"He groom, He groom, He Langjun half his life is on the wall, and finally falls, and he is fortunate to hold a beautiful girl."

Qiu Xuan's eyes were burning blood red, and she tore off the hijab on her head, feeling that she couldn't keep up with the rhythm for a while.

Today is the seventh day, the day when "Zuo Lan" gets married, and the day when the coffin is sealed. She originally sorted out the details in her mind, and the plot she made up was that the "bride" was not a bride in the real sense of the word in this village, or rather, at least Zuo Lan was not.

Judging from the strange things he encountered after arriving at Jinlin Village on the first day, the meaning of the role of "bride" is probably to sacrifice.

Maybe it's because of some feudal superstition, or maybe it's because of the village's unspeakable traditions, in short, people will sacrifice their bride to the evil gods in the temple on their wedding day, in exchange for good weather in the following year.

And when it was Zuo Lan's turn, something probably happened.

Qiu Xuan originally thought so, until now she sees the scene in front of her.

About an hour earlier, she had been dressed up and sent into the auditorium, which had been set up long ago. Whether the auditorium was built in the temple, or in that location, and different from the half-finished decoration they saw in real time, in Zuolan's timeline, this auditorium, or the entire temple, was traditionally used as a marriage hall.

What happened next was probably similar to what Qiu Xuan experienced on her first day, she was forcibly carried over the brazier by those matchmakers, and a dozen sturdy little servants surrounded her every inch for fear of escaping. Only this time, there is no so-called three bows, and the so-called "parents of both sides" sitting on the high hall are also very normal living people from her point of sight.

This is not the same as the memory of the original first day.

Although he was puzzled, Qiu Xuan was soon pushed over and fixed in the center. Through the red color that obscured her vision, she heard the guests around her start talking and laughing loudly, followed by toasts to each other, each saying "Congratulations, congratulations" from their mouths.

I don't know who I'm congratulating, because the groom never showed up.

As he thought so, he could only see a pair of unfamiliar but very elaborate cloth shoes in the field of vision a little above the ground.

The noisy scramble around seemed to be collectively choked by the throat, and there was silence for a second.

"Husband and wife worship each other."

A voice said. He directly skipped the previous two sentences of worshipping heaven and earth and worshipping his parents, and the fingers hanging on both sides of the same blood-colored wedding robe seemed to move, and then, Qiu Xuan's shoulders were heavy, and it was the two matchmakers who bent down according to her again.

"It's my bride."

The voice said, "No one will ever separate us anymore." ”

"We'll be together forever."

"No 'man' will ever separate us anymore."

In a trance, in the dead silence of the auditorium, only the strange black-skinned master of ceremonies was left and said loudly:

"He groom, He groom, He Langjun half his life is on the wall, and finally falls, and he is fortunate to hold a beautiful girl."

……

When Qiu Xuan came back to her senses again, she seemed to be riding on a horse.

There was a burning blood red in front of her, and she tore off the hijab on her head, and then found that the red in front of her eyes was not her delusion. She squinted in that direction, and was surprised to find that the entire location of the Great Hall had been burned, and not only the Great Hall, but even the entire temple with carved beams was burning in blood-red flames.

There is really enough tiger, just the temple of the evil gate, and it will be burned when it is said to be burned?

Qiu Xuan smacked her tongue secretly, and then noticed something and came back to her senses, and found that she was tied to a horse, and the person leading the horse in front of her was wearing a gas mask, but the figure seemed familiar.

It was the man who had come to find "Zuo Lan" before, and said that he would definitely take her out of the house.

"Hey, brother." Qiu Xuan called him, "I'm awake, where are I going?" ”

The man turned around, and Qiu Xuan realized that it was already dusk. The orange-yellow afterglow shone on the man's gas mask, and for a moment even the relatively retro and crude mask softened compared to the workmanship.

The man raised his hand and removed the mask.

Sure enough, it was the man's face.

