1.

Standing between Hongchen and the vine corpse demon turned out to be Yunxi!

Lin Xiao hurriedly shouted: "Hongchen, stop it!"

Hongchen snorted coldly, changed the magic formula in his hand to a sword technique, recalled the spirit sword body inserted in the poison sac, waved his hand to remove the fire, and lifted the fire array. At the same time, Yunxi took out a piccolo from his arms and put it to his lips and blew it gently.

The vine corpse demon let out a low roar in the sound of the flute, and there was no longer the fierce and vicious appearance of Fang Cai, all the vines all hung down softly, and a few charred branches stretched with difficulty, falling on Yunxi's body, trembling slightly, as if to appease him.

Ye Xin looked at Yunxi and the vine corpse demon in front of him, and asked in disbelief, "Is this ...... What the hell is going on?"

Yunxi gently stroked the branches of the vine corpse demon, sighed softly, took the piccolo back into his arms, and turned to face Lin Xiao and the others: "I'm sorry, Lin Shaoxia, Miss Ye, I lied to you." ”

Lin Xiao vaguely thought of a possibility, and his face couldn't help but be covered with a layer of frost: "This vine corpse demon, you raised it here?!You took the opportunity of us to ask about the water source of Ruofeng Village and tricked us into coming here, is it to use us as food?!"

Yunxi smiled faintly and said, "Yes, I admit it - I did want your lives when I induced you into the mountain. He didn't care at all about Ye Xin's cold, almost murderous eyes, and continued in this flat tone: "Not only that, but I can also guess why you are so concerned about the water source problem in Ruofeng Village, and I can probably think of what you are here for. ”

Lin Xiao suddenly became vigilant, and said calmly, "Who are you, and what was the purpose of approaching us before?"

Yunxi shook his head and said, "I think Lin Shaoxia has misunderstood me, I never thought of getting close to you." It was indeed my sincere intention to rescue you in the middle of the Osan that day, and it was not until later that you tried to track down the water source that I had the idea of killing you. ”

Hongchen said coldly: "Why do you make us believe you?"

"Several of them must be cultivators, and they should know that the formation of this vine corpse demon is not a short-term thing, and it is even rarer to see such a giant tree as you are present. How could I not predict the prophet and calculate that you will fall into my hands one day, and then raise a vine corpse demon to deal with you more than ten years in advance?"

Lin Xiao looked at the few vines that were supple on Yunxi's shoulders and said, "You and this monster...... It looks like it's on good terms. ”

Yunxi's eyes widened, and his emotions suddenly became excited, as if Lin Xiao's words just now pierced a soft part of his heart like a sharp knife, and even his voice was a few points higher: "It's not a monster!"

The poison sac on the vine corpse demon's body was destroyed, and the miasma and poisonous mist in the surroundings gradually dissipated, and the moonlight began to become clear. Yunxi's eyes stared fiercely at Lin Xiao and the others, two lines of tears suddenly welled up, and his head was also lowered, looking sluggish.

"Didn't Lin Shaoxia just ask me who I am?" Yunxi hung his head for a moment and then spoke faintly, "My real name is Song Wenyuan, and I am a person from this Xiyun Village. My current name is just the name of my hometown being pronounced backwards. ”

Lin Xiao and Ye Xin glanced at each other, and their hearts suddenly felt - no wonder they felt so familiar when they saw the word "Xiyun" on the stone tablet at the door before, it turned out that they just read the word "Yunxi" upside down.

"The position where you are standing now was once my family's house. And it'......" Song Wenyuan continued, and at the same time turned his head to look at the vine corpse demon behind him, there was only a tenderness in his eyes, "...... It's my parents, and all the old folks in Xiyun Village!"

"What?!"

Lin Xiao and the three of them looked at each other, everyone was full of shock, and they didn't know what to say for a while.

After a while, Lin Xiaocai said in a low voice: "You mean, the corpse wrapped under the vine...... Those people, are your parents, and the villagers of this Xiyun Village?!"

Song Wenyuan nodded slowly, with a wry smile on his face: "You must be curious to know what happened here back then, and why I know what you want." Don't worry, I'll tell you. ”

"Now, let me tell you a story—"

2.

