Even though natural and man-made disasters are tragic, they are not enough to scare people. Only the curse is invisible and intangible and full of mystery.
"You can't go, you can't go. Guisi Village is cursed. Once contaminated, no one can escape." Master Ma waved his hands in a serious manner.
Yun Qi didn't believe in evil, so he decided to go to the deserted village and said scornfully: "Name the village Gui Si. If we don't invite a few little ghosts, we will be sorry for the name."
The soles of Master Ma's feet were as if they were filled with lead, and he could not move forward. Yun gave him a look that told him to grit his teeth and follow, "Master, please don't hurt me. I will follow you to the entrance of the village. You really can't enter the village."
"I have the nerve to say that I catch ghosts." Yun Qi muttered.
Master Ma was shameless and looked at the sky pretending as if nothing happened.
Why do you want face? ! Is it important to be alive? !
It looks close from above, but the mountain road is neither flat nor straight. It takes at least two hours to wind down.
On the way, Master Ma told the two of them what he had heard, "So it's not called Guisi Village, it's called Shangsi Village." He grabbed the hem of his clothes and carefully let the jagged leaves scratch the robe, "It's almost half a year Recently, two farmers in the village died mysteriously."
The two dead farmers are nothing special. They are just ordinary villagers. They work in the fields and do odd jobs when they are busy. "If you think about it seriously, they are relatively hard-working and simple people."
Before spring last year, the land had not yet thawed, so they went out to work as usual. However, when it was time to come back this time, they never came back.
"Do you think it's strange? One night, the two wives had a dream at the same time. They dreamed that their husbands were soaking in a pool. Their whole skin was green, and two tongues were sticking out for more than a foot. When they were about to die, they were still alive. He kept calling them to see him for the last time."
Lu Anran regarded Master Ma's words as a story, especially the way he spoke in a cadence, which was no worse than the storyteller at Bafangke Teahouse in the capital.
When talking about the highlights, Master Ma also paused deliberately, raised an eyebrow and asked mysteriously: "Guess what?"
Yun Qi spread his hands: "You said there is a ghost, so he must be dead."
"Yeah." Lu Anran said, "Maybe there is a theory that dreams and reality merge into one."
Master Ma felt that these two people did not have the consciousness to listen to the story, which made him lack a sense of accomplishment. His eyebrows drooped and he said: "Not long after this dream passed, the wives of two farmers suddenly disappeared, and together with their children and elderly people, they disappeared overnight. Clean.”
Yun Qi raised his eyebrows, "The ghost must appear next."
Master Ma's mouth twitched, "After that, villagers disappeared one after another in the village, and everyone began to panic, until a hunter passed by the last lake of Yuyue Shibabo and found several corpses that were almost soaked inside."
Just as he was about to continue speaking, Lu Anran raised a hand and said, "I remember that every pool in the Eighteen Pools is connected by undercurrents."
Master Ma didn't know what he meant but nodded: "Yes, Yuyue Shibabo looks across the mountain on the surface, but in fact there is an underground river underneath, which is naturally connected."
Lu Anran glanced at Yunqi, who quickly understood the meaning of her words - the whitebait they ate not long ago seemed to have been fished out of Shibabo.
Yunqi's smile froze on his lips, and he quickly regained his composure and said, "Ashes return to ashes, soil returns to soil. The green vegetable leaves you eat have been watered with manure."
Lu Anran originally wanted to be disgusted, but was successfully disgusted by the other party's metaphor.
Master Ma watched the two people communicating inexplicably, "Do you still... talk about it?"
Yun Qi raised the jade bone fan and said in a very good mood: "Tell me, what happened to the body? Was it eaten by fish, such as whitebait?"
Lu Anran discovered that this person was more sinister than she thought.
Master Ma didn't know whether silverbait was whitebait or not. He had no interest in eating fish. He said vaguely: "Probably, but that's not important. What's important is that when the hunter and the villagers rushed over, all the corpses were gone." Got it!"
From then on, villagers would disappear whenever they went out, and gradually there were rumors that the village was cursed. Some people couldn't bear to leave, and many still couldn't bear to leave.
"Until one day, the remaining dozens of people disappeared at the same time overnight."
Yun Qi paused while holding the jade bone fan, slapped the fan handle on his shoulder, and asked: "At the same time? Where did he disappear?"
"It's in the village." At this time, they had reached the entrance of the village. Under the sun, Master Ma's face was extremely serious, and he was still a little afraid of unknown things. "One night passed, and all the people who were sleeping were gone."
The village is dilapidated, and its periphery is covered with weeds grown in the new year. The large banyan tree at the entrance of the village is still leafy, but the old benches underneath are covered in dust.
"Do people really disappear suddenly for no reason?" Yun Qi expressed disbelief.
Master Ma emphasized: "I didn't lie a word, and there's no need for me to be otherwise. If you two hadn't insisted on coming here, I would never have come here to seek bad luck."
Lu Anran raised her feet and stepped over the grass that was higher than her knees. The grass bent down to form an arc-shaped space. She lowered her eyebrows slightly and watched the wild grass grow vigorously. A small amount of green juice stuck to the soles of her shoes, bursting with vitality.
"I really can't go. At first, the county office sent people to investigate. There was no clue about the missing person. He completely disappeared out of thin air." Master Ma hesitated and stood at the end and shouted: "If a person dies, he must leave something behind. , why are there no marks at all? It must have been eaten by a monster."
It started with two farmers, then their families, and finally the whole village. Master Ma shook his head and said, "It will take a thousand years for such a ghost to come down. Judging from what happens next, it must be the legendary Yaksha."
