Ring of Seven [Publication Edition]

Because in his heart, he really didn't want to give up the direction with a high probability of survival.Who doesn't want to live?

Lin Xu sighed heavily, put away the cup and said, "When you think it over, come to me. I have picked up this old bone that I have lived to this day. You are still young, think again..."

His words relieved some of the guilt in everyone's hearts.Fat Sanyi sat on the coffin with his buttocks, and when he was crying, "Yeah, we should not have encountered such a thing, and now we are going to such a ghostly place..."

Ye Wei continued to pet the black cat: "Since we have come this far, what's the use of turning back? Or are you thinking of repeating the mistakes of Chen Rulan and the others?" After speaking, Ye Wei looked at Chen Hao meaningfully. glance.Chen Hao still did not express his opinion, but his face was so pale that it was frightening. He raised his head and glanced at Ye Wei, and quickly looked away, as if what Ye Wei said had no effect on him.

Zhou Jue sat weakly on the coffin and said, "Well, let's draw lots and let God make the decision."

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a sudden cry outside the house. It sounded like someone was crying for mourning.The thin monkey said: "Didn't it start again..."

Zhou Jue asked, "What started?"

The thin monkey said: "Isn't this village going to prepare a fake funeral? No..."

The thin monkey didn't continue talking, the loud cries and the beating of gongs and drums outside the house became more and more clear.It was still gray outside the door, and the mournful mourning was getting closer and closer.

Zhou Jue's forehead began to sweat slightly, and he said with a dry smile: "It's really crying... like a dead person."

Gradually, a few white spots appeared in the gray distance, approaching the coffin shop in a trance, and the sound became louder and louder.Then, a face wrinkled like a wax mask emerged from the door.Everyone was startled, and after a closer look, they found that it was an ordinary old man, slightly younger than Lin Xu.After he entered, a group of people came in one after another, and all of them were dressed in mourning without exception.

He was taken aback when he saw Zhou Jue and the others, but before he could react, Lin Xu came out of the room, pointed to the coffin next to him and said, "This is it."

The old man said, "Why are there outsiders here?"

Lin Xu said: "They are not outsiders, they are here to look for me." After finishing speaking, he turned his head and explained to Chen Hao, "Now is the time to go to the ancestral hall for offering sacrifices, you can either avoid it for a while, or go directly with me. There, you can decide whether to go down or what.”

The old man was slightly apprehensive, but it seemed that what Lin Xu said was very important to them, and no one raised any objections after he finished speaking.

Chen Hao looked at Zhou Jue, Zhou Jue nodded, and the others did not object.They silently carried their luggage on their backs, ready to "go to the funeral" with Lin Xu and the others.

The old man handed Lin Xu a white linen blouse: "Brother, let's start."

Lin Xu carelessly took the white linen blouse handed over by the old man, took a wrench with a strange shape from the side partition, and shouted: "Lift the coffin."

Several middle-aged men worked together to lift the coffin, and the women began to cry at the top of their voices. After listening carefully, they found that they were actually singing a very weird song in the local dialect. It sounded no different from mourning , but the voice does have rhythm and rhyme, but it is really unbearable to be sung by them.

Lin Xu walked in the front, and the old man walked beside the coffin, responsible for protecting the coffin from shaking.And the woman threw paper money while crying.There were two men following the woman, one of them was beating the gong and the other was blowing the suona, rhythmically playing with the woman's cries and songs from time to time.Zhou Jue discovered that only a few people participated in the village-wide sacrificial ceremony, while the other villagers did not show their faces.

Zhou Jue and the others followed at the end, looking very out of place.Because of the previous disputes, they didn't have much conversation. Everyone was thinking about the problems in their hearts. Occasionally, they would look at others and find that they also looked worried, and their hearts would become more uneasy and anxious.

They walked out of the alley. At this time, the whole village was closed, but there were wreaths and offerings piled up at the door, and the confused team did not stop.Lin Xu took out a porcelain bowl from his pocket and smashed it down on the ground, and then the old man shouted to the village: "Blooming on the ground, long life."

