Chapter 23: I only ask you to come, not to leave
Chapter 23: I only ask you to come, not to leave
At noon, dense water vapor settled in the sky above the basin, obscuring the scorching sun and turning into drizzle that drifted down.
When people have something to do, they always feel that time passes quickly. Braving the fine rain, Ning Zhe glanced at the time. It was already 11:49 in the afternoon, almost time for lunch.
He could no longer remember how many offerings he had eaten from countless families to the snake god. His stomach, which had been filled with food, no longer felt bloated and painful, as if everything he had eaten before had never existed.
"It's almost time." Ning Zhe put the phone back into his pocket, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
This was all he could do. Soon, the villagers of Hejia Village would begin preparing lunch. Whether his attempt to crack the rules of Hejia Village would make progress depended on the next few dozen decisive minutes.
"Let's go back to the ancestral hall." Ning Zhe took the silent Feng Yusu through the busy streets and alleys and walked towards the ancestral hall together.
If Hejia Village is deserted at night, giving people a feeling of loneliness and dead silence, then Hejia Village is completely the opposite during the day. Walking on the bluestone-paved streets, Ning Zhe can see every shop open and lit up to do business, selling everything from Chinese medicinal materials to children's toys, from hawkers pushing carts selling vegetables to taverns with constant shouting. The whole village is filled with the bustling crowd.
But this lively scene could not dispel the worries and fears in Feng Yusu's heart, because the faces of the people walking on the street, whether male or female, tall or short, fat or thin, were all covered with a square piece of dry and old yellow paper, and no expression or facial features could be seen.
The contents written on the papers on each person's face are different, but the common point is that they are all people's names, and all start with the word "He".
Everyone in Hejia Village pasted their names on their faces with a piece of yellow paper and lived their lives as usual while covering their eyes, ears, mouths and noses.
These people whose facial features cannot be seen move very slowly, and their joints turn slowly and sluggishly, looking like old cars that have not been repaired, running on the street, looking back every three steps, imitating the bustling scene that used to be here. The more normal their life scenes look, the more they give people an inexplicable and weird feeling.
This feeling is not fatal, but it makes people feel very uncomfortable and depressed, as if something is about to come at any time, but never comes.
Fine raindrops as thin as cow hair fell obliquely, and the two returned to the ancestral hall in the rain.
Feng Yusu stood at the door and looked inside. The ancestral hall was still the same ancestral hall, and the snake god was still the same snake god, but it seemed that something was different.
"Did you see it?" Ning Zhe asked softly.
"What did you see?" Feng Yusu was puzzled.
"Snake God." Ning Zhe gently brushed off the raindrops on his shoulders, walked into the ancestral hall, and looked up at the snake god on the lotus platform: "The snake god looks different from before."
Feng Yuxu took a closer look and found that the snake god in front of him was indeed different from the previous one: the corruption and decay on its body became more obvious, a thick layer of mildew had accumulated at the roots of its scales, and milky white mycelium was growing wildly... It was like an old man who was terminally ill, with only one last breath left that he had not swallowed.
"The snake god's illness has become more serious." Feng Yushu looked at Ning Zhe and whispered, "Is it because of you...?"
"Who knows?" Ning Zhe spread his hands, leaned his shoulder lazily on the pillar on the left side of the Snake God, and looked down at the time displayed on the mobile phone screen.
He could feel that the decisive moment was approaching.
The wait for results after completing a task is always the longest, just like the score settlement after a game is already very fast, but players always hope it can be faster and faster.
I don't know how long the silence lasted, until wisps of smoke began to drift out from the houses in Hejia Village.
Ning Zhe knew that 'something' had happened.
He raised his head as if possessed by a ghost, and looked at the statue of the snake god on the lotus platform. His figure was still flying, and seemed to be no different from a few minutes ago. But when Ning Zhe looked carefully, he found something strange: the snake god's right eye was also blind.
In just a few minutes, the right eye of the wooden sculpture of the snake god was filled with milky white mycelium, and he was completely blinded.
"Success...?"
As soon as this thought came to his mind, Ning Zhe's eyes turned black and he lost all perception of the world around him without warning.
He felt a darkness as thick as ink enveloping his brain, without a trace of visible light. He had too many words to describe this darkness: vast, big, deep, boundless, magnificent... but each of these words was so inaccurate.
In the deep and silent darkness, Ning Zhe heard a strange sound.
The floating sound was as gentle as the sound of the wind coming from afar, or like the rain falling outside the ancestral hall. Every raindrop was a clear word.
If the villagers who had gathered together to worship the snake god before had recited a bunch of complicated sacrificial words with strange accents and unclear meanings, then the voice that sounded in Ning Zhe's mind at this moment was more like a famous actor with a clear figure, humming a song for his beloved with a low voice. The tune was gentle and melodious, and it conveyed a faint sense of sorrow:
【I miss you so much, and sigh with tears in my eyes. 】
【I miss you so much, and the window is full of fog. 】
[I miss you so much, and the room is full of flowers. 】
The faint humming sound floats into the ears, making one's eyes blurry.
In the misty clouds, Ning Zhe vaguely saw an open window. There was a misty drizzle outside the window, and a charming girl was sitting inside the window.
She was wearing a loose red dress, but it couldn't hide her curvy figure. She was leaning lazily against the window, looking at the misty drizzle outside. Her hands, as white as cream, were even more fair than the jade bracelets on her wrists. Her face, with no visible features, was as pale as snow, with a faint dot of red plum blossoms dotted on the snow. It was her delicate and tempting lips, which contained a hint of resentment.
Her bright red lips opened and closed slightly as she hummed a gentle tune of resentment, like a bullied young wife curled up in her husband's arms and acting coquettishly. Her rosy little mouth told of her resentment, but between her eyebrows there was only tenderness as clear as water.
【I only ask about your coming, not your leaving. 】
[But for your sake, I don’t hear your sorrow…]
That gentle gaze fell on Ning Zhe, making him shudder.
I am a person without any facial features, so why are my eyes fixed on me so clearly?
Ning Zhe woke up from the hallucination with cold sweat on his forehead. In front of him was the dilapidated ancestral hall. On the lotus platform was enshrined a terminally ill snake god. Feng Yusu was squatting beside him with a worried look on his face, holding his shoulders nervously.
"Ningzhe, what's wrong with you?"
"I..." Ning Zhe closed his eyes and rubbed his temples: "I seemed to have seen something just now? Or someone? I'm sure I saw it, but I forgot... I can't remember it.
Ning Zhe, who had just woken up, was still conscious. He felt that he had received very important information, but he could not remember the content of the information. Only a sad song was still echoing in his mind, which was as gentle as water, gentle but deadly:
【I only ask about your coming, not your leaving. 】
[But for your sake, I don’t hear your sorrow…]
(End of this chapter)