Chapter 9 Wife, I’m here, merman
Zhu Huai looked at the puppet in his hand, which was a prop for performing shadow puppetry.
This is a small leather puppet made very finely, as thin as a piece of brown paper, but the expression on the face and the posture of the puppet are extremely vivid, as if the female ghost was directly made into this little man.
It had a head full of black hair, and its face was swollen and pale beneath the long hair. When Zhu Huai looked into those eyes, he seemed to be able to see some resentment in it.
Did Liu Xiang help him? And made this evil ghost into a leather puppet?
Looking at the thing in his hand, Zhu Huai recalled what happened in his previous life.
Life in the Liu family's ancestral home was very boring. In the past two years, Zhu Huai hadn't even installed an Internet connection. Without the Internet, his mobile phone was like a brick.
Apart from taking care of Liu Xiang, Zhu Huai had no other entertainment life and could not leave the ancestral home easily. Like Liu Xiang, he became a prisoner sealed in that mansion.
But people always have to find some fun in their lives.
It was also thanks to Prime Minister Liu that all the treatment Zhu Huai could enjoy in the Liu family's ancestral home was of the highest level of offerings to the gods.
Apart from not being able to leave the ancestral home and having to serve Prime Minister Liu well, almost no one cared about what he wanted to do, or rather, no one dared to interfere.
Even if you eat and use the most luxurious and top-notch delicacies from land and sea, you will get bored of the best things if you eat too much of them.
Zhu Huai didn't know how Liu Xiang spent that long and lonely time. Even Zhu Huai, who liked quietness, felt a little bored.
So Liu Xiang prepared a shadow play for Zhu Huai.
The sky was extremely dark, and the moon outside the window was like a blurry incandescent lamp. Zhu Huai sat next to Liu Xiang, and the tables and chairs around him were hidden in the darkness and swallowed up by the color.
Whether it was the dark red huanghuali wood chairs, the exquisite decorations of carved beams and painted buildings above, or the colorful murals, they all lost their color in an instant.
There was only a large table in front of Zhu Huai, a piece of white paper was propped up on the screen window, and a bright oil lamp was lit behind the curtain.
It was his first time watching shadow puppetry, and Zhu Huai didn't know the specific performance methods, but he also knew that outsiders were not allowed to enter the Liu residence.
Even the servants in the ancestral house were not allowed to enter without permission. There were only him and Prime Minister Liu in the hall, so who should perform the shadow play?
Liu Xiang was still sitting there quietly, but at this moment, a string of pleasant songs rang out, and a few little people suddenly emerged from behind the white paper and started performing a play in front of Zhu Huai!
Their movements were lifelike and vivid. There was no human figure behind the white paper, only a few thin leather puppets moving around as if no one was around.
Liu Xiang watched indifferently from the side, his eyes always on Zhu Huai.
Halfway through the performance, Zhu Huai couldn't help but be curious.
He asked, "These puppets are so vivid. Their facial expressions and movements can actually change. Who is controlling them?"
As he spoke, the narration stopped and the puppets moved imperceptibly, as if they were also listening to what he said.
Liu Xiang stared at him with his dark golden eyes. Half of his face looked like a devil, extremely hideous, a wound that could not be healed.
The other half of his face exuded an inhuman beauty, as beautiful as a smashed statue of Guanyin. Terror and beauty were distinct in his body, yet perfectly integrated at a certain angle, revealing a hint of divinity.
Liu Xiang pushed Zhu Huai down, and suddenly paused. He noticed that Zhu Huai's fingers were warm to the touch, and his wrist could be grasped with one hand. Liu Xiang said, "These puppets obey my orders. Do you like them?"
"I'll ask them to perform for you every day," said Liu Xiang.
After hearing what Liu Xiang said, the puppets didn't react. Zhu Huai then said, "That's too much trouble. It's better to just watch something new every once in a while. There's no need to put in so much effort."
Liu Xiang said, "They are useless in my hands. If they remain unused, they will just end up being thrown away as garbage."
Zhu Huai said, "That's not necessary. These puppets are so delicate, it would be a shame to throw them away."
While they were talking, the puppets on the stage seemed to wink at Zhu Huai, perhaps because they were worried that they would be thrown away. In the rest of the play, these puppets performed even harder.
Zhu Huai stared at the scene, and the narrator's singing told him a story.
There was once a family that worshipped a powerful god. The god was worshipped by the family, and the family was also blessed by the god.
But disaster struck, the family lost the gods who served as its pillar, and the remaining members seemed to have lost all protection and blessings. They declined rapidly and were on the verge of complete extinction.
"One husband and one wife give birth to one child, and the child is blessed by God, and the blessing is profound."
