Chapter 57 The Sleeping Curse (21) "You're just having teenage angst."...
As soon as Xie Tan entered the mountain, the first thing he saw was the ebony coffin hanging on the mountaintop, like a mysterious force pulling him in.
If his guess is correct, the other coffins are like nails used to suppress evil spirits, unpredictable and always positioned at crucial points, creating a sinister sense of order, like the King of Hell checking off his troops.
This coffin represents a carefree ghost who remains free even in death, unconcerned about whether mountains will collapse or rivers will burst their banks, simply hanging on the most dangerous cliffs, enjoying the wind and frost.
They looked at these neighbors who were always busy moving with a kind of cold indifference, as if they were fools.
When the cat saw him stop, it also stopped walking and looked at the coffin—it was a bit too high for the kitten. With its head tilted back, it almost tipped over. It quickly turned around and sat back in its original position, no longer looking at the coffin, but looking at its host, waiting for his next decision.
Xie Tan hadn't made up his mind yet; he just noticed that the coffin was different. But the long hair inside his hat started moving, wrapping around his neck and sliding like a snake.
The long hair itself wasn't a problem, but the talismans felt a little hot when they brushed against his skin, just not hot enough to hurt.
Xie Tan and this regimental commander had spent a long time together, and had even been cooped up in the same coffin, so they had a kind of unspoken understanding.
He felt that the long-haired girl's emotions were also swirling around like a kitten.
It's as if there's a kind of anger that's forgotten its cause, but which won't dissipate even after death, with nowhere to vent it.
She was just being considerate of him, and she kept it all to herself.
I recalled the speculation on the forum that he was avenging someone in a coffin—could that coffin belong to the previous owner of his house?
He grasped her long hair and asked softly, "Is this it?"
Her restless, unruly long hair suddenly stopped moving, remained silent for a long time, and then touched his palm.
Xie Tan's carefree mind suddenly settled down, and he made a decision in an instant: he would go to that coffin.
He continued walking until he reached what appeared to be the center of a small hill, where there was a fairly open valley, half of which was blocked by other rocks, making it more like a semi-open cave.
There is a fresh fishing boat buried here, its bottom carved through the rocks, seemingly blending into the hillside, reminding Xie Tan of the fishing boat that has become a tourist attraction on the beach.
There was only a blood-stained camera left on the boat. Xie Tan took it, walked around the boat, and felt that his guess was more reasonable.
Xue Hong and Lu Jinzhao likely encountered a situation where, halfway through their fishing boat journey, the sun god at the bottom of the sea suddenly went berserk and became agitated. Not only did it churn up layers of seawater and pour down a torrent of rain, but it also blasted up the coffins and corpses that had sunk to the surface. These objects stuck together in the rainwater, resembling closed flower buds, and thus trapped the two men's fishing boat.
The black goat even said that it was offering sacrifices to the sun god to bring peace to the sea, and thought it was quite good.
Xie Tan thought that it was because they had been throwing corpses and garbage at the sun god for years that the sun god was so annoyed that he would occasionally cause trouble by throwing garbage up there to make things quiet for a while.
The sun, shot down by some unknown descendant, probably never imagined that falling into the deep sea would bring such a calamity; it would have been better if it had just rotted in the sky.
The boat is here. If they were still alive, they would have been put into a nearby coffin, but the rocks keep shifting, and who knows where they are now.
Xie Tan banged on the water-damaged camera and managed to get a glimpse of the image, but half the screen was distorted, so he could only make do with what he had.
This is the blue-haired girl's camera. After entering the town, there is only one video, the latest one, which is very long.
After leaving the hotel, she drove to the beach, patted the sea outside the window, and angrily complained about her three companions.
She drank too much and started acting like a tragic heroine. Rainy nights are the perfect time for her to be artistic, and she wanted her companions to feel guilty when they looked back on it later, satisfying her acting addiction and desire for attention. So she got out of the car in the drizzle, went to the pier, and poured out her grievances to the sea in the rainy night.
But the sea was calm on the first night, silently watching her.
It seems that even "seeing" is her illusion; she is completely ignored.
She thought of her heartless companions who hadn't tried to stop her from coming along, and she took her anger out on the broken sea. She cursed her companions for five sentences, then cursed the sea for five, and finally shouted, "Stop playing dumb, if you have the guts, come and ride the waves, consider it a kowtow to your great-aunt."
My great-aunt is indeed powerful; even the sun god of the sea listens to her—waves rise in the sea.
The waves were initially gentle, only slowly stirring up the seawater, which churned and bubbled like water slowly boiling.
The fog rose and grew thicker. On the sea, it seemed as if the waves were stirring something up, slowly taking shape, like a storm rising at sea... But a tornado is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, so how come this is upside down and uneven?
