Six Days in a Deserted Village (V)
Afternoon.
The weather was still dry, exuding the heat of early summer. The doors and windows of every household were closed, as if afraid that the heat would blow into the house. Only under the eaves there was some shade, and the tablets of the gods hung there swayed gently in the wind.
“Swoosh—”
The stone-paved village road was deserted. Looking around, there was only a row of old earthen brick houses standing silently on both sides. If Xu Wei hadn't known that there were people in the houses peeking out through the cracks, he would have really thought that this was an uninhabited deserted village.
She walked slowly along the cobblestone path, looking left and right, touching other people's fences from time to time, and kicking pebbles on the road from time to time.
His hands were not idle either, as he threw and caught the slender red statue with one hand, carelessly, as if it would drop to the ground in the next second.
Very quiet whispers leaked out from behind the closed doors and windows, and scorching gazes were fixed on the only stranger on the empty path.
She walked forward along the long stone road, as if she was going directly to the end of the village.
The footsteps passed a corner, paused, and then continued forward.
"Tick, tick, tick."
Another subtle, quiet sound of footsteps was heard in the air.
The sound was vague and could not be noticed without careful listening. At first, it was impossible to identify the direction. It seemed to come from every direction and was constantly changing direction.
It appeared in the east one moment, and jumped to the north the next, followed by the low murmuring of children.
The sound grew louder and louder until it went from being indistinct to being extremely clear.
"The sky will be clear, if it is sunny, it won't rain. Grandma will take me to beg for food."
"The flowers need to be crushed, the wine needs to be spilled, and the red chopsticks need to be used to pick up white cakes."
"Cabbage hearts under the fortune tree, and mashed fish eyes."
"I exchanged my smelly meat and tea for new clothes, and my grandma sent me to the west."
Xu Wei stopped.
The adobe house in front had turned into a huge tomb at some point, with mud walls as high as a person erected around it. The mud pile occupied nearly two-thirds of the area, making one wonder what kind of huge corpse was buried underneath.
In the middle of the tomb, the stone tablet, which had been ravaged by wind and snow, was inserted straight into the center of the mound, with a thin layer of incense ash scattered around it.
An old man and a child in ragged clothes squatted in front of the raised earth mound, rummaging through the offerings in front of the incense altar.
It's raining.
The sky was covered with dark clouds, the light was dim, and the rain slanted down, hitting people's bodies and causing a cool pain.
Xu Wei was soon soaked, even the ends of her hair were covered with water beads. She closed her wet eyelashes and stood quietly behind the old man and the child.
The rain is getting heavier.
The sound of the rain hits the eardrum violently, invading the hearing and blocking out other noisy and trivial sounds.
The child kicked over the wine bottle in front of the grave, and the wine spilled all over the ground and was washed away by the rain. He grabbed a handful of flowers, tore them apart and stuffed them into his mouth, but quickly spit them all out, then sat on the ground and kicked his legs around.
The old man looked around for a while, reached out to take the red chopsticks stuck in the tribute bowl, used his arm to shield the rain, picked up the soaked pastry in the bowl and put it into his mouth.
"Grandma, I'm hungry. My grandson is hungry..."
The child stared at the old man eating bite after bite of the white cake, swallowing his saliva with greed, and chewed a few bites of mud on the ground.
The old woman ate very quickly, and her throat swelled abnormally as she swallowed. The pustules hindered the movement of the chopsticks, so she finally picked up the bowl and buried her head in eating.
"Grandma... I'm hungry..." The child stared at the old woman's increasingly bulging neck, his eyes full of hope.
The old man twisted his body, shook off his hand, and forced the empty bowl into his mouth. The corners of his mouth were soon torn, and blood dripped down along the blood-red muscle lines, and was quickly washed away by the rain.
The lump on his neck was about to swell to be bigger than his head, and half of the bowl was already stuffed into his throat.
"Grandma!" The child began to cry loudly, tearing the old woman's tattered clothes. Under the torn old cloth, the yellow-brown skin was piled up at the waist, and countless eyes were squeezed in the gaps between the layers of skin.
The back, neck, and arms are all covered with eyeballs.
Hundreds of tightly closed eyes seemed to sense the noise behind them and opened at the same time. Their cloudy eyeballs were filled with bright red bloodshot and they all looked towards the person who was coming.
Being stared at so intently, Xu Wei took a few steps forward in silence.
The child turned to look at her in surprise. The old man, who still had half a bowl of food in his mouth, didn't have time to turn his head and was kicked in the back.
"Gulp!"
The kick was so powerful that the eye on the back was stepped on and burst, squeezing out bright red liquid mixed with thick white. The eyeballs in other parts of the body immediately let out shrill screams.
"Hmm?" Xu Wei hesitated for a few seconds, then quickly kicked again.
"Bang!" The bowl in the old man's mouth was pushed out by the huge impact force, scraping the corner of his mouth, and smashed onto the grave, breaking into several pieces.
"I'm not afraid of choking after eating so much. If I can't kick it out, I'll have to use the Heimlich maneuver."
As Xu Wei said this, he went up and kicked the old man again, knocking him aside with his head knocked on the ground. Then he squatted down and touched the child's face.
It's freezing cold.
She picked up another bowl of tribute vegetables, which contained fried vermicelli. She used a dagger to cut the silk thread wrapped around the vermicelli and handed it to the child.
"eat."
The child looked at her timidly, then looked at the old man who had just crawled out of the ground, and shook his head in fear.
Xu Wei pushed the old man to the ground with his knee. Feeling something moving under his knee, he frowned and said, "Eat."
