You said you would tell fortunes, so you can catch ghosts and exterminate zombies easily?

The moment he passed through the wooden door, Su Chen felt the distortion of lines similar to that of walking through the ghost path.

I took a step in and stopped, and everything before my eyes was dark.

Gray clouds, a dull sun, gray trees and crops, and gray thatched houses and people.

Here, it seems that all colors have been swallowed up, leaving only pure black, white and gray.

It seems... I didn't hear any sound either.

Su Chen opened his mouth: "What's going on?"

As a result, I couldn’t hear these four words.

Is this really the world in the painting?

Because it is just a simple stone carving, there is no color or sound.

Even under the sky, it was almost gray and filled with death.

That’s right, paintings are dead things, so the world in them naturally won’t be very vivid.

Su Chen looked around and found three people jogging towards him.

One of them was holding a sand table in his arms. After seeing Su Chen, he took a thin short branch and started writing quickly on the sand table, and soon showed it to Su Chen.

There were a few crooked traditional Chinese characters on it: "What's your last name?"

"Su."

Su Chen replied.

After a pause, he remembered that there was no sound here, so he had to take the thin branch and start writing on the sand table.

The three of them tilted their heads to take a closer look and shook their heads.

do not know?

Su Chen reacted and wrote the traditional Chinese character for Su again. This time, the three people's gray faces were full of excitement.

The person holding the sand table forced himself to calm down and wrote a sentence on the sand table: "Can you take us out?"

Su Chen noticed that these three people were all young boys.

As if to persuade, the man scratched out the words on the sand table and wrote a new sentence: "We heard from outsiders that the world outside is very exciting."

The text was disrupted again, and another sentence was written on the sand table: "Have you ever seen an airplane or a ship?"

Su Chen was stunned for a moment and nodded.

The three boys jumped for joy and were almost spinning in circles with excitement.

Another sentence quickly fell on the sand table: "Can you take us away from here? We want to go out and take a look."

Su Chen's eyes darkened.

"No."

"Why?" The young man wrote three words unwillingly on the sand table.

But soon, he wrote in frustration: "Isn't your last name Su? Aren't you the destined one?"

Destined person?

Su Chen asked on the sand table.

The boy suppressed his reluctance, put the sandbox on the ground and began to write.

The other two boys were not idle either. They smoothed the soil on the ground with their bare feet, found branches and started writing.

Su Chen looked here and there for a long time before nodding.

It turned out to be a prophecy left by their ancestors, saying that three hundred years later, a destined person named Su would come here and lead them out of this secluded place.

"Escape from the world?" Su Chen asked them.

"Yes, our ancestors hid here during the Wanli period to avoid the great flood, but they couldn't get out after they got in."

Su Chen frowned slightly.

This mountain is on the edge of Wuxi Town.

Wuxi, as the name suggests, is the place where five rivers converge. The terrain here is relatively low. Once a major flood occurred in ancient times, the death and injury would surely be countless.

No wonder their ancestors brought them in for refuge.

But, when they took refuge, did they know that this was a world in a painting?

Su Chen wrote down his doubts.

The three young men shook their heads, obviously not knowing the reason.

Sighing, Su Chen looked towards the houses in the distance and said, "Who is the oldest person here? Can you take me to see them?"

The boy nodded, picked up the sand table, and led Su Chen to the other end of the house with his friend.

During this time, Su Chen noticed that the teenagers repeatedly made various movements with their hands.

He understands.

The world in this painting should communicate through sign language.

He could intuitively understand the meaning of some movements, but he couldn't figure out the meaning of others.

When he arrived in front of the house, Su Chen glanced around and saw two people tied under a big tree.

Under the eyes of the sky, the deathly aura on them only permeated the periphery, and the rest of their aura was normal.

Su Chen observed it carefully.

A new face, I don’t know him.

"Are they outsiders?"

Su Chen asked on the sand table.

The boy replied, "Yes."

So... it's those two escaped Xuanshi?

Then why can't I see any trace of Dao power under the Heavenly Eye? Or is it...

Su Chen walked over quickly and was about to search the two people when a man rushed over from the side and pulled his arm excitedly.

Su Chen: “!!!”

He turned his head and met Huang Xin'an's excited gray face.

"Master, Master, you are finally here!"

Huang Xin'an almost burst into tears: "Master, please take us away from here quickly. What kind of hell is this? Is it the underworld?"

