Five hundred miles south of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, four hundred miles southwest of Kunming City, a flock of corpse crows covers the sky and the sun, circling the mountains within a radius of thirty or forty miles, turning in circles without knowing the slightest stop.

Among the mountains that the crows surround, three stand out.

Just north one, the mountain shape resembles a tiger, stands in the surrounding undulating hillside, the mountain is a hundred zhang high, the whole mountain is green and black, there is no grass and trees, it seems to be a black tiger, it is the puppet tiger mountain.

Flying along the flock of corpse crows, more than 20 miles southwest of Puppet Tiger Mountain, in a flat dense forest, dozens of small hillsides that are no more than ten zhang high are raised, gathered together, like a fan, it is a scorpion wolf mountain, and the blood-red big stones are full of weeds. The slopes of the hill are low, but they are also quite steep, like wild wolves, and like young scorpions that have just crawled out of the belly of the female scorpion.

Twenty or thirty miles east of the Scorpion Wolf Mountain, the Rat Painting Mountain is like a mouse crouching on the ground, the middle of the rat's back seems to have a big sore, the depression is like a lake, there are countless animal remains in it, and the dark red flesh and blood are mixed with the bleak white bones that are mixed with the chaos, which is very hideous. The mountain seeps out and the Dao Yin red converges at the sharp rat's mouth along the cracks of the mountain rocks, and flows into a small lake, and the black and blood-red tumbles from the bottom of the lake, and the mosquitoes are dense, and the stench is stinking.

Some of the corpse crows that flew around the three mountains seemed to be tired, quacked, left the large flock, plunged into the foul-smelling blood lake at the foot of the mountain, drank in the water for a while, flapped their wings, raised gusts of blood, rose to the sky, and merged into the flying corpse crow flock.

At the edge of the big hole full of corpses on the back of the Rat Painted Mountain, stood a group of half-grown children, all with dull eyes and short knives in their hands, and a slightly stronger child took a screaming goat from behind him from among the beasts that were tied up one by one, stabbed it through it, and threw it directly into the cave despite its struggle and screams.

The goat smashed on the animal carcass that was tumbling in the blood water, and just bleated twice, and the blood water in a three-foot radius under his body seemed to boil, and a blood-red corpse crow two or three inches long was drilled, and the wings were not yet full, and the little corpse crow rushed up, biting and clawing at the goat, and in an instant, the goat was covered with scratches and holes, slipped out gurgling blood, and died immediately.

The half-grown children did not stop, even though their bodies were sprayed with blood, they did not hesitate at all, and one by one the little rabbits, big wild boars, wild horses, and wild asses were thrown into the pit.

Looking at the corpse crows crawling on the animal corpses in the blood pit, the sturdy child wiped the short knife dripping with blood in his hand on his arm, and said to a dozen children behind him,

"Let's go, go back to the mountain. ”

The small lake at the foot of the Rat Painting Mountain, which was originally a clear spring gushing from the ground and raised generations of heroes in southern Xinjiang, is now infected by this muddy and dirty blood, and it is already like a stinky ditch.

A group of people went down to the small lake, followed closely behind the sturdy child, a child who was only eight or nine years old, should have sprayed a lot of blood on his body, and regardless of the clumps of dirty blood in the lake, he bent down and was about to wash his hands, the sturdy child reached out and pulled him up, glared at him viciously, and turned to the two black-clothed men who were wearing short knives at their waists and carrying long whips in their hands by the lake, and said indifferently,

"Thirty, this time the task is accomplished. ”

Without waiting for a response, as if there would be no response, the stout boy led a group of people along the blood gushing from the lake into the dense forest.

The two black-clothed men guarding the Rat Painted Mountain stared at the children in the distance, glanced at each other, and saw a trace of sadness in each other's eyes, and they also came over like this.

Boys between the ages of eight and nine to thirteen or fourteen, who should have run unscrupulously among the green mountains with a smart face, have now become demented butchers, killing pigs and sheep with short knives in their hands, and there is no hesitation when they let out blood.

A group of children walked along the sewage, through the low hillsides, and met several groups of people in black on the way, but they only nodded stiffly, without half a conversation.

After walking four or five miles along the low mountain road, the spring water that came from the bottom of the Rat Painted Mountain at my feet gradually lost its bloody smell and became clear, reflecting the sun, shining with fine scales, and there were even small fish swimming in it.

Passing through a low hillside, the spring water joined a pool at the foot of the hill, and the water was clear, and the stout boy went to the water's edge, where a dozen barrels were placed, and he thought he had prepared them.

