-Although the old man looked like he was dying, Bai Zhi felt a premonition of danger from him, just like the conductor on the previous train.
After waiting patiently for about ten minutes, the old man stood up staggeringly from the tombstone. After putting the scattered tools on the ground into a shabby small bag, the old man bent He coughed violently at the waist, turned around and walked towards the depths of the thick fog.
Under the cover of the thick fog, within a few minutes, the old man's figure was blurred into the fog and could no longer be seen clearly.
"..."
After pondering for a moment, Bai Zhi summoned the shadow puppet again. Before the fog dissipated, he controlled the shadow puppet to come to the newly carved tombstone.
The tombstone had recently been carved, and under the tombstone there were still stone powder left over from the time of carving.
When he saw the newly carved content on the tombstone, Bai Zhi's expression suddenly changed slightly.
—On the tombstone, what is carved is his name.
The Chinese characters, simplified Chinese, and Bai Zhi are carved quite neatly on the tombstone, with silver hooks and iron strokes, which shows the exquisite craftsmanship of the carver.
...a strange story
His deep eyes gradually narrowed, and the shadow puppet leaned down and fixed his gaze on the tombstone in front of him.
Different from the two tombstones he saw before, this tombstone, perhaps because it was recently carved, did not have a black and white photo of him hanging in the upper right corner of the tombstone.
In front of him was a bare tombstone with his name engraved on it.
And just when the shadow puppet was squatting in front of the tombstone and thinking in his heart, in the fog, the sound of heavy objects being dragged and the sound of violent coughing were heard.
"..."
Turning his head and looking into the mist, he saw the figure of the shadow puppet quietly disappearing into the shadows.
A moment later, the old man walked out of the thick fog with a coffin nearly twice as big as his body on his back, and then returned to his tombstone.
After placing the black wooden coffin in front of the tombstone, the old man started digging behind the tombstone with a shovel in his hand. As before, the old man dug very slowly.
Every time he shoveled a few shovels of soil, the old man had to stop and hold the shovel to rest for a while. The speed and work efficiency were astonishing.
After waiting patiently for a few minutes and seeing that the old man still only shoveled out a shallow layer of soil, Bai Zhi took advantage of the time when the old man was holding the shovel to take a breather, and Bai Zhi controlled the shadow puppet to simply walk out of the soil. out.
Sensing the appearance of the shadow puppet, the old man who heard the movement slowly turned his head to look at the shadow puppet, revealing a rather scary face.
The old man's face completely disappeared, leaving only a hole like a black hole. There were no eyes, no nose, and no mouth. There was only the pitch-black hole.
"Old man, let me help you."
Before the old man in front of him could make the next move, the shadow puppet greeted him enthusiastically. Without any explanation, he helped the old man in front of him and sat down on the mound beside him. By the way, he took the old man's hand from his hand. The shovel was in hand.
Then, the shadow puppet happily dug his own grave with a shovel.
Stressing civilization and establishing new trends, Bai Zhi has always regarded himself as a good young man. After all, respecting the old and caring for the young is the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. It is not shameful to help others and do good deeds.
elder:"… …"
It seemed that he had never encountered such a thing before. The old man sitting on the mound was silent for a while, and even the coughing that had been incessant stopped.
But Bai Zhi didn't care about anything. He was chatting with the old man sitting on the mound behind him about home affairs, regardless of whether the other party should be polite or not, while he was waving the shovel in his hand to dig the grave.
Although the attributes of the shadow puppet are only half of the attributes of the main body, his current attributes have basically exceeded 20 points, and the shadow puppet will not be classified as disabled.
At the very least, compared with the old man's work efficiency of stopping to rest for a while every time he wields a shovel, the shadow puppet's work efficiency can be called high speed.
In less than ten minutes, a square grave was dug out.
Then, without waiting for the old man to do anything, Shadow Puppet dragged the coffin over quite consciously, and then placed the black wooden coffin into the tomb.
But just when Bai Zhi was about to fill the soil, the old man came over, coughed and stretched out his hand to open the coffin cover, then took out a doll from the accompanying bag and put it in. .
"...Doll?"
Looking at the simple doll made of needlework in the old man's hand, Bai Zhi narrowed his eyes unconsciously.
But just when he wanted to replace the doll with a small clod of soil without anyone noticing, as if he had noticed something in advance, the old man suddenly turned around in a daze. She turned her head and looked at him.
Then, from among the black faces, an extremely hoarse voice came.
"Are you sure you want to replace your anchor?"
"Anchor...what do you mean?"
Seeing that it was rare for the other party to speak, Bai Zhi gave up his little tricks, and then opened his mouth to ask the old man in front of him.
"Fill in the soil and come with me."
After coughing a few more times, the old man closed the lid of the coffin again, then hunched over and sat on the mound beside him again.
Seeing this, Bai Zhi didn't say anything. After filling in the soil again as quickly as possible, he stood in front of the old man.
Raising his head and glancing at him, the old man stood up from the mound with some difficulty. During this process, the shadow puppet was kind enough to help him.
"Come with me."
Putting his hands behind his back, the old man walked slowly and unsteadily into the mist.
"..."
Bai Zhi turned around and looked at his tombstone and grave, narrowed his eyes slightly, and followed the old man.
It was rare to meet someone with whom he could communicate, and he would not miss an opportunity like this.
Although the old man's pace was still slow, he often went a long way after taking a few steps. With the speed of the shadow puppet, he almost couldn't keep up.
A few minutes later, a small wooden house appeared in Bai Zhi's sight. The door of the wooden house was open, and he could see a table, a bed, and two chairs inside. Apart from that, there was nothing else. .
"...You shouldn't still be standing here."
