Abase-I

There are many river valleys in the eastern area of Shu, with high mountains and rugged terrain. The wind is weak, so many places are filled with fog all year round.

The two of them walked straight in the direction pointed by the left hand and passed a small village.

Several fences surrounded the thatched mud house. A group of colorful hens and chicks came in and out of the yard pecking at the rice. A big rooster with bright feathers stood on the roof, shaking its comb and standing on one foot. Turn your neck warily and look down at all directions proudly. Fortunately no one has a dog. It is estimated that these villagers themselves do not have enough to eat a few pieces of meat all year round, let alone extra bones to feed the dogs.

There is a fork in the road in front of the village, which branches off in three different directions. Two of the roads were bare and heavily traveled, showing that people often walked on them. The last one was overgrown with weeds and covered the road. A square stone slab stood crookedly in the direction of this road. The stone slab was old and weather-beaten, with a large crack extending from head to toe, and withered grass emerging from the crack.

There are two large characters carved on the stone slab, which seem to be the names of the places where this road leads. The lower character can barely be seen to be the character "city", while the upper character has many strokes and complex shapes, and it happens to be penetrated by the crack, peeling off many small stones. Wei Wuxian bent down and pushed aside the tangled grass. After looking at it for a long time, he still couldn't make out what the word was.

It just so happens that the direction that the left arm is pointing is this road.

Wei Wuxian said, "How about asking these villagers?"

Lan Wangji nodded. Of course Wei Wuxian would not expect him to ask. He immediately walked towards the farm girls who were throwing rice to feed the chickens with a smile on his face.

The women, both young and old, became nervous when they saw a strange young man approaching. They seemed to want to throw away the dustpan and escape into the house. After Wei Wuxian smiled and said a few words, they slowly calmed down and responded a little shyly.

Wei Wuxian pointed to the stone tablet and asked. Their expressions all changed at first, and they hesitated for a while before starting to talk to him intermittently and pointing. During this period, he didn't dare to look at Lan Wangji standing next to the stone monument. Wei Wuxian listened attentively for a while, with the corner of his mouth raised. Finally, he seemed to change the topic, causing the peasant girls to relax, gradually relax, and smile at him unskilledly.

Lan Wangji stared over there from a distance. After waiting for a long time, Wei Wuxian showed no intention of coming back. He slowly lowered his head and kicked a small stone next to his feet.

I crushed this innocent pebble over and over for a long time. Looking up again, Wei Wuxian actually took something out of his arms and handed it to the peasant girl who had talked the most about it.

Lan Wangji stood there blankly, unable to bear it anymore. Just as he was about to walk over, Wei Wuxian finally walked back leisurely with his hands behind his back.

He stood back to Lan Wangji and said, "Hanguang-Jun, you should go there. There are rabbits in that yard!"

Lan Wangji did not react to his teasing, and said indifferently: "What's the matter?"

Wei Wuxian said, "This road leads to Yicheng. The first character on the stone tablet is the word 'righteousness'."

Lan Wangji asked: "Chivalry?"

Wei WuXian said, "That's right, that's also wrong."

Lan Wangji said, "What's the explanation?"

Wei WuXian said: "The word is indeed that word, but the meaning is wrong. It does not mean chivalry, but the meaning of righteousness and Zhuang."

They stepped onto this forked road through the weeds, leaving the stone tablet behind. Wei WuXian continued: "These girls said that since ancient times, six or seven out of ten people living in that city have been short-lived, either short-lived or died unexpectedly. There are many yizhuangs in the city for placing corpses. In addition, The local specialty is coffins, paper money and other funeral offerings. The people who make coffins and tie paper are all very skilled in craftsmanship, so they called it this name."

In addition to dead grass and rocks on the road, there are also gullies that are difficult to detect. Lan Wangji kept paying attention to Wei Wuxian's feet. Wei Wuxian said as he walked: "They said that people here rarely go to Yicheng, and the people inside rarely leave except for delivering goods. In the past few years, Almost no one was seen. This road has been deserted for several years. No one has walked on it. It is indeed difficult to walk."

Lan Wangji: "There's more."

Wei Wuxian: "What else?"

Lan Wangji asked, "What did you give them?"

Wei WuXian said, "Oh. What are you talking about? It's Rouge."

When he was in Qinghe, he bought a small box of rouge from the fake Taoist priest who asked about Xingluling, and he always carried it with him. Wei WuXian said: "You have to give someone some thanks when asking about things. I originally wanted to give money, but I was too frightened to accept it. Seeing as they liked the scent of the rouge, they seemed to have never used anything like this before, so I gave it to them. out."

