Four consecutive dream games

At the same time, Lu Denghe held tightly to the thick branch beneath him, listening to the fight gradually fade away, his heart still beating wildly. Thinking back to the stench of rotting flesh, he couldn't help but dry heave again.

He carefully looked down and saw only fallen bushes and turned-up soil nearby. Only the lingering stench in the air and the faint roar coming from the distance proved that this place was not safe enough.

"Got to...Got to go down..." Lu Denghe swallowed his saliva and carefully moved his body, looking for a suitable foothold, preparing to climb down the tree trunk. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a lantern-sized hole in the tree trunk, not far from his chest, on the trunk he was holding tightly.

This is not surprising.

But when Lu Denghe took a look, his heart skipped a beat - a small corner of dark fabric was exposed at the edge of the dark cave?

Where does the cloth come from in the wilderness and among the thousand-year-old trees?

Could it be that a squirrel or some bird in the woods had brought back some rags from somewhere and stuffed them into the hole as a nesting mat? I've only heard of birds and animals collecting shiny things, but this is the first time I've seen rags so popular.

Lu Denghe muttered to himself, but an inexplicable curiosity was scratching his heart like a little claw.

He looked around and confirmed that the ancestor and the giant python were indeed far away. The only sound around him was the rustling of leaves in the wind. He felt a little braver.

"Just... just take a look?" Lu Denghe whispered to himself, purely driven by the ancestral Lu's instinct to do something.

He reached out a finger and cautiously, tentatively, hooked it around the tiny corner of the dark fabric that was exposed.

The touch feels a bit strange.

It didn't feel soft like ordinary fabric, but instead had a damp, sticky feel, as if it were covered in age-old dirt. He held his breath and gently pulled it out.

Swish——

He pulled out a part of the thing.

It's actually a belt?

The belt itself seemed to be made of some kind of tough cloth, with a sleek metal buckle at the end. However, it was now completely covered in a thick layer of dark brown dirt, its original color barely visible, and it emitted an indescribable stench.

Lu Denghe frowned, suppressing his nausea as he rubbed the dirt with his fingers, trying to identify it. This action rubbed off some of the dirt, revealing the true color of the fabric underneath.

It was a striking red color, and although it had faded, one could still tell it was originally a bright red base. It was embroidered with intricate patterns in gold thread, and one could vaguely see that it was a pair of mandarin ducks embracing each other.

This... this is clearly a festive belt used only at weddings!

Lu Denghe's heart skipped a beat. If it were some old hunter's clothes, it might be possible, but a wedding belt? Who the hell would get married in this place?

A chill ran up my spine.

He subconsciously threw the belt away, but his mind couldn't help but continue to think about the strangeness of the belt. For a moment, even the strange fishy smell he had just smelled when he got close to it had a reasonable explanation.

That dark brown color, mottled, dried, and deeply penetrated into the texture of the cloth, even coagulating into lumps and scabs in some places, isn't it blood!

Lu Denghe was so frightened by the scream that he lost his balance and fell off the tree.

Fortunately, he had already descended a little, so he didn't fall and hurt himself. He just rubbed his butt and grimaced, but didn't dare to make a sound, for fear that the noise would attract another giant python.

As the saying goes, there can't be two tigers in one mountain. This place is so small, there can't be a second one, right?

However, there is also a saying that unless there is a male and a female, the ancestor just said that it was a male, maybe there is also a female snake?

Lu Denghe was terrified, feeling as if he was afraid of everything. He kept telling himself in his mind not to let his imagination run wild. How many cannon fodders in the novels were frightened to death by him!

"What are you doing?" Suddenly, a voice appeared in my ears.

Lu Denghe shuddered and almost jumped up the tree with his hands and feet before he realized that the voice sounded familiar. It turned out to be his ancestor who fell from the sky and looked younger than him.

"Are you all right? Where's the snake? Did you—kill it?" He made a beheading gesture.

Lu Yinche looked much more disheveled than before. His white clothes had long since turned into flowery ones. At least they were just dirt and branches, not stained with blood. His high ponytail was let down and hastily tied into a low bun, with a few strands of hair sticking messily to his cheeks.