"I'll take you out." "We leave here, go to a place where no one knows us, go on a voyage, go on a new life," he said. ”

Qiu Xuan: "...... Going to the moon boat? ”

She moved her wrist, "You set the fire?" And what about the people inside, all dead? ”

"Ah Zuo." The man suddenly approached the horse, "Without them, there will be no one to hinder us." We can be together forever, we can go anywhere, we are no longer confined to this little village, we do whatever we want to do, become whoever we want to be. ”

Qiu Xuan: "You said that you are a horse, no matter how nice you say, you still put the fire." ”

"I thought you wouldn't care about that?" The man tilted his head, looking a little confused. "Don't you still have a nostalgia for your mother? She knew that you were going to die today, but she still let you put on your wedding dress! With such a person, you can't even let go? ”

Qiu Xuan didn't know what had happened between the original Zuo Lan and the woman, and it was not easy to evaluate. She said: "It's not just her problem, I'm talking about you now, don't you think you have a big problem?" ”

"It's not your mother, that's, that's ......"

“！”

"Then you just can't let him go!" He suddenly stretched out his hand to tighten the reins of the horse, and the jujube-colored steed was frightened, neighing and raising its front hooves, if it wasn't for Qiu Xuan's calves hooked on the saddle in time, he would have been thrown straight down by this blow.

The man didn't notice that in the slightest, and his face twisted as if he wanted to ask her for an explanation. "You've promised me, you've promised me that I'll go with me, why, why can't you let him go?"

Qiu Xuan maintained a posture as if riding on a playground bullfight, with a blank face. "Who is he?"

With a snap, the man's five fingers clenched, and he crushed the wine glass that came from the auditorium.

Blood flowed down his fingers, but he didn't even notice it. He gritted his teeth, and his voice squeezed out of his throat little by little, as if he wanted to eat its flesh raw.

"Gu Snake."

Gu Snake, a name that has never been heard before. Qiu Xuan secretly wrote down the name, and her tone remained unchanged.

"And where is he now?"

The man under the horse only looked at her, his eyes strange, as if he was looking at a creature who did not understand. Suddenly, he laughed a few times like a neuropathic face, completely ignoring her questions.

"Yes, yes, what am I struggling with, you belong to me now." He muttered to himself, "You belong to me now, and you will always be, we will always be together, we will always be together." ”

He said, "I love you, Ah Zuo. ”

For a moment, Qiu Xuan could barely control the sneer on his face.

She turned her face to the other end of the horse's back, adjusted her expression a few times, and then turned back and said, "I'm not Zuo Lan." ”

"Whatever you say, my feelings won't change."

"Is that 'love' for you?" Qiu Xuan sneered sharply and sharply, "Because you love 'me', you can kill my nominal mother in the name of love, so you can set fire to other people's marriage halls, so you can impose your preferences on others regardless of other people's wishes?" ”

As she spoke, her emotions gradually calmed down, and her words did not carry any emotion, and her questioning words became like a statement of fact. "Brother, do you know that you have a fork in the road?"

"It's not love at all, it's your desire."

“……”

In the afterglow of dusk, the man stood with most of his back in front of his horse, and the last light and shadow of the setting sun passed over his body little by little, and the shadow was only left in the shadows.

Qiu Xuan raised her eyes and glanced at the sky, it was getting dark.

Thinking like this, she saw that the person in front of her seemed to move, and then there was only endless darkness in her vision.

"Whether it's love or desire, I just know that we'll be together."

In the end, she only heard these words, and her consciousness sank into nothingness.

……

Qiu Xuan opened his eyes, and when he entered his eyes, he saw Qin Jiuyuan's side face.

She took a moment to react, frowning and pressing her temples, asking, "We're coming up?" ”

"Hmm," Qin Jiuyuan continued to walk forward in front of him, and they seemed to be walking on the road back to the mountain now, and it seemed that they were heading towards the village. "It's a waste of time to wait for us on the ground, Ye Qing and Shen Jingxue went back first, and they said that they would have time to go back and go directly to the temple to find them. As for the executioners who went down with us, they also went back. ”

Yes, by the time she saw the coffin opened, it was enough time for them to come up from the tomb.

"By the way, what did you see in the coffin?"

