The first ray of sunshine in the morning shines over Baicheng, tearing apart the night. Under the pale white light, the entire city is particularly cool and translucent.
In the room, Tong Yan had just woken up when he heard a knock on the door of his room. He didn't get up immediately, but sat up wrapped in a quilt and looked at the door while his head was still awake.
"who?"
"Me." The person outside the door responded, "I'm up."
Hearing the familiar voice, Tong Yan's heart jolted, and what happened last night came to her mind, threatening her body, and her clear heartbeat was still vivid in her mind.
The lingering shame and anger made her not want to see the person outside the door for a moment.
"No! Don't come in."
There was silence outside the door for a while, and then he said, "Please tidy up, we have to find out the way out of the snowy area."
After he finished speaking, the footsteps went downwards, and the person outside the door went downstairs.
The snowy areas are closed by heavy snow all year round, and spring only comes for a short period of two or three months each year. When the wind and snow stop and the snow melts, it is the best time to enter and exit the snowy areas.
It is not impossible to leave at other times, but the risk will be very high. Those with poor cultivation may be swept away by the strong wind and lose their way in the heavy snow.
In addition, the cultivation level of local monks is generally low, few can cross the natural barriers to the outside, and there are not many internal and external exchanges. Naturally, the people of the Snow Country have been confined to their own territory for a long time.
Tong Yan packed up and went downstairs. When he saw the person sitting in the corner downstairs, he walked down as calmly as possible and sat down on the other side of the table.
As soon as she sat down, there was a teacup in front of her, and hot water was slowly poured into it, stopping when it was about seventy full.
I didn't dare to move immediately. I quietly raised my peripheral vision and glanced at the person pouring tea. By chance, I caught his eye.
"Look what I do."
She hasn't even seen it yet, okay?
"Who's looking at you?"
Gu Yuqi stared at the other person's intact lips for a moment, remembering that he had bitten the skin last night, and then he looked into her eyes and said, "Your eyes are looking at me."
The little move was exposed in person, which made Tong Yan feel embarrassed and annoyed for a moment, "You are the one looking at me! How do you know that I am looking at you if you don't look at me?"
He was quiet for a moment and said without denying it, "I'm looking at you."
There was a sudden suffocation in his heart, and then as if he had the upper hand, Tong Yan immediately countered, "Then what do you think of me?"
"The wound on your lip is healed."
As soon as she said these words, her face suddenly turned pink, and she immediately tilted her head and put her hands on the table to cover up, not daring to look at Gu Yuqi again.
The expression on Gu Yuqi's face remained unchanged, but there was a clear smile in his eyes. He raised his lips and said softly: "We will set off in a quarter of an hour."
This is to let her finish her breakfast quickly.
The business of going out was important at the moment, so it was better to calm down her personal emotions first. She coughed lightly, put down her arms as if nothing had happened, and started eating breakfast.
Half an hour later, the two of them were walking side by side on the main street of Baicheng.
Foreign monks and local residents are very easy to distinguish, first of all, their clothing. It snows in the snowy areas for most of the year, and the temperature is very low, so they like thick fur and fine fluff on the skirts and cuffs of their clothes to keep out the wind and keep them warm.
Foreign monks, such as Tong Yan and others, wore slim-fitting long robes, as if they were celebrating summer, and were incompatible with the slightly bloated local residents.
The houses on both sides of the street all had a handful of light white flowers the size of copper coins hung in front of their doors. Almost every resident who passed them had a bunch in their hands.
Colored lanterns are hung high on the street and silk ribbons are fluttering. The whole street presents a very unique scene.
From the words of others talking, they knew about it. It turned out that it was the ice flower festival of the snowy field in the past two days. Xiaobaihua was used here as a prayer, similar to wormwood hanging on the Dragon Boat Festival.
In normal years, about January after the Ice Flower Festival, the snow areas will usher in a short spring, so the significance of this festival is compared to the New Year's Eve and welcoming the new, and it has the role of dividing the year.
Occasionally, he noticed a noise in front of him. Tong Yan raised his head and looked over. The dense crowd of people blocked his sight, making it difficult to see what was going on.
A large pile of people quickly gathered around the noisy place. After the two came, they could only stand on the periphery to watch. Instead, Gu Yuqi rely on the tall height, and his sight could easily look at it from the head in front.
"What's going on in there?" Tong Yan couldn't help being curious and asked him aloud.
Gu Yuqi withdrew his gaze and looked at her, saying, "This is the execution ground."
"Execution ground?" Tong Yan frowned unconsciously. Could it be that someone was publicly executing prisoners here.
Although killing people is common in this world, aren't these more bloody scenes likely to have a psychological impact on ordinary local residents?
Obviously the leaders of Baicheng do not think so, and publicly dealing with prisoners can serve as a warning to the monkeys.
Shadow in your heart? You’ll get used to it after seeing it a lot.
Just like the onlookers in front of Tong Yan at this moment, none of them thought the next scene was scary, but instead felt a strange sense of excitement and anticipation.
Someone on the execution ground spoke, "The prisoner Li's, because of his personal complaints, murdered his successor Fan Mou three days ago, killing is the unforgivable crime of my white city.
For a cheap whore!"
The prisoner's den, any prisoner who enters this place will suffer a fate worse than death.
Here, they lose their freedom, live without dignity, and become the mud where everyone bullies and tramples them.
It is even more cruel for women. They go here and become lowly prostitutes. Their only existence is to relieve men's sexual desire and give birth.
Become a complete human-making tool.
The woman kneeling on the execution platform was almost slumped on her calves, with endless despair in her dry eyes.
For her now, even death is a luxury.
There are very few people in the Snowy Land, and there are even fewer newborns every year. As the population decreases year by year, in order to develop and continue, the rulers have to find ways to increase the population.
In addition to allowing the city's citizens to have more children, it also severely punished murderers, and thus the sinner's den was born.
This rich voice, Tong Yan remembered, was the tone of the captain of the guard they met yesterday.
Before he could think about it further, the crowd of people watching suddenly shouted in unison.
"Punch them into the den of sinners! Enter them into the den of sinners..."
"Murderers don't deserve a good death!"
"……murderer!"
…
No one wants to hear what the murderer on the execution ground will say. Her hand is tied and her mouth is blocked. Except for her face, the fear of fear and fear in her eyes can no longer know her inner feelings.
Screams, accusations, and curses were shouted louder than the last. The woman closed her eyes tightly and sobbed, tears silently falling down her face.
At some point, Tong Yan was able to clearly see the scene on the stage. The woman was kneeling facing the crowd. The crying face was also the face that asked for help in the snow yesterday.
"We should go." Gu Yuqi next to him suddenly said.
She had complicated emotions in her heart and looked back at Gu Yuqi.
He moved his lips and asked him, "Where is the Sinner's Cave?"