I know~~I know~~~
Cicadas were chirping in the distant foothills, and passing motorcycles were kicking up dust. I looked out at the distant foot of the mountain, and saw rows of green fenders. Further ahead, the ditch was emitting a foul stench. Several small red brick houses were lined up in a row, and the word "Welcome" was posted on the simple glass door. I walked past the convenience store, where a little old man was wiping the counter with a rag and yawned lazily.
When Lu Liangsheng passed by, he slowed down. In front of him was what seemed to be the entrance to the construction site. Two or three cars were stuck there. Several people got out of the car and were arguing with the security guard at the gate. One of them seemed to be talking to the person on the other end of the phone with a cell phone and gesticulating back and forth with his hands.
"Hey... they won't let me in, saying it's haunted." "... I've brought all the people here, and there are a lot of extras waiting."
"Okay, then you make a phone call and we'll wait outside."
Lu Liangsheng glanced over there, pedaled casually, pretended to park the car on the side of the road, and walked across the wooden bridge across the ditch. The woman picking vegetables at the door over there thought that there were guests coming to eat, and was about to yell at the man playing with his mobile phone inside, but she heard gentle words coming first.
"Big sister, could you please tell me if there is a villa built here?"
It turned out that he was asking for directions. The woman threw the celery in her hand into the dustpan, turned around and shouted inside: "Stop cooking, it's not for eating." She turned back with her fat face, looked at the young man in front of her, and a smile appeared on her face again, with her fat piled up.
"Hey, a handsome guy, are you here to look for someone?"
“I guess so.”
The woman looked at the handsome face of the young man and patted her chest happily, "It's easy to find someone. There are many workers who come here to eat, but..."
As she spoke, she moved her mouth towards the crowded gate and said, "Listen to my advice, you can wait outside, or wait in my store for them to come out to eat. Don't go in alone."
Lu Liangsheng laughed, "Is it haunted?"
"Hey, don't say that here, bah, bah, bah!" The sturdy woman spat on the ground several times, pulled Lu Liangsheng to the door of the store, looked outside, and then whispered: "I heard from my sister that ghosts are one thing, do you know how they came about? A few days ago, I heard from a worker who came to the store to eat that a hole was dug on the hill where the hotel was built over there, and it was full of murals, and then strange things started happening."
Amid the chattering, Lu Liangsheng frowned slightly. He didn't remember digging a cave in Xiaoquan Mountain, let alone painting murals in it. Could it be that Yanzhi left them
"See? The people blocking the way over there are not letting in the crew that originally came here to film!"
"This haunted place is really annoying. The business of the store is not doing well. I hope the wizard hired by the boss can come soon..."
"Hey handsome, where are you going?"
The woman looked away from the gate and saw the young man next to her walking towards the wooden bridge. She caught up with him and waved, "Listen to me, don't go in alone. It's night time. If you're hungry, bring your friends to my place for dinner. I'll give you 20% off!"
Lu Liangsheng got on his motorcycle (Old Donkey), nodded at her, smiled and started the engine, turned around and went back the way he came. However, halfway through, he suddenly accelerated and raised the front of the motorcycle. The engine roared and leaped into the air, crossing the ditch below. The long fender, the moment it landed, the body of the motorcycle turned into a donkey again, carrying the scholar, and rushed straight into the forest on the slowly rising hillside ahead.
Chirp~~
A flock of birds started flying in the woods, their hooves quickly landing and rising, carrying up fallen leaves. They came to a high place and looked down at the mountain through the gaps between the trees. They saw pits and holes dug in the former fertile fields, and foundations were poured in the pits, with the outlines of villas built.
"This... used to be a field outside Lujia Village..."
Following the familiar gaze, he looked towards the side of the mountainside. The place where the Qixia Temple was supposed to stand was bare and the old pine forest was gone. Instead, a building he had never seen before stood there. From a distance, he could see the handwriting on it. After thinking for a while, Lu Liangsheng roughly understood that it was a place for selling houses.
