saint ruthless

32,

Just like the previous nights, when Chu Shu closed his eyes, he fell into a chaotic dream again.However, maybe the atmosphere of the dinner was too ambiguous, and the blushing child was too touching. The dream that night began in that peaceful little log cabin with the fragrance of herbs.

This time, he woke up in the house, with wooden railings and bed curtains above his head, half-burned candles standing on the simple table, and speckled sunlight leaking in from the hollow carved windows next to him.

It seems to have entered winter.He casually put on a robe and walked outside. A row of sandalwood medicine cabinets nearly two people high occupied most of the main hall. The names of a hundred kinds of medicinal herbs were written in delicate handwriting on the drawers.Going further outside is the kitchen, and there is a freshly scaled fish on the chopping board.There is a familiar figure cutting vegetables, plain clothes, slim waist and narrow back, with a thinness between a teenager and a youth.

The man's white hands were a little reddish, as if they had been soaked in cold water for a long time, so he walked over, took the vegetables and knife from his hands, and took a basin to soak the fish in cold water.

"Do you have osmanthus leaves here? Add some osmanthus leaves and soak for half an hour to remove the fishy smell."

The young man was extremely surprised, his eyes were full of surprise. "You...you know how to cook?"

He nodded: "When I was marching in the past, I could always pass some uninhabited places, so I had to make a fire by myself and know the most basic things."

When the two sat down to eat, the person opposite cried out in amazement after just one bite.There was also a tinge of blood on her fair face, making her look even more youthful.

"Oh my god! I won't be able to achieve this kind of skill in my life. I'll follow you from now on, okay?"

He shook his head dumbfounded, and put another order into the man's bowl. "exaggerate."

"I'm telling the truth," the young man pursed his lips, dejectedly, "You know, I'm not a cook..."

"Master used to say that I don't know the five flavors. As a pharmacist, I should learn how to make poison. He said that if he saves ten people after a lot of effort, and eats the rice I cook, he can poison nine of them... ..."

What he said was really interesting, and the young man's expression was so cute, he burst out laughing, trying to comfort him, but it seemed that he was really against his will, he pondered for a while, and finally had to silently put some food into the man's bowl.

I didn't want to, but when I looked up, I saw that the man's eyes were red.

He was a little flustered, thinking that he had hurt his self-esteem, and didn't know what to do.

The man looked at him in a daze and murmured. "You...you just laughed..."

He was stunned.

The young man seemed to be talking to himself, "It's been several months, this is the first time I see you smiling..."

There seemed to be a crack in the sweet dream suddenly.For a moment, Chu Shuzhi felt a little confused and detached in the dream, not knowing who he was and where he was, and the appearance of the person opposite him became blurred again.

He tried hard to identify, and saw the young man lowered his eyes, clenched the chopsticks tightly in his hands, and loosened them again.

Then the young man didn't speak for a while, until Chu Shuzhi's consciousness became irresistibly hazy, he finally took a deep breath and spoke.

The voice was also difficult to distinguish, it seemed to be very soft, but extremely suppressed.

The young man said: "There are so many difficult and miscellaneous diseases in the world. I was not skilled in medical treatment and was clumsy. I could barely save people from trauma."

"I have saved some people, but most of them have never been saved. Every time I see them dying in front of my eyes, I feel so sad that I want to die..."

The young man paused for a while, as if bloody turning over those painful images in his memory as he spoke, he closed his eyes and continued.

"But, that's actually not the hardest part. You know, what I'm most afraid of is... that is, meeting people who even have death in their eyes."

Hearing this, he in the dream was extremely shaken.He wanted to ask, what are you talking about, but he seemed to know it faintly, but he just didn't want to think about it.

The young man didn't realize it, and the soft voice was still uttering cruel words: "The heart of such a person is already dead, and no amount of panacea will work."

The young man raised his head and looked at him, with a little expectation in his eyes, many pleadings, and unstoppable sadness, his voice trembled a little at the end.

