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Hearing Chu Haoman's words, Yu Yong couldn't help showing a strong mocking expression on his face, "Save others? Not to mention you are trapped in this mutation, how can you rescue others?

I have never heard of the thing about killing people before saving them. "

"."

Hearing this, Chu Haoman shook his head and smiled helplessly, and said, "If it's possible, I don't want to do it either.

Nearly two months ago, accompanied by two guards, I went to the west of Bingzhou to conduct an investigation in search of gold and stone cultural relics.

I visited nearby villages, listened to the old legends told by the villagers, and learned about the existence of Qishui Village and the special folk customs of Qishui Village. . "

Chu Haoman paused for a moment, then said: "Same as your experience, I also saw thick fog all over the mountains and plains, and villagers acting suspiciously.

Two of my guards were accidentally killed by villagers at night,

But I myself survived by hiding in Tibet, and went into the village to collect information during the day when the villagers did not turn into ghosts. "

He took out a few pieces of paper from his arms, which had the same oracle bone rubbings as Li Ang's, "I found some oracle bones in the rock formations around the village. I can't get rid of the relationship.

The jar is an ancient ritual vessel and cooking utensil, and judging from the description in oracle bone inscriptions, this jar is clearly a tool used by merchants to abuse captives and slaves, and to please ghosts and gods.

Before being lost in Qishui Col, I don't know how many cruel deaths I have witnessed. "

Chu Haoman shook his head and said: "According to my speculation, it is possible that this jar has absorbed the resentment of too many slaves before death and has become an alienated object.

It is possible that the businessman used a special casting technique to make the jar become an alienated object the moment the casting was successful.

In short, it has some special ability,

After the demise of the Shang Dynasty, it was lost here and sank into the lake. No one knew about it until the former Sui Dynasty, when a group of refugees appeared. "

Ji Xingwang frowned and said, "The ancestors of Qishui Village?"

"Exactly."

Chu Haoman nodded and said: "According to the legend of Qishui Village, it was a young man who jumped into the lake on his own initiative, caught hard-to-catch black fish for others, and saved all the refugees. In memory of him, people erected statues for him, Make him a god.

But that's weird isn't it?

Everyone knows the state of the refugees who have left their homes. They are so hungry that their chests stick to their backs. How can they have the strength to jump into the icy lake and catch black fish that can feed hundreds of people?

What's more, if that young man has a high status, why is his name or the names of his family members not listed in the genealogy?

Could it be that he is really so selfless that he is still willing to sacrifice his life for others when the whole family is left with only himself? "

Guan Anyan opened her mouth when she heard the words. Although Luli Academy taught Confucianism and persuaded her disciples to follow the way of benevolence and righteousness, she also knew how difficult it is to practice morality once a person is extremely hungry.

"To speculate with the worst malice, that young man may not have died voluntarily, but was forced to sacrifice."

Chu Haoman said: "I spent a while looking for other clues in the village.

Such as genealogy, statues, graves, and this tunnel.

Behind the stone gate at the end of the tunnel, I saw the zi sunk in the rock formation.

The upper part of the zi is soaked in the water of Qishui Lake.

The lower part of the zi, that is, the four tall legs, penetrates the bottom of the lake and stands in the tunnel.

The ancestors of Qishui Village probably learned how to use this alienated jar without a teacher - using people's resentment and hatred as fuel and corpses as firewood. "

Chu Haoman's way of describing it was rather obscure, and Yu Shusheng frowned, faintly feeling that he had guessed something.

Li Ang narrowed his eyes slightly, and said, "Have the corpses that disappeared in the coffins on the cemetery been used as fuel?"

He paused, and explained to Yu Shusheng and others who were puzzled: "Do you still remember the picture we saw on the graveyard?

In the 80 years since the establishment of Qishui Village, there were no corpses in all the coffins.

In the 100 years after the establishment of the village 80 years ago, all the coffins contained corpses.

If I'm not mistaken, during the eighty years since the establishment of the village, the villagers of Qishui Village have been using their own corpses as fuel to continuously ignite and heat the bronze vessel at the end of the tunnel.

The function is to let the steamer produce a steady stream of black fish. "

Li Ang thought of the picture he saw at the bottom of the lake before, black mist was continuously emitting from the hole on the top of the bronze vessel,

The smoke lingers in the water,

As it slowly rises in the lake, it gradually turns into the shape of a fish, and when it reaches the middle layer of the lake, it has completely turned into a black fish.

