twin moon

Chapter 235 No.30 Scene Planning II

In the second year of Zhaoxi, September [-]st.To the west of Cape Lema, at the junction of the deep purple sky and the ink-like sea water, the lights on the three solitary ships are the only warmth in the bitter cold for thousands of miles.

On the Chanying Sea in late autumn, it seems that even the air is frozen, transparent and clear.A young man wrapped in a white fox fur cloak stood at the bow of the boat. As he exhaled, water vapor rolled out from his mouth and nose, condensed into a small white cloud in the air, and then fell on his eyebrows and temples, forming a cloud. A thin layer.

The young Lord Ye looked up at the sky, but he could only see a pair of twin moons behind the dark clouds that were so dim that only their outlines remained.There was no wind in the night, and in his memory, the endless Chanying Sea in front of him seemed to have never been so calm as it is now.Under the reflection of the fire, the sea surface at the bow of the ship had an unnatural glare, as if it were a large piece of black jade polished mirror under the sky, without any flaws.I just don't know whether what is reflected in the mirror is the unknown that few people have visited ahead, or the elusive fate of everyone on board.

Just when the cold and loneliness around him seemed to make time stand still, the hoarse but slightly excited roar of the sailor was suddenly heard from the masthead lookout post hiding in the darkness:
"Snow Mountain, I see Snow Mountain ahead!"

Qi Ziyin's golden pupils, which were slightly narrowed due to the cold, widened again in an instant.On the surface of the sea several miles away, some light gray mist appeared faintly.The mist seems to be alive, tossing and turning in the darkness, and it seems that it deliberately refuses to disperse, blocking the sight of everyone on the ship.

However, on the originally blurred border between the sea and the sky, there is still a dark shadow aiming at the silver edge, which can no longer be hidden—it is the ridgeline dotted with white snow.As the ship gradually approached, it was gradually revealed to everyone like a screen.

"That's the Wuping Mountains. After passing this bay, we will reach the extreme north that ships in this world have ever been to - the border of the ghost state."

Dressed in purple, he also came to the deck at some point, and murmured.The silver ornaments with Dongli charm on her head gently rubbed together in the cold wind, and the bells rang.

Qi Ziyin didn't look back, nor did he show any relaxed expression on his face, his voice seemed to be blocked by something, low and depressed:
"Under Wuping Mountain, there is a ghost gate, and there is no one to return by the Nuanshui River. If we continue to advance north, maybe we will never have the chance to turn back in this lifetime."

"Right now, where else can I go?"

Leng Jiayun behind him smiled wryly and shook her head, showing a look of relief on the contrary, "Sometimes there are too many choices, but it will make people hesitate and hesitate. Don't think too much now, just move forward bravely." Yes, Baili is watching us from the sky..."

The "Nuan Shui River" mentioned by the teenagers is a large river running from north to south at the western foot of the Wuping Mountains.The entire Northland is also divided by a mountain and a river. The east of the river is the Shuo state with abundant pastures, and the west of the river is the ghost state with few people.

The Nuanshui River seems to rush out of the permafrost of Guizhou for thousands of years, but no one knows where its source comes from. Frozen.There are even rumors among fishermen in Shuozhou that a daring and good-for-nothing person crossed the Nuanshui River and set foot on the land of Guizhou more than [-] years ago, cooked and drank by the river, and lived for a long time. It was only after half a year that he returned in good health.But after that, no one dared to confirm it with their own eyes.

"...we will anchor here tonight. If it is true as the rumors say, this may be the most suitable place for us to temporarily rest before continuing northward."

The Dongli woman just talked to herself, and immediately ordered to go ashore.Qi Ziyin didn't stop him, because he knew that everyone on the ship had risked their lives to follow him here.At this moment, he has no reason, and he doesn't want to deprive them of the little bit of freshness and curiosity when facing the unknown.

The huge hull lowered the sails and anchored half a mile from the shore.The boy in white and Leng Jiayun also boarded the boat and joined the first batch of landers.As soon as they set foot on the coast covered with black gravel and dark brown sand, they realized that the legends of the original fishermen were not false.

Just half a mile away, on the noisy warm water river that flows into the sea, white steam rises in all directions like a veil covering the black ground, overflowing from the depths of the river valley to the surroundings.

