Chapter 33: Foggy Ghost Town
There are many river valleys in the eastern part of Shu, with high mountains standing in the way, the terrain is rugged and the wind is weak, so many places are shrouded in fog all year round.
The two walked straight in the direction indicated by the left hand and passed a small village.
Several fences surrounded the thatched-roofed earthen house. A group of colorful hens and chicks were pecking at rice in the yard. A large rooster with bright feathers stood on the roof, shaking its comb, standing on one leg, turning its neck alertly, and looking down proudly in all directions. Fortunately, no one kept a dog. It was estimated that these villagers themselves would not have enough meat to eat all year round, let alone extra bones to feed the dogs.
There is a fork in the road in front of the village, branching off in three different directions. Two of the roads are bare and have many footprints, showing that people often walk on them. The last one is overgrown with weeds, covering the road surface. A square stone slab stands crookedly in the direction of this road. The stone slab is very old and has been weathered. There is a big crack from top to bottom, and dead grass has grown out of the crack.
There were two large characters carved on the stone slab, which seemed to be the place name where this road led to. The lower character could barely be seen as the word "city", while the upper character had many strokes and a complicated shape. It was also just passed through by the crack, and many small stones had fallen off. Wei Wuxian bent down and pushed aside the weeds. After looking at it for a long time, he still couldn't make out what the word was.
It just so happens that the direction that the left arm points to is this road.
Wei WuXian said, “Why not ask these villagers?”
Lan Wangji nodded. Wei Wuxian certainly didn’t expect him to ask, so he immediately walked towards the farm girls who were scattering rice to feed the chickens with a smile on his face.
The women, young and old, became nervous when they saw a strange young man approaching, and seemed to want to throw away the dustpan and run into the house. After Wei Wuxian said a few words with a smile, they slowly calmed down and responded a little shyly.
Wei Wuxian pointed at the stone tablet and asked a question. Their faces changed at first, and they hesitated for a while before talking to him intermittently, pointing and talking. During this time, they did not dare to look at Lan Wangji standing next to the stone tablet. Wei Wuxian listened carefully for a while, with a smile on his face. At the end, he seemed to change the topic, which made the farm girls relax and gradually relax, smiling at him unskillfully.
Lan Wangji stared at that place from afar, and after waiting for a long time, he saw no sign of Wei Wuxian coming back. He slowly lowered his head and kicked a small stone beside his feet.
He rolled this innocent little stone over and over for a long time. When he looked up again, Wei Wuxian actually took something out of his arms and handed it to the peasant girl who talked the most.
Lan Wangji stood there in a daze, unable to hold back any longer. Just as he was about to walk over, Wei Wuxian finally came back leisurely, his hands behind his back.
He stood back next to Lan Wangji and said, "Hanguang-jun, you should go over there. There are rabbits in that yard!"
Lan Wangji did not respond to his teasing, and said indifferently: "What did you find out?"
Wei WuXian said, “This road leads to Yicheng. The first word on the stone tablet is ‘Yi’.”
Lan Wangji asked, “Chivalrous justice?”
Wei WuXian said: “That’s right, and it’s not right either.”
Lan Wangji asked, “Why?”
Wei WuXian said: “It is indeed that word, but the meaning is wrong. It is not the meaning of chivalry, but the meaning of charity.”
They walked along the fork in the road through the weeds, leaving the stone tablet behind. Wei WuXian continued, "These girls said that since ancient times, six out of ten people living in that city have died young or suddenly, and there are many funeral cemeteries in the city for corpses. In addition, the local specialty is coffins, paper money and other funeral items, and the craftsmanship of making coffins and paper figurines is superb, so it was named this."
Besides the withered grass and rocks, there were also barely perceptible gullies on the road. Lan Wangji kept his eyes on Wei Wuxian's feet. Wei Wuxian said as he walked, "They said that people here rarely go to Yicheng, and people inside rarely leave except to deliver goods. There have been almost no people in the past few years. This road has been abandoned for several years and no one has walked on it. It is indeed difficult to walk on."
Lan Wangji: “There’s more.”
Wei WuXian: “Anything else?”
Lan Wangji asked, "What did you give them?"
Wei WuXian said, “Oh. That one you mean? It’s Rouge.”
When he was in Qinghe, he bought a small box of rouge from the fake Taoist who asked about Xingluling, and he always carried it with him. Wei Wuxian said, "You have to thank someone for asking for information. I wanted to give them silver, but they were scared and didn't dare to accept it. I saw that they liked the smell of the rouge very much, and it seemed that they had never used this kind of thing before, so I gave it away."
