[Bottle Evil] Snowy Illusion

After running around for several days and taking all kinds of transportation, Wu Xie, Zhang Qiling and Su Wanli arrived at Erdaobaihe.

The Erdaobai River ten years later is very different from when Wu Xie and the others first came ten years ago. Although it is a small county, due to the development and protection of the Changbai Mountain tourist attraction in recent years, it has become a part of the scenic spot. , more modern commercial atmosphere, and much more convenient.

Four days later, they came to Yingshan Village, which is relatively farther away in the Hengshan forest area, from where they could take a ride to Wu Xie's destination.Yingshan Village is relatively closed and remote. There are not many residents in the village and there is no guest house.

Li Cuo looked at the sun moving to the west. Although it was July, the temperature here was not high at all, and it could even be said to be a little cool, but he really didn't understand why Wu Xie came to this place where he couldn't even sleep. Could it be that they want to cosplay Tang Seng and his disciples.Imagining Wu Xie's bald head and saying, "Amitabha, we came from Golmud City in the west, and went to the Changbai Mountains in the east to rob the tomb. Please let us stay for one night." Li Cuo suddenly felt that it was not only cool, but also a little cold up.

An old man who seemed to be the village head, Wu Xie was negotiating with him, and he was smiling, and Li Cu's back was haired.

After talking for a while, the old man took the lead and walked into the forest area. Several people followed, and after a while, they came to a wooden house with two rooms next to each other.The wooden house looked like it was old. There were no windows, the door was half open, and there was a shadow inside. It was hard to see what was there, but it could be seen that no one lived there for a while.

The old man came to the door and stood down. Turning around, Li Cu could see the old man's face clearly, it was full of wrinkles, his eyebrows were also twisted together, his eyes were sharp, and there seemed to be some worry between his brows.

"Young man, do you really want to live here?" The old man said to Wu Xie, "Don't blame me for not reminding you." His tone turned into a bit mysterious.

Wu Xie smiled, put his hand on the door frame, poked his head into the room, and replied, "This is fine, thank you."

The old man sighed, then turned and left. The old man looked very old, but his steps were steady.

Wu Xie opened the door fully, and the door hinge made that characteristic sound that hadn't been oiled for a long time, which made people's teeth ache.

Although there are no windows, there is plenty of sunlight at this time. The light falls on the wooden house, and you can see that the layout in the wooden house is very simple: an earthen kang, a black charcoal-burning stove, some pots, pans and sundries. It was all dusty.

Li Cu looked around and couldn't help asking: "Boss Wu, who lives here? Do we really want to live here?"

Wu Xie wiped the mat on the kang, sat on it, and said, "It's good to have a place to live, choose whatever you want, believe it or not, I'll throw you to the next door."

"Hey?" Su Wan answered, "What's wrong next door?"

Wu Xie laughed so hard, Li Cu thought, but he also felt that there was an indescribable weirdness in the two rooms.

Zhang Qiling was looking at some sundries piled up in a corner of the room, Wu Xie waved to him and said, "Brother, come here, do you want to listen to ghost stories?"

Zhang Qiling looked at him sideways, with a hint of doubt in his eyes.

"Damn it!" Li Cu felt that he was helping Zhang Qiling scold him, and said, "There is no shop in front of the village, and it looks like a haunted house. You still want to tell ghost stories?"

"Your wording is inaccurate. This place is not like a haunted house." Wu Xie waved his hand, and then patted Kang Yan'er next to him, "Come and sit, listen to me, this place itself is a haunted house."

Su Wan opened his eyes wide and said, "No way, boss, you also took on the job of exorcising ghosts?"

Wu Xie sighed, and said, "It's not to exorcise ghosts. We can live in peace, so why should I provoke ghosts? There are many things in this world that are scarier than ghosts, and need to be expelled more than ghosts."

Li Cu said: "Then tell me what's going on. If there is a ghost, I don't want to live there."

