually draw a formation.
As Zhang Nianyun moved, the flashing of the stone tablet slowed down.
And when she finished her last stroke and fell down weakly, holding on to the wall, the stone tablet had returned to normal. In the gloomy sky, her eyes stopped moving, as if they had received an alternative, temporary compensation, and slowly closed.
She actually sacrificed herself to the heaven.
The wind and rain gradually died down.
For others, it was just a rainy day.
Lu Yingjiu took a half step back and felt his stomach being gripped by an invisible hand.
It felt heavy, and there was a feeling of nausea and cramps, and the blood was cold.
—He suddenly felt that he seemed to have misunderstood something.
Something crucial that had never been told to him.
Zhang Nianyun fell in a pool of blood, his pupils slowly losing focus.
Before she died, she, like Chen Minlan, heard the heart sounds brought by Di Ting, and barely gathered a little bit of her spirit to look in one direction.
She happened to be looking into Lu Yingjiu's eyes.
She slightly widened her eyes, as if in disbelief, and shouted in a low voice: "... Lu Yingjiu?"
"Lu Yingjiu, is that you?"
Lu Yingjiu subconsciously wanted to respond, but found that her voice turned into silence and she couldn't hear it at all.
As Di Ting said, the past cannot be changed.
He couldn't do anything, including respond.
Zhang Nianyun just waited for a few seconds.
She whispered, "You may not know who I am, but I have known you for many years."
She seemed to know that she would not get a response, and her lips trembled, but she showed a very small smile.
With tenderness and relief.
She said, "We had the chance to meet. One time you couldn't find me to play hopscotch with, so you sat in the courtyard and stared blankly. I was watching you from the side. I wanted to play with you, and there were many times when I wanted to see you, but... I shouldn't have done that."
She had a thousand words to say, including the secrets she had hidden for years, the reasons for the surveillance, and the unknown suicide, but in the end she lost all strength: "You don't need to know who I am. You don't need to know in this lifetime."
Lu Yingjiu clenched his fingers.
A shiver ran up his spine.
Why was she willing to sacrifice her life
He didn't even say a word.
However, he remembered the look on Zhang Nianyun's face when he looked at the photo.
To Lu Yingjiu, she was a stranger he had never met before. Even at this moment, he was shocked and could not feel any tenderness in his heart.
Emotions need to settle.
In such a short period of time, it is impossible for anyone to have deep and sincere feelings for this stranger.
But for Zhang Nianyun, Lu Yingjiu was the child she had watched grow up, right? To the point that she wanted to accompany him when she saw him lonely, felt happy when he was happy, and felt anxious when he was upset. She hid in the dark, acting as a qualified observer, for nearly ten years. The only flaw was when she saw Lu Yingjiu looking at a goldfish on the roadside for a long time, but ultimately did not buy it.
She hesitated for a long time, secretly bought a few of the most beautiful ones, and placed them at his door.
The young Lu Yingjiu was naturally very happy to see him.
—What he thought was a pleasant surprise was actually a long-planned and carefully planned love. And he would never know.
Blood flowed down the steps, and the stone tablet was covered with scarlet.
Zhang Nianyun was completely exhausted and his consciousness was dissipating.
In this final second, her gaze seemed to pass through the mirror and indeed fell on Lu Yingjiu's body.
Lu Yingjiu read her lip movements and heard the last sentence: "You are so tall..."
Respiratory arrest.
She died in a pool of blood.
The scene quickly faded away, and everything in front of me was pitch black.
When it lit up again, the green lamp hung dimly in the air.
Lu Yingjiu's whole body froze, and he stood there like a rock, allowing Jing Xian to take him into his arms.
The two little ghosts stood on his left and right and bowed to him.
It said, "Please continue to follow me. Zhang Da is just ahead."