At dusk, they finally arrived at their destination. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Getting off the carriage and seeing the scene in front of her, Xue Ying was speechless for a long time.

Although Cai Hua couldn't see it, he frowned, and after a long time, he finally couldn't help asking, "What did you see?" ”

Xue Ying didn't answer, but asked, "What do you feel?" ”

"Nothing, nothingness, hallucinations."

"Hallucinations?" Xue Ying smiled bitterly, "I hope what I see in front of me is just a mirage." ”

They stood on a hill and looked down to see a huge basin in which a city was sitted, surrounded by a thick wall of boulders, towering and towering, except for a small gate.

Heavy, closed, majestic, cold and hard.

The sudden appearance of such a city in the Gobi Desert in northern Xinjiang makes people wonder if they are hallucinating. Xue Ying asked the coachman, "What kind of place is this?" ”

The coachman shook his head.

"Forbidden ......," Xue Ying muttered, and asked again, "Then what do you call it when you usually talk about it?" ”

The coachman hesitated for a moment, and replied in a trembling whisper, as if he was afraid of waking up something: "Slaughter the city." ”

"Slaughtering the city?" Xue Ying suddenly remembered the rumor she had heard from Qiao Ya many years ago, "After Chuan Shuai repelled the army of the Northern Plains, this is the place where the massacre was carried out?" ”

The coachman waved his hand vigorously: "Can't say, can't say!" ”

"But I still don't feel anything." Cai Hua said. "If there's a city in front of me, at the very least, I can feel the popularity, right? Unless, those are not people, are ghosts? ”

The coachman trembled, his face pale: "We said okay, we are here because I want to sell you." I didn't break the taboo. ”

Xue Ying thought for a while: "Still can't you feel it?" In that case, let's go in. When you get inside, you always feel it, right? ”

The coachman took the two of them outside the city gate, and after the two got out of the carriage, the guard took a brief look, took out the broken silver and threw it to the coachman: "Didn't bring a baby this time?" ”

The driver said: "It was too cold a while ago, and I froze to death on the road." ”

"Hmph, it's because the price is too low, I'd rather stew it, right? Babies are not easy to raise, the mortality rate is too high, and it is good that we are willing to pay two times. ”

"Well, okay, I'll come a little more next time."

A few simple words made Xue Ying and Cai Hua both stand up their hairs.

"What are you doing in a daze, go inside!" One of the guards pointed his spear behind them, roaring.

The city gate is deep and thick, and this section of the road is extremely depressing, but it reminds Xue Ying of the entrance of the Pangu Tower, which is also designed in this long, narrow walkway style.

"Find your own place to live. Every day, there will be people who will distribute food, and only those who stay in the house will get it, so try not to go out. After entering the city gate, the guard threw down this sentence and left.

Xue Ying took Cai Hua and walked forward slowly. In contrast to the fortified walls, the houses in the city were very dilapidated, all of them were grass huts, divided into pieces by the vertical and horizontal roads.

The road is sparsely populated, and in light of what the guard said just now, only those who stay in the house can get food, so it's not surprising that everyone is reluctant to go out.

Cai Hua frowned: "It stinks." ”

Xue Ying said: "Be content, it's winter, and it's the least smelly time." ”

"It's not the smell of feces or garbage, it's the smell of death, and it's very dead here."

"You mean, it's really all ghosts living here?"

"No, they're people." Cai Hua was sure, "I didn't feel the existence of this city outside, but after I came in, it 'appeared'." ”

The thatched door of the passing house was opened, revealing a pair of glazed eyes. It was not the person who had come to distribute the food who was walking outside, and the man quickly closed the door again.

But this glance alone was enough for Xue Ying to see his condition clearly: it was a child less than ten years old, wearing gray-black dirty clothes, skinny, and the part below the knee was missing.

Further on, a man sits in the doorway basking in the sun. Wearing a black torn cotton jacket, his beard could not hide his old age, and he coughed heart-rending from time to time. His right sleeve was empty.

Xue Ying is no longer the one who just arrived in northern Xinjiang, after this period of understanding, she knows very well that in the world of northern Xinjiang, the child without feet and this terminally ill old man have no way to live.

But in this lifeless city, they are alive, but their living conditions are extremely bad.

Further on, the scene is almost the same. People are sluggish, tired, skinny, and living like the walking dead.

After two blocks, I heard the cry of a baby. Xue Ying's heart twitched, and she found that the house in the block in front of her was actually made of mud, which looked a little better than the broken thatched house just now. And the baby's cry came from the house.

And a woman came out of it, and led the drooping goat. This woman is also thin, the clothes on her body are quite clean, and her spirit is better than those people just now, she glanced at Xue Ying and Cai Hua indifferently, and said, "Don't go near here!" Pointing in a direction, "Over there, there are a lot of empty houses." ”

Finding an empty house that didn't taste too scary, Xue Ying used straw to barely lay a place to sit in the corner of the wall.

"It's weird." She muttered.

"It's weird." Cai Hua agrees.

"I'm not talking about those people outside," Xue Ying said, "I mean, how can there be straw in a place like northern Xinjiang?" ”

Cai Hua was stunned: "What do you mean?" ”

"Growing rice requires more water and more sunlight, and the northern part of Xinjiang obviously does not meet the conditions. Where can there be so much straw where rice cannot be grown? ”

Cai Hua thought for a while and asked, "Do you think it's not as cold here as it is outside?" ”

"Yes. Probably because the walls of the city were thick enough to keep out the north wind. Otherwise, the roof of the house is covered with straw in a ghost place like northern Xinjiang, and it will run away as soon as the wind blows. ”

"No matter how thick the walls are, it can't be that there is no wind in the city, right?"

"But the walls are also very high. Besides, when you go out of the city, there are mountains on all sides, and it's not surprising that the wind can't blow in. ”

Cai Hua shook his head: "I still feel that something is wrong." ”

"Then you can feel it slowly. I'll go out and have a look. ”

"Are you crazy? People here are unfamiliar with the place, if something happens, do you think you can run away? ”

"The people here are all weak and powerless, what can they do with me?" Xue Ying shrugged, "I guess they don't even have the heart to come next door to rob you, so you can stay in peace." ”

When he walked to the door, he found someone pulling a cauldron in an ox cart and distributing "food": under the watchful eye of the guards, the grain distributor walked to a house, knocked on the door, counted the heads, handed over a piece of gruel for each person, waited for those people to gobble up the porridge, took back the bowl, and continued to the next household.

Most people in a house have only one person, very few are two people, and three or more people are extremely rare.