When the train arrived at the station, it was almost night, the radio sounded, Tang Kao wiped the saliva on his face, opened his eyes and was stunned for a few seconds, Jiang Xun took our luggage from the empty shelf one step earlier, and threw a bag on Tang Kao's stomach, ushering in a strange scream. After listening to Tang Jiao's scolding, the carriage was already blocked.

We got out of the car in a half-lined line at the back, and Jiang Xun stood beside me, separating me from Ziwei.

I looked at him in disgust, and he was relieved and ignored me.

The repulsion that was relieved along the way was squeezed for a while, and then it was faintly attacked, and it was easy to land on both feet, and I heard Tang Jiao scolding: "Which one who killed a thousand knives stole my wallet!" ”

His shout attracted the attention of many pedestrians, and the three of us looked at it together, and the backpack in Tang Jiao's arms was opened from the front, and the original things were replaced with compacted plastic bags.

"The food expenses for the two of us along the way, I sold a bracelet in exchange for it before I went out." Tang Jiao looked at Jiang Xun without tears and pulled out his pocket, "There are only twenty yuan left." ”

Jiang Xun's eyes slowly moved away from Tang Jiao, and landed on Ziwei, who was checking our things, I coughed lightly, he smiled and said nothing.

I bought a map of the area, and it's strange that it's a name I've never heard of, even though it's in the right direction. I didn't find the sign of Muzhang County on it, and the range was a little larger, and there was no nearby, so I had to ask for the road to Muzhang County without separating from me.

But when we mentioned that place, the local residents said that they had never heard of it, and Ziwei and I looked at each other and couldn't figure out what was going on. Walking along the road, someone pointed me the way, and if it was a long time, Grandma Wang might know.

We thanked him and knocked on the door of Grandma's house, and there were several dog barks inside, but no one answered.

The door was unlocked, and a crack opened without a gentle push, and there were only four walls inside, except for an old man sitting on a creaking rocking chair basking in the sun.

"Grandma-" Ziwei looked at me, her voice was very soft, and she slowly walked to her and squatted down, "Grandma Wang, we are passing travelers, and there is something I want to ask you." ”

Grandma Wang stared at the sun with her eyes open, the rocking chair creaked, her eyes covered with yellow spots remained motionless, her pupils were nailed inside, and she maintained a dead silence without a look.

"Excuse me, do you know how to get to Muzhang County?"

As soon as Ziwei's words fell, Grandma Wang suddenly twisted her head in convulsions as if she had been shocked, every piece of skin and flesh in her body was trembling violently, and her hands stretched out to Ziwei.

Ziwei immediately stood up and retreated to my side, Grandma Wang's mouth opened to the maximum, the wrinkles at the corners of her mouth were propped up, and the voice seemed to be squeezed out of the throat, and it seemed to come out of the chest, blocking a mouthful of phlegm, muddy.

She struggled to hunch her back from the recliner, her legs sack-like, shaking off a lot of dust. As soon as his body moved, he almost fell down, put one hand on his sparse hair, touched it, and a few gray hairs fell again.

I left my son behind me and stepped back to the threshold.

Grandma Wang's facial features were twisted in extreme pain, as if she wanted to speak, a sharp breath erupted from her throat, her vocal cords were smoothed, and her eyes looked at us for two or three minutes before she uttered the first syllable, "Go-go-"

In between her movements, I could faintly see a small spot on the side of her head, which looked like a scar.

Before he could take a closer look, another voice sounded from behind him, "Who are you!" ”

I turned around, and before I was about to explain, I took his hand, bowed my head slightly, and said to the old man with a defensive face, "Sorry, we went the wrong way." ”

The old man outside the door wrinkled his brows, "My wife is not in good health, what do you say when you enter someone's house without consent, get out quickly!" ”

I looked at them quietly, and before I had stepped out of the threshold, the old man immediately locked the door nervously, and excluded us.

"That grandma doesn't seem to be in good spirits."

I snorted, "Let's go back first, there's always another way." ”

The trip was fruitless, so we sat for a while in a few places where the locals gathered, and picked out the old people to chat and get closer, and I asked them, "Is the oldest of us here Grandma Wang?" Are there anyone of a similar age to her? ”

"That's not easy to find, she's almost ninety-five years old, and no one has lived longer than her."

"Doesn't she have any friends?"

"She's all like that, where did she come from? It's long gone, you see that the man is more than a dozen years younger than her, just waiting to send her a funeral. ”

I was silent, Ziwei continued to greet them, and found a suitable excuse to get out.

When he returned to the vicinity of the hostel, Tang Jiao was sulking at the food stall, and he had not paid the money, so he smiled and picked up a pancake that he liked, folded the dishes inside, and ate it in a big gulp.

"What about Jiang Xun?" I asked.

"Hmmmm......" Tang Jiao was full of inarticulate speech, turned around, and his eyes lit up, and he winked at me.

"Muzhang County is a rainforest, this kind of weather is full of miasma, no one will run there if the living person is not sick, the residents can move out long ago, and if they are clean, they will be removed from the name, for them, the place symbolizes ominous."

