Third watch

Village head Zhou looked at the candlestick altars set up by the villagers and heaved a sigh of relief.

White mosquito nets were erected around, and a black coffin was placed in front of the altar, and the dark color seemed to weigh on everyone's heart.

There was a wooden box next to the coffin. Zhou Limin's wife was almost paralyzed from crying, and now she just sat there blankly. The soft-hearted woman could only whisper her life is hard, and she couldn't say words of comfort.

Overnight, the man is gone, the child is gone, and being naked as a widow is hard no matter where you are.

Although that 'child' was ominous, and he couldn't even put a coffin in it when he died, but he had been raised for a few years anyway, how could he not be sad.

"Village chief, the boat is ready." A man came over and said.

Village head Zhou turned around, stepped forward to look at the paper pavilions and paper horses on the small wooden boat, and nodded, "Go into the water when the time comes." When an ominous person dies, they will pack the body and let the body flow into the black hole along the small river instead of being buried in the ancestral grave in Hongdeng Village. They believe that once the soul enters the black hole, it will be imprisoned by the black hole and will never come back. Red Lantern Village wanders.

This habit has always been prepared for those deformed "ominous" people. Zhou Limin is still one of the people with sound limbs who had to be put into the black hole after so many years.

Village Chief Zhou briefly inspected the offerings, and was about to turn around when he saw a string of paper boots seem to move a little out of the corner of his eye.

He hurriedly looked again, but there was no movement.

Nerves probably, he thought.

He is really tired.After staying up all night at this age and adding one day today, I actually feel that my body is too tired to bear.

Fortunately, Zhou Jin is back.

Although the son is still young, sooner or later he will succeed him.

After thinking about it, he recruited someone to call Zhou Jin over.

"You stay here to watch." He said to Zhou Jin: "It's time to release the boat."

After Zhou Jin nodded, he turned around to discuss with the elders in the clan whether he should go to the town to ask someone to invite some decent Taoist priests to chant scriptures.

"We still have to seal the black hole..." Several old people whispered: "The Yin fire cannot come out after sealing it."

"What if the Red Lantern Village is sealed off..."

"That's ominous..."

Zhou Jin was a little unwilling to listen to these old people's babblings. He thought that if it was really because of the black hole that the Red Lantern Village was not peaceful, it should have been sealed off early.

But he is not the village head yet. Today, the village head Zhou was very serious, and even gave him a severe reprimand at noon, saying that he should not leave outsiders in the village overnight at this time.

Hongdeng Village has always been very closed. The last two times outsiders entered the village brought disasters to the village.

Zhou Jin was very unconvinced. Those freaks in the village didn’t just happen in the past few years, and he didn’t think Wang Xiaoming and the others seemed like people who would bring disaster—there are many young people like this in the city, and these old people have too narrow a vision. .

But there was another part of him in his heart that felt that the old man's words might not be unreasonable, otherwise how would he explain the strange events that happened in the village?

"It's time," whispered a man beside him, calling for the coffin and boxes to be carried aboard.

Before anyone could make a move, someone suddenly yelled in fear, and the people beside the coffin immediately panicked, saying that they heard the coffin ringing.

Village Chief Zhou's eyelids twitched violently, and he walked over quickly to reprimand them not to talk nonsense, but the few people kept their faces blank and said nothing near the coffin.

"There's no sound!" Village Chief Zhou said sharply, "You guys—"

Before he finished speaking, there was another scratching sound from the coffin.

Village Chief Zhou was startled, and when he took a closer look, a black cat ran out from the side of the coffin, so fast that it melted into the night almost instantly.

"It's a cat..."

"wildcat……"

The relieved people carried the coffin and the alley onto the boat, and burned the ropes that tied the boat with fire—they resolved not to touch these ominous things in the end.

,—he thought he had seen it somewhere.

But it was too dark, and it was not easy to find a black cat—he didn't notice that the cat rushed out of nowhere like lightning, jumped onto the boat quickly, and almost fell headlong into the pile of paper shoes.

If someone saw it at this time, they would definitely scream—a hand suddenly stretched out from the pile of things on the boat, and grabbed the black cat into it.

Wang Xiaoming lay on the boat and whispered, "Lord Bai, don't move... ouch..."

Lord Bai scratched his paws without hesitation, and then Zhong Yi caught him.

"Water flows into the cave...could it be a cave?" Ye Xun stood next to the coffin and looked out.

Zhong Yi said: "You learned geography into the dog's stomach, how could there be caves here?"

Ye Xun said: "You are smart, tell me where is this place?"

Lu Xiaolu: "Ouch..."

Wang Xiaoming: "Ouch... Master Bai turned wild after running for a day, with sharp claws..."

Zhong Yi: "We just need to know that those old men entered from here."

Lu Xiaolu: "Ouch!"

The three of them quieted down, and Wang Xiaoming scolded: "Kid, keep your voice down, those villagers are still on the shore, what if they overhear?"

Lu Xiaolu gritted his teeth: "As long as you don't press my stomach, I will keep my voice down."

Only then did Wang Xiaoming realize that his elbow was pressing on Lu Xiaolu, he quickly moved to the side, and immediately brought the pile of paper shoes and paper ingots to rattle.

Zhong Yi said: "Don't move!"

Lu Xiaolu: "..."

The so-called black hole in Zhou Jin's mouth is actually just an ordinary cave, connected to a river as small as a stream.

If they hadn't heard the background explanation in advance, they wouldn't even take a second look when they passed by.

...Probably except Zhong Yi.

Zhong Yi raised his wrist, and the pointer on it completely stopped.

It wasn't until the boat completely drifted into the cave along the river that the four of them pulled away the pile of gold papers. Wang Xiaoming wanted to sit up, but Zhong Yi grabbed him and pressed him down.

Wang Xiaoming's heart skipped a beat immediately - in such a dark place, his senses seemed to be more sensitive, and he could almost feel Zhong Yi's breath in his ear brushing against his cheek.

It's a pity that Zhong Yi's voice is far less gentle than his breathing: "Have you got a brain and you will jump up as soon as you enter the cave? If the cave wall is low, do you still want your head?"

Ye Xun said coolly, "Maybe there are stalagmites or something."

As Ye Xun said, he rolled over and got up, instead of sitting up straight, he leaned against the coffin and shone the light on the cave wall.

"Wow. There are good things." Ye Xun said, "Look up."

The other three turned over and lay on their backs looking at the ceiling of the cave—the vaulted ceiling was unexpectedly flat, and there were faint traces of depiction where the light beam swept.

Wang Xiaoming narrowed his eyes: "Wait a minute. I've seen these things..."

spell.

Although the traces are different in depth, and because of the age, it has been covered with many things, and the head of the talisman is almost unrecognizable, but the gallbladder is still there.

"Is this the Maoshan spell?" Zhong Yi asked with a frown.

Although Lubanshu also has incantations, but incantations are a specialty of Taoism, and neither he nor Ye Xun can understand them.

"You have to have a celestial master." Ye Xun said, "Is this Maoshan technique?"

"I don't know." Wang Xiaoming was a little confused: "I've never seen anything like this."

Zhong Yi laughed: "Yes."

Wang Xiaoming said angrily, "What do you mean?!"

Because Wang Xiaoming was a monk halfway through, and his foundation was not well laid, Zhong Yi always used this to laugh at him, and Wang Xiaoming was very upset.

Ye Xun quickly grasped the point: "Is it because it was carved on the rock?"

Wang Xiaoming hummed.

Although he didn't know much about spells, the usage of spells was well known. Apart from the most common paste and harmony, there was also the method of eating, scrubbing, spraying and boiling, but it was unheard of to engrave it on a stone.

"What's written on it?" Ye Xun asked again.

Wang Xiaoming replied honestly, "I don't know about that either."

Although those traces were transcribed in the spell format, most of them were dotted and curved replacement characters, and Wang Xiaoming couldn't understand a single word.

This is not the script script spell that Wang Dazhuang often used.

"Could this be a secret text?" Wang Xiaoming blurted out with a flash of inspiration.

This time, both Zhong Yi and Ye Xun's expressions changed: "Secret text?"

"The secret text in the talisman, the world is ignorant..." Zhong Yi said in a low voice: "It is incomprehensible, it is wonderful and natural. Isn't that a legend?"

Wang Xiaoming was also a little depressed: "It is said that it was created by the master Zhang Daoling. No one can explain it. I just guess. I can't think of other possibilities for this strange brushwork except secret symbols."

"That was all thousands of years ago. Could it be that this hole was also chiseled by people thousands of years ago?" Ye Xun said.

Lu Xiaolu was a little depressed, so he had to listen to Di Ting to find his presence: "We don't understand what they said."

Di Ting rested his head on his front paws, tilted his head to look at him, his eyes were watery.

Lu Xiaolu paused for a moment, very shocked: "You can understand me too!"

"If this hole really has such a long history, then who carved those runes on it?" Wang Xiaoming stared at the symbols: "My grandfather must have known it when he came in."

While speaking, the boat was suddenly blocked by something and gave a sudden pause.

All four of them raised their arms to take pictures, and found that they had drifted very deep down the water. This underground river was faintly disappearing. The water was getting shallower, and there were dark rocks all around.

"Maybe the waterway is almost exhausted." Ye Xun said, "There is really an 'underground' river ahead."

"Wait..." Lu Xiaolu adjusted his glasses: "What happened to the boat just now?"

After he said this, the four of them looked carefully, only to find a sealed wooden box, the size of a suitcase, floating in the water beside the boat, and the surface was soaked by the river water.

"It's there too." Ye Xun turned his flashlight a little further away, and sure enough there were several alleys of different sizes crowded together.

"Why do I think..." Wang Xiaoming swallowed, "This thing looks familiar..."

"It should be familiar. There is another one on the bow." Zhong Yi reminded him.

They followed the mourning boat sent by the villagers all the way in. Apart from a black coffin, there was also a box like this on board.

Wang Xiaoming suddenly thought of last night, that child who was running stumbling without saying a word.

Zhong Yi suddenly reached out and squeezed his ears hard.

Wang Xiaoming came back to his senses after being pinched, looked at him inexplicably, Zhong Yi calmly withdrew his hand: "How is it? Boss."

He was stunned for a few seconds, and slowly exhaled, shaking off the uneasy memories in his mind just now: "It seems that the ship is about to run aground, get ready, we are here."