novelAlta #215 - A strange night, whose toad is wearing a bellyband? (Please order)
#215 - A strange night, whose toad is wearing a bellyband? (Please order)
Overcast sky, ancient trees looming.
Emerald pools by the roadside were dotted with yellow and cyan duckweed, shrouded in mist, creating an atmosphere of profound desolation.
It must be said that even without the rumors of zombies and mysterious corpse carriers, the Yuanling area would still evoke a sense of mystery and dread.
Duan Yun and the Murong brothers, upon arriving here, found even their mounts, Little Grey and the horses, slowing their pace and displaying unease.
This region, aside from zombies and the like, is fraught with venomous insects, snakes, and unpredictable miasmas, making it unbearable for ordinary people.
Even some Jianghu travelers, if they rashly venture here, are likely to die on the road.
On the road they had just passed, they saw many skeletons of horses and humans, presumably travelers similar to themselves, who had carelessly met their end.
Some places are inherently destined for mystery.
Seeing the sky gradually darkening, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers began to look for a place to settle down.
The fog and miasma are too heavy here at night, and one can easily get lost, making it impossible to travel.
But this place is truly remote, with no villages or shops in sight.
Aside from the occasional corpses and venomous insects disturbing the horses and donkey, there was nothing else.
Not even a dilapidated house to shelter from the wind and rain.
By this time, the sky had completely darkened.
Little Grey and the horses moved even more slowly, startled by the slightest rustle in the grass.
"No wonder Netherworld Manor is called Netherworld Manor; only ghosts would come to this ghostly place," the Murong brothers quipped.
Just then, a gust of wind shook the vines on the trees, resembling venomous snakes or menacing ghostly claws.
The Murong brothers shrank their necks, regretting their joke.
Making such jokes in a place prone to hauntings was no different from holding a lantern over a latrine.
Suddenly, he felt Little Grey sink beneath him.
The Murong brothers quickly looked down and said, "Little Grey, what's wrong?"
He saw that Little Grey's four short legs were stuck in the mud, and its entire body was continuing to sink.
The Murong brothers quickly dismounted, circulated their internal energy, and lifted it out.
"This wet mud eats people," the Murong brothers exclaimed.
If he didn't have innate strength, capable of uprooting a grey donkey, he would have been lost along with the donkey.
Duan Yun patted the horse's rump, signaling it to continue forward.
This kind of swampy mud can swallow ordinary people, but it's useless against experts like them.
Even if the Murong brothers were to sink in along with the horse and donkey, he could suck them out with the Beiming Divine Art.
No one understands suction better than me!
The two arrived at a hillside.
Just then, the Murong brothers' eyes lit up and said, "There's fire!"
In the distance below, there seemed to be a bonfire.
Where there's fire, there are people.
Jianghu travelers camping in the wilderness often gather around bonfires.
Duan Yun recalled when he first camped in the wilderness, the place was as lively as a vegetable market, probably because of the fire he lit.
It would be good to see someone and ask for directions, having not seen anyone for two days.
It's just that Duan Yun's Beiming Divine Art still has limitations, only allowing him to synchronize with someone's mind when they're trembling, and the content he sees is limited.
Before setting off, he knew that Netherworld Manor was located in a place called Evil Wind Valley in the Yuanling area, thinking it would be easy to find, but it turned out to be quite a challenge.
So the two spurred their horses and donkey towards the fire.
When they arrived at the fire, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers were shocked.
Because it wasn't a bonfire left by travelers, but a shrine.
The fire was real, but it wasn't burning firewood, but a person.
A person whose limbs had been severed was standing in the fire, burning, facing a statue of a god with six hands.
The statue's face was blurred, without features, looking like an unfinished stone embryo, but the folds on its body were carved in great detail.
Looking at the folds, Duan Yun could even imagine the jiggling of its fat.
In the night, a person was burning like this, facing such a statue, creating an unspeakable sense of eeriness and horror.
The world was dim, as if only this cluster of burning flames remained.
"This person hasn't burned completely, so the people shouldn't be far away," Duan Yun analyzed.
The Murong brothers asked doubtfully, "You want to chase after those people? It's hard to say if they're human or ghost."
Indeed, such an eerie scene, coupled with the legends of Yuanling, made it hard to distinguish reality from illusion.
"You're afraid of ghosts?" Duan Yun asked doubtfully.
"Who's afraid? This young hero Murong is never afraid!" the Murong brothers replied.
"That's right, if this person was a good person and was killed like this, even if they're a ghost, I'll kill those responsible!"
Duan Yun said seriously, standing in front of the burning corpse.
The Murong brothers looked at Duan Yun's face, illuminated by the firelight, which was the same as his own, but felt a bit unfamiliar and even a bit terrifying.
This old devil is sometimes more terrifying than ghosts.
So the two young heroes continued to chase after them.
But the further they went, the more bizarre it became.
If the corpse had been set on fire by some people to worship that eerie statue, there should have been some traces left behind.
