Yan Qing pretended not to notice the caution and alertness in the man's eyes, rolled her eyes, and said, "What do you mean we outsiders have dirty blood? I think it's you who have dirty minds."
The man wanted to say something. The other man warned him seriously: "Don't talk too much with outsiders."
After that, no one really paid any attention to Yan Qing anymore.
The further you go in, the deeper the alley becomes, and the stronger the smell of moss and ancient vines becomes. Yan Qing has always been the odd one out in this long line. Whether it is his unfamiliar face or this umbrella, they are all different. It is incredible that people in Zhancheng never use umbrellas when it rains. Because Yan Qing has Madam Su as a universal excuse, no one dares to really come forward to trouble him, even if there are many fierce eyes around him.
After waiting in line for a while, there was suddenly a surge of people in front of us.
Yan Qing had already reached the front of the team and saw something unusual happening in front of him. A young girl stumbled out of the clan residence. She was wearing an apricot-yellow dress, so the blood on her calves was more obvious. The girl had disheveled hair and a pale face. She pushed the first person at the head of the team away and ran out.
Following closely behind her came a pair of people from the clan family, all holding sticks and knives.
"Stop her for me!"
"You dared to abort the baby without permission. You are guilty of an unforgivable crime. Send her to the City Lord's Mansion!"
The men in the queue looked at each other but stood there. When the woman came over, they hid aside one by one.
"Quick, quick, quick, get back, the crazy woman is coming."
"Stay away from that crazy woman."
They wanted to stand against the wall, and didn't want to touch the woman. Yan Qing lowered the umbrella, and then secretly used his foot and the umbrella handle to quietly trip the man in front of him. The man screamed "Ahhh" and fell forward, hitting the opposite wall in this not-so-wide alley. The girl was petite and could walk under him by bending over, and the group of people from the clan mansion behind him directly collided with the man's body.
"Ahh, who pushed me?"
"You want to die!"
As the crowd was in chaos, the rain was getting heavier, and a vast mist rose from the surface of the bluestone alley, and the world and vision gradually became blurred. Yan Qing took advantage of a slippery patch of moss to knock down another group of people, and took advantage of the chaos to walk towards the girl.
One good thing about the barrier city is that there are many alleys and old lanes. After twists and turns, the girl finally ran breathlessly into an abandoned dark alley.
There were a lot of abandoned wooden carts and straw piled up at the end of the dark alley. She had lost too much blood and was exhausted, so she hid in a corner and covered herself with wooden boards.
Unable to hold back any longer, I began to sob.
"That way! That's where she ran!"
"This bitch can't leave the city gate, where can she escape to? Where can she go!"
"What a crazy woman!"
The girl was in great pain now, her whole body was shaking. She looked at the heavy green rain pouring down from the barrier city, and a strong fear emerged in her clear pupils.
A drop of rain touched her exposed skin, and the girl immediately screamed like a madman, rubbing the skin with her hands frantically. She broke down and cried as she rubbed. Suddenly, an umbrella separated the mist and rain and stopped in the air above her. Then, a bluish-white robe appeared in the field of vision, followed by a soft voice of a person. "They can't find you here."
The girl in the yellow skirt raised her head, and Yan Qing gave her a comforting smile.
Yan Qing was now in the shape of a young boy, and looked as old as her. He squatted down and asked enthusiastically, "How are you?"
The girl's lips were bloodless, and then she trembled and said something. She spoke in the dialect of the city: "Are you from outside? Can you save me?" After that, she fell silent again, and a deep despair emerged in her eyes. She had never been out of the city, and she could not speak Mandarin, only the dialect. She was born here, as if cursed, and she could never leave this city covered by rain all year round.
Yan Qing stared at her, then grinned and replied in the dialect of Zhancheng: "Well, I came from outside."
The girl in the yellow skirt's pupils suddenly shrank and she opened her mouth slightly in disbelief.
Yan Qing didn't dare to bring the girl back to the Su Mansion rashly, so he asked the girl if she had a place to live. The girl nodded, then took Yan Qing to avoid the crowded roads, along one alley after another, and arrived at the foot of a mountain.
There is a small wooden house at the bottom of the mountain. The girl said that this is where her ancestors lived before. Yan Qing was stunned the moment he arrived here, because the mountain behind the wooden house was used by the five families to hold hunting banquets in the past. But now it has become a deep forest with few people and trees and shrubs growing taller.
A poisonous snake was coiled on the beam of the house, and under the bed, because it had not been lived in for many years, it was in this damp place, forming various insect nests. After Yan Qing helped to clean it up, the girl knelt down excitedly: "Thank you, benefactor!"
Yan Qing didn't let her kneel down. He made a fire, then took out a pill from the mustard seed space and asked the girl to take it.
Sitting by the fire, the warmth drove away the pain, cold and hunger. The girl finally regained some sense and sobbed while hugging her legs.
Yan Qing walked around the wooden house and found many bows and arrows, knives, and axes hanging on the walls.
Yan Qing asked, "Did your great-grandfather make a living by hunting?"
The girl was obviously a little stunned, not understanding why Yan Qing asked this question. She nodded and said in a hoarse voice: "Yes. My family has lived on this forest behind for hundreds of years."
The girl leaned over and hugged herself, letting the dry and warm firelight dry her tears. She murmured, "In the past, this forest behind was a place for nobles to play. Two hundred years ago, the barrier city was much better than it is now. It was very prosperous and bustling. I heard from my father that my great grandfather was here and saved many rich young men back then, and gained a lot of benefits."
