Chapter 22 Under the red cloth was a body divided in two, lying flat...
June 28th, the Great Heat season.
It is the height of summer now, and when the sun is high in the sky, people feel dizzy and unable to do many things. Therefore, every day at dawn, many people go out to work and earn some money to support their families.
At that moment, a man carrying a shoulder pole was walking towards the gate with his wife, chatting and laughing.
His wife had just opened the door, and before the two of them had even gone out, they noticed a red cloth, like the kind used for weddings, laid out outside the door.
And under that red cloth, which looked bulging, one wondered what was hidden inside.
The two exchanged a strange look, and finally the wife lifted the red cloth.
The moment the red cloth was lifted, what was exposed to the couple's view was a human head that had been cut in half and lay flat on the ground.
The red cloth that was lifted suddenly became the red veil of this human head, and the woman who lifted the red cloth became the "groom" of this human head. At this moment, the "groom" was staring at the unseeing head, as if his soul had been sucked by the head, his eyes fixed on the gray and vacant pupils of the human head.
The couple's neighbor happened to see a red cloth outside their door. Out of curiosity, he lifted the cloth and saw a severed human leg.
The broken leg was not clean; it looked as if it had been ripped off. Just one glance was enough to make him roll his eyes back and fall unconscious beside the broken leg.
Besides those two families, more and more households opened their doors and found a red cloth outside their doors. Without exception, when the cloth was lifted, it revealed the remains of human limbs.
In an instant, the entire town fell into a deathly silence, and the sounds of people chatting and laughing as they went out came to an abrupt halt.
But moments later, a scream that almost echoed throughout the entire town rang out, startling all the birds in the town into flight.
………………
"Huh? That's strange, when did this dilapidated building appear here?"
Just as Li Chen placed the small building in a secluded spot outside Xicheng Town, someone happened to pass by and see it.
Following the man's words, she looked at the small building in front of her.
It is indeed somewhat dilapidated. Although this small building is considered a magical artifact, the house is constructed entirely of ordinary wood and has nothing special about it.
The wind and snow near Xuemang Mountain were so heavy that first the windows broke, then the doors, and finally the biting wind blew half of the roof off, and even the wooden walls were blown open with many cracks, making them even more dilapidated than when they were first seen.
She brought this small building out now because she plans to go to town later and find some people to help her demolish and rebuild it.
Hearing the man's words, she replied naturally, "You flatter me. This is my building. May I ask, ma'am, is there anyone in this town who is best at building houses? I plan to have someone demolish my building and rebuild it."
The old woman was a kind-hearted person. Upon hearing this, she approached and carefully examined the small building in front of her. She commented, "This really can only be demolished and rebuilt. Otherwise, it will look ugly with all the repairs. I don't know who is good at this, but you can ask at the teahouse in town. There are always a lot of people there. You can ask a few people and you will surely find out."
Li Chen smiled slightly and had just finished thanking her when a black dog carrying a flower it had somehow gotten its hands on trotted up to her leg.
As she lowered her head, the old woman followed suit and exclaimed in surprise, "Oh my! This dog can even pick up flowers! Is it your dog? It looks quite old, its beard is all white."
Li Chen bent down, and as soon as he reached out his hand, the flower was placed in her palm. "Yes, it's not young anymore. Once I give it away, I'll have no more worries."
When the black dog saw that she had accepted the flowers, it immediately wagged its tail and stared at her with shining eyes.
Li Chen took a meat bun from his storage pouch and held it to its mouth, saying, "Sweet rice balls in fermented rice wine, you don't need to find things for me every day anymore. We'll have a place to stay now, and we won't go hungry anymore. Besides..."
As she spoke, she looked at the big red flower in her hand with a troubled expression, and sighed, "Besides, I don't eat flowers..."
When Li Chenjin brought the sweet fermented rice balls to the teahouse, the sun was blazing outside, and she was sweating profusely from the heat.
She had just ordered a pot of iced tea, intending to wait until it cooled down before asking someone, when she suddenly heard a group of people at the table behind her say, "Hey! If you ask me, what happened in our town a few days ago was definitely an evil spirit!"