But there weren't any footprints or other traces on the road.
Even for Duan Yun and the Murong brothers, it would be difficult to achieve this.
Did this prove that the people who left had better Qinggong than them, or were they ghosts to begin with!
Ghosts usually float in the air, ethereal, naturally leaving no traces on the ground.
Just then, the Murong brothers, with their keen eyes, suddenly pointed to a branch and said, "There's something on it."
He leaped up and took down a piece of cloth.
The edge of the cloth was embroidered with half a plum blossom, which looked very bright.
The Murong brothers said, "This is a piece of a woman's bodice."
Duan Yun looked at the piece of cloth, which was no bigger than a fingernail, and said in surprise, "You can tell all that?"
The Murong brothers nodded and said, "I can tell! There are very few women's bodice styles on the market that I don't know. Just seeing this piece of cloth, I can even imagine the entire style."
While admiring him, Duan Yun also looked at him with the eyes of a perverted lecher.
What kind of decent person is so familiar with women's bodices?
But this also reminded Duan Yun, who analyzed, "The reason there are no footprints on the ground is because they walked above?"
Yes, walking on the trees would naturally leave no traces on the ground, which may have even caused the bodice to get caught on the trees.
So, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers suddenly carried the horses and donkey on their shoulders and leaped into the air.
They were going to walk on the trees too.
It must be said that a person leaping lightly between trees, although still obscured by fog, really did have a wider view.
Suddenly, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers stopped on a hillside, not continuing forward.
Below the hillside was a wet mudflat.
Standing in the mud were four people.
Four people in white clothes, seen from here, their backs looked very much like women.
They stood in the four corners, carrying a white sedan chair, motionless.
The reason Duan Yun and the Murong brothers could spot them at first sight was because they were very white, which was a bit conspicuous in the black mud.
But because of the distance and some thin fog, they weren't sure if they were alive, and even thought they looked like paper figures.
The kind of paper figures burned for the dead.
"This place is really strange."
Duan Yun muttered, wanting to see what was going on.
But then, he stopped again.
Because in that instant, the wet mudflat in front of them suddenly moved.
Yes, it moved. The entire black mudflat moved.
As if in an instant, it had become a living thing.
Then, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers saw a scene that could only be seen in nightmares.
Thousands upon thousands of mouths appeared in the black mud, densely packed, making one's scalp tingle.
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Immediately afterwards, pink mist emerged from these mouths, forming a huge pink cloud.
Duan Yun and the Murong brothers hurriedly covered the noses of the horses and donkey and retreated.
This pink mist covered the sky and the sun, looking very beautiful, with a peach blossom color, but they suspected that this thing was probably poisonous.
In the next instant, the black mud wriggled, and those mouths surged forward like a tide.
And the white sedan chair, which had been on the mudflat, was lifted into the air by the four white-clad women.
Seen from here, they looked like they were flying in the pink mist, so the paper-white sedan chair and women were dyed pink.
In the blink of an eye, the bizarre sedan chair and those mouths disappeared into the mist.
If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, Duan Yun and the Murong brothers would have even thought they were dreaming.
Duan Yun couldn't help but ask, "What exactly are those mouths?"
The Murong brothers, who were always sharp-eyed, said, "They're toads."
"Could it be that the miasma in the Yuanling area is all formed by these toads? Then the one in the sedan chair is a toad spirit?"
Saying this, Duan Yun looked at the bodice fragment in the Murong brothers' hand and continued to ask doubtfully, "A toad spirit wearing a pink bodice?"
Having been in the Jianghu for so long, he had naturally heard some rumors about gods, ghosts, and monsters, and even had his way pointed out by the corpse of a child inside a lion's belly in Old Mother Mountain.
But the thought of a toad spirit wearing a pink bodice sitting in a sedan chair, leading thousands upon thousands of toads to create clouds and mist, was always hard to believe.
Just then, the Murong brothers clenched the fragment even tighter and said, "I'm reminded of someone."
"Who?" Duan Yun asked curiously.
"Have you heard of the Qingcheng Martyrs?"
The Murong brothers asked, looking in the direction the sedan chair had left.
Duan Yun shook his head.
The Murong brothers explained, "There is a family named Ma in Qingcheng, Ma as in 'pockmarked,' with one hundred and eight martyrs under their command. It is said that these martyrs learn the techniques from the blessed lands of Qingcheng Cave Heaven and are fearless of death."
"When they were active, they persuaded some people to die and saved many people."
Duan Yun frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"
"It is said that the one hundred and eight martyrs of the Ma family can all calmly face death for their beliefs. They are already skilled in the esoteric techniques of the Qingcheng Mountain caves and are not afraid of death. When they encounter powerful people, they exchange death for death, death for injury, without even frowning. Aren't such people terrifying?" The Murong brothers asked.
"Terrifying," Duan Yun nodded.
