Yaleriga did not sleep that night.
She thought about Ji Zangyu's words and the strange dream she had had the night before. All signs indicate that the dream is closely related to Ji Zangyu's appearance in her cell, but she has not yet figured out the specific cause and effect. She also recalled the day she was imprisoned, how she first noticed the lines on her abdomen: a combination of willow branches, water chestnuts and snake spiders. The curse was called "The Cry of the Orphan" and was the result of Liza's law. Used to punish maids who have had adultery.
There is no known way to break this curse, and even if it does exist, it will certainly be extremely difficult to obtain. Yaleriga didn't know if she could find a way in her lifetime, or if she could only let this lineage disappear alone and helpless.
Her thoughts were up and down, and she also discovered that Ji Zangyu was not sleeping peacefully. He was not as quiet as the previous few days, but turned over and babbled frequently. Yaleriga heard him calling several names vaguely, and the one that appeared most often sounded like "Red Hu".
He seemed to be wandering in some turbulent nightmare, sometimes waving and scratching, sometimes like chasing a shadow, and finally he even stood up from the ground.
This movement almost made Yaleriga think that he had been awakened from his dream. She looked at Ji Zangyu's face, but found that his eyes were psychedelic, and he was still in a dream.
His sleepwalking behavior reminded Yalali Gama of last night, but Ji Zangyu's behavior was very different at this moment. He was obviously unaware of Yaleriga's existence, and was just staring at the ground beneath his feet. A light red shadow spread over his face, gradually condensing into feather-like patterns.
Ji Zangyu stood for a long time, and Yaleriga, who didn't understand the reason, could only wait and observe. It wasn't until dawn entered the window that she felt Ji Zangyu move in her hazy sleep.
"Caught." She heard Ji Zangyu say.
Those words drove her sleep away. She looked up and saw Ji Zangyu's right hand raised slightly, pointing to the empty ground. There was nothing in his palm.
He is still dreaming. When Yaleriga thought this way, Ji Zangyu's blank eyes started to move. He looked around the cell with eyes as if he had just woken up, and then grabbed his hair out of habit.
"Red coral," he said to Yaleriga in a numb tone, "comb your hair. Little crown."
Yaleriga wagged her tail slightly and stared at him with interest. She saw the red lines on Ji Zangyu's face fade away, and her eyes slowly became sober. He was obviously aware of what he had just said to Yaleriga, and his eyes began to wander.
"Comb your hair?" Yaleriga said deliberately.
Ji Zangyu shook his sleeves a little stiffly, walked back to his corner and sat down, with his back to Yaleriga and remained motionless. Yaleriga had no intention of pursuing this trivial matter, but the more she stared at Ji Zangyu's back, the easier it was to notice how messy his black hair was, which was obviously caused by poor trimming techniques. .
Being in prison has caused Yaleriga to pay little attention to her appearance. She had no decent washing tools and could only rely on extremely limited water sources to maintain hygiene. At the same time, she also took advantage of every opportunity the jailer had to drag her out. Although it leaves her scarred, it often gives her a little extra cleaning time afterward. Wu Touweng didn't really want to kill her, let alone let her die for ridiculous reasons like wound infection.
For the inevitable revenge, she thought she could endure all the bad external circumstances. However, when she took a serious look at Ji Zangyu, she found that this was not the case. Her new roommate's clothes were spotless, with not even a drop of blood to be found, but his short hair was sticking up everywhere, like a bird's nest that had been looted by a giant eagle.
She should be patient. Yaleriga warned herself this way. She had to keep a proper distance from an unknown new ally, but she found that Ji Zangyu's body was too clean. This contrast was even more intolerable to her than pure hell.
She finally spoke, trying to be as nonchalant as possible: "Your hair is messy."
The topic was certainly out of the blue. Ji Zangyu turned around and looked at her in surprise, then reached out and grabbed his hair. Yaleriga estimated that he smoothed them down, but the method was very clumsy: he always combed them randomly, or combed them directly from the end of his hair, as if he thought he was carrying long hair. When he took his hand back, the hair on top of his head curled up even more.
"Okay." Ji Zangyu said, seemingly not planning to continue struggling.
His performance finally made Yaleriga feel that she couldn't bear it anymore. She stood up on her own initiative and walked across the center line to Ji Zangyu.
"You should try to look neat and tidy," she said.
Ji Zangyu's expression showed that he didn't think this matter was very important, so Yaleriga patiently persuaded him, telling him that modifying his image could win the favor of Mrs. Kuye. A neat and perfect image is obviously more powerful in negotiations, proving that he is able to handle the current situation with ease. And if he is facing such an increasingly bad chicken coop, even Villar will think that he is getting more and more sloppy because he is frightened. All in all, appearance is an inevitable component of tactics.
Her words made Ji Zangyu a little doubtful. It wasn't until Yaleriga mentioned Villar that he finally gave in and agreed to let Yaleriga help him comb his hair.
Yaleriga used her fingers to smooth down his raised hair. She originally thought she would have to fight many knots, but she found that Ji Zangyu's hair was as clean as his clothes. Their unruliness had nothing to do with the dust in the air, it was simply their unwillingness to obey discipline. Yaleriga pressed them down over and over again, and watched them stubbornly resist the gravity of the planet within ten seconds, raising their tail ends high.
She tried several times in succession, but had to admit that she could not achieve the desired effect without the help of other tools or potions. At this time, Ji Zangyu seemed to be falling asleep. He didn't seem to be afraid that Yaleriga would take this opportunity to send his head through the gap between the bars.