But even so, the face was still handsome, but the expression was not very good: "How can it be that easy."

When Lu Denghe heard this, his heart sank.

He looked at the eerie silence in the distance, then at the old ancestor in front of him whose breathing was slightly rapid. An absurd thought popped up in his mind, and he stammered, "Ah? Then, then, you... you couldn't have been possessed by that snake demon... could you?"

Lu Yinche was almost amused by the foolish boy's train of thought. He raised his hand and hit him on the forehead: "I was just about to praise you for knowing how to roll down from the tree instead of hanging there like an idiot and waiting to die, and you do this to me?"

Well, it’s still the same old ancestor, the core hasn’t changed.

Lu Yinche rubbed his brows and patiently explained:

His meridians were now severely damaged, and he was unable to take the giant python's life.

However, during the chase, he found a formation set up by someone here, blew up part of the surface at a weak point, and forcibly activated the formation, causing him to mistakenly believe that the giant python was trying to escape from its restraints.

Then he used the power of the formation to trap the evil beast again, and took the opportunity to escape.

Lu Denghe only then realized that there was such a mystery in this place. He felt even more uneasy and quickly told others about his discovery in the tree hole.

Lu Yinche didn't scold him for being naughty as he had expected. Instead, he calmly glanced at the weed-covered ground nearby, picked up a dead branch, fiddled with it in the weeds, and accurately picked out a dirty piece of cloth. "What are you talking about?"

It was the blood-stained belt that Lu Denghe had just thrown away in panic.

With the "big Buddha" of the ancestor by his side, Lu Denghe became bolder and moved closer to take a closer look.

Only then did he notice that what he had mistaken for a belt buckle was actually another hard metal ornament, entangled with the belt. Lu Yinche poked and shook it with a branch, and the two separated, falling once again onto the dead leaves.

"Huh?" Lu Denghe's eyes were sharp. The metal object looked relatively clean, so he picked it up directly. He casually ripped off a blade of grass to wipe off the dirt on the surface and carefully identified the lines on it. "This looks like a word... half of it is '日' and half of it is '安', stuck together... It's just the word '严'!"

Lu Yinche's eyebrows twitched imperceptibly as he reached out and took the metal ring. It felt heavy in his hand; it was indeed gold, untarnished. Its shape was quite ingenious, forming a Chinese character composed of two parts, one above the other.

But, this way of putting it together...

Lu Denghe also noticed something strange: "Other rings are pieced together left and right, but this one is pieced together top and bottom? If you take it apart, the character 'Yan' will be cut off at the end. How unlucky!"

"It doesn't necessarily have to be the word 'Yan', it can also be interpreted as 'Good day'." Lu Yinche said in a flat tone and threw the gold ring buckle back into Lu Denghe's arms.

Lu Denghe hurriedly caught it, his mind full of questions: "Ancestor, is there something strange about this thing? Should we take it away? Where's the belt? Is there really human blood on it? We..."

Lu Yinche looked at him puzzledly and pointed at the gold ring in his hand: "I asked you to hold it because it's gold. What, do you have money on you?"

Lu Denghe: “…” He shut up.

It was naturally impossible to go to the place where the giant python was lurking, so Lu Yinche took Lu Denghe in the opposite direction. It took about an hour and a half before they really walked out of the area where the formation spread.

The surrounding landscape had also changed. It was no longer a deep forest, but rather a more open space. Walking to the back, he discovered a human-made dirt road. This gave Lu Denghe a boost of spirits, giving him hope of returning to the human world.

But from the time he was being hunted and met the ancestor, it had actually gone from dusk to day. Now the sun was setting, and it was about to get dark again.

Lu Denghe's stomach was empty, so he offered to go pick some berries to fill his stomach. Lu Yinche was suspicious of him, so he made a fire for him and forced him, the wounded soldier, to continue resting - his ankle had improved a little after applying fluorescent blue grass, but it was still injured, and after walking for so long, it was time for the pain to reappear.

