Compared with many cities, the area of Ningzhou is not large. As long as something happens, it will immediately become chatter, spread from the beginning of the city to the end of the city.
People in Ningzhou also love to chat about the housing market, where new properties are opened, where the rich are concentrated, where prices are so high but no one lives there, etc.
Therefore, in the cognition of old Ningzhou people, Zhangjialong in Ningzhou West Ring Road is a very special place.
The special thing is that the place name "Zhangjialong" has a long history. According to the records of the county and city records in the museum, it can be traced back more than 900 years.
More than 900 years ago, a large family lived in that area, all surnamed Zhang. I don't know exactly what to do to make a living. I only know that the people are prosperous, the rules are strict, and the people are very rich. The family sometimes gave alms in the city and had close contacts with the government, hence the place name "Zhangjialong".
This is nothing to be surprised by, after all, many place names are related to surnames.
But more than 900 years have passed, and Ningzhou has been turned upside down. The Xihuan area has experienced the transformation of the city gate into Liangzhu, into the wilderness, and then into the replacement of villages, development zones, and business districts.
Under normal circumstances, the people there should have changed 800 rounds long ago. But the truth is not...
Twenty years ago, the developer contracted the land in Zhangjialong to build a Chinese-style mansion. Because of the outrageous prices, it was once a hot topic in the housing market in Ningzhou. It is said that the location, the supporting facilities, and the price, if you can sell it, there will be ghosts.
It turned out to be hell.
Once the Chinese-style house was completed, people lived in it, and what was even worse was that the residents were all surnamed Zhang. A person familiar with the matter said that the place in Zhangjialong has never changed, and it has always been the same family that has lived in it for more than 900 years.
So there are two more rumors in Ningzhou.
One kind of saying is that the Zhang family has not forgotten their origins and has always guarded the foundation of their ancestors, so they were blessed with great success.
The other is much more mysterious. It is said that the place in Zhangjialong has always been very wicked, and it is easy to get lost for no reason, and it is easy to hear strange sounds and see strange scenes.
It is said that someone once made a divination calculation. According to the hexagram, the location of Zhangjialong was extremely fierce.
But more people say that there is "near mountains and rivers", it is a treasure land with excellent layout, people have lived here for hundreds of years, how can it not last for a long time.
There are different opinions, and there are different opinions. Those are all old sayings more than ten years ago, and the younger generation has hardly heard them. It wasn't until the past two days that Zhangjialong was mentioned again.
The reason is that two days ago, a person with the ID "Long Teng Hu Yue" posted a post on the "local chatter" people's livelihood forum in Ningzhou, saying that he was a taxi driver and had a very bizarre dream...
I dreamed that he ran the last order in the middle of the night and returned to Xihuan to deliver the car. As a result, he drove to the vicinity of Zhangjia Lane, and the car broke down and broke down. When he got out of the car for maintenance, he suddenly heard a loud noise in the Chinese-style house.
It's like the house is collapsing.
He was taken aback by the movement, and he couldn't hold back, so he wanted to go over and take a look, but he got lost while walking. The worst thing was that his mobile phone had no network or signal, and he couldn't even use the map.
When he was finally able to surf the Internet intermittently, he had already detoured to the wild woods behind Zhangjialong.
The wild forest was unexpectedly large, so big that he suspected that there was a problem with the map on his mobile phone.
Just when he turned on the live navigation and wanted to go out, fog suddenly formed in the woods.
The fog was also strange, as if something had broken and it was flowing out from it, and there was a rotten smell of rust.
He was so curious that he couldn't help but take a few steps toward the foggy place. Then he saw the scene that made him horrified-
He saw a large scorched wasteland that shouldn't exist. In the middle of the wasteland were dead trees with intertwined roots, and there seemed to be a person lying there. His hair was extremely long and his clothes were extremely red, looming in the fog.
At that time, he was so frightened that there was no air in and out, and he slid down holding the trunk and collapsed to the ground.
Then, he saw shadows in the fog, and many "people" appeared out of thin air, all running towards the man in red. I don't know if those people are running fast or the fog is too thick.
From his point of view, they seemed to be drifting and teleporting past.
Then he heard crying. The cry was hoarse and mournful, and it was sent to him in one voice—he passed out on the spot.