As soon as the man finished speaking, another person chimed in, "If it's an evil spirit, then it's an evil spirit. As the saying goes, every wrong has its perpetrator and every debt its debtor. Why are we afraid of this? Besides, didn't the mayor write a letter to invite people from the meditation community? Our place is so close to the meditation community, they should be here in the next two or three days. What are you afraid of?"
Once the person who spoke up said that, the people around him echoed his sentiments, making the person who had spoken first lose face. He immediately said, "Who, who's afraid?! I was just expressing my amazement! You all say that our place hasn't been haunted by evil spirits for so many years, and now one has suddenly appeared and killed so many people. Haven't you ever wondered why?"
One person asked, "Why?"
The man scoffed and said, "Isn't it because the Sword God is gone? Our town was plagued by an evil spirit more than eight years ago, do you remember? That evil spirit ate anyone it saw, and it almost devoured everyone in the neighboring town!"
"It's really bad luck. Why did the people still alive in the next city have to run here? They attracted all the evil spirits. And it just so happened to be nighttime, the dead of night, when everyone was asleep. One of those evil spirits ripped several houses off with a single blow..."
"Oh my, who wouldn't remember that?!" someone chimed in. "It was terrifying! My house was ripped up too. I was sleeping in bed when I opened my eyes and saw such a huge head coming into my room. It almost scared me to death!!"
Another person said, "No one in our town will forget this! Fortunately, the Sword God arrived on the scene and killed the evil spirit, otherwise, who knows how many more people in our town would have died!"
"When the Sword God arrived, I took a peek from afar, and hey! You know what? It was the middle of the night, and everywhere was pitch black, but the Sword God's side was brightly lit, with a white light and golden glint in it. I thought it was a god descending to earth!"
Once that group started, everyone in the teahouse began talking about it, chattering about how the Sword God had appeared and vanquished evil spirits. The conversation was lively and enthusiastic.
Li Chen sipped his tea leisurely, listening and laughing as he went. He felt as if he were listening to a group of people telling stories. He immediately asked the waiter at the teahouse for some tea and snacks, intending to put the search for the person aside for the time being.
As everyone was recounting what they remembered about that night, one of them suddenly spoke up: "You are all a million miles away from the Sword God, and you probably haven't even seen what the Sword God looks like, right? I was the closest to the Sword God back then, right on top of that tall tower on the east side of our town!"
Before the man could finish speaking, someone else retorted, "You can't even climb a tree, how could you possibly get to the top that high? You should at least think before you brag!"
Seeing that no one believed him, the man scoffed and said, "I knew you wouldn't believe me, but I'm telling the truth. I didn't go up to the top of the tower by myself. When the evil spirit grabbed me and was about to put me in its mouth, the Sword God arrived, severed one of the evil spirit's hands with a single sword stroke, and then carried me to the top!"
"Hmph! I still have the sword tassel left behind by the Sword God. Look, isn't that the emblem of the 'Wanshan Sect,' the headquarters of the sword cultivator world?"
The man presented a treasure as if it were a precious gem, carefully taking out a sword tassel woven from jade and strung with red thread from his bosom.
The jade was indeed engraved with the emblem of the Wanshan Sect, the main altar of the sword cultivators, which immediately caused an uproar. Everyone asked him what the Sword God looked like, and even Li Chenjin couldn't help but take a look.
She took the cup, stood up, and looked in that direction from a distance.
Unfortunately, there were too many people gathered there; all you could see were heads, and you couldn't see the sword tassel in the man's hand.
Helpless, she could only move closer, stand on tiptoe, and peek out, discovering that the sword tassel truly did come from the world of sword cultivators.
She raised an eyebrow, about to sit back down and continue listening to the story, when suddenly someone pushed aside the crowd gathered around the table, slammed their hand on the table with a loud bang, and the teahouse fell silent instantly.
Then he said, "Here are eight hundred taels of silver notes. Sell me this sword tassel."
Li Chen coughed violently, almost spitting out the herbal tea he was drinking.
A note from the author:
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