What surprised the young Ye Guogong even more was that on the bank of the river full of black and white, there really was a settlement built with wooden rafters and stone blocks that was abandoned in unknown years and months!

"There may still be some supplies left in the settlement that continued northward in the snow and ice. They should be mostly firewood, sleds, cotton coats, etc..."

After landing, Leng Jiayun's expression suddenly became sad, but she stretched out her index finger, which was a little stiff from the cold, and pointed at the ruined road that was almost like a pile of rocks.

"Sister Jia, have you been here?"

Qi Ziyin turned his head, just in time to see the woman in purple who had just disembarked from the boat passing in front of him, standing beside a boulder and looking at it, but he answered the question irrelevantly:
"Ziyin, do you know why I always firmly believe that the power of the ancestors will definitely help us?"

Although the surrounding air was not as cold as it was on the boat, the boy still gathered the white sable fur on his body and did not respond.The crimson drawstring hangs down at the neckline, swaying in the wind.

Leng Jiayun just stood there without looking back, and it seemed that she was not waiting for the answer from her companion behind her, but was caught in a memory related to the past, "More than [-] years ago, when Baili and I first set foot on this black soil, , The entire ghost state is covered under more than ten feet of solid ice. So, we named this place, called Frost."

"So, there was no warm water river here at that time?"

Qi Ziyin finally opened his mouth, but he felt something in his heart.

"That's right. At first, Baili and I didn't believe in those so-called ancestors and the legends about their magical skills. But we all hoped in our hearts that we would have the opportunity to set foot on this barren land to see for ourselves. Take a look. At the same time, we also shoulder the last wish left by Big Brother Fufeng, and we have to verify with our own eyes whether the secrets about the ancestors discovered by Yu Qingwan can really come in handy."

Only then did the Dongli woman turn her head, looked into the young man's eyes and nodded, "It's just that none of us could have imagined that with just a few shovel moves, this mighty river can reappear from the ground to the sky. Days. Just a few days later, the nearby ice and snow melted and the land recovered.”

"Sister Jia is saying that those legends among the fishermen in Shuozhou, those people who lived by the Nuanshui River for half a year more than [-] years ago are you and General Baili?! The supplies in the ruins are also What did you leave behind?"

Qi Ziyin couldn't help raising his voice.Although he had already guessed a little bit in his heart, when the truth was uttered from the other party's mouth, it still made his heart beat faster.

Leng Jiayun let out a long sigh: "So what. At the beginning we were not able to make up our minds, let alone lead all the residents of Qingwan to move here. Perhaps, it was because of what you saw in front of us—in fact, the people here This ruin is the ironclad proof of our mistakes!"

Listening to the other party's words, the young Ye Guogong scanned everything in front of his eyes, and suddenly saw dozens of low and low bumps of different sizes among the undulating black gravel.He realized that people were buried in those raised ground, and suddenly understood that Leng Jiayun's sentimentality did not only come from missing Xiang Baili, but also from the old acquaintances buried under these graves.

"The appearance of the warm water river back then was like a miracle to anyone. So when we decided to leave, there were still more than a hundred people who came with the boat and voluntarily stayed, hoping to rely on enough supplies to try to survive in the Survive here." The woman in purple couldn't help but pause when she said this, "In the first few months, everything was normal, but in the fourth month, due to the early winter, the delivery of supplies was delayed. When Baili and I landed for the second time, we found that the vast majority of those people had turned into numerous barren mounds among the rocks, and the rest of the survivors were also missing..."

"These dead—didn't you bury them?"

Suddenly, Qi Ziyin's heart skipped a beat.Seeing that Leng Jiayun remained silent, she asked a question immediately, but her tone became obviously tense, "These people must not have been frozen to death, otherwise how could there be so much firewood and cotton clothes left over. But if they If the food is exhausted and you die, how can you still have the strength to bury your companions and build graves?"

After being reminded by the young man, the woman in purple also suddenly reacted.The color on her face suddenly turned pale, and she hurriedly lifted up the hem of her skirt, stepped on the rough gravel and rushed to an unmarked tomb that was damaged by blowing and erosion not far away, and looked at the scattered skeletons buried in it.

