Now that these clues have been discovered, of course we have to investigate them, even if we still can't get out in the end, it's better than sitting still.

Continue to walk along the mountain wall, now this direction should be going north, the mountain wall gradually lowered, and when she reached the back of the second row of courtyards, the mountain wall was already only one person left.

There is no road any further, there are already two rows of yards here, and it is said that there should be no one left.

The old lady said that there are two rows of families in the village, so what is going on with this family? The building is staggered by dozens of meters from the second row, not to mention, and the road up the mountain is blocked.

That's right, it's blocking the way up the mountain, and the yard is built right at the lowest part of the mountain wall.

This yard is bigger and better than the other courtyards in the village.

In other people's houses, the walls are made of stone, and the roof is covered with thin stone slabs that are used as tiles, but the roof of this house is made of real tiles.

The walls of the courtyard were also higher, and she could not see the inside of the courtyard, only the row of roofs that rose up inside.

Qian Yan guessed that this family was likely to be the family of the patriarch and village head, and his family was the most prosperous and the best living conditions in the village.

It's just that their yard is built here, but it's a little intriguing, it's definitely not for no reason, there should be some reason, otherwise it is impossible to walk to the lowest place on the mountain wall, you can go up the mountain, and suddenly block his yard.

The two rows of courtyards in front of them are adjacent to the mountain wall, and a distance of more than ten meters is left, and his house is not only staggered in one row, but also directly blocked.

Tilt Yan stepped back, because she heard the sound of people moving in the yard, and she must have been making breakfast.

Looking left and right, on the left hand side is the side of the courtyard wall of a courtyard, behind the wall is a road, and on the side of the road is a vegetable patch.

Behind her was also a road, and further south across another vegetable patch was the back gable of a house.

If she climbs to the mountain wall, as long as the people in the courtyard of the village chief's house can't find her, people elsewhere should not be able to see her.

Qian Yan retreated a few dozen meters to the south, far away from the village chief's house, the height of the mountain wall in this place was about a head higher than her height, and it should not be too difficult to go up.

She stepped back a little, then ran up, leaning forward, stepping on a bulge with her right foot on the wall, and climbing on top of the wall with both hands at the same time.

Both hands and the right foot below exert force at the same time, and as soon as he lifted his breath, he lifted his body up.

When she reached the top of the mountain wall, she quickly squatted down and looked in the direction of the village chief's house, and sure enough, there was a young woman washing rice in the courtyard.

I don't know if she heard it in the county seat before, the only living granddaughter-in-law of the village chief's family looks like she is in her twenties.

If so, Qian Yan felt that she would be able to guess the current point in time, maybe four or five years ago.

With this in mind, she decided to go back and ask the old lady in a moment, and now she would investigate it herself.

I lowered my body and reached out to touch the grass under my feet, yes, it was grass, no different from the ordinary grass on the mountain, it was very lush, and it was normal in this season.

The trees next to it are high and low, and when I touched it, it was real.

Tilt Yan went straight between the trees and headed farther west.

She thought she would soon be able to reach a wall-like place, but she didn't, and walked for several minutes, still in the woods.

She stopped and didn't move forward, but went back the way she came.

The speed of coming back was faster, and after a while, I returned to the previous mountain wall, indicating that I should not have encountered some illusion or ghost hitting the wall just now, that is to say, if you go west, there is really a forest.

Without wasting any more time here, she went into the woods and continued south from the village below a few trees, and as long as she looked to the right, she could see the situation in the village, and she was not afraid of making a mistake.

The further south she went, the higher the mountain wall, she soon returned to the southernmost row of courtyards, and stopped at the location of the fourth courtyard from Yin Keqin's house, where she had thrown stones before.

She couldn't guarantee anything else, she heard the sound in this place, there must be a stone wall.

Sure enough, it didn't take a few steps to find a stone wall, but it was just ...... Qian Yan blinked, and looked at the "stone wall" in front of her.

Could she really be wrong? It's not a confined space, the village is real, and the mountains are real?

In front of her was a huge rock, almost four or five meters in diameter, standing here, throwing a stone from the bottom of the mountain, it could indeed be smashed here, which was really enough.