Yun Qi snorted a laugh from his nose and said half-smilingly: "According to what you said, this Yaksha has such a big appetite that he would kill villages and families at every turn."
Master Ma held the peach wood sword firmly in his hand and recited all the Western Buddhas and Gods he could remember before he took a breath and said, "Ghosts and ghosts absorb energy to practice, so they are naturally a little more powerful than others."
Yun Qi and Lu Anran had already walked some distance inside and no longer listened to Master Ma's chatter behind them.
After walking for a while, Lu Anran said suspiciously: "The disappearance of one or two people can be explained, but now everyone in a village is missing... Why didn't Magistrate Qian report it to the court?"
Yun Qi walked to a farmhouse and pushed the jade bone fan gently, pushing the old wooden fence open. He walked in and said indifferently: "You just passed by and saw how many villages have become ghost villages? "
Lu Anran recalled for a moment and said, "Apart from here, there are four other places."
"If you were the magistrate of Qian County, would you do one more thing or one less thing?"
With such a reminder, Lu Anran understood, "When Qian Zhi County reported the matter, like several other places, it only mentioned natural disasters and did not tell the truth."
The room was not airy for a long time. Yunqi pushed it away and fanned it left and right. He turned his head back and said to Lu Anran: "If we didn't come here, who knows what the difference would be between Shangsi Village and Guisi Village."
The dust was almost gone, and Lu Anran went in silently to take a look. Pots and pans were everywhere, and even the quilts were half pushed open and bunched together, as if the owner had left in a hurry and would come back to catch up on his sleep at any time.
However, the place was covered with cobwebs and dust, and any trace of life in the room had long since dissipated.
Yun Qi's eyes fell on the tea bowl on the table. There was no water in the bowl, but he picked up the lid of the tea pot. There was still half a pot of water in it. However, after the penetration of the humid weather, green hair grew on the pot wall, which looked a little disgusting.
"Someone is sleeping, someone is drinking water, someone is coaxing the baby to sleep..." After looking at several houses, Yunqi stood in an open place and fanned away the musty smell in his nose, and slowly spat out the words, " It’s like disappearing in the blink of an eye.”
Lu Anran nodded, "All the tables and chairs are untouched. Unless they go out at the same time, otherwise..."
Otherwise, it can be explained by monsters sucking people away.
Yun Qi tilted his head slightly, pinched his forehead with two fingers and thought, "If everyone goes out at the same time, during the night's rest time, can you imagine the reason?"
Lu Anran's eyelids twitched and his gaze passed over a small wooden carriage on the ground. The owner of this family must be a carpenter. Compared with other families, the furniture inside is more complete and more refined, and there are also knickknacks scattered everywhere. It shows that their family has just added a new member.
Lu Anran suddenly had the idea that this family might not be rich, but they must be very warm.
"I really can't think of anything other than natural disasters," she said, looking at the small wooden carriage with a missing wheel in her hand.
Yun Qi denied, "If it's that simple, I don't believe Qian Liang hasn't checked. And the most important point is that the missing person is really missing."
Even if it is to avoid disaster, it is impossible not to come back later.
Regrettably, before leaving, Yun Qi found a few footprints on a path behind the village. He rubbed the footprints with paper and asked Lu Anran, "Is it Zhou Ting?"
Lu Anran compared the sizes and said, "Absolutely the same."
The two of them had another question, "What did Zhou Ting do here before he died?"
When they returned to their original location at the entrance of the village, Master Ma actually sat cross-legged and recited sutras. Yun Qi said sarcastically, "I only thought you were a good man in making money. I didn't expect you to really know how to recite sutras."
Master Ma stood up after reciting the Dharma name and said, "You must have a sense of immersion in what you do and love it in order to carry it forward."
Yun Qi shook the paper and saw that the ink on it was dry. Just as he was about to put it in, Master Ma curiously asked, "Whose footprints are these?"
Yun Qi raised his eyelids and smiled meaningfully, "The Zhou family."
Master Ma took a breath, "Could it be the Zhou family that was wiped out?"
With Yunqi's expression of 'otherwise what do you think', Master Ma slapped his thigh with deep approval, "I'm just saying! Someone from the Zhou family must have entered this place by mistake and brought back the plague god Yaksha, causing the whole family to be wiped out. !”
All the way back, Master Ma lamented the Zhou family's misfortune, but Yun Qi reminded him of another thing.
"Ma Zhangshuai, you are also someone who has been to Gusi Village now."
Master Ma was overly frightened, as if he had been struck by lightning. It was not until Yunqi and the two were almost out of sight that he rushed after him, "Master, you have to cover me!"
Yun Qi was talking to Lu Anran: "I tested him just now. This person is purely a liar. He is not necessarily related to Guisi Village or the Zhou family."
Lu Anran looked at him, "Did you show him the footprints on purpose?"
Although there was no explanation, Yun Qi had always been suspicious about the fire in Yizhuang, "I always want to see if Ma Zhangshuai deliberately lured us here."
Master Ma caught up with the two of them, patting his chest with a look of shame on his face, "Sir, Yasha can't find me alone, I haven't even entered the village."
Yun Qi raised his chin towards Master Ma, his peach blossom eyes were half-squinted, and a fox-like smile appeared in the corners of his eyes, "See, you don't have enough IQ."
Last time I went to the mountains to pick up Xunqing. This time I brought Master Ma back. Lu Taotao rolled his eyes and asked, "Is there something wrong with you?"
Before the battle between words and guns could begin, Guan Yue came back with a serious face and said, "Your Majesty, someone has been eaten by Yaksha again."