"In the early days, black fish was an important food source for Qishui Village, but after the disaster situation improved, black fish became a commodity that Qishui Village relied on for survival.

Relying on the sale of black fish, Qishui Village can get rich in the deep mountains. "

Li Ang said: "In order to maintain this kind of life, all the villagers in Qishui Village, or some villagers, reached a consensus in private.

Every household continued to offer bronze jars.

Later, the sale of black fish brought considerable wealth to Qishui Village, and they no longer needed to use the corpses of themselves and their family members as heating fuel.

You can directly spend money to hire outsiders to bring back corpses from afar. "

"I see."

Yu Shusheng's eyes lit up, and he immediately said, "That weird genealogy book makes sense.

Eighty years before the establishment of the village, even babies who died prematurely would be recorded in the family tree.

It's not out of caring grief, but out of guilt. "

"Exactly."

Chu Haoman nodded and said: "The last and most critical issue is the connection between Qishui God and Empress Qihuai.

Remember the description of the Water God?

After people eat the fish in Qishui Lake, there is a certain probability that they can see the face of the young man who later became the God of Qishui in their dreams.

As a ritual vessel, Zong consists of three parts: zeng, grate, and gao.

The heat of the fuel passes through the retort to form steam, which passes through the grate to heat the food in the retort.

And as the alienated substance, the zi,

Using corpses as firewood and resentment as fuel, eventually forming a black fish.

Those who eat black fish can see the face of a young man, precisely because the black fish itself is the product of that young man's resentment.

In other words, in the 180 years since the establishment of Qishui Village, the villagers of Qishui have been abusing and torturing that young man for their own profit. "

"."

Yu Shusheng was dumbfounded, and it took him a while to realize, "Wait a minute, you mean that the Qishui God has been imprisoned in the alienated jar and tortured for 180 years?"

"It's not surprising, the alienated object with the highest level possesses all sorts of strange abilities.

What static time, such as Wang Zhi watching chess while logging in the Jin Dynasty, flashed for a hundred years.

Create illusions, such as Huangliang Yimeng. "

Ji Xingwang still looked directly at Chu Haoman, and said slowly, "So, it doesn't matter whether the Qishui God sacrificed himself voluntarily or was forced to sacrifice,

He's still in the alienated jar? "

"No, he should have been freed."

Li Ang said: "According to Yu Shusheng, at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Bingzhou fell into famine due to a long-term drought, and it was the rain of fish from the sky that saved the lives of the people in Bingzhou County.

In order to commemorate the gods, the people of Bingzhou established the Qihuai Empress Temple.

This is quite strange, they did not go to worship the Dragon King Temple, but created a god by themselves. And the image of the god is the same as the hallucination I saw after eating the black fish. "

He paused for a moment and said: "There is only one explanation, the rain of fish that saved the people of Bingzhou at that time actually came from the Qishui Lake, so it has the same characteristics as the Qishui black fish.

And the reason why it is the female Empress Qihuai, rather than the male water god,

It was because of an accident during the demise of Qishui Village in the late Sui Dynasty—the male Qishui God became the female Qihuai Empress. "

"From male to female?"

Yu Yong subconsciously blurted out, "How is this possible? According to Chu Haoman, hasn't the water-dwelling god been imprisoned in the alienated jar?"

The words stopped abruptly, and Yu Yong suddenly realized the problem, "Wait, it's not that the gender of the god itself has changed, but the victim in the jar has changed."

"correct."

Chu Haoman took a deep breath, and said: "It is precisely because the victim who was abused and resented in the scorpion has changed, so the hallucinatory image produced by the black fish will change from the water-dwelling god to the Qihuai empress."

"And the hallucination of Empress Qihuai I saw after eating the black fish provided by Zhuo Wenbai's family also proved a point."

Li Ang said: "Niang Qihuai has long replaced the God of Qishui.

At this moment, Qishuiao, Qishui Village and the villagers in the village do not really exist, but just some kind of illusion.

If I'm not mistaken, tonight is the time period in history when Qishui Village is destined to become extinct, and they will appear soon. "

"who are they."

Before Yu Shusheng could finish his question, flickering lights and footsteps came from the tunnel in the distance.

