Zheng Xiu carried the orange cat to a nearby town.
Ever since it heard Zheng Xiu talk about the recipe of "fried fish cakes", it looked very worried, as if it was seriously thinking about and reminiscing about the existence of this thing called "fried fish cakes".
Zheng Xiu inquired about news in the town.
After spending a few days, Zheng Xiu finally got some clues about the tragedy in Baili Village twenty years ago from an old street performer.
People in the town said that the old man was a hunter twenty years ago and had gone to an unknown small village to exchange things.
He would always come back humming a song and carrying white carp to make soup.
At first, when the old man heard the words "Bai Li Village", his expression changed drastically and he disappeared. But in the end, he couldn't stand Zheng Xiu's insistence, and seeing that Zheng Xiu was so sensible and brought a pot of soju, the old man finally spoke.
His voice was very hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken for many years, and as if there was old phlegm in his throat.
"The carp produced in that village is white, fat and especially delicious."
"Two hares can be exchanged for ten white carps. Once the soup is cooked, it will taste twice as delicious!"
Zheng Xiu thought about it and decided not to tell the old man that those white carp grew up eating human flesh and became big and white.
The old man took a sip of soju and continued:
"It was a dark night,"
"I remember correctly, it's absolutely not wrong. It was very dark in the forest that night and I couldn't see my fingers."
"Bai Li Village is over there, and there are strange sounds coming from it."
Zheng Xiu: "Voice?"
The old man nodded and imitated it with his mouth: "Click-whoop! Click-whoosh! From here, it sounded to that side, and from there, it sounded to this side! The old man thought that Baili Village was attacked by bandits. Come on, run away!"
"The sound of drawing a sword?"
"Yes!" The old man suddenly realized: "It turned out to be the sound of drawing a sword!" The question that had troubled the old man for twenty years suddenly found the answer. He slapped his thigh and laughed loudly: "Sure enough, the thief was ruined!"
No, that was the sound of the Treasure King drawing his sword from the south of the village to the north of the village. Zheng Xiu complained silently in his heart, but had no intention of telling the old man the answer. He asked, "What happened next?"
"Then the old man ran and ran, ran and ran, and ran to another hill." The old man paused, gritted his teeth, and suddenly his whole body was trembling. The bottle of shochu in his hand spilled a lot due to the shaking of the old man's hands. After a while, the old man seemed to have calmed down from his memories. He tried hard to talk about that scene, and his voice gradually became erratic, as if he was talking in a dream: "After that, everything was gone, all gone."
The old man's mental state was a little strange. After Zheng Xiu noticed this, he didn't force himself. He cupped his hands towards the old man and prepared to leave. Finally, Zheng Xiu remembered something and turned around and asked, "Old man, do you still remember how many families there were in Baili Village back then?"
"Twenty-six households."
"A whole twenty-six households?"
"Hehehehe, twenty-six households, not one with too many, and one with not too many, all neat and tidy, all gone!"
"Is there a family with the surname Feng...?"
"Feng...Feng...Feng?" The old man grabbed his hair hard and pondered in distress. As he scratched and scratched, he picked out a lot of dark red dandruff between his fingernails, and they fell down: "I want to Get up! It’s that butcher! That butcher!”
Zheng Xiu's breath was stagnant: "Does that butcher have a daughter? The one with long hair, the dull one, and the silent one!"
"No! No! No!" the old man said loudly, not looking at Zheng Xiu, but looking "elsewhere": "No! The butcher has a son! His name is Feng Xiaoyi!"
"!"
"Meow."
Annie made an orange cat noise.
Zheng Xiu looked at the old man's strange appearance and felt inexplicably frightened. He looked at the old man and stepped back step by step.
I saw the old man lowering his head and talking to himself, his voice getting weaker and weaker:
"It's so dark, so dark,"
"Like ink,"
"Big chunks of something darker than night,"
"There were footsteps, cries, and a woman's voice,"
"A lot of people are crying, a lot of people are shouting,"
"It's just a black thing, wow! From a distance, I saw that the village was eaten up."
"Yes, it's eating. It must be eating. It can't be wrong. It's like a mouth."
The old man poured wine into his mouth in large gulps, his facial features became distorted and became more and more ferocious.
