Chapter 26 Paper Man City 23

In less than a moment, the ancestral hall was filled with people from Nanzhen.

Chen Chuan had only seen so many people at a training session, and that time the entire department was serving. Besides, why would the employees stare at him like that?

These people can't wait to use him to sharpen their knives!

Surrounded in the middle, the weak and helpless Chen Chuan hesitated for a long time, "Everyone... uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, please listen to me..."

"Who is your aunt?"

"I don't have a brother like you!"

He said one word, and in the blink of an eye, there were hundreds of spitting words to drown him. Chen Chuan almost fainted. Suddenly, he felt someone standing next to him. He turned around and saw, "...Xiao Xuan?"

Zhao Xiaoxuan firmly held her boyfriend's hand and said, "I'll help you."

"Sir, please think back to the beginning. Have we done anything to hurt you since we entered the city?"

"Uh, this..."

Zhao Xiaoxuan pointed at the wall of tablets and said bluntly: "Just now there was a madman who wanted to destroy your ancestral hall! We risked our lives to stop him, and some of our men even died for it..."

She didn't care at all. So what if she let Lin Shenyin take the blame? He was not here now, so she had the final say!

The old man in the lead waved his hand, and someone went to the corner to check.

After coming back, she whispered, "Master Huang, there was a woman, she is dead." The old man nodded.

"No outsiders have ever entered our Nanzhen. Who are you and where are you from?"

The old man's tone was still very stern, and he seemed to have not let down his guard against them. Chen Chuan remembered what Jiang Yuelu had told him before, and said, "We are wizards. We posted a notice and came to Iron Town to preside over the ceremony."

As soon as these words were spoken, the crowd who had just rested began to talk again.

"Wizard? Didn't he already come and leave?"

"How does he know the ritual?"

"Quiet, quiet!" The old man shouted twice, stopping the townspeople from speculating and talking. He glanced at the two of them with his sharp eyes, "Where's the notice? Can you bring it over to have a look?"

“Yes, yes!”

Chen Chuan flipped around and finally found the notice that led them here. It said in small print, "Our town has been plagued by evil spirits for several years. We are looking for capable people to come and subdue them before the Ghost Festival..." The old man took a closer look. Although the handwriting was different from the notices they issued in previous years, the meaning was similar, all of which were looking for wizards to come to Iron Town before the Ghost Festival.

This makes it even more strange.

He asked suspiciously, "If that's true...it's been two days since the Ghost Festival, why haven't you left yet?"

“Because, because…”

"This is not important!" Zhao Xiaoxuan took back the initiative, "Old man, we are the distinguished guests invited by Lord Zhu, and we helped him solve the problem of evil spirits as we wished. You have been doubting us and pressing us. This is not justifiable!"

"Master Zhu?"

The old man chewed on this name that he hadn't seen for a long time, "Miss, you must have come to the wrong place. We don't have any Lord Zhu here."

Zhao Xiaoxuan was stunned, "Master Zhu!"

"Master Zhu Xiuyuan, the father and mother official of Ironing Town, don't you know him?"

"If that's the name, then I do know him. But he died ten years ago. The girl said she received a notice from him and was warmly entertained by him. I'm afraid she met a ghost around the Ghost Festival." There was a hint of sarcasm in his words, and it was obvious that he was particularly disgusted with this former official.

Seeing Zhao Xiaoxuan and Chen Chuan looking confused, the old man said, "I wonder where you heard about the Zhongyuan Night ceremony. The person who leaked the important local news may have misunderstood something."

"My town has been under the jurisdiction of the Madam for ten years. Ah, that dog official's wife. Because we don't want to sully her with such a dirty surname, we just call her Madam."

"lady……"

Chen Chuan and Zhao Xiaoxuan looked at each other. Could it be that she was Madam Zhu, whom he had met once in Zuixianlou?

She's still alive? No! She died a long time ago.

Only then did Zhao Xiaoxuan realize that something was wrong. This realization made her feel a chill all over her body.

...They believe that those who are alive have actually been dead for a long time. They believe this without a doubt and even refute that they are talking nonsense.

In fact, they died a long time ago.

Jiang Yuelu listened to all this and stood in a secret place looking at the high wall of tablets in front of him.

The name on the tablet can also confirm this.

The situation here was completely the opposite of that in Beizhen. The names written on the tablets were all people from Beizhen that he had met before: Zhang Hu, Xu Pingting...

"Excuse me." Jiang Yuelu walked out.

"May I ask your name?"

"Huang..." Before the old man could finish, he said at the same time: "Huang Yusheng, right?"

Mr. Huang was stunned. "That's right. But how do you know? This is the first time I see you."

"This is indeed the first time I've seen you in person, but I've heard your name countless times." Jiang Yuelu looked at the tablet he was offering, "For the past ten years, your wife has been missing you and has been talking about your name, never forgetting it."

"wife……"

"Xu Pingting, isn't it?"

"That's right. But how do you know..."

Jiang Yuelu did not answer his doubts, and glanced at the person behind him, "Wang Siyu."

The woman whose name he called was stunned. She was the Aunt Siyu that Lin Wan mentioned.

"Can you still make red bean rice? Cheng Chao and Cheng Xiaosi have been waiting for you."

Hearing the names of her husband and son, Aunt Siyu's face showed the same confusion: "How do you know..."

"Fang Rongrong, Hu Dongxing..." Those whose names he read were all confused and bewildered. They couldn't explain how this skinny young man in front of them knew exactly who they were. "Who, who told you?"

"It's the test paper." Chen Chuan whispered, "Doesn't Brother Lu have a photographic memory?"

Jiang Yuelu seemed to have heard what he said, and shook her head and said, "Just having a photographic memory is still not enough to match who is who."

