May 2
"Sir! Sir!"
When she got up early in the morning, Zhuang Xiuyu found that Chang An's bedroom was as tidy as new, as if she hadn't returned home all night, so she searched the yard for Chang An.
But after searching for a long time, I couldn't even find the shadow.
At this time, two patrolling disciples in the village happened to pass by and talked about Chang An through the courtyard wall.
"Why are you so listless? I didn't sleep well last night."
"I've been busy all night, I haven't slept at all, and I have to get up to patrol again. Aren't you tired?"
"Then Chang An hasn't been found yet?"
"No, the owner of the village ordered people to climb down the cliff hundreds of feet, but there is still no trace. Then Chang An may have really fallen to the bottom of the cliff."
When Zhuang Xiuyu heard this, her expression suddenly changed. She ran out of the yard and anxiously asked the two patrolling disciples
"What did you say? What happened to my husband?"
The patrolling disciples looked at each other and cursed themselves for talking too much, but Zhuang Xiuyu listened and said
"Miss Zhuang, don't worry. The Chang family leader jumped off the cliff by himself last night. He was probably prepared for it. Miss Zhuang, please wait a few more days and the Chang family leader will come back."
They could only comfort her like this, but how could Zhuang Xiuyu not be anxious? She was so anxious that tears were already welling up in her eyes. She pushed them away and ran towards the cliff like crazy.
She ran tirelessly for a long time, and finally reached the stone wall. Looking at the several holes in the stone wall, she became more and more anxious.
At this moment, Chu Yuchao was standing on the stone wall, staring at the cliff at his feet. When he heard the sound of footsteps, he looked back, only to see Zhuang Xiuyu running towards him anxiously with tears on his face.
He jumped off the stone wall and looked at Zhuang Xiuyu apologetically. He didn't know what to say, so he patted her on the shoulder and sighed.
"Miss Zhuang, the whole village will do their best to rescue Master Chang."
Zhuang Xiuyu touched the hole in the stone wall with trembling hands without saying a word.
Seeing that she couldn't listen to anything now, Chu Yuchao sighed and walked away helplessly.
Zhuang Xiuyu sat blankly leaning against the stone wall for a long time, and finally came back to her senses. She stubbornly wiped the tears from her face and looked at the stone wall again.
"Sir, he has never been an impulsive person. Since he jumped on his own initiative, he would definitely leave clues."
She carefully observed the several holes left in the stone wall. Two of them were relatively flat, like the marks left by a sword being inserted. Although one was narrow, it was obviously wider than the other two, more like the length of a spear. Traces left by sticks and the like.
"Sir, if you use a sword, it can only be these two."
But among the three holes, only the bottom sword hole directly penetrates the stone wall. Chang An is probably the only one who can do this.
Zhuang Xiuyu's eyes lit up and he discovered that not only was it the sword hole left by Chang An, but not far from the stone wall, several thin black iron needles fell to the ground.
At this time, the sun shone into the villa, and the place where Zhuang Xiuyu stood happened to be in the shadow of the stone wall. In the sword hole left by Chang An, a ray of sunshine came in, and in this shadow, left When the next light came on, Zhuang Xiuyu was surprised to find that the ray of sunlight happened to shine on those thin black iron needles.
Zhuang Xiuyu walked back and forth around the few black iron thin needles, but when she reached a certain position, she was surprised to find that the sunlight and needles actually formed the appearance of a small tree at a certain position!
"Trees, a forest of trees, a forest of black coffins!"
Zhuang Xiuyu's complexion changed drastically
"Sir, let me go to the Black Coffin Forest!"
She suddenly realized this and hurriedly ran back to the yard, took out the red bow and arrow box, and ran down the mountain towards the black coffin forest!
Not long after, she stood panting in front of the black coffin forest, with a determined look on her face, and said to herself
"Since sir asked me to come to Black Coffin Forest, I will definitely come back, and I can't hold back."
With that said, she slowly walked into the black coffin forest.
In the black coffin forest, as soon as he stepped into it, there was a cold wind blowing constantly. Zhuang Xiuyu shrank his head in fear.
"It's still so scary in here."
She took off the bow from her back, held an arrow in her other hand, and carefully observed her surroundings.
"Quack! Quack!"
The cries of crows kept coming from all over the forest.
Zhuang Xiuyu was so frightened that she trembled all over. Suddenly, she felt a black shadow swooping past from a short distance away.
She was so frightened that she almost cried, but in a blink of an eye she wiped her tears again, braved her courage, and followed the vague impression of the black shadow.
Originally, she was recalling the path Chu Yuchao led them into the villa the day before and moved forward, but at this moment, she had already deviated from that path.
