On the endless white plain, a black obelisk stands tall.
The black monument looks lonely like an abandoned child.
No wind, no rain.
There is neither sunshine nor cloudiness.
There is no sun, moon, or stars.
This world seems to be transformed into illusions, made up of fantasy bubbles.
"This is where?"
Xia Zhichan opened his eyes, and his confused consciousness made him unable to accept the strange world in front of him for a while. I don't know how long it took until my mind stabilized and the feeling of my body and limbs recovered.
But he didn't move, not even a finger.
"Heaven, underworld, or the legendary Netherworld?"
Xia Zhichan adjusted her breathing. Although she still couldn't feel any Qi in her body, there was still no problem with the movement of her limbs.
Slowly, he sat up.
"Even if it's heaven and earth, I can't be the only one there. There should also be some magic weapons, magic generals, or judge imps..."
"Boy, come here as soon as you wake up."
An old voice came, causing Xia Zhichan to turn her head back and forth to look. He looked at it for a long time. Except for the obelisk not far away, there was not even a hair in the area.
Where did this sound come from?
"Here, come here...come here quickly!"
The old voice sounded again. The voice originally wanted to portray an enigmatic image, but when he saw Xia Zhichan lay down again after hearing his voice, there was inevitably a hint of urging in the voice:
"You kid, come here quickly, there is still a glimmer of life. Otherwise, your body will be shattered into pieces, your bones will be shattered, and your soul will be scattered..."
yawn--
Xia Zhichan put her hands behind her head and yawned widely, looking nonchalant. Even when he heard the old voice saying words like "shattered to pieces" and "soul scattered", he still plucked his ears with an indifferent expression.
"You! Come here quickly, it's too late..."
"..."
Xia Zhichan scratched his head.
"You are already dead. If I hadn't kept your soul alive, you would have gone to hell by now..."
"..."
Xia Zhichan picked at her nails.
"Come here quickly, my magic power won't last long..."
"..."
Xia Zhichan turned over.
"Little ancestor, I beg you, can you come over..."
Finally, the old voice begged Xia Zhichan in a voice that almost made her cry. He didn't know how long he had lived, but this was the first time he had seen someone like Xia Zhichan.
"Okay, I'm a soft-hearted person. I can't bear to hear the word 'begging' from others."
Xia Zhichan stood up and strolled towards the black obelisk.
Xia Zhichan knew that the sound came from here. I just wanted to see what the other party wanted to do, so I held off on purpose.
The black obelisk was two feet wide and ten feet high, and it was covered with countless strange words. Those words are like vivid fish, constantly swimming on the surface of the obelisk, occasionally sinking and disappearing.
"I'm here, where are you?"
Xia Zhichan looked up, and the words wherever he looked were changing shapes all the time. For a while it was regular script, for a while it was small seal script, and for a while it turned into cursive script...
"Right in front of you."
The old voice sounded, and he was also looking at the man in front of him. It can be said that in the long years, he did not know how many times he had seen Xia Zhichan wearing a golden crown and black and white mysterious robes.
"You mean, you are actually a monument?"
"You can say that...you don't have to understand it too much anyway. You can be considered to be destined to me by being here. Let's do it this way, I will give you a question, and if you can answer it, I will give you a chance..."
"How about it?"
"not so good."
Xia Zhichan shook his head, turned around and planned to leave. It's ridiculous, it's really as if he has become stupid after studying for ten years. Is there such a good thing in the world? Cheap, be fooled if it’s cheap!
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Xia Zhichan naturally knows these truths.
But people have bad roots, and most people still hold on to a bit of luck even when they know it's impossible.
"Hey, hey? Don't leave, no, what do you want..."
That voice almost drove Xia Zhichan crazy. He had never seen such an inexperienced guy. If he didn't have hands now, he would definitely make crazy moves.
"Now let me ask you, what do you want?"
