Platform
We have arrived at the platform.
Platforms are usually built for trains, subways, MRT stations, etc. In such a remote area, it is good enough for urban and rural buses to have a temporary stop. The so-called platform is just a three-inch wide area under a sign.
But here it is different. This platform, which is built to the specifications of a train station, looks extremely spacious and old. It occupies the center of the town.
It can be said that all the buildings, including those emerging from the fog, form a closed area around the platform.
The long-abandoned platform was in disrepair, with half-man-high weeds growing thriving on the concrete floor.
Looking around, our destination is very conspicuous. It is an equally abandoned three-story stand-alone building, standing very abruptly in the center of the open-air platform.
We got out of the car and walked through the weeds. Occasionally, the prickly grass leaves brushed against my arms through my clothes, which felt very strange.
I used to roll up my sleeves when treating the wound, but now I don’t dare to do that at all. I would rather sweat in the heavy protective clothing that has been cut into tatters.
I looked around. The weeds were so lush that they overflowed onto the roadside. The boundary of the platform was very blurred at this time, making it look even more spacious.
He looked at me and started to complain: "Why build such a big area for no reason?"
Zhang Tianyi got a small foldable sickle from somewhere (I suspect the victims were my cheap uncle Xu You and his gang), and cleared the way ahead. The cut grass and trees fell down with a swish, and the fragrance immediately brought back my psychological shadow, almost giving me a heart attack.
The guy in front of me said nonchalantly, "It looks close, but it will take about ten minutes to get to the small building. Don't die, our brain trust top student."
Damn, who are you mocking? I was furious, but I had no choice because he and I had the same parents. I couldn't use many of my offensive methods and could only glare at him from behind.
I have never been more unlucky since I came to this shabby place. Everywhere I look brings back bad memories. I feel a little tired from walking, and I kick Zhang Tianyi's calf from behind, saying, "I'm dying, I'm dying, bury me here."
Seeing that I was angry and throwing a tantrum, Zhang Tianyi couldn't do anything to me.
He turned to look at me helplessly, thought for a moment, and said, "Tell you a joke?"
I just walked to the side, avoiding a big green grasshopper, and was still staring at it, wondering how it could jump around. When he interrupted me, I became a little curious, and half-believing and half-doubting, I let him speak first.
He snapped his fingers to get my attention, then said with a half-smile, "Do you know why this place built such a large unused platform?"
Good question, it hits the spot for me.
But I still hold a grudge, and I have made up my mind that I can't keep being fooled like this. It's too easy to be dealt with.
He just lied and said that the Zhang family, a group of happy and lively psychopaths, had no shortage of money and it was no big deal that they just liked to build some architectural wonders, so he should calm down and not hate the rich.
This wicked guy laughed in silence, shook his head, and walked two steps faster in front.
This time I was chasing him so hard that I almost wanted to step on his toes to interrogate him. I was so curious that I exploded: "Tell me, brother, dear brother, hurry up."
He said that there were the county annals of the town in the small building on the platform, saying that all the people in this town were from the same clan and surname, Nian.
Many years ago, the Zhang family's original gathering place was damaged, so they heard about it and came here to buy the town. In the same year, for safety reasons, the Zhang family spent a lot of money to relocate all the residents and gave them other livelihoods.
This is somewhat different from what I know.
I secretly sighed in my heart, how could I resist not to continue listening, and asked a question:
"Then this platform was built by the original residents of the town... the Nian family?" He couldn't help but feel a little alert, "Nian Ziqing and the Nian family in the town, are they the same?"
"You need to go to the small building and take a look, then you can give me some advice." Zhang Tian did not even turn his head back, wielding the sickle like a folding fan, very easily, and said with a smile, "However, the platform was indeed built by the indigenous people, and they outsourced it."
ah?
I nearly choked to death, thinking how could such a mood-destroying word as "outsourcing" appear in such an opening that exudes a sense of time?
Then Zhang Tianyi continued to say that it turned out that the original townspeople had the habit of worshiping their ancestors together, and they had originally opened a clan temple to raise money and planned to hold a Luotian Grand Ceremony.
But after all, every family has some unfilial descendants. The county annals record that a grandson of the Nian family had evil intentions and took on the responsibility of repairing the platform for everyone.
The moon platform here is very special. According to the cultural customs of that time, it refers to the traditional platform for moon viewing, with three sides of steps guarding the main hall.
When the village elders heard this, they trembled with excitement. They thought that if they built a Guanyin Temple or Doumu Palace, and the entire ancestral hall came out to worship the moon and ancestors, it would be more grand than spending money to hire those shabby Taoist priests, and it would bring honor to the family.
At this point I understood, it was a money-sucking blunder.
Sure enough, as soon as the money was received, the best piece of land in the center of the town was allocated, and high fences were erected on all sides to prevent people from seeing the construction work. After an unknown amount of clanging and banging, what was handed over was a broken platform.
The village elders were so angry that they vomited blood, and the grandson slipped out to find a big boss, hoping to bring in a railway and do some tourism and reselling "local specialties" business.
Tourism…? I was a little worried again. It turned out that the source was here, maybe it was a family business.
Zhang Tianyi obviously thought of this as well, and said in a complicated tone:
"A complete railway system, such a large infrastructure, cannot be built by a temporary construction team. It is just an empty shell, a shiny surface to deceive the big boss. But the planned tourist route has been leaked because of it."
"Back then, the Zhang family heard about the underground palace in the snowy mountains and saw the 'local specialties' being secretly resold on the market, so they rushed here and blocked the subsequent news. So the subsequent events were left unresolved, and only this town has been abandoned until now."
