"Yes, I can hear the door banging so loudly." Cuicui replied in the affirmative. "But my dad didn't open the door as if he didn't hear it. When I finally opened it, my father saw me as if he was seeing a ghost, his eyes were stunned, and he fainted directly. ”

Huang Yu nodded suspiciously. "That's right."

Cuicui had long expected Huang Yu to react like this, sighed lightly, and looked back, the old man shrunk his neck and walked forward, and the cold wind made him more and more emaciated, as if he could be easily blown away by a gust of wind.

Cuicui said: "What my father told you must be different, he has a bad memory, these days he is always Shinto, I told him not to say it outside, and then scare others." ”

"That's right."

Cuicui also saw that Huang Yu was a little unconvinced, so she took Huang Yu's hand very warmly and said, "Old people, there will always be a little bit of a brain that can't turn." My dad is crazy, just listen to what he says. My mother is like this, she only knows how to eat and sleep, and she spends her days in a daze in the empty space, alas, don't we children just want to keep her for a while. ”

"Indeed." Huang Yu nodded, she could feel that Cuicui's hands were warm, different from the old man's cold hands, and different from the hands of the men she met in Lethe.

"Ever since I came back, my father has been telling people everywhere that I am a ghost, and he has pointed out to them the shadow under my feet, saying that I have no shadow." Cuicui pointed to the shadow under her feet and looked at Huang Yu innocently.

Then he said: "Alas, you also know, I am a living person, how can there be no shadow, everyone can see my shadow, only my father, staring at my feet, and asked me to leave his house quickly." You said I was a big girl, where can I go? ”

Huang Yu patted Cuicui's hand, "Sister, I'm sorry for you." ”

Now that the old man and Cuicui are each talking, there must be someone who is lying.

"It's fine." Cuicui shook her head and said, "This is what children should do. Cousin, I'm fine, don't you think I'm fine? ”

"It's okay, it's okay."

Along the way, the three of them had their own thoughts.

By the time I could see the village, it was already very dark, and the dark clouds seemed to be pressed down. From time to time, there are deafening thunder and blinding lightning, which is very terrifying.

The old man looked up at the sky and muttered: "What the hell is this weather this year, it looks like snow, why is it still thundering, alas......"

Cuicui walked in the front, "Cousin, it's almost here, and it's about to snow." ”

"Okay." Phoenix Feather responded.

Cuicui took a deep look at Huang Yu and turned her head to continue leading the way.

After passing a small hill, Huang Yu saw a low and dilapidated old house standing dangerously on the side of the road, and the smoke of cooking rose from behind the old house, like a white silk that was constantly dancing, slowly climbing the top of a tall tree, wrapping it silently, and then floating to the sky, mixing with the dark clouds.

It was as if the clouds were all floating up from here.

Before he got close to the village, Huang Yu felt an eerie ghostly aura, the fireworks that belonged to the human world were annihilated by the ghost aura, like entering a large coffin, and there were very few people who could climb out.

Standing on a high place, you can only see cattle and sheep walking back and forth, and you can't see people at all. Probably because of the gloomy weather, the villagers didn't come out.

Huang Yu followed Cuicui down the hill and saw a stone tablet next to the road, which was carved with three words, which was the traditional "Tongzi Town".

"Tong Zi Town......" Huang Yu read. The name of your village is quite festive. ”

"Hahaha." Cuicui smiled: "Cousin, you are really good at talking, it is indeed quite festive, but it was in the past." ”

"Why, the joy of the name is still not timed?" Huang Yu asked.

Cuicui sighed and shook her head, "Cousin, don't you know, in the past, there were many men and few women in our village, and few girls were born in the family, just like my family, I have five elder brothers, and I am only a girl here, and other families are similar to my family." Because there were many boys born and many strong men, it was renamed Tongzi Town. ”

Huang Yu looked at the gloomy village and suddenly knew why the festive time was divided.

Cuicui's next words confirmed her suspicions.

"It's good to have a lot of boys, they married daughters-in-law from other villages, and expanded our village, but in recent years, few children have been born in the village."

"It's ...... What's going on? Huang Yu asked.

Suddenly, the old man behind him shouted, "No, no, can't be born!" ”

The old man looked at the stone tablet, his eyes were glazed, his hands danced, and he pulled the sleeve of the phoenix feather to let her go.

Cuicui came over and hugged the old man, but the old man wilted as soon as he touched her, and he was so frightened that he cowered and didn't dare to move.

"My dad is really old, alas......" Cuicui sighed.

The old man glanced at Huang Yu the moment he turned around, and that glance didn't look like a crazy patient at all.

The boy town without a child, the old man who pretends to be crazy and sells stupidity, Cuicui who comes back from the dead, and ...... Silent villagers are not like living people.

The interesting thing began, looking at the backs of the father and daughter, the corners of Huang Yu's mouth slowly hooked.

Like a gloomy child, the gray face of the sky gradually sank and was replaced by a heavy gray black. Inky clouds squeezed the sky, obscuring the scarlet eyes just now, as if they were about to fall, so depressed that the whole world seemed to be silent.