After a pause, he continued: "Hanguang-Jun, why are you looking at me like this? That box of rouge is not good. But now I am no better than before. I carry around a bunch of flowers and hairpins all day long and give them around." Girl. I really have nothing else to give, it's better than nothing."

As if some unpleasant memories had been awakened, Lan Wangji twitched his eyebrows and slowly turned his head.

As we move along this difficult road, the weeds gradually become sparse and crawl back to both sides, and the road gradually opens up. The fog is getting thicker and thicker.

When he closed his left arm into a fist, a dilapidated city gate appeared at the end of the long road.

The turret at the head of the city lacked tiles and paint, and a corner was missing. It was extremely dilapidated and ugly. The city walls are covered with graffiti written by unknown persons. The red color of the city gate has almost faded to white, and the door nails are rusty and black. The two doors are ajar, as if someone just pushed open a crack and slipped in.

Even before entering, one feels that this must be a ghost place where demons are dancing around.

As Wei Wuxian walked along the road, he kept looking around. When he arrived in front of the city gate, he commented, "The feng shui is really bad."

Lan Wangji nodded slowly: "The mountains are poor and the rivers are evil."

This Yi city is surrounded by high mountains and cliffs on all sides. The mountain slopes seriously towards the center, showing an overwhelming and threatening trend, as if it will collapse at any time. It was surrounded by such huge black rocks in all directions. In the miserable white mist, there were more monsters than monsters. Just standing here makes one feel tight in the chest, panic in the heart, and out of breath, and there is a strong sense of threat.

Since ancient times, there has been a saying about "outstanding people and outstanding people", and the opposite is also true. Due to the terrain and location of some places, the feng shui is bad, and a natural bad smell lingers. People living here are prone to short-lived and premature deaths, and everything goes wrong. If your ancestors have been rooted here for generations, it will be even worse to the core. It also often breeds strange phenomena, and the possibility of corpse transformation, ghost ghosts and other incidents occurring is several times that of other places. Obviously, Uicheng is such a place.

This kind of place is generally located in a remote place and cannot be managed by the Immortal Family. Of course, I don't want to worry about it, it's very troublesome. More troublesome than Shui Xingyuan. Shui Xingyuan can be driven away, but Feng Shui is difficult to change. If no one came crying and begging, the families would just turn a blind eye and pretend they didn't know.

Leaving one's hometown is the best way for city residents to escape, but if people in a place have been rooted in a remote place for generations, it is difficult to make the decision to leave one's hometown. Even if sixty-seven out of ten people in my hometown are short-lived, maybe I am the other three or four out of ten, and it seems to be bearable.

The two walked to the city gate and exchanged looks.

"Creak-", the overburdened bearing, carrying the two misaligned city gates, slowly opened.

What I saw in front of me was no traffic and no murderous corpses. There is only overwhelming white.

The fog was thick, several times thicker than the fog outside the city. I could barely see a long straight street in front of me. There was no one on the street. It is flanked by vertical houses.

The two naturally took a few steps closer to each other and entered the city together.

It was still daytime, but the city was silent. Not only was there no human voice, not even a crowing of cocks or a barking of dogs could be heard. It was extremely strange.

However, since it is the place designated by the left arm, it would be strange if it were not strange.

After walking along the long street for a while, the deeper into the city, the thicker the white fog became, as if evil spirits were overflowing. At first I could barely see clearly ten steps away, then I couldn't recognize the outlines five steps away, and then I could barely see my fingers. The further Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked, the closer they got. They were shoulder to shoulder and could barely see each other's faces. Wei Wuxian suddenly had a thought in his mind: "If someone takes advantage of this heavy fog to sneak in between us, and the two of us become three, I don't know if they will be discovered."

At this time, he kicked something with the sole of his foot. He lowered his head to look, but he couldn't identify what it was. Wei Wuxian grabbed Lan Wangji's hand and told him not to go too far alone, leaning down to look at it with squinted eyes. A head with glaring eyes broke through the fog and crashed into his sight.

This head has the face of a man, with thick eyebrows, big eyes, and two unusually abrupt blushes on the cheeks.

Wei Wuxian had just kicked the head, almost knocking it away, and knew how much this thing weighed. It's definitely not a real person's head that's so light. When he lifted it up and pinched it, a large piece of the man's cheek collapsed, and a piece of blush was wiped off.

It turned out to be a human head tied with paper.