She saw a shallow trace on the ground and knew it was left by that person, so she continued walking forward following the trace.
But as she walked, she felt something was getting more and more wrong. The smell of blood became stronger and stronger, and seemed to be constantly filling the forest.
The further she walked in, the stronger the smell of blood became. After a while, she felt that the smell of blood was getting closer and closer to her. She looked around and found a dense bush on the side. The grass grows more lushly.
But this was not enough to attract Zhuang Xiuyu's attention. What really caught her attention was that she saw a bit of bright red on the weed leaves. She walked slowly over and gradually saw it clearly. It was a drop of blood flowing along the weeds. The texture of the leaves flows slowly downward.
At this time, the smell of blood was extremely strong.
Zhuang Xiuyu plucked up the courage and slowly pushed aside the weeds. Only a shallow layer was pushed aside, and she was horrified to find that there was actually a body buried in the grass.
Fortunately, Zhuang Xiuyu became much more courageous after experiencing the Liangzhou incident.
She calmed down a little, grabbed the red bow tightly with both hands, and used the red bow to lift the corpse away.
"Buzz buzz..."
She opened the body, and a large number of mosquitoes and flies were flying around the grass. Under the body, there were actually several corpses piled together!
There were even several piled on top with rotting meat hanging on the spines, as if they would fall off at any time.
"vomit!"
The huge stench almost made Zhuang Xiuyu faint.
She turned her head, pinched her nose, closed her eyes and waited for a while before turning back.
She looked at the first corpse that she had just opened. The man had obviously died not long ago. There was still some warmth on the body, and a very thin trace of blood was clearly visible on the neck.
"One sword seals the throat"
Zhuang Xiuyu said attentively.
She frowned when she saw that the man's clothes were those of a disciple of the Chu Family Villa.
"Are these all people from Chu's Villa?"
But then she thought about it, if they were all from Chu's Villa, why didn't the people from Chu's Villa notice that there was no one in the Villa for so long?
And more importantly, what was the man's intention of piling the corpses here? Was he just simply hiding the corpses?
She thought hard for a long time, but still couldn't get the answer.
Immediately, she carefully examined the corpses. There were seven corpses in total. According to the different degrees of weathering of the bones of the seven corpses, she found that the death intervals of these seven people were longer.
The one at the bottom has completely turned into white bones, obviously it must have been more than a year ago.
But at this moment, Zhuang Xiuyu heard footsteps not far away. She hurriedly rearranged the body and hid behind a nearby tree.
After a while, the footsteps slowly approached, until she reached the grass and heard the sound of someone pushing aside the grass.
"It was just delivered. This makes us seven more corpses."
"Oh, we are asked to do this kind of hard work every time."
"Stop talking nonsense and get to work quickly. I heard that a large amount of goods will be sent from Liangzhou soon, and we'll have something ready to go by then."
"ah!"
But I heard one of them complaining
“This is not about wearing people out.”
Another person laughed
"Isn't that what we were asked to do? Stop talking nonsense."
"I heard that many Jianghu people died in Liangzhou for a box."
"No, we have to thank Fu Rushui for this. If he hadn't done this, I'm afraid we, the host, would be exhausted just collecting the corpses."
"Yes, like now, it takes a year and a half to collect seven corpses. We are still afraid of being discovered by the Chu family, and we don't know when it will be finished."
Zhuang Xiuyu hid behind a tree and did not dare to show her anger.
"Here, I'll move this new one. The others are all gone, so you can hold them."
"Okay, okay, move quickly. After moving, go back to bed."
The two were busy for a while, carrying the body and slowly leaving.
Zhuang Xiuyu heard the footsteps of the two people getting further and further away, so she hurriedly came out from behind the tree and followed the two people on tiptoe.
…………
cliff bottom
Chang An was sitting next to the pool, holding a lantern in his hand, but he saw a thin layer of skin on the outside of the lantern, which was clearly made of human skin.
Chang An looked gloomy. Fortunately, they made such a vicious thing and even used human skin as a lantern.
Behind him, a man was tied up and tied to the ground, struggling constantly.
Chang An stood up and kicked the man in the stomach. The pain made the man sweat all over his head, but he did not dare to scream because he was afraid that if he screamed, he would be killed by the sword of the young man in front of him.
"Tell me, what are you doing here?"
Chang An said coldly.
The man said tremblingly
"My hero, I don't even know about this. I'm just a patroller."
Chang An asked again
"Then do you know how to get out of here."
The man smiled bitterly
"Hero, I've never seen anyone who came here come out alive."
Chang An frowned and pointed at the entrance of the cave where the two came out before.
"That's your hideout."
