At the intersection of Jincang Expressway and Jinshi Expressway, there is an inconspicuous exit. Following the ramp with sharp turns, it is a road leading to the village and town, passing through windbreaks and large fields.
This road is usually driven by trucks, and the road conditions are not very good. Generally, private cars can avoid it. In the middle of the night, even the trucks were few.
At two o'clock in the middle of the night, a truck loaded with building materials was wobbly walking on the road. The driver yawned yawn after yawn, relying on the fact that the road was dark and there were no other cars, and the eyelids kept fighting. For a few minutes, it almost literally sticks.
He opened the window, and in the process of staring in a daze, he vaguely heard the whistling sound of the air being torn apart.
This is the sound of a car passing by at high speed from the side, and there are more than one, like a whole convoy whizzing by.
The driver had a conditioned reflex for this kind of sound, and the moment he heard it, he suddenly opened his eyes and honked the horn.
The feeling of being almost hit made him completely awake, staring at the road ahead without blinking, but he didn't see any trace of the car.
As if everything just happened was a dream.
But just when he felt a false alarm, the sound of breaking wind reappeared, whizzing past him again.
This time, he reacted very quickly, and when he turned to look, he vaguely saw the phantom of a car.
How fake is it? It is just a blink of an eye, and it can no longer be found in the night.
"Fuck... what the hell?!"
The driver was in a cold sweat and felt like he had hit a ghost.
Some of those ghostly cars came from Zhangjia in Ningzhou, while others came from all over the place.
They are normal private cars on weekdays, but they are in a hurry now, and they are covered with talismans and blindfolded, and there are about a hundred cars in front and back. This unfortunate driver encountered, it was already the last two rounds.
They didn't run in one direction, but branched off at several forks and went elsewhere.
If you look down from the sky at this time, you will find that every other section of the road, there will be one or two diverted cars stopping at rest stops, gas stations, or other places that can park without being eye-catching.
There are all directions in the south, east, and northwest, and it just happened to quietly surround a very inconspicuous village and town on the map.
Zhang Zhengchu actually arrived early, much earlier than he called to notify Zhou Xu.
Since Zhou Xu's words came to him, he arranged for someone to open a "door" directly to the Tianjin boundary in the courtyard of his family, and got there as quickly as possible.
When the car was parked at the entrance of the village, Qi Aqi, who was in charge of driving, also asked in a puzzled way, "Didn't you tell Xiao Xu that you have to wait for the rest of the family to arrive before leaving?"
He looked at the phone, and on the screen was an old-fashioned map with a dozen or so little red dots, moving from all over the country to Ningzhou.
That's the location sent by the families who were alerted by the famous tree map.
Zhang Zhengchu held a palm and looked through the car window to the lights in the distant villages and towns: "Tell other families that it is urgent, we have already arrived in Tianjin, and let them change their routes."
"Okay." Aqi sent a message to each family through the picture, "but... did the temporary change not delay the time again?"
"No." Zhang Zhengchu said with a cane: "It won't be delayed, but it will be faster. Because it is troublesome to change the destination temporarily and take a detour. They are definitely not willing to come along the normal road in a regular manner. It is time to open the door. Yes, they will form an array to open the door and come here directly."
He paused for a moment and said, "Everyone is like this, but they are too lazy to take it slow when they are annoyed."
Aqi nodded half-understood and only said, "You have made a plan."
"It's not a plan, it's impossible. Some people take it slow even if they're in a hurry. For such a big thing, they have to hurry up." Zhang Zhengchu corrected him, "Wait until all the families arrive, that is to say, give it to children. Listen. This child Zhou Xu, as I told you, you actually have more contact with him than I do, and you can see it. He has a rectal stomach and no door on his mouth. Since he can be told by me, he can also be used by others. No. Why should I tell him so clearly."
"Are you afraid that he will be tricked by Bu Ning's ancestor?" Aqi asked.
"No." Zhang Zhengchu shook his head. He didn't know what he was thinking, and after pondering for a moment, he continued: "No matter how powerful the ancestor is, now it's just a touch of spirituality. Compared with real people, it still lacks a lot. Besides—"
There were only Aqi and Zhang Zhengchu in this car.
Aqi sat in the driver's seat, and Zhang Zhengchu sat alone in the back seat.
