The new moon is like a hook, and a few old crows choose all the cold branches and refuse to roost, wailing in the night.
In the mass grave, a pair of thin figures moved among the simple graves piled up with loess. A boy in ragged clothes was carrying a girl of about the same age on his back. The girl lying on the back had a withered face. There is only a bit of aura left in the son. The boy carrying the girl on his back looked worried, and tried not to touch the thigh wound of the girl bitten by wild dogs with his hands. He and she were both beggars dozens of miles away. They begged along the road during the day and searched for graves at night. There is a custom in the middle of Sichuan. On the day of burial, put some steamed buns and cakes on the grave. One is to let the living souls eat on the road to Huangquan, and the other is to buy nearby wandering ghosts so that they will not be with the souls of the buried people. Difficult.
"Xing, the people suffer, and they all turn into dust. In death, the people suffer, and they all turn into dust." Because she was in the midst of barren graves, the girl could only use her voice to strengthen her courage. Although her face was pale, her voice was very light, This is something she occasionally hears spit out from the mouth of a scholar, and when the consonance moves, she sings it out with a unique waxy and soft accent. At a young age, in troubled times, she doesn't understand the majestic truths that she would rather be a dog of peace than a person in a troubled world. She just randomly mixed up the hearsay "Lishan Nostalgia" and Zhang Yanghao's "Hillside Sheep". If it can be sung in the middle of the song, if it can be heard by someone with a heart, it must not have a bitter taste.
The boy who had been walking with the girl on his back for a long time had his eyes blurred by sweat, and the spooky aura permeating the wild graves made his hair stand on end, but he didn't even dare to take a breath, trying to hide his fear and fatigue to the greatest extent possible. But this girl gets along with him day and night, plus she is smart and smart, how can she not know his thoughts. After gently wiping off his sweat, looking at the mass grave in front of her, the girl couldn't help but asked quietly, "Are we going to die too?"
"No." The boy squeezed out a smile and comforted the girl.
"It is said in the play that people are doomed, and Grandpa Wu is also dead." The girl said sadly, she was a very smart child, although she couldn't touch the piano, chess, calligraphy and painting like a child from a rich family, but even if she only heard the poem once, she would be happy. She can speak eloquently. The Grandpa Wu she mentioned is a fortune teller. After spending time with them, the old man would talk about gods and ghosts whenever he was free, or teach girls some lyrics and songs of Zhang Guan Li Dai, and finally froze to death in a snowstorm. Night, this makes the girl have an unforgettable taboo on death.
"Immortals don't die." The young man opened his mouth, his lips were chapped and blood was leaking, and he quietly licked off the blood. He had a mouthful of snow-white teeth, which contrasted sharply with that dark face. He hugged the girl tightly and looked into the distance The dark mountain, "Grandpa Wu said that there are gods in that mountain. When you recover from illness, I will take you to the mountain over there. Maybe we won't die when we meet the gods."
To meet immortals and seek immortality, these few words are simple to say, but they are thousands of times more difficult than the Tao of Shu. Maybe the old man just said it casually to satisfy the curiosity of the two children. For poor people, people who seek immortality and practice Taoism are still unattainable, let alone immortal gods who are illusory.
"Found it!" Suddenly the young man's eyes lit up, and the young man who had been searching for sacrifices for half a night finally saw a bowl of pastries on a new grave. The bowl was broken, and the pastries were destined to be cold and stiff, but in his eyes But it is more precious than anything else, because he is not sure whether she can continue to hold on if he is starving and carrying her on his back.
Carefully put her down far away from the new grave, found a stone and laid some hay on it, let her sit on it, and walked staggeringly, because the old saying is that grabbing soul food is a very unlucky thing, and it will shorten your lifespan. Although the young man was lonely since he was a child, he had already developed a tenacious personality through hard times, but he would definitely be afraid of ghosts and gods, so he firmly kowtowed nine times on the grave, and it seemed that it was not enough, so he kowtowed nine more. He took out the steamed buns from the bowl, turned his head to look at the girl, secretly gnawed an invisible mouthful on four or five steamed buns, and muttered to himself: "I took these steamed buns. If ghosts and ghosts are looking for them, they can find me alone. I've bitten it too, it's mine, and if you lose your life, it's mine alone."
He ran back to the girl and squatted down, and he handed all the steamed buns into her hands.
"There are four." The girl said happily.
She handed three back to the young man, and kept one for herself, with a smile as bright as a summer flower, and said: "I have a small appetite, and I will be full after eating one. You can eat two, and we will save the remaining one for the journey."
Seeing the girl stuffing the cold steamed bun into his hand, the boy felt as if he had grasped the rarest delicacy in the world.
"Hurry up and eat." The girl bit the steamed bun in small bites, looked at the silly boy, and smiled.
