Chapter 58 The Curse of Silence (22) We're not crazy,...
They were separated by a steep cliff: one was trapped in a coffin dozens of meters above the ground, completely at ease; the other was a vicious wolf patrolling the mountains, finding a lone wild animal with great interest.
The moisture hanging on the wall condensed into water droplets, which slid down the texture of the rocks, steaming up the old, bloody smell from the crevices.
Su He's casual teasing revealed the young man's embarrassment at having his secret exposed. Whether he suddenly realized something, remained silent, or tried to cover it up with a denial, it was all interesting.
If things are clear and it's just a misunderstanding, he'll at most regret missing out on some fun.
But Lu Jinzhao's reaction was not what he expected. The black-haired youth leaned over the coffin, propped his head up with one hand, and said after thinking for a moment, "He is not like spring... it is hard to describe him in any of the four seasons."
This time, Su He became a little interested: "So, in your eyes, what is she like?"
This stumped Lu Jinzhao.
If you asked him, he could think of water and the moon, but he always felt something was missing.
When Xie Tan is mentioned, he thinks of Xie Tan himself; everything else is just a series of associations triggered by thinking of him.
"I don't know, he's just who he is, he doesn't seem like anything." For some reason, Lu Jinzhao didn't want to talk about it anymore. He removed Xie Tan from his words, not letting others see it, and then remained silent, shifting the topic to the person in front of him.
There's a saying, "Love makes you want to live, hate makes you want to die," but people often act differently inside and out. Love can be kept in your heart for a lifetime, as if it doesn't exist, and you can avoid seeing it. But you can laugh and coexist with someone you hate, mutually benefiting each other. Wearing an opposite skin, are you afraid that your true self will be exposed, afraid that you will get hurt? You are like that too, so you hate this place, but you still want to stay here.
His earlier words had the flavor of a child's heart, which made Su He want to sneer sarcastically. But it wasn't until the last sentence that she heard the sharp edge that naturally emerged beneath his innocence.
Su He squinted and looked at him carefully.
The blackened rocks, the cliffs carved by ghosts, the light mist, and the old coffins that seemed to be wailing in the wind—all these things were somber and oppressive, as if only in this way could they be considered a perilous and wondrous sight.
But Su He knew perfectly well that all of these were artificially created, except for the firefly-colored eyes that the young man shone in the mountains, which seemed to be the work of nature.
That face had a slight smile on it, looking down as if the rising sun was looking down at one person among millions. Su He felt a sudden jolt in her heart.
But Su He is the kind of person who, even when facing the Jade Emperor or the King of Hell, will suddenly have a thought and decide what to do next.
He relaxed instantly, but no longer regarded the kid as an innocent child. He bluntly said, "You wouldn't happen to be a Mirror Cult member who came here because of the smell, would you? Don't even think about it. Over the years, the mirror fragments under the sea and this mountain have been mixed together into a pot of porridge. You won't be able to pick out all the grains even if you search until next year. If you have the guts, then move the mountain away."
That was indeed the case in Lu Jinzhao's eyes.
The fragments of the mirror they called the Sun God were in the sea below the mountain. The power that originated from him had nourished the mountain for many years, and most of them had merged together, becoming indistinguishable from one another.
If the president and Xiao Ai wanted to take it all, they would indeed have to empty the mountain or refine it, but that was clearly beyond their capabilities. So, he nodded in agreement with Su He's words.
"Then there will be trade-offs. What about you?" Lu Jinzhao seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
Su He didn't care about the kid's strange reaction. He had seen plenty of lunatics. Without saying a word, he punched the mountain rock. The mountain, which had been calm for a while, started to get windy again. Another section of the mountain snake coiled around and twisted the rock, causing the cliff caves on the mountain to be displaced.
The coffin that the little devil was sitting in has been thrown somewhere.
The lid isn't on yet. If anyone loses their grip, the person and bones inside will be smashed to pieces along with the coffin lid that went before them.
With the brat's nagging gone, Su He opened his bleeding hand and looked down at the blood that had crawled across the lines of his palm, forming the family totem of the black goat.
At that moment, his expression turned somber.