There was a scroll on the empty seat. As Zhang Zhengchu spoke, he stretched out his hand and opened the scroll a bit, revealing a corner of the judge's famous genealogy map - he brought out the famous genealogy map hanging in his room.
Since Bu Ning's resurrection, his line has jumped up, and undoubtedly turned to the top of the entire famous tree. Also flipped up, there was the line in which all members of the Shen family were dead.
Under these two lines, it was his Zhang family's turn.
The line of Zhang's family has been a little more complicated than other families since the ancestors. Every name has branches, and the more it goes, the more it goes, like a tree that grows horizontally.
This tree has grown for a thousand years, with luxuriant branches and leaves, and has become the largest existence on the entire family tree.
The three words "Zhang Zhengchu" are near the end, followed by two forks, which are his two sons. One of them was folded in a cage at the age of 32, so his name became vermilion. And there are two forks behind the vermilion, Zhang Lan is on top, Zhang Yalin is a little lower.
Zhang Zhengchu's eyes fell on the line of the Zhang family. After watching for a while, he moved to the word "Bu Ning" and said to Aqi: "If you say that I am afraid of Bu Ning's cliché, then you are wrong. Ancestral characters may not be able to speak at all."
Archie looked at him a little puzzled.
Zhang Zhengchu didn't raise his eyes, and still looked at the famous chart: "I'm used to being in high places, do whatever you want to do, and say whatever you want to say. There's nothing to worry about, so there's no cliché."
Archie responded.
"I'm not afraid of clichés." Zhang Zhengchu said again. He has the habit of many elderly people. He usually controls it consciously, but sometimes it will be revealed unconsciously, such as repeating some words: "I'm not afraid of clichés. It's okay, I just like to have some leeway."
"Be rich in time, don't be so nervous. Leave some room for preparation."
As he said, he rolled up the famous tree map again, and said with a pity, "tsk", "If you think about it this way, the ancestor may be quite suffering at the moment. How long does a touch of spiritual appearance stay? I guess I have to find a body to stay there. He can't stay in the body of a normal person. People have their own spirits. Who can allow others to snatch their bodies? They will always struggle. People like Bu Ning can't be ruthless. What should I do..."
Aqi honestly followed: "What should I do?"
"Then we can only find dead people. The kind of people who just died. The body is barely usable, and the spirit is just empty." Zhang Zhengchu said, his eyes turned to the lights in the distance, "In this kind of place, the dead are also mountains and fields. Village husbands and village women... Dignified ancestors, shrinking in such a body, even if they have all abilities, they have to be restricted by this mortal fetus, I don't know what it's like."
He savored it to himself, and tutted again.
At the same time, Archie suddenly said, "They're here!"
He handed the phone to Zhang Zhengchu.
On the screen, those little red dots representing each family were still on their way to Ningzhou a few minutes ago, and now almost all of them have entered the Tianjin territory!
Hundreds of red dots came from all directions and converged on a road, like a terrifying long dragon.
Even in a thousand years, it is rare.
"What am I saying, they will be faster if they change the road temporarily." Zhang Zhengchu said, lowering the window. He took out a stack of prepared paper talismans from the inner pocket of his coat, counted them, divided them into several strands, and spilled them along the car window, "First inform them to find the right place to stay."
For a time, yellow paper filled the sky.
They ignited spontaneously in the night wind, leaving only the smell of paper ashes in an instant.
Soon, as the long red dragon on the map flowed into Tianjin, there were more than 50 vehicles at the entrance of the village. Most of these cars carry various family owners, or the best of the younger generation.
The rest of the vehicles went to the surrounding parking spots under the notice of Zhang Zhengchu.
The sound of door opening and closing sounded one after another.
Zhang Zhengchu clutched his cane, pushed the door and got out of the car, and a group of people gathered around.
There are also some elderly people wearing simple shirts and thin coats, accompanied by their children and grandchildren, walking towards this side.
The Yang family in Weinan, the Wu family in Suzhou, the Zhong family in Qimen, the Lin family in Changle, the Luo family in Yunfu… and so on.
Too much.
Some of them have close contacts with the Zhang family, and some only meet for more than ten years. Regardless of whether they are close or distant, they didn't talk too much at this moment, but went straight to the topic.
"Master, this place is already surrounded?" The head of the Yang family is a woman, in her sixties, but at first glance she doesn't look much older than Zhang Lan.