After a pause, he continued, "Han Guang-jun, why are you looking at me like that? That box of rouge is not very good. But I am no longer the same as before, carrying a bunch of flowers, plants, hairpins and rings around to give to girls everywhere. I really have nothing else to give, but it's better than nothing."
As if some unpleasant memories were awakened, Lan Wangji's eyebrows twitched and he slowly turned his head away.
As we walked along this difficult road, the weeds gradually became thinner, crawling back to the sides, and the road became wider. However, the fog became thicker and thicker.
When his left arm clenched into a fist, a ruined city gate appeared at the end of the long road.
The corner tower at the top of the city was missing tiles and paint, and one corner had fallen off, making it look extremely dilapidated and ugly. The city walls were covered with graffiti by someone unknown. The red color of the city gate had almost faded to white, and the door nails had rusted black one by one. The two doors were ajar, as if someone had just pushed open a crack and slipped in.
Even before entering, one can feel that this must be a haunted place where demons are rampant.
As Wei WuXian walked along the road, he kept looking around. When he reached the city gate, he commented, "This is really bad feng shui."
Lan Wangji nodded slowly: "The mountains are poor and the waters are bad."
This Yicheng is surrounded by high mountains and cliffs on all sides. The mountains are seriously tilted towards the center, showing an overwhelming and threatening trend, as if they will collapse at any time. Surrounded by such huge dark rocks in all directions, in the miserable white fog, they are more monsters than monsters. Just standing here makes people feel stuffy in the chest, panic in the heart, and can't breathe. There is a strong sense of threat.
Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "talented people live in a land of good fortune", and there are also reverse sayings. Due to the terrain and location of some places, the feng shui is bad, and there is a natural bad smell. People living there are prone to premature death and bad luck. If the ancestors have been rooted here for generations, it is even more bad luck. Moreover, strange phenomena often occur, and the possibility of corpse transformation, evil spirits returning to the soul, etc. is several times higher than in other places. Obviously, Yicheng is such a place.
This kind of place is usually located in a remote place, and the immortal families cannot control it. Of course, they don't want to control it, it's very troublesome. It's more troublesome than Shui Xingyuan. Shui Xingyuan can be driven away, but Feng Shui is difficult to change. If no one comes to the door crying and begging, the families will turn a blind eye and pretend not to know.
Leaving one's hometown is the best way for city dwellers to escape. However, if people in a place have been rooted in remote places for generations, it is difficult for them to make up their minds to leave their hometown. Even if six or seven out of ten people in your hometown die young, you may be one of the other three or four out of ten, so it seems that you can still bear it.
The two men walked to the city gate and exchanged glances.
"Squeak--", the bearing shaft, unable to bear the heavy weight, slowly opened the two misaligned city doors.
There was no traffic, no corpses, nothing but white covering the sky.
The fog was thick, several times thicker than the fog outside the city. I could only barely see a long straight street in front of me. There were no people on the street. There were upright houses on both sides.
The two of them naturally took a few steps towards each other and entered the city together.
It was still daytime, but the city was silent. Not only was there no human voice, but not even the crowing of chickens or the barking of dogs could be heard. It was extremely eerie.
However, since it was the location designated by the left arm, it would be strange if it wasn't weird.
After walking along the long street for a while, the deeper they went into the city, the thicker the fog became, as if a demonic aura was everywhere. At first, they could barely see clearly ten steps away, but then they couldn't make out the outlines of five steps away, and later, it was almost pitch dark. The further Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked, the closer they got to each other, and they could only barely see each other's faces when they were shoulder to shoulder. A thought suddenly occurred to Wei Wuxian: "If someone takes advantage of this fog and sneaks in between us, two people will become three people. I'm afraid I don't know if they will be discovered."
At this moment, he kicked something with his foot, and when he looked down, he couldn't tell what it was. Wei Wuxian grabbed Lan Wangji's hand, telling him not to walk away alone, and leaned down to take a closer look. A head with wide-open eyes broke through the mist and bumped into his sight.
The head had a male face, thick eyebrows, big eyes, and two unusually prominent blush spots on the cheeks.
Wei Wuxian had kicked this head just now, almost sending it flying, so he knew how heavy it was. It was definitely not a real person's head if it was so light. He lifted it up and squeezed it, and a large part of the man's cheek collapsed, and a patch of his blush was wiped off.
