(one)
My name is Ma Shangqian. I am a computer design student who has just graduated. Now I am an intern in a company as a programmer and develops games for the company. However, due to lack of inspiration and creativity, every game design plan submitted was rejected. The boss said that as a graduate of a famous university, he has no ability at all, and he is simply getting paid for nothing!
Anyone who says that will be depressed. I was depressed for several days. Suddenly, my mother called and asked me to go back and help with the abandoned ancestral house in an ancient village deep in the mountains. I found a good excuse to ask for leave, so I could get away from this depressing workplace for a while, so I agreed, and then returned to the ancestral house that I had no memory of at all.
The ancestral house is hidden in an ancient village in the deep mountains and old forests. In fact, it is not considered a deep mountain and old forest, but the trees are a little denser. The average traveler cannot find a village hidden here without the guidance of the locals. But because of this, even though this village has a long history, it has not been discovered by tourism companies, and it still remains quiet until now.
"Hello, mother-in-law, may I ask how to get to the Zhao family's ancestral house?" Although I was holding a mobile phone in my hand, although there was a map navigation in the mobile phone, the GPS signal was blocked by the dense forest, and the signal was already very weak just at the foot of the mountain. . So I decided to ask the old people who still live here.
The old woman raised her head, squinted her eyes and looked at me. She pointed tremblingly at a place deeper in the woods. The mouth that had lost all her teeth opened and closed, and said slowly: "...here...it's...there..."
I nodded to express my thanks, and slipped a piece of Grandpa Mao into the old woman's callused and wrinkled hands: "Grandma, use this money to buy something to eat."
After finishing speaking, I bid farewell to the old woman and walked deep into the woods. Along the way, dilapidated tiled and mud-brick houses stood on both sides of the bamboo forest, separated by muddy paths with winding paths but also potholes. Without going far, I found the ancestral house that was very similar to what my mother described. My mother said that there was an osmanthus tree in front of the ancestral house a long time ago. No one knew when it was planted, and it was unique in the village.
I pushed open the wooden door that had rotted a lot, and entered the inside of the ancestral house. The ancestral house is also built with blue tiles, and the walls are made of gravel and yellow mud bricks. Although it was renovated once in the 1980s, the ancestral house here has been abandoned since my father made a fortune and the family moved to a high-rise building in the city. After so many years, my grandfather and grandmother passed away one after another, and my father remembered that there was still an abandoned ancestral house in his hometown that needed to be disposed of.
I came here with a suitcase in tow. Because the location of the ancestral house is too far away from the county town, it took a day to arrive at this ancient village from the county town. Fortunately, I packed up in the ancestral house and just spent the night. I am already an adult, and I will never dare to live in an ancient village because it is too shabby. After all, there are still some elderly people living in this ancient village. Some middle-aged people will come back to rest at night after plowing the fields outside, so why be afraid
So I started to clear out a room in the ancestral house that was still well lit, and there was not much moss and weeds, and set up a hammock for wild survival—because the wooden boards were hollowed out by termites.
(two)
That night, I lay in a sling, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. I always feel itchy...like bugs. But I turned around and saw nothing. The hammock was still a certain distance from the floor, and it was impossible for the bed on the ground to climb up.
Of course, this is not one of the reasons. The main reason is that the night in the mountains is always colder than in the big cities. The feeling that someone is watching you.
"..." I thought it wouldn't be so evil, right
Sometimes, the words in Notes of Tomb Raiders really hit the mark—sometimes, the most terrifying thing is not ghosts and gods, but the human heart. Human beings can easily be frightened by their own imagination... But after thinking about it, materialists don't believe in ghosts and gods! Upholding my trust in Marx's materialism, I took out my phone and opened Onmyoji, a recently popular mobile game.
Because I am a programmer, I still have the confidence to search for some signals outside the mountains... Of course, I have a hard time playing. Make a copy, do the task, and then draw the card.
Just as I was having a great time drawing cards, a voice actually echoed in my ears: "Who is she?"
I also looked down at the screen of the mobile phone I was holding in my hand in a strange way, which was displaying the human design of Sakura Demon, one of the traditional Japanese monsters.
So he replied: "Sakura demon."
There is a prototype about her—the cherry blossoms are very beautiful when they fall, so many couples gather under the cherry tree every day, and gradually, the cherry blossoms become a symbol of love. Everyone wants to find love and happiness, and so does the flower demon on the cherry blossom tree. A man from a foreign country was attracted by the beautiful cherry blossoms. Every day he stopped under the cherry blossom tree and looked up at the falling cherry blossoms.