"If the Qixia Temple was still there, you wouldn't have been haunted."
Lu Liangsheng shook his head and continued riding his donkey along the mountainside. At the foot of the mountain opposite, the former location of Lujia Village was no longer visible. Only the Xiaoquan Mountain opposite still had some of its former outlines, but it was much shorter and the dense vegetation on it had been cleared away. A yellow mud road led directly to the foot of the mountain. From time to time, large trucks loaded with mud and sand turned around to transport them up, stirring up pieces of mud and splashing everywhere.
A thousand years have passed, and everything has changed. The village has disappeared, and the graves of his parents and sister are probably nowhere to be found. There is no need to stay here any longer. He can vaguely hear voices coming from the gate of the construction site. The tightly closed gate suddenly opened, and a black car drove in. Lu Liangsheng had been sitting on the donkey for a while, then he lowered his body, jumped directly to the foot of the mountain, and ran all the way to Xiaoquan Mountain.
Wow~~~
Before he got close, he could faintly hear the sound of flowing water from the waterfall. Stepping on the muddy loess, Lu Liangsheng glanced at the half-repaired building over there, turned around and went to the pond. He got off his donkey and saw that the big bluestones of the past were no longer by the pond. Instead, there were some small goose-warm stones neatly arranged in a circle, forming a path as if for people to stroll.
'That cave...'
Lu Liangsheng's eyes swept around and finally fell on the waterfall. He stretched out his hand and waved, but nothing flew out. The scroll that he had placed there was also gone.
His heart sank, and he pointed his finger at the water curtain. Amidst the mist, the falling water slowly parted on both sides, revealing a dark hole inside.
"There really is a hole... Let's go in and see what kind of murals there are."
He gave away the reins and asked the old donkey to wait outside. He walked alone on the flowing water and gradually disappeared at the entrance of the cave. The gurgling water flowed away behind him and the deep part of the cave became dead silent. As he walked forward, the rough cave wall that was wiped by his fingertips became smooth and flat.
Lu Liangsheng raised his finger, and a fire suddenly ignited from his fingertips, illuminating the surroundings. A series of ancient, colorful paintings unfolded in his sight and extended towards the innermost part.
The firelight illuminated the cave wall in front of him, and the mural with some color faded came into his eyes - it was a young scholar sitting in front of the window, holding a book and reading by lamplight at night.
The face of the young scholar brought a smile to Lu Liangsheng's lips. It was exactly how he looked when he took the child examination. The mural took up a large area and almost every detail could be seen clearly. He walked a few steps with the flames on and came to the next painting - a scholar riding a donkey, concentrating on painting a scroll. As he wrote, there was a huge snake surrounded by the mountains, staring with cold snake eyes, and opening its mouth to bite the wooden building. There were also a few panicked bandits downstairs.
Further down, the scholar has grown up and is standing in an abandoned temple, wearing a gray robe and scolding two monsters with fox heads and human bodies.
Looking at more than ten pictures in a row, Lu Liangsheng still had a smile on his face, but his eyes gradually became moist, as if he was watching his life all over again, replaying it one by one in front of his eyes. When he came to the last picture, he stopped and looked at the scholar destroying the evil star, standing in a beam of golden light and rising to the sky. Tears could not stop falling, soaking his collar.
He slowly raised his hand and reached out to touch the mottled and faded murals, gently touching them with his fingertips, and he had already guessed who painted these murals.
"This old Sun... why is he drawing these..."
The cave has come to the end and there is nothing more to see. Sun Yingxian may have left something behind, but as time passes, only some weathered traces remain on the ground.
…
Outside the cave, night fell. The car that had entered earlier stopped in the middle of the construction site. Several vans were parked far away near a villa. The people who got off the vans looked from a distance at the long table set up in front of the cars, which was covered with yellow silk.
Lu Jun stood on tiptoe in the crowd, took a look, and excitedly talked to his familiar companions on the road.
"Is this a ritual? I've never seen this before."
"They must be from the film crew. Why are they performing a ritual on a construction site?"