After coming out of the black forest, I don't know if it was because of the injury or because I was frightened, but as soon as I got home, I fell on the kang and couldn't stand up, so that I didn't have much consciousness, at most I occasionally responded to it, and the whole person was like a demon stunned, dazed, and my body was very weak. My grandmother invited a doctor from the health station to come and see me, and the doctor said that I was short of qi and blood and needed to recuperate for a few days, so my grandmother killed all the chickens and ducks that could be killed at home, stewed soup for me, and took care of me for three days and three nights.

Three days later, my whole state was almost recovered, and my consciousness was clear, but as for what happened in the black forest, I didn't remember it very clearly, and the only thing I remember was two terrible green lights.

When I woke up, I would always secretly look at my grandmother with a strange look, because before this incident, I didn't know that there were really demons in this world, let alone that my grandmother's business of stealing demon mounds was so mysterious and dangerous. But my grandmother never shied away from my eyes, just looked at me, she didn't seem to pay much attention to it, and naturally went in and out of front of me, fed me chicken soup and duck soup to drink, and didn't mention anything about the black forest, as if it hadn't happened before.

When I can get off the kang, I plan to continue to find some work, but I am idle anyway, and the sky at home has been confiscated, so I can go and pick up some forage to sell, or pick up some cow dung for fire. But just as he was about to go out, he stopped his grandmother. I looked at my grandmother in amazement, not knowing what she was going to do.

"Xuan'er." Grandma's face looked a little serious, which made me dare not look her in the eye. After looking at me for a while, my grandmother finally spoke, "Do you remember the incident in the Black Forest?" ”

I was a little fluted when I was asked this, and it took me three or four seconds before I woke up and said, "Remember." ”

Grandma nodded slowly, then put her hand in her arms, took something wrapped in black cloth from it, and handed it to me. I was a little confused, but I took it anyway, and when I lifted the cloth on it, it was nothing else, it was the silver mask we had taken out of the demon mound in the Black Forest.

I looked up at my grandmother, not knowing what she meant.

"Take it and sell it." Grandma continued, without the slightest wave in her eyes, "People who rob demon mounds are called demon thieves. Demon thieves are not Taoists or monks, they are not here to subdue demons, nor to get rid of demons, but to fish for oil and water in the demon mounds, to put it bluntly, in fact, for money. The reason why I took you into this business is so that you can have something to eat. ”

I lowered my head and listened quietly, still not daring to look at my grandmother's eyes, but just hummed. I knew in my heart that I had entered the mysterious industry of robbing demon mounds. Fifteen years later, I knew that at that time, with the beginning of my experience of stealing the demon tomb, there was also the catastrophe of my life.

After a while, I suddenly remembered something and asked my grandmother, "By the way, where can I sell this thing?" ”

At this time, my grandmother took her eyes off me, raised her head, and seemed to be looking at a place in the distance: "Demon City." ”

I learned from my grandmother's mouth that the demon market is an exclusive "black market" for the demon mound thief, and many demon thieves will gather in this place to take out the treasures or belongings stolen from the demon mound or their own collection, just like setting up a stall, waiting for a favorite buyer. There is almost everything in the demon market, whether it is the blue and white porcelain in the cultural play or the peach wood sword of the method, there is no shortage of anything, and there are even a few people who will sell live demons, as for what the role of raising demons, there is no way to know.

There are many kinds of buyers in the demon market, including ordinary people, dignitaries, Taoist priests, and antique dealers, some of whom go to the demon market for those valuable antiques, and some for those mysterious magic weapons. But as for what your motives are, you won't ask too much, and getting the money is the right thing to do.

