Fengyue City.
The night was long, and the hall was empty and lonely.
The painter lowered his head and was mixing paints in front of a long desk. The candlelight from the lampstand covered his face with a faint halo, making him appear gentle and melancholy.
The luan bird demon who slipped into the palace sat beside him, admired the magnificent murals, and chatted with him sentence by sentence:
"I guess your body is a chameleon."
The painter didn't look up and was still mixing paint: "I am a snake."
"Snake? The king of Lingshan is also a snake. You and the king are of the same clan!" Luan Bird was startled, and approached with fear and curiosity, "Hey, have you seen the king? What kind of monster is he?"
"That's me."
Luan Bird giggled: "I don't believe it, you lied to me!"
The painter did not speak.
"You are my first friend here." Luanniao said again, "At the Ten Thousand Demons Conference, I want to sing, can you come? If you come, I will sing very well!"
The painter nodded, not paying much attention.
Luan Bird was very happy: "That's it!"
Fengyue City is luxurious and prosperous, and demons come and go. When she first entered the city, her eyes widened and she was full of ambitions.
But for some reason, as time passed, she felt more lonely than in the forest when she was surrounded by demons.
The little demons who performed for the banquet lived in the dormitory in the palace, and they didn't care about singing and breath, only concerned about whether they could get the big demon blue eyes. Intrigue between the little demons, comparisons are common, and the affection is weak.
She wrote a mournful and beautiful aria, but the chief of the court did not allow her to sing it, but asked her to sing a hymn to praise the achievements of King Lingshan.
No demon can understand her tune. Just like this painter, he clearly painted ferrets most vividly, one stroke at a time, full of sincerity, but there was no ferret on the palace murals.
Perhaps because the former demon king, King Xueshan, was originally a mink, King Lingshan did not allow him to paint, and his "sable painting technique" could only be dusty.
As soon as Luanniao thought of this, he felt that he and the painter had the same illness and pity for each other, and they were each other's soulmates. He sneaked into the palace to see the murals, but the painter didn't tell her, but helped her cover up, what a gentle and kind good demon.
"I still want to see that ferret picture."
The artist took out the scroll, and the starry night and the snow-capped mountains unfolded slowly.
Luanniao was attracted by the painting, and said in a daze: "A lifetime of madness, under the Xingye Snow Mountain... Does this mink have a name?"
The painter frowned slightly and said softly, "He is my friend."
"Then tell me about your friend."
The painter looked nostalgic: "Before, I had two friends. We went out together and played tricks for human children and demon cubs."
Luan Bird was pleasantly surprised: "You still do tricks?"
"I won't, I'm a prop, and the tricks are fake. I'm a bracelet, a mink is a scarf, another friend performs 'Going for the Stars'..."
The trick of "Going for the stars" was figured out by Que Xianming, in order to amuse children.
On a clear starry night, the bonfires were lit, and the eyes of the onlookers sparkled.
Que Xianming took off the snow-white scarf and shouted "change", the scarf actually lived and turned into a small mink.
He took off the bracelet again, and flung it in the wind, the bracelet unfolded and turned into a thin piebald snake. The thin snake straightened up like a long rope. The little mink climbed up the "rope", and the "rope" became longer and longer, submerging into the night sky.
Que Xianming said: "Come some applause, please invite my scarf to pick stars for everyone."
After a short while, glittering low-grade spirit stones and low-grade spirit beads were scattered in the air, like little stars. The children stretched out their hands to pick them up, jumping and competing with their companions.
Amid the cheers and exclamations, the little mink who picked the stars climbed down the "rope" again.
The artist said: "We have played many times, the mink is crawling around on me, I always want to coil him and wrap him tightly. This is the instinct of snakes. But I played a rope, and the rope can't move. …”
He spoke in a eloquent manner, with sincere love and sincerity, Luanniao was fascinated by it: "What happened later? Did you try it?"
The painter shook his head: "The loneliest thing about Yao Sheng is not that he has no friends, but that he has had one."
Luan Bird felt pity: "I am willing to be your new friend!"
The painter looked up. Luan Bird met his gaze, and for some reason his heart skipped a beat, and a terrifying chill appeared on his back.
The next moment the artist smiled again, and the cold illusion was fleeting.
"You should go back," said the painter.
Luanniao heard the footsteps outside the palace, and said anxiously, "Is there still a demon coming to inspect the palace so late? I'll sneak away first!"
After saying that, he flew out of the stained window, and used the shadow of the eaves to cover his tracks.
"Your Majesty, the Demon Suppression Tower is urgently reported!" The demon general entered the hall and fell to the ground.
The King of Lingshan said lightly: "Speak."
"The Suppressing Demon Tower collapsed, and the two sinners fled. The Eagle General did not know where to go. The Black Mountain Demon, the White River Demon, and the Tiger General were fighting under the tower, all identifying each other as their accomplices."
A moment of silence.
The demon general did not dare to raise his head, his heart froze. Such absurd and bad news will surely provoke the wrath of King Lei Ting. Don't you dare to come to report the news, for fear of being angered, push it back and forth, and finally push it on your own head.
However, the king's voice was calm: "General Chuan Hu will return to Fengyue City to take the crime. Heishan is ordered to block the territory and lead troops to capture the criminal demon and the eagle general. The tree demon Chuan will go to Honglin to negotiate, and ask the old Honglin demon to assist in the search. Go."
The demon general breathed a sigh of relief, and with a cold sweat on his forehead, got up and exited the hall.
The King of Lingshan said to the picture scroll: "You really came back. Before you showed up, let me lose my troops and lose my generals. My ability is no less than that."
The author has something to say: Don't give your true feelings to Snake, he won't whitewash, he is the villain who takes the essentials
ps: The trick is born out of the "Tongtian Rope" in "Strange Tales from a Liaozhai"