He came here from a distant country when his ship got lost. The cherry blossom demon fell in love with him for a long time, and then turned into a young woman, and invited him to meet under the cherry blossom tree every day. The short but beautiful time passed, and the man was about to return to his country, but the cherry blossom demon knew that there would be no result between the two, so he failed to keep him. A few years later, the man travels thousands of miles to revisit his hometown just to tell her that he has fallen in love with her. When I came to the place agreed at the beginning, I never found my beloved. Some people say that she returned to the tree because she waited too long, and turned into an ordinary cherry blossom that withered and fell;
Well, it's a sad story.
However, I am obviously the only one here, so there is no voice, and it is obviously a female voice.
For a moment I was terrified - Mom, don't scare me...
Although usually a calm programmer, programmers are still afraid of supernatural things...
After calming down a bit, I slowly turned my head back—I saw a strand of black hair drifting across the range of my eyes, and then the quiet voice just now echoed in my ears: "This woman is a person with a story."
I followed the voice and looked to the side, and it was indeed a woman!
She has long, smooth black hair, and a small bun is casually tied behind her head, with a small yellow flower-shaped hairpin inserted in it. The clothes are obviously not the clothes worn by modern people, but the yellow and white clothes that women often wear in ancient times. Keynote train.
"You—" I was too scared to speak. Firstly, a person suddenly appeared in such an ancestral house that has been unoccupied for a long time in the middle of the night, and anyone would be scared to death; secondly, such a unique young girl appeared in such a dilapidated house in the deep mountains and old forests. , who knows what kind of species she is.
The woman replied with a mischievous smile: "My name is Yale. I have lived here for a long time. The owner of this house has not come back for a long time. I saw you come in this afternoon. I am very curious. So I came to see you."
"Look at me..." My sister, if you want to see me, can you come to visit me early tomorrow morning? Brother, although I am a staunch materialist atheist, I still believe that some strange and chaotic things will happen in this world!
This woman is sitting on the rope hanging from my hammock like the owner of this house, her legs are dangling, and the hanging skirt is shaking slightly with the swaying of her feet .
She said, "I've never met this banshee before. If it were someone else, I'm afraid they wouldn't know me."
"..." I looked at her, not knowing what to say. At this moment, how I wish this was just a dream. I don't want to imagine a relationship between a ghost and a ghost in Liaozhaizhiyi's scholar, it's too penetrating! If I had known earlier, I shouldn't have promised my mother to come here to see the damage of the ancestral house and then sell it at a low price, how much money can be exchanged...
She leaned her head to my side, and I could smell her nice scent—like the scent of sweet-scented osmanthus. The sweet-scented osmanthus tree outside the door is now blooming with Chi osmanthus, and the fragrance of Chi osmanthus is usually very strong.
"I live in the opposite door of your house, so you and I are neighbors!" The girl let out a silver bell-like laugh after she finished speaking, and then she still said familiarly: "But, I don't know when did you start?" , the door of your house was closed... I climbed in through the outer wall many times, and then sat on the patio, looking at the sky... I waited and waited, but there was still no one... "
As she spoke, she no longer uttered that crisp laugh, but spoke of her distress in a more lonely tone.
It seems that there are many words, many words, because no one tells them, so they have been buried for thousands of years. Now it's hard to meet someone, and I want to spit it all out in one night.
(three)
At night, she told me a lot, starting from when she remembered. It is said that the wind in spring is actually very cold, the birds are chirping very loudly, and even those bees and butterflies always want to get ideas about the fruits of her labor. At this point, she pouted and waved her fists angrily, like a child. I was also amused by her like this.
She said that what she likes most are the people in the village. Every time, a woman in my family would open the door, go to the sweet-scented osmanthus tree, and pick the dewy sweet-scented osmanthus blossoms from the tree and put them into the basket. But after a while, wisps of sweet-scented osmanthus fragrance wafted from the stove—the hostess of this house was very skillful and made osmanthus cake again.
The woman took out a pot of cut osmanthus cakes and walked to the cottages of other families in the village. She was going to distribute the osmanthus cakes to the village. The villagers ate fresh sweet-scented osmanthus cakes and admired the woman's ingenious craftsmanship. At the same time, they did not forget to praise the beauty and fragrance of the only sweet-scented osmanthus tree in the village.
When it comes to this, she always raises her chest, proudly squinting her eyebrows and boasting, proudly.
