Of Mountains and Rivers

"Sit down when it's done." Chu Huan threw the rope that tied several people to the ground, and sighed exhaustedly, "Listen to me first."

He clasped his hands together, wiped his face vigorously, then coughed lightly, and slowed down his speech as much as possible: "Don't worry, listen to me to sort it out--the thing is like this now, we must burn the scepter before it burns out." , rushed to Chen Xing Island to find the holy book, or at least the clues of the holy book, only the holy book can tell us how to deal with the following crisis. And now that the road has gone halfway, you suddenly said that you want to go back?"

Luge asked back blankly: "If you are more sensible, you will understand that this idea is right."

Chu Huan pinched his brows hard, trying to suppress the anxiety in his heart. After a while, he pretended to be calm and said optimistically: "I'm a little confused now-this thing... don't care about it. Something——The shadow in this sinking place must have its own consciousness, it is now staring at us for some reason, and using various methods to prevent us from passing through this mountain, this does not just mean that the road is right Is it?"

Nanshan didn't say a word, Ruge didn't even bother to refute, just sneered slightly.

Only Yuan Ping sighed: "You don't understand."

Yuan Ping was very serious. He said, bowed his head and walked to Chu Huan and sat down in silence: "I told you, we are born from the holy water, which is a part of the mountain. The mountain is life or death for us. It’s not fake, can’t you feel the broken arm yourself?”

Forgot that there was still this problem, Chu Huan choked up.

Luge stared indifferently at the sea of ​​black mist flying over the sea of ​​clouds. Over the years, the gatekeeper had experienced countless times of death and death, and he was used to this—if he was unable to recover, he would die calmly.

The gatekeeper's life is immutable, and for them, sometimes death is just a familiar destination.

The four fell into a silence that was more suffocating than the valley.

Yuan Ping pinched the rope tied to his hands section by section with his fingers without saying a word. After pinching a circle, he let go of the crumpled rope again. :"I don't."

Luge, who was like an ice sculpture, finally reacted and looked down at him.

Yuan Ping said: "Patriarch, I won't go back. I have encountered everything since I grew up, but even if the sky falls, I have never waited to die."

Ruge's slender eyebrows trembled slightly, as if a little stunned.

Yuan Ping kicked Chu Huan sullenly, and coughed dryly: "How about you, also say something."

Chu Huan had nothing to say. The reason why he was here, not to mention all, was at least more than half of the reason for Nanshan. As for Nanshan, he came to die for his clansmen.

Now that the holy mountain has fallen, the clansmen are gone, and there is no place for them to stand in the world, Chu Huan doesn't know what else he can change in his opinion.

Nan Shan didn't say a word, as if he was insane.

Yuan Ping was alone and helpless for a while, so embarrassed that he had no choice but to kick Chu Huan again: "Savior, you still have a holy flame hanging around your neck, is it okay? Don't shrink back at the critical moment, okay?"

Chu Huan patted the shoe prints on his trousers blankly, ignored him, and just said to Nanshan without beginning and end: "I told you that I jumped off by myself. .”

What he said didn't go to the village or back to the store, which was very puzzling, except for Nanshan, no one understood it.

Nanshan finally had some reaction, turned his eyes slightly to look at him sideways, and said in a hoarse voice, "Didn't you say you lied to me?"

Chu Huan smiled wryly: "It's so embarrassing, how dare you admit it——I... really didn't expect to meet you at the time."

Nanshan's expression didn't know whether it was joy or sorrow. As far as the current situation was concerned, Chu Huan was really unlucky to meet him.

"At that time, I just didn't think it was interesting. If no one needed me anymore, I lived in the same way every day, and I lived like a walking dead. What's the point?" With an expression on his face, he continued, "So now that I recall a sentence you said to me, I think it makes sense."

Nanshan was stunned.

Just heard Chu Huan say: "At that time, I copied the information of those veterans on the mountain, and said that I would report the funeral to their families when I went back. You said to me 'If you are not dead, you are alive', remember?"

Nanshan stared at him for a while: "Are you persuading me to go on?"

Chu Huan spread his hands: "You are the head of my family, I will not persuade you. If you want to go forward, I will accompany you to go forward. If you want to go back to the mountain, I will accompany you back to the mountain."

Nanshan listened in silence for a long time.

At this time, his way of coming was cut off from his way of going forward. Looking back, he felt that he was a coward, and moving forward, he felt that he was a joke. He held Chu Huan's hand tightly, and for a moment he felt as if he could only look at this person. Only then can he make up for the... irresistible fragility and powerlessness brought to him by his lost hometown.

"Walk."

In the end, Nanshan stood up and made the decision with a knife and an axe.

Just as Yuan Ping was about to agree, he heard a soft hum. Then he remembered that his position had gone wrong, and he had inadvertently isolated his patriarch. He quickly turned his head and tried to remedy it: "That, patriarch...this..."

