Seeing Jiang Wen suddenly disappear through the high moss wall, the Chang brothers' eyes were full of horror, and they no longer dared to think of letting Jiang Wen take the lead in stepping on the thunder.
At this time, there were alley walls on both sides. The two of them did not care about distinguishing the direction. They unanimously identified the wall on the left. They suddenly threw the flying claws around their waists to hook on the eaves of the wall and climbed up with both arms.
The high wall was strong on the outside but strong on the inside. The two struggled several times on the slippery wall and finally entered the courtyard.
This ancient courtyard is as quiet and motionless as an ascetic who has been sitting in the wilderness for a long time. As the grass and trees wither and the sun rises and sets, it is finally covered with dust and weeds.
All the door leaves and plaques in the courtyard have disappeared, leaving only dark doors, leaning against the rotten wooden doorposts on both sides, like a toothless old man screaming silently and hoarsely.
After landing, Chang Hezhi looked at the two tattered white paper lanterns warily.
"I didn't expect such a scene inside the wall. It seems to be a righteous village..."
His younger brother Chang Bozhi also held a flying claw in the shape of a skull and whispered: "There is a baby tower at the entrance of the alley, and it makes sense that there is a yizhuang inside. No wonder the locals never come here..."
"There seems to be someone there, I wonder if it's..."
Chang Hezhi said slowly and looked into the distance.
In the cold night, you can vaguely see two rows of dilapidated palaces built behind them. They all stand lightly in the cold wind and rain of the past, and will continue to bear witness until this land reaches its end.
Perhaps out of human self-protection, the Chang brothers subjectively ignored the dark clouds hovering over the courtyard, and turned a blind eye to the faint blue phosphorescence coming from the doors and windows of the hall.
This feeling is like that of a severely burned person who suddenly notices that the hot water has turned cold, inspiring them to walk towards the hospital in confusion.
It was also when they walked into the door that the Chang brothers realized that the high-pitched roar that had just been so close had quietly disappeared, and the whole world went silent, without even a trace of noise.
As if they found that their breathing was too rough, the two began to divide their breath into a dozen sections and slowly exhale, hoping that the breath would not disturb the vocal cords or nasal cavity.
Then they seemed to feel that their steps were too harsh. They carefully searched for the landing point with every step they took, straightening their joints to ensure that there was no friction sound.
The silence here is so abnormal that living people who usually make heartbeats have become incompatible existences in this environment.
His brother Chang Bozhi's mind was filled with thoughts, trying to imagine how long ago this courtyard was bustling with people and doors, as well as the experience of building bricks and tiles, to dispel the fear of this shelter.
But it was no use. Chang Bozhi soon discovered that in the extreme silence, even the act of "imagining" seemed to have become noisy.
The search movement of eyes is like tearing cloth, the current of thinking is like thunder, everything is too noisy.
When the brothers resisted the rejection in their hearts and followed a hazy shadow walking forward, taking the last two steps and finally reaching the main hall to find some inner comfort, they realized what rash conclusions they had made. …
In the dimly lit hall, a strange-looking Buddha statue had its arms holding flowers broken off and half of its smiling face. It seemed full of silence, sadness, and helplessness. It looked down at the horrific remains of the entire room.
Dead people, countless dead people!
The Chang brothers have always boasted their courage and ruthless skills. It was common for them to spend the night with their master in the barren mountains and borrow ancient tombs along the way, but there had never been a place where the aura of death could be condensed so clearly that it could be seen with the naked eye!
The hall was filled with all kinds of coffins and dead bodies.
The coffin is made of black lacquered nan wood and decorated with gold thread carvings. It is painted with auspicious clouds and lotus flowers, which seems to bless the deceased and carry him to bliss in the afterlife.
There is a thin coffin of cypress wood and a coffin painted with raw lacquer. The deceased is wrapped in a roll of gray linen cloth, and he shows his filial piety in a poor and shabby way.
There are also three boards made of unknown miscellaneous wood. The rotten wood is already covered with holes eaten by insects and rats, barely giving the deceased a decent appearance without revealing his corpse.
Not to mention, there are still dead people wrapped in straw mats and rolled up inside, and there are dead people who don’t care about their feet but their heads, and there are rotten corpses tied up with dog cakes and laid out in broad daylight.
