Plants can survive without their crowns, but can people survive without their heads?
The answer is obviously no.
I have always firmly believed that if you really hate someone and hate him so much that you can't get rid of your hatred without killing him, you must chop off his head. Otherwise, no matter where he is stuck, he may survive if he is lucky enough. But if this guy who eats food falls off, even the King of Hell will be helpless.
What Zhang Xinya said must not be his brother Yaozi performing acrobatics, but a real murder scene. The so-called brother Yaozi should really be dead.
Then, what is this sitting in front of me?
Corpse? Or ghost?
Is this the helper Zhang Daoxuan mentioned?
I felt a chill on my back and subconsciously looked at Zhang Daoxuan, my heart full of desire to explore. It was because I couldn't sleep when I was walking with something that was not a human.
"It's better for you not to know some things."
Zhang Daoxuan sighed and said to Zhang Xinya: "Don't worry, your brother Yaozi can't be considered dead, he should still be alive, don't mention these things in front of him, your brother Yaozi will be sad, he came all the way to help us, don't let him down."
Can't be considered dead, he should still be alive... right...
This series of keywords made me dizzy. If you say that it's hard to distinguish between black and white, right and wrong in this world, I believe it, but can't you tell whether a person is alive or dead?
What is that person on the steps?
I wanted to ask, but Zhang Daoxuan obviously had no desire to talk about it. Even Zhang Xinya said "Oh" under his gaze, and stopped asking questions. She started the car again with a heavy heart.
The distance was getting closer and closer, and I finally saw the appearance of the brother Yaozi mentioned by Zhang Xinya.
This is a man who looks honest and kind. He is wearing an old military uniform and canvas rubber shoes. He is less than 30 years old. He has a short haircut, but there are a lot of white hairs mixed in it. His skin is dark and his forehead wrinkles are very deep. He looks very simple no matter how you look at him. He looks like some poor children who have been in charge of the family early in the countryside. Many marks on his body are left by labor. He is the kind of honest man who will not let people have any defense when you see him suddenly.
When we got off the car, Brother Yaozi had already stood up from the steps. After nodding to Zhang Daoxuan, he looked at Zhang Xinya and grinned, showing a mouthful of white teeth. He spoke with a strong Shaanxi accent: "Xin Meidan, you have grown so big..."
He obviously has a very good relationship with Zhang Xinya. While talking, he subconsciously reached out to touch Zhang Xinya's head, but Zhang Xinya seemed to have a shadow in her heart. Her face was very complicated and she subconsciously dodged for a while.
Brother Yaozi's smile froze, and then he grinned self-deprecatingly: "We are estranged, but it's true. I guess I scared you at that time..."
The dialects of northern Shaanxi and northwestern Shanxi are quite similar in some places. They both belong to the ancient Jin language, and now they still retain a lot of ancient words. I can understand what Brother Yaozi said.
Xin Meidan should be Zhang Xinya's nickname. It is really shocking for an urban white-collar beauty to have such a nickname, but only some very close people will call her that. It is estimated that these two people used to wear open-crotch pants and play together. Brother Yaozi obviously doted on Zhang Xinya.
In order to resolve the embarrassment, Zhang Daoxuan immediately pushed me out and said to Brother Yaozi: "This is the boy I told you about, but now he is my apprentice, you can get closer to him in the future."
"Let's talk later."
Brother Yaozi grinned, shook hands with me, and then said to Zhang Daoxuan: "He should take care of his own business first. The main reason I came here this time is because the second girl is also involved, and I am afraid that something will happen to her."
Without making a sound, he has changed his words and called Zhang Xinya the second girl. Although it is still intimate, the distance is silently pulled away.
Zhang Xinya has a complicated face and has not said a word from beginning to end. It's no wonder that the person who saw his head being chopped off with his own eyes has appeared again in a blink of an eye, talking and laughing with you and patting your head to kill you. Who can get used to it?
I looked at Brother Yaozi's hands calmly.
This is a pair of extremely rough hands, with calluses all over the back of the hands. It seems to be a little swollen, black and purple...
I have seen similar hands on a classmate's hands. The classmate's father teaches Bajiquan. He has been practicing boxing since he was a child, and he has such calluses on his hands. They are all caused by fighting. In the past, when he fought, he could knock down a strong man with three punches and two kicks. His fists were like hammers. Ordinary three or four people could not get close to him at all.
However, compared with this brother, my classmate is simply a small witch meeting a big witch. His hands are far less scary than this one.
I guess that if this guy punches me in the face, I am afraid that my head will be blown up. It is no different from a human weapon, and it is absolutely inconsistent with his appearance.