When he woke up again, he found himself lying in bed with the alarm clock ringing on the bedside mobile phone at 7:30 in the morning. Next to him is his wife getting up.
He grabbed the phone for a long time and asked his wife, "I came back last night?"
His wife was full of question marks.
He asked again, "How did I get back?"
The wife looked at him for a long time and said, "Are you having a problem?"
"No, who brought me back last night?"
"...You came back by yourself!"
He asked for a long time, and only confirmed after getting tired of asking his wife. Yesterday, he handed over the car and went home. He took a shower normally, and then fell asleep until dawn. The ones he saw should be because he was too tired and had nightmares.
He had already accepted all this, but when he went out to take over in the evening, he found a layer of wet mud on the soles of his shoes, and the latest search record on the mobile map was the street where the car broke down.
Not only that, he also swiped the local news feed, saying that a Chinese-style house in Zhangjia Lane, West Ring Road collapsed, the specific reason is not clear...
He was almost sent away on the spot.
This "Long Teng Hu Leaping" post caused a wave of heated discussions in "local chatter", but because he had no evidence, he soon began to be cracked down.
Mr. Hu Yue was very unwilling, saying that it was not the first time he had encountered such a thing.
Once before, he took a ticket near General Mountain. The passengers were an old man and a child. The child was wet like a water ghost, sitting in the back seat of the car without saying a word. When it came time to get off the car, it seemed to grow up a bit.
So the topic of the post changed again. Some suggested that he go to the temple to worship, some sold magic weapons to ward off evil spirits, and some directly told him fortune-telling from a distance, saying that he had a relationship with a "ghost" in his previous life...
The discussion lasted for two and a half days and came to an abrupt end in the early hours of the third day.
In fact, the post was not deleted, but everyone seemed to have forgotten it at the same time.
It was quickly overwhelmed by all kinds of housing sales and rental information, sinking to an unknown number of pages, and was never remembered again.
It was 1:10 a.m. on August 23, and Chen Dao opened his eyes at that moment.
***
In fact, the "Dragon Soaring Tiger Leaping" was not wrong. When he stumbled into the woods, he happened to meet Wen Shi's cage scattered, the seal formation was released, and everything that was hidden thousands of years ago reappeared.
The long-haired, red-clothed people he saw were naturally indistinguishable. The group that rushed over were Bu Ning and the others, and the one who cried was Xia Qiao.
The reason why he fainted from fright and was able to repair the broken car "by himself" and returned home was because Bu Ning and the others discovered him, temporarily turned him into a puppet, and controlled him to go back.
Sightings like this have happened in real time for thousands of years, and there will always be such "predestined people" who will inadvertently bump into something.
Most of the judges can handle it properly without leaving any traces. When those people wake up, they will only feel that they have had a very realistic dream.
There are very few such as "Long Teng Hu Yue".
It's not that they are careless, it's that they really don't care.
Because at that time, Bu Ning took advantage of the formation in the col, and shared some of the dust for Wen Shi from the air, which was the time of weakness. And the dust-free state in the seal formation is scary—
Logically speaking, a person who has been imprisoned for more than a thousand years and cannot escape, his body spirit and body are like exhausting all the dead wood, and there is no vitality. The process of his recovery is a Nirvana from death to life, which should be difficult and long, a year or even a few years.
But the dust lying in the array at that time was not the same.
The string of beads wrapped around his wrist was trembling, the bird feathers were shining brightly, and the bloodstains that were winding in all directions under his body should have dried up by tomorrow, but they were gurgling, dyeing the tips of his wrists and fingers red.
… as if it were battling some kind of power tug of war.
Every time he sawed, the blood flowed faster, and he looked a little paler.
No one knew what was going on, and no one dared to touch him rashly, for fear of interrupting something important.
That process took a long time.
Until a certain moment, the bead strings collided with a chaotic sound, the blood in all directions slowly smeared into the soil, and the emerald bird feathers fluttered in the wind and fell back to his wrist.
After that, the entire wilderness fell silent.
After a while, everyone dared to move.
Because Bu Ning's spirit is turbulent and his state is unsupported, no one can open Songyun Mountain. So he and Chen Dao were both taken back to the Shen family villa.
