Farewell to her companions for the time being, Xia Qiu walked along the main road in the center of the city to the fourth floor of Qingyang City. The Zhengzhi Gate among the seven tone gates she was responsible for opening happened to be on this floor.
She also got the same spherical compass from Dong Muya as everyone else. At this time, the fourth level was completely silent, and the only thing accompanying her was her own shadow. The buildings on this floor are denser than any other floor, with small brick-red houses connected one after another.
Looking out of the windows, the layout of these houses is very similar, and they are all covered with dust or cobwebs because they have not been inhabited for a long time. The kind of spiders on the web with red and yellow patterns on the black background have a body the size of a fist and extremely long legs. It is obvious at a glance that they are highly poisonous. It is probably because these houses have been empty for too long, so now they have become The owner here.
She walked along the path southwest to about 210 degrees. There was an empty space here. The buildings on both sides seemed to have been cut off out of thin air, and this empty space was suddenly left. .
In the center of the open space, there was a circular pool that was even more inconsistent with the surrounding scenery. She walked forward and found that although the water in the pool was relatively clear, it was bottomless, and on the edge of the pool There is a square stone tablet standing there.
The stone tablet reads, "Those with natural talents can enter wonderland, those with pure bodies can save their lives, and those with innocent hearts can see their true appearance. The combination of the three will give you the solution."
These sentences are not difficult to understand literally, and they are basically consistent with the conditions described by Heyin for those who can open the Gate of Conquest. But she didn't quite understand whether she should enter the pool, and what puzzled her was why Heyin hadn't mentioned a word about the pool before. Is it intentional to hide it from them? Or is there something unspeakable
Although she still didn't know what would happen if she entered the pool in front of her alone, but after experiencing so many adventures, she couldn't let herself stop here. The Gate of Conquest was still waiting for her to open, and the Formation of Miracles was still waiting for her and her companions to crack it. She mustered up the courage to take a deep breath, then held her nose and jumped into the pool.
The water in the pool was extremely cold, causing her body to tremble as she continued to sink. After slowly getting used to the feeling of being underwater, she opened her eyes and looked around. The edge of the pool was gradually becoming blurry and she seemed to be in an open water.
There was nothing under the light green water, and the endless feeling of loneliness made her forget to hold her breath. At some point, she began to breathe normally. Strangely, she didn't choke on the water. Suddenly, the sinking feeling turned into a rising feeling, and she was lifted up by the buoyancy force and came to the surface of the water.
It was still the same pond as before, and the outside looked the same as the fourth floor of Qingyang City that she had just seen. If it weren't for the bustling demon spirits that kept passing by the pond, she would have really thought that she was back to where she started.
The demon spirits in front of her were dressed in simple clothes and all looked similar to Heyin. They had stocky bodies, slightly longer upper limbs, thick hair, flat noses, and slightly bulging cheeks. Some were carrying bamboo baskets on their backs, and some were holding dustpans. , with a bit of melancholy on his face, looking like he had just returned from working in the herb field.
When this wet human girl suddenly appeared in front of them, they were really shocked. They stopped almost at the same time and gathered around the pool, staring at her without blinking.
"It's a human!" A little boy from the Demon Spirit tribe jumped to the edge of the pool and pointed at Xia Qiu, shouting happily.
The originally tense atmosphere was resolved by the child's innocent words. Everyone no longer looked at her like a monster. The little boy grinned, revealing two missing teeth, and then looked like Suddenly he remembered something, he pursed his lips, then stretched out a hand to her and pulled her up from the pool.
At this time, a woman from the Demonic Tribe also came forward and said: "It's such a cold weather, what can I do if my clothes are soaked?! Come back with me and change clothes. Let's talk about anything later!"
The little boy let go of Xia Qiu's hand, ran to the woman and held her arm. While shaking, he turned back and winked at Xia Qiu and said, "This is my mother!"
Xia Qiu inexplicably felt that there was an indescribable intimacy between the mother and her son, which made her unguarded against them. She followed them without even thinking. The demon spirits on both sides had changed from being full of surprise at the beginning to being full of curiosity. They made way for the mother and son of the same race to lead Xia Qiu away.
She was taken into a small house not far away. The little boy's mother found clean clothes for her and asked her to change into them in the back room. She boiled some water on the stove outside, made a pot of hot tea, and waited. She changed clothes and came out of the room, then poured a glass and handed it to her hand.
The little boy has been waiting outside impatiently for a long time. Now he has a hundred thousand questions in his stomach and is eager for Xia Qiu to answer. It is extremely difficult for him to wait for a while and a half longer. As soon as he sees her coming out, he immediately joins her. He went over and asked, "Sister, where are you from? How did you get into that pool?"
"I..." Xia Qiu didn't know how to answer his question. She was not sure whether the world she was in now was real, nor was she sure how to calculate the time in the demon world. But then she thought about what Dong Muya once said. Guo Yuan Red Demon led the Demon Spirit Clan to build Qingyang City more than 700 years ago. Why not ask them how long it has been since the city was built, so that they can calculate the approximate time of this place, so she asked , “How long has this city been built?”