The village remained deathly quiet, while the funeral procession continued on.

They walked very slowly and took a break in the middle, because firstly, the coffin was very heavy, and those people were not young anymore.At this time, the women were also shouting dryly, and they took turns drinking tea. One of the older women was very curious about Zhou Jue's arrival, so she asked, "Young man, why are you here?"

Zhou Jue didn't know what to say. Seeing that he hesitated to speak, the woman became even more curious, and said, "You're still pretending to be mysterious. Don't think I don't know. Did you come here to investigate some folk customs? Someone came here before." Well, I am very interested in our village. Our village has been doing this for a long time, and now only Uncle Lin and Uncle Wang are left in the older generation who know the reason." Zhou Jue saw that this woman seemed to want to show off. After thinking about it myself, I thought maybe I could ask, so I asked, "So, do you know the meaning of this song?"

The woman said: "Oh, you said that the older generation can pronounce this word, but you really understand what it means. It seems to mean that a woman wants to go home after she dies, but there is no way to go home after the mountains and the waters. Going home. So I just sang and sang along the way, and I don’t know if I went back in the end. Although I don’t know what it means, there are not many people who can sing now. I was also taught by the old lady in my family. Every time I run One funeral can earn a lot of money, and the villagers treat me politely."

When Zhou Jue heard it, he always felt that there might be an inexplicable connection between this song and the female ghost from Gongzhufen.In Zhou Jue's mind, a blurry woman's body kept appearing, she was as elusive as a wisp of smoke, looming faintly behind everyone, yet so vague and weak.

Zhou Jue asked: "Then, why do you have to continue this custom?"

The woman said: "Well... I heard from the old man that there is a stone city underground here. After we die, we continue to live in the stone city, and sometimes we can meet our family members in Yangjian. Later, the court found out, The people who were already dead were killed again, and Stone City was gone. Then we started to suffer from the plague, and many bugs came out. Dozens of people died every year, and the village seemed to be dying. Those are our ancestors after all, but we still can’t see that we will die like that, so we dreamed that we must send a funeral at this time every year. It turned out that our ancestral hall was built on the top of the stone city. Anyway, we do it every year. Just do it like that, and it’s really not a lot of peace after that.”

After the woman finished speaking, she continued to sing, and another woman came to drink tea and rest. However, unlike that woman, she had no affection for Zhou Jue and the others at all. far away.

At this time, it started to rain lightly. The rain was not heavy, but it was very dense. After a while, everyone was wet and their vision began to blur.Everyone took out the flashlights, and where the light was shining, the rain continued like white silk threads.

Lin Xu yelled again, it seemed that he had to hurry again.

The silent woman finally drank her tea and continued to shout at the top of her voice, walking faster and more hurriedly than before, and soon reached the wild forest.Just when they were about to enter the forest, a lynx suddenly jumped out and stopped in front of everyone.The old man named Uncle Wang said: "It's unlucky to meet a bobcat in the rain...Look, bro..."

Lin Xu raised his hand to stop the team, but the wild cat neither barked nor ran away, but just stared at the coffin.

Zhou Jue found that the black cat in Ye Wei's backpack seemed to have moved too, but Ye Wei held it tightly and couldn't get out.

Lin Xu said, "Open the coffin and have a look."

Uncle Wang said, "Opening the coffin halfway is not a good sign."

Lin Xu said: "It's okay, I have some red strings here, everyone tied them up, it's not noon, so it doesn't matter if you look at it."

Uncle Wang asked the villagers to put down the coffin. The coffin was not nailed, and the two men pushed the coffin open.Inside the coffin were quilts and birthday pillows made of bright red silk, a comb and a mirror facing down, and nothing else.Uncle Wang said reassuringly, "It's all right...everything is normal, drive that stray cat away and get on the road."

Lin Xu drove away the lynx with a branch, and the lynx jumped out again like a ghost.Although everyone felt uneasy, they didn't dare to say more, they hurriedly tied up the coffin and continued walking.After entering the forest, the rain was basically blocked by the leaves, but the rain formed a white mist around it.Suddenly, from the depths of the forest, the sound of bells was heard, so soft that it was almost inaudible.Chen Hao grabbed Zhou Jue's arm and said, "Be careful."