The boy was also extremely hungry, seeing the girl's smiling face, he deliberately took a big bite of the steamed bun. He bit into his mouth slowly. Although he hadn't swallowed it yet, his stomach that was so hungry seemed to feel a lot better. When he raised his head and was about to smile at the girl, the boy's eyes suddenly widened.
He suddenly saw a colorful ray of light flying from the distant sky, which looked like a shooting star from a distance, but in a short while, it was much closer to where the boy and girl were. And the closer you get, the brighter the colorful light will be. Even the girl with her back to that brilliance found out. "What is that?" The girl stretched out her finger in shock, and immediately she covered her mouth in disbelief. Both she and the boy saw that the colorful brilliance was actually a colorful dragon boat flying in the air. !
The whole body of the dragon boat seemed to be carved from purple jade, and the whole body exuded a soft purple luster. It is several feet long, and the dragon head at the front of the bow holds a fist-sized red orb in its mouth, and the hull is also inlaid with gemstones of various colors, and those colorful brilliance are emitted by these gemstones.
Gorgeous colorful dragon boats sail through the air!
The boy and the girl had never seen such a scene before, and they couldn't help but freeze their breath for a moment.
But what shocked the two of them even more was that there was a woman standing on the colorful Huaguang dragon boat. The one on the left was wearing a purple palace dress with a green hairpin on her head. Her skin was better than snow, while the one on the right One of them was wearing a goose-yellow palace dress, with a little flowery yellow sticking between his brows. They all had bright eyes and white teeth, and they were so gorgeous.
The boy and the girl looked at the dragon boat that appeared in front of them, and were stunned for a moment, "It turns out they are two children from the mountains." The beauty in the palace costume on the left seemed to have not noticed their existence, frowning like no one else. Frowning, "Senior Sister, let's go, he shouldn't be hiding in this kind of place."
The woman in light yellow clothes on the right nodded, "I also don't think he will come near Shushan Mountain, but the master wants us to check here."
"Senior Sister, do you think that thing is really that important? It caused us to go to war and send so many people to look for it?" asked the woman in palace costume on the left.
"When did you see the master being so solemn." The woman in palace attire on the right said: "Let's go, so as not to be seen by the Shushan sect and get entangled."
"Ah" exclaimed, it turned out that at this time the girl wondered if she was dreaming, dreaming of the Dragon Boat Fairy. She unconsciously wanted to rub her eyes, but she accidentally touched the wound on her leg, and couldn't help crying out.
"Huh?" The two ladies in palace costumes on the two colorful dragon boats who were about to leave suddenly let out a light sigh at the same time. Although the girl was sallow and thin, her bones were extremely fine, just like the aptitude in the physiognomy map. The body of the tall nine-colored mysterious girl. After looking at each other, the colorful dragon boats of the two women in palace costumes suddenly landed, "Little sister, are you willing to go with us?"
"Follow you guys?" The little girl's natural temperament was mischievous, and after yelling in great surprise, she looked at the two women in palace costumes and asked: "You two sisters, you are so beautiful, and your clothes are also beautiful, are you fairies?" ?”
The two women in palace costumes smiled slightly, "We will take you to a very good place, and in the future you will become as beautiful as us and wear the same beautiful clothes."
"Really?!" The girl was about to jump up, but she suddenly remembered something, and nodded at the boy beside her, "Then he will come with us too."
"Him?" The two women in palace costumes glanced at the young man, but they both shook their heads at the same time, "He is too poor to take him away."
"Then I won't go either." The girl was stunned for a moment, then became anxious, and when she turned her head to look at the boy next to her, tears were already rolling in her eyes. "Idiot. Promise them quickly." When the boy heard the two women in palace costumes say that he could not bring him with him, he only felt a buzzing thought in his mind, but when he heard the girl say no, the boy was even more anxious than her. , For the first time in his life, he scolded a girl.
The girl wanted to say no more, but the woman in court dress on the left was impatient, and rolled up her long sleeves, "Let's go!" The girl only felt that she was flying like a cloud, and when she realized that she was already in On the dragon boat high in the sky, the boy underneath was only the size of an ant, and he couldn't even see clearly. "Let me go down." The girl felt anxious, and immediately burst into tears. The woman in the purple dress on the left side ignored the girl, but the woman in the goose-yellow palace dress couldn't bear it, and comforted her: "Little sister, don't be sad. When you grow up, you can pick him up yourself."
… .
In the sight of the young man, the brilliance of the colorful dragon boat flew farther and farther, and finally disappeared.
