"The Book of Rites says that a pheasant that enters the great water is a mirage, and "Sou Shen Ji" also mentioned: A thousand-year-old pheasant enters the sea as a mirage." Mu Yiran picked up the long feather, "The pheasant lives for thousands of years. , you can enter the sea and turn into a mirage. We have all heard the word mirage, and the ancients have different interpretations of the 'mirage'.
"Annotations to the Classic of Mountains and Seas explain the mirage as a mussel, and in Materia Medica, the mirage is interpreted as a scorpion. It is said that it's shape is also like a snake and large, with horns like a dragon, red mane, and scales below the waist. It eats swallows. Can breathe into the shape of a tower and a city, and see the rain.
"The ancients believed that the mirage was transformed by the exhalation of the mirage, and the illusion that appeared in the clouds and mist was considered to be the place where the immortals lived. Therefore, it led to the historical event that Qin Shihuang sent people to the sea to search for the magical medicine of the immortal mountain.
"Then from this point of view, everything we have experienced can be traced. The ship we are on is the ship that Emperor Qin sent overseas to seek immortality. When sailing at sea, we encountered the optical phenomenon of mirage, but in the ancients —In other words, in the artist’s cognition, the mirage is a mirage, and the world in the painting is created according to the artist’s will and cognition, so what we encounter will not be ordinary optical phenomena. , but a mirage transformed into an illusion.
"The illusion we experience every night should be the so-called mirage. The pheasant of a thousand years is a mirage when it enters the sea. It is a mirage in the sea, and the image it presents on land or on the deck is a pheasant.
"In Niu Zhu's story of burning the rhinoceros, the gods and monsters in the sea are invisible to the naked eye. Although the rhinos can be seen after burning the rhinos, they will also cause the gods and monsters to be thrown out of the sea in an attempt to destroy the rhinos.
"Burning the rhinoceros is an act of destroying the difference between yin and yang, and will be punished by gods and monsters, just like Wen Qiao in the story, so every night we burn the rhinoceros, at least one person will die.
"If the rhinoceros didn't burn, maybe someone would die from the illusion created by the mirage, or maybe it wouldn't cause someone to die that night, but we wouldn't be able to escape the next day's vote, and we might not be able to find the signature.
"So, for now, we still need to ignite the rhino horns tonight to find the signature, but I think this may not be a deadly situation. Judging from Fang Fei's ability to hit one of the pheasant's tail feathers, I speculate, Pheasants can be killed…”
"I'll come to burn the rhino tonight." Ke Xun said suddenly, his eyes fixed on Mu Yiran, "I'll kill."
"Don't be impulsive!" Wei Dong next to him became anxious, "Whether the pheasant can be killed or not, none of the people who ignited the rhino horn will survive! Who can guarantee that if the pheasant person is killed, he will not die? As long as the rhino horn is lit, he will die? - Boss, please persuade him!"
Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun, raised his hand and stroked his head, and said, "I'll be with you tonight."
Weidong: "...Is love blinding people?!"
"To be on the safe side, we can still use our mobile phones to ignite the rhino horns," Mu Yiran said, "You guys better prepare yourself in advance, because we are not sure what the consequences will be after shooting the pheasants, my suggestion. It's better for everyone to stay together and move to the deck. Illusions can obscure the space distance. Staying indoors is no different than staying on the deck. It doesn't make us any safer. If the pheasants are shot on the deck, if the signature can be found at that time and everyone stays on the deck, they can leave the painting in time."
Everyone nodded when they heard the words.
"Is it really useful to shoot that thing to death?" Luo Yao glanced at the boundless sea, "What if it turns into a big mussel and can't be shot with an arrow?"
"About the question of what the body of the mirage is," Mu Yiran said, "I am more inclined to say that it is a Jiao. Even in the well-known "Journey to the West", there is such a passage, Sun Wukong once said to Tang monk, There are many monsters and demons on the western road, and they are good at transforming mansions. Whether they are buildings, houses, pavilions, and pavilions, they can all be used to coax people. 'Nine kinds of dragons', there is a kind of mirage in it. The mirage emits light, Just like the shallow pool of the pavilion - the mirage is also considered to be the genus Jiao here.
"We have said before that Emperor Qin shot a giant shark, which opened Xu Fu's second trip to the east, and Shao Ling also mentioned the "Historical Records of Qin Shi Huang's Chronicle" that recorded the dream of Emperor Qin and the sea god. Fighting, the interpretation of the dream is: kill the evil god such as the dragon, and you can see the true god.
"So, the mirage in this painting is probably in the form of a Jiao, and it is imperative to shoot it to find a breakthrough."
After these remarks, everyone had no objection, and had nothing to do for a while, so they all found a place to rest and sleep.
Mu Yiran went to the kitchen to boil some hot water for Ke Xun to drink, then found a separate room, let him lie down on the couch, and sat beside him and patted his back lightly until he looked at him with a heavy heart. go to sleep.
Ke Xun slept until half an afternoon. When he opened his eyes, Mu Yi was not in the house. He pushed open the door and went out to the central hall. Seeing everyone gathered there, Wei Dong first said to him, "The kitchen will keep you meals. Well, eat first and then come over, we don't have anything important to do here anyway..."
"Who cooked the food?" Ke Xun asked, his voice still hoarse.
"Let's all together." Wei Dong's expression was indescribable. A group of big men who didn't know how to cook gathered together. You add a bunch of firewood, and I throw a vegetable. Anyway, I just made up a meal in a hurry. , but the taste is a bit...