The child timidly reached out and took a handful of vermicelli. He tried hard to chew it, but he couldn't help it and vomited it out.
Vermicelli string is a fortune tree, don't eat it...
Xu Wei went over the nursery rhyme he had hastily memorized in his mind, rummaged through several piled-up tribute bowls, and finally found a bunch of cabbage.
Cabbage hearts under the money tree.
In no time, he peeled off the leaves, pulled out the heart, and mixed it with vermicelli. Then the children excitedly began to eat it.
The rain was so heavy that shallow puddles formed at my feet. My clothes were soaked and felt heavy on my body.
“Guoguo, mash the fish eyes…” Xu Wei repeated and took an apple from the tribute.
She hesitated for a moment, as if making up her mind. When she saw that the child was almost finishing the food in the bowl, she moved sideways towards the old man who was pressed into the ground.
He used a dagger to lift up the already torn clothes, and with a "hiss", the whole back was exposed. Xu Wei was so disgusted by the eyeballs all over the back that he frowned.
The middle part was kicked to pieces by her, so she could only pick the relatively intact parts next to it.
With one cut, the old man screamed and shrieked, struggling like a live fish, his eyes still rolling wildly. Xu Wei's eyebrows knitted together, and when he turned around, the child was already clinging to him with eager eyes, holding the bowl in his hands and handing it to him.
Xu Wei shook her eyeballs down the blade of the knife. Even though the child was drooling with greed, he didn't move and waited for her to continue picking.
When he had collected half a bowl, he took a Gongguo and began to smash his eyes with it.
Unable to bear watching the child eating, Xu Wei stood up and searched around the grave for the last sentence.
Change the fishy meat and fishy tea into new clothes.
There was no meat among the tribute dishes, and Xu Wei knew where the meat came from. There were empty teacups, filled with rainwater, but looking around, there were no new clothes here, especially for children.
She patiently looked around again, but still couldn't find it. However, she was attracted by the words on the stone tablet.
The inscription on the stele reads: "His achievements will be remembered by future generations, his virtue will be remembered in paintings. Tomb of the Yue Ancestor."
This is the tomb of that ancestor.
What Wang Po and her grandson stole were the tributes from their ancestors.
The font was bright red, and gradually turned blood red under the increasingly heavy rain.
Xu Wei's elbow felt cold.
The child came closer to her without her noticing, and pressed tightly against her. His body was as cold as a tombstone, as if he was trying to keep warm against her.
He looked up and smiled at Xu Wei with his mouth wide open, but his smile quickly changed shape and grew wider and wider.
The earth walls around became taller, as if they were coming together, and the opening we came from became much smaller, from being wide enough for two people to half a person's width.
Xu Wei pushed the child away. The rain was so heavy that she could hardly keep her balance. She felt as if she was in a surging lake. The dense rain made it hard for her to breathe. She could only move her legs with great effort and step on the old man's body.
The meat was cut into pieces, one slice at a time, and placed in a bowl, next to a teacup filled with water.
The child hugged her legs, as heavy as if she were carrying an adult, and prevented her from moving.
Xu Wei kicked him away and searched around the grave.
Nothing was found.
The child followed behind him persistently like a shadow, occasionally touching him with his hands.
Xu Wei felt his body temperature rapidly dropping.
She looked up at the sky and saw dark clouds pressing down heavily, getting closer and closer, as if they would cover this small tomb that was about to be completely closed in the next second.
The smile on the little boy's face grew bigger and bigger, occupying half of his face. He licked his tongue and followed the person in front of him closely.
Something sharp scratched his wrist. Xu Wei lowered his head and could hardly open his eyes in the pouring rain.
The little boy licked her wrist again with a greedy look on his face.
Xu Wei raised his hand expressionlessly and slapped him hard.
The little boy was slapped against the stone tablet with a dull sound, and then he quickly got up and moved closer.
Xu Wei raised his knife and cut his throat, then continued searching with an expressionless face.
Nothing...
Change the fishy meat and fishy tea into new clothes.
She could hardly see anything in front of her. Dark clouds were pressing down on her head, and the earth wall was closed in, leaving only a gap as wide as a finger.
My legs were scratched again, and even teeth were grinding.
The little boy held her limp neck, hugged her legs tightly, and nibbled them gently while mumbling something.
"Grandma sent me to the west."
"Death is in the west, hehe..."
Xu Wei couldn't kick him away. In fact, standing in the rain had used up all her strength. She could only drag the child back step by step.
The skill was usable, but as soon as she thought of using it, an unprecedented sense of crisis arose in her mind.
It will break the rules.
In this level, you must complete the tasks set by the plot.
New clothes, where will they be...
She looked up and squinted her eyes to look at the tombstone again.
"His achievements will be remembered by future generations, and his virtue will be known in painting..."
She sarcastically said, "I think it is harming future generations."
The little boy suddenly pounced on him and bit him. Xu Wei grabbed his head and pushed it back, his arms shaking from the force.
She quickly knelt down on one knee, took out the incense from the incense burner and put it back in to check, then lowered her head slightly, her eyes fixed, and began to dig the soil under her knees.
Soon, she pulled out a piece of clothes and sped up the digging.
"Go west, go west..."
The little boy was still trying to bite the person with his head.
Xu Wei quickly took out his clothes and pressed the boy to put them on.
Dark clouds were approaching, and the entangled black air gradually merged with the hair. The light in front of the eyes became less and less, the earth walls above the head merged into one, and the cave entrance behind the back was slowly closing.
"Return to the West..."
"Death is coming——"
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