Song Wenyuan sat down on the spot and began his story:

"I am from Xiyun Village, and I have settled in this place since my ancestors, and I have practiced medicine here for generations. I grew up here, and as I said before, the place where you are standing now used to be where my family yard was. ”

"In my mind, this village is the most beautiful place in the world, even the famous rivers that the world has praised endlessly, but not one-ten-thousandth of it - there are beautiful scenery and those simple and kind people. Whether it is the scenery or the people, they all give me the most beautiful feelings. ”

"My father is the only healer in the village and the head of Xiyun Village, and my childhood was spent working in my father's medicine store...... Those days were really beautiful. ”

"I thought it was going to stay with me for the rest of my life, until I was five years old when something happened. It was this incident that completely changed the rest of my life. ”

Song Wenyuan paused when he said this, his lips trembled slightly, as if he recalled the most painful experience, and his heart also became colic. The vines lying on him seemed to be able to feel his emotions, and they slowly lifted, and the branches stroked slightly on the top of his head and on the back of his shoulders, as if parents were comforting their sad children.

Lin Xiao said: "I remember you told us that when you were five years old, your father offended the powerful because of a misdiagnosis, which led to the destruction of the family. Then you wander into a foreign land alone, and finally you are adopted by the villagers of Ruofeng Village. ”

Song Wenyuan laughed dryly, but there was no smile on his face, he shook his head, looked at Lin Xiao and said, "This sentence is actually a half-truth. When I was five years old, something did happen that caused the destruction of my family, and even the population of Xiyun Village was wiped out overnight, but it was not because of some 'misdiagnosis that offended the powerful'...... You don't want to think about how a powerful person, who has the money to invite those famous doctors in the city to treat him, condescends to come to this poor and remote place to find a country doctor for consultation?!"

"What's the reason for that?"

Song Wenyuan glanced at the three of them and sneered: "This matter really has nothing to do with the powerful or anything, but it has a lot to do with you!"

"We?" Ye Xin frowned.

Lin Xiao raised his eyebrows slightly: "I wasn't born more than twenty years ago...... Could it be a good deed done by our parents' generation?"

Hongchen couldn't help but glance at him when he heard this: "I think what he meant should be that matter, related to cultivators. Right?"

Song Wenyuan moved his gaze to Hongchen and nodded slowly.

Lin Xiao and Ye Xin glanced at each other, and both of them couldn't help but think of the possibility that "the remnant figure had stayed in the depths of Wushan" before.

"And then?" Lin Xiao asked, his tone a little more eager than before. He vaguely felt that the story that Song Wenyuan was going to tell next might be the clue to the remnant picture that they had been looking for after they left Lanzhou City.

"Before I tell the rest of the story, let me guess one thing. Song Wenyuan said unhurriedly, "What you are looking for is not a piece of incomplete, Tubu-like thing?"

As soon as these words came out, the faces of Lin Xiao and the three of them changed, and their shock was beyond words.

Song Wenyuan smiled slightly: "Although you didn't say anything, but seeing your expressions, I knew that I guessed right." Also, I overheard the conversation between Lin Shaoxia and Miss Ye at my home in Ruofeng Village before, there should be something on you that can resonate with the map. ”

Lin Xiao subconsciously touched the Qiankun bag pinned to his waist with his backhand, and said in a deep voice: "Not bad." ”

"I think you got into the fog when you entered the mountain, and then you were attacked by vines here, so you shouldn't have much time to check if the thing on you is reacting to this place. Song Wenyuan said, "Now you can take it out and take a look." ”

Lin Xiao was stunned for a moment, took the Qiankun bag off his waist, and for a while everyone's eyes focused on the Qiankun bag in his hand. I saw that the bag containing half of the remnants was heating slightly, and the brocade patterns on the bag were also shining.

"It's ...... Resonated?!"

Lin Xiao and Ye Xin glanced at each other, and they both saw the color of surprise in each other's eyes.

"The other half of the remnants have been here. Lin Xiao said, "That is to say, the reason why Xiyun Village has become like this is because...... That fragment?"