Zhou Jue nodded, they no longer walked at the end, but walked to the side of the coffin.

Just when they were about to reach the ancestral hall, the silent woman suddenly pointed to her throat, and said as if her voice had been cut by a cutting machine: "Master...I, I can't sing..."

Lin Xu asked her to open her mouth and said, "Well, my tongue is a little red. I guess I caught a cold from the rain. Sister Li, please stop singing. When we go back, we will still give it to you."

The woman seemed to be in pain, she nodded and obediently followed the two men who were beating the gongs and drums. The noisy woman didn't dare to sing anymore, and Lin Xu didn't force them either.This team seemed to have no sound anymore. Everyone was walking in the wild forest, only the sound of the bell appeared and disappeared.Zhou Jue felt as if something was watching them, and he glanced hastily, as if he saw a figure swaying in the depths of the forest.

But he didn't say anything, just followed the team silently.The crowd became more and more uneasy as they walked, as if the coffin was getting heavier and heavier, and the men who carried the coffin kept panting, as if the coffin was made of iron.

At this moment, the thin monkey suddenly stopped, pointed to the bottom of the coffin and said, "Look, why is the coffin dripping blood?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the coffin began to shake violently.The coffin bearer was so frightened that he dropped the coffin and ran back.The two women cried and hugged each other.Lin Xu opened his eyes wide, rushed forward with a stride, and slammed the coffin, and the coffin really stopped shaking.

Uncle Wang was so frightened that he hurriedly asked, "What's going on?"

Lin Xu said: "Maybe it's a shock, remember a few years ago, didn't we also encounter this?"

Uncle Wang said, "Could it be related to those young people?"

Lin Xu didn't answer, pointing to Fat San and the others, he said, "Please help me open the coffin again."

Fat San pointed at himself and said, "Me?"

Lin Xu didn't take it seriously and said, "You're the biggest, isn't it you, is it still the little guy next to you?"

After saying this, Fat San didn't jump up, but Thin Monkey jumped up all of a sudden.He rolled up his sleeves and pointed to the coffin, "Which way?"

Lin Xu said: "Open the whole coffin board, I have to see what happened inside."

The thin monkey gave Zhou Jue a wink, and the two of them turned over the whole coffin board together.There were still the same things inside the coffin, but Fat San pointed at the coffin board and yelled.

The coffin was actually covered with stone-like off-white things, and on closer inspection, these things seemed to be bones.

Zhou Jue and Shouhou threw away the coffin board, and were surprised to see that there were many bones in the reddish-brown coffin board.They were tightly sucked to the inner side of the coffin board, and the blood was the liquid secreted by the white bones.

Zhou Jue felt disgusted for a while, and asked disgustedly: "What's going on? Why is it so disgusting..."

At this time, Lin Xu and Uncle Wang were so frightened that they couldn't even speak, Lin Xu's face was covered with cold sweat, and Uncle Wang was also shaking, pointing to the coffin board and saying: "This, this is not... ..."

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the familiar sound of gongs and drums coming from the ancestral hall, and the strange mourning song came from the depths of the forest.The two women sat down on the ground in fright when they heard the sound of singing.Uncle Wang grabbed Lin Xu and shouted, "That thing is here again, hurry, run! The ghost burial has started again!"

Lin Xu stood still, and when Uncle Wang saw this, he simply shook off Lin Xu's hand, turned around and ran away.Seeing him running away, the two women staggered along with him.Zhou Jue didn't know what was going on, he found that Lin Xu's eyes were fixed on the depths of the forest, and he was muttering something silently.He only heard one sentence clearly: "Finally here again..."

Zhou Jue asked what was the matter, but Lin Xu didn't say anything, took off the white linen clothes on his body, and ran wildly into the depths of the forest.Everyone was dumbfounded for a moment, and didn't lift their heels until Chen Hao also ran in.