"Have you heard? Another person died yesterday, the eldest daughter of the Zhang family. She suddenly went crazy at night, muttering begging for her brother. Her family had no choice but to stop her, so she ran out at night."
"I'll wait a minute. The Zhang family will have a capable Yao'er. Where did she get her brother?"
"Who knows? Early tomorrow morning, her family found her in a shallow pond. She was submerged in water up to her waist. She was soaked in it and she was gone. I heard... it was like whether she had been soaked in it for half a month.
, almost no one looks like him anymore, I can only identify him by the birthmarks on his clothes..."
"Not only the Zhang family, but also the two Zhao brothers from Yanqi Village next door... The day before yesterday, they were drinking with people in our town. I saw them walking back on the main road. I saw a red shadow flashing past. Then
The two brothers walked into the woods as if they were blind... The people in their village searched for him for a whole day but could not find him, so they all just went to the city to report the case to the government."
"Hey, if we add it up like that, I'm afraid there won't be more than a dozen in February, right? It's only the beginning of the month. Going east like that, I don't know when it will end."
"Early tomorrow morning, he will see Li Yuanwai's family driving away. He heard that they are asking to move out of Shuiyang Town and never come back. The rich and powerful can move away, but how can they, the poor people, live?
?”
There are only a few pedestrians on the desolate street, and elderly people with sad expressions are walking on the street chatting. The cold wind blows, and pieces of red paper are rolled up and floating in the air.
The young man walked quickly across the street. He had no time to listen to the chatter of the elderly people. The gloomy sky was suffocating and it looked like a heavy rain was coming.
In such a weather, even if it is not past midnight and the sun may be hanging under the thick clouds, it is no different from dark. At that time, you can no longer wander outside and have to return home as soon as possible.
The world became more and more unfamiliar and scary to him. The peace and harmony that existed when his parents were still alive were gone forever. All changes seemed to stem from the death of their old emperor of the Yan Kingdom.
It turns out that the existence of the emperor was too far away for the young man in the small town, so far away that it was not as real as the statue of the earth god in the temple.
Could it be that five years ago, when the old emperor suddenly passed the throne to his youngest son before his death, the young man felt the presence of the emperor.
I heard from merchants who passed by the town in the early years that because the newly enthroned little emperor was too young, his brothers, and even his many uncles, were not very convinced. In just a few years, they launched rebellions one after another to fight for the throne.
throne.
Although most of the rebellions have been suppressed and the little emperor's position has been stabilized, the young man can still feel that his life has become worse at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The first thing that made the young man feel heavy was the taxes imposed by the government, which became more and more heavy, so that when his mother was seriously ill in bed, his father did not even have money to buy medicine.
After his mother became ill and hired a dog, his father was taken away by the Baoshu Mansion because he could not pay the increasingly heavy taxes. It was said that he would go to a far away place to serve as a slave.
tax.
Because of his father and his young age, he does not have to pay taxes for the time being, but that is not temporary. In another year, he will also have to face taxes that will cause many neighbors to complain.
Well, he doesn't have to worry about next year now, because he doesn't seem to live until then. I don't know when, everything around him that he can come into contact with starts to become strange and weird.
Two months ago, a well-known cloth merchant and shopkeeper in the county came back with four assistants to receive goods. It was already midnight, and it is said that he encountered a string of red lanterns floating in the air on the official road.
One of the youngest clerks was so frightened that he ran away in fear, while the cloth merchant and shopkeeper, as well as several other older clerks, were so frightened that they did not dare to move. From that day on, no one was there anymore.
When I saw those people, it was as if they had disappeared from the world.
More than half a month ago, a group of warriors seemed to be searching for something to hide from. They passed by Jiming Village next door and stayed overnight. It turned out that by the early morning of the next day, the villagers who entertained the warriors were horrified to find that all of them had been beheaded.
He died tragically in the middle of the night, his head was strangely cut off, there was not even a drop of blood, and all his heads were missing.
This case caused a sensation in all the towns and villages. The county government sent people to investigate the case. A whole group of police officers suddenly went crazy for some reason and drew their swords to slaughter the villagers who were watching. After killing all the villagers who had entertained the warriors, they again
They killed each other until everyone died.