Song Wenyuan closed his eyes, with a sad look on his face that "the past is unbearable", and after a long time, he nodded slowly, let out a long breath, and continued: "This is the story I am going to tell next——"

"One day when I was five years old, I went into the mountains to help my father collect medicine, and I stumbled and fell into a cave. The cave wasn't deep, and I could climb it even if I was five years old. But just as I was about to leave, there was a strange noise from the depths of the cave, and then a bloodied man crawled out of the shadows. ”

"I was so frightened that I sat down on the ground and didn't even dare to move. The man crawled up to me slowly, grabbed my trouser leg, and said a vague 'save ......', and then fell unconscious. ”

"I just stared at the man for a long time, and then I realized that he had really fainted, and then I went to check on his injuries. I still remember the wounds on that man's man, and when he unfastened his clothes, there were blood stains on his chest and abdomen, both dry and wet. In the same way, his body was densely covered with various wounds, including sword stabs, knife slashes, and awl piercing...... Some of them were only cut through the flesh, and there were a few deep bones that could be seen, and in short, his body was so densely covered with all kinds of wounds that it was hard to imagine how he survived. ”

"I found some herbs from the medicine basket next to me, chewed them and applied the mud to several of his wounds that looked more serious. When I saw that his clothes were in tatters, I simply tore his clothes apart, intending to use strips of cloth to help him tie the medicated wound first. Just as I tore open his clothes, something fell out of his arms. ”

"That was the first time I had seen something like that, it looked like a piece of cloth, but it was soft to the touch, very textured, and it didn't look extraordinary, it should be the so-called 'silk' of the rich and noble. The edge of the silk book was clearly torn, and it was empty, and it was strange that it had not been stained with blood by the bloodied man. ”

I was curious, so I took it in my hand and looked at it twice, and suddenly, a bloody hand grabbed my wrist tightly from the side. I was startled to find that the man who had been unconscious just now suddenly woke up again, his eyes widened, he grabbed my hand tightly, and he gritted his teeth and said, 'No, don't ......' before he could finish his sentence, he fainted again. ”

"I don't understand why a dying man would suddenly burst out with so much energy that he can force himself to stay awake again and again in the midst of a serious injury, but I also realize that the thing that fell out of him must have meant a lot to him. So, after dressing his wounds, I put the broken silk book back on him, and then left the cave and ran to the village to call for help. ”

"My father was kind-hearted, so he put the seriously injured man in the medicine house to heal him, and I watched from the sidelines, helping my father from time to time. The man had been unconscious for three days, and the first thing he did when he woke up was to reach out and rummage through his body, and the look on his face was as nervous as if he were facing a great enemy, and then he found the silk book on himself, and then he breathed a sigh of relief. ”

"This person of unknown origin has temporarily moved into our house. At the beginning, he didn't say a word, he just sat in a corner of my courtyard every day, looking at the silk book in a daze, sitting all day, except for eating and sleeping, there was no movement. If I hadn't heard him speak, I would have almost thought he was mute. Half a month later, he gradually got acquainted with us, and then he had some communication, and he would also help our family do some work, but he never mentioned his life experience, as well as the strange silk book. ”

"Because he didn't say what his name was, and he didn't like to talk, I jokingly called him 'stuffy jar,' but he didn't care, and gladly accepted the title. After I got acquainted with the stuffy jar, he would accompany me every time I went up the mountain to collect medicine. He has martial arts, light skills will naturally be, I used to grow on the cliff of a lot of herbs I wanted to pick but did not dare to pick, with his help, as long as the herbs in this Wushan are I wanted, he can pick them, and we have become very good friends. ”

"More than three months have passed, and one day I went into the mountains with the stuffy jar to collect medicine. As soon as I was halfway through the harvest, the stuffy jar suddenly picked me up and ran away. I didn't even have time to pack up the medicine hoe and medicine basket, so he carried me and ran a long way. At this time, I found that there were more than a dozen people chasing after us, all dressed in black and masked, armed with swords and swords, and some of them kept firing darts and flying stones at us. ”

"Where have I ever seen this kind of battle, my brain was blank for a while, and I couldn't even cry, I just let the stuffy jar hold me around and run away. I don't know how long it took, and there were fewer and fewer people chasing behind him, so they should have been thrown away by the stuffy jar. He took me to the cave where I first met him, and told me to stay in it and not come out. ”