Unfortunately, no matter what he said, not a single sound could reach Su Chen's ears.

Huang Xinan also realized it later. He sniffed, wiped his eyes, and gave Su Chen a big smile.

Su Chen pulled his arm out indifferently and his eyes fell on the middle-aged man behind Huang Xinan.

The latter looked much calmer than Huang Xin'an. Su Chen motioned him to come closer, squatted down, scratched the ground with the sole of his shoe, and wrote with his finger: "Are you from Jianzhou? Are all ten of them here?"

Huang Xinan saw this and wrote on the side: "Brother Sun, this is the master I was talking about. He is amazing. We are saved!"

The middle-aged man looked at Huang Xinan's poor handwriting and then nodded to Su Chen.

"They are communicating with the elders here to see if they can find a way out."

Clan elder?

Su Chen nodded, then stood up, clapped his hands, and walked towards the two men again.

After searching for a while, he found a white jade pendant on one person's neck. The other person felt a little disgusted. He searched for a long time, even turning over the place where the five grains are recycled, and finally found a white jade bead on the top of the thing.

Huang Xin'an and the three young men were stunned.

"No, Master, why did he hide this thing there? Is there any explanation?"

Seeing that Su Chen couldn't hear him, Huang Xinan bent down again and wrote down the question.

Su Chen glanced at him without answering.

Who knows what that means? People who eat a lot of meat and fish usually have a lot of fun!

He threw the white jade beads to Huang Xin'an and asked him to wash them clean, and then he went to the stream to wash his hands.

Unfortunately, I put my hand to my nose many times but couldn't smell anything.

Su Chen: "..."

There is no color, no sound, no smell. Life in this world of painting is really more terrifying than that world.

I don’t know how these people persisted.

Even these three teenagers seem quite lively.

After putting away the white jade beads that Huang Xinan had washed, Su Chen followed Brother Sun to the clan elders.

The room was now covered with cowhide, sheepskin and bamboo slips.

Huang Xinan took a quick glance and covered his forehead with his hands.

Su Chen patiently looked through them one by one.

This is what they recorded from generation to generation.

It was indeed as those young men said, they came here to seek refuge from the great flood during the Wanli period.

But it is documented here in more detail.

In the 37th year of the Wanli reign, Wuxi County suffered a flood that was rare in a century. More than a thousand people escaped by chance and came to Qingfeng Mountain. Due to food shortage, the lush green Qingfeng Mountain was stripped bare in just five days.

Almost everything that could be eaten had been eaten, but the flood had not receded. Seeing that someone was causing trouble and wanted to rob children and cook them, a wealthy man named Li forgot to eat and sleep for three days and painted on the stone tablet.

On the day the painting was completed, white fog filled the air and a carved wooden door appeared on the stone tablet. Inside the door, tables of delicious food were presented and victims flocked in.

Originally, the world in the painting was colorful. Although there was no sound or smell, there were lush vegetation, schools of fish and shrimps in the streams, and abundant rice in the fields.

But gradually, the color faded.

Although the grass and trees were still there after being cut down, and the fish and shrimps were still aplenty after being eaten, they clearly felt that something was disappearing.

They were more eager to leave here, but they couldn't find a way.

What’s even more terrifying is that every time the woman gets pregnant, she always has a miscarriage.

For five whole years, there was not a single newborn.

Just when they were in despair and some of them even started killing each other, Mr. Li came in. In just five years, his face had become haggard.

For the past five years, Mr. Li has been looking for a way to take them out of the world in the painting. He has traveled all over the mountains and rivers, sought out many strange people, and brought many people to see the stone tablet, but to no avail.

As a last resort, he came in with an apologetic heart, just to make amends.

What he makes up for is how to allow new life to be born and continue in the world of painting.

After Su Chen saw the solution, he was silent for a long time.

Draw out the vitality of a living person, condense it, and use it to nurture a newborn.

Too cruel!

The 37th year of the Wanli reign has been nearly 400 years.

Initially, there were many newborns in the world of the painting, but as vitality gradually faded and death intensified, in recent years, they could only conceive three children using secret methods every 30 years.

Su Chen remembered the three young men who had run towards him before.

My heart sank.

Because they are all boys, even if the world in this painting is still alive, there will probably be no newborns in the next 30 years.

He sighed and met several pairs of cloudy yet hopeful old eyes.