"Well." Zhang Zhengchu nodded, "The young children in my Zhang family have been waiting at various points early, and all the people you brought have passed?"
"almost."
"Just arrived."
"it's already over."
Everyone answered.
"Then let's go." Zhang Zhengchu said.
He was about to let Aqi inform him when he heard someone say, "I still think it's not very appropriate to greet the ancestors with an array as soon as they see them."
Zhang Zhengchu looked back.
The speaker was an old lady with white hair and fine skin. She was wearing a plain-colored cheongsam with three strings of sandalwood beads wrapped around her wrists. She could see that she was very temperamental when she was young, but she was still elegant when she was old, and she spoke softly and slowly.
This is Wu Yin, the head of the Wu family, who hasn't come out for ten years.
She was accompanied by two young people, one was his disciple and the other was his own grandson, and nodded politely to Zhang Zhengchu.
Zhang Zhengchu did not answer Wu Yin's words immediately, but looked at her disciple and said, "This is... Wen Kai, right?"
The disciple nodded: "Master, do you still remember me?"
"I remember." Zhang Zhengchu smiled and said kindly: "Of course I remember, you came to Ningzhou with your master when you were three or four years old."
"Yes, I also gave you the talisman water." Wu Wenkai replied.
As Zhou Xu said, not only the outstanding juniors of the Zhang family, but also the outstanding people from all generations in other families have also been to Ningzhou when they were young, and they have been in the Zhang family to meet the head of the family.
In the sense of being courteous and thorough, almost all of them have paid talisman water to the head of the Zhang family, knocked on the forehead, and gave wishes. But whoever got the blessing, most of them turned out very well later on.
Zhang Zhengchu looked away from him this time, and said to Wu Yin, "For a young generation who is outstanding like this, don't stay here, let him go to another place to stay and avoid it. On the side of the village entrance, like us The elders who buried the loess up to their necks will do."
He almost persuaded earnestly: "Go somewhere else, you see, my Zhang family stays here, and they are all old people."
Wu Yin and Wen Kai looked at the place he pointed. There were more than a dozen Zhang family cars parked there. Most of the people standing beside them were middle-aged and elderly people.
"I mentioned it before you came here, the juniors are long, don't mix it up here." Zhang Zhengchu finished speaking to Wu Yin, and then looked at the other people, "Seriously, not polite. As we all know, Bu Ning's ancestor has a temperament. Gentle, courteous and courteous. But everyone also knows that people can't be resurrected from death. Anything abnormal, there is always something strange. To be disrespectful, even if it is related to sorcery, I will not be surprised."
"That's the reason why I insisted on losing the battle."
He said word by word: "The formation is a good formation, and it nourishes the spirit. It will keep his spirit from being a big problem. If there is any damage, it can help the ancestor to stabilize. But at the same time, as long as he steps into this formation, it will be temporarily I can't go out any more. It sounds like a bit outrageous, but it must be considered. I like to leave some leeway in everything, don't make it too dead. What if the resurrection of the ancestor is really related to sorcery?"
He left a gap, so someone interjected: "Then we have to be rebellious."
"Yes, even if it is the ancestor of Bu Ning, we have to harden our hearts. If we can't escape then there will be a hard battle." Zhang Zhengchu paused, and then said: "If it has nothing to do with sorcery, but another reason, then We also have to consider whether our actions tonight will make the ancestors unhappy, and maybe there will still be conflicts. So I suggest that the younger generation of each family, those young people who are in good times, don't stay here, more They are all children I have seen, and if they get involved, I will be the first to get through it."
After these words, everyone nodded in agreement and said, "The old man is really righteous."
Zhang Zhengchu bowed his hands to them and said nothing.
So the young people got into the car and quickly went around to other parking spots a little farther from the village.
Only then did Zhang Zhengchu call Zhou Xu and tell him, "We're here."
As soon as the phone was hung up, he sent a signal to everyone with Archie—getting down the stone.
At that moment, the juniors who were staying at the gas station, resting place or the roadside got out of the car, and in the corner where no one would notice, they pinpointed the position corresponding to the four images of the stars and buried them. Stones.
Those stone formations glowed faintly under the loess, and then disappeared into the night, like the most common things on the roadside.
But anyone who understands knows that at the moment when these stone formations are set up, a large formation is slowly descending along the village and town they encircled, encompassing the entire village and town and the people in the village.