At first, each family wanted to leave some people to help.
After Shen Qiao passed away, the house was so lively for the first time, almost crowded with people.
But Xia Qiao was not used to it.
He still only kept Zhang Biling, who was directly related to Zhou Xu. He thanked the other families and sent them off with a good voice. Then, he never closed his eyes again.
This is the first time since he became "Xiaqiao" that he has realized the strength of Puppet - he can always guard, not sleepy or tired, and sleepless.
If it wasn't for Zhang Biling staring at him, he wouldn't even be able to get in.
This situation continued until Zhou Xu, or Bu Ning, woke up and changed.
Zhou Xu, who had just had a fever at that time, was drinking the medicine while staring at his face and said, "Bu Ning told me that in this case, it will take a year at least to wake up, and it is possible to exaggerate in five or six years. Your brother… "
He paused for a moment and said, "Are you going to wait for yourself to be a savage and give them a surprise?"
"I'm a puppet." Xia Qiao shook his head and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't eat, drink, or sleep."
"Puppet you—" Zhou Xu may have been smothered by Ancestor Bu Ning, and after struggling for a few seconds, he changed to a more euphemistic word: "—Uncle. How can you look like a puppet, or you go to the mirror and look at it. Zhang face, his complexion is so bad that he can act in a ghost movie."
Xia Qiao listened to his words, and remembered the sentence Wen Shi said to him before entering the cage, "Who treats you as a puppet?" He lowered his head and didn't speak for a long time.
When he raised his head again, he silently took the porridge that Zhang Biling put beside him, and drank it honestly.
…
They thought they really had to wait a year or even five or six years...
But no.
They really only waited twelve days.
***
Late at night on August 23, it was no different from every night before.
Zhang Biling filled their stomachs with hot porridge in the kitchen. Xia Qiao was replaced to take a shower. Zhou Xu briefly came out of the room and sat on the armrest of the living room sofa to receive Zhang Lan's voice.
When he was halfway through speaking, he suddenly froze for no reason, as if he had lost his mind.
Zhang Lan asked two questions but got no response, and even said "hello" several times.
In the last question, Zhou Xu blinked back to his senses. As if he felt something in the dark, he subconsciously turned his head and glanced at the famous tree hanging on the wall.
I saw a bright light suddenly flashed somewhere in the famous tree map, like the shadow of the lights passing by outside when driving.
Zhou Xu opened his mouth and fell into some kind of unbelievable confusion.
After a few more seconds, he finally realized that the light came from the very top of the famous spectrum. That is the beginning of all the branches of the hereafter, the beginning of the judge.
There is a name there, and the red pen marks the death, which has been silent for more than a thousand years. Until this moment, it really lit up.
That's... not dust.
"I-"
Before the final sound came out, Zhou Xu had already rushed to the room.
Because he was in a hurry, he tripped his leg on the armrest of the sofa, knocked over the copper ornament on the high chair, and stumbled on the floor again.
In just a split second, Bu Ning has taken the lead.
He held on to a door frame and steadied himself as he stepped into the door.
... also fortunately helped a bit.
Because as soon as he looked up, he saw that Chen Buu had woken up and was sitting beside the bed.
The white jade hairpin that he used to use in the past had long been lost, and his long hair was scattered, most of it was behind him, and some slipped down his shoulders and dangled in the folds of his robe.
The headlights in the bedroom were not turned on, only the bedside lamps were on.
Chen Dao raised his right hand under the lamp, and looked at the bead strings and red threads wrapped around his wrist.
Perhaps because his skin was too pale, his fingers seemed to be longer than before, with distinct skinny textures, which made the thread wrapped around his wrists dazzlingly red.
"Master..." Bu Ning said softly, as if afraid of being startled in a dream.
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt like he was hit.
"Why—" Zhang Biling and Xia Qiao, who was dripping with water, rushed to hear the movement behind them. They wanted to ask about the situation, but they fell silent in the middle of their words.
"Master Patriarch?" Xia Qiao called out in a daze. After a while, as if confirming for whom, he called out again: "Patriarch! Patriarch... Are you awake?"
Dust can not turn his head.
The side of his face was reflected in the light, and his eyes took a step slowly to move away from his wrist. When he turned around, his eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes were heavy.