Suddenly a hoarse and weird laugh came out of his mouth: "Yes! They were eaten, by the 'things' there..." As the old man spoke, he lowered his head, and after a moment, he suddenly raised it.
Dark red tears of blood shed from the corners of the old man's eyes. His eyes were about to burst, and his eye sockets were densely filled with black roots. He looked at Zheng Xiu and grinned: "Yes!"
"That night,"
"It's so noisy——"
After finishing speaking, the old man rolled his eyes, lowered his head, and remained motionless.
The flask fell to the ground, empty inside.
Zheng Xiu looked at the old man with his head lowered and motionless in front of him, and was stunned for a moment. Even if he didn't step forward to check his breathing, he could tell at a glance...the old man was dead.
"Did I...kill him?"
Zheng Xiu murmured to himself, feeling a little self-blame in his heart.
"Not entirely." Lady Anne patted Zheng Xiu's chin with a soft ball of flesh. She thought for a while and said something that was somewhat comforting: "He should have died long ago."
"?"
"The more you understand and the more you imagine, the closer you are to 'us'." Lady Anne turned over her paw in front of Zheng Xiu and lit up the pink flesh ball. She pointed at the flesh ball with the other paw. This strange movement made Zheng Xiu easily think of "Annie's jade feet" and he understood it instantly.
"You mean, he got too close to Chang An twenty years ago and should have died long ago? Now that I'm here, let him recall what happened that night and just disappear?"
Annie nodded, glanced at the old man's body, shook her head, and sneered: "Stupid human beings."
Zheng Xiu spent some money to bury the old man.
The old man had no relatives and made a living as a performer. All he owned was a small cart with several dirty and torn costumes on it. The people in the town were very surprised that a busker with no relatives died suddenly, and someone took care of his funeral.
But no one seemed to care. After the old man died, all that was left was a lonely grave on a barren mountain outside the town.
Later Zheng Xiu went to inquire again.
No one died this time.
Many people say that the old man gradually went crazy many years ago without knowing what happened, and became silent all day long.
He hasn't spoken to anyone in years.
…
Taking the express called "Celebrating Thirteenth", I returned home.
Zheng Xiu saw an astonishing scene as soon as he got home.
Zheng Haoran trimmed his appearance, shaved off his beard, and tied up his long hair. Although his body was still thin, his posture and his piercing eyes made Zheng Xiu feel like he had seen the battlefield twenty years ago. General Zheng Haoran.
This is not surprising.
The point is.
"Ah - open your mouth."
Chuntao shyly held a plum between her two fingers and stuffed it into Zheng Haoran's mouth.
"Is it sour?"
"It's not sour." Zheng Haoran smiled and said, "As long as it's fed by Madam, it's sweet. Come on, take a bite too."
As soon as Chuntao ate it, his face instantly turned into the character "rice".
"Bah, bah, bah! I'm so sour..."
"Hahaha... That's not what you said when you were pregnant with our son."
Zheng Haoran laughed loudly.
Outside the yard.
Yue Linglong and Zheng Xiu, a newlywed couple, are in a mess.
They all felt tons and tons of dog food being hit in their faces.
Who are the newlyweds?
Lady Anne tilted her head and looked curiously at the old couple in the yard who were feeding each other plums and spreading dog food around them indiscriminately like the sun and the moon. She couldn't help but scratch her head and looked at Zheng Xiu. The ear asked: "Do you humans need to look like this when you mate?"
They didn't even notice that Zheng Xiu and his wife had returned from their trip.
Love and love at home.
I don’t know how long this situation lasted.
Zheng Xiu did not disturb the two newlyweds who were saying goodbye. The first thing Zheng Xiu did was to lock himself in the room, spread a layer of paper, write and draw on the paper, and digest the income from this trip.
…
Lady Anne was left in the yard and stood stupidly for a while.
"That's how he does things. How could he forget you?"
Yue Linglong didn't know the details of the orange cat. The orange cat looked pitiful, and Yue Linglong felt distressed, so she picked it up.
Unexpectedly, the next second, the orange cat thought about it and showed his cards to Zheng Xiu's other wife without any precautions.
"Fish-lipped humans."
Anne's voice sounded very commanding.