"His aptitude is too poor, you can't take him away... His aptitude is too bad, you can't take him away..." The voice of the woman in palace costume echoed in the boy's mind over and over again, although his personality has been honed to be extremely tenacious , but after all, he was only a twelve or thirteen-year-old mountain child. The dragon boat and the woman in the palace costume were more real than the fairy he imagined, but he was abandoned with disdain when he was full of hope, and he was even given a chance to say a few more words. He didn't give it, and thought of all the things that he and the girl had depended on in the past, and thought that he might never see her again. Seeing the few cold steamed buns in his hand again, the young man felt so sad that he couldn't help crying loudly.
"Hmph, I didn't expect that the so-called famous sect that leads the world's righteous way is also acting like a bandit." Suddenly, a sullen voice rang in the boy's ear. "But don't worry, the little girl is favored by them. This kind of blessing cannot be obtained by others."
This voice actually came from a barren grave next to it, and the crying boy shivered violently.
The tomb was dilapidated and collapsed, revealing half of the coffin, with a "click", a gray-white hand suddenly stretched out from the dilapidated coffin.
With a bang, the coffin lid was lifted, and a person sat up with him. He had an eagle nose, narrow eyes, and his face was so pale that there was no trace of blood. Even the pupils did not seem to have dark eyes, and they were all off-white. A big red robe that was as scarlet as blood will The whole body is caged.
"Huh?" Seeing that the boy who stopped crying was still stained with tears, but he didn't run away as he imagined. The gray eyeballs of the man in the coffin in the scarlet red robe rolled and looked The young man asked, "Why, you are not afraid of me?"
"Not afraid." The boy shook his head.
"Why aren't you afraid? Aren't you afraid of ghosts?" The man in the coffin looked at the ragged boy strangely.
"You have a shadow, ghosts don't have shadows."
"Huh?" He lowered his head and glanced at his faint shadow in the night, and then carefully sized up the ragged little beggar. The person in the coffin snorted, "I never thought that your innate aptitude is so poor, you are quite courageous."
Hearing the person in the coffin say that his aptitude is poor, the young man was shocked again, and couldn't help but look in the direction where the colorful dragon boat disappeared.
"Little baby." Seeing the young man's pained and sorrowful expression, the person in the coffin suddenly smiled, "Looking at you, you probably haven't had enough food for many days, right?"
The young man nodded, if he hadn't been hungry for many days, he didn't even have the strength to run, and the girl disappeared beside him, and he felt sad, even if he found that the person sitting up in the coffin was a human and not a ghost, he would have It was the scene of the man in the coffin covered in red clothes and pale face, he might have already turned around and ran away, and would not stay here.
"Then do you want to never have to suffer from hunger and starvation in the future? You don't have to come to these barren tombs to eat this kind of food, or you can come and go freely like them? See that little girl again?" The man's gray pupils turned around, and he pointed his finger while speaking, and a red light like a spider's silk suddenly hit the cold and hard steamed bun in the boy's hand. The young man only felt his palms burn, and the steamed buns turned into charred black fine powder, falling from his hands one after another.
For a little beggar who may not be able to eat a full meal after starving for several days, there is nothing more tempting than eating a full meal. What's more, there is a shocking thing called power in this world. The woman in palace costume who can ride a colorful dragon boat against the wind just showed the power of the fairy in his mind. I saw the man in the coffin display such power again. Now the man in the coffin said he could help him come and go as freely as they did, and see the girl again. The young man was frightened and surprised at the same time, looking at this strange red-robed man for a while, his thin body trembled slightly, but he was speechless.
The man in the coffin, who easily created the effect of brightening another village, was not at all surprised by the boy's reaction, and the corner of his mouth curled up in a slight arc, "The Buddha said that he suffered hunger and cold karma in this life because he didn't cultivate good karma in his previous life, but do you believe that?" Do you not believe that I can help you escape from this world of suffering?"
The young man looked at the person in the coffin, and the events from the appearance of the colorful dragon boat to the present were indescribably weird to him. He was not particularly smart before, and after being stunned for a while, he couldn't help asking: "You... Who are you and how did you end up in the coffin?"
"Most people in the world are blinded by vain things. Who am I and why am I in the coffin? Does it matter?" The man in the coffin glanced at the young man, still sitting still in the dilapidated coffin, but stretched out He raised his right hand and spread it out flat. The young man unconsciously followed his hand to look, and the distance in front of his eyes was a few feet away, but it suddenly lit up, and he saw a bead the size of a thumbnail surging with brilliance, emitting bursts of blue light in the hand of the person in the coffin. The brilliance of red color, upon closer inspection, it seems that there are circles of ripples in the round bead that are constantly rippling, while the surface that is as smooth as jade has a layer of faint red brilliance from time to time.
Looking at the pale young man stretched by the brilliance of the bead in his hand, the man in the coffin said indifferently: "As long as you eat this bead, you will never be hungry and cold forever, and everything in the world is bound together. I am here, you Here, this is fate, as long as you promise me one thing, I will give you this bead."