Lin Shuo took the bloody rooster and pushed open the red-painted wooden door of the main room.
In the six years since moving here, Lin Shuo would push open the wooden door every first and fifteenth day of the lunar new year.
Cut off the head of a rooster, and even the blood of the rooster just reached the sun, and sacrifice the things enshrined on the incense table in the house.
But today is not the 15th day of the lunar new year, but the 20th day of the sixth month of the Jiashen year.
According to the Gregorian calendar, it is August 5, 2004.
In front of the incense table, blood was spilled all the way.
Lin Shuo raised one hand, dripped the rooster's blood into the white porcelain cup on the incense table, threw the chicken carcass away, took out three incense sticks from the incense table, and lit it with a match.
After waiting for a while, Lin Shuo raised his glass above his eyebrows, and then sprinkled the uncoagulated chicken blood in front of the incense table.
After finishing all this, Lin Shuo lit another cigarette, took a few puffs, and spoke amidst the smog:
"Master Zhui, thanks to your protection, I survived in Kunlun Mountain six years ago.
News came today that not only did the beast in Kunlun Mountain not die, but it even went to the Longjiang River.
Or please chase Master to come with me.
This beast should not live. "
The volume of these words was not loud, it seemed to be muttering to himself.
After finishing speaking, Lin Shuo knelt down and kowtowed three times, then got up, groped behind the incense table, and found a black cloth belt one palm wide.
It is an ebony box tied with a black cloth belt.
This box was parked behind the incense table. It was three meters long and over one meter high. It was astonishing in size, just like a coffin.
Lin Shuo bent down slightly, put the black cloth bag around his head and put it on his shoulders, carried the "coffin" across his shoulders, turned and walked out of the room.
Anne, who was outside the house, saw the ebony box behind Lin Shuo, with a face full of respect, clasped her hands together and bowed, and hurriedly pulled Wei Xingshan out of the door of the outer room so that Lin Shuo and the ebony box could pass.
"Pretending to be a ghost." Wei Xingshan muttered softly, his face full of disdain.
The starling bird flew to the ebony box, pecked the box with its beak, and made a "dong dong" sound:
"Grandfather, hello."
Starling bird greeted the things in the ebony box, then said to Lin Shuo:
"Brother Shuo, I'm going back to the woods. I don't know when I'll be back when I go out this time. Some of my female birds are fierce. I'm afraid they won't be able to wait for me and will crash to death on the cliff. I Advise them to remarry."
"Go." Lin Shuo waved his hand with a helpless expression on his face.
Anne let out a laugh, then straightened her expression, and gave a thumbs up to Starling Bird: "Baye, you are so open-minded."
"Woman, it's trouble." Mynah Bird flew away after saying this.
When the starling flew away, Lin Shuo asked, "Which car should I take?"
"Come with me," Anne said.
Lin Shuo nodded and said, "Then please take the trouble to remove all the back seats of that car."
"Ah?" Wei Xingshan stared, "Remove the back seat, what are you doing?"
"Put the box behind me."
"Your stuff is well packaged, so it's fine if you tie it to the roof rack." Wei Xingshan frowned. "Our vehicle that has been approved for entry this time is full of people. Remove the seats and let my people Where are you sitting?"
Without raising his eyelids, Lin Shuo shook his head slightly, "I want to take care of this thing with me."
"I don't agree." Wei Xingshan insisted.
"Captain Wei." Ms. Anne said, "We follow Mr. Lin's arrangement. It's said above that as long as Mr. Lin can be hired, our team will be headed by Mr. Lin, and we will obey him in everything."
Wei Xingshan was silent for a while, and finally said to Anne with a cold face: "You are the superior, so you can do what you say."
After finishing speaking, Wei Xingshan made a gesture, and the doors of the other off-road vehicles opened all at once, and more than a dozen nimble soldiers rushed down.
These soldiers quickly stood in a row in front of Wei Xingshan, as neat as a knife.
This surprised Lin Shuo a little.
He has also come into contact with mercenaries before, most of them are veterans with poor discipline. But this mercenary seems to be not ordinary.
"Everyone help, remove all the back seats of this car." Wei Xingshan ordered, "The brothers who were originally in this car, go to other cars to squeeze together."
In front of this group of mercenaries, Wei Xingshan seemed to have absolute authority to order and prohibit. Without the slightest objection, everyone quickly took out the toolbox and began to disassemble the rear seat.
Surprisingly, it was the only female soldier who directed the other mercenaries to dismantle the back seats and gave professional guidance.
The female soldier was 1.7 meters tall, with short hair that reached her ears, and she was very handsome.
Seeing that Lin Shuo was observing the female soldier, Miss Anne immediately introduced: "Her name is Liu Qing, and she is the vice-captain of our Asia Operations Team. She is our technical equipment expert."
At this moment, the sky is slowly getting dark.
There is a big pagoda tree not far from Lin Shuo's house. It is in the center of the village and it grows luxuriantly.