At this time, some murmurs came from the cell deep in the corridor. Yaleriga pricked up her ears alertly and heard that it was not the footsteps of the jailers, but the words of the monks whose eyes were taken away by Mrs. Dead Leaf. They weren't talking to each other, they were just chanting some kind of scripture. Yaleriga listened for a while and roughly understood that they served the forest god who protected a specific area.
That explains why Lady Deadleaf wants their eyes. In the tradition of the sisterhood, witches would approach the villagers and use witchcraft to help them cure diseases or conceive, and sometimes even control the weather and farming. In return, they would sometimes take away the villagers' children and raise them as their own. The maid or slave, sometimes the eyes, tongue or ears, were dried and preserved and then hung in the wild. Through this witchcraft, they will greatly expand the scope of their surveillance.
Yaleriga guessed that this was the purpose of Mrs. Dead Leaf, but there were still some doubts that could not be solved: witchcraft valued the power of blood, and she had never heard of a witch in the Duoling tribe before, so it was like a It was as incredible as the oracle singer appeared in the arthropod consciousness group. From Wutouweng to Mrs. Withered Leaves, she had a vague feeling that the leadership group of the second peak of the Silent School was full of anti-traditional elements.
The monks are still reciting prayers, asking the forest gods they believe in to relieve their pain and regain their light. Their voices were full of tranquility and piety, as if they had forgotten the suffering of reality, but Yaleriga knew the cruelty of the truth: Qin Mam was a hunter praised by the jailers, and he never left anything for anyone after the robbery. Clues to follow. That means that no matter how they pray, the forest god will never appear in front of them - if it has not been destroyed by Qin Mao.
Yaleriga never thought of praying. The Evangelists call the Most Holy Gospel the "Mother Goddess", which is just a description based on facts, but has never established any temple or religion. The reason is clear: the "Mother Goddess" will not respond to any of their requests or sacrifices, but will purely carry out her natural mission. Even if Villar really allows a most holy gospel to come here, it will never show any preference or mercy to Yaleriga.
The "Mother Goddess" is not the mother, but the Creator. Yaleriga suddenly felt a little sad in these thoughts. Ji Zangyu was sitting in front of her, half asleep, hugging her knees. No matter who he actually was, that posture reminded Yaleriga of a child. And it was almost impossible for her to have children of her own.
Her hand holding Ji Zangyu's hair shook uncontrollably. The other party was suddenly awakened by the force of the pull, and looked back at her in surprise. Yalali Gama immediately withdrew from her emotions and pretended to look at the ceiling as if nothing had happened.
"Your hair is difficult to do," she said.
Ji Zangyu responded: "That won't happen anymore."
Yaleriga had no intention of letting him go. She pretended to be unintentional and asked: "What is Xiao Guan?"
This question obviously made Ji Zangyu very unhappy. He ran to another corner to sleep without saying a word, and rubbed his head against the wall several times. His newly combed hair immediately became messy again.
The smile on Yaleriga's lips disappeared immediately. She couldn't bear to let her achievements go to waste, so she immediately walked over and combed it for him again. This time Ji Zangyu was very uncooperative and always wanted to take advantage of her pause to sneak into another corner and hide. When Yaleriga helped him tidy up again, they had already visited the four corners of the cell.
Now Yaleriga finally believed that the other party's appearance in her cell was not intentional - if Ji Zangyu could freely enter and exit different cells, he would have been hiding somewhere where she could not see him at all.
She did not allow Ji Zangyu to ruin her efforts again, so she asked him not to let his head touch the ground or against the wall until the next negotiation with Mrs. Dead Leaf. Ji Zangyu blew into his forehead with dissatisfaction, blowing a few broken hairs into the air, but in the end he compromised and occupied the territory that originally belonged to Yaleriga in revenge, holding the chain hanging on the ground. Sleep as a pillow.
Yaleriga endured it again and again, and finally pulled the chain and dragged him to her side.
"You can sleep on my lap." She said to Ji Zangyu, "Don't press the chain, it will affect my movement."
Her statement was obviously contradictory, but Ji Zangyu did not question it. He rolled directly to the ground beside him, still facing her with his back, and covering his ears with his hands.
"Bald head chanting sutras." He said dullly, "It's noisy."
This time Yaleriga finally decided to let him go. She played with the chain with her hands and sang a lullaby left in her memory to drown out the tireless chanting of the monks. Soon she and Ji Zangyu fell asleep. In the dream, she was still walking in the free and endless wilderness, and picked up a tit from among some rocks.
The tit chirped at her, but the sound it made was the sound of kicking footsteps, hoarse crying and an old and urgent voice. Her dream ended and she opened her eyes in the increasingly noisy commotion.
Mrs. Dead Leaf is here. She was followed by the black-headed man and the jailers. The nearest Sati was holding the hair of a pregnant woman. At this moment, the woman was half dead, still sobbing and pleading with a tearing voice.
"I have considered your request, child." Mrs. Dead Leaf said outside the prison. "It is not impossible, but you must prove yourself."
Sati threw the captured pregnant woman to the ground. The situation was so obvious that Yaleriga felt her back tensing up instinctively.
Ji Zangyu woke up earlier than her. He stood beside the cell, just away from the sight of Yaleriga and Mrs. Kuye.
"Proof?" he asked Mrs. Kuye.
Mrs. Dead Leaf's tail of tree roots from unknown origin curled up. She used it to wrap around the crying woman on the ground and dragged the pregnant woman to Ji Zangyu.
"Kill her baby," she demanded bluntly.