There are still many exposed ones, some with bruised faces, some with swollen bodies, some with blackened bodies, some with dismembered bodies, some with knives and axes, some with dryness and decay...
As a gust of wind blew in the hall, an indescribable stench almost disabled their sense of smell, and their eyes were stung by black air like needles.
The Chang brothers, who were new to the world, had never seen or even imagined that people would look so dirty and despicable after death. Perhaps the moment the soul sheds its shell, this body is no longer a "person" and should be classified as a "thing".
Things cannot be used to their fullest potential and are stuck between materials and materials. Is this the end of "things"?
They had no time to think about such a problem. Chang Hezhi saw his younger brother hiding his face and seemed to be trying to exit the door, staggering and almost falling, so he quickly reached out to stop him.
Don't retreat, don't advance. As they retreated, both of them forgot how quiet the current environment was, and their footsteps stomped dully on the ground.
This kick made a loud sound like a morning bell on the ground where the bluestone was broken and raised by the weeds. They seemed to be able to feel an invisible sound wave spreading in all directions, breaking the long-standing silence in the air layer by layer.
Something that was dead came back "alive".
At that moment, the two brothers saw that in the main hall ahead, countless corpses were displayed like volcanoes, spewing out countless dim air currents, rattling the dilapidated doors and windows in all directions.
Indescribable dark, sticky, gloomy and ugly figures appeared in the airflow one after another. With the reluctance in life and the resentment in death, they turned the odor of corpses into beautiful clothes, and wore the dust into silk shoes and spider webs. Tangled into a crown, insects and ants turned into beads, Shi Shiran stood in the hall!
…………
Jiang Wen passed through a hidden and majestic door and entered a desolate bookstore.
In the era before Jiang Wen traveled through time, there was a technique called optical illusion that could be seen everywhere. For example, geometric patterns were used on the wall to make the plane appear three-dimensional, taller, or weirder, creating an architectural illusion effect.
The elusiveness and fleeting appearance of the people in the dark alley are no longer some unexplainable supernatural phenomena in Jiang Wen's eyes - this alley is clearly the work of some people with extreme ingenuity!
In other words, the moldy moss, the scale gate, the stone paths, and the oppressive sky in Netherworld Alley are all deliberate designs by the builders.
Shushi studies pictures and texts, and obviously knows that images, as the most primitive language, can transcend different individuals and achieve the effect of mutual recognition.
It's like the doors on both sides of Netherworld Alley have always been there, but they are hidden among the mildew somewhere like the magic of light and shadow.
The door appears in a blind spot. The nerves and blood vessels there converge into bundles leading to the brain. There are no photoreceptor cells and cannot receive light stimulation. The image of an object falling at this point cannot cause vision.
With the light and shadow blocking the dark alley and the repeated flashing of the pillars of the Hengmen, this small door will be subconsciously ignored by people.
People who deliberately search often find nothing after walking through Netherworld Alley for the first time. At this time, they will look harder and harder at those desolate and decayed scenery - and at this time, they will become more and more into an irrepressible spiritual suggestion.
The builders used geometric arrangements, visual imaging and other means to deliberately create visual deception effects to deceive the intruders' eyes, causing visual illusions in the intruders and achieving a magic-like hidden effect and psychological suggestion.
Until the self-suggestion breaks out, the ghosts and gods in the alley will appear in front of you at that moment...
If we want to use words to describe it, then the eight words "leading to the netherworld" and "no way to find" are the invisible elephants written on the picture of heaven and earth by the people who built this netherworld lane.
Although there are no real ghosts in an alley, it can bring out the ghosts deep in people's hearts. Is it considered a ghost or not?
Perhaps there were once countless living people here making grooves, tops, plates, and patterns. There were also countless people here day and night setting up books, sorting, proofreading, and printing. But now, there is only a channel of stale and worried stagnant water. Soaked in the wooden wheel that can no longer turn.
"The engraving of the Netherworld and the emergence of fierce ghosts at night seem to be a very reasonable thing..."
Jiang Wen stood in the printing shop where corpses stood like a forest, looking at the corpses with severed heads and stiff and weird postures all over the place, and suddenly felt that everything was not so difficult to accept.