From the time they entered the village, they did not meet a few people on the way, except at the entrance of the village they met a child who was about eleven or twelve years old, who was very thin, and when he saw them turn around, he ran as if he had seen something unclean.

Cuicui and the old man didn't react, so they didn't think they were surprised.

The village is small, divided into two rows, most of them are dilapidated and low houses, and from the outside you can see that the inside of the houses is dark and damp, and the smell of food is coming from the houses after the rain. Sewage flows sideways and roads are muddy.

Many people leave their doors open to let out the dampness, yellowed walls, shabby furniture, leaky roofs, cobwebs, dust, a handful of furnishings, empty, cramped, and dark, as is the case in almost every house.

This is something that Huang Yu, who has been clothed in fine clothes and food since childhood, could not imagine it at all.

Passing by a dilapidated and dirty thatched house, the old man paused and waved his hand inside.

The sky was dark, the inside of the house was dark, and from the outside, you could see that the thatched house was empty, and near the door was a black and gray blanket, on which was placed a broken pillow and one or two books with pages off, the pillow was wet, and the books were also wet, and it seemed that the things in the house were wet by the rain and put them at the door to dry.

Next to the blanket was a wooden table with no color visible, and on top of it was a bowl that had been broken and made several notches, and the bowl could not be seen in its original color.

There were two stools beside the wooden table, which were not very high, and the old man who lived in them answered and climbed down from the stools with a smile.

The face is old and small, he is a dwarf old man, and he is not even at the waist of the phoenix feather when he stands up straight.

His clothes were covered with pudding, he wore a pair of rotten straw sandals, and his hair was sparse white. Although the whole body is very dilapidated, it is all neat and tidy.

He was about sixty or seventy years old.

"Old man, where did this go?" The old man asked, looking up with his hands behind his back. The voice is tough, and it is full of temperament compared to the old man.

The old man bent down and replied, "Go and pick up my niece." ”

The old man glanced at Cuicui several times, and Cuicui reluctantly shouted, "Grandpa the village chief." ”

Huang Yu also shouted, laughing sweetly.

The village chief was good-natured, and asked Huang Yu with a smile which doll she was, praising her for being so good-looking.

Huang Yu dodged the first question and smiled modestly.

The old man asked the old village chief, "Have you eaten?" ”

The old village chief waved his hand, "Not yet, I originally wanted to go to the mountains to pick some wild vegetables or something, but looking at this day, I'm afraid I won't be able to go." ”

"Go to my house ......"

Before the old man's words were finished, Cuicui tugged on the old man's sleeve.

"Daddy."

The village chief took over with a smile, "I won't go today, and I don't know what day it will be this year, so I'll just go down." Go back quickly, save a while and it will rain, go and go. ”

The three of them left the village chief's house, Huang Yu glanced back, the village chief stood at the door and watched them leave, he saw Huang Yu turn his head and wave his hand at her with a smile, the wrinkles on his face piled up into a flower.

He's a very kind old man. Huang Yu thought.

On such a cold day, the thatched hut leaks rain and snow, and the cold wind blows in, and it must not be the same as the ice cellar. I don't know how the old man spent this winter.

Other than that, I didn't run into anyone else along the way.

It's not that no one lives, but no one comes out, and they don't even shout when they see them passing by.

Many houses were made of tiles, grass, and stones, and many eyes looked through the cracks in the stones that did not see sunlight all year round, as if they were looking at something new, and as if they were afraid that they would not dare to come out.

Interesting.

Huang Yu's curiosity grew heavier and heavier.

The little crow flying above his head tilted his head and looked at the person below with swarthy eyes, and the phoenix feather took a step forward, and it flew with it, completely enveloping the phoenix feather in its own protection.

By the time Cuicui's house arrived, the sun was almost sinking, and a huge shadow hung over the two-story building.

Compared to the next room, this small building is already very good.

There were four or five rooms on the first floor, built in a row, separated from the whole small building, and on the far left was a low, dilapidated south room, dim and damp, the skin of the walls had long since peeled off, and the walls were uneven.

The door was closed, the windows were sealed, and I didn't know what was inside.

The room on the ground floor is made of stones, nearly one meter, after the wind and sun, the stones have been a little blackened, and the large stones are piled together with cement, which is not many times better than the small grass house where the walls of the village chief's house are not sheltered from the wind and the tiles do not block the rain.

Above the stone were a wall of dirt, mottled and wrapped in a layer of damp, moldy straw.

The second floor is better, it is made of wooden planks, and the dim yellowish light shines through from the second floor, and every room is lit, but no one is visible from the outside.

"Quack-"

Several crows flew through the sky, and one of them rested on the roof tiles that were crooked like fish scales, and it fell, and before it could stand firmly, the tiles clicked, and it flew up quickly, and slowly landed on the chimney.

The black smoke coming out of the chimney shrouded the sky, the same color as the crow, making people feel breathless.