Chapter Twenty-Four: Prosperous to the extreme, decayed to desolate
"Wild Wandering, Avoiding the Living~"
"Boom! - Knock! Boom! โ
A piercing, dry and shrill sound accompanied by a dull cowhide drum sounded from far and near.
Xu Anchuan suddenly woke up in the middle of the night and looked away. The bluestone plaque has a strange power, which makes people unconsciously lose their minds and stay away from the alley step by step.
With his eyes wide open for no reason, Xu Anchuan stared vigilantly at the foggy dark alley, the dotted orange lights like the treacherous beast eyes of man-loving beasts, warning Xiaobai not to enter the territory.
Xu Anchuan clenched the business card in his hand, the coolness of the late night moistened the embossed black jade, and the slightest chill penetrated into his palm. After a short hesitation, he moved forward resolutely.
The fog was hazy, the blue brick laneways were slightly moist, and the chaotic footsteps lingered through the dead night. It was like sliding slowly down an endless black tunnel, and the lonely teenager walked down the long alley.
The heartbeat was faster than a beat, Xu Anchuan walked heavily, and walked forward by the light of the lanterns with intermittent light and darkness on the left and right. The fine droplets of water on the forehead slipped quietly, and I don't know if it was fog or cold sweat.
"Two-three-nine-seven, two-three-nine-eight."
Counting the green bricks on the bottom of my heart, my restless heart slowly calmed down. I don't know where the end is, Xu Anchuan just glanced at the dilapidated hut with grass and dust on the left.
This is a small earthen house that can be found in the countryside today. In the corner of the house hangs a half-shaped white paper lantern with a hole that is faintly visible, and dead leaves and dust accumulate in it. The night breeze blows, the green grass that crawls all over the hut undulates and waves, and the dew on the green leaves sparkles in the moonlight.
Half of the wooden door creaked and crumbled, and there was endless darkness in the non-existent portal. Through the deep dust, most of the text on the dark yellow wooden plaque hanging diagonally on the door can be faintly seen.
[*Suspicious Hexagram Taoyuan No. 11]
"Taoyuan No. 11, Taoyuan No. 37."
Xu Anchuan continued to move forward, and he already had a rough guess in his heart.
I don't know when I walked, but I looked up and the lights were bright.
On the right side of the laneway is the ancient house with pink walls and tiles, carved beams and painted buildings, and the eye is the exquisite gatehouse with the inscription of "dyed horizontally" brick carving. The colored glazed tiles reflect the bright moonlight, and the ink-colored glazed kissed beast stands quietly on the roof; Under the eaves hang two warm and bright red lanterns.
Above the Zhu door is a horizontal plaque of Nanmu, and the pattern of the blue grass is a large splash of ink with an iron painting and a silver hook.
ใHeaven and Earth Painting Paradise No. 9ใ
"Taoyuan Nine?"
Xu Anchuan was suspicious, if his memory was not wrong, he had already passed by Taoyuan No. 11 just now. Why did you get to the ninth again?
Looking at the endless bluestone path in the mist, Xu Anchuan sighed at the bizarre and strange nature of the world, put away some dark and weird thoughts that diverged in his heart, and continued to move forward.
Footsteps sounded, a bright yellow robe swayed in the wind on the brightly lit ancient house, and a man with a clear and beautiful bone appeared on the roof of the Taoyuan No. 9 ancient mansion with the smell of wine. Raising his hand in the white jade wine jug, he cleared his mouth and raised his eyebrows to look down casually.
"Heh, the little thing is not shallow, you can see the two shops in this paradise."
"You can actually have a relationship with me at the same time, Hiccup~ and the old guy who is about to enter the ground."