At the entrance of the village, the place where the head of the family is in town is the array eye.
The great formation was completed, and the wind in the villages and towns changed slightly.
Several dogs suddenly barked, and it was even more disturbing in the middle of the night. But it quickly became quiet again, and fell asleep again.
At the same time as the dog barked, Zhang Yalin suddenly opened his eyes in the first room on the second floor of the Lu family.
He sat up from the sofa, stretched out his hand and brushed the wind that slipped in through the crack of the window. Just as he was about to wake Zhang Lan, he found that his sister had already woken up and was sitting beside the bed with her hair disheveled, just like him.
"This is..." Zhang Lan twisted his fingers sharply, and shouted: "It's over, big guy, you can't come alone, don't be the old man who can't sit still and rush over with someone?!"
Zhang Yalin obviously thought the same thing as her, and his face became extremely bad.
They know very well that it is the stupidest thing to pretend to be in front of a few ancestors. So after thinking about it, I decided to sleep honestly in the first half of the night, and wait for a few old ancestors to rest in the second half of the night, and then take advantage of the time difference to open a door and go directly to my home.
After all, they didn't have a deep hatred with a few ancestors, and they couldn't be considered a serious threat. With the characters of those few, even if they found out that they had run away and wanted to chase, they would not chase them very carefully. That time was enough for them to report back to their hometown and tell the truth.
But they didn't expect the old man, who has always been stable, to kill him in the middle of the night this time.
This is really the tightest calculation, the worst timing.
The sister and brother looked at each other and broke out of the door without saying a word.
When they rushed downstairs, they saw Xie Wen and Wen Shi walking towards the village entrance.
to die...
These two words popped out in the minds of the siblings.
Zhang Zhengchu and the others thought that the first person they saw would be Zhou Xu. After all, he was the one who received the call, and it was normal to be the leader.
Or, it would be some unfamiliar and stiff villager. It should be the body that Bu Ning's ancestors temporarily inhabited. In terms of status, it is normal to walk in the front.
But when they sat above the eyes of the formation and looked at the road ahead without blinking, the first thing they saw was neither Zhou Xu nor a strange villager, but—
"Thank you for asking..."
The person who blurted out the name was Zhang Biling who had followed the Zhang family's main force. As a marginalized person in the Zhang family, she had no sense of existence among her peers.
It was only briefly noticed when the name was called.
But those eyes turned back to the person who came in the next second.
Almost no one of the patriarchs present had dealt with Xie Wen, but everyone knew the name, the relationship between his mother and the Zhang family, and even more... He was a person who was directly removed from the name tree map and was bombarded early on. Out of the judge's team.
Or a sick seedling with a rotten constitution.
This is the first time many people have seen Xie asked.
Seeing that he was tall, walked calmly, and came wrapped up in the night, he clenched his fist against the tip of his nose in the wind and coughed a few times, then turned to look at everyone, and smiled from a distance.
No one could see clearly whether the smile was in his eyes. He only heard that he didn't bother, he glanced around the wilderness, and said in a low and vague voice, "What a big battle."
The moment the voice fell, countless white cotton threads fluttered away instantly, with the sound of breaking the wind as sharp as a knife, shooting straight to different directions in the southeast, northwest, and northwest.
Under the control of the puppet master's powerful spiritual god, those lines seemed to have no end, like a huge net that suddenly opened, and each line was hidden in the sky and wilderness beyond the thousands of slopes.
The younger generation who stayed behind saw a similar scene—
Nearly at a loss, they listened to the wind whistling, and the force was so strong that it smashed to the ground, splashing gravel and sand.
When they suddenly came back to their senses, they saw a long thin white line coming from nowhere, deeply nailed between the loess where the formation stones were buried.
This group of young people didn't know where the puppet line came from, but the family members who were sitting in the array could see it clearly.
They saw a person breaking through the night and standing beside Xie Wen. He was equally tall, and his skin was so white that he had a cold tone at night, and his eyes fell down his long and thin eyelids. Although he had no expression, he seemed to be holding a very deep disgust and unhappiness.
Those puppet threads that were spread out like giant nets were wrapped around his drooping fingers.
He was unruly, but he had a messy beauty.
The ten fingers suddenly retracted, and the large array that wrapped the village and the wilderness trembled with a "hum".