Moreover, when shaking hands, I found that there was a circle of calluses in the palm of his hand. Those calluses were very flat and spread all over the palm...
As far as I know, some people who use Luoyang shovel all year round will have such calluses.
This brother is probably a tomb robber, and he is a very skilled one.
I don't rob tombs, but I know about tombs. Most of the big tombs in the world were built by us ritual officials. Even if we don't have the ability to exorcise demons, no one knows the structure and secret passages in the tombs better than us. I have really met some such people before. They would ask me some questions. I have also heard a lot of bizarre things in this industry. Who doesn't have lives on their hands if they can stay in this industry for a long time? To put it bluntly, rich people don't rob tombs. Those who take risks are all poor people who have to pay the price of the kang slabs. But the things that come out of the tombs are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's normal for them to kill people and rob goods when they see the money.
For a while, Brother Yaozi was no different from a big thief in my eyes. After all, I was still a good citizen. I didn't even have the courage to look at him straight in the eye.
While we were talking, the group entered the Zhenwu Temple. Brother Yaozi and my master went into the room to talk about something. I took the opportunity to pull Zhang Xinya to ask about Brother Yaozi.
"I'm not sure either. I haven't seen him for many years..."
Zhang Xinya shook her head and told me some old stories.
This Brother Yaozi is her distant cousin. However, blood relationship is one aspect, and the most important thing is the time spent together.
When Zhang Xinya was young, Brother Yaozi's parents were neighbors with them. Brother Yaozi was four or five years older than Zhang Xinya. Since she was young, she liked to follow Brother Yaozi to play everywhere. The relationship between the two was also very close, like a pair of real siblings.
However, when Zhang Xinya was eight years old, Brother Yaozi's family was killed overnight. As neighbors, they were unaware of it. They woke up early the next morning and found two human skins hanging in front of Brother Yaozi's house. They were half dried by the wind and drifting in the wind. They were Brother Yaozi's parents. They were skinned alive and then cut open and their hearts were dug out. As for Brother Yaozi, he naturally couldn't escape death. His body was still in the house, but his head rolled on the steps in front of the house. It is estimated that when the murderer entered, Brother Yaozi was about to escape and was beheaded by a knife. The blood rushed his head out...
For an eight-year-old girl, you can imagine how horrible this scene is!
Since then, for several consecutive years, Zhang Xinya has almost developed social phobia. Everyone looks like Brother Yaozi. She slowly recovered when she grew up. Now she sees Brother Yaozi again. She really can't calm down. The whole thing is full of fog!
I was terrified, and I thought Brother Yaozi was someone I must not mess with.
I don't know what Zhang Daoxuan and Brother Yaozi talked about. They chatted until late at night before they separated. Zhang Daoxuan was worried about me, and was afraid that the Heavenly Master Blade would hurt me, who had turned into a paper man. He came over to check on me. After confirming that I was fine, he told me that we might have to wait a few more days, and he had an appointment with someone.
This was the first time Zhang Daoxuan told me about his plan.
What's in the Qihe Tomb and the Demon Burial Tomb? Zhang Daoxuan didn't know, but the tomb was indeed very ominous. When we went there together that day, the soil in the tomb was blood-red. In addition, it was originally a brine evil tomb, and the cover soil had changed, indicating that the things inside should have woken up. Then the three small flags he inserted on the tomb were called sky-peeking flags, which were used by Taoists to ask for good or bad luck when casting spells. The three flags were broken in half, which meant that the tomb was very ominous. Then he stabbed the cover soil with a sword to test how heavy the evil spirit in the tomb was. This is also called throwing a stone to test the water. However, there was a bright red liquid flowing out of the tomb. It looked like blood, but it was not blood. Instead, the water in the tomb had undergone some changes under the influence of the evil spirit, accumulated in the gravel soil, and flowed out as soon as it was stabbed, which was undoubtedly the release of evil spirits.
This situation shows that the evil spirit in the tomb has reached an alarming level. It would be fine if Zhang Daoxuan went in alone, but it would not be optimistic if he took me and Zhang Xinya with him. It would be nine out of ten that two of them would be broken. He had no choice but to find some powerful helpers.
Now, once Brother Yaozi arrives, he is 70% sure. When the other person arrives, he will be 80% sure. With some other preparations, he will be 90% sure!
In fact, before meeting my dad, Zhang Daoxuan felt that it was basically 100% sure, but after seeing my dad knew the foundation of the tomb, he lowered his confidence by 10%.
90%...
In the end, there is still a possibility of compromise. Zhang Daoxuan is so dangerous.
"The other person should be here soon, so you should be patient."
