After saying this, Old Man Mi helplessly coiled the walnuts, and seemed to be very upset about this, Song Siyuan continued to ask: "Old man, aren't you afraid that Ah Xi is really a mountain spirit and wild monster?" ”

"Hey." Old Man Mi waved his hand disapprovingly: "If Miss Ah Xi is really a mountain spirit, there are many evil people in the world, why don't these villagers shout and kill those wicked people, but instead criticize Ah Xi who has never done evil things, this is obviously bullying the soft and afraid of the hard, and I can't see the Zheng family's development." ”

"It is also because of this that the Mi family moved their business to the town early, and they also took root in the county, and it is difficult to feed good people in poor mountains and bad waters, and even the white-haired animals do not come, and they all move away over time.

Yue Guanchao pondered Mi Laoshu's words carefully, if the incident really happened thirty or forty years ago, it would be just the same age as Banshu, but he didn't know whether it was true or not, so it was difficult to judge the next step, he continued to ask: "Old man, then, where is the family's old mansion, does it still exist now?" ”

Old Man Mi pointed to the southwest direction: "The old house of the Zheng family has become a ruin, and there is no grass growing after the fire around it, and even the surrounding wild forests are deserted. ”

"What, you want to check it out?"

Old Man Mi's eyes became curious.

Song Siyuan understood what Yue Guanchao meant, it was inconvenient for them to fully inform the purpose, and deliberately covered it up: "Indeed, don't you say that albino animals are appearing more and more?" Does it mean that the aura of the burial village is about to be restored? That may be related to the Zheng family's old house. ”

Old Man Mi waved his hand and seemed unsure: "This?" I really didn't think about it, but since you want to see it, I'll ask Liyang to take you to see it, and just so do you get to see the albino animals that appear. ”

After saying this, the old man beckoned, and the servant standing at the door opened the door and muttered a few times, only to see a young man walk in, this person and Libai are almost carved out of the same mold, but the temples are still black, and they don't look more than forty years old.

Mi Liyang takes care of the goods business of Shennong Commercial Bank, in fact, it is equivalent to forming a special cargo team, relying on waterway transportation, responsible for freight in and out, and carrying goods outside all the year round.

"Daddy, you call me?"

Mi Liyang didn't know what was going on.

Old Man Mi said tremblingly: "Recently, hasn't there been an increase in white-haired animals, you take them to the Zheng family's old house to have a look." ”

"Okay, you guys, come with me."

Yue Guanchao and his party walked out of the courtyard and followed Mi Liyang's steps towards the southwest.

Although Saturnalia Town is still called Saturnalia Town, in fact, it only borrows the name of the ancient village, and it is another place to build a town, as for the former Saturnalia burial village, it is necessary to go to the southwest of the town.

After walking for about half a mile, they saw that the surrounding households were becoming more and more sparse, and countless low houses like coffins began to appear, and in the shade of barren grass, like square coffins were piled up, and there were more houses and mansions, a dilapidated scene.

Collapsed courtyard walls, fallen tile eaves, weed courtyards, old trees and vines, the more you go to the burial village, the more you can feel the desolation of the village, according to the time calculation, here is about 40 years of barrenness, all the dwellings have been redundant and weedy covered, the loess courtyard wall collapsed gap, rarely intact.

When walking, there are inevitably hares and foxes in the wild grass, and they play with them in the cover of the weeds, and there is a rustle, and when people go to see them, there is no trace of them.

Mi Liyang walked on the road and said: "These albino animals mostly appear in the wild forests near the village, and even the burial village often appears white-haired animals, and they are basically not seen far away. ”

"Only then did we know that there were so many white-haired animals, and we asked the hunters, and they told us that they got it in the wild forest near the burial village, and I also brought my men here a few times, and it was indeed the same as the hunter said, there were a lot of white-haired animals, and some hunters were greedy and would poach these white-haired animals and sell them in farther towns."

Xu Xiake said: "These white-haired animals are the messengers of the mountain gods, aren't they afraid of retribution?" ”

Mi Liyang shook his head: "No one has believed this all these years, besides, no matter how valuable these white-haired animals are, they are the ancestors of other people's families, and they have nothing to do with these hunters, they should be caught or caught." ”

As they spoke, they had already passed through the village and came to the easternmost wild forest, the forest in the east of the village was basically connected by the wild mountains of Shennongjia, and the two were indistinguishable, and the Zheng family's house was equivalent to being built in the outermost part of the forest.

Everyone carefully observed, along the periphery of the Zheng family's old house, there is a clear demarcation line, the boundary line is scorched and black, the weeds are sparse, the boundary outside the line is full of vitality and dense forests, from the sky, the position of the house is like a terrifying and ugly carbuncle black scar on the forest body, the black and dark will never be removed from the body, suggesting that the fire here is once tragic and turbulent.