Xia Zhichan stood still, without even turning his head, and just asked directly:
"Don't fool me with your nonsense about life and death, otherwise I will break up my soul now, and you, just continue to stay here until you die."
As he said that, Xia Zhichan raised his right hand and gestured to strike at his Tianling Cap.
"No, no, no, no! Little ancestor, I'm really afraid of you. If you die, I will die with you too..."
That voice was really crying, and Xia Zhichan's sobs made her skin crawl. He frowned, waved his hands quickly and said:
"Okay, okay, don't cry. Really, I have goosebumps all over the floor.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuori, I really hate you spirit officials. I don't know what evil I did in my previous life, and I owe you so much. I was really wrong, I shouldn't have stayed here in the first place; if I didn't stay here , I would not have met Yan Chixia; if I had not met him, I might have become an immortal by now..."
Good guy, he said all kinds of nonsense, as if he was possessed by a resentful woman. The voice was so full of resentment that it really made one's teeth hurt from hearing it.
"Okay, okay, okay..."
Xia Zhichan still wanted to persuade her, but the more she tried to persuade him, the louder she cried. At first, she was still choking while talking, but in the end she stopped talking at all and just started wailing bitterly.
Even the inscriptions on the obelisk changed a bit faster, as if the fish in the pond were frightened and ran around in panic.
"Shut up! If you cry again, I will beat myself to death immediately!"
Xia Zhichan shouted.
Sure enough, such a threat was still very useful. The other party suddenly seemed to have become mute, and the originally trembling crying stopped abruptly.
"..."
"Okay, now you just need to tell me how I can help you. If you dare to stop crying like this again, I will die immediately."
Xia Zhichan sat cross-legged in front of the obelisk, with her elbows on her knees.
"good."
The voice agreed, and after a while, as if it was calming down its emotions, it slowly said:
"I was born in Donghai, when I was one year old..."
Bah bah bah, bah bah bah.
an hour later
"When I was twenty-two years old..."
"Stop! You don't have to start talking about it from childhood. When will it end?"
Xia Zhichan was so angry that he smashed the inscription on the obelisk with his fist. The words where he struck disappeared, and it took a long time for them to reappear.
"Otherwise, I don't know what to say."
The voice was also very aggrieved.
"Okay then, how expensive are you this year? How long do I have to listen..."
"I...I should be one thousand three hundred years old this year, I can't remember."
After saying this sentence, Xia Zhichan almost passed out of anger. Good guy, I listened for a long time before I heard it from one year old to twenty-two years old. He was actually more than 1,300 years old. I couldn't finish listening to it until I died.
Xia Zhichan said nothing and silently raised her right hand.
"Hey, hey, hey, don't die. I won't say anything anymore. Isn't it okay if I don't say anything anymore?"
"Let's get to the point! Don't be like those who write novels, chattering here just for the sake of content and word count..."
Xia Zhichan scolded loudly. He hates water content most in his life. He cannot water content, absolutely cannot water content. Say important things three times, and never do watery things.
"Okay, okay, let me put it simply, there is a riddle on this obelisk. If you solve the riddle, I will be rescued."
"Finished?"
Xia Zhichan stood up in disbelief. If this matter could be finished in one sentence, then why did he inexplicably listen to this guy's life experience for a long time?
"It's over. It's that simple. I'll tell you the specific details when I come out..."
"I'll ride on the horse!"
Xia Zhichan hammered and kicked, and unleashed a flurry of punches on the obelisk. She didn't stop until she was tired. Strangely enough, this obelisk looked hard, and even if you punched or kicked it, there was no pain at all.
"Okay, okay, I was wrong. The main reason is that no one has spoken to me for many years. I am almost driven crazy, so I can't hold it in when I talk about it..."
…
"What's the puzzle?"
It took Xia Zhichan a long time to calm down his mind. He once again sat cross-legged in front of the obelisk, watching the words on it sinking or floating, and the yin and yang changing.
