At 8:30 in the morning, Gu Jianlin walked under the locust tree in the alley and returned to the old community.
These are old buildings built in the 1990s. The white walls have long been mottled and yellowed. There are clothes drying racks hanging outside the windows of every house. Downstairs, you can see a few children stepping in puddles. There was a faint sound of playfulness.
Now that I think about it, my father is a good man in a sense. Although he is busy with work and rarely takes care of his family, he was very strong when he got divorced. He sold the house he bought with a loan and paid off the remaining money of the mortgage. I gave everything to my mother, left home alone, and rented a small house in this community again.
Probably just to make my mother live a better life.
My mother still thinks that her son stopped living with her because he was disappointed with her choice of divorce.
Not really.
Gu Jianlin had the same thoughts as his father, hoping that she could live a better life.
For Gu Jianlin, this community really holds too many memories.
The chirping of cicadas and breeze in summer, the snow and cold in winter, the moon in the dark night, and the sky full of stars.
For countless nights in the past, the boy lay outside the window in a daze, thinking about when the family would be reunited.
"For three months, I will charge you a total of five yuan as a delay fee."
Lao Zhang from the post station handed over a express box: "Speaking of which, I haven't seen your dad for a long time. Is he on a business trip again?"
Gu Jianlin scanned the QR code to pay, took the express box, and said softly: "Well, I must have gone somewhere far away."
In fact, Gu Jianlin hated the word business trip.
Because my father has always been on business trips in his life, traveling on business trips and on business trips again.
And then one day he never comes back.
He weighed the express box. It didn't weigh much. It did have his father's name and phone number on it, but there was no sender.
Not even a shipping address.
"How was this express delivered?"
Gu Jianlin felt strange, then walked into the unit door, went up to the second floor, took out the key, and unlocked the door.
This old house still has its last month of lease, and the lease will not be renewed in the future.
The house is clean, but no one has lived in it for a while. Apart from clothes, there are some books and materials.
And an old laptop left by my father.
Gu Jianlin thought that it was time to check out the rental, so he wanted to pack up his things.
He sat on the sofa and opened the express box first.
The next moment, he couldn't help but fall into silence, his mind filled with questions.
Because this is a white box that resembles a luxury item, and when opened, it turns out to be a mask inside.
At first glance, it looks like the kind of half-face mask worn in a masquerade, but it is so solemn and ancient. The whole body is dark in color, as if it is made of ink jade, with ancient and strict lines and hollow pits carved out of it. The holes, edges and corners, and even bulges like blood vessels, give people an inexplicable and weird feeling.
Well, it's just weird.
The mask's style is somewhere between that of a sheep and a deer, with dragon scale-like patterns and a pair of sharp horns on top of its head.
He was not unfamiliar with this kind of creature—Qilin.
An auspicious beast in ancient China.
Gu Jianlin initially thought it was a handicraft, but when he looked carefully, he didn't think so anymore.
Because he has mastered profiling, his intuition is much sharper than that of ordinary people.
From this mask, he noticed a sense of history, and it felt like some kind of ancient artifact.
"Antique?"
Gu Jianlin stroked the lines on the mask. He was sure that this thing was not an ordinary handicraft. At least you couldn't buy such a delicate thing in the open market. There was a high probability that it was an antique.
He didn't know why someone would send this to his father and somehow hide the sender information.
"The delivery time on the courier order is December 15th, which is the day my father and I were involved in a car accident... That day, my father just came back from investigating the case, and he had to take me back to my hometown in a hurry to celebrate the New Year. This thing is very abnormal, this The inexplicable express delivery is also unusual, is it a coincidence?" Gu Jianlin muttered to himself as he played with the mask.
He hesitated for a moment, opened the old laptop, connected to the hotspot with his mobile phone, and opened the search engine.
Gu Jianlin typed four words in the search box.
Kirin mask.
Entries for blockbusters popped up, and they were basically boring advertisements and craft videos.
Gu Jianlin scrolled down one by one without any impatience. He mainly wanted to check some entries about antiques and cultural relics.
He kept turning back dozens of pages, but saw nothing of value.
Until he was about to give up, he suddenly saw a post on a forum.
"The arrival of super ancient times! The new version will be tested on December 4th - Qilin Immortal Palace!"
This is actually a post about a game.
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Gu Jianlin was stunned.
