The two sat quietly on the ashes, waiting.
Those women should all have left.
The boy moved first. He quietly approached the stove door and looked out through a narrow gap.
"They're all gone," he said.
Xiaolan finally breathed a sigh of relief, "Are you really gone?"
"Let's go," the boy nodded, "the doors are closed."
"Huh...it's okay..." Xiaolan fanned herself with her hand and looked up at the boy, "But why are you avoiding them?"
"Nonsense, if they catch me, won't my mother know about it?"
Xiaolan looked the boy up and down, "Did you sneak out?"
"You tell me first, and I'll tell you." The boy raised his chin.
"What did I tell you?"
"How did you kill the prophet?" The boy crossed his legs. "I asked my mother, but my mother refused to tell me and even beat me."
You deserve a beating.
"Who said I was the one who killed the prophet?"
"Who are you?" said the boy. "That's what everyone in the village says."
"They framed me, they lied," Xiaolan changed the topic, "And based on my relationship with the prophet, how could I possibly kill him?"
The boy did not agree with Xiaolan's point of view.
"They said that it was because the prophet had a wife that he became like this, and the prophet should not have had a wife."
"Wife?" Xiaolan felt that the truth was getting closer to her reasoning, "Who is his wife? Is she still alive?"
If you have a wife, you will probably have children, and you might be the old man’s child! The plan goes through!
The boy looked like a fool. He drew back his neck and pointed at Xiaolan.
"You are his wife."
Xiaolan froze for three full seconds.
She turned her head and looked to the left, then to the right.
Then she pointed to herself, "Me?"
"You..." The boy was a little frightened now, "Are you stupid?"
Xiaolan's eyes widened and she tilted her head slightly. She seemed to be quite different from a normal person.
"I...I am the old man's wife..."
Could it be that Fire Lotus is some kind of immortal monster? So the villagers want to get rid of her?
"Yes," the boy nodded matter-of-factly, "Have you lost your memory?"
"No...it's not..." Xiaolan swallowed, "There must be a big age difference between me and him..."
"I don't know about that, but I think the prophet used to be as young as you."
"big eater?"
"The rice bucket is also a child in the village. We played together. By the way, his mother was also outside just now."
"How did it happen that you were as young as me before?" Xiaolan asked cautiously, "How long ago...?"
"I don't know, he didn't tell me, and I guess Rice Tong doesn't know either," the boy scratched the back of his head, "Anyway, it must have been before we were born."
"How old are you?"
"I'm nine and a half years old," the boy blinked, "How old are you?"
"I...I'm definitely older than you."
"Humph, you are much older than me," the boy glanced at Xiaolan, and then said, "It seems that the prophet has become older since he left here."
"Where?" Xiaolan asked hurriedly.
"Here, I'm talking about here," the boy pointed down, "this big altar."
"This...this?" Xiaolan was extremely surprised, waving his hands in a circle by his side, "Isn't this a corpse crematorium?"
"What stove?"
"Nothing...you said this is a big altar? What is it for?"
"Of course it is used during sacrifices. When else can it be used?" The boy looked at Xiaolan with eyes that seemed to care for the mentally retarded. "During the sacrifices, burn the sacrifices here, and then the sacrifices will go to heaven. , God will receive it, do you understand?"
"I understand, I understand," Xiaolan rolled her eyes at him, "You said the prophet has become older since he left here?"
"That's just a guess by the rice cook. The adults are secretive and don't tell us."
"Why did the prophet come to the altar? Is he here to offer sacrifice?..." Xiaolan's back felt a little cold, "Or... is he a sacrifice?"
"Are you crazy? The prophet is a human being, how can he be a sacrifice?"
Although the boy said this, his eyes were a little shaken.
"Then what is he doing here?"
"How do I know? I wasn't born yet at that time," the boy muttered, turning around with his back to Xiaolan. "Maybe he hid in like the two of us."
"He is a prophet. Do you think he is as boring as the two of us?"
Eh? Why does this sound like stabbing yourself in the back?
"I don't know," the boy's rebellious mentality came over and he said seriously, "You are his wife, and you still ask me."
"I……"
The boy squatted by the door, his chin resting between his knees.
His imagination took flight.
That's right, I and I have never paid attention to this. Why did the prophet come to the big altar? Could it be...that the elders in the village really want to...
No, how could the villagers be bad people? Ghosts are the bad guys...
Xiaolan asked him a few more questions, but he didn't listen.
"Hey, kid..." Xiaolan called him from behind, "Hey...hey!"
It wasn't until Xiaolan reached out and patted the boy's back that he brought his attention back.
"Ah?" The boy trembled, "What are you doing?"
"What's wrong with you? I'm asking you something," Xiaolan looked at him inexplicably, "What did you remember?"
"No, I don't know anything." The boy refused.
Xiaolan looked at him suspiciously for a while.
"What are you looking at!" The boy was stared at in horror, and his hand behind his back quietly rested on the stove door.
"What are you afraid of?" Xiaolan asked, not knowing what kind of psychological struggle the boy had just experienced, "So what you just meant is that the prophet turned out to be the same age as me, and then he entered the big altar. After he left, That’s starting to get old, isn’t it?”
"I don't know!" the boy yelled, "I don't know, I want to go out..."
"Hey, don't leave yet! I haven't finished asking yet."
The boy reached out to open the door, and Xiaolan quickly jumped up from the ground and grabbed the boy's arm.
"Let me ask one more question..."
"Let me go!"
The boy let out a low scream, and pushed Xiaolan's shoulder with his other hand. Xiaolan hadn't yet stood firm, and was almost pushed over. She quickly retracted her right hand to support the big altar and pounced. The inner wall of the furnace was peeling off slag. Taking advantage of this moment, the boy opened the furnace door and escaped.
When Xiaolan poked her head out from the big altar, the boy's figure had disappeared into the darkness, hiding somewhere.
"It's so strange," Xiaolan emerged from the big altar, "Why does his face change like he's turning the pages of a book..."
There was no hiding place here. Xiaolan regretfully lost a hiding place. She looked around dissatisfiedly and walked into the grove behind the ancestral hall.
