The walls are mottled and the beams and columns are bent.
The repair methods were also very crude. They used some mud, bamboo strips, and rags to cover the holes, and some green tree trunks were used to prop up the beams and walls.
The tall pines and cypresses all around occupy the sky above the courtyard. The trees block out the sun and create a gloomy atmosphere.
Li Changan was still looking at this den, but Sun Zhong was already clapping his hands and saying.
"We're home! Let's all go and have a rest."
All the men in the courtyard suddenly dispersed, except for the man with an injured hip who stared straight at Li Changan's back, his palms stroking the handle of the hunting knife at his waist.
Li Changan turned his head, and he quickly looked away and limped away quickly. Instead, Li Changan looked at him thoughtfully.
When Sun Zhong saw this, he quickly shouted haha.
"After walking on the mountain road for a long time, the Taoist priest must be hungry."
Li Changan turned around.
"Listening to what you said, my stomach is really a bit uneasy."
Sun Zhong put on a simple and honest look on his face and said with a smile: "Well, Taoist Master, come with me and I will prepare some food for you."
………………
Sun Zhong introduced Li Changan into a room.
Although this courtyard is very dilapidated, there are many houses, and many exquisite carvings can be vaguely seen between the courtyard pillars. It is probably a mountain villa built by an official family. It has been abandoned for a long time and was used as a stronghold by this group of hunters.
Not long after, Sun Zhong brought food. It was not a rich meal, just a bowl of gruel, a few pancakes mixed with some wild vegetables.
"Conditions in the mountains are rudimentary, and the women are all in the villages at the foot of the mountains. The taste is not good. Please be patient, Taoist Priest."
Sun Zhong added vegetable cakes to Li Changan's bowl and persuaded him diligently. Li Changan remained silent, picked up the porridge and put it to his mouth without moving. He only sniffed it with his nose. There was something special about the aroma of the porridge.
.
Li Changan glanced at Sun Zhong from the corner of his eye. His eyes were like hooks, staring at Li Changan's mouth.
Li Changan suddenly put down the bowl of porridge again.
Sun Zhong was a little dazed, his eyes flickered a few times, and he forced a smile and said: "But it's not to the Taoist priest's liking."
"That's not true." Old God Li Changan was here, "There is something wrong with me..."
Saying this, he turned to look at Sun Zhong, with a half-smile on his face.
"...There is no pleasure without flesh."
"This..." Sun Zhong obviously didn't expect that the Taoist priest in front of him would come back like this, and there was a hint of contempt in his eyes. How thick-skinned could he be to say this?
But he still held back his temper and answered carefully:
"As a distinguished guest like the Taoist Priest, he usually entertains himself with good wine and meat. But the Taoist Priest also saw along the way that the brothers were all empty-handed this time. There was really nothing to gain, so the meat was naturally gone.
"
"The donor is dishonest. Taoist priest, I clearly smell..." Li Changan slapped his nose with his hand, "...it smells like stewed meat."
When Sun Zhong heard this, his expression changed drastically. Just as he was about to speak, Li Changan stood up with his sword in hand and rushed out of the door in two or three steps.
"Well, it's this way."
He smelled the scent and left, but within two steps, Sun Zhong caught up with him and stopped him with his hand.
"Taoist Master, you really heard it wrong. I'll tell you the truth. Brothers can't even open the pot. Where can we find meat?"
The Taoist priest grinned at him, suddenly raised his hand and swept him away, then walked quickly past him.
After a few steps, they came to a small house with a closed door. Just as he was about to open the door and enter, Sun Zhong chased after him again.
This time, he opened his arms and blocked the Taoist priest.
"Sir, wait a minute. Mr. Sun is being stingy. It is true that he hunted a wild boar not long ago. Please come back and I will cut off a few kilograms of good fat meat and send it to you."
"No trouble, I'll do it myself."
With that said, Li Changan raised his hand to push away, but Sun Zhong put roots under his feet to resist the force, but Li Changan randomly grabbed his skirt and pulled him, and he lost his center of gravity and turned into a gourd rolling on the ground.
Li Changan has pushed the door open and entered.
………………
The house is not big. It looks like a kitchen, with windows on all sides and two doors at the front and back.
Li Changan glanced around and found his target.
It was a stove in the kitchen. There was a strong fire in the stove. An iron pot was covered with a lid, and white steam overflowed from the edge of the lid.
The aroma of meat comes from this pot.
At this time, Li Changan didn't look very happy, but hesitant. After a moment, he took a deep breath and opened the lid.
In the pot is a large pot of soup.
The milky white soup is boiling in the pot, with some oil foam rolling on the edges, and some wild vegetable leaves sticking to the iron pot.
And what was boiling in the middle of the boiling soup, of different sizes... were human heads.
Li Changan pursed his lips, with some sadness in his eyes.
A woman's head rolled to the bottom of the pot, and a child's head floated up again. His face was facing Li Chang'an. The flesh on his face had been cooked until it was swollen and white, and his face was unrecognizable. There was only a mole on his forehead.
Still conspicuous.
The interviewer said that a mole on the forehead is a sign of great ambition, but it is a pity that the child's life has not yet started, so it ends here and becomes a pot of soup.
"I wanted you to live a little longer, but since you are so eager to die, you can't bear my surname as Sun."
Li Changan turned his head, and Sun Zhong was blocking the door. At this time, his face no longer had the warm and flattering expression before, but instead was full of viciousness.
Under the sparse eyebrows, a pair of red eyes remained unblinking. He clapped his hands again and shouted with a smile:
"Brothers, come out."
After saying that, bursts of laughter and strange screams sounded outside the house, and a group of men armed with various weapons swarmed in.
Li Changan looked at him coldly.
"Sparse eyebrows, sparse teeth, black tendons, and red eyes indicate the appearance of cannibalism."
What the old man said is indeed correct.
……………………
Li Changan remained silent and looked at the thief in the room.
Including Sun Zhong, there were eight people in total, but there were two more than before. They must have been left behind in the courtyard. They hid before and did not appear.
Looking at the weapons of this group of people, they are no longer the hunting knives and bows before, but simple knives, spears, short axes, and hammers. Some of them are actually wearing armor. Although it is just a simple leather armor, it is
Their true identities can be gleaned from this.
"A deserter?"
Li Changan secretly calculated in his mind that although they had swarmed in before, they were orderly in the chaos. After they stood still, they even formed a vague formation. At a glance, they could tell that they were warriors who had been fighting for many years.
"Trouble."
This group of people is much more difficult to deal with than bandits.
Here Li Changan was still thinking, but over there Sun Zhong spoke again.
"I wanted to cut up the Taoist priest and eat it as meat, but I, Sun Zhong, also cherish talents. If the Taoist priest surrenders, how about letting you be the leader?"
"Join you?" Li Changan smiled hoarsely, "For what? Cannibalism?"
"What's wrong with eating people?" Sun Zhong laughed loudly over there, his eyes wandering over Li Changan's body.
"The old one is firewood, the young one is tender, the female one is soft, and the male one is chewy."
"This world is ruined, bah!" He spat, "If you don't kill people, where will the meat come from? If you don't eat meat, where will the strength come from? How can brothers survive in the world without strength?"
He wanted to say something else, but the guy next to him who was shot in the butt couldn't bear it anymore and stepped out of the crowd.
"Brother, why are you talking to this Niubi? You just cut out the heart and liver and drink it with the 'steamed buns' in the pot!"
But after saying that, he was held down by Sun Zhong on the shoulder.
"Why are you so anxious? This Taoist priest is very powerful. Let's go together."
After saying that, the gang of cannibals dispersed into half a month, covering each other and approaching step by step.