"It's been more than five hundred years." The child counted on his fingers and answered. Then he looked at his mother with some uncertainty, and felt relieved when she nodded silently.
After hearing the child's words, Xia Qiu's heart suddenly tightened. The ghosts had probably started more than a hundred years ago. No wonder she saw that there were no children in the city just now, most of them were elderly people. Although demons have lived much longer than humans, the little boy's mother also looked like she was fifty or sixty years old. She guessed that she might be hundreds of years old.
The child's mother noticed the strange look on Xia Qiu's face and asked tentatively, "Do you know what's going on here?"
Xia Qiu didn't want to hide it, so she nodded and said, "Yes! Maybe you won't believe that I come from a world more than a hundred years in the future!"
The child's mother was originally holding a teapot in her hand and wanted to give Xia Qiu another cup. However, after hearing her words, she was stunned and the teapot in her hand fell to the ground and shattered.
She asked incoherently and tremblingly: "What will this place look like after more than a hundred years? The children... I mean are there still young people here?"
"Only one named Kui is left, and the rest..." Xia Qiu looked at the mother's sad eyes and couldn't bear to say any more.
"I don't know what kind of curse the Demon Spirit Tribe has suffered. All the children cannot live past the age of ten!" Speaking of this woman's voice, she was choked up. She touched her son's little head and continued, "None of Xiaoye's brothers and sisters have the same fate. He survived, alas, it seems Xiaoye also... "
"Do you believe what I said?" Xia Qiu couldn't believe that she believed herself so quickly.
"The fact that you, a human being, can come to the demon world and know about Guiyin is enough to show that you are different from ordinary people! I also want to ask you about the demon clan who left Qingyang City? Their descendants have not been Can you survive?" The child's mother, still feeling a little lucky, continued to ask.
Xia Qiu shook her head and silently turned her gaze to the little boy who still didn't know how to feel sad. However, he came over and took her hand and asked: "Sister, come play with me for a while!"
"Haha, because there are too few children in this city, Xiaoye is very happy to see you!" The child's mother said with a wry smile and shook her head.
Xia Qiu suddenly felt that no matter which world they were in, mothers would always be the same. Even if they were tortured by the pain in their hearts, they would still be so kind when facing their children.
When his mother said this, the little boy shyly buried his head on her belly and rubbed it for a while. Such a healthy and lovely child may be killed by Kiyaku before long. This reality makes Xia Qiu also feel heartbroken, but he can only let the heartache linger in his body and not let it turn into... Tears flowed.
The conversation with the mother and son just now made her temporarily forget her mission to get here. Only now did she suddenly remember, so she asked: "I came here to know about the Seven Sound Gate!"
As soon as she talked about the Seven-tone Gate, the child's mother became a little defensive, because for the Demon Spirit Tribe, the Seven-tone Gate was a secret that was absolutely not allowed to be told to outsiders. She was hesitant about how to reject her, but something happened Someone came in from outside.
Xia Qiu looked up and saw that the man was none other than Heyin. Although he looked slightly younger than now, there was no obvious change.
"Dad!" the little boy shouted as he opened his hands and rushed towards Heyin.
"Heye!" Heyin responded and rubbed his son's hair vigorously, then turned his attention to Xia Qiu and asked, "I just heard someone say that a human suddenly appeared in the city, and you took him home. So I rushed back, is it her?"
"Yes! She came from the world more than a hundred years later!" The child's mother still couldn't suppress the surprise on her face when she said this.
Heyin became interested when he heard what his wife said. He also heard her retell the conversation with Xia Qiujian just now in full. There was a complicated look in her eyes and she asked, "What's your name?"
"Xia Qiu!" Xia Qiu, who was at the side, answered him.
"Well, did you really come here from that pool?" Heyin still wanted to be sure.
"Yeah!" Xia Qiu nodded and looked at him with doubts. It was a little hard for her to accept that she suddenly saw him from more than a hundred years ago.
"Then I think you need to stay here for the time being." Heyin said calmly.
"I need to know about the Seven Sound Gate. If you can't tell me, I have to go back and think of other solutions." Xia Qiu didn't quite understand what Heyin meant.
"I'll take you to see it, and you'll know!"
After Heyin finished speaking, Heyin led Xia Qiu towards the pool again, and Heyin followed them. When they came to the pool, Heyin pointed forward and said to her, "Look!"
Xia Qiu leaned forward and saw that the pool was very shallow, covering her waist at most, and she was immediately shocked. This means that the passage connecting to her world has disappeared. While her companions are busy looking for a way to open the seven-tone gate, she is trapped in a world more than a hundred years ago. Qingyang City. Could it be that she was deceived by the chorus as previously suspected? What did he want to do by tricking her here
She looked up at Heyin in front of her. From his facial expression, it seemed that he was so calm, and indeed he seemed to have just met her. But maybe this was another trick of his, and she was captured. Being trapped in layers of fog was like being trapped in a world that didn't belong to her. She didn't know where to go for a while.