Strange Tale

Slap──I often slap a stone in front of Xu Hai, "You lose."

Xu Hai scratched the back of his neck, "I've lost everything recently."

I often pick up stones and rearrange them, "Let's have another plate."

……

At the entrance of the village, against the afterglow of the setting sun, two figures walked out.The sun dazzled his eyes hard, and he often set up a shade with his hands to cover the sun and squinted for a while, then he turned his head and stood up and stretched his waist, "The two uncles are finally out. Let's go, Xiao Hai, get in the car, I guess we won't stay here any longer."

Xu Hai kicked away the stones that had just been laid out and scratched the "chessboard" drawn on the sand with his feet, "How do you know?"

"Don't you also say that you feel flustered? It's not suitable to stay in such a place for a long time. Besides, Mr. Si is in a hurry."

Xu Hai also stood up and looked in the direction opposite to the village, "But...why haven't Xiao Lin and Huan'er come back?"

He often turned around and slapped his forehead, "That's right! I said why it's so quiet, I forgot about them!"

"What should I do?"

"Let's see what they arrange." She often turned her head to look at the shadow walking out of the village, "Huh?"

"What's wrong?" Xu Hai also turned his head.

Si Ren looked at the faintly visible "chessboard" on the ground, "They were playing chess here just now."

Long Jiu picked up a stone and weighed it in his hand, as if talking to himself, "It is impossible for Yechang and Xiaohai to leave without authorization..."

Si Ren looked around: as far as he could see, there were only woods, dirt hills and a deserted village.Between the forest and the dirt hill is a dirt road leading directly to the village, and they came along that road.There was nothing on the dirt hill, and there was nothing unusual about the woods in the direction Huan'er ran away crying and Qilin chasing after.

"The car is gone too." Knowing that Long Jiu must have noticed it long ago, Si Ren still muttered.

"Ai──" Long Jiu threw away the stone and sighed with an annoyed look on his face, "I'm afraid of something, I didn't want to make trouble, so I found it myself."

Si Ren chanted the mantra and looked around again, but there was still nothing, so he simply sat cross-legged on the ground.

Long Jiu frowned and became more anxious, he walked around Si Ren a few steps, "How about I go look for it?"

Si Ren grabbed his lapel, "Don't! It will be even more troublesome if we get separated again."

"Then what should we do? You can't just sit and wait without doing anything, can you?"

Si Ren pulled hard on his hand, "Sit down first, look..." He pointed to the purple sunset glow in the west, "It will be dark soon. Wait patiently, if you often have something to do with Xiaohai They left temporarily, and they will definitely come back here before dark. Well... If they didn’t leave by themselves, then according to my experience, something will happen at night.”

Long Jiu was also afraid that Si Ren would be in danger after he left, so he looked up at the sky, and he had no choice but to sit down obediently as Si Ren said.

The two sat opposite each other.Si Ren faces east and Long Jiu faces west.

Si Ren set up the barrier first, then he picked up a stone and drew a chessboard along the original trace on the ground, "Shall we play chess for a while?"

Long Jiu slapped away the stone in his hand, "Are you still in the mood to play chess? You might as well do a divination if you have the time."

Si Ren raised his eyes to look at Long Jiu, at this moment the purple sunset glow in the western sky was reflected in his twinkling eyes, strange and dazzling.Si Ren stared at him intently for a while, and suddenly regretted: What if something happened and he would never see such a beautiful "sunset glow" again?

Long Jiu was taken aback by Si Ren, "What are you looking at? Can't hear me? Quickly do the math to see if they are in any danger."

Si Ren didn't move, "Huan'er told me that he was going back to Yancheng when we were at the Buguicheng Inn."

"Children want to go home when they are tired from playing."

Si Ren shook his head, "No, she must have seen something bad."

"What's wrong?"

"She couldn't tell. Anyway, what she said made me feel like it was a mistake for me to go home."

