On the afternoon of 15 February, the sun was nearly dusk, and it was less than 50 miles south of Xuzhou City, but it was already barren. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoDue to the heavy snow in the past few days, the roads are muddy, and it is difficult for passing cars and horses to move forward.

Every time it was about to get dark, Dou Ranlan's mood was very nervous. As soon as dusk passed, the businessmen who were familiar with the surrounding environment of Xuzhou calculated the place to spend the night, and the road was silent. From afar, there is no trace, and there is only a lonely figure left in the vast land.

He is a foreigner and does not know the details of the local area, so it is difficult to control the speed of the journey, and he often ends up missing the opportunity to shoot. I want to find a businessman to go with but I can't help but feel the indifference of the world's people.

In fact, there is a reason why the merchants refuse to go with them: the world is chaotic, and the long journey is full of unpredictable, and everyone can't help but be wary of strangers. In particular, the merchants who carried goods and goods, although they were united and courageous, often sought only chariots and horses that were also full of goods, because the people in the same situation shared their fears, and their hearts were closer to each other. Dou Ranlan is alone and has a full Jing Chu accent, who knows if it is a Jingbei Xiangma with a murder weapon disguised as a weak scholar? We have long heard this kind of lesson.

Dou Ranlan actually came from Tanzhou, and he was born in a Jingchu family. This time he came to the Central Plains, but he was going to the capital of Daliang to catch the exam.

Tanzhou (that is, near the current Changsha City) is the capital of the Ma Chu regime, where the place is surrounded by strong enemies, ancient and near, naturally do not dare to stand on its own, for many years the state of Chu has been cautious, almost everywhere called the minister.

In these years, its monarch was taken by the prestige of Liu Zhiyuan's Han regime, and the Han and Chu were separated by a Gao clan Jingnan Kingdom as a buffer, so the fear of the Central Plains was even smaller, so Chu attached to the Han land to prevent the Southern Tang Li clan in the east from coveting.

In July of the previous year, Ma Xiguang, the monarch of Ma Chu, had just been appointed by Liu Zhiyuan, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, to inspect the school and the Zhongshu Order, and the governor of Xingtan Prefecture added the rank of general of Tiance, and the original Wu'an military envoy's authority was of course indispensable, and more importantly, there was also another officially canonized one-word Chu King and Prince, in such a "grace" as a sign of deference, the Ma Chu regime often did not even dare to hold its own tribute spring festival, so the scholars of Chu often went to the Central Plains to participate in the examination.

Dou Ranlan has been coming all the way for more than ten days, I remember that five days ago just crossed the river, arrived in Anzhou (Anzhou is today's Wuhan Jiangbei generation), he missed a sharp and had to spend the night in the wilderness, that night really felt like a year, since that day, he carefully inquired all the way to the itinerary information, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, the person asked this morning was a fool, and the same situation was formed again.

In ancient times, the night road was terrible, and the pedestrian's vision depended on the mood of the moon, and thieves and wolves were the natural enemies of passers-by. Dou Ranlan had already heard two wolf howls, their cries were so terrible that they were like ghosts, but fortunately the second sound was more distant, and it was obvious that the beast was gradually moving away, and it was unlikely that he would meet him. Even so, he knew that he must not stay, and at this time he made up his mind: he was fortunate to go away tonight, and he would never rest anywhere like last time.

"The wolf has already met once, and the bandits and ghosts have all caught up with me, how can there be such a coincidence?"

Dou Ranlan comforted herself by talking to herself, but the more she felt self-comforting, the more panicked she became, the shortness of breath and her heart were pounding. I don't know when the moon has quietly hidden behind the clouds, the sky is suddenly dark, Dou Ranlan is holding his chest with his left hand and trying his best to control his excessive heartbeat, while slowly moving forward, suddenly he stumbled under his feet, and his head was already slammed on a hard thing.

This time he only fell to the Venus in front of him, he raised his head, and was so frightened that he almost fainted, and there was a stone tombstone in front of him, with the words "Xianning Monk Tomb" written on it. The moonlight appeared again, and it turned out that he only looked at his feet in the dark and went in the wrong direction, and had deviated from the path.

