The Northern Desert, as the name suggests, is a desert in the north. However, because of the prosperity of the Northern Dynasties, it began to trade with the Hu people living in the Northern Desert hundreds of years ago, so there were also several wealthy towns for merchants to rest. It was the first time for Shen Tu to come to this kind of place that was completely different from the Central Plains, so looking at their appearance and listening to their accents, they felt extremely fresh, and almost forgot what Cui Jue had told them.

His eyebrows and eyes are actually deep, but his face is too white, which is a kind of appearance between Hu and Han, but because there are many Han people in this town, he does not receive strange stares when he walks among these foreign faces.

This town is called Kaye, and it is already the last town on this trade route, and there will be no people further on. He hasn't found anything worth Cui Jue to come over to talk about all the way up to now, but he has won the favor of many girls. He decided to stay in this last town for one night, and if he hadn't found anything, he would immediately go back to the underworld and pull Cui Jue out to parade through the streets.

The inn in front of me seemed to be some years old, and because of the wind and sand, it looked a little dilapidated from the outside, and the flag at the door had been blown off, and it was hunting in the wind.

The boss is a bearded man with curly hair. He greeted Shen Di warmly in a language that he was not very proficient in: "Little brother, come and sit, this place can't be blown by the wind." It's the first time I've seen such a handsome little brother!"

Shen Tu was a little embarrassed by what he said, but he turned his head to the back kitchen and didn't know what to say in nonsense, and immediately a flower-like young girl flashed out from behind the curtain, and said with a smile: "Abba, don't rush me!"

The girl had a long string of bells pinned to her waist, which made a crisp sound as she walked. Her eyebrows and eyes are beautiful, the bridge of her nose is high, and her dark brown curls float behind her head, and her whole body exudes a lively and bright atmosphere. With a jar of wine with a unique pattern on her head, she smiled at Shen Yanran and turned to the other table of guests: "The wine is here!

"Anaye, come here!" the bearded man smiled lovingly and urged, "This little brother's wine and food are not good yet, you can talk to him!"

As soon as she was about to wave her hand and say no, she had already jumped over and sat down, looking at him with her brown eyes with pleasure.

Seeing her sitting closer, the god silently moved herself away.

People in exotic lands don't seem to be afraid of life. Sometimes he stays in a certain store for a long time, and he will even know who the name of the owner of the store is, how many people in the family are, and when the store opened.

Seeing him like this, Anaya might be afraid of life, and smiled lightly: "Is it the first time that little brother has come to our Jiaye City?

Shen Tu said: "No, I'm coming-" He suddenly paused, the girl in front of him was a native of the Northern Desert, maybe she knew something, so the conversation changed: "I am a storyteller in the Northern Dynasty, and I specially followed the caravan to collect some interesting stories. Is there anything interesting going on in this city of Gayo?"

"Interesting thing?" she flattened her mouth as if she had heard some joke: "Where are there any interesting things, there are a bunch of strange things, I envy you people from the Northern Dynasty, the feng shui is good, and you can't hear ghosts at night." ”

"What the hell is called?" Shen Tu looked at her with his inky eyes, as if he was very interested: "What the hell is called, is the city haunted?"

Anaya shook her head, took out a chopstick from the chopstick holder, dipped it in the wine, and began to draw on the table: "This is Kaha City—" She drew a circle on the north side of Kaye City: "This is the capital of Chishui Country." I heard my Abba say that all the strange noises we hear at night come from within. ”

"Chishui Country, how come I've never heard of this country?"

Anaye laughed out loud: "This country perished hundreds of years ago! If I weren't from the Northern Desert, I wouldn't know!"

The bearded man was collecting the account behind the counter, and when he saw his daughter smiling so happily, he made a joke. I didn't understand this sentence, but I saw Anaye's face flushed, and she pursed her lips and turned around and said, "Oh, Abba I'm so annoyed! I'm talking to this little brother about business!"

She turned to Shen Tu and said, "Leave me alone, Abba, he's very annoying!"

Shen Tu thought to himself, I don't understand what I'm talking about.

He listened to Anaye's words, but he felt that something was wrong. Not to mention the truth or falsity of her words, even in all the underworld classics that Shen Tu has read, there has never been a record of Chishui Kingdom. You must know that as long as it is a place where someone has died, the prefecture will send someone to check it first, carefully explore that place, and come back to bind the useful records into a book. It is impossible that no one in Chishui Country has died, and there is no need for her to deceive someone she doesn't know, could it be that the underworld deliberately erased all the records?