Although we are in a small county in the Northeast, there are a lot of strange things in the Northeast, and there are many strange things, whether it is a demon or a ghost, the number of such things that I have heard can't be pinched by my fingers, but who can know whether it's true or not? But what can be packed is that in this place in the Northeast, there are many demons, and there are also many demon mounds, and our small county is surrounded by dense forests, and not many people have been there, which happens to be a blessed land for monsters to breed. As early as the Qing Dynasty, there were a lot of demon thieves who often came and went to our place, and as time went by, the demon thieves began to trade in one place in a fixed manner, and slowly, this place evolved into a demon market.

Our demon market here is underground, and I heard that it is located in an abandoned ancient city in the Song Dynasty. It's actually a good place, hidden enough that ordinary people can't easily notice. Because since the beginning of the Republic of China, the government's awareness of cultural relics has begun to become heavy. In the era of the feudal monarchy, China's treasures were not less scraped away by those foreigners, and then resold to Chinese merchants at sky-high prices, this behavior was obviously to be spurned, so the government at that time increased the supervision of the sale of cultural relics, so many tomb robbers were dragged to squat, and some were shot. The essence of the demon robber is actually similar to that of the tomb robber, and there are a lot of antiques in the things you stole from the demon mound, so if the police catch you, what can you justify, saying that this is something I got my hands on after fighting the monster to the death? When the time comes, let alone imprisonment, it is estimated that he will be closed in a psychiatric hospital for several years after he finishes in prison. Because no one will believe it, at that time, when it comes to ghosts, there are still people who believe it, and what people say about demons? Heh, most of them will only be foolish when you're pretending to be crazy.

When I went to Demon City, my grandmother didn't go with me, she only wrote the address on paper with a pen for me, and I left the rest to deal with alone. The address on the paper did not mention the word "demon city", but only pointed to a Maitreya temple outside the village.

To be honest, growing up so big, I haven't been out of the village much, and I followed my grandmother to the county seat during the Spring Festival, because when I was a child, my grandmother was often not at home, so I told the neighbors to look at me, so I stayed in the village on weekdays, and other children went to the mountains to pick fruits or go to the next village to watch a play, I was not allowed to follow. Until I was a teenager, I didn't have this precept, but maybe I got used to it and didn't bother to go out for a walk.

The Maitreya Buddha Temple is about a kilometer away from our village, next to the next village, there are still a lot of people who come to worship, I just saw its outline, I saw a few incense, wisps of it, it looks ethereal; I also heard the sound of the monks chanting, mixed with the sound of beating wooden fish, which was very crisp and not noisy at all.

I stepped over the threshold of the temple gate and looked at the place with some curiosity. I saw people coming and going with incense in hand, kneeling reverently on the cattails in front of the shrine and worshipping the smiling Maitreya Buddha statue in front of them. At this time, an old monk holding a rosary came towards me, his beard was already white, and the folds on his face were also stripe, he looked at me with a smile and said unhurriedly: "This donor, is he burning incense and worshipping the Buddha?" Or do you ask for a lot? ”

I also looked up at him, but my eyes couldn't help but look around, and then my eyes returned to him again, and after looking at him for two or three seconds, I finally said, "Neither." ”

Old monk: "Then what did the donor do you want to do this time?" ”

I didn't speak, but silently rolled up my sleeve, revealing the red demon-avoidance rope tied around my left wrist. Grandma told me that the demon avoidance rope is a common magic weapon for demon thieves, and its production process is more complicated, and only insiders know how to make it, so this thing is often used as a symbol of demon thieves. In fact, I have long seen that the Maitreya Buddha Temple here is just a cover for the eyes, and the old monk is actually the guide of the demon city.

When the old monk saw the red rope in my hand, he had a smile on his face that looked very subtle. He turned around, "Come with me." ”

I looked at the old monk's back, frowned, and then followed.

The old monk took me to the backyard, where there was no one there, and there were two wings on the left and right sides of the courtyard, and there were two monks in each room, and they were all meditating, but I could feel that part of their attention was focused on the backyard - it was clear that these four people were guarding the backyard door.

The backyard is very clean and tidy, and there are only two things to see in it, a banyan tree, and a well under the tree.

