Paintings of Terror

Li Jinghao.

"Could it be just a coincidence? After all, the surname Li is a common surname." Wei Dong said.

Ke Xun stood up: "Go and ask, maybe the old man can provide something."

The two ran to the old man's yard.

After entering the room and knocking on the inner door, the old man looked up at the two of them with cloudy, dead eyes: "What's the matter?"

"Let me ask, who is that person who died?" Ke Xun cut to the chase.

"How come you don't know? Who are you?" The old man's tone suddenly became vigilant, and his two stone-like eyeballs moved suddenly, slowly revealing a strange and hideous look.

Ke Xun was startled, and quickly pointed to the linen strip with the curse word on his waist to show the old man: "I'm here to help, you see, I haven't studied since I was a child, because my brain is not good enough. Shi, I can’t remember who told me what, I have been helping for two days, and suddenly I forgot who died, thinking that this is a bit disrespectful to the deceased, so I hurried over to ask your old man.”

The old man stared at Ke Xun with his lifeless eyes for a long time, until he stared at Ke Xun until his heart was frightened, and finally said: "The one who died was a strange person from Li Mazi's family. Unfortunately, there is no one in his family anymore. We can't help it." The folks in these villages have all contributed to help."

Deformed children are called Weiguai, and rural people in the countryside like to give them cheap names in order to make a living.

Ke Xun asked again: "How did Weiguai die?"

The old man gave him a gloomy look: "Being born like that, it's not easy to live to such an age."

Wei Dong recalled the topic he talked with Ke Xun just now, and hurriedly asked, "What's the relationship between his father and his mother?"

Old man: "Husband and wife."

Wei Dong: "..."

Ke Xun rolled his eyes: "Is there anyone in the village who has a grudge against Li Mazi's family?"

I remembered the curse of the three locust trees and the cypress coffin that Mu Yiran had mentioned.

The old man stared at him gloomyly: "We are all fellow villagers, so there is no hatred."

"Who beat that weird coffin?" Ke Xun got goosebumps all over his body when he was stared at by the old man.

The old man's expression became strange: "His old lady is afraid that no one will take care of Guaiguai after he dies, so before he dies, someone will beat Guaiguai in advance."

This is strange, and Ke Xun doesn't understand, unless Weiwei's parents don't know the saying that a pure cypress wooden coffin was struck by lightning, and it was used by Weiwei by mistake.

"Do you know when the three pagoda trees next to his house were planted?" Ke Xun asked.

The old man's expression became even more strange, the color of his face turned gray at a speed visible to the naked eye, a pair of cloudy eyeballs were full of ferociousness and ferocity, the two eyeballs protruded outward with all his strength, and his shriveled mouth was torn open, revealing his innocence. The black and red gums of the teeth and the smelly mouth were opened wide, and he said bluntly: "What kind of locust tree, there is no locust tree. Who are you to dare to break into Lijia Village. Lijia Village has not allowed outsiders to enter for thousands of years. You , die, die, die—”

As he said that, his mouth opened wider and wider, like a bottomless black hole, and he rushed towards Ke Xun and Weidong!

"Run!" Ke Xun yelled, dragging Wei Dong, who was stunned on the spot, to escape through the door.

The two rushed out of the yard without looking back. Wei Dong had never run so fast in his life. Under Ke Xun's pull, he felt that his legs were no longer legs. Six out of ten feet could not touch the ground. Everyone is swaying in the air.

Seeing that his legs couldn't move anymore, he fell to the ground with a hungry dog ​​pooping.

When he raised his face with a mouth full of dirt, he saw a few more pairs of feet in his sight, and then he saw Ke Xun's feet striding towards the leader's feet, Wei Dong calculated the distance between the toes. Ke Xun pursed his lips and almost gnawed on Mu Yiran's face.

"Report boss, someone wants to eat us." Ke Xun asked for comfort and hugs.

The boss gave him a cold look to let him experience it for himself.

"What's going on?" asked the doctor.

Ke Xun looked back and saw that the old man hadn't caught up, so he briefly explained what happened just now, and then asked these people: "Did you find any clues?"

"We..." The doctor looked a little complicated, "I made a shocking discovery."

After Mu Yiran and Ke Xun separated, they first went to the village to find the village chief's house.

The village head is the head of a village. Generally speaking, the place where he lives should be the largest and best house in the whole village, so everyone quickly found their target.

However, there is no one in the village head's house, and the house is full of dust, as if no one has lived in it for a long time.

Mu Yiran found a family tree and a village chronicle in the room of the village chief's house that served as a small ancestral hall.

Sure enough, all the villagers in this village have the same ancestors, and their ancestors once served as Zongzhu of the royal family during the Warring States Period.

Legend has it that Zong Zhu can communicate with ghosts and gods, and his magical skills and witchcraft are only passed on to his direct lineage, not to outsiders.

Therefore, the ancestors of the Li family formulated the family rules, and their descendants lived here forever, and they were not allowed to leave, branch off, marry with other surnames, or communicate with the outside world.

Looking at the entire genealogy, regardless of husband and daughter-in-law, all of them are named Li.

In the whole village, there is no one with a foreign surname.

"... Their ancestors must have been crazy," Wei Dong wiped his mouth in surprise, "Is this encouraging close relatives to marry?!"

"Witch Gu is a kind of twisted, evil and unreasonable existence." Mu Yi said coldly, "We don't have to care whether their family rules conform to legal principles and ethics, we just need to know that this village is like a lost village. Like the land, it has been in a closed state and cut off contact with the outside world."