In the end, Zhang Daoxuan told me: "You should stay in the Zhenwu Temple honestly these days and don't make trouble out of nothing."
After that, he patted my shoulder and left. After that, I didn't see him again for several days. He locked himself in the room, and I didn't know what he was doing, but it must be related to my affairs.
In the next few days, I followed Zhang Daoxuan's instructions and almost never left the house. I stayed in the side room every day to read the handwritten notes and "Ten Thousand Burial Scriptures" left by my ancestors. When I read these things again at this time, my mentality changed completely. I was no longer like before, I read them very carefully, and I regarded them as a last-minute cram. I would cram as much as I could. I had a hunch that this time I would really be in danger of death. Reading more might save my life at a critical moment!
It's a matter of life and death, who can not be serious?
In the blink of an eye, seven or eight days passed, and Zhang Daoxuan still stayed indoors. Brother Yaozi would practice boxing in the woods outside the Taoist temple every day. Once, when he finished practicing, I secretly ran to take a look. He punched the tree and left a big hole. The marks of his knuckles were clearly visible. I was so cold that I didn't dare to provoke him, and I didn't even dare to take the initiative to talk to him.
On the eleventh day, a smiling middle-aged man came to the Zhenwu Temple.
This man was of medium build, wearing a Tang suit, with his hair slicked back, a white face and no beard. He always had a smile on his face, and his temperament was very elegant. He was very similar to those Confucian scholars in ancient times. His style was also very free and easy, and he came in without being invited.
At that time, Zhang Xinya and I were all in the yard. When Brother Yaozi saw this middle-aged man, he immediately stood up and stared at him for a long time. It seemed calm, but there was a gleam in his eyes.
When I saw this posture, I knew in my heart that these two might not get along.
"Old Bai?"
After a long while, Brother Yaozi spoke first, frowning and saying, "The person my uncle was talking about is you?"
The middle-aged man ignored Brother Yaozi and walked towards me. He had a smile on his face, but his walking posture was a bit weird. He scratched his neck and back from time to time, as if he had lice on his body. He opened his mouth and asked me, "You should be the kid named Wei that Zhang Daoxuan mentioned? I am your Master Bai, I am here to help you. Let's not talk nonsense. Where can I take a shower here?"
It would be fine if he didn't speak, but when he spoke, it ruined his temperament a bit.
I looked strange, but after all, this was an expert invited by Zhang Daoxuan, so I couldn't make random guesses. I said, "I'm sorry, the conditions in the mountains are limited, and there is really no place to take a bath. We all make do in a small river not far from here."
"What are you going to do?"
Brother Yaozi was not polite and directly said, "Do you have lice?"
"What do you mean by lice?"
The middle-aged man said unhappily, "I was doing business in the Miao village. I rushed here after receiving Zhang Daoxuan's letter. I kept going all the way. I thought that if I took a bath in Taiyuan, I would have a good image to meet this little brother named Wei. As a result... I was so unlucky!
Have you ever seen a guy who scrubs his body without wearing underwear? I happened to run into such a guy. I was lying there, and he stood in front of my head and scrubbed my back. The basket...banged on my forehead. I said, "My hair is newly cut, don't you feel uncomfortable?" As soon as I raised my head, the guy almost swung it into my mouth. I managed to dodge it, and he slapped me on the face. I fell to the ground with a slap. I didn't care about the dirty bath. I put on my clothes and walked over. Now, the mud on my body is all soaked up, and my body is itchy..."
Then, there was another series of Chinese curses, all of which were different.
It would be better if this gentleman didn't open his mouth, but his image was completely ruined when he opened his mouth!
"Shut up your stinky mouth."
Brother Yaozi turned his head away. He looked like an honest man, but he also looked disgusted at the moment: "When you open your mouth, it's worse than diarrhea..."
The middle-aged man was also angry. The two seemed to be born with conflict. Just as they were about to fight, the door of Zhang Daoxuan's room opened with a "creak".
"It seems that the southern civil and northern martial arts have gathered together."
Zhang Daoxuan stood at the door, nodded and smiled, waved at Brother Yaozi and the middle-aged man, and said: "Come, I just want to discuss something with you."
The two looked at each other and immediately kept silent. They seemed to be particularly convinced by Zhang Daoxuan. They glared at each other and immediately walked over there.
"Jingzhe, you and Xinya should also go and prepare!"
Zhang Daoxuan instructed: "Pack up your things, we will set off tomorrow and go to the tomb to see what is bothering you!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the door slammed shut.
Zhang Xinya and I looked at each other, and our expressions were very interesting.
A bandit, a seemingly elegant but actually a big idiot.
Are these two helpers...really reliable?
I am even more worried about my future...