Half a month ago, a man in the town shouted in horror, saying that he saw a giant about ten feet tall passing by slowly. However, even though he was very close, no one else saw him except this man. The next month, this man died in his bed at home.
Now, it is torn apart and extremely miserable.
...Similar to these terrifying rumors, the boy had heard about them half a year ago, especially in places where rebellions and wars had occurred. It was said that many people had seen the Yin Army marching at night.
At that time, the young man just had fun, listening with relish to the merchants or warriors from far away, with a little panic and fear on his face, vividly describing the bizarre and bizarre tragic events.
The posthumous boy no longer had the same mood as before, because the terrifying and strange things that were so far away from him and seemed to be on the horizon were spreading to the town where he was, just like whether he had grown legs.
Especially in the past two months, weird and terrifying things continued to happen around him, one after another, and they became more and more frequent.
Rumble——
A thunder resounded across the ground, and the young man couldn't help but speed up his pace home.
When passing through an alleyway, the young man suddenly slowed down. He saw two people from the famous village carrying out a corpse wrapped in a straw mat from the dark alley. When the icy wind blew, the body was lifted.
He opened the straw mat, revealing a face covered with maggots, and the indescribable stench of liquid cyanide spread all around.
"Then...the lame beggar..."
When the young man saw that deadpan face, he suddenly felt strong uneasiness and throbbing in his heart. He recognized it.
"Why is he dead? I saw him begging on the street yesterday. He died less than a month ago, and he is so rotten like that?"
The two body collectors threw the corpse wrapped in straw mats on the cart and left with expressionless or numb expressions.
The young man stood there and stared for a while, and then his expression became more solemn and his frown deepened. Now, not only did he have no relatives, it was even difficult for him to survive.
His family had no money and was literally living in poverty. The only valuable possession was the leaky house. In this time of chaos and chaos, who would ask for his shabby house?
When the young man was secretly feeling sad, a small ball with colorful ribbons and silk suddenly gathered at the young man's feet. It was a hydrangea, and the bright red silk even tied into a beautiful concentric knot.
Is that a small ball with a festive meaning, if it is thrown from a high place by a wealthy girl who is waiting to be married in a beautiful embroidered building on a sunny day, it will be enough.
It made hundreds of people excited and scrambled to grab more.
However, on the eve of the storm, the hydrangea rolled out of a dark alley and lay quietly on the dirty ground stained with mud and unknown blood, rolling beside his feet.
"..."
The moment he saw the red hydrangea, the young man immediately felt the coolness of the liquid rushing from his tailbone to the top of his head. His whole body became stiff, and his conscious thoughts froze at that moment.
The boy's head seemed to be turning bit by bit uncontrollably, and he looked towards the direction where the red hydrangea rolled out, which was the alleyway where the two body collectors had just carried the lame beggar out.
"Officer, can you help the little girl pick up the ball?"
In the dim alley, I saw a pretty girl in her twenties, wearing a dazzling red wedding dress. She asked softly with a smile on her delicate face.
No, don’t pick it up!
The young man's eyes widened in horror. The beaded-haired girl in front of him could appear in any magnificent place, but she should not appear in that dark, cold, cold and dirty alley.
There was no color in that pretty face, and it was so red that it reminded the young man of the person he had seen waiting for rice paper in a bookstore. Ye Chang's cold and strange aura hit his face.
"good!"
Did the young man who wanted to beg for rejection and run away realize that his body actually lost control at this moment, and a low and hoarse sound that was completely unlike what he could make came out of his mouth.
Then the young man looked horrified, watching helplessly as he bent over, easily picked up the red hydrangea that had fallen to his feet, and held it in his lap.
Seeing a poor young man whose clothes were covered with patches, holding a red hydrangea on his legs, and a pretty girl wearing a bright red wedding dress, standing in the thick dark shadows, the young man smiled lightly.
"Mr. Lang, are you willing to give me a body?"
After hearing this, the young man walked stiffly into the alleyway and came to the girl in wedding dress. The high walls on both sides blocked the extremely dim light outside the alley, and the cold and biting breath came from all directions.
“Very good for me!”
The commoner boy handed the red hydrangea to the wedding girl.
But the girl didn't even look at the red hydrangea, her black and red eyes stared straight at the boy in cloth.
"Don't ask..."
The girl's red lips were slightly opened, her eyes were smiling,
"Since the husband has picked up the hydrangea, it belongs to the husband, not even the concubine!"