As if they were afraid that their own blood stains would pollute the clear water of the pool, this group of children walked to a distance with a bucket of clean water, stripped off their clothes and carefully washed their bodies, and then pressed their clothes into the bucket, carefully washed off the bloodstains, wrung out the blood, and put them directly on their bodies without waiting to dry. In the end, he used the already muddy blood in the bucket to casually rinse the blood stains on the short knife, and then hung it on his waist.

The warm sun shone through the thin luck and shone on them, and there was no blood stains on their bodies, and this group of children seemed to have a little fresh breath, and the childishness that should have belonged to them was revealed.

"Brother Huzi, do you say that there are really sugar gourds in the big city outside the mountain?"

Only eight or nine years old, the child who had just tried to wash his hands in the blood, was now looking up with his face up, his throat rolling, extremely greedy, and asked the strong child next to him.

The sturdy child, named Huzi, was the leader of this group of children, and there were many groups of children like this, each of which could go out for ten days a month, and hunt thirty prey, which they would throw into the blood pit of the Rat Painted Mountain, which would be used to hatch the crows. When you grow up, it's not these beasts that you're hunting, but youkai who have opened their minds.

This time, they lurked in the chaotic mountains for ten days, drank blood, but fortunately they were not injured, and they also completed this task without having to be whipped. Now, you can go home, and in front of you is home.

After this mountain, there is no mountain, and there is no grass. Looking up, the Qingbai mountain stone seems to have been chopped into pieces by a knife and axe, paved into a flat and wide square, and there is no end in sight.

Here is the altar of the ancient southern Xinjiang, a radius of more than ten miles, each piece of bluestone is the Wu Gu people one by one grinding and piling up, surrounded by the Yin Mountain of Longling in the middle, the legend is that two giant dragons hovered and twisted to the ground, turned into a steep mountain, the mountain stone is blue and red, open teeth and claws, want to rush to the sky, return to the nine heavens.

It's a pity that eighty years ago, there was a big battle between the two immortals, and the Yin Mountain of Longling, which was the altar of witch Gu, was also like a thousand-year-old slave who pressed down on the already crumbling and incomplete backbone spirit of the people in southern Xinjiang, and shattered into slag.

Thousand-year-old slaves, eighty-year-old pigs and dogs are not as good, sugar gourds, don't even think about it!

Huzi stared coldly at the child who looked up at him,

"Nope. ”

Ignoring the group of longing children around him, his face suddenly became sluggish, and Huzi walked towards the center of the flat square with a cold face, which was both the altar of Southern Xinjiang and the home of the captivity.

Huzi was currently walking, and the group of children were lost for a while, and chased after them silently. A group of people walked straight seven or eight miles along the flat bluestone until they came to a ruin.

Originally, the Yin Mountain gravel scattered on the bluestone slab road, it is said that it was waved by the immortal who had the power to reach the sky, and it rolled down to the surrounding mountains and forests, here, only the ruins of the altar more than one zhang high remained, occupying a radius of one mile, the cold and hard mountain stones were truncated alive, the left green and the right red, like the Tai Chi Yin and Yang diagram, separated in half.

As soon as the group of children approached the altar of Yinshan Mountain, several figures suddenly flashed out of the ruins, with a two-foot short knife hanging from their waists, and the black handle was covered with spikes, and shouted in a low voice to Huzi,

"Don't die, hurry back!"

was also caught up in the anger of the sugar gourd, all the way towards the altar, Huzi heard the low drink, only then came back to his senses, tightly held the hilt of the knife on his waist, stared at the handle of the waist of several people opposite, snorted coldly, turned around and walked towards the big hole next to the ruins of the altar.

The big pit is like a basin, more than ten zhang deep, tightly clinging to the ruins of Longling Yin Mountain, Peng Xinglai, who was entrenched in southern Xinjiang back then, led his men to fight a big battle with the invading Xianzong Hanmen Daihanyu, and Longling Yin Mountain collapsed inch by inch. In order to continue Penglai Immortal Sect, Peng Xinglai did not hesitate to urge the big array, and blew up a big hole at the foot of this Yin Mountain, taking advantage of the messy scene, escaped from Ascension with a ball of cold dragon blood, and left the southern Xinjiang far away, hiding in Jinling City.

Seeing that the inheritance of Penglai Immortal Sect has been scattered, and it is difficult to become a climate again, the previous generations of Hanyu did not bother to pursue it anymore, taking advantage of the chaos in the world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, governing southern Xinjiang with iron and blood, catching mountain gods, and imprisoning the witch Gu people in southern Xinjiang in this big hole, messing with their own great cause of ascending immortals.

Walking to the edge of the pit, a path with iron railings on both sides revealed, like a prison, leading to the bottom of the basin.