In the vast block of boring advertisements, this title is like a needle that sticks out, and I don’t know why it ranks so low.
He was a little curious and subconsciously clicked on it.
"Qiu Qiongshan of the Qing Dynasty once said in "Gangjian Compilation": After the First Emperor brought peace to the six kingdoms, all his ambitions and aspirations were fulfilled, but those who were not guaranteed to succeed were those who lived long. In 219 BC, Xu Fu was ordered by the First Emperor of Qin to lead the boys and girls. Three thousand people traveled eastward to Yingzhou to find the elixir of immortality for the emperor. This man traveled eastward twice, but failed to find the elixir. He disappeared on the third trip eastward..."
"Later generations generally believe that the elixir of immortality is just a fictitious lie, and Xu Fu is just a magician. The so-called eastward journey is a lie fabricated by Xu Fu to avoid disaster. But few people know that Xu Fu's third eastward journey , before arriving in Yingzhou, he really discovered a secret involving the ancient gods at sea!"
interesting.
Gu Jianlin moved the mouse and slid down. At first glance, this seemed to be an alternate history game, whether it was a mobile game or a PC game.
"The ancient gods, gods, and supreme beings are all their names. One is called Candle Dragon, and the other is called Qilin."
"It was an unprecedented grand battlefield, a confrontation between gods, a fight between kings. With supreme authority, Lord Zhulong killed Lord Qilin, and buried him under the deep sea in order to prevent him from resurrecting. .”
"Xu Fu was fortunate enough to meet Lord Zhulong, and he transcended the ordinary world and rose to perfection. He was ordered to build a mausoleum deep under the sea, sealed Lord Qilin, and guarded the door of the mausoleum until thousands of years later."
"Today, the remaining power of Lord Qilin is still eroding reality. The door to the ancient burial is opened in different time and space. The first dimensional rift observed so far appears in a certain coastal city. Some people are using sacrifices to try to awaken Presence in ancient tombs.”
"The gods who died thousands of years ago roared in the darkness. The ascendants took the opportunity to enter the fairy palace and plunder the gods' treasures, precious alchemical weapons, and ancient inheritance pathways to gain the opportunity to be promoted."
When Gu Jianlin saw this, he thought that this was probably the poorest and crudest version of the announcement he had ever seen.
There is only lengthy copy, and no accompanying pictures or information sheets.
After reading this post, Gu Jianlin came to the conclusion that this Kirin mask was a game souvenir given by others.
Now he still has a Frostmourne and a Signal Ax in the bedroom of his new home.
But when he continued to scroll down and saw the end of the post, he was stunned.
Because this game does not provide any official website link or download channel, it is just like a joke.
Gu Jianlin only saw a brief introduction.
"Qualification for the internal test: bring at least one ancient token leaked from the Qilin Immortal Palace."
"Server entrance: You need to withstand the spiritual pollution of ancient tokens, and you are in a field eroded by the spirit of ancient gods. Wait for the cracks in the dimension to appear, which will bring you into the ancient tombs and become one of countless sublimators. Lucky man."
"Note: The Tomb of the Ancient God is extremely dangerous. Once you die in the game, you will never be able to wake up in reality."
"Number of online players: 234!"
Gu Jianlin was silent for a second, lost in thought.
Regarding this post, his first reaction was that he was just messing around and was just an ordinary game copywriter.
I guess I haven't even finished the game content yet, it's just a set of tricks to bluff people.
Gu Jianlin wanted to close the post, but when he looked at the Qilin mask in his hand again, he suddenly had a ridiculous idea.
What if what this post says is true?
After this idea came into his mind, he really felt that he was crazy.
It's like that kind of ghost game, similar to Pen Fairy or something like that.
But there was a strange magic power driving him to find out.
Dad's abnormality, a tragic car accident, and a vaguely strange figure seen when he was seriously injured.
Finally, there is the mysterious mask in his hand and this inexplicable post.
Gu Jianlin hesitated for a moment, then picked up the unicorn mask and lay on the bed.
"At least try profiling and analyze the origin of this mask."
Currently, he only has a Qilin mask in his hand. There is not even a scratch on it, and there are very few clues. The content in that post may not be true, so he must conduct an in-depth profile.
That is to make the brain boil and awaken the sleeping sixth sense.
In an instant, the hazy sky was torn apart, and a dull rumble came.