Wu Xie patted the ashes on his hands, and said, "This was originally where the forest guards lived..."

Then Wu Xie told a story that he had just heard from the old man. After listening to it, both Li Cuo and Su Wan expressed that they would stay here honestly and would not cause trouble.

According to the old man, the forest guard in the village is actually a "position" handed down from generation to generation, and has nothing to do with the administrative establishment in the forest area of ​​the village.The forest guards have always been voluntary by the villagers. In the past, the villagers also went to the mountains to hunt and collect mountain treasures. The forest guards guarded the edge of the forest to support those who entered the mountains. After entering the reserve, people's way of life has gradually changed. The position of forest guard is no longer a necessary existence, and no one is willing to do it anymore. The last forest guard has guarded for 30 years by himself.

This person is a weird person, he was not from the village at first, he was said to be a beggar who went around begging, and when he came to the village, the forest guard of that term was about to resign, so he asked the village chief to give him a place to live. Then, by the way, he took over the position of the forest guard.

The beggar forest guard is bald and wears a big cotton cap all day long. After living in this wooden house, he has been living alone.The wooden house is located in a remote place, and he has no relatives or friends in the village. It can be said that his life is very lonely. Only the village chief comes to visit him occasionally, and sends him some necessary supplies to help him.Until two years ago, the bald head married a daughter-in-law. The woman was dumb and came from outside the village. The two of them had a good time.

But the good times didn't last long, less than two months ago, the dumb daughter-in-law died of illness, and weird things happened.

The bald man secretly cut down a good tree in the forest and built a coffin for his wife. He temporarily put the body in the coffin and placed it in a wooden house next to him. But the next day the village chief came to help with the funeral. When the two arrived next door, they found that the coffin It was placed there properly, but the corpse inside had disappeared.

The first thought of the two was that the dumb daughter-in-law was alive and ran away, but the two searched around the forest area and the village, but there was no clue.Because of this, the bald head also fell into a heart attack, always thinking that he had collided with some ghosts and gods, so he caused his wife to die without a whole body.The bald head was already getting old, and after a few days of illness, he also died.

But what made people horrified was that the bald man was found dead in the coffin, with a strange smile on his stiff face.When the village chief saw it, he was so frightened that his old life would be lost there. He hurried back to the village and planned to ask some people to bury the bald man.

However, when seven or eight young men in the village had the courage to follow the village chief back, supernatural things happened again, and the bald body disappeared.

People in the village began to say that the coffin could eat people, and after the people who went up the mountain that day went back, they also fell ill one after another. It was not a serious illness, but they all had fevers and nightmares. They dreamed that the bald man smiled at them, showing a ghostly look. Teeth.So no one dared to approach the wooden house after that.

"The...that coffin, now..." Su Wan asked with a trembling tone.

Wu Xie nodded, with a serious face, pointed to the wall, and said, "It's next door."

After listening, Li Cu swallowed his saliva, and said, "Boss Wu, I'm obedient, don't drive me to the next door, I don't want to be eaten by a coffin."

Wu Xie laughed after hearing this, it was still the kind of mocking smile, the more Li Cu looked at it, the more he felt that something was wrong.

Wu Xie said, "What do you think I just said?"

Li Cu frowned and said, "A ghost story?"

"Wrong." Wu Xie said, "It's a processed message."

Wu Xie leaned forward slightly, with his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands and fingers crossed in front of him, and his eyes looked bright.

The rhythm of the class.Li Cu wondered if he should drag Su Wan to move a pony to sit on.

Wu Xie said: "Usually when you come into contact with a situation that is completely unfamiliar to you, the direct information you receive is often less than the indirect information that has been processed by people, because people instinctively choose to trust experience and trust the inherent things in their minds. But you have to know that any information that has been relayed and artificially processed may be distorted, or even a fabricated lie waiting for you to fall into the trap."