"Didn't you say that Huan'er has always been very accurate?"

"Ah."

"Then you still go on?"

"If it were you, wouldn't you leave?"

"of course not."

"so."

"What 'so ah'?"

"It's come to this point, there's no need to forget about it."

"Why?" Long Jiu still didn't understand.

Si Ren spread his hands, "It's meaningless to calculate a good result, so what if it's not good? Don't do anything?"

"Aren't you kidding yourself?"

"Fortune-telling is a matter of self-deception. Few people believe in ominous divination, and everyone only loves good luck."

What Si Ren said was right, Long Jiu had nothing to say.

After being silent for a while, Long Jiu caught a glimpse of the boundary marker at the entrance of the village, "Why did this village have such a name?"

Si Ren looked towards the village, "Then do you know what the 'Dusuo' in Dushuo City means?"

"Of course I know. In ancient times, there was Dushuo Mountain. Two gods, Shentu and Yulei, lived on the mountain. Every day, they stood under the peach tree and read hundreds of ghosts. But this so-called 'Ancient You' means that I was trapped at the bottom of the pond. At that time, it wasn’t too ‘ancient’ for me... Oh, I see. The ‘two gods’ in Ershen Village refer to Shen Tu and Yu Lei?”

Si Ren nodded.

"Then what is the relationship between Dushuo City and Dushuo Mountain?"

"There is a mountain behind Dushuo City called Dushuo Mountain. The names of Dushuo City and Ershen Village all come from it."

"It's located in the Central Plains, so it's unlikely that it has anything to do with the Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea, right?"

"There is a peach grove on this Dushuo Mountain. It is said that someone has seen a strange scene in it."

"A strange sight? What a strange sight."

"I don't know, it's a relatively old legend. It probably has something to do with the gods and monsters. Later, it was rumored that two gods, Shen Tu and Yu Lei, lived in the mountain somehow. So the mountain was called Du Shuoshan is gone."

"Oh, I see."

"You have traveled from south to north and from east to west for so many years, have you never been to Duoshuo City?"

"I have been there, but it was not called Dushuo City at that time, and there was no Ershen Village here."

"How long ago was that?"

"long time."

……

Si Ren and Long Jiu were a little tired from sitting and chatting, so they changed from face to face to back to back.After the two stopped talking, Si Ren's eyelids gradually became heavy and he dozed off unknowingly.

I don’t know if it’s because he’s almost home, but Si Ren feels in a daze as if he’s sleeping at home, as if he’s never left, and he’s not the stupid and ignorant boy he used to be. Brotherly harmony.

Everything was perfect, and Si Ren felt extremely happy.

……

"Xiao Ren, wake up, look!"

Si Ren opened his eyes: it was pitch black all around, it was already dark, he and Long Jiu were still sitting on the ground.

Long Jiu grabbed Si Ren and shook it again, "Look at the woods."

It seemed that there was a sound coming from the originally quiet woods, Si Ren looked for the sound, and saw some shadowy tree trunks that seemed to be shaking.But if you take a closer look: Those shaking things are not tree trunks at all, but people.It was a group of people walking from the woods to Ergami Village.They moved slowly, seemingly swaying to and fro but maintaining the same speed.

The crowd got closer and closer, Si Ren and Long Jiu were safe in the barrier, they kept their eyes wide open trying to see what kind of people they were.

Suddenly, Si Ren stood up abruptly, "Zhang...Uncle Zhang?!"

"What? Who?!" Long Jiu quickly followed suit, "Who did you see?"

"It's Uncle Zhang, the first house we entered in the village!"

"Ah?! Which one is it?"

"The third person over there, the one leading the child."

Long Jiu squinted his eyes to distinguish carefully, and found the "Uncle Zhang" that Si Ren mentioned without much effort.

Under the moonlight, Uncle Zhang's body was stiff, his face was pale, and his eyes were dull. He was holding the child in his hand, just like him, with the same empty eyes and expressionless face.