Lixin City is a small coastal city in the west of Dongyuan Kingdom, located at the junction of Dongyuan and Xiyou, which was supposed to be a place where soldiers must fight, but because of Dongyuan's negligent management, it was in an embarrassing situation of fending for itself.

That's why, when a notice is posted at the city gate, it will cause a storm to fill the city.

"Lord Xin is coming to us?"

"Is this true?"

"It's not written very clearly, I will come in three days, and I will visit for half a month, which is true."

"Our Lixin City is finally going to have a bright day."

……

The people gathered under the notice changed batch after batch, and finally they all left in a hurry with a look of half curiosity and half joy, thinking that they would take the news to relatives and friends to talk about after tea and dinner.

Only a pair of eyes that have been hiding behind the rocks at the base of the city wall are not as relaxed as others.

It was a pair of purple eyes that were so clear that they seemed to be able to squeeze out water, and they were staring at the scarlet notice posted on the city wall without blinking, and their long eyelashes occasionally fluttered twice, full of vigilance and fear.

As the sun went down, the crowd dispersed.

A thin girl who seemed to be blown down by a gust of wind came out from behind the rocks.

She was no more than seven or eight years old, her clothes were ragged, her face was covered with mud, and only a pair of eyes were crystal clear, like crystals falling into the mud.

The girl looked around to make sure that there was no one, and then ran briskly under the notice.

She didn't know many words, and she could barely read them. But a sentence in the middle still made her tremble.

"Clear the streets, and all beggars along the streets will be reported to the government for temporary detention."

Taken into custody by the government?

This is something that ordinary beggars can't ask for, after all, they can ask for food and clothing.

But she's different.

She was afraid of the people in this town, afraid that people would see her purple pupils.

It was this unusual eye color that caused her to fall into the situation of sleeping on the street now; It was the unique blood flowing in her body that made her afraid to talk to people, dare not go out during the day, and could only bury her head deep in her chest when she walked on the road at night.

No!

She can't risk being discovered by the government, which could lead to her death.

She thought, shrinking her head and turning to leave.

"Stop!"

A scolding behind her scared her, and she froze in place, not daring to move.

"Who are you? Did you see what was written on this notice? Come with us to the Yamen! ”

As he spoke, the man behind him walked quickly towards the girl.

The girl ran away.

The two officers and soldiers shouted and chased out of the city gate helplessly. Unknowingly, I chased it to the mountain of the river.

"I didn't expect that a seven or eight-year-old girl with such sharp legs and feet that neither of us could catch up." An officer and soldier gasped and said angrily.

The other younger officer and soldier did not say anything, but looked up timidly.

"What's wrong?" The older officer and soldier frowned and asked.

"Here, it should be halfway up the mountain, right? That ruined temple, it should be around here? The young officer and soldier spoke, their voices inexplicably sharpening.

The older officers and soldiers also began to stand on end with their hairs when they said this.

The ruined temple of the river and the mountain, everyone in the whole Lixin City knows it.

It is rumored that there is a man-eating monster that appears every full moon night, and everyone who lives in the city has heard its earth-shattering howl.

Now that the sky is getting darker, continue to stay here, if you really encounter the monster in the temple, I am afraid that both of them will be killed.

"Since that little girl has escaped from the city, it is not considered to be our jurisdiction, and it would be good to take more precautions against the population entering and leaving the city gate in the next few days." The older officers and soldiers began to look for themselves under the stairs, "Let's go back." ”

The young officers and soldiers couldn't ask for it, so they naturally nodded their heads again and again.

After the two officers and soldiers descended the mountain, the girl dared to quietly come out of the grass where she had been hiding before.

She had also heard about the broken temple in the river and mountain since she was a child, and turned her head to look at the mountain, the gloomy and terrifying dense forests were layered on top of each other, and the old trees with intricate roots seemed to pounce on her with their teeth and claws.

The girl stood still, took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then turned firmly and walked towards the mountain.

She was more afraid of the people in the city and the notice than the monster.

This mountain road was originally stepped on because of the footsteps, the road to the broken temple, because of the rumors, no one has walked for a long time, and nature is gradually replaced by weeds and trees.

The girl struggled to pull away from the branches in front of her as she struggled to climb up the roots and rocks beneath her feet.

At this time, it was completely dark, there was no moon tonight, and there were not even a few stars, if it weren't for her unusual eyes that could adapt to such darkness, I am afraid that it would have been difficult to move forward by now.

Finally, after the last branch was removed, a ruined temple appeared before the girl's eyes.

For some reason, when she saw this temple, the girl was not only not afraid, but had a sense of familiarity that she had not felt for a long time.

She raised the corners of her mouth and laughed unconsciously.

The girl ran towards the temple in a daze, but forgot to take care of her feet, and accidentally stepped on a sycamore leaf that had been wet by the rain the day before, and her legs slipped backwards, and her whole body fell forward.