"All along, I dare not ask, your heart disease...can you still be cured?"

My... heart disease...

It was as if the beautiful dream that was rippling in the waves shattered in an instant, and he fell into the boundless darkness in the dream. Some distant and deep pain came like a tide, and it was impossible to distinguish the dream from the reality.

Blood, screams, betrayal, watching his loved ones being chopped under the knife, bearing the hatred and hatred of the world, countless cold eyes and curses came to him.

You are the one who kills the king and loses the lord, and you are the one who colluded with the enemy and betrayed the country. You caused the mountains and rivers to be broken, and the homeland was displaced. Why do you still survive in the world!

It seems that there is a desperate beast locked in the bottom of my heart, which can never break out of the cage.

The ferocious sharp claws had already been ground to a bloody mess, trembling all over, shrunk himself into a ball, screaming and desperately protecting the precious treasure, but in fact, there was nothing in his arms.

Can my heart disease be healed? ...

Ha, ha ha ha, the beast in my heart howled wildly, and burst into tears from laughter.

He fell towards the boundless darkness, and that soft figure stood in a place with light in the distance, shouting his name and reaching out to him, but he got farther and farther away from him, and finally, even a ray of light disappeared.

His world returned to barrenness.

You know, my heart is already dead.

33,

"...Chu..."

"Brother Chu...Brother Chu..."

There is a familiar voice from far to near, so gentle, so reassuring, that is the light he has always wanted to chase...

Chu Shuzhi slowly opened his eyes, the bright incandescent lights in the hotel were above his head, and the sunlight outside the window came in little by little.Guo Changcheng was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking him gently but worriedly.

Chu Shuzhi stared at his face in a trance, the memory in the dream was like a retreating wave, and flowed unstoppably through his fingers. When he opened his eyes, he could no longer remember the scene in the dream. and that person.However, the inexplicable pain flooding from the depths of the bones and blood did not dissipate together with the distant memories.

Guo Changcheng wanted to say something more, but suddenly fell silent, his eyes widened in surprise. "Brother Chu, you..."

Chu Shu touched his face subconsciously, and his hands were wet.

Chu Shuzhi: "..."

The car was driving on the road in the southwestern suburbs, and the buildings in the city gradually faded away in the rearview mirror.The atmosphere in the car was a little silent, and the two had their own concerns.

Guo Changcheng quietly observed Chu Shuzhi who was driving the car. The man stared straight at the road with no expression on his face. He looked the same as usual, but Guo Changcheng could feel that Brother Chu...was very depressed today. .

Brother Chu personally cooked dinner for him yesterday, he was so flattered that he was in a good mood until this morning, until he saw the man frowning and trapped in a nightmare.

Chu Shuzhi's eyes were closed tightly, his forehead was covered with fine sweat, and he muttered something indiscriminately.Later, Guo Changcheng heard that there seemed to be two words mixed in the gibberish, like a name, and he repeated it many times.

Then Brother Chu actually cried.When asked what he dreamed about, Brother Chu said blankly that he didn't remember.

Guo Changcheng had never seen such fragile emotions on Chu Shuzhi's face, which made him a little distressed, and besides the distress, there was also some inexplicable complexity.

Guo Changcheng realized that he knew nothing about Chu Shuzhi's past and other things except for the intersection at the Special Investigation Office.And that person has always been stingy about expressing himself, just like now, even if Guo Changcheng asked him why he was in a bad mood, that person would just say flatly, it's nothing.

Guo Changcheng didn't realize that he was holding the hand of the messenger bag, and he tightened it unconsciously. He looked at the backward scene outside the car window, feeling very disappointed.

Who was the person in your dream who made you care so much, the person you called out...

On the other side, of course Chu Shuzhi didn't notice Guo Changcheng's abnormality, he was very irritable from head to toe now.This is not the first time he has had a dream. These days, he sometimes experiences the tranquility and peace that he misses so much in his dream, and sometimes makes him have the tyrannical urge to destroy everything, but every time he struggles to wake up from the dream, the dream The people and things here are completely forgotten.If he could comfort himself before that it was just that he didn't have a good rest these days, then when he touched his face with tears this morning, no matter how dull he was, he would know that things were not that simple.