The blue-haired girl had a sudden thought and wanted to see more clearly, so she took a few more steps forward. It seemed to be a small hill.
The camera was thrown into a fishing boat by the dock by the increasingly strong wind.
This seemed to sober her up, and she quickly retreated.
Yes. Xie Tan recalled that he and Xue Hong had arrived later than the other four young men, just past the coastline, when there were no hills in the rain.
Therefore, it was formed later.
Actually, he also felt a little strange. According to the earlier part of the comic, rain always brings waves. The truth that can be seen in the dream world is that the sun god in the sea is restless and raises seawater to make rain. However, the sea was very calm on the first rainy night, but there were some ripples on the second sunny day.
There was a post on the forum that compiled what Xue Hong had found out. It said that it would still rain normally in the town. Ordinary rain was nothing unusual and wouldn't block out the singing, so Xie Tan assumed that the first night would be like this.
But now it seems that if a small hill formed on the first night, then the rain on the first night was also caused by the sun's power.
The town's residents have difficulty distinguishing between normal rain and when the sun god is angry. Although they try to avoid rainy days, there are still times when they go out in the rain. If something happens, they will mark that day.
As time progresses, the time spans between the markers become longer and longer. Excluding the possibility that the sun god's temper has improved, then... the sun god's power underwater has weakened?
The town's original intention was to appease the sun god through sacrifices, but the black goat himself was a believer in the sun god and used the sun's power without any good intentions. How could the sun god become weaker the more he was worshipped?
It's likely that after they disappeared for some unknown reason, they neglected this place, so the sacrifices stopped, and now they want to resume them.
This must be related to a prophecy, which points to the town.
Both the Black Goat post and the Su He personal character post are speculating about Su He's purpose. Is the sacrifice something that Su Han has been doing all along, and Su He just came to supervise?
It's unlikely.
He read Xi Rui's speculation in the comics that there wasn't really a god underwater, but rather a mirror with enormous energy.
If the black goat wants to use it, why not just take it out?
Offering sacrifices to the sun god to show loyalty was not their real purpose; they wanted to use the sun's power for other things.
The mirror feeds the sun's power to ghosts, causing them to cause trouble or be used by them, like raising poisonous insects. So what is the black goat raising with the sun's power?
It can only be this small hill.
Xi Rui was so surprised because he saw Xiaoshan's true appearance in his dream world.
So Suhe came to inspect the mountain where the black goats were raised, and this mountain has some prophetic significance.
Xie Tan suddenly remembered Su Han's words in the blue-tiled house. She said that three years ago, on a rainy and foggy day, a fishing boat went out to sea and disappeared. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't find it. When the rain stopped, they found it on the beach, and all the crew members were fast asleep.
Some people heard singing when the fog hadn't lifted yet and thought it was the work of sea monsters.
He later thought that Old Man Su was just pretending to know a little and was just fooling him, or that it was just an ordinary rainy day, so the singing was not interrupted.
But now that I think about it... it might be true. It was a special rainy day. They went out to sea and may have accidentally wandered into the hill and unintentionally discovered the truth about it.
Seeing the mountain covered with hanging coffins was terrifying enough, so we turned back in fear.
When the weather is clear, the girls sing, perhaps as a form of protection for those they are powerless to help.
Since they are likely to be driven insane by fear, and are more likely to be silenced if they regain their senses, it's better to send them to eternal sleep than to be tortured and killed by the old man and made into handicrafts.
Just as Xie Tan had expected, the blue-haired girl turned and left after the recording. The video didn't capture her movements, but the audio did. It seemed she bumped into someone, was suddenly pushed into the water, struggled in the water, and then lost consciousness.
The slow footsteps walked toward the dock, then turned back again, and then suddenly the girl's struggling voice rang out again, exactly the same as before.
The leg sounds were unmistakably Su Han's. The second struggle sound was likely recorded by the container he carried with him, capturing the girl's dying cries.
The human-skinned monster, under command, dragged the corpse away with the old man.
The later phone call was probably Su Han deliberately using the recording in the lamp to lure them. Whether they went out to sea or were found at the coffin shop, both places would be their burial grounds.
Xie Tan thought that the sea was calm on the first night, and the small hill appeared very late and took a long time to gather, which meant that the sun's power was indeed weak.
The next day, the sun became active again. After two or three days of rainy nights, the distant hills were covered in rain, and the sun's power seemed to increase.
It must be because of these external factors.
The sacrifice failed... Could it be that Su He brought other mirror fragments to enhance the power of the sun at the bottom of the sea?
But no matter what, it's all for the sake of this little hill.