Looking down, she bent down and picked up a fist-sized stone, the same one she had thrown earlier.

She took a closer look at the shape of the stone when she picked it up, thinking that it would be easy to find it when the time came, and besides, there was still a mark on the boulder that she threw the stone, so she couldn't be wrong, she was still very confident in her strength.

It's just that in this case, the clue is broken again.

Tilting Yan walked around the boulder and walked towards the back for about fifteen minutes, it was always a forest, and there were many weeds on the ground, but she didn't encounter any animals, not even the smaller flying insects. Not to mention snakes, insects, rats and ants.

After walking for a few more minutes, she felt a little far away, and she didn't go any further.

She has been carefully observing all the way, whether it is trees, grass or stones, there are changes, so she is not going around in one place.

Feeling that the time was almost up, she sighed and walked towards the way back.

At this time, the old lady should have already cooked the meal, and she may be worried if she does not go back for a long time.

And she is already hungry, it is really inconvenient to have no ugly ugly by her side, she has nothing on her body now except two spirit stones, and there is no prey on this mountain, even if she wants to continue to explore, she has to eat enough.

When you go back, you don't need to go down from your previous position, pull a few rattans in your hand, and connect the rattans together as you walk back.

When I walked to the side of the mountain wall, I made a gesture with a rattan stick, some of which I couldn't reach, and then I walked a little west, here is much shorter than the mountain wall just south, more than three meters, and it is not impossible to jump down directly, but there are a lot of broken stones on the ground below, and it is inevitable that I will be injured.

Tie the rattan to a thigh-thick tree trunk and slide down the rattan down the stone wall.

After landing on the ground, she didn't put away the rattan, so she put it there, thinking that she could go up from here again after eating.

As for letting people see her, she is not afraid, it's just a rattan, you can see it when you see it, if someone gets it away, the most you can do is to go around there again.

When I walked back, there was a faint sound of talking in the yard on the side of the road, and it should be several families gathered around for breakfast.

Until I walked to the courtyard next door, there was a cry from inside, there were women and men, it should be the chosen boy and his mother.

In addition to the two of them, there were several men's comforting voices next to them, it should be the young man's father and brothers, after all, as I said before, it was the youngest son of the family.

Qian Yan sighed a little sympathetically and returned to the courtyard next door.

The old lady was standing at the door of the hall, looking like she was waiting for her, and when she came back, the expression on her face didn't know whether she was happy or sad, anyway, it was very complicated.

Qian Yan magically understood, the other party was happy that she didn't have an accident, and sad that she didn't find a way to leave.

Qian Yan smiled and said, "Is the eldest lady waiting for me?" I took a big turn and spent some time making my aunt wait for a long time. ”

glanced at the flat pole and bucket on the side of the water tank, and didn't see Yin Keqin, so he asked again, "Where is Brother Keqin?" Haven't come back yet? ”

The old lady shook her head and said: "He went to the yard next door, Keqin has a good relationship with the second child of the next door, Kemian, I heard that his younger brother was chosen, go over and have a look." ”

Tilt Yan nodded, I see.

The old lady frowned and glanced next door, shaking her head and sighing as she walked into the house.

Sitting at the table, he picked up the chopsticks and handed them to Qian Yan, who came in together, "Let's eat first, don't wait for him, he should be back in a while." ”

Qian Yan took the chopsticks and sat next to the old lady, and on the table were three bowls of millet porridge, as well as the cakes and a bowl of pickles pasted yesterday.

The millet porridge had just come out, and it was still a little hot, and the two of them were not in a hurry to eat it.

The old lady whispered, "Are you going to the mountains?" ”

Qian Yan looked at her and nodded, "I went up from the lowest part of the row of mountain walls behind, there is a big courtyard there, is it the village chief's house?" ”

Seeing the old lady nodding, she asked the doubts in her heart, "These two rows of houses are some distance from the mountain wall, why did the village chief set up a separate row?" It's still next to the mountain wall, is there anything that needs to be guarded by his family? ”

The old lady glanced at her and walked to the door, looked back before whispering, "What did you find?" ”

Qian Yan shook her head, "It's just that I was a little suspicious, and I didn't find anything." By the way, I saw a woman in her twenties in his yard, was it his daughter-in-law? ”

The old lady nodded and continued to whisper: "This is his family's little granddaughter-in-law, the eldest granddaughter-in-law and the second granddaughter-in-law are gone the year before last, and now there is only this woman left in their family."