"I asked, 'Who are those people??' and the stuffy jar replied, 'Those are the same people who hurt me in the first place, and now that you are with me, they will hurt you, so stay away from me now, and don't be noticed by them.'" I'm going to get rid of those people, and I'll go back and remind you to be more careful. With these words he ran out again, and then there were several sounds of fighting and whistling outside, and then the sound faded away and fell silent again. ”

"I know that Stuffy Jar is very capable, and what he said must be right. So I really stayed in that cave for two days and one night, and when I was hungry, I sneaked out of the cave to find some weeds and fruits to satisfy my hunger. I counted the days, and the stuffy jar should have led those bad guys out of Wushan, so I left the cave, thinking that I had never been away from home for so long, and my father and mother should be worried about it. ”

"I found my way back to the village, but as soon as I got closer to the village, I felt that something was wrong. It was eerily quiet, and there was no sound at all. It was already dusk, but every house didn't even have a single light, and everyone was gone. ”

"I instinctively thought something was wrong, but I still didn't want to believe it. I walked in, calling out to my parents, to the villagers, to my playmates, to the stuffy jars, but no one answered me. The foreboding in my heart became stronger and stronger, but I didn't believe in evil, and still shouted as I walked. Suddenly, I tripped over something under my feet and fell to the ground. ”

"I got up and wanted to see what was going on that tripping me. Who knew that when I looked back, I actually saw Uncle Zhang at the entrance of the village, his eyes were round, his body was stiff and cold, his face was blue and terrifying, and he had obviously been dead for a long time. ”

I stood there in such a daze, so shocked that I could not even cry a tear, and only after a while did I continue to walk mechanically in the direction of home. The next thing that came into view was the corpses of all the villagers, and I couldn't tell whether this was my dream or reality, so I just kept walking stupidly, like a walking corpse. ”

"I walked to the door—where you are sitting now—and I pushed the door open with all my might, and I never felt that my door was so heavy. Then, I saw ......" Song Wenyuan suddenly burst into tears and shouted with all his might, "...... I saw the whole yard full of corpses......! My father and mother were hung there......" he said, pointing in the direction behind him, as if there was an invisible beam, "...... Everybody's dead! everybody's dead! they're all my relatives and friends! Now their bodies are right in front of my eyes!"

3.

Song Wenyuan couldn't control it anymore, and covered his face with his hands and cried loudly. The vine demon behind him stretched out its tentacles to caress his back, and at the same time let out a low "woo" sound, as if it was also crying in a muffled voice. Lin Xiao and the three of them looked at them without saying a word, and they couldn't help but sigh in their hearts.

After a long time, Song Wenyuan gradually stopped crying, choked up and continued: "I was also like now, kneeling in the courtyard of my house, looking at the corpses all over the ground and crying for a long time. Crying and crying, I suddenly heard someone whispering my name, I thought it was a delusion that I was overly sad, but the voice grew louder and louder, and then a hand reached out from the pile of corpses. ”

Hongchen's eyes widened: "There are still people alive?!"

Song Wenyuan nodded and said: "If this were on weekdays, I would have been scared away, but at that time, I only hoped that there was still someone alive, so I hurriedly rushed up and dug that person out of the corpse pile, and if I looked closely, it was actually a stuffy jar!"

There were no fatal wounds on the stuffy jar, but his face was blue, and his lips were purple and black, no different from the dead man on the ground. As soon as I looked at his face and then took his pulse, I knew that he was highly poisoned in his body, and now the poison has entered the bone marrow, and he has no way to recover, but for some reason he still hangs on such a breath and does not die. ”

I hugged him and cried, and asked him what was going on. He smiled miserably, saying that he still couldn't escape the poisonous hands of others after all, and the silk book that he had always seen was heavier than his life had been snatched away, and it had also affected the whole of our village. After saying these words, he was already dying, and when he was dying, he stuffed a piece of jade pendant into my hand, and swallowed his breath. ”

"The stuffy jar is gone, and I'm completely alone. I cried a lot, fainted in the pile of corpses, and I didn't know how long it took to wake up, kowtowing to my parents, the villagers, and the stuffy corpses of the jars, and my mind was in a mess, and I didn't know whether to bury everyone in the ground, so I left the village in a daze. ”