Ruge's pale face was as serious as frost, and he glanced at Yuan Ping lightly, but couldn't tell whether it was joy or anger.Then he picked up the poisonous snake Xiaolu without saying a word, threw the fat long worm into Yuan Ping's arms frantically, and walked forward with the burning scepter to open the way.

The little shoes are really wonderful. After Yuan Ping was stunned for a moment, he found that he was being watched by a poisonous snake full of love. It was fine if he didn't pay attention just now. At this moment, he was terrified and wanted to hiss and scream. On the one hand, he was afraid of disturbing the living thing in his hand, so he didn't dare to breathe.

His whole body froze like a doorpost in a dilemma, and he meowed in a dying voice: "Help, help..."

It's a pity that he was such a failure that no one was willing to rescue him for a while. Just like that, Yuan Ping held the big green snake in both hands, maintained such a posture like Magu's birthday, and was dragged away by the noose without hemiplegia. Unwilling footprints left a deep groove in the ground.

They were finally forced to break the boat and go to the depths of darkness without hesitation.

And whether they are worried or pretend to be relaxed, they all know each other well that the sun in this world will never rise from any corner again.

A few people followed the ridge and carefully circumvented the valley, and they could still hear the faint cry from time to time.

Xiaolu probably felt a little tired from being flattered by Yuan Ping, so she spontaneously left him to find Chu Huan.

Only then did Yuan Ping feel relieved, and he was in the mood to think about other things. While walking, he said thoughtfully: "Screaming is usually fear, crying... It seems to be sad or something, right?"

When he mentioned this, several people thought about it and found it reasonable.

When a person is sad, at the beginning, the heart may indeed be at a loss, and then what?When sadness reaches a certain level, there will be a feeling of suffocation, which coincides with their experience in the valley.

"The shadow that climbed down from that girl chased us all the way to the river. You said it didn't dare to cross the river. Is there such a possibility?" Yuan Ping continued, "For example, this side of the river belongs to another kind of It does not dare to cross the boundary—that is to say, in fact, the collapsed land is not a whole, but divided into many pieces.”

Chu Huan: "Not necessarily, it may also be that it knows that we can't climb this mountain even if we cross the river. Regarding the sinking place, the elder said a very strange thing to me. He said, 'The sinking place is a consciousness. I can't even think about it', I have been thinking about what this sentence means, and now I seem to have touched an edge, but I am not very sure."

At this time, Nanshan had calmed down under the influence of strong psychological endurance, and was holding the rope to guard his surroundings. Hearing this, he said in a deep voice, "Say it."

"The so-called subsidence refers to the places that are engulfed by these shadows. If there is no problem with the mountains and rivers in these places," Chu Huan paused, "The problem is the shadow that will spread spontaneously. We can think of it as It's some kind of unknown life."

This statement is obviously much easier to accept than "the enemy is the world". Chu Huan really got distracted, and his words and words are actually very skillful. In a few words, he can pull the invincible enemy to a height that does not need to be looked up to.

He told the story, although it was all speculation, and some of the words seemed nonsense at first glance, but they sounded inexplicably convincing... Presumably the group of people who specialize in bank card fraud for the elderly also have this skill.

"Since it is a kind of life, it must obtain energy by ingesting something. I believe that plants do not have this energy. It can only be obtained through animals—including humans."

Luge frowned: "You mean it eats people."

"Yes, but it is a life form that I can't understand at present, so what it eats may not necessarily be the flesh and blood of humans or animals." Chu Huan thought for a while, "I think it may have something to do with human consciousness—— So now I have a question, did the Luge patriarch, Mutai, the sound beast, the eye-eater, the dead flower, and the phantom monkey really exist from the beginning of time?"

Chu Huan has been thinking about this since that mountain patrol. In his opinion, the existence of these monsters is very unreasonable-you must know that the ecosystem is very fragile, and with the fighting power of the mountain guards, it is difficult to deal with some of them. The monster has no power to fight back, let alone other wild animals?

Then the ecological system will inevitably be shuffled, and the result is that one or several of these monsters must reproduce in large numbers, so that other creatures are forced to become extinct. This is the normal logic.

When they encountered a herd of eye-eating beasts in the forest, Chu Huan felt that something was wrong—those monsters belonged to a group. Although there were serious internal management problems, they barely had a division of labor and collaboration, and even stored food reserves. but they fled through the whole wood without seeming to find a place to raise their cubs.

Don't they have cubs at all?

As soon as this question was raised, Nanshan didn't know, but Luge was taken aback. His impression seemed to be unclear. After reminiscing for a long time, he said with some uncertainty: "You said it like this, it seems to be..."