The old man seemed to be very tired. After entering the wooden house, he slumped down on the chair, but his dark face was still facing Bai Zhi.
"What's the meaning?"
Sitting down on another chair, his deep eyes gradually narrowed, and Bai Zhi tapped his fingers on the table in front of him.
"Compared with this, why don't you give me a general introduction to the situation here? For example, where is this place? Also, you should be a player in the puzzle card world. How did you become like this? Same look?"
"This is the [Kaitan Cemetery]. Under every grave, there is a cursed object buried."
It seemed that it was rare to find anyone to talk to. After being quiet for a moment, the old man started talking.
"I am indeed a player. I am not only the guardian of this ghost cemetery, but also a martyr. The reason why you see me like this is because I am about to be swallowed up by my own desires. ”
"Being swallowed by your own desires... What is your desire?"
Looking at the face of the old man in front of him that had completely turned into a black hole, Bai Zhi frowned slightly as if he suddenly thought of something.
"This [Ghost Cemetery] is my desire."
Turning his head to look outside at the cemetery shrouded in thick fog, the old man spoke calmly.
"In this ghost story cemetery, there are countless cursed objects buried. As long as I am still alive and as long as I have not completely lost control, they will always be buried underground and never see the light of day."
"But your desires have gotten out of control, and you are now being consumed by your own desires."
Bai Zhi spoke bluntly.
"So please tell me directly, what happened here in the core area, and even in the entire realm of confusion?"
"… I have no idea."
After a moment of silence, the old man slowly shook his head.
"you do not know?"
"Since I became a martyr and the tombkeeper here, almost 20 years have passed in a flash. I gave up my identity as a human being and gave up everything to come here. I thought I would stay here until The end of life, but the accident happened so suddenly."
When saying these words, the old man's tone seemed unusually calm.
"In the past 20 years, I have seen only a handful of other people here. On average, I can only see one living person every few years. After the accident, it is even less likely to see other people here... Are you the one I am? The first living person I’ve seen in years.”
"Well... let's put it this way, after the accident, someone did come to you and wanted to give you information, but for some reason, you couldn't see them, so you don't know what happened in the core area. What...that's what you mean, right?"
After a moment of thinking, Bai Zhi summarized the old man's words.
"Did something unexpected happen here in [Kaitan Cemetery]? At the same time, is there a need for a so-called anchor point? Is it because everyone who comes here is pulled somewhere?"
"Yes, so I'm curious as to why you are still standing here."
Looking up at him, the old man nodded slightly.
"In this place, the cursed objects buried in the tombs are just embellishments. There is only one thing that really needs to be buried here."
"...Desire?"
Bai Zhi raised his eyebrows slightly.
"You could say that."
The darkness on his face quietly widened a little, and the old man sighed softly in his mouth.
"That cursed object once almost destroyed our entire world. Originally, under my premise as a martyr and the suppression of those matching puzzle cards, it should have fallen into an almost eternal sleep. . But now, it’s starting to wake up.”
"So those who came here were all pulled into a certain place by it?"
Bai Zhi turned his head and looked out the window.
"That's right, as long as there is still desire in the heart, no one can escape the judgment from it. It is basically impossible for people without desires and desires to exist, so no one can ever avoid it."
Sitting up slightly, the old man raised his head and looked at him.
"And people who are pulled into the realm of desire by it, once their own desires get out of control, will be gradually swallowed up by their own desires like me."
"Yeah?"
After listening to the old man's words, Bai Zhi thought about it for a moment, and then asked the other person very strangely.
"But if that's the case, then why wasn't I dragged in?"
"...I should ask you this question."
Volume 1 The Gap between Illusion and Reality: Chapter 829 Chapter 819 The First Martyr
Through the explanation of the tombkeeper in front of him, Bai Zhi was able to roughly restore what happened to the deceased Ling.
Obviously, the deceased Zero was definitely aware of something, but she was pulled into the realm of desire from the very beginning and had no idea of the real situation in the outside world.
"You ask me? How do I know."
Bai Zhi rolled his eyes.
"But I can be very sure that there is desire in my heart, but it refuses to pull me in, so what can I do?"
"...You are here to find your companions, right?"
After a moment of silence, the tombkeeper changed the subject.
"There were indeed many people who came here before, but they were all pulled into the realm of desire. Each one of them lost themselves in it, and they still haven't been able to come out... Where did you and them come from? ?”
"Large-scale battle mission, do you know this?"
Bai Zhi was not in a hurry to ask about the current situation of the deceased Zero. Instead, Bai Zhi was very interested in talking about other things with the tombkeeper in front of him.
"Your world joined forces with several other worlds to launch a large-scale campaign mission against my world."
"That's it..."
It seemed that he was not surprised, or that he had already guessed this. When he spoke again, the tombkeeper's words were filled with deep fatigue.
"Yes, in theory, we players are repaying evil with kindness to save your world."
Bai Zhi shrugged slightly.
"It's just that you don't even have any information, which makes it very difficult for me to handle."
"...Although I don't know exactly what happened, what I can tell you is that there is something wrong with one of the puzzle cards."
The tombkeeper turned his head and looked at the fragmented sky outside.
"The core of the entire realm of confusion is a puzzle card that has reached the legendary level. With that puzzle card as the core and nine epic-level puzzle cards as the sub-core, we built this from scratch. place."
"Then what?"
Bai Zhi asked very cooperatively.
"What else then?"
The tombkeeper seemed to smile a little self-deprecatingly.
"In such a bad era, isn't that the only thing we can do? In the face of the general situation, individual efforts are the most insignificant, and all we martyrs can do is Just use everything you have to protect your world. But when there is a problem in the core, it is inevitable that other places will have problems one after another."