During the most difficult period of the family's predicament, a child with the qualifications to become a deity was born.
This was originally a great joyous event, but even so, this child could not quickly change the family's current situation.
The tribesmen who live in pain and anger need a shot of adrenaline to restore the family to prosperity.
In order to revive the family, the child's parents came up with a solution.
They suppressed the child in the ancestral home and put the fortune of the entire family on him.
They also used a rare magic technique to remove the child's internal organs, suppressing them under the Five Elements Formation in the ancestral home, and restraining them with the Ziwei Dragon Trapping Formation.
In this way, the entire family can take root in the deity and they no longer have to worry about losing their pillar.
The blood, flesh, and power of the sacrificed gods will transform into endless luck, protecting all relatives and bestowing blessings upon them...
The formation is completed and the family prospers. Then the song next to them goes on to say that sacrificing one person in exchange for the future of everyone is the most worthwhile deal.
“Shameless!”
Zhu Huai really couldn't help it. He felt nauseous when he saw the other puppets holding down a little child, opening the child's chest, and taking out the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
He frowned, and the others were even trying to persuade him: "This is your fate. As a sacrificial deity, you should protect this family."
These high-sounding words are disgusting to listen to.
Zhu Huai said, "Are you kidding yourself? If you like sacrificing others so much, why don't you dig yourself up and lie in the formation? These are just excuses for feudal superstition!"
Zhu Huai was very angry: "It's already this time, and there are still people who believe in this kind of thing and harm their own children!"
Hearing his indignant words, Liu Xiang's eyes rolled around, but in the end he did not say what was in his heart: These things did not happen now, but happened a hundred years ago.
However, Zhu Huai did not connect the protagonist in the play with Liu Xiang beside him. After all, how could a person whose internal organs were dug out survive?
Not only did the child lose his five internal organs, he was also suppressed in the ancestral home and never left that place in his entire life. This does sound somewhat similar to Liu Xiang's situation.
Could it be that Liu Xiang wanted to say something to him through this scene?
Before Zhu Huai had time to think deeply, he was so angry that he was speechless because of what happened next, because those people not only did those things, but the main murderers also included the child's parents.
"What kind of people are these? Will this drama continue with the other person's life being ruined and trapped in the ancestral home forever?"
Zhu Huai noticed something was wrong. He looked at Liu Xiang nervously. Liu Xiang looked at him thoughtfully. Zhu Huai's reaction made him feel very interesting.
He asked back, "You don't like it?"
Zhu Huai felt upset. He said, "It's not that I don't like it, I just don't want anything worse to happen. I think the protagonist should live a better life."
Liu Xiang was silent for a moment as he watched him seriously. After a moment, perhaps finding it interesting, he nodded and asked, "So what do you think will happen next?"
"I don't know either……"
Zhu Huai was a little confused by his question, as if his words could really affect the outcome.
Zhu Huai asked tentatively, "The protagonist should have exposed their deeds, put them in jail, and then left the ancestral home to live his own life."
This is the standard answer in Zhu Huai's mind.
Liu Xiang said, "He is the god of that family. His roots are here. After destroying everything, where can he go?"
“Even if He kills everyone, He will still feel bored. The joy of revenge only comes at the moment of success.
The family prospers because of worshiping the gods, but naturally declines because of them. This is their bondage.
If these constraints were lost, the monster trapped in the ancestral home, free and without family, would destroy everything else with even more brutal means. After all, if it could destroy the existence of its own people, what humanity would be left?
Liu Xiang slowly lowered his head, his expression vague and smiling: "Aren't you worried about releasing a disaster with your own hands? Aren't you afraid that He will do something even more horrible..."
What Liu Xiang didn't expect was that after Zhu Huai heard his words, he just lowered his head and thought for a while, then raised his face and said to him seriously:
"I don't deny the possibility of this happening, and I have no way to dissuade the victim from retaliating against others, but I believe someone will stop him."
"Someone? Who? You?"
"If you were to meet him, would you help him or stop him?"
Liu Xiang seemed to have turned into a nitpicker and kept asking questions. Zhu Huai was forced to retreat again and again and was forced into a corner, where he met those dark golden eyes.
Zhu Huai's breath was filled with the fragrance of Liu Xiang. The man's expression was like a distorted mask. Although he was smiling, there was no emotion in his eyes.
Like a prey cornered in a corner, Zhu Huai had to give Liu Xiang an answer. Trapped in Liu Xiang's black hair, Zhu Huai had nowhere to escape. In the end, he could only say, "Yes, I will."
He could hardly breathe, and all he could see was the vague expression on Liu Xiang's face. This was a ferocious beast of enormous size that could not be stopped or disobeyed.