Such a suicide squad sounded even more terrifying than the one hundred and eight heroes of Liangshan, because even among the heroes of Liangshan, not everyone could calmly face death.
"Such people may die calmly themselves, but they can also easily take the lives of others. Two hundred years ago, a prince of a different surname won over many Jianghu experts to build a new Jianghu, and it looked like the Jianghu was about to be stained with blood.
But the Ma family's martyrs appeared, wanting to make that prince stop the war. At that time, the prince was at the height of his power, a master of military strategy himself, and he had an army of 100,000 and countless experts by his side. How could he stop his reforms because of these strangers from Qingcheng Mountain?
As a result, sixty-eight martyrs of the Ma family died, but the experts around that prince also died or were injured, and even he himself had his legs cut off.
At that time, the prince continuously chopped down five Ma family martyrs, but those five Ma family martyrs calmly used their flesh and bones as weapons, restrained him, and used their last strength to cut off his legs.
Since then, the prince fell into despair and never spoke of building a new Jianghu again."
The Murong brothers were talking about something that happened a long time ago. According to him, the Ma family also lost most of their martyrs that time, but their story of stopping the war was very touching.
When they occasionally walk in the Jianghu, they still have a significant weight.
"The people we saw just now might be the Ma family's martyrs?" Duan Yun asked, puzzled.
"No, it might be the head of the Ma family. The Ma family has always been mysterious, and there are not many people. There are very few people in the Jianghu who have seen the head of the Ma family, but many people know one of the Ma family's quirks.
They are born to eat poisonous things, and they are not happy without poison. They are also good at controlling poisonous things, especially pink poisonous toads. In the Jianghu, the most famous for using poison are the Five Immortals Sect and the Tang Sect, but if you want to talk about controlling poisonous things, especially the number of poisonous things controlled by one person, no one can compare with the Ma family.
In short, the Ma family is a very mysterious family. With their abilities, they should have established a force that would not be inferior to the Five Immortals Sect, but they live in seclusion and rarely show up in the Jianghu. When they do show up, they often do things like stopping the war, which is of no benefit to themselves."
Duan Yun pondered, "According to you, I have a good impression of this Ma family and their martyrs."
These martyrs with an idealistic color always give people a tragic feeling.
The Murong brothers were also very excited, clenching the fragment in his hand even tighter, with an excited expression, "Then the one in my hand might be the Ma family's young lady's bodice, maybe even the Ma family's head's!
I didn't expect the head of the Ma family to be a beautiful girl!"
Duan Yun couldn't help but retort, "You haven't even seen her face, and you're deducing that she's a beautiful girl based on a piece of bodice cloth of unknown origin!"
I even suspect that it's a toad spirit wearing a bodice.
The Murong brothers had a perverted look on his face, "I don't care, you're jealous! Jealous that the bodice cloth of the mysterious and beautiful Ma family head or young lady is in my hands!"
Duan Yun was speechless when he saw him like this.
Just then, his brow furrowed and he said, "Then the statue just now, is the Ma family worshiping it?"
He really didn't believe that someone who could raise Ma family martyrs would worship ghosts and gods, especially in such an evil way.
The Murong brothers were even more disbelieving.
So they returned to the shrine again.
They looked at the burning corpse, and the more they looked, the stranger it seemed.
Because it had been burning for a long time, yet the corpse seemed to be just as they had left it.
"What's going on?" Duan Yun asked, puzzled.
The Murong brothers twitched their noses and said, "What's that smell?"
Duan Yun also sniffed and felt that something was wrong.
Because the smell wasn't like that of a burning human corpse, but rather carried a rotten, fishy odor.
The Murong brothers scraped it with a knife and said, "Good heavens, could this be a merman?"
Duan Yun followed the knife edge and saw that the corpse's bones were covered with many fine barbs, looking like fish bones.
"There are rumors in the martial world that merfolk exist in the great rivers and lakes. Occasionally, they are caught, considered ominous, and burned. And their skin and flesh take months or even a year to burn clean."
Seeing how resistant this corpse was to burning, coupled with the fine barbs on its bones, further confirmed this.
Duan Yun cut open its mouth with a knife and found that the teeth inside were also as sharp as steel needles, clearly not like a human's.
The two could basically confirm that this was a legendary merman.
This was Duan Yun's first time seeing a merman, seeing it with its hands and feet cut off, used as a bonfire, burning for who knows how long. He only felt that this world was truly bizarre and strange.
No matter how many times he went out, he would always gain a lot of knowledge.
If it weren't for bringing these experienced martial artists, the Murong brothers, he probably wouldn't have heard the story of the Ma family, and would probably have suspected that he had encountered a ghost again.
And now, this experienced martial artist was still pinching that piece of cloth, looking intoxicated, and said, "This merman has been burning for who knows how long. I told you the Ma family's beautiful girl wouldn't do such a thing. You just know how to suspect people randomly!"
Duan Yun: "."
He really wanted to give this guy a big slap!