Bu Ning was stunned.
In all his memories from childhood to adulthood, Chen Dao was always good-natured. Although they were all afraid of him and in awe of him, even though that good temper carried a sense of distance that did not ask about commonplace and trivial matters. But in their cognition... Chen Dao has never had such an expression.
Even if they did stupid things, they should be restrained. He just suppressed his smile and lightened his expression.
That's enough for them to be afraid of.
He had never seen anything like this moment.
He subconsciously began to be afraid, but more sad.
"Smell time." Chen Buo looked at them.
His tone was not heavy, but his voice was low and hoarse because his body had been asleep for thousands of years without speaking.
The crowd froze.
A strange silence spreads across the room, unbearably dull.
Bu Ning and the others seldom looked directly at the eyes that could not be seen since they were young, and it was better if they were bigger. But at this moment, the feeling of guilt and fear that I often had when I was a child swept up.
He turned his eyes away, not daring to look at the dust.
"Junior brother, he..." Bu Ning said a few words before becoming dumb, not knowing how to continue.
And so, a longer silence fell.
Bu Ning didn't look up, just stared at Chenbuo's shadow falling on the ground. Even if you don't look at him, you can feel that the master is angry.
It is the kind of reproach that is extremely deep, extremely distressing, and is about to explode but no one can explode.
Maybe it was because he couldn't bear the uncomfortable atmosphere, Xia Qiao suddenly opened his mouth and said without end, "It will come out."
After speaking, he was silent for a second, and then repeated seriously: "My brother will come out. Grandpa said that Wuxiangmen is my brother's reincarnation, and he will come out."
He has gone through so many rounds, how could he miss the appointment this time
Just need to wait.
Zhang Biling asked softly, "He... How long has Patriarch Wen Shi used it last time?"
Xia Qiao was silent for a moment: "25 years."
When these words fell, Chen Dao had already opened his palms towards Bu Ning: "Did you bring those things that you used for divination?"
Bu Ning was stunned for a moment, because they all said that the ancestors were not proficient in everything, but the hexagram technique lacked a little bit of innate spirituality. So even a few of their relatives know that he never personally fortune-telling.
"I..." During this time, Zhou Xu was mostly in charge, and he hardly ever went out. Bu Ning's body was empty and he didn't bring anything.
On the contrary, Xia Qiao ran to the living room in a hurry, rummaging and rummaging through boxes and cabinets. After a while, he brought a few copper coins, "Is this okay?"
The dust is not enough to sweep the copper coins into the palm of his hand.
He didn't arrange anything step by step, but his thumbs rubbed the lines on the surface of the copper coins in turn.
Before Xia Qiao and Zhang Biling could react, the copper coin was returned to Xia Qiao's hands after hearing a "wow" sound. And Chen Dao had already got up and opened a door on the spot.
The black and dark front door appeared in the bedroom out of thin air, and the damp and cold wind whistled from inside.
They didn't even see the formation stone, and they only heard a few muffled coughs from him.
Those muffled coughs made Xia Qiao regain a sense of familiarity.
He asked in a low voice, "What was the grandfather doing just now?"
Bu Ning said: "It's about where the Wuxiangmen will fall."
This is understandable.
but…
"Then why did you open the gate?" Xia Qiao murmured.
When he asked the question, Chen Dao had already stepped into the gate.
The red burqa and white undershirt were lifted and dropped by the wind, and disappeared in the darkness in an instant. Only one answer is left: "Arrest people."
"… "
Xia Qiao was stunned.
He stayed for a few seconds, then turned his head and asked Bu Ning: "No, it will take my brother ten or twenty years to enter Wuxiangmen once, so the patriarch will go now, do you want to settle there???"
Bu Ning was even more stunned, thinking that I had never walked through Wuxiangmen, and I had never seen anyone walk through it. You ask me who do I ask
But at that moment he was suddenly a little happy. Can't say why, just in the dark.
In the dark, he felt that Wen Shi was about to come back. In the dark, it seems that everything should be fine.
He only had one worry left—
The master seems to be very angry, and the younger brother may be finished when he leaves the door.
***
Wen Shi has been walking in this darkness for some time.