Chu Shuzhi resentfully stepped on the gas pedal again, gnashing his teeth and thinking, he must find out today what the evil spirit is doing.

34,

They kept heading southwest, bypassing several mountains, and passed a village and county.Chu Shu got out of the car and turned around, and then asked Guo Changcheng to inquire about all the monasteries and Taoist temples nearby.

"Brother Chu, the villagers said that there are no monasteries or Taoist temples nearby... What are we looking for there?"

Chu Shuzhi said: "The breath here is different from other places. I can vaguely feel something, but it is very erratic. Maybe someone has set up some methods here to suppress the evil spirits."

Guo Changcheng snorted, "They said that although there is no temple nearby, there is a dilapidated old temple in the back mountain. I don't know what it is for, and no one goes there."

Chu Shuzhi pondered for a while, then nodded. "Maybe there's something there, let's go and see."

It took a lot of twists and turns for the two to find the old temple.Sure enough, it has been in disrepair for a long time, overgrown with weeds, hidden in the forest, and there are no paths leading in, so it is very inconspicuous.

When you get closer, the temple room is actually not too small. There are two guard temples further inside the main temple. The thick branches of the tree stand on both sides of the main temple and outside the two guard temples.

Ordinary people may not be able to see the doorway, but Chu Shu can understand it at a glance. The mahogany painted amulets and the divine wood cover each other. This is a commonly used arrangement for cultivators to ward off evil spirits.It’s just that this temple is very old, and judging by the degree of weathering of the peach wood, it has been hundreds of years, and there are no statues of gods and Buddhas in the temple. Recently, there have been faint ghosts leaking out and haunting people's dreams.

It's just that there isn't even a cemetery around here, so where does the ghost energy come from, a temple needs to be specially built to suppress it...

Just as he was thinking, there was a muffled snort from the side, and when he looked back, Guo Changcheng fell down.

Chu Shu rushed over and hugged the person in his arms in a second, nervously checking where the child was injured.The next second, he was stunned for a moment, feeling a little ashamed and indignant at himself for making such a fuss, and angrily threw him to the ground again, mockingly.

"It's getting better and better, sprained feet on flat ground? Will I get you a special wheelchair for field work next time?"

"No, Brother Chu..." Guo Changcheng fell down with tears in his eyes, and pointed to his leg, "There seems to be a small piece of the ground over there."

Chu Shuzhi followed his gestures and looked over.Among the floor tiles full of dust and spider silk, there is really a small, imperceptible depression with neat edges, which seems artificial.

"It's your fault," Chu Shuzhi followed suit and changed his attitude instantly. "Go back and ask Zhao Yunlan to give you a medal. You are the mascot."

He tapped lightly on the floor tile, paused for three seconds, and tapped three more times, the hidden grid rose up, and then the statue table slowly retreated, and as the rumbling sound stopped, a flash appeared suddenly. Stairs to the ground.

Chu Shuzhi felt his body trembling slightly, as if he was excited or nervous.

He had a strong feeling that what he was looking for might be down there.

The two walked down with flashlights on.As soon as he saw the scenery below, Guo Changcheng couldn't help holding his breath.

There is a hole in the ground, it can be said that it is empty.Not far away, two huge bronze tripods, one on the left and one on the right, stand at the eyes of the gossip formation drawn in cinnabar on the ground.There was something like an altar in front of it, and there were several strange incense burners on it, which were still smoking leisurely.

The entire altar is covered with strange characters, the brush and ink are chic, and Guo Changcheng vaguely recognizes that it is somewhat similar to the talismans that Brother Chu and the others usually write.Moving the flashlight down, he found that the charms not only covered the altar, but also extended to the ground. With the movement of the light source, he was shocked to find that their charms were actually all over the surrounding walls, like huge and strange murals. Wrap them in it.

