pillow mountain river

The next day.

Luoyunzhai was noisier than before, with people coming and going on the road, withered and thin people holding heavy objects, moving like a colony of ants.There are far more people in the village than what Dong usually sees, but they seldom come out, like the five poisons hiding in the dark.

The child struggled to follow the crowd with a huge bamboo basket on his head. The bamboo basket was full of dried fruits and jerky.When the village owner saw him, his eyes turned sharp, "Hurry up! Eat a lot and work hard!"

The road was covered with gravel. The child stepped on the stone and almost tripped. He reached out to hold the basket above his head and continued to walk slowly.

A few people away, Er Dong looked at the child. The child raised a gloomy face. Er Dong recognized him at a glance. This was the child who brought him dinner before.

The child's eyes lingered on where Er Dong was for a moment, and suddenly he was severely beaten by the village master. The slap rose and fell, hitting the child heavily on the face.Following this force, he took two steps back and fell to the ground, spilling dried fruit all over the floor.

"Lazy again! After two years, I will give you to the snake god, and let the adults cut your heart and eat your lungs!"

There are people all around, but no one stops.One by one, they walked forward with heavy steps, and no one gave their eyes to the children on the ground.

The child stood up numbly, covered in dust, squatted down to pick up the spilled offerings, and threw them into his big basket.

The child mingled with the crowd and continued on.After walking out of the village, he dodged into the bushes, dropped the basket on his head, and sneaked back into the village.

He avoided the crowd, and occasionally three or two people saw him and walked away without seeing him.The child entered a house, the owner of this house was originally the owner of the village, since the two foreigners who accidentally broke into the village stayed here, this has become their residence.

There is a person tied up in the corner, that person is about 16 years old, with a slender body and pale eyes, it is hard to tell whether he is good-looking or not.

"You are such a fool," the child said with a sneer. "If you don't leave if you are told to leave, you still treat them as good people. They deserve to be killed."

The boy whose hands and feet were bound by ropes stared forward dully.

The child was uttering harsh words, but he took out a knife from his pocket, walked to the side of the young man, and cut the rope on his feet with the knife.

The blunt knife sawed the rope for a while, and only broke one rope.The child struggled to saw the second one.

Suddenly there were footsteps at the door, and before the child could hide, someone pushed the door open.His thin body was covered with a loose robe, and his eyes were gloomy and terrifying, like vultures staring at his pair of dark eyes.

"You kid is hiding here," the visitor sneered.

The child hid the knife in his hand, but he was too nervous, and the knife fell to the ground with a crisp sound.

"What do you want to do? Let go of the sacrifice?" the village owner asked in a deep voice.

The child stared at him viciously, "You have already killed my brother! How many more people do you want to kill?"

"The one who killed your brother was the Snake God. It is your brother's honor to dedicate his heart to the Snake God."

The child gritted his teeth and said, "Fart! My father said, it was you who said to sacrifice people's hearts at the ceremony, it was not your idea, and the snake god will not force the living people to sacrifice in the village!"

The owner of the village laughed, and the drooping skin on his withered face trembled, "If I hadn't used this to curry favor with Lord Snake God, how could you have lived for such a long time? I wanted to let you go and give it to the Snake God when you grow up." , but now it seems that it is better to kill the unfamiliar wolf cubs as soon as possible."

The child bit his lips tightly, and when the village owner grabbed his shirt, he bit the village owner's arm fiercely, causing the man to scream out in pain for a split second.

"Let go!" the village master yelled.The child clutched his arm, teeth digging into his flesh.The village master held down the child's back resentfully, lifted him up, and slammed him against the table, "I will make you ignorant of good and evil!"

Once, twice... The child's forehead was covered with blood, and his face was covered with blood. His eyes were closed, but he still maintained his biting posture.

"Unlucky!" The village master threw the child to the ground, looked at the bleeding teeth marks, and said angrily.The child was already lying on the ground, and his life and death were unknown, so he had no choice but to slap the boy in the corner and vent his anger before going out.

Er Dong saw the village owner coming out of the house cursing, so he went in and took a look.He saw the child in a pool of blood at a glance, his face was stained with blood, but he felt vaguely familiar.

He walked quickly, but was stopped by his master, Er Dong looked up at Zhenhan Mountain.

Zhen Hanshan said indifferently, "He is already dead."

"Let's look again, maybe it can be saved," Er Dong said after being stunned for a while.

"Once a person dies, his soul returns to heaven and earth, and no one can save him," Zhen Hanshan looked at the corpse on the ground expressionlessly, walked around the pool of blood, and went straight to the puppet in the corner.

Er Dong stood where he was, looking at Master's back, speechless for a while.He thought the master would at least take a look at the child.

Zhen Hanshan sent some spiritual energy to the puppet, turned around and saw Er Dong's expression was wrong, and asked: "Did you sleep well last night?"

Too many things happened last night, he thought Er Dong was tired.Zhen Hanshan continued, "Go to sleep for a while, I'll stay here and watch."

Er Dong shook his head and said, "I'm not sleepy," after which he involuntarily glanced at the child in the pool of blood.