Lu Denghe was still energetic at first and tried hard to stay awake, but the warmth of the campfire and the fatigue of the day came like a tide, and his eyelids became heavier and heavier.

His head nodded, he suddenly woke up and forced himself to stay awake.

He shook his head and wanted to stand up to wake himself up. If he fell asleep here, what if the fire set the forest on fire? Was he going to treat his ancestor to a roast suckling pig?

I’m afraid no one would be interested in pork that’s been there for more than 20 years.

He struggled to stand up and move around to dispel his sleepiness.

This stop was not a big deal. I raised my vision and my eyes accidentally swept across the dark forest a hundred meters away - and suddenly caught a glimpse of a long, flickering yellow light.

Lu Denghe's heart instantly rose to his throat.

It's over! Just after sending away a green one, here comes a yellow one? Are the snake ancestors having a meeting?

He rubbed his tired eyes vigorously, and then looked carefully - the yellow light was intermittent, and it was clearly a team composed of several torches held by people.

Anyone there?

The procession was not moving very fast; in the shadows, one could see many people carrying loads on their shoulders, and others in front and behind carrying heavy boxes. At the very end of the procession, four figures were carrying a tall sedan chair—it looked like a wedding sedan.

Is this the wedding procession? At this time and in this place?

What was even more strange was that there was no music, no voices, and even the sound of footsteps was barely audible. It was as silent as a group of wandering ghosts.

Lu Denghe's heart was filled with alarm.

He instinctively shrank back, closer to the crackling campfire, as if the warm light could dispel the silently approaching coldness.

However, he was horrified to find that the team that should have been moving away had quietly changed direction at some point and was approaching him silently.

The flames danced, barely illuminating the outlines of the approaching team.

It was indeed a glaring red. Those carrying sedan chairs, shouldering loads, and wielding torches were all dressed in old-fashioned, festive red attire. The faces of the figures in the procession were deeply hidden in the shadows cast by the wide brims of their hats or headscarves, making their features indistinct. There was no breathing, no conversation.

However, in this thick night, the red color that should have been warm appeared particularly eerie and strange, like dried blood.

Fear instantly gripped Lu Denghe's heart! He no longer cared about the pain in his ankle, nor did he remember the old man's instructions. He only had one thought in his mind - escape!

He turned abruptly and ran desperately in the direction the ancestor had left, one foot deep, one foot shallow. The forest wind whistled in his ears, and dead branches scraped against his cheeks, but he felt no pain. He only felt the dead, slow-moving red shadow behind him, like a maggot on his tarsal bones, gnawing at him tightly.

Every time he looked back in terror, he was terrified—the procession seemed to be moving slowly, but it was like a ghost, and every time he turned his head, it was getting closer. The wedding sedan chair was high up in the sky, with the curtains tightly closed and motionless in the flickering light of the torches. Who knew what was sitting inside?

But Lu Denghe ran too slowly.

The four figures in red carrying the wedding sedan had caught up with him at some point and were almost sticking to his back.

"Ah--!" The desperate scream was stuck in his throat. He watched helplessly as the scarlet wedding sedan, along with the entire silent procession, passed through his body without any hindrance like disembodied smoke.

The biting cold instantly swept through the whole body, and the chill of despair penetrated directly into the bone marrow.

Lu Denghe's whole body trembled violently and he suddenly opened his eyes!

The bonfire still crackled before his eyes, its warm light dancing. He remained seated. Where was the red-clad team?

The old man had returned at some point and was sitting across from the fire, expertly turning a roasted rabbit. Its belly had been cut open and stuffed with fragrant, unknown leaves and berries. The fat dripped onto the coals, sizzling, and the rich aroma of meat filled the air.

"Awake?" Lu Yinche said calmly, without even looking up, "I saw you were soundly asleep, so I didn't wake you. It's just as well, the rabbit is almost well."

Lu Denghe gasped for breath, cold sweat soaking his undershirt, his heart pounding. He stared at the reality before him in shock: the bonfire, the old ancestor, the roasted rabbit... Could the terrifying, all-too-real experience just now have been just a nightmare?