"I don't remember how long I walked in the mountains, but after such a big blow, and I was hungry and sleepy, I soon fainted. When I woke up, I had been rescued back to the village by the hunters who went up the mountain to hunt in Ruofeng Village, and they asked me what my name was. ”

"Later, I gradually remembered what had happened before and felt that it was really inappropriate not to let my parents and villagers be buried. But the strange thing is that I searched in the mountains for several days in a row, but I couldn't find the way to Xiyun Village, and finally I got lost in the mountains, and I waited until the villagers of Ruofeng Village came to rescue me. ”

"I was disheartened, so I didn't dwell on this matter, settled down in Ruofeng Village, entrusted the people in the village to build me a grass house, and still made a living by collecting medicine and seeing doctors. At that time, although I was only five or six years old, I had a deep understanding of my father's medical skills, and there were no doctors in Ruofeng Village at that time, so I cured several patients in a row, and finally convinced them that I was a real 'little doctor', and I was able to gain a firm foothold in the village. ”

"After that, it's like I told you. Two years after I arrived in Ruofeng Village, the village's water source was polluted and then slowly depleted. At that time, someone drank the polluted water and poisoned it, and I was called to treat the patient. I thought it was a little strange at the time, drinking polluted river water is at most a stomach upset, how can I be poisoned? It wasn't until I went to check the patient's pulse that I found that the poison in that person was exactly the same as the poison in the stuffy jar when he died. ”

"I realized that things were not easy, and I didn't allow myself to think about what happened in the village for two years. But now because of this, I'm forced to go back to square one. I went into the mountain again alone, trying to find the whereabouts of Xiyun Village again. And this time I entered the mountain, although I did not get lost, but near the water source, I fell into a sudden fog - just like you do today. ”

Lin Xiao and the three of them looked stunned, and they all sat up straight.

"I wandered around in the fog for a long time, but I couldn't find my way back. Just when I was helpless, the fog on one side suddenly faintly dispersed, revealing a forest path. All I wanted was to get out of the fog and worry about where the road would lead. I didn't just walk for a long time, until it was getting dark, and I came to the end of that road, and a dilapidated and deserted village appeared in front of me, which was the Xiyun Village that I had in mind!"

I wept with joy, and kowtowed several times at the gate of the village to thank my ancestors for their protection. I'm going to go back to my old home and collect my parents' bones and bury them. But when I stepped into the village road again, I noticed that something was wrong - I had not collected anyone's bodies when I left before, and the corpses that had been on the road should have been left with bones in two years, but there was nothing left, not even a few bones left. ”

"I felt like I was in the panic of two years ago, afraid that I would not find the bones of my parents when I returned home. But when I actually got home, I saw a different look—"

"The walls of my house have always been covered with a lot of vines, which I used to clean and cut down regularly when my parents were still alive. But in the past two years there had been no one in the village, and the vine had grown like crazy, hanging down from the fence and extending to the ground, covering all the corpses and enveloping them. For some reason, a monster like a tree was born, and it was entrenched in the courtyard, facing me with its teeth and claws, and shaking the rattan on its body. ”

"I was so frightened that I turned around and ran. Suddenly, the monster stretched out a vine and swept me up to its side, in front of the sac on it. I thought it was going to eat me, and I thought that my life would be at stake, so I couldn't help but close my eyes and wait for death. I couldn't help but secretly open my eyes and look at the current sac, only to find that the vine branches had moved to both sides at some point, revealing a blue and purple human face - it was a stuffy jar!"

"My eyes widened in disbelief, but I saw that the twig on the sac suddenly closed again, and I was about to shout at it, whether it understood or not, when the twig parted abruptly, but became another face that I knew very well—it was my father!"

"I was completely speechless, just watched in amazement as the sac opened and closed and opened and closed and closed and closed and closed...... The faces that appeared in it were all familiar to me - my mother, Uncle Zhang at the entrance of the village, Wang Blacksmith in the village, and Aunt Wu next door...... All of them are villagers from Xiyun Village. ”

Song Wenyuan stroked the vines hanging on his body, and a strange smile appeared on his face: "It wasn't until I saw the last face that I understood that my dead relatives and friends were still 'living' in this world in a state that I didn't want to see!"

【To be continued】