"You and I both know about the black-haired snake and its venom, and even though the reading of the pheromones is painful, it is the only high-fidelity indirect message. Much of it is meaningless, but it is Snake 'paraphrasing' at least without enemy processing."

Wu Xie suddenly straightened up and stretched out his hand to pat Li Cuo's shoulder. Li Cuo was taken aback by this action, but he saw a cautious look on Wu Xie's face. Wu Xie continued: "On the next road, At any time, you have to choose to believe in snakes first, understand."

Li Cu opened Wu Xie's hand reflexively, but couldn't look away.

From Beijing to Hangzhou, from Hangzhou to Golmud, and then from Golmud to Changbai Mountain, along the way, he is pursuing the nameless impulse in his heart.This impulse has a long history, from dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the desire for breakthroughs and changes in reality.Wu Xie's plan and everything he did afterwards, at most, aroused it.

"Understood." Li Cu responded seriously, and asked again, "Then you and the snake, who should I trust?"

Wu Xie smiled and said, "If I think it's necessary to lie to you, I won't give you a chance to doubt it."

Li Cu stuck out his tongue, very disdainful.

"You have to know that if I lied to you, it must be for your own good. Under such circumstances, the truth would be dangerous to you." Wu Xie said and pointed at Zhang Qiling, "For example, he lied to me before, and I just lied to him. I'll be angry at him for keeping me in the dark, but I saved my life because of it. I don't blame him, because..."

"Brother Zhang has you in his heart!" Su Wan answered, seeing Wu Xie's face froze, Zhang Qiling also looked at him, and hurriedly said, "So! Boss, what you just said, did you lie to us?"

Wu Xie quickly recovered with a relaxed expression, and said: "Not all, the forest guard and his wife did disappear for no reason, but it has nothing to do with ghosts and gods."

Hearing what Wu Xie said, both of them felt a little more at ease, and asked what it had to do with it.

Wu Xie looked at Zhang Qiling: "Brother, what do you think?"

Zhang Qiling seemed to have discovered something from the pile of sundries, stretched out his fingers to twirl a pinch of ash, put it under his nose and smelled it, frowned slightly, and said: "There is a problem with the people who lived here before."

Wu Xie jumped down from the kang in a baffled manner, went to Zhang Qiling's side, grabbed Zhang Qiling's hand, and squeezed the belly of Zhang Qiling's middle finger with his index finger. Some of the ashes were stained, and he put it under his nose to smell it.

After the black glasses operated on his nose, his sense of smell was weaker than that of ordinary people, but the basic functions are still available, but this kind of ashes has a strange smell of traditional Chinese medicine, which is not familiar to him. Wu Xie shook his head: "I can't smell it. , brother, what is this?"

"A kind of medicinal herb." Zhang Qiling said, "After taking a certain amount, it can suppress breathing."

Wu Xie was also surprised, and said, "What is it for?"

Zhang Qiling said: "Dou, if you encounter a dead body, you can temporarily cover up the anger of the living."

"The man who guards the forest turned out to be a colleague." Wu Xie said, "At first, I only suspected that he was doing some illegal activities. Using this identity as a cover, it turns out that guarding the forest is fake, but guarding the tomb is real."

Zhang Qiling didn't seem to be very sure about the identity of the forest guard. After all, no definite conclusion could be drawn from just a little ashes, but the purpose of this forest guard was indeed worth studying.

Wu Xie walked towards Li Cu, raised his hand and wiped the ashes on Li Cu's body with his index finger, and said, "Come on, let's go to the next door to see what happened."

Li Cu shook his clothes and hopped his feet angrily. The three of them had already pushed the door out, so they had to follow.

The two wooden houses were next to each other, and when Wu Xie was about to raise his hand to push the door, Zhang Qiling put his hand on the door first, and at the same time stretched out his arm to signal the three of them to take a step back.

Zhang Qiling usually has the confidence to deal with all kinds of unexpected situations that may arise, and at the same time, he also forms an almost instinctive protective attitude towards his fellow travelers. Even after he has been asleep for nine years, this habit is still a subconscious action.