"This is... what..." Guo Changcheng only felt that the scene in front of him was very shocking.

"That's the rebirth mantra and the requiem mantra, which are used to quell resentment and save the souls of the dead," Chu Shuzhi shone the flashlight on the colorful pattern-like mantra carefully, and his voice echoed in the empty space, far and near.

"However, this is not an ordinary reincarnation curse. This writing method should have been lost now, and it is a kind of forbidden art. It is much more powerful, and it will be suppressed if you don't cross it. In order to prevent the dead from turning into ghosts and harming people, this curse If you can't get rid of the soul's resentment, your soul will be trapped in the curse forever, and you will have no way to reincarnate."

Guo Changcheng repeated blankly, "I will be trapped in the curse forever..."

If the grievances cannot be dissipated, they will linger in the darkness forever, unable to reincarnate, unable to escape, isn't this... so pitiful.A desolate grief welled up in Guo Changcheng's heart, and he was speechless for a moment.

35,

A big hand gently rubbed his head, and when he raised his head, he met Chu Shuzhi's eyes, which were full of comfort, and made his sadness just a little bit.

Guo Changcheng calmed down, walked to the altar, saw the green smoke curling up from the small incense burners, and asked, "Brother Chu, the smoke is still burning, did anyone come here not long ago?"

He wanted to pick up the furnace cover to have a look, but was stopped by Chu Shuzhi.Chu Shuzhi said: "Don't move, it's the smoke from the soul talisman. Once it burns, it can last for hundreds of years. The smoke stays under the curse, and the smoke extinguishes the curse."

Guo Changcheng felt a drop of cold sweat slipping down, and pressed the left pocket of his chest. Fortunately, the small electric stick had a switch.

Chu Shuzhi looked around the table, and a brown red wooden box wrapped with talisman paper in the middle of the altar caught his attention.He brushed off the thick dust on it, picked it up and looked at it for a moment.

His intuition told him that it was better not to open the box.

However, the slightly dazzling golden talisman seemed to have some kind of strange attraction. For some reason, he chanted a spell out of nowhere, and the layers of talisman paper wrapped on the box flickered and scattered around.

Chu Shuzhi restrained his nervousness and carefully opened the lid.

Inside lay a very thick bamboo slip file.

As the dossier slowly unfolded, what came into view were densely packed characters engraved on the bamboo slips.The engraved traces are mottled due to the age, but if you look closely, you can recognize that there are countless names engraved on it.

Each name is followed by a short introduction, which looks like an identity.There are two dates engraved on the back, maybe the year of birth and death, the birth year is uneven, most of them are directly written in unknown, but the column of the death year is engraved with the same words.

"The first year of Chengsheng".

In the early years of Chengsheng... Chu Shuzhi was still browsing through the files quickly, but couldn't help being startled.When he received a call from Zhao Yunlan before, he did some research on the Internet. The reign name of Chengsheng, isn't that the end of Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty...

Suddenly, he stopped.Among the dense and dazzling roster, his eyes seemed to be attracted by something in the dark, and he noticed one of the names for some reason.He was sure that he had never seen this name before, but he also felt that his familiarity with this name was engraved deep in his bones.

The hand holding the bamboo slip trembled uncontrollably, and there was some unreal or real memory playing back in front of his eyes.

In the dream, one afternoon, he propped himself up, leaned against the head of the bed with difficulty, and spoke to the busy figure outside. The voice was intermittent and hoarse, as if it hadn't been used for hundreds of years.

"Boy, what's your name..."

The back of the person who was pounding the medicine froze, and the medicine bowl in his hand fell to the ground.

"You...you finally spoke." The man turned his head in disbelief and looked at him in surprise.

Then, that person slowly opened a big smiling face, which was very familiar to him, warm as ice and snow.

"My name is Guo Xin."

There is a short line of words on the bamboo slips, without any warmth:

Guo Xin, a doctor, was born in an unknown year and died in the early years of Chengsheng.