Chapter 1 Don't Go Out When It's Dark

It's dark, don't go out.

This sentence has been circulated in Canlao Village for many years, and it is impossible to verify when it was passed down. But this is the truth, no doubt about it.

Granny Si from Canlao Village saw the setting sun hide behind the mountain a little bit, and she became nervous again. As the sun went down, the last ray of sunlight disappeared, and the world was suddenly silent, without any sound. I saw darkness slowly submerging from the west, swallowing mountains, rivers, roads and trees along the way, and then came to Canlao Village, submerging Canlao Village.

There are four ancient stone statues erected in the four corners of Canlao Village. The stone statues are mottled and dated for a long time. Even Granny Si does not know who carved the stone statues and when they were erected here.

Darkness came, and the four stone statues shone faintly in the dark. The stone statues were still lit, which made Granny Si and the old people in the village breathed a sigh of relief.

The darkness outside the village became more and more intense, but with the light of the stone statues, the old village was still safe.

Suddenly, Granny Si's ears moved, she was stunned, and lost her voice: "Listen, there is a child crying outside!"

Ma Lao next to him shook his head and said, "Impossible, you heard it wrong... Hey, there are really babies crying!"

In the darkness outside the village came the cry of a baby. All the other old people in the village except the deaf heard the cry. The old people looked at each other in dismay.

"I gonna go see!"

Granny Si got excited and ran on tiptoe to a stone statue in the village. Ma Lao hurried over: "Old Granny Si, are you crazy? It's dark, and you will die if you leave the village!"

"Carrying this stone statue out of the village, things in the dark are afraid of the stone statue, and I won't die in a while!"

Granny Si bent down and wanted to carry the statue on her back, but she was hunchbacked and couldn't carry it. Ma Lao shook his head: "I'll do it. I'll accompany you with the stone statue on my back!"

Another old man limped over and said, "Master Ma, you only have one arm, and you won't be able to hold the statue for long. I have both hands, so I will carry it."

Ma Lao glared at him: "Damn lame, you have a broken leg, can you walk? Although I only have one arm, this arm is very powerful!"

He picked up the stone statue with one arm and stabilized, the stone statue was unimaginably heavy: "Old lady Si, let's go!"

"Don't call me a dead old woman! Lame, dumb, you all have to be careful, there is one less stone statue in the village, don't let things in the dark come in!"

...

Ma Lao and Granny Si walked out of Canlao Village. Some strange things wandered around them in the dark, but when they were illuminated by the light of the stone statue, they retreated into the darkness with a strange scream.

The two followed the cry, walked a hundred or ten steps, and came to the edge of a large river, where the baby's cry came from the edge of the river. The stone statue radiated a faint light, and the light was not too far. The two carefully captured the direction of the sound and walked upstream along the river. After a few dozen steps, the cry was nearby, and it was difficult for Ma Lao to support with one arm. Granny Si's eyes lit up, and she saw a little bit of fluorescent light. It was a basket parked on the bank of the river. The fluorescent light came from the basket, and the cry came from the basket.

"There really is a child!"

Granny Si stepped forward and lifted the basket, but was slightly taken aback, but failed to lift it up. Below the basket was an arm that was soaked white by the river. It was this arm that held up the basket and the child in the basket until shore.

"Don't worry, the child is safe." Granny Si whispered to the woman underwater.

The female corpse seemed to hear her words, let go of her palm, was swept away by the river, and disappeared into the darkness.

Granny Si lifted the basket, and in the basket was a swaddled baby with a jade pendant on top of it, and the jade pendant radiated fluorescence. The light of this jade pendant is very similar to the light of the stone statue, but it is much weaker. It is the jade pendant that protects the children in the basket from things in the dark.

It's just that the jade pendant's light is very weak, it can only protect the child, but not the woman.

"It's a boy."

Returning to Canlao Village, all the villagers in the village gathered around, all of them were old, weak, sick and disabled. Granny Si lifted the swaddling clothes and took a look, grinned, and her teeth were scattered: "We finally have a healthy person in the disabled old village!"

The cripple with only one leg said in surprise: "Old lady Si, are you going to support him? We can't even support ourselves! I think it's better to send it out..."

Granny Si was furious: "Why should I give away the child that my mother picked up by her ability?"

A group of villagers agreed and did not dare to refute her. The village chief came over on a stretcher. He was more miserable than the others. Others had hands and feet, but less than normal people, while he was without hands and feet. But everyone respected him very much, even the vicious Granny Si did not dare to be presumptuous.

"Since you want to raise him, should you give him a name?"

The village chief said, "Old woman, do you see anything else in the basket?"

Granny Si flipped through it, shook her head and said, "There is only this jade pendant, there are no other notes or anything. There are characters on the jade pendant, and it is the word Qin. This jade pendant has no impurities, and there are strange powers in it. It is not an ordinary product, it should be From a big family, right?"

"Is his name Qin, or is his surname Qin?"

The village chief pondered and said, "Let him be Qin, and his name is Mu, Qin Mu. When he grows up, he will be asked to herd, so that he can live."

"Qin Mu." Granny Si looked at the baby in the swaddle, the baby wasn't afraid of her, and even giggled.

...

On the riverside, the flute sound came. The shepherd boy sat on the back of a cow and played the flute. The flute sound was clear and melodious. This shepherd boy was eleven or twelve years old, with clear eyebrows, red lips and white teeth, half-open clothes, and a jade pendant hanging on his chest.