It has been a long time, and even the gatekeepers only have a thin impression, but Luge remembers that the gatekeepers were originally the guards of the holy mountain. At that time, when they were old and weak, they would automatically throw themselves into the holy spring, waiting for new life to come, but It seems that since at some point, the gatekeeper has faced endless battles since birth, and it seems that it has become a very luxurious thing to be able to live to old age and peacefully go to sleep in the holy spring.

"They appeared suddenly, and I can't say exactly when," Ruger said.

Chu Huan did not check whether the monsters appeared at the same time as the collapsed land. The information in this world is not smooth, and the error may be large. He nodded and continued: "Because these monsters correspond to the five senses of human beings. It is largely based on the senses, so I suspect that their appearance and growth are inseparable from the fall."

"I agree," Nanshan interjected abruptly, "the farther you go to the core of the cave, the fewer monsters there are. Didn't you realize that we haven't seen one for a long time?"

Chu Huan: "I have been thinking about what happened to that little girl, including other people I met on the road. Their consciousness seems to be stuck in certain scenes that they believe in. I don't know how to let them get out of it through communication. What will happen after that scene, but it is obviously not what the devourer wants to see, otherwise it would not be able to chase us for so long like being cuckolded."

Several people nodded in thought. For a moment, Ruge thought over his words from beginning to end, and asked with some doubts: "I understand what you mean, but what is a green hat?"

Chu Huan: "..."

As he got to know him better, he found that the patriarch of the gatekeeper seemed to be less emotional and just cooler-looking. His focus was always so comprehensive and sharp, and he never let go of any doubts.

Nanshan: "It's not serious, ignore him."

Chu Huan was speechless again. If he hadn't been confused, Nanshan didn't seem to know what a cuckold was. Their family head seemed to have subtly added a function of filtering sensitive words.

At first, Chu Huan didn't really want to know what image he was in the other party's heart.

"But if you say something sad..." Nanshan paused, "You can try to keep saying 'this is fake' in his ear."

"Hey, Patriarch Nanshan, you are too straight-eyed." Even Yuan Ping could hardly listen anymore. "Of course it's a lie, but will people believe you once you say it? That's too easy."

Chu Huan didn't answer, and began to think carefully.

"People are different when they are sad," Nanshan said quietly, "If someone told him that everything that happened was false, he would be more willing to accept it than you can imagine."

Chu Huan couldn't help asking: "How do you know?"

Nanshan glanced at him, but he didn't say anything about the fact that Chu Huan's breathing and heartbeat stopped in his arms, but there were thousands of words in that silent glance, and it was hard to tell what it contained, Chu Huan's heart went crazy for no reason. jump up.

Chu Huan hastily coughed dryly, turned his face to avoid his sight, and rarely felt a little embarrassed.

He originally thought that his skin was so thick that he couldn't be persuaded, but now it seems that it's just that he hasn't encountered enough true feelings.

Of course, this brainwashing method of deceiving people in the valley will definitely not work, let alone whispering in their ears, the suffocation there is enough for them to drink a pot.

Several people walked for another day and night before carefully passing the mountain range. In the boundless wilderness, they met a man who seemed to be on his way.

"I can't hear the sound." Chu Huan said.

Yuan Ping: "Of course I can't hear you from such a distance. Come closer."

"Its power is increasing, so you must be careful." Nanshan pulled Chu Huan, and several people carefully circled the man a few times like a landmine, and approached, Nanshan whispered in Chu Huan's ear, "Don't ask What happened to him, just tell him it's all fake."

Chu Huan faintly felt that this idea was a little unreliable, but there was no better way for a while.

As they gradually approached the man, the familiar feeling of suffocation surged up again, but perhaps it was because of the other party alone, although there was a bit of chest tightness, it was not to the point where he couldn't breathe.

Chu Huan licked his lips, as his family leader instructed, without asking indiscriminately, and began his monk chanting, repeating only one sentence: "That's fake."

He repeated it so many times that he felt that he could barely understand these four words, his mouth was worn thin, and the buzzing made him feel a headache, but the sufferer didn't even make a sound.

Chu Huan turned around stealthily and lowered his voice: "I feel like something is wrong."

Luge bent down and observed the man: "Try again."

"Trying again will become a curse..." Chu Huan muttered, raised his hand tentatively, and pressed the man's shoulder. This time, he brewed his emotions for a moment, and said with as much emotion as possible, "Then is fake."

Suddenly, Chu Huan heard a sneer, he turned his head and glanced at Luge inexplicably: "Chief Luge, what are you laughing at?"

Ruger's expression is a cool version of the unknown so: "What?"

It's not Luger who's laughing, so...

Chu Huan immediately reacted, withdrew his hand suddenly, and was about to step back.

He reacted very quickly, and the movement of withdrawing his hand was like touching a switch, but even so, it was too late. A scorching flame erupted from the man's body, directly igniting the rope in Chu Huan's hand.