Everyone guesses that the reason why the patriarch's house was built there is because the entrance to the altar is in the backyard of the patriarch's house, and everyone knows that every sacrifice is from the patriarch's backyard into the mountain.

It's just that except for the patriarch and the clan elders, no one else is eligible to participate in the sacrifice, so we don't know if it's true.

Keqin often went to the mountains to hunt, and he had gone in that direction before, because because of his father and his brother and sister, every time he went up the mountain, he would go there to look for it. I want to see what the so-called altar is like, and whether the people who were sacrificed are still alive, but I have never found out......"

Hearing this, Qian Yan couldn't help but interrupt the old lady and said, "Auntie, you said that Brother Keqin often hunts in the mountains, so does he have to walk a long distance to catch the prey?" ”

The old lady shook her head, "Not really, although it is not on the side of the mountain, the forest is dense, and there are pheasants and hares in a section of the road, and you can get some back in the morning every time, and there is still time to go to the town in the afternoon to sell, so you shouldn't have gone too far." ”

"That's weird."

"I walked for nearly a quarter of an hour after I went up the mountain before, not to mention pheasants and hares, and I didn't even see any birds, not even snakes, insects, rats and ants. ”

The old lady frowned and fell into deep thought, and only said after a while: "Listening to you say this, it seems that every time I get to these three days, no bird has flown by.

Because every time I sacrifice, I can't help but think of the three people in my family, so I don't have the energy to think about things outside, and the people in the village basically don't go out, and I really don't know what the situation is on the mountain.

Now that I think about it, something is wrong, but in the past three days, the night has been very quiet, and even the crickets have disappeared.

Now if it's winter, it's better to say, this summer has just passed, and at this time there are the most small insects on the mountain, and the night before yesterday you could still hear a few night owls or old cows, but now there is nothing. ”

Qian Yan was stunned again, she didn't care about it before, she just thought that it was late autumn when she came, and now it has become early autumn, and now she suddenly remembered that when she was in Yunling County, she heard those people say that every time Qishan Village disappeared, it should be when summer was hot.

It seems that there is a mismatch here.

Qian Yan didn't think about it herself, and asked directly: "Auntie, is the time of each sacrifice fixed?" Every time in early autumn? ”

The old lady shook her head, "Not necessarily, sometimes it is just after the summer harvest, sometimes it is just after the autumn harvest, and there are more summer harvests, when the grain has just come down, you can use the grain to go to the town to exchange some tributes and come back." ”

It's clear, that's the past, since it's more in the summer, isn't it when it's hot, and it's normal for those people to think so.

After all, the sacrifice is once every three years, who will be fine to stare at every day, and it would be good to pay attention to it once or twice.

After solving this point, the two began to talk about the problems on the mountain again, and at this time Yin Keqin also came back.

Because the two of them were chatting, they hadn't moved their chopsticks yet, and the millet porridge was just drunk now.

Yin Keqin washed his hands outside before coming in, sat down at the dinner table, and the old lady handed him the chopsticks and told him what the two of them had just said again.

Yin Keqin didn't care about eating, and also fell into deep thought, and said after more than a minute: "We actually had doubts before, Kemian and I also went to the mountain on the sacrificial day three years ago, and found that in the past three days, there was no way up the mountain on the east side of the village, and we couldn't find it.

The two of us climbed up the hill from the west side to see, and after a long distance, all the mountain goods and game were gone, and even the cave where we had hunted and rested was gone.

If it weren't for the fact that the village below the mountain was still there, and the people and yards inside hadn't changed, we would have thought we had gone to another mountain.

Because of this, we are even more afraid of the ancestor's ability, and feel that he may really have divine powers......"

(End of chapter)