"I don't know where that old guy went to swagger and deceive, and he was happy to burp~"
"The streamer is fleeting and fast, and the shop on the eleventh doesn't know if this old thing soaked in wine can still be saved. After all, Taoyuan has been a ruthless character again. โ
"I'm afraid I'm unwilling to go down, hiccup~"
"Three strokes of turbid wine in a glass, you can see that it is fate, and you don't have a share. Interesting little things, there is no fate, but we will also leave you a place to burp ~"
"One more pot! There really is! Du Kangjun, an old product with no products, can be regarded as an unprecedented, a little apprentice with a good conscience this time. Shop 10 has a good future. โ
"Hey, hey."
Drink all the pots and peek at the bottom of the pot in the moonlight. The man laughed heartily and stretched his arms contentedly in the wind.
"Well, it's over!"
The man looked at the graceful arc in his hand, and raised his eyebrows at the broken white jade.
"Mine another pot! Ahh The old guy who didn't have a good product was really scheming, and the apprentices he collected were treacherous and slippery, and he used a small prize to mess with my mind, broke the spiritual essence pot, and compensated him for his underwear! โ
......
The fog was getting thicker, the green bricks were slippery, Xu Anchuan's heart became more and more depressed, and his breathing became shorter. The deep alleyway is like a silent beast that chooses people to devour, engulfing Xu Anchuan who is gradually entering the forbidden land little by little.
"Whew~Whew~"
Taking a big breath of the damp and cold air, leaning against the slippery bluestone alley wall, in order to torture the answer in his heart, and out of fear and confusion of the strange world in the mirror, Xu Anchuan gritted his teeth and continued to move forward.
"Wild Wandering, Avoiding the Living~"
"Knock-knock! Boom! Boom. โ
It was the sharp and dry sound again, with the dull drum beat getting closer and closer, and it seemed that the next moment was around!
Xu Anchuan felt a little fear in his heart inexplicably, his left hand was stuck to the alley wall, his fingers unconsciously clasped into the wet moss on the wall, and the soil sank into his fingers, faintly stinging.
In the heavy mist, the drum sound quietly disappeared, and Xu Anchuan breathed a sigh of relief and let go of the moss in his hand.
However, a miserable white glimmer suddenly appeared in Xu Anchuan's eyes, and in the hazy vision, a huge figure slowly came from the depths of the darkness, and the black blurred figure was getting closer and closer.
The clenched moss oozes a bitter muddy slurry, and the mud mixed with debris invades the fingers, stinging and sober. Xu Anchuan still met that "person" head-on.
The black cloth wrapped around his eyes, and even though he was hunched up, his terrifying height was still at least two and a half meters. A layer of old skin covered the huge skeleton, and the shabby but clean pieces of yellow linen barely wrapped around his body.
The huge left hand carefully pinched a small white paper lantern, which lit up with a little white light. The little lantern of the Lantern Festival children's style was so inconsistent and strange in his hands.
In his right hand, he held an equally small "child" cowhide drum, the vermilion lacquer surface of the drum body had been mottled, and the large pieces of red paint had fallen off, leaving the black and yellow drum body inside. The drum ring is tied with a small wooden drum hammer with a red string. Like a child plucking a rattle, he carefully shakes the snare drum, and the hammer hits the drum surface with a dull sound. Although the voice is small, it has an inexplicable power to spread the lanes and inexplicably depress people's hearts.
He carried a huge pitch-black wooden coffin on his back. Dragging the scrawny rickety body step by step, he came towards Xu Anchuan, or just simply the same road. The two were getting closer and closer, and Xu Anchuan suppressed his breathing, trying to reduce his presence.
He came after all, but he left without seeing it, and he didn't seem to see Xu Anchuan beside him, or maybe he didn't care.
For some reason, Xu Anchuan glanced back at the black coffin carried by the "person". Nine dark red coffin nails nailed the black coffin coffin with the momentum of the Big Dipper, and the closed black coffin exuded an invisible dead air, and it seemed that thousands of strange eyes were closed on the coffin. There seemed to be a desolate sigh, and Xu Anchuan turned his head and continued to move forward.