Because he was to patrol the mountains for his family, the family gave him the "key" to manage this place, which is this mark.
In these mountains, he can go wherever he wants. The wind can't blow him away, the waves can't sweep him away, and there are coffins waiting to catch him wherever he climbs.
With authority in his hands, he can manipulate the ever-changing rocks and alter the course of the mountains. If he gets lost, he can find a new path and even turn these coffins into a mahjong set.
But all they can do is flip through the cards at the table.
He had just used his strength to try and pry open a corner while rearranging the coffin, but he failed and was even "bitten" by the mountain.
It's clearly an abandoned place that's been abandoned for many years... But then again, they say time can heal all wounds, but resentment and malice seem to grow stronger with age, and in turn, they can devour time, solidify into an iron bucket filled with lava, just waiting for new people to jump in.
This is just an iron bucket.
It's difficult, but if he gets serious, it's not like we can't pry open a corner... But he's not wrong. This is his own property, and it's an abandoned hideout. If it weren't for the prophecy that made some inexplicable noise, how would the family remember such an old place now?
Su He looked up and glanced at the coffin at the highest point of the mountain.
A hundred meters above, it ignores all changes, like the sun and moon hanging high on this small mountain, untouchable.
Only that coffin. Even with his goat's footprints, he couldn't reach it.
It doesn't matter. The coffin, like the whole hill, is just ruins and serves no purpose.
He withdrew his gaze, as if he had merely been itching to test his skills by sharpening the claws of a wild beast on the ruins of his own home, and now he had returned to his lazy and indifferent self, continuing to walk away.
He could already see the sea.
"That mountain... is it the secret the black goat hides in the town? What is it?"
Another boat has appeared on the sea between the town and the hills, neither advancing nor retreating, rising and falling on the waves that seem to meet at the boundary.
Chang Mingai stood on the boat, holding a black obsidian mirror the size of a diary, gazing at the distant hills.
Beside her, a smaller version of the human-skinned monster lay open, the stitches of its hair stretched open, but the tear in the middle revealed a purple lip, like the mouth of a dead person, uttering a male voice: "You wouldn't want to know."
"You're sending me to face danger, but you won't even tell me what the danger is?"
Those lips coaxed gently: "It's for your own good. Our Xiao Ai is different from when we first met. The first time you saw me in the art gallery in your dream, your screams almost lifted the dilapidated dome. Now you've seen a lot of things. No matter how I suddenly appear, you don't even flinch... But that mountain is scarier than me. It's too much of an eyesore. If you lose your mind and fall into the water, all I can do is wish you a quick death and a good rebirth. There's nothing I can do to help."
Chang Ming rolled his eyes: "You want me to blow up the mountain?"
The bold words startled the mouth, causing its lips to lose color and crawl wildly across the human skin: "Who would blow up a latrine for no reason? It'll be everywhere, and you won't even feel the stench. They'll pollute the sea too."
"Didn't you want to take the shards of the mirror that support the operation of the hill?"
"We've been together for a long time, we can't be separated, and I don't need that."
"...Master, what exactly do you want to do? Can't you just give me a clear answer?"
The mouth spoke in a deep voice: "But since we're already here, we'll dig out whatever we can. The mountain hasn't been fully digested, so we can dig out the last bit from the sea. Because of the energy disturbance, it should have already risen from the seabed and is now pressed under the mountain."
As soon as Chang Mingai heard this, he knew that he was just trying to cause trouble. He would never leave empty-handed, and he would give 120% of his energy to make things difficult for the black goat. If there wasn't only one mouth here, he might actually move the mountain.
"Just throw the mirror shards into the sea? Wouldn't that just stir up another problem?" Chang Mingai asked skeptically. "You just said that mountain can't be blown up."
“That mountain is very fragile; it can crumble in the wind,” the cult leader said.
Chang Mingai's long, curly hair was blown all over her face by the sea breeze. She pulled down the hair that was being violently beaten by her: "..."
Nonsense! No matter how the wind blows, the mountain is still there.