A group of people went all the way down, and the mountain wall was filled with half-man-high holes, which were pitch black and gloomy, and the dark iron door stopped in front of the cave, and there were large bronze locks hanging on them, mottled with yellow-green patina.

Walking in this beehive-like pit, the group of children walked silently along the stone path enclosed by iron railings, and turned into a large iron cage between the mountain walls, where two men in black guarded the door, and two men in black guarded the open iron gate on the other side.

Reaching out and untying the short knife at his waist and placing it on the edge of the iron cage, Huzi raised his hands above his head, and a man in black stepped forward, groped around on him, and did not find any small gold and iron things hidden, nodded, and reached out to pat Huzi's head. Turning his head to avoid the hand stretched out by the man in black, Huzi pulled his face and walked out through the iron door on the other side of the iron cage.

Standing at the bottom of the big pit, Huzi looked up at the dim sky, and the sunlight shining from the sun hanging in the sky seemed to be swallowed by this big pit, and the pit was dark and desolate.

Directly in front of it, it was the mountain root of Longling Yin Mountain, which was blown out by an explosion at that time, but it looked extremely hard, half blue and black, half blood red, and the deepest part of the mountain root, revealing a dark hole, like a poisonous snake with a mouth, and was trying to choose people and love it.

On the right side of the entrance to the cave, a large cave was carried, which was reinforced layer by layer by dense fine iron railings, locking up monsters with messy breaths and low figures. I heard that in the past, they were supposed to be the mountain gods of southern Xinjiang, and they should worship them, and they should also protect themselves. But looking at them lying in the cave like this, even they themselves are prisoners of the stairs, how can they be protected?

Are you afraid of the cruel immortals, and the black hole that you can't get out of? Or are you just afraid of the leopard walking at the entrance of the cave?

A one-zhang long leopard, with golden hair all over its body, and the copper coin markings should have been as black as ink, but this leopard was indeed silver-white, and even the eyes of the two leopards were shining with silver-white light. There is no iron chain, and there is no man in black to watch, since he was born, he has seen it wandering at the entrance of the cave, and heard that his master is a native of southern Xinjiang and a traitor!

Removing the angry fire-breathing gaze from the leopard, the tiger looked at a slightly smaller cave on the left side of the cave entrance, which was also caged by steel, and sat a scholar in a blue and gray shirt, looking at his age, he was older than his father, but I don't know, why was he locked here? Could it be that when he was forty years old, he would also be killed?

There was a sound of urging behind him, Huzi came back to his senses, went up the steep mountain road on the side of the mountain wall, walked to a hole halfway up the mountain, and shouted softly,

"Mother, I'm back. ”

The sound of the iron chain rattling came from the small hole, and after a while, in the iron railing at the entrance of the cave, stretched out a white cold arm, dry and thin, you can see the green tendons under the skin at a glance, holding a two-inch long iron piece in your hand, trembling to open the copper lock, I don't know whether you are hungry or sick, the iron piece trembles, you can't find the lock cylinder, only hit the copper lock clanging sound.

Stretched out his hand to take the key, gently opened the copper lock, opened the small door, got into the hole, turned around with difficulty, closed the iron door and closed the copper lock, and was about to hand the key to his mother, when the crisp laughter came from behind him.

A little girl of two or three years old, also with pale skin, a dry and thin body wrapped only in tattered linen, and only two big eyes that were incompatible with this cage. I hadn't seen my brother for a few days, so I rushed to the door, hugged him, and shouted with joy in my mouth.

With a rare smile, Huzi gently held his sister in his arms, sat cross-legged in front of the iron gate, and looked at the cave at the bottom of Yinshan Mountain opposite while shaking her gently.

For a long time, the little girl in her arms fell asleep with the key piece in her hand, which was the only toy she had.

Huzi didn't look back, and asked softly at the iron bar in front of him,

"Mother?"

"Huh?"

In the dark cave, there was a low response, locked in this cave for more than thirty years, the spirit was weak, and the voice of the woman in the cave was so low that it was almost impossible to hear.

Huzi's brows trembled slightly, his eyes flickered for a moment, and he still asked in a low voice,

"Mother, do you want to eat rock sugar gourd?"

In the small cave, there was a sudden silence, Huzi regretted it in his heart, since he was more than seven years old, he could still walk outside the cage for a few days every month, but his mother was like other women, the iron chain was wrapped around her waist, and she was tightly locked in this cave, she had never seen the light of day, and the rock sugar gourd that she couldn't help but say was just reminding her, reminding us that we are all slaves.

Huzi was about to turn his head and admit his mistake, not wanting to be in the dim hole, when his mother's low laughter came,

"Yes. ”