This paper head is made lifelike, with exaggerated makeup and delicate facial features. Uicheng's specialty is funeral oblations, and the craftsmanship of the paper figurines is naturally good. Among the paper figures, there are stand-in paper figures. Folks believe that if they are burned to the deceased, they will suffer in hell for their ancestors, going up mountains of knives and getting down into oil pans; there are maids and beauties who serve their ancestors in the underworld, pinching their waists and beating their legs. Of course, these are just the survivors seeking comfort for themselves. This paper head should be a "yin warrior".

"Yinlishi", as the name suggests, is a thug. It is said that after going down, he can protect his ancestors from being bullied by other evil spirits and tricky judges, and the paper money burned to him by his descendants will not be snatched away by imps. This paper head must have originally been equipped with a tall and solid paper body, but someone pulled it off and threw it into the street.

The bun on the paper man's head was black and shiny, and Wei Wuxian stretched out his hand to touch it, and it stuck to his scalp, as if it was really hair growing out of it. He thought: "The craftsmanship is really good. Could it be that it was made from real human hair and glued on?"

Suddenly, a thin black shadow ran past him quickly.

This shadow came in an extremely strange way. It ran past his side and disappeared into the thick fog in an instant. Bichen automatically took out his sheath, chased the figure, then quickly retracted it and put it back into its sheath.

The thing that slipped past him just now was running too fast. It was definitely not a speed that a human could reach!

Lan Wangji said: "Pay attention. Be alert."

Although it just passed by, there is no guarantee that it will not do something else next time.

Wei Wuxian stood up and said, "Did you hear that just now?"

Lan Wangji said: "The sound of footsteps and the sound of bamboo poles."

Yes, in that short moment, apart from the rapid footsteps, they also heard another strange sound. The clicking sound is very crisp, like bamboo poles beating rapidly on the ground. Don't know why there is this sound.

At this moment, there was another sound of footsteps in the mist ahead.

The footsteps this time were very light, very slow, many, and very mixed. It seemed that many people were walking cautiously towards this direction, but they didn't say a word. Wei Wuxian turned over his hands and pulled out a Burning Yin Talisman, and threw it forward lightly. If there is something full of resentment in front of it, it will burn, and the fire will illuminate a place to some extent.

The visitors on the opposite side also noticed that someone had thrown something here, and immediately fought back, suddenly attacking!

Several sword gleams of different colors came towards him with murderous intent. Bichen unsheathed his sword calmly and swam in front of Wei Wuxian, repelling all the sword gleams. There was a burst of people over there, running around in a panic. Hearing the shouting, Lan Wangji immediately retreated from the dust, while Wei Wuxian said, "Jin Ling? Si Zhui!"

Sure enough, he heard correctly, Jin Ling's voice sounded through the white mist: "Why is it you again?!"

Wei Wuxian said, "I still want to ask why it's you again!"

Lan SiZhui tried his best to restrain himself, but his voice was full of joy: "Young Master Mo, are you here too? Is Hanguang-Jun here too?"

Upon hearing that Lan Wangji might be here, Jin Ling immediately shut up, as if he had been silenced again, for fear of being caught and punished by mistake. Lan Jingyi also shouted: "It must be here! That was Bichen just now! It was Bichen, right?!"

Wei Wuxian said, "Well, here we are, you're by my side now. You all, come here quickly."

A group of teenagers learned that the other side was a friend rather than an enemy, and they gathered around as if they had been granted amnesty. In addition to Jin Ling and a group of juniors from the Lan family, there were also seven or eight young men wearing costumes from other families. Their hesitant expressions had not faded away. They should also be descendants of the Xianmen family with high status. Wei Wuxian said, "Why are you all here? You are so ruthless when you attack. Fortunately, I have Lord Hanguang on my side. Otherwise, what would I do if I hurt ordinary people?"

Jin Ling retorted: "There are no ordinary people here. There are no people in this city!"

Lan SiZhui nodded and said, "The sky is blue and the sun is white, the demonic mist is filling the air, and not a single shop is open."

Wei Wuxian said, "Let's not rush this yet. How did you get together? Don't tell me that you made an appointment to go out hunting at night together." Jin Ling is a man who dislikes everyone and always fights with everyone. , I had some friction with the juniors of the Lan family before, so how could we go hunting together at night? Lan SiZhui answered every question and explained, "It's a long story. We were originally..."

At this moment, there came from the mist a clicking, clicking, and unusually harsh sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground.

All the juniors' expressions changed with shock: "Here we go again!"