"I don't know, the puzzle is on the monument. What Yan Chixia left behind back then can only be solved by your lineage of spiritual officers."
"Really? Then why did the Patriarch suppress you here?"
Looking up, the inscriptions seemed to be touched by something, and slowly combined into a text that only Xia Zhichan could see.
The content above made Xia Zhichan frown. He put his right hand on his knee and tapped lightly with his fingers.
"Because I eat people."
"Cannibalism? Why didn't the Patriarch kill you instead of suppressing you here?"
"Eating people is not a serious crime..."
"Um?"
Xia Zhichan's eyes turned sharp for a moment, maybe she felt something was wrong, and the voice quickly continued:
"We eat people just like you eat pigs, cattle and sheep. Do you care about the pigs' feelings when you eat meat?"
This seems to make some sense, but when you think about it carefully, it feels a bit absurd.
"What do you mean, I'm a pig?"
"No, no, no, that... Even if Yan Chixia suppresses me here, he can't stop me from eating people. I don't know how many people I have eaten on this river in the past three hundred years. But! But I can guarantee it. .”
"I can guarantee that the people I eat are all bad people who are full of evil, unfaithful and unfilial. I never dare to kill a good person by mistake. This is also the rule Yan Chixia set with me back then."
Xia Zhichan thought for a while and suddenly remembered the dream she had inexplicably after getting on the boat. He always felt that the dream was unusual, because ordinary illusions could not affect him at all as he was protected by a magic weapon:
"That dream?"
"Yes, that dream was me using illusion to stimulate people's deepest desires. When people dream, they will dream of what they want most, whether it's money, beauty, or power."
"Everyone has desires, and most people in the world cannot escape the three major whirlpools of money, beauty, and power. But if you are trapped in the whirlpool and do whatever you want to satisfy your own desires, you have lost your original intention..."
Xia Zhichan may have read the inscription for too long, so she couldn't help but rub her eyes and continued:
"Once they lose their good intentions, some people will do things that are more terrifying than monsters. After all, some monsters can only eat people, but some people can eat people without spitting out their bones."
"Yes, yes, what you said is exactly the same as what Yan Chixia said back then. Although I still can't fully understand it, but it probably means that you people are sometimes scarier than us demons."
While chatting, Xia Zhichan solved the puzzle on the obelisk. Originally, he was very relaxed and content, and could still chat with the monster.
But slowly, his thoughts couldn't keep up. So he stopped talking. The suppressed demon also saw Xia Zhichan's hard work and closed his mouth and stopped talking.
I don’t know how long passed.
A drop of sweat from Xia Zhichan's forehead slowly slipped down, dripping down his cheek and onto the front hem of his underwear. He was having a hard time. The puzzle was like a hole in a silk thread. You originally solved one thread, but you got entangled in two other threads.
The deeper you go, the more places you get tangled in silk threads, and it becomes more and more difficult for you. It's like falling into a trap set by a spider spirit. The more you try to struggle out, the tighter you will be entangled in those spider threads.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Xia Zhichan exhaled a breath of turbid air, and slowly closed his sore eyes. His heart began to become chaotic, and when his heart was confused, everything became chaotic.
A long while passed.
A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, he turned over and stood up, no longer looking at the obelisk.
"What's wrong? What's wrong? Can't it be solved?"
Xia Zhichan stretched out and moved his limbs that were a little stiff from sitting for a long time. Hearing the monster's inquiry, he couldn't help but smile. After being urged repeatedly, he said calmly:
"There are no words on this tablet... at all!"
Saying one sentence was like a heavy hammer hitting the obelisk. All the inscriptions were frightened and disappeared, leaving only the lonely obelisk and the empty surface.
From the very tip, fine cracks began to slowly spread downward, like a mirror that was broken by an external force and could never return to its original appearance.
A corner of cinnabar yellow talisman appeared in the broken monument.
"Haha, I'm finally free."