I felt uncomfortable when I heard this "local specialty". I'm afraid it's not some cute and adorable thing like a snow mountain cultural and creative hand-made figure. After thinking about it for a while, I can't believe it:
"That sinister thing, wouldn't it be so heartless as to dump out something from the underground palace?"
"He couldn't get into the underground palace." Zhang Tianyi motioned for me to watch my step, then smiled. "He just broke and peeled off all the murals on the outermost edge of the underground palace, and sold them by the pound as junk to the foreigners at the time."
“But the story of moving the rat to the underground palace originally borrowed the culture of Nestorianism to refer to the weird story, which made it look weird.
The knocked-down murals were severely oxidized and faded to a grey and inconspicuous color. The contents of the patterns were related to worshiping God.
Those foreigners were chatting and laughing while waiting to see the dragon, but when they saw their own gods being served up, they turned into evil ones. How could they look at that grandson in a good face? "
"In the end, the broken murals were recovered by the Zhang family, and they were all restored in proportion, repainted, and kept in the small building on the platform."
It suddenly dawned on me that the contents of those murals were all related to the Mouse Palace Underground, which was exactly the information we were most missing right now.
It was too late to feel heartache now. I suddenly felt energetic and felt that the ten minutes of trekking through the grass was too long. The small building was clearly in front of me, but it was hanging like a mirage. I walked for a long time but still couldn't get there. I wanted to grow wings and fly directly to the building to take a look.
However, Zhang Tianyi just walked away, why did he walk so fast? Is he trying to kill me?
I asked him to slow down, not because I was useless and holding him back, but trudging through the tangled grass and trees was like walking in a swimming pool. The resistance from all directions was enormous, and it was completely different from walking on flat ground.
Zhang Tianyi didn't stop at all, but suddenly asked: "Do you still have the strength to keep up?"
"what?"
"We have to run faster, speed up, and try to run to the door of the small building in one breath and close the door immediately."
He said it lightly, but I shuddered and felt something was wrong.
What's going on here?
"It's not a moth, it's a grasshopper." Zhang Tianyi said softly, "I told you the story so that you don't look at it. But its eyesight is pretty good."
ah?
"—Are you ready? Three, two, one!"
Zhang Tianyi suddenly shouted, "Run, run, run!" I couldn't help but run forward. I felt like he was a lawn mower in front of me. The sound of him running was very rhythmic, and it was as if I was clapping to the beat with his footsteps.
I opened my mouth to curse you as a psychopath, but a gust of wind suddenly nearly blew into my mouth. I immediately thought of the fog and insect eggs everywhere, so I quickly covered my mouth with my collar tighter and asked loudly through my clothes:
"What happened to the grasshopper?"
Before I finished speaking, at the edge of my vision, strangely, I felt the big green grasshopper in the distance jump past us again.
Without the distraction of the important topic, I glanced at it and my scalp exploded, and I almost screamed.
Damn, that's not a grasshopper, it's clearly a huge human figure hunched in the fog.
Our distorted concept of "human" almost harmed us at this moment. The huge and deformed body moved back and forth quickly beside us, but it did not cause any intuitive warning of danger.
Because of cognitive bias, I have not been able to observe what everyone in the bar looks like in a clear state of mind. If I allow the distortion to continue, what will happen in the end?
Now, amid the lush grass on the platform, it looks like a finished product.
The "person" stretched out his extremely thin limbs, hunched over with his chest hunched like half a grasshopper, and his seven or eight arms were waving continuously.
As the "person" moved, the head, which was the size of a normal human head, was like a shriveled ball on this limb, and it could not see normally, but could only lean back with its mouth wide open. The overly protruding jaw and the neck that disappeared in the backward lean gave the illusion of an inverted triangle like an insect when viewed from a distance.
As it moved, the lush vegetation was knocked over and turned over, and green juice kept staining it, attached with the strong fragrance of the vegetation, making it gradually more eye-catching, and my unconscious and vague cognition recovered from the impact.
I was stunned and horrified.
"This grass! These grasses must have been planted intentionally by those bastards from the Nian family!"
Damn, I understand everything.
I wonder why they had to plant fake plants all over the valley when they were young and healthy. They were useless to the banyan trees and the comb jellies. Could it be that they were just to scare the unfortunate passers-by who strayed into the valley to death? And why did they bury those heads in the haystacks? Wouldn't it be the same if they put them outside to feed the banyan trees?
It turns out that he didn't understand it at all. He probably just copied the rules of his ancestors and learned them incorrectly.
"—There may have been a fog outbreak in this town a long time ago!"
I yelled, I really ran for my life this time, my lungs were burning like bellows and my head was aching.
"Oh my god, oh my god, what the hell is going on! How come the Zhang family didn't know about the fog explosion? How did the fog retreat last time? And! How could my family survive all those years like this!"
All the fear turned into questions and he shouted them out. At this moment it was just a way to vent his feelings so as to prevent himself from shivering all over.
In the grass, the grasshopper man was still "bouncing" and wandering aimlessly.
Suddenly, those excessive limbs were accidentally tripped by the united grass roots, and they immediately lost their balance and fell towards us.
On that droopy little head, a pair of cloudy, bulging eyes turned and saw us.
It stared at us blankly, gray-green mucus dripping from its wide-open mouth, and a normal human voice came out of it, sounding perfectly normal:
"consultant?"
It asked in surprise, and shook its body, and a dozen equally listless heads fell out from its stretched and shaking slender limbs.
Every head was calling out with joy: "Advisor!"
"Consultant, consultant, consultant, consultant, consultant."
As I was greeted, its oily green body suddenly bent over and crawled quickly among the grass and trees, with an extremely greedy smile on its face.
"Go! Don't let it stick to you!"
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