He struggled to his feet, the mound had apparently been excavated by the grave robbers and was in disarray, the coffin was shattered, and the body was crooked and half-leaning, and the corpse seemed to have died not long ago, and its eyes were slightly open as if it were looking at himself. The surrounding phosphorus fire flickered, and there seemed to be a faint green smoke rising.

The cold hair on Dou Ranlan's whole body had already stood up, he had heard from the people in his hometown that the ghost got up and moved as fast as a wolfdog, and it was useless to run away, so he could only be cautious and not reckless. He slowly moved his steps, hoping to be a point away from this lonely mound, and did not dare to look at the corpse again, for fear of finding that he had changed places, and its eyes were still looking forward to him.

In this way, he estimated that he had walked more than twenty feet, and it seemed that the corpse in the mound had indeed not followed, so he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but he still didn't dare to run away. It wasn't until he got back to the main road that he gradually quickened his pace, and this walk lasted more than half an hour, only until his whole body seemed to fall apart.

Not only is it the soreness of the limbs, but also the heart and lungs of Dou Dye Blue are like a fried pot. He just wanted to sit down and catch his breath, but he heard the sound of the hoofs of a slowly moving horse not far away, accompanied by the ringing of bells. Dou Ran Lan was overjoyed: "Finally popular!" ”

However, as soon as he turned around, the carriage and horse in the distance stopped, and the driver could not see his face clearly, but seemed to have a beard.

With full of suspicion, he tried to turn around and continue walking, and sure enough, whenever he moved, the carriage and horse moved slowly, and as soon as he stopped, the carriage and horse stopped, in short, he must keep this distance from him.

Dou Ranlan only wanted to cry, although the night he went back to Anzhou was terrifying, he had been peaceful, and he didn't want to catch up with today's terrible encounter. First the beast, the lonely ghost, and then the driver of the car behind him has been following him, looking at the posture, he must not want to alarm himself too much, but he maintains a distance that he can firmly control. In the wilderness in the middle of the night, where will there be any lovers? When the moon rises again, they may take advantage of the darkness to snatch it and kill them.

The ancients were far away as a free traveler, and they must go to the end of the world with a sword, but Dou Ranlan went out this time without any self-defense, and even if he brought a sword, he also gave the other party a "gift". He only said that the Central Plains Dynasty inherited the charm of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and he must be more happy and healthy than Tanzhou, but he didn't want the jackal to be the devil and run rampant, so he could only say that he was too taken for granted to travel alone.

The horse bell of the car was louder than just now, and it was estimated that they would have to shorten the distance between them and themselves a little bit, and in the current situation, they were like frogs boiled in warm water, although the other party would not attack immediately, but it seemed that it would be a matter of time before they made a move. Well...... This carriage may have been robbed by these thieves on the way.

When it is decided, it is necessary to act. Bandits and thieves are evil in the wilderness, and they often decisively kill first, and then try to make money, Dou Ranlan recalled that a friend said that when encountering a bad person, it is necessary to deal with the strategy:

First, the thieves do not want people to see their faces, if they cover their faces, then the victim may not have a way to live, and like the person driving behind the car with a face exposed, it is obvious that he is accustomed to decisive killing without leaving a living mouth, so he has no scruples.

Second, don't spare your own money, you must not spare your money and things between life and death, life is the most important, and everything else is the last thing.

Thinking of this, Dou Ranlan had made up his mind, he decisively took off his baggage, and took off his shirt and only left a single coat, at this time the weather was still cold, and there was a risk of freezing to death at night, but he couldn't take care of it in order to save his life for a while.

He turned around, took advantage of the distance between him and the person opposite him before he could make out his face, threw the burden and clothes with his nursing strength, and shouted: "Everything in the next week will honor the king, and I only hope that the hero will spare his life!" Then he turned back and ran. Whether the thief will be in a hurry to take the property and let himself go is left to fate.