Zhu Huai was pushed to the extreme and said through gritted teeth: "I will give him a good ending. If no one helps him, then I will help him!"
His eyes were sincere and his words were heartfelt.
As if he had finally gotten the answer he wanted, Liu Xiang glanced at him and finally took a step back.
Zhu Huai's heart was beating extremely fast and his hands and feet were shaking inexplicably. He didn't know what was wrong with this guy in front of him. He looked like he wanted to eat him.
Zhu Huai raised his head and went back to watch the show, but found that the story had changed and there was an extra person next to the puppet.
The other person came to his side and seemed to want to take him away, but the end of the story was that the person was trapped in the ancestral home with him.
Zhu Huai watched this scene, and a satisfied expression appeared on Liu Xiang's face. He changed the ending of the drama, but the result was not as perfect as he had imagined. Just looking at his expression, this story was obviously more to Liu Xiang's liking.
Zhu Huai was speechless by the scene in front of him where he tried to save the evil dragon but was swallowed by it.
He said to Liu Xiang: "You revised this script recently, right? Can't you make it more realistic?..."
As he said this, he was still curious about how the puppet was controlled, so he walked behind the scenes and wanted to meet the master behind the scenes.
But what he didn't expect was that there was no one behind the stage and the puppets were motionless. Zhu Huai let out a light exclamation. How on earth did they do that?
Could it be the most advanced mechanism and technology? It's truly amazing...
Maybe there was some mechanism under the table, Zhu Huai thought. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
At this moment, all the puppets looked in his direction, as if they wanted to say something to him.
Those pairs of eyes looked at him, and a leather puppet suddenly moved and fell off the stage.
Zhu Huai picked it up, but found that the touch of the puppet was strangely delicate. Something terrifying happened. At this moment, the puppet, which was not controlled by anyone, moved.
A thin voice said to Zhu Huai: "Save me, save me!"
The shrill cries for help filled Zhu Huai's ears, and the other puppets on the stage rioted in an instant.
Liu Xiang slowly stood up, his tall body walked across the curtain to Zhu Huai, stretched out his hand, and held the leather puppet in his hand.
Zhu Huai looked at him, wanting to say that the puppet was talking, but also wanting to ask what was going on. Wasn't this a mechanism and a toy?
But when he met those dark golden eyes, Zhu Huai couldn't say anything.
Liu Xiang patted his shoulder gently: "You are tired, go and rest."
Zhu Huai turned and left. Behind him, Liu Xiang clenched his hands. Between his slender fingers, he crumpled the leather puppet with a frightened expression into a ball, which turned into a pile of debris and fell away.
After that, Zhu Huai never watched shadow puppetry again.
He did not ask Liu Xiang about the origin of the puppet and the true ending of the scene. He had a hunch that it would not be a happy ending.
Everything that happened in the past flashed before his eyes. After being reborn and encountering a real evil ghost again, Zhu Huai looked at the little leather puppet in his hand with a complicated look in his eyes.
He realized that those leather puppets might be just like the evil ghost in front of him, terrible monsters that struggled to survive in Liu Xiang's hands but were sealed by him.
No wonder the play didn't need a puppeteer behind the scenes, because the person sitting next to Zhu Huai was the puppeteer who truly controlled the life and death of the puppet.
"So the deity whose entrails were disemboweled in the story was Liu Xiang himself."
Zhu Huai put away the puppet, his expression frighteningly cold. Although he had vaguely guessed some of the Liu family's secrets, he could not have imagined that the truth was so disgusting.
But how did Liu Xiang survive after losing his five internal organs?
Zhu Huai's heart was in a mess. He almost wanted to go to Liu's house to see Liu Xiang right away, but he couldn't easily get close to the sacrificial god living in the deepest part of the ancestral home.
What's more, living a new life, is the strange Liu Xiang now really the person he knew, who spent five years with him and died for him?
Zhu Huai had just been reborn for one day when he was faced with many troublesome problems, each of which was too much for him to handle.
But even so, he couldn't help but think of Liu Xiang and everything that happened when they were together.
He was afraid of the other person, yet deeply attracted to him.
Yin Quan said that he was Liu Xiang's contracted wife, but Zhu Huai didn't understand these things.
He only knew that Liu Xiang had saved him many times, but had also given him deep fear, imprisoning him in the deepest part of the ancestral home, just because Zhu Huai wanted to leave the Liu family.
Leaving the ancestral home is equivalent to leaving Liu Xiang. For the extremely paranoid god who is trapped in the ancestral home and has no freedom, Zhu Huai's departure is equivalent to complete abandonment.
That is something He would never allow.