Seeing that the whole person was about to roll down the mountain, the girl waved her arms in a panic to grab the weeds on the ground, but the weeds were uprooted. In despair, I can only watch myself slide down.

The girl instinctively closed her eyes and listened to her body fall.

An arm that stretched out out of nowhere suddenly grabbed the girl's hand tightly and lifted her up.

The girl opened her eyes and saw an unkempt figure standing in front of her.

His fingertips were dirty and tangled in his beard, covering most of his face, and he was only covered with a bloodstained animal skin, with a tiger's back and a bear's waist, and his skin was dark, and his age was not visible.

If it were another child, I was afraid that I would be scared to cry at the moment by the figure in front of me who didn't know whether it was a person or a ghost, but Ah Zi was unusually calm.

In her memory, most of the well-dressed people in the city had a bad attitude towards her, but the scruffy-looking and terrible beggars treated her kindly.

"You're human?" The girl spoke.

The other man nodded vigorously, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth.

The girl smiled at him, stretched out her hand, and said, "My name is Xin Zi, call me Ah Zi." ”

The man looked down at Xin Zi's hand stretched out towards him, stunned.

Ah Zi leaned out, looked at the man closely, opened his eyes and asked word by word, "What's your name?" ”

The man was taken aback by Ah Zi's sudden intimate move, took two steps back, and stretched out his hands to prevent her from continuing to approach him, while shaking his head incessantly and his eyes flickering.

"You can't speak?" Ah Zi asked tentatively.

Unexpectedly, these words angered the man in front of him, and he let out a low roar from his throat, which frightened Ah Zilian to take two steps back.

But the man just clasped his hands, lowered his head, and spat out two words from his mouth with all his might.

"Ah...... Purple ......"

The girl smiled and stepped forward, realizing that the man in front of her had no ill intentions, but just wanted to try to communicate with herself, but for some reason, the man had a hard time speaking.

Maybe it's because he has been living in the mountains for many years, isolated from the world, and gradually losing his ability to speak? Or was he born in this barren mountain and wilderness since he was a child, and no one ever taught him to speak and read?

But none of that matters.

Because in Ah Zi's eyes, the man in front of him is too similar to himself.

The same difference, the same rejection by the world, the same driven into this broken temple.

"You live in this temple?" Ah Zi tried to communicate with the man again, and at the same time leaned closer to the man, "Tonight, can you let me stay here for the night?" ”

The man nodded without thinking, pointed to the temple, and motioned for Ah Zi to follow him in.

The outside of the temple has fallen into disrepair, the gate has long since decayed, and most of the outer wall has fallen off, and now it is crawling with vines. Walking through the overgrown courtyard, there was only a temple about two people high, which looked dilapidated from the outside, and when I walked in, I saw that although the various furnishings inside were a little old, they were neatly and cleanly placed in place, and a statue enshrined in the middle of the room attracted Ah Zi's attention.

She stood there, staring at the statue intently, unable to complacen.

It was a statue of a woman, in her teens, with a snow-white complexion, pink lips, clear eyes, looking into the distance with a smile, dressed in red, the corners of which fluttered in the wind, as if she was standing on a high place looking down on the Virgin of her people.

At her feet, a snow-white spirit beast was lying on its stomach, its eyes firmly fixed on its master, as if everything in the outside world had nothing to do with it, and its duty was only to protect her.

Seeing that Ah Zi could see it, the man walked to her silently, stretched out his hand and pointed to a plaque that had fallen down and was placed aside, with four big characters written on the plaque:

"Sacred Heart Niang"

Ah Zi smiled and nodded.

Of course, she knew who was enshrined in this temple, and she knew it from the first time she walked into this temple and saw this statue.

Legend has it that thousands of years ago, our ancestors experienced a catastrophe, decades of drought that left the land without harvest, and a plague that was rare in ancient and modern times, plunging the few remaining human beings into an unprecedented disaster.

The divine realm does not care about the world, but the Sacred Heart Niangniang is grateful to the common people, and does not want to watch human beings perish like this, so she came to the world regardless of opposition and saved human beings from fire and water.

Eventually, however, the Sacred Heart realized that it was powerless to save many dying lives on its own.

In order to save humanity, she cut her own neck and poured her blood into the only remaining water source: those who drank the blood of the Sacred Heart were immediately restored to health; The fields, irrigated by the blood of the Sacred Heart, immediately sprouted green shoots; The animals drank the water mixed with the blood of the Sacred Heart, and they were all restored to their former vitality.

The blood of the Sacred Heart flowed continuously for seven days and seven nights, and finally the whole person died of exhaustion.

No one knows what kind of pain Sacred Heart went through before she died, but legend has it that she left the world with a smile on her face, because she understood that her life was exchanged for the life of mankind.