The old monk walked under the huge banyan tree, which seemed to have existed for hundreds of years. Many branches stretched out from the canopy, and many whiskers hung down from the branches, which were deeply rooted in the ground, and as far as the eye could see, there was a dense green oil, and it also exuded a refreshing fragrance.

The old monk walked to the well under the tree, gently removed the wooden lid from it, and motioned for me to look. I leaned over and looked inside, and it turned out to be a dry well. This dry well is not very deep, about six or seven meters high, and there is a row of iron ladders on the wall of the well, leading to the bottom of the well.

"Please." The old monk took a burning kerosene lamp from somewhere, handed it to me, and gestured at me, still with an incomprehensible smile on his face.

I glanced at him warily, a little hesitant. I was very sure that this old guy didn't look evil, and it was definitely not a fuel-efficient lamp, but my grandmother dared to rest assured that I would do it alone, so naturally it shouldn't be much of a problem, not to mention that I had to learn to try many things when I first entered this industry. So I thought about it for a while, but I got past the lights and prepared to go down the well.

I put my feet on the iron stairs, and with both hands I held on to the poles on both sides, and carefully climbed down. By the light, I could see that there was a lot of dust on the stairs, and it was not difficult to see that there were more people going down to this place, which should be the demon market that my grandmother said.

In fact, this well does not feel very deep from the ground, but when you really stand on the stairs on the wall of the well, and look down at the bottom of the well, you feel that it is bottomless, even if it is illuminated by kerosene lamps, it is still like a black bottomless pit. At the same time, I felt a chill in my heel, as if someone was constantly exhaling there, and the goosebumps were kicking.

I moved cautiously, not daring to slack off. After about a minute or two, my feet finally landed on the bottom of the well.

When I arrived at the bottom of the well, I found that the whole bottom of the well was not closed, but there was a connected aisle, the aisle was artificially polished, and the four sides of the aisle were covered with granite, which was very shiny, and when the light of the kerosene lamp shone on it, the whole aisle became a little transparent and bright.

I began to walk along this aisle, and the sound of clattering footsteps resounded and reverberated in this aisle, like the sound of a leather waist drum beating, very muffled, so that the nerves could never relax. At the same time, I suddenly heard the sound of bubbling water in my ears, which was faint at first, but grew louder and louder as I got closer to the end of the aisle.

The aisle wasn't as long as I thought it would be, and it didn't take long for me to reach the exit. Outside the aisle was a vast cave, and the first thing I saw was a wide, boundless underground river in the cave. The underground river, as the name suggests, is a river that flows underground, which is usually called a dark river. Unlike anything I'd seen before, the river was muddy, inky black, and looked eerie and terrifying. What makes me feel strange is that although I can hear the sound of the water in my ears, there is no sign of the river flowing on the surface of the water, and even the waves are rare, and it is eerily quiet.

I walked in and looked at the scene in front of me, and a tingling feeling arose in my heart, this long, boundless, and turbid underground river seemed to be the same as the demon market I was going to, as blurry, as impossible to see.

At this time, I noticed a wooden pole standing beside me, and a large rusty copper bell was tied to the wooden pole with a red rope, which seemed a little abrupt in this cold view. Somewhat shy, I couldn't help but shake the bell.

Bang Bang Bang!

A hollow but pleasant jingle rang in the cavern.

It was then that I suddenly noticed that there were circles of ripples on the surface of the river, and more and more, as if commanded by something, to converge towards the waters beneath my feet. At the same time, I heard the sound of paddling.

I looked up.

In the distance, a wooden boat sailed on the edge, and on board stood a boatman with a hat covering his face, his thin arm sticking out of his bones sliding vigorously over the long bamboo pole in his hand.

The ship docked.

A hoarse voice sounded as if it was about to die at any moment:

"Guest officer, do you want to cross the river to the demon market?"