"When a person's name appears on the test paper, it is actually just a symbol, a number. To know who he is, what kind of person he is, and how vivid he is, you have to see it with your own eyes."

"But you have been dead for a long time."

The huge ancestral hall was completely silent, the silence was depressing and terrifying.

"Your life has stagnated ten years ago as your life fades away, but just because you are dead doesn't mean you can't live again."

"I have walked the streets you once walked, and visited the houses you once lived in. I have seen the traces left in your homes, and I have listened to the living remember what kind of people you were."

"Oh! Him? He is always reluctant to buy clothes. He can wear a coat for years by patching it up. No matter how many times I tell him this, he still won't change. There is no other way but to keep doing it for him." The woman stopped the embroidery in her hands and looked tenderly at the clothes hanging behind the door. The simple coat was covered with patches.

"My old man has a very stubborn temper. His greatest hobby in life is to drink a bowl of sake after dinner. He has a bad stomach, so I seldom let him drink. We have quarreled countless times because of this. The neighbors all say that when you and Old Huang quarrel, it's like a war, with each one getting louder than the other. He is stubborn, and I am even more stubborn than him..."

"If there is anything good about him?" The old man with wrinkles on his face smiled, "It should be that I can rely on him in big things."

"I always say that even if a person like him goes to hell, he can still rally the ghosts around him and call him 'Uncle'."

Seeing things reminds us of people. People often say that seeing things reminds us of people. When people pass away, their things are sealed up and the old things of the deceased are hung behind doors, in front of windows, and in cabinets.

A person is dead, but because someone keeps chanting his name, he is still alive in this world.

Every time you miss someone, you live once.

Those conversations were like wisps of smoke floating in from afar, landing steadily on everyone, giving every thought a place to go.

That's how he figured out who they were.

"Because someone is still out there saying your names," he said.

Mr. Huang murmured, "Outside? Where is outside?"

Chen Chuan felt sorry for it. "Uncle. Outside... is Beizhen. The people you are worshipping are still alive. Granny Xu, Butcher Zhang, we have seen them outside. You... you have actually..."

He couldn't bear to tell them the truth, fearing that they would not be able to accept the cruel reality that he was dead.

But a few sobs were heard from the crowd, "…That's great."

"They are still alive."

The old and the young, women and men, all were in tears at this moment.

Day and night, I was suffering in the dark city. Compared with the hatred for my enemies and the fear of evil spirits, my yearning and regret for the dead deepened year by year. I regretted that they could not grow old together, and I was sad that they could not die together. The heavy mood accumulated by ten years of worship disappeared when I heard "they are still alive".

I even forgot to think about the fact that they were still alive and what was the point of me standing here.

The eyes looking towards others are always determined and move straight forward, so how could they linger on oneself?

The most stubborn Mr. Huang said, "Wait a minute."

Like Granny Xu, he is the most stubborn person in the two cities and will not give up until he sees the Yellow River.

"Where is the evidence?"

"The notice can be forged, and you can also get this information. It's not difficult to make up a lie to deceive us. But I just want evidence. Seeing is believing."

"You said they are still alive. How do you prove it?"

Chen Chuan was stunned. How can this be proved?

Jiang Yuelu nodded and said, "This is very simple."

How could it be so easy? Chen Chuan was afraid that these people would see his guilty conscience, so he was sweating all over his face but still smiled awkwardly.

Frightened eyes followed Jiang Yuelu all the time. Hey, hey, we are in South Town now! We just walked so far to get here, how can we go to North Town to catch someone to prove it?

He tried desperately to wink at Jiang Yuelu, but that guy threw the bomb more calmly.

"Not just one, I can bring all of them to you."

Chen Chuan: “…” in shock.

Ignoring the unconscious Chen Chuan and the pinched Zhao Xiaoxuan, Jiang Yuelu first asked people to light the candles in the ancestral hall. After doing all this, she walked to the altar and stood motionless.

He said it was simple, and it was indeed simple.

Chen Chuan and the others had forgotten one thing.

How did they get in?

A town of the living and a town of the dead, connected by an ancestral hall growing in a giant tree. Since they went straight from the ancestral hall in the north town to the south town, the way back must also start from here.

In the ancestral hall of Beizhen, you can break the door by finding the activated magic mechanism in the candlelight.

But the South Town seemed to be more closed than the North Town, so he guessed that the method of opening it would not be as simple as before.

But he is not alone.

Leng Jing's golden bag helped him in Zuixianlou, and it still helps him now.

The wizard, who left all the precious magical tools to Chen Chuan after leaving the ancestral hall, seemed to have anticipated today's scene. There was a sharp long sword in the bag, divided into three sections with drawn talismans pasted on them. There was also a seal on the hilt with a line of small words written on it.

[Opening the ancestral hall in times of crisis]

He gripped the sword tightly, exerted all his strength, and slashed forward.

The talisman paper burned as the sword was swung, and the raging flames instantly covered the sword. The surging heat waves rushed in all directions before it was cut down, as if the invisible ocean was split in two, and the rising waves roared towards the crowd.

The altar was not cut in half, nor was the high wall of tablets.

With the sword blade as the center, the black light curtain quickly consumed everything in front of it. When everything returned to darkness, white dots like stars suddenly lit up in the distance.

“…”

"That is..."

Jiang Yuelu whispered, "It's connected."

What appeared before them were piles of sleeping bones wrapped in white paper. Due to some unknown ritual, they would turn into bones and fall asleep at night. At the same time, in a place they did not know, the people they were thinking of would turn into flesh and blood and live in their place at night.

Some rise while others fall, they come and go, and they share the same purpose for ten years.

Today, they meet again.