After pushing open the door, the first thing that catches the eye is a wooden coffin. It can be seen that the workmanship is fairly fine. The coffin is in the shape of a long strip and has no sealing paint, but the wood itself also has a special texture.

The coffin lid was not completely closed, but there was a not-so-wide gap, and the rumors just heard made it even more weird.It seemed that the coffin was poised to swallow anyone and anything that came near it.

The four of them watched the coffin for a while, Wu Xie suddenly patted Su Wan, and said, "Go and see if there is a bald man and his dumb wife inside."

Su Wan backed away again and again, and said with a dog-legged smile: "Don't, boss, my mental quality is too bad, you should take a look." Then he pointed to Li Cuo, "Why don't you let Yali go, you see he is eager to try Woolen cloth."

Li Cuo glared at Su Wan, but Wu Xie said, "I can't. I've always opened a coffin without a dead body. It's good that this place is empty. If the corpse comes back, I'll show you the performance of zongzi catching Su." Ten thousand."

Just as Su Wan was about to say no, there was a sudden sound in the coffin, followed by a muffled sound, and the coffin lid was slowly being removed.

"Damn! Boss, you are so accurate!" Su Wan said in shock, "It's really dead!"

Zhang Qiling raised his arms instantly, made a movement to stop several people behind him, and then looked at Wu Xie with cold and alert eyes: "You know?"

Wu Xie suddenly grabbed Zhang Qiling's arm, pretending to be nervous and shouted: "Brother, there are zongzi!"

Li Cu scolded: "Damn! The zongzi is disgusted by you!"

Wu Xie laughed and said, "I have a good mental quality."

Zhang Qiling looked at Wu Xie suspiciously, knowing that he was fully aware.Wu Xie is leading a few people along the way, so there must be some arrangement Wu Xie is sure of, but the current scene makes his body reflexively take some precautions, especially among the three people behind him. There are two teenagers.

The coffin lid slowly moved halfway, revealing a dark mouth, and then suddenly a "corpse" sat up from inside. This "corpse" can be said to be quite well preserved, wearing a black tight jacket, with an unexpectedly slender figure.What puzzled Li Cu and Su Wan even more was that there was an object on the corpse's face that they were both extremely familiar with - black sunglasses.

Why is it so familiar.

"Ha, it's finally here." The "corpse" said, "I fell asleep after waiting."

Su Wan and Li Cu stared dumbfounded. In the last glimmer of the setting sun coming in from outside the door, a person who always appeared in strange ways stood up inside the coffin.He moved his shoulders, then stepped out of the coffin with a long leg, with a half-smile expression on his face, and said: "The first disciple is calm enough, the second disciple's expression is a bit pained."

His second disciple shouted: "Master with black glasses!"

Wu Xie raised his hand to say hello to the black glasses. Zhang Qiling remained expressionless, and seemed not surprised by the appearance of the black glasses. After all, there are not many people around Wu Xie available, and the other two are expected to meet soon.

Hold!But Li Cu scolded in his heart: It's definitely a joke!

Although Wu Xie explained that he did make an appointment with Black Glasses here, Li Cu still felt deeply deceived.Especially when he heard the black glasses call Zhang Qiling "dumb" and asked Wu Xie if his hair was a wig, he became even more suspicious of the truth of Wu Xie's story about the bald forest guard and his dumb wife.

The black glasses yawned, pushed his sunglasses, and said with a smile: "I found something interesting, do you want to see it?"

"What did you find?" Wu Xie asked casually.

The scar on Wu Xie's neck was not very obvious when the eyes of the black glasses swept across it, but it was not difficult to find.The black glasses pretended to be surprised and pointed at Wu Xie's neck: "Is this not dead?"

Wu Xie said smoothly: "Your life-saving recruiting is good."

"Don't say that." Black Glasses smiled, "Your understanding is not bad."

Wu Xie was not used to complimenting him with black glasses, and asked, "How is your health now, can you come into the mountains with us?"

The black glasses didn't answer this question, and lifted a piece of rag from a corner of the room, pointed to a piece of something on the ground half inserted in the soil under the rag, and said, "That's it."

It was a long strip of stone that looked like a stele, but the words on it had been almost worn away, and some dents could be vaguely seen.

Wu Xie and Zhang Qiling squatted down to observe the stele. The exposed part of the stele had obviously been cleaned up. Although the dents on it were not clear, it could still be seen that they were familiar with a type of writing——Dragon Fish Secret The text is exactly the same as the pattern on the snake eyebrow copper fish.

Wu Xie took a deep breath. He had specialized research on this kind of ciphertext, and he could distinguish it at a glance, but the recorded content still needed to be compared and translated.This is information related to the Eastern Xia civilization and an earlier unknown civilization. It is just the tip of the iceberg, but it is enough to attract attention.

What's more special about this stele is that there seems to be a pattern drawn under the text.This is a pattern that several people have never seen before, and it looks like a palace.But neither the Yunding Tiangong, nor any other buildings involved in the puzzle.

For this pattern, several people spent a lot of effort to clean up the entire stele, but found that the part of the pattern that was originally hidden under the ground had been destroyed.

This is yet another unsolved puzzle that pops up out of nowhere.

However, the very existence of the stele has already verified Wu Xie's deduction that Changbai Mountain is indeed the end of their trip.

At this moment, there is still a question, why is this stele standing here, and half of it is submerged in the soil, half of it is on the ground, why the pattern is damaged, and what is the relationship between the owner of this wooden house and the stele, and the destination of their trip? .In fact, there is an obvious answer: the intervention of the enemy.

It's not that Wu Xie doesn't want to believe it, let alone dare to confirm it, it's just that this sudden change will more or less increase the risk of several people's actions in the future, and it is also very likely to change some things that have become a foregone conclusion.

Wu Xie turned his head to look at Zhang Qiling. The only foregone conclusion he was worried about being changed was related to this person.

Zhang Qiling stretched out his long fingers, groped on the stone tablet for a while, stood up and patted Wu Xie on the shoulder, saying: "We are going to go into the mountain, we have to be ahead of them."

Wu Xie was stunned for a moment, then stood up immediately, and then said with a smile to several people: "It seems that we should look for Xiaohua in advance."

Li Cu and Su Wan were in a daze when they heard it. They didn't recognize the stele, and they didn't realize for a while that the name that sounded like a joke referred to Xie Yuchen.

"What are you going to do?" Li Cuo asked.

Wu Xie took out his mobile phone, took a photo of the stele, and said, "Go get our equipment." He said and walked outside the house.

Li Cu and Su Wan looked at each other, and followed obediently, jokingly, if they really went into the snow mountain without equipment, they would just pretend to be aggressive, and they would freeze into an idiot for a second, which was thoughtful by the boss.

Probably only the black glasses could tell that Wu Xie was having fun because of Zhang Qiling's "we".

For a professionally missing person, Black Glasses has no confidence that Zhang Qiling will not suddenly act alone in this plan at any time. Wu Xie arranged a job with a high degree of difficulty for him.

The black glasses shook his head helplessly and smiled, followed a few people, and shouted to Wu Xie's back: "Hey, I remembered something, did you prepare a chain for me?"

Wu Xie didn't answer and asked, "Tie the dog?"

The black glasses smiled: "Help you tie someone up."

Wu Xie looked back at the black glasses, then turned around again.

The black glasses thought for a while and then smiled: "Why don't you just grab the mute like you did just now, I don't think he is unhappy."

Zhang Qiling also looked back at the black glasses, and the black glasses gave him a thumbs up.

An hour later, in front of an outdoor equipment sales store dozens of kilometers away, Xie Yuchen looked at the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The white snow slopes reflected the afterglow of the setting sun, which was a bit dazzling, and the day was coming to an end.

The guy asked him if he wanted to close the door. There would be no business at this time.

Xie Yuchen waved his hand and walked outside the door. The small town at the foot of the mountain was still bustling with people. Business in this place was good or bad. Of course, he didn't really come here to do business.

Arrived here three months ago, he has been waiting for news from Wu Xie.

It wasn't just Xie Yuchen who disappeared from the train, but the entire Xie family.

The news of Xie Yuchen's "death" spread to all the halls of Xie's family, and everyone's hidden faces were exposed one after another.

If you want to know people's true purpose, it is not enough to just have a deceptive prey, but also put it in the most direct, controllable and easy-to-reach situation.So those hidden fangs and sharp claws couldn't wait to reach out to it, otherwise, if it was a little later, even the residue would be gone.

And Xie Yuchen did it very neatly, even to the point of outrageous.The unique seal of the Xie family has been washed into the vast Pacific Ocean at this time.

Xie Yuchen looked at the road leading to the front of the store he temporarily bought. The clerk was right, there would be no customers at this time.

And not far from the road extension, there are five figures, gradually approaching.

Xie Yuchen touched the stubble on his chin. Just an hour ago, it was still longer than it is now.He looked at his face in the mirror, and after getting used to it for a while, he was able to accept having a beard, but when he thought of the people he was going to see soon, he suddenly felt a little uncomfortable, so he shaved it off again.

The last time I saw Wu Xie was more than a year ago, the last time I saw black glasses was a few months ago, and the last time I saw Zhang Qiling was ten years ago.

"Long time no see." Xie Yuchen said to the visitor.

Wu Xie smiled at Xie Yuchen and said, "Boss Xie, I'm here to pick up the goods."

"I've kept it for you for a long time." Xie Yuchen nodded with a smile, and said hello to Black Glasses, Zhang Qiling, and the two high school students he had thrown off the bridge.

The rest of the life after the catastrophe, or the reunion after a long absence, is too ordinary.

But everyone knows that this kind of greeting is the best way.

In Xie Yuchen's warehouse, there are various equipment prepared by Wu Xie in advance.It was the first time for Li Cu and Su Wan to enter the snow-capped mountains, so they were new to the equipment in front of them. They tried this and that, especially when Wu Xie told them which ones were safe for their lives, and they studied them carefully.

Wu Xie walked up to Zhang Qiling holding a long box, frowned and said, "This thing is too heavy."

Zhang Qiling took it over and opened the box, glanced at the contents inside, and then looked at Wu Xie.

Wu Xie guessed that he was asking, where did the reappearing black gold ancient knife come from, so he let out a sigh of relief and said, "The blind man brought it back, I guess you'd rather get used to it?"

Zhang Qiling looked at Wu Xie and nodded, Wu Xie clicked his tongue and said, "Look at me, look at the knife."

Zhang Qiling let out a "hmm", raised his hand to touch the blade, and picked it up to weigh it again. After all, it was ten years away, and he needed time to adapt again.Wu Xie laughed, seeing that Zhang Qiling seemed very satisfied with this "gift", then sat next to Zhang Qiling and followed suit, and the two occasionally discussed some details about entering the mountain.

Xie Yuchen opened the last box and said, "You have made your choice, and I will stay here to meet you until you come back."

Su Wan glanced at the black glasses, and suddenly thought of Wu Xie's previous question, so he said to the black glasses, "Master, have you gone for medical treatment recently? I haven't seen you yet. How are you doing now? Are you coming into the mountains with us?"

The black glasses were leaning against the wall of Xie Yuchen's shop, and he was fiddling with a gun with his head down. He was skillful and agile, but he immediately slumped his shoulders when he heard the words, and his tone became very weak, saying: "It's been a few days, you guys Hurry up and do a happy event to cheer me up."

Li Cuzheng was wearing snow goggles, and thought it was very cool, he pointed to Wu Xie and said, "Over there, they are all given dowry."