The cult leader laughed: "In those mountains, neither rain nor wind can get in. The rocks there are damp because they were originally washed up from the sea, and the wind there comes from the coffins in the mountains, so naturally there is no problem. Its strength lies in this point. The solar power of that fragment has formed a golden bell shield for it, so an external wind is needed to break it."
"The wind can blow off the cover? Then the mountain will collapse. You want to blow up the mountain."
"You can't blow it away. That mountain is pieced together and is very flexible. Unless you grind the whole mountain to dust in one fell swoop—how much effort would that take? You might even grind yourself to dust first. We're not crazy, so don't even think about it."
The cult leader said leisurely, "So you need to find the weak point. Do you see the mountain peak? There is a coffin there. It is the only place that will not change among all the white bones in the mountain. You can treat that as a 'blank space'."
Chang Mingai understood: "We'll target their weaknesses and blow right there, like lifting a lid off a mountain."
"No, that coffin is more malevolent than the whole mountain. If you poke it, it might bite your hand off. Ignore that. That coffin is just out of place and can't fit in with the local area. It stands alone amidst all the graves on the mountain."
"...So what have you been saying all this time?"
"I'm just trying to be helpful, don't provoke that. It's pointless and you'll only lose more than you gain," the cult leader said. "But this advice is indeed unnecessary. Just stay here. The outside wind needs to work together from the inside to create a gap in the mountain."
Chang Mingai had already thrown the mirror shards into the sea as instructed by the gossipy cult leader.
The turbulence in the sea was originally just the aftershocks from the other side of the mountain. Now, the sea beneath her ship was truly boiling, stirring up towering waves.
Chang Mingai struggled to hold onto the boat and asked, "No, who's inside to help us...?"
Crackling sounds.
She was stunned, and then she saw a smaller human-skinned monster at the end of the mirror shards, falling off the ship together. Its mouth was gnawing on the corner of the mirror, chewing deeper and deeper.
With each bite, a golden rune appeared on the human skin. She clung to the boat and looked down, where golden light rippled in the sea, sinking deeper into the depths.
Chang Mingai suddenly remembered that when she was in the coffin shop, Xie Tan stayed in the inner room, hinting that she should leave, and that she had met the corpse collector in the corridor.
Entrusted by Xie Tan, the corpse finder stayed behind to help her find Xia Wujin.
But Xie Tan's hint was quite clear: Xia Wujin was indeed in the coffin in the outer room, and it wasn't hard to find him.
Chang Mingai felt that it might be more than that.
Sure enough, the body collector had grown a bit bigger and had sewed up the skin of several rebellious youths, but the stitches tore open again, leaving a small part of the skin behind.
The other half returned to the hotel with her, and when the slumbering song echoed throughout the town, it was this thing that ensnared her, isolating her from the song.
She understood then that Xie Tan had left some corpse collectors behind to protect her... but something still felt off. They were all asleep, so what use was she being awake? They were group partners and were supposed to do homework together.
Then a familiar mouth opened on the human skin. Her heart skipped a beat. She had no time to think and focused entirely on dealing with her cult leader.
The lips that the cult leader borrowed were cut off by the old sheep from the blue-haired girl. He used these lips to climb into the body of the corpse collector at the coffin shop.
He had her take the pre-prepared shards of mirror and go out to sea with him.
The cult often uses mirrors for communication, movement, and surveillance, but that's to assimilate ordinary mirrors with a little force; the depth of the mirror's color represents the degree of assimilation.
However, the "mirror fragments" mentioned are actually obsidian-like solar energy crystals.
She was ordered to bring one.
The diary was quite large; she held it in her hand as if it were a powerful bomb, unsure of what to do with it.
Now she knew that the cultist wanted to use this shard of mirror to blow a gust of wind from the outside.
The one who was secretly involved was Xie Tan, who had taken the other half of the corpse collector with him. The incantations on the two pieces were combined, which allowed the wind to flow in.
The cult leader hid in the shadows and took advantage of Xie Tan.
But when she thought of Xie Tan's smile when he left, and his words "I didn't come to break the curse"... she couldn't help but wonder again, was Xie Tan leaving some of the corpse collectors with her really just to protect her from the singing?
Did he really not know that the skin of the corpse collector... had been adorned with a curse?
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