Yan Qing nodded. When the five families of the Barrier City were in power, it was probably a prosperous time. No matter the mansions, streets, buildings, or residents, they were not like now, moldy in the mist.
Yan Qing said: "If you want me to save you, you have to tell me the reason clearly."
The girl pursed her lips and turned pale: "I aborted the baby in my belly, which is a capital crime in the Barrier City."
Yan Qing: "Why? Don't you want holy water?"
The girl suddenly raised her voice: "Holy water? I don't need to cleanse my soul at all! The ones who should cleanse their soul are those beasts in the City Lord's Mansion!"
Yan Qing didn't say anything.
The girl's voice trembled more and more: "They are beasts! My parents didn't want to do what they said, so they directly executed them! I didn't want to get married, and my brother didn't want to get married, so they arranged for me to live in the clan residence and sent my brother to the city lord's residence. I don't even know whose child I'm carrying!"
By the end of her words, she had already let out a roar that was almost blood-curdling. After she finished her roar, the girl's pupils flickered and a kind of madness really emerged. She said softly: "It's good that you left. You shouldn't have come back. The Barrier City is now a ghost town, and everyone is an evil ghost."
"They crave the holy water from the City Lord's Mansion, which they use to wash away the dirt in their bodies and make their bodies lighter. Because they feel oppressed and uncomfortable all the time. The blood of the people in the Barrier City is heavy, and their internal organs feel heavy when they walk. Now only getting wet in the rain can make them feel better."
Yan Qing asked, "Are you like this too?"
When the girl heard this, she burst into tears: "I would rather be like this! How nice it would be to become a ghost with them! I don't know why I am not like this, our family is not like this - I don't like getting wet in the rain, and I don't crave holy water! Why is our family not like this?"
For ordinary people, being a sober person in hell is the deepest despair.
Yan Qing got enough information from her. He threw a bead into the fire. This bead can ensure that the fire will keep burning in this humid atmosphere and prevent poisonous snakes, insects and beasts from approaching. Yan Qing said: "Stay here. When you go out, the barrier city may be clear."
The girl was stunned for a long time, staring at the fire, and suddenly asked in a hoarse voice: "Are you an immortal from the upper heaven?"
Yan Qing: "Why do you ask?"
The girl said: "Because you look like an immortal."
Yan Qing: "Have you seen it?"
The girl said, "My great grandfather has seen it. You must have used some kind of trick to deceive me. This is not your true appearance."
The girl said, "My great grandfather said that the immortal is much more beautiful than the one in the storybooks. Even the most beautiful woman in the famous barrier city is far inferior to the immortal."
Yan Qing said: "Appearance and bones are all external things."
The girl clenched her clothes with her fingers and nodded at him.
Before leaving, Yan Qing asked her, "Who was the most beautiful woman in the city back then?"
The girl was stunned, then thought hard and said, "Mrs. Chu Xuan from the Xie family."
Xie family.
Madam Chu Xuan.
Yan Qing was stunned for a moment, nodded, and stopped: "That fairy is a woman? Did your great grandfather tell you what that fairy looks like?"
The girl was stunned and shook her head, "No... That's all the words my father passed down."
When Yan Qing returned to the Su Mansion, the lights had almost been turned off.
At the window on the third floor, Xie Shiyi was sitting by the window playing chess with himself. The black pieces and white characters were all over the brown chessboard. His black hair was winding in circles. The white light of the rain and fog outside was floating up and down, shining on his expression, which was also calm and indifferent.
Yan Qing folded the umbrella and put it aside.
Xie Shiyi heard the voice, dropped a white piece, looked up and asked him: "You have been out for a whole day and night, twelve hours, are you revisiting the old place of the barrier city?"
Yan Qing said indifferently: "A place with old friends is called an old place."
Xie Shiyi nodded, his tone cold: "Well, so if you don't have any old friends, you can start getting to know people again in the Barrier City?"
Yan Qing looked down at the blood jade bead on her wrist, and immediately understood what he meant. She smiled and said, "Yaoyao, you are like this? You really look like a rich man's wife."
Xie Shiyi: “…”
Yan Qing raised three fingers and said, "I went around the barrier city today and got three pieces of information that are feasible for us. Do you want to hear it?"
Xie Shiyi looked at him and said nothing.
Yan Qing said: "First, this rain is indeed strange. Everyone in the Barrier City feels very 'heavy' now. Their souls are heavy and their bodies are heavy. Although it does not affect their lives, they all feel that they are covered in dirt and need to be cleansed. The cleansing medicine is in the City Lord's Mansion. It is called holy water, and the only condition for obtaining holy water is to give birth to a live baby."
"Second, the entire Barrier City has a seemingly complete but actually insane order for childbirth. All women who give birth need to go through the clan house. And often, women feel severe pain after one or two months of pregnancy instead of ten or four months. If they don't tell the clan house, they will die."
"Third, if a couple in the barrier city dies, the man must be buried with her."
Xie Shiyi listened quietly.
Yan Qing said: "Have you thought of anything?"
Xie Shiyi dropped the white piece that was between his fingers: "Nightmare."
Yan Qing laughed suddenly, but there was no smile in his eyes: "Yes, nightmare... The parasite of 'nightmare' in the world originally only exists in the womb of a woman."