Yue Linglong was dumbfounded. The cat was spitting out human words. How stupid. She was so frightened that she almost threw the orange cat into the sky.
Fortunately I didn't lose it.
"I'm asking you,"
"Can you make fried fish cakes?"
Yue Linglong tilted her head: =_=? ? ?
"It doesn't matter." The noble, extraordinary, arrogant and great Lady Anne instantly saw through Yue Linglong's thoughts and showed pity. She stood on Yue Linglong's shoulder and patted Yue Linglong's hair: "I will teach you. .”
…
Fengbei "disappeared" very completely. Zheng Xiu stretched out his palm and looked at the "reason" wrapped around his little finger. She had never existed in this world. Feng Nantian did not have a daughter named Feng Bei, but only a son named Feng Xiaoyi.
Is it such a simple thing to erase the traces of a person's existence?
Feng Bei cut off his connection with the world and transcended this world, so clean that even the matter of "birth" was erased.
This weird thing happened around him, making Zheng Xiu feel inexplicably afraid. His fear had no reason. He didn't even know what he was afraid of. To put it bluntly, it was fear of the existence of the place he lived in called "the world".
As the flames on the candlestick stopped swaying, Zheng Xiu's mood gradually calmed down.
He drew a circle on the white paper and marked it: always dark.
In "Ever Dark", Zheng Xiu wrote the word "Annie". After a while, he added "Five Powerful Gods", "Mianshe", "Mother Praying Mantis", "Nascent Soul" and other strange things he had encountered over the years.
Next to "Eternal Darkness", Zheng Xiu drew another circle: Eternal Life.
In the circle where Chang Shi was, Zheng Xiu formed a small circle. He thought for a while and marked it: "Dawn".
"Dawn World Line" means the world line where he was originally. Feng Bei died, Zhu was hidden in the world, and the ritual was performed once every hundred years, and the world was stable and comfortable.
"Well, one week."
Zheng Xiu smiled and drew another small circle next to the Dawn World Line and within the Eternal World Circle.
After thinking for a moment, Zheng Xiu solemnly wrote down the note: "Eternal Night".
In the Yongye world line, Fengbei survives. There is an organization called "Ye Weiyang" in the world. Strange things happen frequently, strange people are active, and strange people appear in large numbers.
Zheng Xiu wrote many names in the circle, filling the circle densely with thin marks.
Time passes unconsciously.
It was night in a blink of an eye.
Lady Anne entered the room at some point and squatted on the table, quietly watching Zheng Xiu write and draw.
Lady Anne did not disturb Zheng Xiu, and Zheng Xiu ignored it.
There was a smell of fish in the room.
Zheng Xiu's nose twitched and he looked up at the orange cat. The corner of the orange cat's mouth was still stained with golden fried pieces. He smiled and picked up the piece of fried pieces for the orange cat. Suddenly, he felt mischievous, and he put the piece of fried pieces towards the orange cat's mouth.
The orange cat stretched out its pink tongue and sucked Zheng Xiu's finger.
"Annie?"
Zheng Xiu was a little unsure.
"Call Lady Anne."
Lady Anne's face showed dissatisfaction.
These stupid containers are always big or small.
"Okay, Annie." Zheng Xiu nodded in agreement and asked, "What did you eat?"
"Fish cakes." Annie stuck out her tongue and licked it. Its tongue was very long and flexible, and it actually licked the cat's whiskers. But when she spoke, Lady Anne's eyes showed obvious sadness and unfulfilled interest. After Zheng Xiu understood these two completely opposite complex emotions, he couldn't grasp Annie's mood at the moment.
"Stupid container," Annie sat up, folded her paws on her chest, and glared at Zheng Xiu in a demonstrative manner: "Fengbei is not the only one who knows how to make fried fish cakes!"
Zheng Xiu thought about it and understood: "You asked Yue Linglong to do it."
"Hmph hum." The orange cat hummed proudly.
"How does it taste?" Zheng Xiu was a little curious.
"Nothing." Zheng Xiu's question made the orange cat lie down like a deflated rubber ball: "It tastes different from 'before'. Stupid container, hateful container, you must be hiding something."