The dense human bones, after decades of frost, snow and rain in the ground, have already turned into a yellowish brown like mud.However, due to the cold and dryness in the north, and no maggots, rats and ants to bite, the remaining flesh on the corpse was dried and shrunk like bacon, but it still retained the appearance when it was buried.

The appearance of the corpse made the sailors who followed closely behind also startled and avoided their eyes.Among the crowd, there were two people who kept their eyes fixed on the disgusting scene in the tomb.It was Qi Ziyin and Leng Jiayun.

After another half hour, the boy in white whispered next to the woman's ear with a trembling voice:
"Sister Jia, the deaths of these people are really strange!"

As if frightened, Leng Jiayun retreated to one side in panic, looked at the expression of fear that was also evident on the other person's face, did not respond, but bent down and stretched out her hand, and picked up the deceased from the grave. Here comes the broken head!

The head seems to belong to a young woman, with messy dry hair, wrinkled skin, sunken eyes, collapsed nose bridge, and dry lips, all the more terrifying in the flickering firelight.

And on this unsightly corpse, there were still several obvious scars.The largest wound was located on the top of the skull, and the flesh turned up like dried sheepskin, exposing the hemispherical skull below.On the dirt-covered bones, there were still a pair of holes the size of a thumb, surrounded by thick stubble and dense cracks, obviously fatal due to trauma.

Qi Ziyin also bent down and picked up another piece of bone.It was half of a leg bone that had been broken long ago, and there was even a slightly curved sharp long tooth embedded in it that was slightly lighter in color than the leg bone!

The young Ye Guogong frowned even more tightly, and with his backhand, he went to his waist to touch the short knife for self-defense, and pried it hard between the gap between the teeth and the bone.Hearing a crackling sound, the remains that had been frozen together for more than [-] years were abruptly separated, and immediately roared:

"This is - galloping wolf!"

This remark caused an uproar among the crowd around the tomb.When they defended the city of Yujing before, they had all experienced the horror of those bloodthirsty giant beasts. Many of them even witnessed their comrades, close friends, and even blood relatives being swallowed up by wolves pouring out of the mountains and plains.

Looking back on it now, the scene of flying stumps is still vivid in my mind, as if the lingering, tinnitus and dizzying bloody smell surged from my nose again with each breath.

"I heard from Jiang Yan before that the Chi wolves that went south were raised in Lancang Mountain, and they didn't start to come and go south until recent years. Could it be that some lonely wolves strayed into this place by mistake, suffering from hunger and cold? Eat the corpse?"

Leng Jiayun shook her head vigorously, still unable to believe that more than [-] years ago, those old friends whom she once thought was because she was late to Baili, who died in other places, were actually killed by the fangs and sharp teeth of ferocious beasts Down.

But the boy in white said firmly: "No. If it is a recently broken tooth, it is absolutely impossible to look so old."

Those words made the shoulders of the woman in purple tremble involuntarily:
"You mean, someone raised ferocious beasts in this bitter cold north 20 years ago, and made them attack our settlement in Frost? Who are they, and what exactly are they trying to do?"

"I can't guess. However, although the wolf's southward movement was sudden this time, it happened to coincide with the critical moment when the Dasheng Dynasty was in danger, and the vassal states continued to fight, and there was no time for him to care. No matter who the black hand behind the scenes is, he can feed such a man. With such a large number of beasts, there is no way their purpose is as simple as plundering land and killing people!"

The young Ye Guogong did not give an answer, but he was keenly aware of the faint connection hidden under the countless killings.

"Sister Jia, no matter how high the price we pay for this trip, we must first obtain the power of the ancestors. It is not for fighting with others, nor for revenge, but to prevent it from falling into the hands of the black hand behind the scenes! Otherwise, I am afraid This war that has lasted for several years will continue to spread endlessly, and the common people in the world may never have a day of peace!"

Qi Ziyin suddenly clenched the half-truncated wolf fang in his hand, looking westward at the land of Guizhou under the dark clouds.Midnight had passed, the moon had sunk to the west, and now not even the last gleam of light had disappeared in the already dark sky.And the scattered torches in the hands of the people standing in the deserted tombs seem to be the only hope left in this dangerous world.

(End of this chapter)