Well, it seems that I really hit the demon. Even though she twittered and told me a lot about the past and forgot to explain her identity, I still knew that she was actually the flower demon possessed on the sweet-scented osmanthus tree outside the ancestral house.
as the only
The materialists even believed that I was not daydreaming, but really bumped into a demon... because I pinched myself, and it felt painful-I let out an "ah". Sure enough, I am not dreaming.
Then ask me why I am not afraid of this monster? After all, this demon is attached to the sweet-scented osmanthus tree. It should be a scum with only five combat powers. Its profession is to replenish blood, which is commonly known as a nurse, and its attack power is not too strong. It will not threaten my personal and property safety.
"Have you been lonely for a long time?" I asked.
She nodded with a wry smile.
"Although I have never seen this banshee named Cherry Blossom Demon, the man she loves still remembers her after many years, and can come back to see her. Even if the ending is not happy, it is still very happy, isn't it? "
"They can't remember me..."
Yes, none of them remember that there was an ancient village in the mountains. There was a family in the ancient village, and there was an osmanthus tree outside the door.
There was a cockcrow in the village, and I saw a white light on the horizon, and the sky turned pale—it was already morning.
I stayed up all night with her.
She raised her thin lips, smiled helplessly, and said softly, "You're leaving tomorrow morning, right?"
Yes, according to the plan, we will spend the night here on the first day, and take pictures on the second day. We will also take pictures of the ancestral house and the land next to the ancestral house so that we can give it to the Land Bureau in the county for an estimate, and we will find another one the next day. The buyer sold the land, and it is reasonable to go back on the third day.
If you don't go back, the crappy intern who didn't have any good ideas to hand in might get fired by the boss...
Thinking of this, I sighed: "Yes."
(Four)
The next day, I took my DSLR and fixed the dilapidated ancestral house, the chickens and dogs in the village, the weed-covered vegetable field behind the ancestral house, and of course the sweet-scented osmanthus tree in front of the door.
In addition to the recent week of the ancestral house, I also went deeper into the woods to shoot, just to relax. She also accompanied me all the way... It reminded me of Yu Dafu's novel "Chi Osmanthus fragrans".
On the winding path, she kicked the pebbles beside me and asked me, "Will you come back after you left? Is it because you are not coming back either?"
"Maybe."
Of course. Who would want to stay in this small village where cars cannot drive in, there is no signal, and it is almost isolated from the outside world? After my father made a fortune in the 1980s, he dragged the family along and brought my mother and grandparents into the big cities to live. Even my uncle and uncle gradually gained financial strength and left the ancestral house one after another. The ancestral house has long been deserted. I have never been to this ancestral house once. My impression of the ancestral house is only the murmurs of my grandparents. But because they are getting older, they can't bear the hard work of trekking through mountains and rivers. When they go back to their ancestral house to have a look, the idea of worshiping their ancestors is delayed year after year.
Today, there are only a few families in this village, probably not even five. The people who live here are all elderly people. Although there are one or two middle-aged people, they all go out of the county to work and move bricks during the day, and occasionally come back to live in the evening for a day or two. I'm afraid that in a few years, after all the old people in the village have passed away one after another, the village will really become a deserted village, with no one left, only the singing of birds. No, I'm afraid, even the birds don't want to come.
"If I had wings, I would also want to escape. It's so deserted and lonely here..." She lowered her head and stood still.
Yes, even demons feel lonely, let alone the old people who live here
I still remember when I came to the village on the first day, when I asked directions like an old woman sitting on a small bench outside the door basking in the sun, and when I stuffed money into her hands, she smiled brightly—maybe It's been a long time since I saw people from other villages come in.
On the morning of the third day, I packed my luggage and set off to the county seat to take the only bus to the larger prefecture-level city to take the train, and then I went back to the city after going through many twists and turns.
Early in the morning, I hastily ate the biscuits with enough weight, then put my luggage on my back and stepped out.
I looked at the sweet-scented osmanthus tree, but she didn't show up. Yesterday she accompanied me all the way around the surrounding mountains and forests, and she never came to look for me after nightfall.
Are you reluctant too
"Goodbye." I said a word into the air. I don't know who I'm talking to, maybe it's to her, the cute little flower demon, or maybe it's to this ancient village that will eventually sink and be buried in the smoke trail of history.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and adjusted my mood. When I opened my eyes again and was about to set off, a breeze blew, and the air was filled with a quiet fragrance, and the tiny petals of the sweet-scented osmanthus were blown away. One flower was slowly falling on my palm.
I turned around and looked at the sweet-scented osmanthus tree outside the door, and repeated: "Goodbye."
(end of this chapter)