There was lightning and thunder outside the window, the drizzle suddenly started to rain rapidly, and the moist wind rushed in through the screen window.
With the earthy smell of rain.
Gu Jianlin was lying down, like a corpse about to be buried.
He put the unicorn mask lightly on his face, closed his eyes and listened to the rain outside the window, concentrated on it, and took a deep breath.
"Ancient God, Qilin, fighting, death, grave..."
Keyword substitution.
The profiling begins.
At this moment, his brain boiled, feeling the cold texture of the Qilin mask, as if he had fallen into endless darkness, and there was only the sound of the raging storm in his ears, as if it was about to drown him.
It's like falling into the deep sea.
Cold, lonely, dark, and deep.
He was sinking continuously, and darkness filled the air silently.
It was also at this moment that he suddenly felt that the world was moving away rapidly, as if he heard countless ghost-like whispering voices, far away in the horizon but still in his ears.
The voice was so urgent and violent, with a strange and demonic quality, like an ancient wizard chanting the most evil spell.
Gu Jianlin suddenly felt a splitting headache and subconsciously wanted to interrupt the profiling and take off the mask on his face.
The next moment, he was stunned.
He obviously opened his eyes, but his eyes were still dark.
And this unicorn mask seemed to be stuck to his face and couldn't be taken off at all!
boom!
Terrifying thunder exploded in the sky, as if it shook the entire city.
Gu Jianlin's heartbeat also stopped suddenly at this moment.
Not because of the thunder.
It was because in the darkness, he actually saw a huge black shadow, and its roar was like thunder!
That was a unicorn, a dark and ferocious unicorn!
He has never seen such an ancient and majestic creature. This unicorn is dripping with dark blood, and its broken scales reveal a strange beauty. Half of its body is decayed and broken, while the other half is covered with raised blood vessels. Its death and vitality are perfect. combine.
He was so huge that it seemed like darkness itself.
He was so angry and ferocious, his bloody mouth was like an abyss, and his roar seemed to tear apart the darkness.
Then... he smashed the boy's world into pieces!
The world falls silent.
Only the wind blew through the curtains, and the laptop screen swayed, frozen at the bottom of the post.
A number suddenly jumped.
"Number of online players: 235!"
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When Gu Jianlin regained consciousness, his first reaction was that if he didn't do something, he wouldn't die.
At this time, he heard a ticking sound.
Like a drop of water splashing on the ground.
He tried to open his eyes, but what he saw was a hard rock wall full of cracks.
He was still lying down and subconsciously moved his body, only to hear the sound of chains colliding, which was quite heavy.
Gu Jianlin was shocked to find that he was lying in a coffin, bound by countless dark chains.
And his original clothes were gone, replaced by something broken, like a shroud.
The mysterious unicorn mask was still on his face, as if it had become one with him.
who I am.
where am I.
What am I doing.
Gu Jianlin felt his scalp numb, the coffin lid had been opened, and the surroundings were full of darkness.
Coffin, chains.
Cold and humid.
This seems to be... an ancient tomb!
At this time, an ancient, deep chant sounded outside the ancient tomb, like the roar of an ancient bell.
The ancient tomb trembled faintly, and countless gravel and floating ash shook off. Scarlet blood seemed to seep out of the darkness, flowing along the gaps in the tomb floor tiles, surrounding the ancient coffin, like a living thing.
Until finally, the chanting outside the tomb disappeared and everything returned to silence.
"Teacher, we have found so many tombs and performed so many sacrifices. This is the last time."
A voice with suppressed fear sounded: "Could he really be the legendary Qilin Immortal?"
"I don't know, but the seal of the tomb has been lifted. If there is really an ancient god inside, then he should have been awakened by us. This is our only hope."
The old man's voice was low and vicissitudes of life: "No matter whether he is the Qilin Immortal, or what level of ancient god he is, we must treat him as the true supreme. Because... only he has the ability to save us."
He ordered: "Butcher, go and open the door of the ancient tomb and get ready to start. Everyone, get behind me."
After a moment, there was a roar, and the door of the ancient tomb was slowly pushed open.
The bright firelight pierced the darkness, and a group of figures could be vaguely seen standing in the firelight.
Gu Jianlin felt a chill in his heart and closed his eyes subconsciously.
"O ancient supreme being... I'm waiting here to witness your awakening!"