With Zhen Hanshan waving his sleeves, the corpse disappeared, and even the blood-soaked floor became clean.Zhen Hanshan took Er Dong's hand and led him to the bedside, "Go to bed and sleep, I will sit here and wait for you."

Er Dong understood that the master thought he was not sleepy because he was afraid of the corpse and would not dare to sleep.

However, that's really not the reason.

Er Dong just saw that Master's face remained unchanged when he looked at the child's body, and somehow felt uncomfortable, as if something hard was stuck in his chest, making him suffocate, and his dizzy head was even more dizzy.

"Go to bed early, I have to go to the festival at night," Zhen Hanshan sat by the bed.He took out a small object and handed it to Er Dong, "Put it in your arms, don't take it out."

Er Dong took the object and glanced at it, "Amulet?"

"How do you know?" Zhen Hanshan asked.

"Chi Jin gave it to me," Er Dong said.He suddenly remembered Chi Jin, Chi Jin should have returned to Du Guang City, he must be living a carefree life.

"Different from his, put away."

Er Dong dressed up, folded the charms, and put them in his close-fitting pocket.Master didn't seem to like him mentioning Chi Jin, and when he heard Chi Jin, his tone became a little cold.

In the evening, Zhen Hanshan called Er Dong to wake up.

The mountains and forests are shrouded in heavy mist, there is still a little light at the sunset, and the sky above is already a deep dark blue.

White lanterns are hung on the trees beside the road, and the candles are flickering, extending all the way to the depths of the jungle.

In the depths of the forest, there was a huge open space filled with figures, almost blending with the gray-black tree shadows.In the center of the open space is a quaint stone step, and a stone tablet stands on a high platform made of huge stones.

Countless figures surrounded the open space, but no noise could be heard, standing there like ghosts in a cemetery, motionless.

After a while, footsteps came from the crowd.One person carried a white lantern and walked towards the high platform, his large black robe rustling in the mountain wind.

The candles in the lantern were on or off, and the dancing candlelight shone on the man's thin cheeks.The man was muttering something, and he didn't know what prose he was reciting.

A strange voice rose from the mouth.Suddenly, a strong wind blew up from the mountain, and the man's black robe was filled with wind, and he was held hostage by the wind and forced to go off the high platform.

The man's forehead was knocked on the stone steps, blood flowed profusely instantly, but he didn't dare to wipe it, he just lay down on the ground with his head down.

Er Dong stood outside the crowd, to be precise, on a tree outside the crowd.There are tall trees nearby, and from a height, the high platform in the open space can be seen at a glance.Including the teenager lying on the raised stone bed.

The boy closed his eyes, his nose fluttered, as if he was only in a dream.

"Someone is coming!" Er Dong said.

A figure suddenly appeared on the high platform. Just from the figure, it can be seen that this person is tall and slender, but it is completely different from the thin and thin villagers below the stage.

Zhen Hanshan stretched out his finger and tapped Erdong's lips, signaling him to stop talking.Er Dong pursed his lips tightly.Zhen Hanshan leaned over and whispered in Erdong's ear, "No matter what happens later, it has nothing to do with you."

The moist breath sprinkled on Er Dong's face, and there was a little blush on his pale cheeks.

Before Er Dong's thoughts could fly away, a rustling sound reached his ears.The wind blows the leaves, and there is a fine sound between the leaves rubbing against each other.Among the lush trees, slender shadows swim like flowing black water.

The praying people in the audience closed their eyes tightly, their faces pale with fear.The cold scales wiped the skin, and the letter spit out of the snake's mouth lightly touched the fragile eyelids.

A wave of snakes rushed from the mountains to the high platform of the ceremony.They are not afraid of humans at all, and even use the warm body of humans as a hotbed, coiling up and curling up on the chest and back of humans.

More snakes gathered under the steps, wrapping the high platform, and the shadow standing on the high platform seemed to be the master of the snakes.

The snake's letters hissed until they got close to the shadow, then they lowered their heads docilely.

The white lanterns on the branches swayed in the wind, and the bright moonlight fell on the high platform in the clearing, illuminating the square stone bed.

The boy sleeping on the stone bed didn't know the danger was coming, he fell asleep peacefully as always, his eyelids never trembled.

The rustling sound continued, making it difficult to tell whether it was the low moaning of leaves or the sound of snakes spitting out letters.

"Luoyun Village offers sacrifices, and I hope that the Snake God will live a long and healthy life," the owner of the village, who was wrapped in poisonous snakes, said these words in a suppressed and trembling voice, and looked devoutly at the man standing on the high platform.

The man had an ordinary face, only a pair of gentle eyes, looking at the young man on the stone bed, as gentle as if he was looking at his relatives.

However, the next moment, the dagger sliced ​​through the boy's chest, and the warm blood soaked the stone bed, and the scalding blood continued to flow down from a height.

The smell of blood stimulated the group of snakes, and the poisonous snake stood upright, spitting out scarlet letters.

Without changing his gentle smile, the man reached into the boy's chest and took out the living heart.His long, fair fingers were stained red with blood, and the blood snaked down from his wrist.

No one noticed that on the high platform, there was a thin boy curled up. The boy sat silently with his arms around his knees, and his empty eyes reflected a fountain of blood.

The author says: