045.Old friend
The two bodies under the tomb have been very quiet, but the emanating corpse odor is enough to prove that they have not left.
Shang Changheng wanted to go down and take a look. He could feel that his body was buried there, as well as...his old friends. But he just wandered over the tomb.
He could easily grind his own bones into powder, but he dared not even look at the deceased below.
It was hard to tell why, but after he became a ghost and woke up, there was only resentment and murderous intent in his heart, and other emotions were as barren as a wasteland with no grass growing. Only when he was with Qing Ling did he feel somewhat alive. But now that he was standing here, he felt an unfamiliar emotion that he hadn't felt for a long time - timidity.
There was a breeze passing by my ears, as if bringing a war song that had been heard a thousand years ago, with thousands of troops roaring passionately.
"Holding the Wu spear and wearing rhinoceros armor! The chariots collide and the short weapons engage!"
"The banners cover the sun, and the enemies are like clouds! Arrows fly and soldiers compete for the lead!"①
Shang Changheng stretched out his hand and clenched it gently, but his hands were filled with emptiness. He recited in a low voice along with the voice in his memory, reciting "The sky is against us and the gods are angry, they kill everyone and abandon the plain", and "I cannot go out and cannot come back, the plain is suddenly and the road is long". It seemed that there were thousands of people reciting with him in the wind, but when he raised his eyes, there was no moon, no stars and no old friends in the vast sky.
Only him.
He is the only one left.
A thousand years have passed. He remembered the words "I don't know where the person's face is" that Qingling read out from a book a few days ago. The sorrow suddenly poured out of him, as if the pain of being cut by a thousand knives was almost tearing him apart. Shang Changheng felt that he couldn't breathe, and vaguely remembered that he had not breathed in the first place.
He was also a wandering ghost who died a thousand years ago.
The change happened at this moment. Two muffled sounds came from under the grave, as if something fell to the ground. The thick corpse smell spread out violently at this moment, waking up Miaoyuan and Zhu Lezhi who were resting. The first one to stand up was Qingling. He sat closest to Shang Changheng and glanced at the evil spirit from time to time. He knew something was wrong the moment the abnormality appeared.
For some reason, the two people under the tomb seemed to jump out of the coffin!
Qing Ling's face turned pale, and he suddenly thought of something, and his expression suddenly became ugly.
"The time is wrong. Xinyou, Guiwei, Dinghai, Jichou...the heavenly stems and earthly branches are all yin." Qingling's voice trembled a little. He stared at the dug grave, fearing that two hideous corpses would jump out of it.
It takes some means for a ghost to kill someone, but a moving corpse can just twist off a person's head.
Upon hearing Qingling's words, Zhu Lezhi slapped her forehead in anger. She relied on Shang Changheng, a killer in the world, and even forgot to check on the most basic days. If Qingling, a newcomer who had just stepped into the doorstep, hadn't pointed it out, she would not have reacted.
"These days are almost over." She took the long whip from her waist and took precautions.
"Let's go and take a look." Miaoyuan clutched the Buddhist beads and walked away.
The air was filled with corpse qi, but no zombies came out. Miao Yuan had only taken two steps when a cry that sounded like crying or roaring came from under the grave.
“Ah! Aaaaahhh!!”
The voice was hoarse like a rusty knife rubbing against its scabbard, low and hoarse, yet trying desperately to raise its pitch, and it was chilling to hear.
"Wait up there." Shang Changheng's tone sounded like an order, and then he floated into the tomb.
So the three people who were approaching stopped.
Zhu Lezhi asked quietly: "Are we really not going to help?"
Miao Yuan then turned his gaze towards Qing Ling, and it was clear that he was asking the same question as Zhu Lezhi.
"Wait a minute." Qingling clenched his fingertips, took a few steps forward, and stopped not far from the tunnel.
Shang Changheng lingered here for a long time. Qingling knew that he had wanted to go down for a long time, but he seemed to be hesitant for some reason. The yin was extremely strong at this hour, and it was too dangerous for a living person to go down to the tomb. It would be better to let Shang Changheng go and explore first. There should be no evil in the world that can hurt this thousand-year-old ghost... But the two things below might have been dead for a thousand years.
Soon, the Yin energy belonging to Shang Changheng began to dissipate wildly, and a sound like banging was heard from under the tomb. They must have started fighting. Qingling recalled that Shang Changheng had attacked several times, and he was actually very comfortable with it, as if he just moved his little finger. But this time, just by listening to the sound, he knew that there was a fight going on below. Qingling even heard the sound of weapons clashing.
Qingling was confused again. Why was he so nervous?
It would be good if Shang Changheng won.
If he loses, then wouldn't he be free? With Zhu Lezhi and Miao Yuan here, escaping should not be a problem.
But Qingling felt as if his heart was being tightly grasped by an invisible hand. He thought of Shang Changheng wandering alone just now. What was he thinking at that time? Why did you hesitate so much and didn't go down to take a look?
Are you afraid of seeing old friends, or are you afraid of seeing things and people no longer the same?
Qingling didn't know and could only wait in silence. The hoarse sound from under the tomb was almost like crying. When the hour of Chou was completely over, the strong yin energy finally began to wane. The sound from under the tomb also completely disappeared, and the silence in the mountains was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
It was quiet for a long time.
Zhu Lezhi and Miaoyuan noticed that Qingling suddenly walked forward. He walked to the edge of the tunnel and said to the inside: "What's going on?"