In front of him, Qin Jiuyuan seemed to sigh behind her back. "There were no bodies in the coffin, only bits and pieces of funerary goods, all of which had already formed a layer of rust. Then you suddenly passed out, and when they saw that there was no clue to the burial chamber, they all came up to discuss it. ”

So she was the only one who saw that memory.

Maybe it's because of what's in her belly, or maybe it's because of the "mother's body".

And Zuo Lan, what is the final ending? Qin Jiuyuan said that they didn't see the corpse when they opened the coffin, does that mean that Zuo Lan escaped the catastrophe and really left the village with the man to live his own life in the original plot?

If that's the case, where did the situation that their female executioners saw after falling asleep at night, nailed to the coffin in their wedding dresses, come from?

Gu Snake, what does the meaning behind the name symbolize.

Qiu Xuan lay on Qin Jiuyuan's back and fell silent, this was another reaction to fall into his own thoughts. The man in front of him paused, and seeing that she didn't mention it, he didn't say anything, so since you woke up, go down and walk by yourself. There was a subtle and tacit silence between the two of them, and they walked in the direction of the village.

……

"Congratulations to the bridegroom, congratulations to the bridegroom...... And then what? ”

Qiu Xuan sat in the courtyard in front of the bungalow, probably telling Ye Qing, who had just returned from the temple, about the memory he had experienced.

The wedding scene seven days later, although there are many details that are similar to the auditorium in the dream world, there are some places that are completely different. For example, the man suddenly snatched his relatives and burned the auditorium, for example, the person who only had time to see a pair of shoes at the end, such as the rooster, and then for example, this passage.

At that time, she noticed that after the strange guests greeted each other, the congratulatory words shouted by the black-skinned master of ceremonies began to change.

Originally, he said that "the bride is married, and Fulu and Suki are all introduced", but now it has become "He groom".

It's just that his accent is too strange and remote, Qiu Xuan originally heard that the bride's marriage was because of the singing of the blind man who played the piano later. Although the blind man played the piano as if asking for his life, at least his words were still understandable and clear.

And now that there is no blind man's translation, Qiu Xuan can probably only understand a "He Bridegroom" from that paragraph, in fact, these three words were not understood originally. It was only because the black-skinned emcee, whose accent was too demanding, once said the word "groom" to his parents and relatives sitting in the high hall, that he guessed it according to the context.

"By the way, didn't you say that you also experienced a marriage scene in your dream?" Qiu Xuan looked at the two men in the four-person team, "What was the situation like at that time?" ”

"It's from the groom's point of view, and then worship with the person in the wedding dress." Shen Jingxue said, "But the master of ceremonies didn't say anything to congratulate the groom at that time, and he said that the congratulatory speech was the original paragraph." Then I heard the guest say, "Pity the beautiful lady of the Jiang family." ”

Jiang's, that should refer to Jiang Lanjing, not Zuo Lan.

But it shouldn't be, Jiang Lanjing's wedding will have to wait for another three days to be held, so what do they see in their dreams?

The male executioner takes the groom's perspective.

That should prove the identity of the groom to a certain extent, right?

The strangest thing that Qiu Xuan thinks now is that whether it is the memory of Zuo Lan who just ended, or those memories that were pulled into the dream, she has never seen the role of "groom" once.

Although this testing ground is full of strange wedding atmospheres, as "brides", whether it is Zuo Lan or Jiang Lanjing, they all have a certain degree of tragedy. In any case, the role of the groom should be as important as the bride in a wedding. But whether it is what Qiu Xuan sees now, or the reaction of the villagers, they all seem to have automatically ignored the role of "groom".

Even what a male executioner like Shen Jingxue saw was only a first-person perspective.

The benefit of a first-person perspective is that it feels real, and it also means that—

No one can "see" the bridegroom.

No one, including the executioners themselves, who took on the role of "groom".

This is an unbelievable thing. But if it weren't for Qiu Xuan remembering it now because of a special opportunity, even she herself wouldn't have felt that this was a thing worth noting before.

All of them seem to have been blinded by something all along.

n.