The alley became more and more spacious, and the invisible force drove Xu Anchuan, who was leaning against the wall, to walk on the black brick road in the middle, and the heavier and heavier fog shrouded him, and his vision was limited to less than half a meter in front of him.
The feeling of depression in the heart became heavier and heavier, and each step forward was like pushing the partition against the mud on the ground, pushing the partition from the downstream against the water rushing downstream.
Xu Anchuan wanted to leave after all, Taoyuan No. 37, what a distant place.
He pursues an answer in order to save his uncertain life, but if the price of pursuing the answer is to pay for his life first, then he would rather choose an unknown future with little possibility.
At the very least, it is possible to be alive when you enter the strange world of the Red Moon. But if we continue to pursue the peach source in this strange world, the huge oppression like a landslide and tsunami will surely tear apart the beating heart and die.
A raised hard unknown object stopped Xu Anchuan's steps, and the fog under his body became thicker and thicker, and the water vapor damp his whole body.
Xu Anchuan breathed heavily, like a drowning man who had climbed ashore, his face was as pale as paper, and his vision was blurred. He leaned down with difficulty to look at the stumbling block that stood in his way.
A huge and heavy inky black stone plaque was shattered right in front of him, and countless slashing and sword slashing marks were crisscrossing it, and each deep crack was faintly revealing a piercing sharp edge!
The broken stone plaque barely pieced together nine inscriptions into the stone, each of which has a thousand strokes, and there is a faint sword spirit!
ใSeeking defeat Feng Taoyuan No. 23ใ
"Seeking defeat, isn't it the sword demon Dugu? The plaques have been broken, and you are still seeking defeat? โ
Looking at the stone plaque that was shattered, and looking at the word "ask" that had been pierced through a hole, Xu Anchuan laughed in his heart.
"Twenty-three, heh, twenty-three."
Clenching the increasingly cold black jade business card in his hand, looking at the strange darkness of the mist, feeling the terrifying oppression like falling into the deep sea engulfing everything, Xu Anchuan's thoughts of continuing to move forward became more and more faint.
Picking up a black stone from the broken plaque on the ground, Xu Anchuan threw it with all his strength and threw it into the unknown and deep darkness ahead.
After not hearing the sound of landing for a long time, Xu Anchuan raised his arm with a wry smile, and wiped the sweat that blurred his eyes with his already wet sleeves.
Xu Anchuan stretched out his hand to wipe the uncomfortable wet hair on his forehead to the top of his head, waved his hand to spill the sweat of his hand, put his hands on his knees with difficulty, and got up little by little.
"I'm back, I'm not going to continue."
His heart was inexplicably empty, but the terrifying oppression forcibly stopped Xu Anchuan from continuing.
Let's go home, that's all.
Xu Anchuan turned around silently, followed the way he came, and embarked on the way home little by little.
Prosperous to the extreme, decayed to desolate.
Negative coffin man, gravel plaque.
The weird and contradictory Taoyuan Hutong, it seems that this stable world is also unfathomable with the same undercurrent. Xu Anchuan thought about what he had seen and heard along the way, and secretly sighed in his heart.
The footsteps grew louder and more chaotic.
Xu Anchuan stopped, and his footsteps were still the same in the dead alley. Like a crazy drumbeat, beating on Xu Anchuan's heart little by little.
He realized a terrible fact.
It's not that his footsteps are getting louder and louder, but that something else is coming from an unknown meaning and getting closer!
Hopefully, he's just passing by.
"Corpse brother!"
In the dead darkness came the affectionate call of a woman's temptation.
Bro?
Xu Anchuan's heart jumped, and a bone-chilling cold wind blew impartially on him standing against the wall, with a faint refreshing and slightly sweet aroma of citrus in the wind.
Well, it should be okay to call it so kindly, I should have recognized the wrong person.
"Don't hide, corpse brother."
"Your coffin is going to be slid or flipped."
"Giggle~"