"When your consciousness leaves the body, your soul will enter another dimension of the world, where you can observe the world from a critical perspective like a bystander."
"I saw the process, the life process of all the people around me."
"You can understand that when making a movie, the script is written in advance, and everyone is following the process of this script. Our lives are imprisoned in such a script."
"I didn't believe it at first, thinking it was a hallucination I had before I died."
"But later I discovered that what I saw in the sacrifice was real."
"I have tried to change this process many times. It stands to reason that according to the butterfly effect, even if I move a little bit to disrupt this trajectory, the butterfly wings will change the subsequent series of events."
"But the truth is not that simple." Zhang Zhuxun's face gradually became serious, "It's useless, I found it's useless."
"Every time I mess up a certain plot point, in the subsequent development, there will be an invisible hand controlling everything, and the points that were originally disturbed by me will return to the original track unknowingly.
On, I temporarily call this power 'it'."
"In my speculation, this 'it' has many similarities with the 'it' mentioned by Chen Wenjin, and 'it' may be related to the bronze door on the snow mountain."
"After coming out of Yunding Heavenly Palace, I have been trying to find the power that monitors me. Later in Snake Swamp, I caught the existence of a puppet suspected of being 'it', but that puppet was very weak. He was just a monitor. What was really behind the scenes?
The 'it' that controls these has never shown its face from beginning to end."
"Combining what Chen Wenjin said in Snake Marsh and some things I found out later, I deduced that the biggest puppet controlled by 'it' is a deeply hidden force. This force has subordinates all over the country. Now
The Nine Gates have been completely penetrated by this power."
"That is the tenth family hidden behind the Nine Gates. The biggest tomb robbery at the time, the accident to the archaeological team of the Undersea Tomb, An Ning's death, Chen Wenjin and the others eventually became the failure of the experiment, they were all behind this series of events
hands and feet."
"The funeral was not their ultimate goal. They just wanted to find out the secret of the Zhang family's ancient building through the funeral."
"This is the same force that has been using Huo Ling's information to coerce Huo Xiangu. I had expected that Huo Xiangu would come to us for cooperation after knowing the identity of the younger brother."
"I wanted to know the ending of everything, so in the half month after I disappeared from the snake swamp, I went to the Qinling Mountains again, planning to sacrifice again. As I wished, I knew the ending, but the ending was not good.
”
"The Nine Gates, which are already declining, will accelerate their demise because of this ending. This is one of the reasons why 'it' prevents me from changing the trajectory."
"In order to change that ending, I need to use the power of 'it'. I can feel that this power has been mixed into the Huo family's team, but I can't determine which person it is, or a group of people."p>
"So I left these two videos in advance. If the plan goes well, I may be able to escape unscathed. If it doesn't go well, then I will pay the price for my actions."
"I can't guess what my final outcome will be, and it probably won't be much better."
"If I really die in the ancient building of the Zhang family, this ending is actually not very unacceptable. After all, the ancient building is destined to be my destination."
Zhang Zhuoxun smiled with relief, and finally looked through the camera at the position where the younger brother was standing, "Zhang Qiling, when you come back, if you can find my remains, help me get a mound and pick a better one.
Let’s hang it somewhere.”
"Hey, I've prepared the box in advance." Zhang Zhuxun shook the white wood carved box in his hand, padded it with a layer of white velvet, then took out a thick stack of letter paper from the drawer and put it into the box.
Put it away.
"There are still some clues and follow-up plans here. I wrote them all in encrypted text on the stationery, but Wu Xie, you can definitely solve them."
"Also, I have prepared the wedding gifts for Fatty and Pan Zi in advance. They are in the safe in my house. There are also some of my shares and property in document bags. When the time comes, you will just
It needs to be distributed according to my will, just sign it."
"Finally... hold a funeral for me, right on this mountain, hang more paper lanterns, white ones, and treat it as... a final farewell."
"I have never left a last word before. The process is a bit unfamiliar, so I apologize." Zhang Zhuoxun smiled as if he was sighing, "Farewell is too unpleasant, so just say goodbye."
"Brother, naive, fat man——"
"Goodbye——"
The video playback ends and the screen gradually fades into darkness.
No one spoke, they were all extremely uncomfortable.
The fat man squatted on the ground, covering his face and crying.
Listening to the fat man's wails, Wu Xiaoxie felt that he could no longer stand. He felt that the entire space he was in was spinning. The long-lost dizziness came over him, as did the sadness that he had deliberately suppressed in the past few days.