Only now did Zhu Huai finally understand Liu Xiang's thoughts. It was as if he had finally seen through the belated truth and saw the other party's true self in his neurotic appearance and violent, crazy and unscrupulous behavior.
In the past, Zhu Huai could not understand what Liu Xiang did at all, but now he vaguely understood why Liu Xiang stood in front of him and asked him why he wanted to leave when he was about to leave the Liu family.
With a whoosh, a misty figure streaked through the air, following a familiar trace and flying in a certain direction.
His movements were agile, flashing through the air like a nimble black shadow. Ordinary people could not see his movements, and those who could see him did not dare to appear in front of him.
The aura of this figure is too terrifying. Is he some kind of sacrificial god, or the incarnation of some contracted spirit?
The clone transformed from Liu Xiang's kidney is of the water element and has been suppressed at the bottom of the lake in his ancestral home for many years.
This was the first time in his life that he left his ancestral home. The clone and the original body had the same perspective, and everything he saw could naturally be seen by Liu Xiang, who was far away in the ancestral home.
He swayed his long fish tail, looking like a mermaid, with a human body and a fish tail. His dark fish body was covered with dense scales, like the finest black agate.
The long fins are like dehydrated blades, with sharp edges. Even the most seemingly harmless fins have extremely terrifying lethality.
At the moment he swam through the air, colorful light bloomed on his fish tail, and then turned into broken bubbles in an instant.
This beautiful mermaid seemed to be looking for someone. He was sniffing the scent like a predator chasing its prey, eager to tear the other's flesh and blood, with a neurotic excitement on his face.
This beautiful mermaid is the most terrifying beast in the sea. Once it sets its sights on its prey, even if it only misses a hint of blood, it will be hunted down until it reaches the ends of the earth.
We’re about to find it!
The delicious smell was so close that the mermaid swayed his tail and hid behind the door, observing the figure in the room. He opened his mouth and spit out a bubble, staring at the other person with a pair of dark golden eyes.
Zhu Huai knew nothing about this, but he vaguely felt uneasy as if he was being targeted by some top predator.
He seemed to have fallen into the eyes of a monster, a treasure that made the monster salivate and couldn't wait to possess it.
Zhu Huai frowned. With his experience, he immediately made preparations. Zhu Huai looked around and finally saw a sneaky figure behind the door, and the other party also saw him at this moment.
Is it him?
It's him.
The moment he saw Zhu Huai, Liu Xiang couldn't control himself. He felt a strong sense of joy from the bottom of his heart, and his long fish tail flapped violently.
Liu Xiang stared at Zhu Huai intently. The moment he saw Zhu Huai, his intense love and greed took over his mind, making him want to take the man in front of him back to his ancestral home. No matter whether the other party refused or accepted, he wanted him to stay by his side.
This human is mine!
This thought occupied the mermaid's little head.
He stared at Zhu Huai, and finally came out from behind the door and rushed towards Zhu Huai with ill intentions!
Zhu Huai's talisman also flew towards it, but was slapped away by Liu Xiang's tail. He only had time to see a black shadow rushing towards him, and then nothing happened.
"Human!"
A voice as pleasant as a sheng, but extremely familiar to Zhu Huai, rang out, leaving him speechless. "Prime Minister Liu, this is Prime Minister Liu's voice."
Zhu Huai felt his calf sink. He lowered his head, but he couldn't make an attacking gesture no matter what.
First he wanted to see what this thing was. He looked down and saw a mermaid with a fish tail that looked like an exquisite doll holding his calves tightly and trying to wrap its tail around his ankles.
He raised his face and said to him:
"Human, follow me!"
Liu Xiang said to Zhu Huai without letting him refuse: "I came to find you, I want to take you away."
One second, two seconds.
After Liu Xiang finished speaking, he did not see any reaction from Zhu Huai, who seemed to be stunned.
He shook his tail, released his hand and flew towards Zhu Huai's chest, but a hand caught him accurately and shook his body in the air.
Liu Xiang met Zhu Huai's dark eyes. After a moment, he heard Zhu Huai finally come to his senses and say to him, "...What is this?"
Zhu Huai: "Prime Minister Liu, how did you become like this? What happened to you?"
The author has something to say:
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Some experiences in past lives:
Zhu Huai: I don't want to stay here anymore, I want to leave the Liu family
Liu Xiang: You can't leave
Zhu Huai: Then do you want to come with me?
Liu Xiang: I can't leave
Zhu Huai: Then I'll go.
Liu Xiang: I won't let you go
Zhu Huai: Then come with me, I will take you away
Liu Xiang: I can't leave, you have to stay with me, please don't go
Zhu Huai: This is not allowed, that is not allowed, what do you want? [cracks open] (Then a fierce quarrel breaks out) (Then I am forced to love)
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