On this scorched ruins, only the ruined walls of the Zheng family's Sanjin house remained, most of the houses collapsed into ruins, if there was any wood still on the roof wall, it was also burned to charred, and the outer masonry courtyard wall had collapsed to only half a waist high, overgrown with all kinds of dry weeds.

Closer to see, after the wind and sun, has been washed to only the foundation pit, a gust of wind blows, can blow up the rotten wood pieces, a burning smell fills the surroundings, even the tip of the tongue has some choking bitterness, in this whimpering wind, always feel that something is gently sobbing, scraping goosebumps are up.

Decades have passed, even if it really becomes a ruin, it has long been covered with weeds, it is impossible that so many years have passed, it is still in a state of scorched ruins, and even, they can see that even if there are weeds growing here, they are withered and thin, and they cannot survive at all.

"Back then, it has been thirty or forty years since now, why is it still scorched!"

Xu Xiake realized this situation and asked curiously.

Mi Liyang thought for a moment and looked at everyone: "Probably, the fire burned too fiercely back then. ”

Speaking of this, Mi Liyang's tone became cautious: "Back then, the Zheng family was probably red-eyed, so it was reported to the mountain by some well-intentioned people, which attracted mountain bandits to loot the Zheng family. ”

He paused, and seemed to be quite a pity: "Ordinary people still know about firefighting, many people want to see the jokes of the Zheng family, of course they will not water their house to fight the fire, this fire burned for three days and three nights, until the Zheng family was burned into ruins before it was doused by the rain, and even their corpses were not collected, and the stinking water of the charred corpses flowed for half a month before it completely dispersed." ”

"Probably because of this reason, there was a strange plague in the burial village, our family was still a small family at that time, and we saw that the people here were poor and short-minded, and saw that the Zheng family was killed like this, so we moved to the town."

"When the plague broke out, our family happened to be there, and because it was close, I used to play near the old house when I was a child, and at that time we could always hear people crying in the old house, but after walking around the house, we didn't see any living people, and later, we moved to the town."

Mi Liyang looked at them strangely: "Since that time, this place has been a ruin, no grass grows, even if it grows, it is as sick as a frosted eggplant, probably, the corpse poison on the ground has not seeped clean." ”

"I'll take you into the house, and the heads of those bandits will be stuck in the main courtyard."

After that, Mi Liyang walked into the half-collapsed courtyard wall, and walked into the main courtyard according to the direction of the house, the main hall has collapsed into a mountain-shaped mound, like a huge mountain bag standing in the middle, under this huge mountain bag, there are seven or eight small mountain bags scattered at the foot of the mountain, probably the graves of several members of the Zheng family.

Not far from the tomb, I saw a row of wooden stakes, on which were the heads of decayed people, and the flesh on the face was gnawed clean by something, leaving only the black skeleton facing the grave bag, which was blown by the wind and swayed.

"Back then, it was in this place that Ah Xi buried the bones of the Zheng family in the ground, and also offered the heads of the bandits in front of people."

Mi Liyang pointed to where they were standing and explained: "We thought that Ah Xi would not come back after being taken away by the bandits, who knew that he would be able to screw off the heads of these bandits." ”

"This incident frightened many villagers back then, and also made those villagers who watched the jokes think that she was indeed an ominous demon, and in the last few years, they spoke coldly to her and fell into the ground, instigating children to throw bricks at her, and the villagers saw that she was often crazy, and her head was smashed to the point of bleeding, and she also built a shack for her in the old house."

"Until she was driven away by the villagers, she lived in that shack."

Mi Liyang pointed to the side of the main hall, where there were indeed a few unscorched woods, and there was a cloth curtain covering it, like a dirt cave shack.

Ban Wan walked near these skeletons, and when her hand touched these holes, her heart continued to rise and fall, as if she was drowning, and she kept opening her throat and panting.

"Sister, what's wrong? What do you feel? ”

Ban Shu helped Ban Wan, his eyes became concerned.

"I ...... I sensed that there was a very special smell in the vicinity, like the smell of the dead, which constantly affected the animals and plants around them, making it impossible for them to survive on the ruins. ”

"And what does this belong to?" Song Siyuan asked curiously.

Ban Wan looked at everyone, and said with a firm look in her eyes: "It's a curse, this ruin has been cursed by Ah Xi, and any living creature that enters this ruin can't survive here." ”

Ban Wan's statement made their eyes light up, and Song Siyuan guessed: "It's strange, if she dies, can she still cast a curse?" Could it be that Ah Xi is still alive? ”