I turned around and saw Jiang Xun coming out of a house with a hat that the locals wore to protect themselves from the sun and rain when they were doing farm work, raising his hand to buckle the hat on his head, covering a shadow on his face, and talking about his harvest casually.

He has fine skin and tender meat, and he has a face that has not suffered much, but it blends well with the shabby hat on the top of his head, which is not ugly to look at, and it is a little interesting.

I asked, "How do you know?" ”

Jiang Xun laughed, "The map you used to look at was too old, and the map you bought now is too early, and the residents of this place who are still alive are too young." The best way to get to know Muzhang County is to read the local chronicles. ”

"Local history?"

He lifted his chin and motioned for us to look at the house he had just come out of, "That's the scrivener's house." I told him that we were folklorists who had come to study the landscape, and that we would write an article after we left, and that the remuneration and derivative benefits would be paid in full to the town, and it seemed that he would be happy to help. ”

Tang Ka scoffed at his rhetoric and gave a contradictory thumbs up.

We came to the door again under this name, and the branch secretary received us politely and warmly talked about the local folk customs. Jiang Xun responded sentence by sentence, and asked some questions decently without a match.

Ziwei and I quickly flipped through the local chronicles, and the font was a little old, and I could barely recognize it.

There are very few records about Muzhang County, only that their older generation found that the terrain was gentle and suitable for living when the older generation collectively opened up the wasteland. Some of them moved to the newly cultivated land, and soon found that the crops were growing very well, ripening twice as fast as elsewhere, and yielding more than anywhere else, so they began to move in large numbers, and each harvest was celebrated with ceremonies by a waterhole.

Compared with the eternal years, the good times did not last long, and after less than two years, some people found that the trees in Muzhang County began to grow wildly, covering half of the villages and towns in just a few days, and snakes, insects, rats and ants all came out and ran into people's homes.

The residents tried a lot of ways to ask the mage to hold a sacrificial ceremony again and again, but they couldn't solve it, and the situation got worse and worse.

An upheaval struck the towns and villages, and bandits from the mountains rushed in to kill people and steal food.

For a time, 'every family has the pain of zombies, and there is a crying mourning in the room', the corpses are full of rivers, the white bones cover the wilderness, and the people are left behind.

In desperation, the people who opened up the wasteland had no choice but to move out of Muzhang County with the surviving residents and settle thousands of miles away.

In the local chronicles, these are condensed into a few sentences, accounting for a short two lines, and finally ending with 'the people are sick', and they have not been mentioned since.

It was late when he left the secretary's house, and Tang Jia entangled with the owner of the hostel for a long time, and rented two beds for twenty yuan.

The two people who said they wanted to help us before they came became penniless in the blink of an eye.

The hardboard bed was uncomfortable, and the more Tang Jiao thought about it, the more angry he became, and while scolding the thief, he ran to the police station not far away to report the case by himself.

Early in the morning, there were only a few young people in the hostel, all of whom were backpackers who traveled in groups. A few little girls walked outside for a day, and they didn't feel tired after sleeping, and they got together and chattered non-stop.

I leaned on the railing and calculated the scale of the map to reality, trying to combine the direction of the location with the description of the place.

Just as he was thinking about it, Jiang Xun leaned over and stretched out to stand beside me, "What are you thinking?" ”

I responded: "They used to perform rituals in front of a river, and maybe they can find the old site of Muzhang County along the river. ”

He snorted, "Within a thousand miles, find a river." ”

He laughed a little mockingly, "Good idea. ”

I held my breath and tried to reason with him.

Jiang Xun changed the topic, glanced at the girls, and said to me with interest: "Girls, don't always think about these complicated things bitterly, be lively, otherwise it will look too fake." ”

“……”

"Life is too short to be happy. You do white things, and you know better than me how fragile life is. ”

"Jiang Xun." I glanced at him coldly, "We are not friends, we have no interests, we are not on the same road, the person who is entangled is you, I didn't rush to ask you to help, what I do is none of your business, you can't care." ”

Jiang Xun smiled again, "Your master didn't teach you, in front of others, temper should never be greater than ability?" ”

I stared at him, gritting my teeth.

"It's useless for you to stare at me, you can't do anything about me now." He opened a can of drink, pinched it in his hand and poured it down, his Adam's apple rolling, "I took the initiative to follow you, it doesn't mean that I am willing to be a head shorter than you, but because you owe me." Thanksgiving, Shen Qing, don't forget my reward. ”

I couldn't speak, Jiang Xun said: "You should try to relax, this road is still very long, it is not good for you to always be tight, if you can't beat it, enjoy it, and it is also the ability to have fun in suffering." When you're young, don't always keep a straight face. ”

"Talking like you're big?"

Jiang Xun shook the can in his hand and smiled meaningfully, "It's not small." ”

I didn't say anything, he said, "I'm afraid I'll scare you by saying it." ”

He leaned closer, his chin almost slipping past my ear, and I took a step back, and was about to speak, when Tang Jiao broke down the door downstairs, and shouted at us with a calm face, "Come on!" Something happened! ”

I hurriedly called Shang Ziwei, and the three of them hurried downstairs, Tang Jiao ran out of breath and said, "That old Wang mother-in-law...... She...... She's dead! ”