Around six o'clock in the evening is the time when the villagers start enjoying the cool air after dinner.
Adults sit on bamboo chairs and waving cattail fans, while children run around around locust trees.
Seeing Lin Shuo coming out, the adults stopped their gossip and greeted Lin Shuo in their local dialects:
"Mr. Lin is good."
"Mr. Lin, who are these?"
"Mr. Lin, are you going on a long trip?"
"Mr. Lin, how long will it take to go this time, will it delay my child's class?"
Lin Shuo was startled, turned around slightly, took off the ebony box from his body, and stood upright beside the off-road vehicle.
With a smile on his face, he walked to the side of the locust tree, raised the corner of his trousers, sat on a horse harness given by a villager, and began to chat with the villagers about the family.
He spoke the local dialect with the villagers, with a strong accent, Anne and Wei Xingshan couldn't understand a word.
Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye, and it was completely dark.
The mercenaries had already finished dismantling the back seats and were waiting for Lin Shuo to leave.
Anne stood beside the off-road vehicle, waiting patiently, but Wei Xingshan couldn't hold back his anger: "When will this fucking nagging be over? It will take more than seven hours to get out of the mountain."
Anne ignored him, and Liu Qing, the deputy captain, said, "Captain Wei, it's human nature, be patient."
Wei Xingshan was silent for a while, then pointed to the two mercenaries beside him, and then pointed to the ebony box standing beside the car: "Both of you, hurry up and carry this box onto the car. The coffin looks like it's seeping through."
The two mercenaries grinned and started to move immediately.
These two soldiers are both 1.8 meters tall and strong, so they don't take this box seriously at all. The two of them, one on each side, planned to push down the box and carry it directly to the car.
As a result, one of the mercenaries pushed it and let out a "huh", but the ebony box remained motionless.
Pushing it again, the box still didn't move, and the mercenary took a step back instead.
"You didn't eat?" The mercenary on the opposite side laughed at his comrades, hugged the box with both hands, and pulled it into his arms.
As soon as his hand was strained, the man's face changed, and he turned to Wei Xingshan, hesitating to speak.
"Both of you get up and drive!" Wei Xingshan had long been impatient, "Shame on you, I'll do it!"
After Wei Xingshan finished speaking, he took two steps forward, picked up the black cloth bag hanging on the side, and carried it on his shoulder.
"Why?"
The ebony box didn't even shake.
A dozen or so other mercenaries surrounded them, and one of them said, "Captain Wei, do you want to help?"
"No need." Wei Xingshan's expression became serious.
He took a stable horse step, his hands tightly grasped the black cloth belt, his toes firmly grasped the ground, and his waist gradually exerted strength.
"Crack clack."
This giant man of more than 1.9 meters, the joints of the whole body are crackling, and the veins on the neck are exposed.
"Get up!" Wei Xingshan yelled violently, the wooden box shook slightly, and finally started to leave the ground.
Half an inch, one inch, one and a half inches, two inches.
Two inches off the ground, Wei Xingshan's whole body began to sway, his complexion turning purple.
Just when he was about to exhaust himself, he suddenly felt that the weight on his shoulders had lightened by half, and he picked up the wooden box.
Turning his head, he found that Lin Shuo had come back from the old locust tree, and was bending over to support the bottom of the wooden box.
Lin Shuo twitched the corners of his mouth: "It's good intentions, let me do it."
While speaking, Lin Shuo stretched out his other hand to catch the black cloth strap, and with a light swing, the ebony box was firmly slung behind his back.
Around the two, the mercenaries looked at Lin Shuo's expression as if they saw a ghost.
The level of Wei Xingshan's strength is unknown to others, but they know it best.
Three years ago, he was also the deadlift champion in the military area competition, and he was the best in the whole army with his hard qigong.
Wei Xingshan looked at Lin Shuo with a complicated expression, and murmured, "You are skinny, why are you so strong? Also, what is in this box?"
"You'll know later." After speaking, Lin Shuo slung the box on his shoulders, and opened the hatchback of the off-road vehicle.
Like putting a schoolbag, Lin Shuo unloaded the box, half-hung it on the back of the car, and then pushed it steadily, and the whole ebony box was loaded into the car.
Following Lin Shuo's actions, the off-road vehicle shook violently, and the tires sank a bit visibly.
The people around witnessed all this in silence.
…
The engine of the off-road vehicle roared, and it slowly drove away from this certain southwestern border village.
Just as he was about to turn out of the village road, Lin Shuo opened the car window, and the starling bird flew in and landed on Lin Shuo's shoulder.
The bird seemed a little sluggish, silent and motionless.
"What's wrong?" Lin Shuo turned to look at it.
"Brother Shuo." Mynah said in a low voice, "I ended up... lying to them, saying that I would come back."
Lin Shuo looked at the lights of Wanjia in the rearview mirror of the car, and was slightly lost in thought.
"Are we coming back?" Mynah asked.
"hope so."