A group of Qishui villagers appeared, dressed in costumes during the ceremony, escorting a woman who was firmly tied up and her face was wrapped in cloth. In the escort team, Guan Anyan also saw two familiar figures - Zhuo Wenbai and his wife.

Unlike other expressionless villagers, Zhuo Wenbo and his wife grabbed the arms being escorted, with sad expressions on their faces.

After seeing Li Ang and the others, this group of people seemed extremely shocked and confused. Just as they were about to ask aloud, Wang Linian, a monk of the Wang family in Taiyuan, swung out his sword. The sword energy spanned a long distance and chopped at the top of the tunnel. .

Boom!

The gravel fell from the top of the tunnel and hit the front of the group of villagers, separating the two sides.

"What are you doing?"

Yu Yong said angrily, "That group of people"

"That group of people is just a part of the illusion that makes up the illusion, and it doesn't matter."

Wang Li Nian calmly said: "Have you not understood yet? All this has happened in history. No matter what we do, things will not change.

Tonight, the victim in the cage is destined to be replaced. "

"Zhuolu."

Guan Anyan suddenly realized something, and murmured: "When Zhuo Wenbai invited us to his house, he mentioned to his wife that their daughter was playing with companions in the ancestral hall and did not come back at night.

The figure who was escorted just now was her.

She should have accidentally discovered the tunnel while playing in the ancestral hall and found this place."

"And after she found out the truth, out of sympathy, or possibly being induced, she released the water god who was originally trapped in the jar, which led to the failure of the celebration."

Li Ang said softly: "Without victims in the jar, naturally there would be no continuous stream of black fish, and it would be impossible for Qishui Village to maintain its prosperity.

In order to ensure long-term prosperity, the group of Qishui villagers, as well as Zhuo Lu's parents, decided to seal her in a jar. Make her the next victim. Continue to maintain the cycle. "

"That's right."

Chu Haoman sighed, "It's possible that Qishui God's resentment was too strong after he was released.

It is also possible that the betrayal of her parents made Zhuo Lu extremely desperate and angry,

In short, not long after she was sealed in the jar, the situation completely got out of control.

The continuous stream of grievances gushing out of the scorpion directly destroyed Qishui Village, pulling all the villagers into this paradoxical and never-ending illusion, repeating what happened during this period over and over again. "

"repeatedly."

Yu Shusheng pursed his lips, stared at Chu Haoman and said, "How many times have you been here?"

"A total of twenty-five times."

Chu Haoman sighed: "At the beginning, I also wanted to save Zhuo Lu and end the endless tragedy. But how could I change what happened in the past?

No matter what I do, Zhuo Lu will enter the jar, generate strong resentment, and destroy Qishui Village.

According to the classification of the school, this can be classified as a first-level mutation.

Even the aftermath can impact all parts of Taiyuan County - in history, the fish rain that accidentally saved Bingzhou was a by-product of the explosion of resentment in Qishui Lake.

It was Zhuo Lu's resentment that formed those countless fishes that fell from the sky,

And after eating those fish, the people of Bingzhou who 'seeed' the outstanding face mistook her for some kind of god, and erected the Qihuai Niangniang Temple for her, offering incense to her. "

".I see."

Ji Xingwang was silent for a long time, then slowly said: "And the reason why you don't want us to come here"

"Three hundred years have passed since the end of the Sui Dynasty when Zhuo Lu was sealed,"

Chu Haoman said bitterly: "Not long after she was sealed in the jar, the resentment she generated was enough to destroy Qishui Village, causing the villagers of Qishui Village who killed her to be tortured by reincarnation, turning them into people who are neither human nor ghost.

Only her parents, who are a little special, can retain a certain amount of sanity—maybe Zhuo Lu still has some kind of affection for them.

But now three hundred years have passed, and the three hundred years of reincarnation have accumulated a lot of hatred in the jar, plus the resentment contained in the bronze ware itself, which has been passed down from the Shang Dynasty to the present,

Once it is detonated again, it will not be as simple as destroying Qishui'ao.

Bingzhou, Taiyuan County, and even the entire Hedong Road are in danger. "

Ji Xingwang was silent for a long time, then turned to look at Wang Linian, "You attacked us because of this reason."

"To be precise, I only attacked Yu Yuan, Liao Kaifeng, and Yan Yan."

Wang Linian said expressionlessly: "In my estimation, they will put their own lives above the people in Taiyuan County and Hedong Road, which is considered an unstable factor."