Xie Tan leaned back, and Xue Hong and Lu Jinzhao boarded the boat and discovered the camera.
A lively voice said, "There's a camera here! Ah, it's never been turned off."
Xie Tan seemed to see someone's beautiful amber eyes flash by.
"Let's turn off the recording first, otherwise the battery will run out."
"Okay, then you can keep it for now, Uncle Hong."
Xie Tan remained silent for a moment. The camera had already been thrown away, and the blood on it couldn't have been the blue-haired girl's. It must have been from one of them when their boat was blocked by the small hill.
Based on their seating positions and the camera's placement before the recording ended, he guessed that it was more likely Xue Hong's blood.
There were also bloodstains from the collision on the boat, and a few strands of shiny black hair stuck in the gaps. They should belong to Lu Jinzhao, since Xue Hong was older and his hair had been treated with oil.
He let the human-skin monster take a spin on the boat, then handed it the camera and the hair. The human-skin monster was sensitive to the smell of gunpowder and blood, and could crawl close to the rocks, so it was more likely to find people than he was.
He earnestly begged it to let the people leave on his boat if it found them.
The human-skin monster touched his collarbone, then slipped away, looking back every few steps.
He himself sought a path to higher places.
Knowing his goal, the cat once again guided him, leading him uphill by following the changing rocks, while the long hair also guided him, seemingly connected to the coffin.
Xie Tan thought to himself... Could there still be the former owner's body here?
Meanwhile, the eye that had been secretly following Xie Tan flew quietly to the other side and eventually landed in Su He's hands.
Through her eyes, Su He saw a little ghost walking in the mountains. A coffin fell down, and after the little ghost left, it suddenly returned, looking in the direction her eyes were hiding.
He was a little surprised that not only had he not died, but he had also found this place and discovered the eyes that had been tracking him.
But it doesn't matter. Su He crushed her eyes, and they dissolved into the rocks.
He carried a lantern, shone it up the mountain, and continued walking through the mountains, inspecting each coffin one by one.
Upon seeing the last coffin, he stopped, his face contorted with displeasure. He cursed, "What utter nonsense! I've seen every single one, and they're all in this state. What kind of miracle is this? We've traveled all this way, only to be moved by some bullshit prophecy. They're desperate to make a comeback. If the family is this incompetent, we might as well just dig a hole and all be buried together."
He clicked his tongue, thinking that this generation of loyalists was really hopeless; they weren't smart enough to make such a mistake, causing him to make a wasted trip. He turned around and headed out of the mountain to take a boat back.
From afar, one could hear what sounded like people talking from behind the mountain wall ahead.
He raised an eyebrow.
Lu Jinzhao was sitting in a coffin, which was seven stories high off the ground and embedded in an almost vertical cliff. He accidentally pushed the coffin lid off and smashed it to pieces.
He was a little embarrassed. He had dismantled the roof of the house, then lifted the skeletons from the coffin, one skeleton and one person, sitting on either side as if having a conversation.
He sat on the outside, using the exposed half of the coffin in the cliff cave as a small open-air balcony, and chatted with the skeleton.
All that was left were bones, surely long dead, yet he pretended to listen intently, as if the bones had actually said something, before gazing out at the distant sea.
"So that's how it is. She was used... What a pity, I've never heard Miss Pan sing before." He sighed.
Then, he heard the skeleton say something, and he was puzzled: "What's the use of making a wish in the sea? The sun isn't in the sea."
"Hey, are we just throwing them all into the water?" Lu Jinchao frowned. "That doesn't sound very hygienic. Are there any other options?"
Gradually, he lost interest in what the skeleton was saying. After the skeleton finished speaking, he took the initiative to talk about his own affairs: "Tell me, why is someone avoiding you?"
His distress this time was much more genuine: "He's not a stranger, but we haven't known each other for very long... Is that the reason? Is it because we're not very familiar with each other? But I really like him, and I think he likes me too. Shouldn't people who like each other want to be together all the time? Why are we avoiding each other?"
"How did you hide? Hmm... I wasn't really hiding, but I just had this feeling... Are you concerned? Of course I'm concerned. Don't you want to understand things you can't figure out?"
Lu Jinzhao looked languid, his arms crossed and resting under his chin, as if admiring a beautiful view of mountains and sea from a balcony: "I'm just thirsting for knowledge..."
"You're just having teenage angst."
A voice from below interrupted him.
Lu Jinzhao paused, lowered his eyes, and met the gaze of the white-haired uncle at the bottom of the mountain.
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Author's Note: Sorry, I had to delete and rewrite a large section while writing, and I wasn't finished by the deadline. I'll randomly send out some red envelopes in the comments section.
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