Zheng Xiu spread his hands and thought to himself, didn't you say you didn't want to eat it because it didn't taste good, but this time he didn't slap Annie in the face. Although this guy was a high-ranking guy, he was very stingy and couldn't afford it, so he held back his laughter. , deliberately showing a helpless expression: "That's what Feng Bei told me before. Maybe..." Zheng Xiu thought for a moment and gave an uncertain suggestion: "Add green onions in it?"
When the orange cat heard this, he slapped his right paw hard on the flesh ball of his left paw, and suddenly realized: "That's it!"
It raised its tail excitedly, as if it wanted to try the new "fried fish cake" recipe immediately. It looked back at Zheng Xiu's handwriting on the paper, was silent for a while, and said:
“The more you understand, the more you see, the more you think, the closer you will be to us, to there.”
"But you seem to be very close."
"A part of you, 'Xiang', seems to be hidden somewhere else."
"So, stupid container, for the sake of the fishcakes, I'm telling you a little more is okay. Don't blame me if you get sucked in."
The orange cat resisted the urge to make fried fish cakes. It existed like this and its endurance was extraordinary. It could endure it for a while or two, and it was very easy. The orange cat's face showed an expression of "Thank you, be grateful, thank me quickly." After saying the above words, he looked at Zheng Xiu quietly.
"Lord Anne, please speak."
Zheng Xiu looked at that furry face and somehow understood. Later, he was shocked to realize that it was because of his [foreign language] talent. His [Foreign Language] is more powerful than ordinary animals against these inhuman and strange beings - referring to translation.
Annie pointed at the space between the "Dawn World" and the "Eternal Night World", and then between the Eternal World and the Eternal Darkness, and said: "The reason why I came in is because I observed that the original distortion was unreasonable. A new twist is born.”
"Such a twist is extraordinary."
"It stands to reason that this is impossible."
"The distortion is fleeting and cannot be so 'constant'."
"Unless there is something anchoring one of the artifacts."
Zheng Xiu was stunned for a while. He obviously understood every word Annie said, but the combination of them was even more puzzling than a foreign language. He tried hard to understand Annie's words because he knew that this arrogant existence disdained Paraphrase your own words. Zheng Xiu pointed to his face in surprise: "Me?"
"Not entirely, it may be, not necessarily, maybe it is." Anne nodded, then shook her head: "The newly born distortion is not because of you, but is your 'thing'. Something unique to your container, right? , you call it 'Ghost'."
When Zheng Xiu heard this, a tingling sensation surged into his scalp, stabbing like lightning: "You mean, this newly born world line is my... ghost?"
"Yes," the orange cat's tail couldn't stop swaying, and his mind had already drifted to the fried fish cakes. He said absently, "The distortion caused by your ghost was originally insignificant, but it happened to cover the original ordinary world, and the distortion was unbelievable. "
"The two twisted junctions strangely formed a point, a twisted but extremely stable 'point'."
"This point appears between Eternal World and Eternal Darkness, affecting the tidal 'confluence'."
"We all noticed because... without intersection, there's no light."
"It's too dark in there."
The orange cat said slowly.
Now that everything has been said, it is not afraid that Zheng Xiu will die because he "understands too much". In fact, it doesn't matter whether Zheng Xiu dies or not, as long as someone does things for it.
"I suspect..." The orange cat lowered his head, as if he remembered something, and then shook his head: "Forget it, you don't need to know."
The corner of Zheng Xiu's mouth twitched, and when he was about to ask something, the orange cat had already swept out of the room like a puff of smoke.
grass?
After a while, the orange cat stood on the window sill again: "By the way, there is one more thing. Besides me, there are others who have also come in."
Zheng Xiu was sitting in the house. The orange cat had been gone for a long time, but he still hadn't come back to his senses.
Is this his ghost?
He knew that foreigners had their own ghosts. He had always wondered why his own ghosts were not born. Unexpectedly, it was a big job once he was born.
The orange cat came in, and what else did it imply?
Is this why orange cats are so easy to talk to?
Zheng Xiu gradually understood them and the reason why the orange cat appeared here.
With his eyes flickering, Zheng Xiu finally drew a small circle on the paper between "dawn" and "eternal night".
Write two words inside.
"Red spot".
(End of chapter)
