Thinking of this, Guan Heng said to Tian Lin again: "My great guide, the road ahead has been blocked. How we continue to change the route depends entirely on you."
"Well, let me take a look at the map first." Tian Lin hooked her fingers at Rong Xuan's corpse horse, and he immediately ran over to please him. She reached out and took out the animal skin map scroll hanging on him.
Then expand.
"Well..." After a while, Tian Lin raised her head and said: "There are very few inhabited villages nearby. If you walk more than ten miles to the northeast, you can pass by a place called 'Jackdaw Village'. We can start from there.
If we change the route, the journey to Cabinet Mountain will only take about half a day longer."
"That's it, the next destination is Jackdaw Village." After hearing Guan Heng's words, everyone cheered in unison and moved forward.
…
At the same time, in a mountain forest near Jackdaw Village, a woodcutter was walking on a forest path carrying a load of firewood. He thought to himself: "I don't know why, I always feel like there is something following behind me."
, although monsters rarely appear here, but it’s better to go home quickly.”
But at the next moment, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew behind the woodcutter, and he couldn't help but shiver: "It's so cold..." As soon as these two words were uttered, the man fell down, his whole body covered with blood.
, even the scattered firewood piles were covered with a layer of blue frost.
"Crack...crack..." The blue frost layer on the woodcutter's body suddenly cracked and shattered, falling to the ground and splashing dazzling ice flowers. He also stood up slowly and picked up the firewood on the ground with dull eyes.
He walked slowly towards the Jackdaw Village outside the woods.
…
Time flew by so fast, it was almost dusk in the blink of an eye. After Guan Heng and the others arrived at Jackdaw Village, they knocked on the doors of several houses. However, when the other parties saw the appearance of the ghost-eating tiger and its corpses, they all opened their doors.
It was closed tightly and no one was allowed to stay overnight.
"Oh, it's all because of you two guys." Guan Heng scratched his head and said, "It seems that we have a good chance to stay in the wilderness today."
"Ouch--" The Ghost Swallowing Tiger and the Corpse Horse cried out in unison, their voices full of grievances.
"Actually, there's nothing wrong with sleeping in the wild." Agou said sarcastically next to him: "For travelers like us, isn't that a common occurrence?"
"Brother Agou, we were forced to stay in the wild for the night because we didn't find a place to stay in the village before." Tian Lin looked at the smoke rising from all over the village and muttered: "But now it is obvious that there are
I have the opportunity to raise the bed, warm the pillow, and eat some hot food, but I can’t see or touch it.”
"Pfft..." Hearing this, Guan Heng almost laughed out loud: "Girl, you have become more and more squeamish and sentimental recently."
"How can I?" Tian Lin was about to argue a few more words when a trembling old woman suddenly walked up not far ahead. She was walking hard with a cane, but she also carried a large bamboo basket in her arm.
There were so many things that the old woman's waist was bent.
"Oh, mother-in-law, your things are too heavy, let me help you." As soon as these words were spoken, Tian Lin immediately ran to the old woman and carried the bamboo basket. The other woman immediately smiled with wrinkles on her face: "Thank you.
, little girl.”
Tian Lin, sweet-tongued and hard-working, helped the old woman carry the bamboo basket to her house, and everyone followed her without saying a word.
"Oh, it turns out that you are foreign guests and you are looking for a place to stay now?" After hearing Tian Lin telling the situation in a few words at the door of her house, the old woman said without hesitation: "Then you can stay at my house tonight. I have two people at home.
There is only one empty room for me and my son, so everyone can stay overnight."
Tian Lin was overjoyed to hear this, but she still asked in a low voice: "Mother-in-law, aren't you afraid that the guys around us will scare you and your eldest brother? The other villagers look very nervous."
"Well, they are not afraid of monsters." The old woman, Granny Chen, looked around and then said, "What everyone is afraid of is the monsters that appear at night."
"What kind of monster?!" Seeing the shocked expressions on Guan Heng's and others' faces, Granny Chen quickly said: "It's not appropriate to say this at the gate. It will cause misunderstanding among the villagers. Everyone, please come into the house with me."
Arriving at Grandma Chen's house, the ghost-eating tiger, mountain hawk, snake-like bird, corpse horse, and dark red horse were all placed in separate rooms.
Guan Heng strictly ordered them not to cause trouble, just eat whatever they wanted, huddle together and sleep with their heads covered, and they must not cause any trouble to Granny Chen's family.
At this moment, Granny Chen led others into the big house. According to her, her son Chen Zheng, as a woodcutter, often leaves early and comes back late. Usually, she doesn’t even have anyone to talk to at home, and the house seems deserted.
, it’s just a good time for everyone to come today, and you can relieve your loneliness a little bit.
After everyone chatted for a while, Tian Lin became curious and turned the topic to the "monster" mentioned by the old woman just now. She blurted out and asked: "Mother-in-law, what is that monster? Tell me."
"Okay, anyway, my old lady has lived for most of her life and has seen a lot. She has no scruples. It's not like those people in the village who are afraid of things."
Grandma Chen sighed and said: "Well, speaking of it, it was also a legacy of the evil deeds committed by the people in the village in the past, but everyone had no choice but to do this. It was six or seventy years ago, right?
…”
According to Granny Chen, Jackdaw Village experienced a severe plague and famine more than sixty years ago. Almost no food crops were harvested. All the birds and animals in the mountains had long since disappeared, and even tree bark and
Everyone has eaten nothing like grass seeds and the like.
That year, a total of more than a dozen babies were born in the households of Jackdaw Village villagers. But if the adults didn't have enough to eat, how could they raise the children?
In the end, everyone was cruel and put the dolls into bamboo baskets and threw them into the mountains. When everyone left, they heard the children crying in the bamboo baskets. The sound was extremely miserable.
When Guan Heng and others heard this, they all had a look of unbearable expression on their faces. When they thought of those people who had no choice but to grit their teeth and abandon their own flesh and blood when faced with the choice of life and death, they shook their heads involuntarily.
At this time, Granny Chen continued: "After abandoning those dolls, somehow, the fields in Jackdaw Village got a bumper harvest the next year, with countless grain harvests. Everyone laughed for a whole year, but in late autumn
, weird and weird things happened.”
Every night, sad howls began to sound in the village. At first, some brave people went out to look, but they were hit in the head by a dark strange shadow like lightning, and fell unconscious. Family members went to help them.
When they arrived, they felt that their bodies were frozen.