After a long while, a voice came from below, which expressed neither joy nor anger.
He said, "It's all right."
.
Qingling had a rope tied around his waist and was let down by Miaoyuan. In his hand he was holding a burning oil lamp, which was much brighter than a tinderbox.
Before he could untie the rope around his waist, Qingling was stunned.
Just as the brothers said, the tomb chamber was not big. To call it a suspected tomb was an exaggeration. The walls illuminated by the firelight were engraved with densely packed runes. The tomb was very simple. There was no suppression or breeding of evil spirits, but simply borrowing luck.
In the center were three coffins that were already decayed in many places. Shang Changheng was sitting on the middle coffin board. The coffin lids on both sides were open, and human bones were scattered all over the ground. A rough glance showed that there were at least more than ten people. In front of Shang Changheng, with their backs to him, stood two men in armor. Their armor was already tattered and their helmets were nowhere to be found. Their exposed hands were blue-gray in color, with purple veins running all over them.
Qing Ling felt his legs a little weak, and he shivered as he untied the rope around his waist. He pulled it twice to signal the two people above that it was time to come down.
He walked forward cautiously and found that the two corpses were unresponsive. Even Shang Changheng had a blank expression. Looking more closely, Qing Ling discovered that Shang Changheng seemed to be... in a trance, or perhaps recalling something.
Qing Ling did not disturb him, but just walked around to his side. In this cramped tomb full of corpses, being next to Shang Changheng was undoubtedly the position that gave him the most sense of security.
This also allowed Qingling to see the appearance of the two corpses clearly. As expected, their faces were blue-gray, but Qingling was stunned.
The bodies were a man and a woman. The woman's face was wooden and stiff. If she were alive, her facial features would have been bright and beautiful. However, the man's face was haggard, with sunken eye sockets and cheeks. He was so thin that he was almost unrecognizable, and there was a mark of stitches on his neck.
Both of them should be in their twenties, but Qingling saw familiar facial features on the lifeless face that had turned into a corpse. They were the young boy and girl who admired the moon with Shang Changheng under the treetops at that time.
Zuo Baichuan.
Wei Qingxia.
"Yes..." Qing Ling paused for a moment, "It's them... Shang Changheng, you..."
He turned his head and saw Shang Changheng's expression was still indifferent, his lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something.
But he didn't say it.
It was at this moment that Qing Ling realized that Shang Changheng was not expressionless. He seemed to be in a daze. In the end, he only said one sentence: "I remember one thing, them."
The punctuation was strange and he spoke very slowly, but it seemed as if he had to use all his strength to utter these seven short words.
After he finished speaking, the Yin energy emanating from Shang Changheng's body condensed into solid black mist, indicating that he was not at peace at the moment. Qingling couldn't explain the reason, so he reached out and touched Shang Changheng's cold palm that was pressing on the coffin lid. The evil energy flowed into Qingling's body through each other's palms. His eyes suddenly blurred and his hands loosened involuntarily.
The oil lamp fell to the ground with a crisp sound.
It was that feeling again, as if he was falling weightlessly, or floating in the clouds. Qing Ling was still panicked. There seemed to be a veil in front of his eyes, and the sounds coming to his ears were very distant. After a while, everything gradually became clear. Qing Ling knew that he was immersed in Shang Changheng's memories again.
This seemed to be a mourning hall, the whole room was dressed in plain clothes, and three people were kneeling in mourning. Above the tablet was engraved "The tablet of my late father, Duke Wei Shanfu". There was a large black character in the hall, which should be the word "甸" from the Zhou Dynasty.
Wei Shanfu is dead.
The three of them kowtowed respectfully. Kneeling in the middle was Wei Qingxia, and on both sides were Shang Changheng and Zuo Baichuan.
They are alive, not thousand-year-old evil ghosts, nor are they two unrecognizable corpses under a grave.
But Shang Changheng had grown up a little at this time, and looked to be seventeen or eighteen years old. He no longer had the gentle temperament of the previous two years. As a young general who had been wearing armor and going into battle at the age of sixteen, he must have fought many battles by now. His eyes were red, but his brows were full of firmness, and the whole person seemed like a sharp weapon ready to be used.
"Yangcheng has been lost." Zuo Baichuan sniffed. Although his eyes were wet, no one could tell from his voice, "We have to defend Yaoshan. Changheng, Senior Brother is a rough man who only knows how to fight. You have to tell me how to fight."
Wei Qingxia had also cried and her eyes were swollen, but she had no tears this moment. Instead, she was the calmest among the three.
She said: "Don't worry about weapons. Yaoshan is not short of them. So Changheng, Yaoshan cannot be lost."
"Let's go look at the sand table." Shang Changheng stood up and turned to the door. It was getting light. He looked towards the east with his eyes as cold as ice in the cold winter that could tear your flesh and bleed if touched.
The gentle and taciturn boy's eyes were stained with hatred. The fine clothes and vigorous horse were all yesterday. The unpolished jade was polished by the troubled times and became a sharp knife today.
And in the distance, Qingling was also looking in the direction he was looking at.
The light of heaven shines in the direction of the battlefield. Between the vast sky and earth, the endless mountains and rivers, the souls of thousands of soldiers buried on the battlefield cannot return home yet.
The beacon fires are burning the mountains and rivers, the smoke of war is everywhere, the troubled times are like a long night, and it is not over yet.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