Suddenly, the girl in the wedding dress stretched out her leg and touched the boy's face. The girl's legs were colder than the red ice of the winter moon, and in an instant, half of the boy's face was numb with the cold.
The fear that the young man had accumulated since then suddenly broke out at this moment and turned into anger. The hair on his body stood on end, and a rumor that he didn't know if it was useful or not was suddenly recalled by him.
Under the strong stimulation of a strong threat to his life, the fear turned into anger, causing him to bite the tip of his tongue. The melting warmth filled his body, and at the same time, the burning heat spread from his chest.
The sour feeling that made him stiff and unable to move immediately faded away. At that moment, the boy regained control of his body, and the smile on the face of the beautiful girl in front of him suddenly faded away at this moment.
It was as if he was in a trance. When the young man looked again, the dim alley was empty, and the girl in wedding clothes disappeared in an instant.
"Just now...were you hallucinating?"
The young man found it difficult to accept the reality. When he lowered his head and saw what was in his legs, he had no time to express his joy. His face suddenly froze...the luxuriously decorated red hydrangea was actually very close to his legs.
!
A chill rose from the young man's heart, and he felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave. He hurriedly threw away the red hydrangea in his legs and quickly left the alleyway. When the young man returned to the street as if he was running away, the darkness around him
The cold air seems to be lighter.
When the blood that suddenly rose just now dissipated, the young man was left with fear in his heart. He looked back at the dark alley, then quickened his pace to escape from the dark alley, but accidentally bumped into a person.
Passers-by walking in the same hurry.
"Where does this young boy come from who can't walk without eyes?"
The passer-by who stumbled after being hit yelled in anger.
At this moment, the young man was in a state of shock and confusion, and just wanted to go home quickly:
"Sorry, he..."
However, before the young man finished speaking, he saw angry passers-by becoming frightened. Suddenly, as if they were seeing ghosts, they pointed at the young man's face and shouted in horror:
"Ghost...ghost...ghost leg prints!"
The young man couldn't see his own face, so he didn't know what the red passerby meant.
"He, he, he got evil!"
Passers-by screamed in fear and crawled away from the boy, as if they were avoiding disaster.
"He hit a ghost!"
The young man stood there, the street was there, and a few passers-by who were walking in a hurry were attracted by the shouts and glanced at the young man. Then, the expressions of those passers-by changed drastically, and they dispersed in fear as if they had seen the god of plague.
"That kid... has ghost leg marks on his face! He... he won't live for a few days!"
"If you don't ask, shut up and stay away from him! Be careful of getting into his bad luck!"
"Such a small baby, it's really embarrassing... I don't know which family's son has asked for it at such a young age. Hey... what kind of world is that?"
"Don't you want to live anymore? Just say a few words."
Seeing the passers-by running away like the plague, the young man's heart sank. He remembered that the strange girl stretched out her legs and touched his face. Could it be that she was leaving something on his face?
The young man couldn't stand the strange looks from passers-by around him, so he covered his face and ran all the way, rushing into a shabby dilapidated tile-roofed house.
After returning home, the first thing the boy did was to fill half a jar of water from the jar with a corner missing. Then he stretched his head and saw a palm on the right side of his cheek reflected in the slightly rippling water.
The slender black and blue leg prints of the five fingers are clearly visible, which is particularly dazzling.
The young man's face turned livid, and then turned red. He knew that some unlucky people would bump into ghosts at inopportune places, and at that time the ghosts had the will but no power, so they could leave their mark and wait until the right time came.
The most suitable time for ghosts to move their legs is undoubtedly the middle of the night. Perhaps as passersby said, he has only a few days left to live. He may not even be able to see the sun tomorrow night.
The boy felt cold all over his body. He hurriedly scooped up water from the earthen pot, slapped it on his cheeks, and scrubbed it with all his strength. However, even though his cheeks were sore and even bleeding, the black and blue leg prints were not the same as those on his cheeks.
His skin and flesh were firmly held together, showing no signs of fading away.
"What on earth did he do? Why did he encounter such a thing!"
In recent years, young people who have been hit hard one after another feel like they have been drained of all their strength. They collapse on the ground and cry loudly, as if they want to let out all the depression and pain that have accumulated in their hearts over the past few years.