"Ancestor..." Lu Denghe, who had survived the ordeal, said in a trembling voice, "I, I just had a... such a terrible nightmare! I dreamed of..."

He recounted his dream in detail. Lu Yinche listened attentively and commented, "Perhaps you dream about what you think about during the day. You're afraid of that lock, and you've probably frightened yourself silly."

Lu Denghe felt that what he said made sense. The aroma of roasted rabbit legs penetrated his nose, and Lu Denghe subconsciously took it.

Hungry, he opened his mouth and took a large bite. The meat was tender and juicy, with a unique flavor of bayberry. But for some reason, the texture felt familiar to him. A bit like the chicken that the ancestor had roasted before?

A subtle sense of disharmony passed through his mind, but at this moment his mind was still mostly immersed in the extreme coldness that the "phantom" had just passed through his body, and he had no time to think about it.

The feeling was so real, like being poured over the head with a bucket of ice water, the chill gathered in the heart and could not be warmed up.

He subconsciously pressed his hand to his chest, but felt the fabric was a little wet. Confused, he looked down and saw that the front of his shirt was stained with a large, glaring, wet dark red color.

"Ah--!" Lu Denghe screamed, and the rabbit leg in his hand fell beside the fire.

He frantically tore open his shirt. But the expected bloody wound did not appear. His skin was intact.

However, right inside his clothes at the position of his heart, there was a hard object pressed tightly against it - it was the golden locket with the word "Yan" in it that he had hidden in his arms. At this moment, it was strangely oozing out a sticky, warm dark red liquid, which quickly dyed the skin of his chest and his inner clothes red!

"It, it, it, it! It's bleeding!" Lu Denghe was terrified, as if he was burned by a branding iron. He suddenly pulled the bleeding lock from his arms, without even looking at it, and threw it away in horror.

The golden buckle fell on the dead leaves a few steps away, making a dull sound.

When Lu Yinche heard his movements, his expression was calm, even nonchalant, as if it was something as normal as breathing. He said, "That's your heart. What's wrong with it bleeding? Take it out and throw it on the ground. Will you still live?"

"my heart?"

Lu Denghe was stunned and looked down. There was a bloody hole as big as a fist on his chest. There was no lock on the ground. It was clearly a bloody red organ that was still beating weakly!

"Ugh..." Fear and shock instantly drained all of Lu Denghe's strength and consciousness. His vision went dark, and he fell forward, his head hitting the stone on the ground.

He woke up.

The fire was still burning, and there was no roasted rabbit. His ancestor was standing leisurely beside the fire, his arms folded, looking down at him with a half-smile on his handsome face. "You can sleep like this? You want to be carried off by a wild beast to lighten my burden? You don't have to be so enthusiastic."

Lu Denghe touched his head. It seemed that he had been hit hard by the ancestor just now. It still hurt when he rubbed it. It was estimated that a blister would appear soon.

He suddenly remembered something and hurriedly reached into his arms—the cold, golden locket with the Chinese character "Yan" lying there perfectly still. He pulled it out and saw it was clean, no trace of blood. His collar was also intact, not to mention any bloody holes.

"I was so scared... so scared..." Lu Denghe breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart was still filled with fear.

He was just about to explain the bizarre and terrifying double nightmare to Lu Yinche when his movements suddenly froze.

He looked down at himself as he was taking out the lock. This posture, this panic in his eagerness to express himself, were exactly the same as the movements he had made in his dream just now when he showed the blood-stained lock to the ancestor.

So…what now?

Is he in reality, or has he fallen into a new dream?

Confusion and fear washed over Lu Denghe like an icy tide. His eyes were dull, his face pale. He suddenly raised his hand and slapped him twice, resoundingly.

It hurts, it really hurts.

He grinned and thought, this time it must be true.

Lu Yinche looked at him acting silly and raised his eyebrows.

"I'd like to know, how are you going to chew the rabbit later if you fan your cheeks into steamed buns? Huh?"

He really brought back a wild rabbit.