Ke Xun interface: "Then here comes the problem."

Mu Yiran looked at the crowd: "Combining what happened to Ke Xun and the others just now, since this village is cut off from the outside world and resists outsiders from entering, then who painted this painting itself? How did this painting come about?" Did it spread?"

Everyone was stunned, and their eyes flashed in unison.

Ke Xun raised his hand: "Boss, is there Li Jinghao's name on the genealogy?"

Mu Yiran glanced at him: "No."

Ke Xun scratched his head: "Is that a coincidence?"

Mu Yiran's eyes moved slightly: "Not necessarily, many painters have used names, or after they became famous, they gave themselves a name that can stand on the stage."

Wei Dong interrupted: "This is not easy, who knows who will give him another name later on."

"Since it is known that the artist of the painting is Li Jinghao," Mu Yiran said, "then the first problem has been solved, and the second question is how did this painting get out, or how did this Li Jinghao enter this village, how did the painting I downloaded this painting, and then took this painting out.”

"If Li Jinghao was from the village, it would not be surprising to be able to draw this painting," the doctor said, "but the village stipulates that the villagers are not allowed to communicate with the outside world, and are not allowed to leave the village, so there is no way to explain how this painting came about." It flowed outside."

"The last discovery," Mu Yiran said to Ke Xun and Weidong, "We searched all the houses in the village, but we didn't see a living person."

"What, what do you mean?" Wei Dong trembled.

"All the houses are covered with dust of different thicknesses," said the doctor. "It can be seen that no one has lived there for a long time, but we have not found any corpses or coffins in these houses."

"And in these dwellings, the thing we see the most," Mu Yiran said with a deep look in his eyes, "is the memorial tablet."

Ke Xun raised his eyebrows: "It means that these villagers are already dead?"

Mu Yiran nodded slightly: "It is speculated that this is the case. We checked against the names on the family tree, and the names on the tablet are all on the family tree."

Ke Xun stroked his chin and pondered: "Could it be possible that an infectious disease such as plague occurred in this village? Or was it a natural disaster? Otherwise, why did so many people die?"

Mu Yiran said indifferently: "The dust in the houses varies in thickness, which means that these people did not die at the same time."

The doctor nodded: "It should be a few years or more than ten years to die one after another."

Wei Dong twitched his mouth: "Isn't it because close relatives get married so they don't live long?"

Mu Yiran's eyes twitched slightly: "It's more likely that these people died under a curse?"

When everyone heard this, they were all shocked.

Ke Xun was the first to react: "So what you mean is that the three locust trees next to the Weiguai's house actually cursed not only the Weiguai family, but... the entire Li Family Village?!"

"I think so." Mu Yi nodded.

Wei Dong was stunned: "Who has such a big hatred, one curse a village."

Ke Xunhu asked: "But why did the old man say that there is no locust tree just now? Although he went mad and bit people when he disagreed, I don't think what he said seemed like he was playing tricks and not telling us."

Mu Yiran lowered his eyes in thought, and suddenly walked away. Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay, and hurriedly followed.

Coming again to the three old locust trees outside the courtyard of Weiguai's house, Mu Yiran looked up at the grimaces on the trees.

Ke Xun followed suit, and saw that these grimaces seemed to protrude more outward than in the morning. The whole face and head were almost separated from the tree trunk. Only the back of the head was still slightly connected to the bark, like a tree. Huge tree tumors hung on the tree in numerous knots, looking extremely disgusting.

"Have you noticed," Ke Xun nudged Mu Yiran with his elbow, "these ghost faces seem to have a gender. Look at this face, does it look like an old lady? And that one, with a beard , the one on the top looks like a seven or eight-year-old boy, and if you look over there, there is a baby's face under the old lady's face, there are men, women, and children."

"Yeah." Mu Yiran was not surprised, apparently already found out.

"I suddenly had an idea," Ke Xun said, looking between these grimaces, "Could these faces be..."

"The faces of all the dead villagers." Mu Yiran answered calmly.

Ke Xun pointed to a grimace at the root of the tree: "...Liu Yufei."

Mu Yiran looked in the direction of his fingers, and saw that this grimace seemed to have grown out newly, with a gray color, unlike other grimaces, which had darkened to black gray.

The facial features of this grimace are exactly like Liu Yufei, and there is even a bark in the shape of a small braid at the top of the head.

Its facial features are extremely distorted, and it maintains the painful expression of Liu Yufei when he died tragically. However, this pain is filled with endless hatred. In the position of the black eye sockets, there seem to be two invisible eyes. The hatred is extremely vicious. Staring at Mu Yiran and Ke Xun.

Mu Yiran stared at these two eye sockets for a moment, and remained unmoved. Instead, he walked around the tree for a few steps and found the faces of the five people who died before Liu Yufei.

"In this way, these three trees were not planted." Mu Yiran said, "The representation in the painting is just an image, not a real tree."

"No wonder the old man said there were no trees," Ke Xun said. "Speaking of the old man, why hasn't he been cursed to death? Will he be the only one left in the whole village?"

"Go and see."

As Mu Yiran spoke, he was about to leave, but Ke Xun grabbed his arm: "The old man has gone berserk, aren't you courting death now?"

Zhang Maolin next to him hurriedly echoed: "That's right, it's more important to find the seal before it gets dark!"

Mu Yiran glanced at the direction where the old man lived, and said lightly: "I have a guess about the identity of the old man."