They rushed forward like a dam bursting, and his hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
I don't know if he was extremely sad, but he found that he couldn't cry anymore.
"How could this happen..." Wu Xiaoxie's legs went weak and he retreated uncontrollably. Someone helped him from behind. He slowly turned his head and his dull eyes focused, "Brother, the wooden fish is dead.
, Muyu is really dead..."
The little brother looked at him quietly, and Wu Xiaoxie could not see any emotion in his dark pupils.
"Zhang Qiling! Muyu is dead!" Wu Xiaoxie shouted uncontrollably, "Did you hear that? He is dead! He will never come back!"
But the little brother let go of the hand holding him, turned around and walked out of the tent. He walked very fast, like a gust of wind, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
With a plop, Wu Xiaoxie could no longer hold on and sat on the ground, leaning against the table leg and hugging his head tightly.
Jie Yuchen was on the side, silently watching the two people who were in collapse. He could understand their emotions, but he could not empathize with them. In this case, any comfort was in vain.
He turned around and walked out of the tent, glanced at the direction his brother had left, and whispered to his men to guard the place while he went to deal with other matters.
The little brother walked aimlessly. He didn't know where he was going. He just didn't want to stay in that oppressive and suffocating space.
Unknowingly, he walked to the back mountain, where there was a tree, an old pine tree.
There were three mats made of grass leaves placed under the tree. The heavy rain did not wash them away. Perhaps the huge tree crown protected them.
Two Orion dogs ran over and circled around the little brother's legs. Seeing that the little brother ignored them, they ran under the tree and covered the three wet grass mats.
I picked up the place where the sun was shining, and then lay down comfortably beside it and fell asleep.
The little brother watched quietly for a long time, then raised his head to look at the tree crown above, only to find that there were only three red string signs hanging on the branches above the straw mat.
Where is the other one?
He was a little anxious, so he immediately climbed up the tree and looked for it carefully.
It was almost dark until the sunset hung between the two mountains. The afterglow shone slantingly. Most of the crowns of the pine trees were immersed in a warm yellow halo. The light passed through the gaps between the needles among the treetops and filtered through the evening fog.
, fell on the ground, forming small golden spots one after another. When the breeze blew, the spots danced playfully.
Looking from a distance, the whole tree seems to be enveloped in a Buddha's light.
When Wu Xiaoxie and the two came over, they saw the little brother's figure sitting in the foggy Buddha halo. The light was shining from the opposite side, so they couldn't see the expression on the little brother's face clearly.
The two walked under the canopy of the tree, and the rustling sound of stepping on dry needles woke the younger brother up.
Seeing the two people under the tree, the younger brother was silent, holding something tightly in his hand. He slowly stood up on the branch, reached out and took down the other three small red rope signs hanging on it.
Before Wu Xiaoxie and the two of them came back to their senses, the younger brother was already standing in front of them.
After a long silence, the younger brother suddenly handed a small sign to Wu Xiaoxie.
Wu Xiaoxie took it and saw a line of words engraved on it.
——Time is clear and shallow, one step at a time is safe, and every year is evergreen.
There was a trance in his mind, and he seemed to see that on a scorching afternoon, the fat man was hiding behind a tree and talking on the phone with a sweet face, while Muyu and the little brother were sitting under the tree to enjoy the coolness.
The little brother was holding a big bowl of mung bean soup in his hand, as if he was in a daze, and seemed to be looking at the small sawdust falling from the wooden fish's hand like gold powder.
The breeze blew by, and tiny spots of light jumped into the little brother's eyes. His eyes were clear and peaceful.
I don't know when I came back to my senses. Occasionally, one or two dogs barked in the distance. A gentle mist lingered in the mountain nest. The green distant mountains looked like shadows in the mist, and there were crows returning late at the top of the mountains.
There were flutters on the treetops, and the cries carried far away.
The moonlight is hazy and the light rain is lingering.
The little brother still had three small cards in his hand. He returned the fat man's one to him, stared at the remaining two, straightened out the tassels hanging below, and then put them in his pocket.
The fat man took a deep breath and said softly: "It's raining again. Let's go back. We have to fold lanterns for the wooden fish and send him on his last journey."
﹉﹉﹉﹉
In the tent, Xie Yuchen specially arranged for people to hang warm-colored lights.
Wu Xiaoxie and the others stayed up all night, cutting out soft bamboo strips from moso bamboo cut in the rain, overlapping them and weaving them into small bamboo lanterns as big as basketballs. Finally, they covered the surface with rice paper, which was warm white.
To be continued...