It turned out to be a human head made of paper.
This paper head is lifelike, with exaggerated makeup but delicate facial features. Yicheng is famous for its funeral objects, and the craftsmanship of making paper figures is naturally good. There are substitute paper figures among the paper figures. People believe that burning them for the dead can help them suffer in hell, climb mountains of knives, and go into oil pots. There are also beautiful maids who serve their ancestors in the underworld, kneading waists and beating legs. Of course, these are just the living seeking comfort for themselves. This paper head should be a "Yin Lishi".
"Yin Li Shi", as the name suggests, is a thug. It is said that after going down, he can protect the ancestors from being bullied by other evil ghosts and tricky judges, and the paper money burned for him by the younger generations will not be snatched away by the little ghosts. This paper head must have been accompanied by a tall and solid paper body. I don't know who pulled it down and threw it on the street.
The hair on the paper mannequin was black, wispy and quite shiny. Wei Wuxian reached out and touched it. It was tightly glued to the scalp, as if it were real hair growing from it. He thought, "The craftsmanship is really good. Could it be that they glued it on with real human hair?"
Suddenly, a thin black shadow ran past him quickly.
The shadow came extremely strangely, brushing past him closely and disappearing into the thick fog in an instant. Bichen automatically unsheathed his sword and chased after the shadow, then suddenly retracted it and sheathed it.
The thing that just slipped past him was running too fast, it was definitely not a speed that a human could achieve!
Lan Wangji said, "Pay attention. Be alert."
Even though it just passed by us just now, there is no guarantee that it won’t do something different next time.
Wei WuXian stood up and asked, “Did you hear that just now?”
Lan Wangji said, “Footsteps and bamboo poles.”
Yes, in that brief moment just now, in addition to the hurried footsteps, they also heard another strange sound. It was very crisp, like a bamboo pole hitting the ground quickly. I don't know why there is such a sound.
At this moment, another sound of footsteps was heard in the fog ahead.
This time the footsteps were very light, very slow, and very numerous and mixed. It was as if many people were cautiously walking towards this side, but they didn't say a word. Wei Wuxian flipped his hand and took out a burning Yin talisman, and threw it lightly forward. If there was something full of resentment in front of him, it would burn, and the firelight could illuminate an area to some extent.
The visitor from the opposite side also noticed that someone here threw something, and immediately fought back and suddenly attacked!
Several sword beams of different colors came at him with murderous intent. Bichen drew his sword calmly and flew in front of Wei Wuxian, repelling all the sword beams. There was a flurry of people and horses over there. Hearing the shouting, Lan Wangji immediately retracted Bichen, and Wei Wuxian said, "Jin Ling? Sizhui!"
Sure enough, he heard it right. Jin Ling's voice rang out through the white mist: "Why is it you again?!"
Wei WuXian said: “I was just wondering why it’s you again!”
Lan Sizhui tried his best to restrain himself, but his voice was full of joy: "Mr. Mo, you are here too? Does that mean Han Guangjun is here too?"
Upon hearing that Lan Wangji might be here too, Jin Ling immediately shut up, as if he had been silenced again, fearing that he would be caught and punished. Lan Jingyi also shouted, "He must be here! That was Bichen just now! It was Bichen, right?!"
Wei WuXian said: “Yes, he’s here, right beside me now. Come over here quickly.”
A group of young men learned that the people on the other side were friends and not enemies, and they surrounded them as if they had been pardoned. In addition to Jin Ling and the younger generation of the Lan family, there were seven or eight young men wearing the clothes of other families. They were still hesitant, and they must be the children of immortal families of high status. Wei Wuxian said, "Why are you all here? You are so ruthless when you attack. Fortunately, I have Han Guangjun on my side, otherwise what if you hurt ordinary people?"
Jin Ling retorted: "There are no ordinary people here. There is no one in this city!"
Lan Sizhui nodded and said, "It was broad daylight, but the mist was thick, and not a single store was open."
Wei Wuxian said, "Don't worry about that. How did you get together? Don't tell me you agreed to go hunting together at night." Jin Ling was a man who hated everyone and wanted to fight with everyone. He had some friction with the younger generations of the Lan family before. How could he go hunting together at night? Lan Sizhui answered every question and explained, "It's a long story. We were originally..."
At this moment, from the fog came a series of extremely harsh sounds of bamboo poles hitting the ground, such as "click, click, click, click".
The faces of the youngsters all changed in shock: "Here we go again!"