Ke Xun went to the kitchen and saw that there was still half-warm porridge left in the cooking pot, and the meat and vegetables were rotten into a lump, which was very unappetizing.
However, Ke Xun didn't pick it up, he took it out to fill his stomach, and then returned to the central hall.
Everyone really had nothing to do. Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen were looking at the bamboo slips found in the captain's room, Wei Dong and Luo Yu were sitting in a daze, and Mu Yiran and Shao Ling were discussing other possibilities for the signature.
Ke Xun took the bow and arrow and returned to the deck, ready to practice more, Mu Yiran also took the bow and arrow and followed him to the deck.
The two of them stopped when it was getting dark, and set up a mechanism to ignite the rhino horns with their mobile phones. Everyone came to the deck together. In order to prevent accidental injury to teammates by shooting arrows in the dark, Mu Yiran and Ke Xun stood by the boat. The position of the head, the others stay at the stern.
The next time, just wait.
As night fell, the fog on the sea became thicker and thicker. With the last ray of light, Mu Yi turned his head to look at Ke Xun.
Ke Xun's expression was unusually calm. From his face, he could not see any emotional fluctuations, whether it was happiness, anger, sadness, or nervousness and fear.
"Ke Xun," Mu Yiran called to him in a low voice, "I hope you remember that we are going to make a painting together."
Ke Xun turned his face, and the last faint light from the sky disappeared in each other's eyes. In the darkness, Mu Yiran heard Ke Xun's voice with a shallow smile: "Of course I remember, Yiran. I will never do it again. Let the person I love the most be lonely and sad."
Instead of holding each other's hands, the two turned their backs to their backs, clenching the bows and arrows in their respective hands.
Since we want to make a painting together, we must do our best together, and let's break through the gate of hell tonight together.
I don't know how long it passed in the darkness, the preset mechanism was activated, detonated the battery of the mobile phone, the firelight ignited the rhino horn, and a bright light lit up in the rhino horn.
Ke Xun calmed down and raised the bow and arrow in his hand steadily.
Although the light of the rhino horn was bright, the range that could be illuminated was limited. Ke Xun stood beside the rhino horn and looked around vigilantly, waiting for the pheasant to appear.
In the dark, the waves were surging, and the sound was dull and stagnant under the shroud of thick fog. However, if you listened carefully, there seemed to be many small and strange sounds under the dull and sticky sound of the waves.
These voices are dense, crowded, shredded, sharp and noisy. It is like scratching the bones with a blunt file, and the scalp explodes.
This large group of unbearable and unpleasant sounds seems to be gathered in the depths of the sea, but it seems to be slowly surging from the depths to the surface of the sea.
This group of voices got closer and closer to the sea, became louder and denser, until it suddenly seemed to have broken through the barrier of the sea. The ear drum pierced straight into the brain, almost severing a person's nerves.
Ke Xun gritted his teeth, did not cover his ears to block the nerve-wracking sound, but held the bow in his hand steadily and remained motionless in place.
This sharp and treacherous sound resounded almost across the vast sea, and seemed to be refracted by the water waves, making the volume even more infinitely amplified.
This unbearable sound seemed to have no end and no end, continuously stimulating the ear drums and brain nerves. I don't know how much time has passed, if someone else had changed, maybe it would have collapsed long ago, but Ke Xun still clenched the bow and arrow in his hand, motionless.
All of a sudden, the sound came to an abrupt end, and there was an empty silence between the sky and the sea. After a long period of noise stimulation, this silence became unusually abrupt, making people feel stuffy in the chest.
The sound of the thick waves wriggled slowly, making the suffocation more like a pile of boulders pressing against the chest, making every breath take a lot of effort.
This painful and unbearable feeling went through a long period of time. Just when the sternum seemed to be crushed by the dullness, I suddenly heard the familiar "crunching" sound at the end of the deck.
Ke Xun stared at the direction where the voice came from. There was a darkness that was deeper than the night.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
This voice was unhurried and slow, with a sense of superiority as the power at the top of the chain of life and death, and the scornful ridicule that could play and dominate life, and casually walked towards the burning rhinoceros horn.
Crunching, little by little, getting closer.
At the edge of the range illuminated by the burning light of the rhino horn, a sharp bird claw silently stretched out from the darkness and landed in the interlaced light and shadow.
Ke Xun held his breath and stared at it without blinking.
This claw landed at the intersection of darkness and light, and remained motionless for a long time. It seemed to be waiting for the nerves of the person who was afraid of it to break first, and it seemed to be waiting for the person to relax after a long period of high tension.
Finally, it seemed to think that the time had come, and slowly, out of the thick and dead darkness, it stuck its head out.
Brightly colored bird-headed ghosts generally appear in the flickering light of the burning rhino horns, tilting their heads slightly, revealing a long and narrow eye with a weird smile.
Are you laughing at vulnerable humans, or are you proud of your own masterpiece
Suddenly, a sneer sounded in the light of the rhino horn. Accompanied by this sneer, a sharp arrow flew out of the light, instantly piercing the bird's head, both ruthless and accurate.
The shrill screams exploded in the interlacing of light and darkness, fog and shadow. Ke Xun walked out of the light and shadow with a bow. The corner of his lips sneered, and his eyes fell coldly towards the direction where the bird fell, word by word. Li said: "I said, I will definitely kill you."