Anaye sorted out her emotions and continued: "This is a legend for a long time, and I also listened to my father. It is said that the Chishui Kingdom was still a powerful country hundreds of years ago, but because their Emperor His Majesty did not respect the goddess in the sky, the goddess sent a punishment and caused the Chishui country to suffer a great drought. He also cast spells around the country, trapping those ordinary people alive in the city, and disappeared overnight. ”

This legend doesn't sound true at all. If all the people of a country die, there must be a detailed record in the underworld. The Xuanwu Divine Monarch who manages the north will not sit idly by, unless this heavenly goddess has some great origins.

"If only Master were here, he would have known. Shen Tu thought to himself, and began to sit still. Could it be that Cui Jue asked me to come for the sake of Chishui Country, so that I could fill in this blank paragraph?

This reasoning seems to make sense if it is forced. He immediately stood up and said to Anaya firmly, "I'm going to go to that capital to have a look." ”

This sentence startled the girl a lot. She stared at Shen Tu with round eyes, as if expecting him to say next, "I'm kidding." "But no.

"Little brother, it's very dangerous over there, what are you going to do!" she hurriedly persuaded: "No one has ever dared to go to that place, even the caravan goes around, you are a storyteller, you-"

"Don't worry, Anaye, I'm not an ordinary storyteller. He smiled at her, and without further delay, turned and walked to the door. This kind-hearted girl couldn't stop him, and she was so anxious that tears were about to fall out. When Shen Tu walked out, he heard her crying out eagerly, "Abba, Abba!"

At this time, it was already ten years of dusk, and a remnant sun hung on the other side of the sand mountain, emitting a blood-like red light. Shen Tu heard the old man who was herding sheep say that if he couldn't find a place to shelter from the wind before dark, the wind and sand could blow off a layer of skin, and he had to arrive immediately.

Shen Tu walked out of the city gate, and after finding that there was no one around, he directly sank into a black air. When he came out again, there was already a magnificent ruin in front of him. The city wall has collapsed in half after years of wind and sand, but you can still vaguely glimpse the prosperity of its national power back then. The streets of the city have not yet been buried by the wind and sand, and the houses next to them are neatly arranged, but most of them have become ruins, all of which show a sense of depression.

He is estimated to be the first person to set foot on this land in hundreds of years, so he always has a feeling of being watched. Walking down the street, it seems that you can still hear their whispers, but when you listen closely, you think it's the wind.

Although the sun has not yet completely set, there is already a terrible breath forcing out from all corners. But he didn't feel it, he just felt that he was tired of walking, and that it was impossible to go on like this, so he picked a room that looked relatively intact from the outside, and walked straight in, because the door of the house had been shattered into a pile of powder, and only the stone wall was still standing.

The furnishings in the house were very shabby, and he was choked with a mouthful of ash. On the stone bed lay a skeleton in a strange position, looking to be in great pain when it died. He thought about it, sat down to give the skeleton a degree, and then tried to gently move him to the ground, but as soon as his hand touched it, the bone immediately turned into powder and was blown away by the wind blowing in from outside.

"Early to Bliss, early to Bliss. Shen Tu recited two sentences, and then dragged the stone bed directly over and blocked it vertically by the door, to prevent the wind and sand outside from being too strong at night, and he didn't want to care about the small gap between the stone walls.

It was getting dark, and the whispering outside seemed to be getting more and more obvious, and the noise made his brain hurt. He had no choice but to open his mind to see how many people were speaking, and this opening took him by a big jump—not hundreds, thousands, but tens of thousands. Every place was densely packed with ghosts, including the room he was in. All of them are bound spirits of the earth, and they are bound by this land in life and death, and they cannot break free. Each one stared at him with their own cloudy eyes, as if he was the culprit for the massacre.

Although Shen Tu is used to seeing ghosts, he is still a little out of breath when he is surrounded by tens of thousands of ghosts for a while, especially when there are more than a dozen ghosts in this room. He quickly settled his mind, thinking that it was better to be out of sight than to pretend that he didn't see anything.

[Chishui] "The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Classic of the Sea": "The river flows out of Yan, and the south flows to the east. The red water flows out of the Yan, and the southeast flows into the water of the sky. The ocean water flows out of the Yan, and the southwest flows into the ugly water. The black water flows out of the Yan, and the west flows in the Great Bian. It's a lot of monsters. ”

[Xuanwu] "Chu Ci Far Travel" Hong Xingzu supplement: "Xuanwu is called a turtle and a snake. Located in the north, it is called Xuan. There are scales and armor on the body, so it is called martial arts. 'Xuanwu' is a combination of snakes, turtles and snakes.