There was no sun rising and setting, no seasons, there was the same darkness everywhere, and nothing reminded him of the time.
In such an environment, it is easy for people to become lazy.
Every time he came here before, he would enter a long sleep period. I don't know the world, I don't know the year. It's like making up for a decades-long sleep, waiting until you're not so tired, then get up and go out.
But this time is different.
He floated up and down in this familiar darkness for a while, but he couldn't sleep peacefully.
For a long time he was in a chaotic fret—
He always felt that there was one more important thing to do, but he couldn't remember what it was.
Until a certain moment, he vaguely heard someone calling him.
"When you smell it."
Distant and indistinct, like the gaze that had long lingered behind him.
It's just that he can't find that bundle of eyes, and every time he looks back, he only sees a deeper darkness. But the sound is different...
It doesn't seem to come from behind, but from the front.
In the distance ahead, someone has been talking to him.
He always listened carefully for a while and followed the sound for a long distance. Listen for a while, and go a long way.
The man said a lot, but he couldn't hear it clearly, only his own name.
"When you smell it."
"When you smell it?"
"When you smell..."
"I heard that," he replied grumblingly.
It's a pity that the words were scattered in the darkness as soon as they came out.
He always stood for a while, and then reluctantly continued to walk towards the voice.
This darkness is too lonely, and the only one who can accompany him is that voice.
He stopped and went, tirelessly.
The road he has traveled is getting longer and longer, and he is getting clearer and clearer. Like a traveler slowly awakening from sleepiness.
He walked slower and slower, and suddenly stopped at a certain moment. Then, he heard the voice again.
The man said, "Snowman, I'll take you home."
At that moment, all the things that had been forgotten in this chaos rushed towards him, overwhelming the sky.
He finally remembered the most important thing—
He tried his best to keep someone, and he wanted to go home with that person.
no dust...
Wen Shi opened his mouth, but his voice was still drowned in the darkness.
But it didn't matter, he heard it himself.
Wen Shi raised his foot and strode towards the place where the sound came from, and in the end he almost ran. As he once swept from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain...
It was but a moment.
In an instant, he had walked the once long and endless road.
He saw the sky light at the end of the road, like the shadow of the sun falling through the gaps in the branches and leaves in the mountains, mottled and dazzling. He raised his hand to block his eyes, but felt a hand reach into the darkness and grab him.
***
Bu Ning, Xia Qiao, and Zhang Biling followed into the formation gate and groped their way down the long road.
When they came out from the other end, Chen Dao had already broken a crack in the void.
No need to guess, they also know that it should be the exit of Wuxiangmen.
This was the first time they saw Wuxiangmen with their own eyes, and everyone was shocked.
Zhang Biling was shocked at the fact that there really is a channel independent of reincarnation in the world, spanning life and death.
Xia Qiao was shocked that the 25-year gap was in front of the ancestors, and it disappeared in a single blow with his bare hands.
Bu Ning was shocked by the action of the dust...
The exit of Wuxiangmen was split open, and Chen Dao actually stretched his hand in. He still frowned lightly, his expression did not soften much, as if he wanted to pull the person out of the door.
During the movement, the broad sleeves were swept across the rocky branches by the mountain wind.
Bu Ning had never seen Master like this before, and he thought badly, it was really about to come.
Before the thought flashed through, Chen Dao had already pulled out a person from the crack.
Bu Ning subconsciously turned his head away, so as not to be caught in the wind and rain.
But after two seconds, he suddenly realized something was wrong!
It seems that the figure is a little too short...
He turned his head suspiciously, and saw a little devil who was not even taller than his thighs.
The child had black hair, extremely white skin, and cat-like eyes. He was supposed to be docile and funny. But because he always pursed his lips, he showed a unique stubbornness.
If it was silently stuck there, it would be no different from a snowman built in the mountains.
Bu Ning was startled for a few seconds on the spot, and said in his heart: Isn't this the smell of when I was a child? No more than 5 years old.
His 5-year-old junior brother Bingzhuzi may have sensed the wind and rain, and he raised his face when he left the door, and confronted the person who led him out with an expressionless and extremely innocent face.
That expression is very similar to the appearance of the Dapeng squeezing bird feathers back then.
No dust: "… "