The man nodded.
"Yes, yes, we got off the cliff and stayed there."
Chang An said
"Then tell me what it's like inside."
The man said hurriedly
"There are three levels of areas inside. The outermost is where we live, the next is the sacrificial forest, and the innermost is the main altar area. Low-level patrols like us can only stay in the residential area and don't even enter the sacrificial forest. Not to mention the innermost main altar area."
Chang On Road
"Then do you know what's in the sacrificial forest?"
The man shook his head
"I don't know. I just heard from the senior patrol officers that it's scary in there."
Chang An thought for a moment and asked again
"How many of your people are there in total?"
The man thought for a while and said
"I'm afraid there must be thousands of people."
Chang An's face turned ugly.
Thousands of people were hiding here, and no one noticed it. Last night, those people suddenly came out of the villa and attacked and killed him. Based on these two points, he could basically judge that the interior of Chu's villa had probably been occupied by dozens of people. The second floor was penetrated.
Otherwise, judging from the many masters he saw in the Chu Family Villa, no one could hide them so thoroughly in the Villa.
“Sorry”
A cold light flashed in Chang An's eyes. Before the man could call for help, his throat was sealed with a sword by Chang An. Then Chang An stripped him of his clothes and threw him into the pool.
After a while, Chang An changed into the man's clothes, picked up the human skin lantern, and slowly walked into the cave entrance.
The cave was deep and dark, and Chang An cautiously groped forward. After about a cup of tea, Chang An saw a bright light in front of him.
When Chang An walked out of the cave, he was stunned by the sight in front of him.
This is an extremely vast cave. The lights inside the cave are brightly lit, as bright as daytime outside. But in front of him, there is a lively street with people coming and going, and there are even vendors selling goods along the street.
Chang An was startled, this was already a small city.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned his head.
"Hey, where are the people patrolling with you? Why are you the only one back?"
A man wearing similar clothes to him said suddenly, but Chang An carefully discovered that there was a token hanging on the man's waist with the word "Sacrifice to the Forest" written on it.
It seems that this guy is the so-called senior patroller.
"Oh, he has a stomachache, so he has to go to the toilet."
Chang An casually found an excuse and excused himself.
the man asked
"Why haven't I seen you before, new here?"
Chang An nodded and said
"Just came down, hehe."
The man was also familiar with him, and he immediately hooked his hand on the back of Chang An's neck.
"Then you hang out with me and I'll keep you in the hot water."
As he said that, he showed off the badge on his waist to Chang An and said proudly
"Did you see that, this is Ji Lin's badge, senior patroller."
Chang An's eyes shone with joy.
"Then I'll rely on my eldest brother from now on. I still don't know his surname."
The man said
"It's easy to say. Others call me Brother Qiang. You can also call me that. What's your name?"
Chang On Road
"Brother Qiang, just call me Xiao Yanzi."
Brother Qiang patted Chang An on the shoulder
"Okay, Xiao Yanzi, work hard and become a senior patrolman as soon as possible, and become a nuclear-level master like Brother Qiang."
Chang An looked at Brother Dian Qiang with envy.
"Brother Qiang, to become a senior patrolman, you actually need to train to the core level?"
Brother Qiang was enjoying Chang An's admiration and said
"That's right, look at these people. They were all patrollers in the past. Unfortunately, they have never been able to reach the core level. They can only stay in this outer area and wait to die."
Chang An asked curiously
"Brother Qiang, what exactly is in the sacrificial forest?"
Brother Qiang's expression changed, and he patted Chang An on the head.
"You shouldn't be asking more questions."
Often pretending to be in pain and covering his head
"I know, Brother Qiang."
On the street, a gong sound suddenly sounded.
A boy was scurrying back and forth in the crowd, very clumsy. He looked anxious and shouted while banging the gong.
"The Zhang family and Wang family are gone!"
There was an uproar on the street, and everyone looked shocked at first. Then, everyone's face turned pale, and they bowed their heads and left in a hurry.
Brother Qiang on the side didn't look very good either, so Chang An asked
"Brother Qiang, what happened?"
Brother Qiang said
"Probably he was taken to the Sacrifice Forest by the senior patrollers."
Chang An asked
"why is that?"
Brother Qiang's expression suddenly became extremely terrifying, and his eyes were fixed on Chang An.
"Do you really think that we are placed here in the building so that we can live here?"
As he spoke, a burst of sadness suddenly appeared in his eyes.
"They are just prepared sacrifices."
At this moment, at the end of the street, there suddenly came the sound of screams and the cry of children.
On the street, there was silence for a long time, and then it seemed as if nothing had happened, and it once again returned to its previous appearance.