Dou Ran Lan had just dodged the ghoul in the mound, so he had already consumed a lot of physical strength in the hurry, and at this time he almost used all his strength when throwing the burden in a critical situation, and now he was out of strength, and the last little strength left was like the last drop of oil in the lampstand, and he was exhausted after running a few steps. His consciousness told himself that his life could not be stopped in an instant, but it was already difficult to control the balance of his body, and he finally collapsed after barely running for a few feet.

The driver pulled out a long big simple knife, picked up the burden he had just thrown away with the back of the knife, and then walked calmly towards him. Dou Ranlan knew that the last hope was dashed, and couldn't help but sigh: "There is no liquor for thousands of miles, and there is no ...... A ......"

I wanted to chant two sentences of bold and desperate poems on the spot, but I couldn't think of the latter sentence, and suddenly heard a voice in the carriage say: "There is no strong wine for thousands of miles, and the blood of anger is spilled on the barren hills." After speaking, he laughed, and saw a young man walking out of the car: "Brother, it looks like the green mountains and hidden waters outside, although it is a little darker, why do you need to die heroically?" ”

Dou Ranlan's face turned red, the ugliness of greed just now was revealed, and now he just wanted to find a crack in the ground to get into.

"I'm ashamed...... It's really funny to scare yourself in the dark. ”

Another head poked out of the car, it was a man who looked like a scribe, this man had thin cheeks, well-developed front teeth, and a grim expression, and seemed to be in his thirties and had just entered middle age. The man looked around and said, "What? Scare yourself yourself? You turn around and look, what is that? ”

Dou Ranlan looked back, almost frightened again, just now he ran away from the desert without paying attention, there was a corpse hanging from a big tree not far away, and the corpse swayed slightly with the night wind, adding a bit of misery. He was even more shocked when he looked closely, the dead man was the fool who had pointed out to him indiscriminately when he inquired about the shop in the morning.

He was feeling that the yin wind was miserable and cold, but he heard the young man laugh and said: "You want to say that you are timid, but you are walking in such a place in the dark, if you are brave, but you are panicked when you are in danger, it is really indescribable. ”

Dou Ranlan was ashamed to say that he was in a dilemma because he was confused, so he had to divert the conversation: "Why are the three of you in a hurry in this dark day? ”

The young man took the burden from the driver's hand and handed it to Dou Ranlan, and then stretched out his muscles and said: "We have the token of the official mansion, but we can pass the official post station, not far from the right in front of the official road, just now I saw that you are alone is really dangerous, so please follow the driver from afar, I wanted to call you over," he pointed to the scribe in the car, "But my uncle is inconvenient and does not want you to go with him, so he can only give you a little ride." ”

The old uncle glanced at the boy, obviously hating him for telling the truth, so it would be bad not to take him with him now.

"More love, a few of you should hurry up and catch your way, this place is very deserted, and you are very dangerous if you drag it for a long time, I am more careful alone, and I can still stay up until morning."

"Brother Tai doesn't have to be so thin-skinned!" When the boy said this, he looked at the scribe with a hippie smile, and the man snorted coldly, and then beckoned: "Come up." ”

Dou Ranlan was so tired that she was weak, and now she could finally take a breath. The inside of the carriage is very spacious, and after getting in, I feel that the popularity of the three people is quite warm together. There was a pile of books on the ground, and he picked one up casually and said, "With so many books, this family can be regarded as a rich family." ”

I opened it and took a look, but I saw that the whole article was painted in a mess, and there were two small dots under the "Words", and behind "Shuo Yuan Hui Xi Wang Zhengdu" was a tadpole-like mark, which seemed quite strange. At the end of the Tang Dynasty and the beginning of the Song Dynasty, books were expensive, and Dou Ran Lan saw that the whole article was full of this kind of circles, and from time to time there was an earthworm-like hook, and I couldn't help but secretly feel sorry for these good engravings.

Dou Ranlan picked up the other two books, which were also painted with bells and whistles, and he was very curious, what is the origin of these strange markings? Where did these two weirdos come from?