This boy is the baby that Grandma Si picked up from the riverside eleven years ago. Over the years, the old people in the village have worked hard to raise this child. Grandma Si got a cow from nowhere, and let Qin Mu drink milk every day when he was a baby. , survived the period of easy premature death.

Although the villagers in Canlao Village are all fierce, they are very kind to him. Granny Si is a tailor. On weekdays, Qin Mu learns to cut clothes with Granny Si, to collect and refine medicines from a pharmacist, to learn leg exercises from a lame grandfather, and from a blind man. The grandfather learned to listen to the sound and position, and followed the limbless village chief to learn breathing and breathing, and the days passed quickly.

This cow was his childhood wet nurse. Granny Si originally planned to sell it, but Qin Mu was reluctant to give it up, so the task of herding the cow was also entrusted to him.

He often herds cattle by the riverside, the green hills are like daisies, blue waves and white clouds are very comfortable.

"Qin Mu, Qin Mu, save me!"

Suddenly, the cow below him started to speak, Qin Mu was startled and jumped off the back of the cow, only to see tears in the eyes of the cow, spit out words, and said to him, "Qin Mu, you Grow up on my milk, I am half your mother, you have to save me!"

Qin Mu blinked and asked tentatively, "How can I save you?"

The cow said: "You have a sickle around your waist, and you can save me by peeling off my skin."

Qin Mu hesitated, and the cow said, "Have you forgotten the grace of feeding?"

Qin Mu raised his sickle and carefully cut through the cowhide. It was strange that the cowhide was peeled off, but there was not a trace of blood flowing out, and the cowhide was actually empty, with no flesh or skeleton.

When the cowhide was half peeled, a woman in her twenties and thirties rolled out from the inside, her legs were still wrapped in the cowhide, the flesh was connected to the cowhide, but her upper limbs had been detached from the cowhide.

The woman was disheveled, snatched the sickle from Qin Mu's hand, who had been stunned, and cut the leather on her legs and feet two or three times. "Little villain, I was turned into a cow because of you. For eleven years, I can only eat grass and feed you milk! Poor, I just gave birth to a child before I became a cow, and I was plotted by that temptress. Turn me into a cow to feed you! I finally got out of trouble today, kill you first and then wash the wicked in this village!"

Qin Mu's head pounded, not knowing what the woman who got out of the cowhide was talking about.

The woman was about to slash him to death, when she suddenly felt a chill, and looked down, a knife pierced through her chest.

"Mu'er, your pharmacist grandpa told you to go back to take medicine." The woman's body fell down, and standing behind was the village's lame grandfather, with kind eyes and a simple and honest face, holding a bloody knife in his hand, smiling at Qin Mu. road.

"Grandpa Cripple..." Qin Mu's body softened, and he looked at the cowhide and the woman's body on the ground, but he still didn't come back to his senses.

"Go back, go back." The lame patted his shoulder and laughed.

Qin Mu walked towards the village with one foot high and one foot low. When he looked back, he saw that the lame man threw the woman's body into the river.

The impact of this scene on him was so great that he didn't even know when he returned to the village.

"Qin Mu! Damn boy, how did I tell you? Don't go out in the dark!"

When night fell, the stone statues at the four corners of Canlao Village automatically lit up again. Granny Si called Qin Mu, who was about to sneak out of the village to check the cowhide by the river, and dragged him back.

"Mother-in-law, why can't you go out at night?" Qin Mu raised his head and asked.

"When it's dark, there's something scary moving in the dark, and to go out is to die."

Granny Si solemnly said: "The stone statues in the village will protect us, and things in the dark dare not enter the village."

"Do other villages have such stone statues?" Qin Mu asked curiously.

Granny Si nodded with a worried expression on her face. She kept looking outside the village and said in a low voice, "The lame man should be back... I really shouldn't let the lame man go out. This guy has only one leg..."

"Mother-in-law, something strange happened today..."

Qin Mu hesitated for a while, and repeated the story of a woman who had burrowed out of the cow's stomach. Granny Si casually said, "You mean that woman? The lame told me, and he handled it very well. You were weaned when you were four years old. At the time, I said that I sold the cow, but you were reluctant to let it go, so I let you feed it. Look, is something wrong now? I said that you will have feelings for cows if you eat milk until you are four years old. "

Qin Mu blushed. Weaning at the age of four is indeed a bit too long, but it seems that the key is not to wean at the age of four, right?

"Mother-in-law, that woman was killed by the lame grandpa..."

"Good kill."

Granny Si smiled and said, "That's cheap for her. She should have died eleven years ago. If she hadn't wanted to nurse you, would she have lived to this day?"

Qin Mu didn't know why.

Granny Si glanced at him and said, "This woman is the wife of the city lord of Xianglong City, thousands of miles away from here, the city lord of Xianglong is lustful, and she is jealous, the city lord of Xianglong likes to mess with flowers outside and rob women of good families. And every time the city lord of Xianlong ruins the innocence of a woman, the city owner's wife will send someone to beat the woman to death. I sneaked into Xianlong City, and originally planned to kill her, but when I saw that she had just given birth to a child, the child was born. Three months later, I thought that you didn't have milk yet, and she had milk, so she turned her into a cow and came back to milk you. I just didn't expect that this woman broke the seal and was able to speak, which almost killed you."

Qin Mu was stunned and lost his voice: "Mother-in-law, how can a human become a cow?"

Granny Si smiled, revealing half-mouthed teeth: "You want to learn? I'll teach you... The lame is back!"

Qin Mu looked and saw that the lame man was limping over with a cane in one hand and the prey on his back in the other. The darkness rushed towards the village like a tide, and Granny Si hurriedly called out, "Damn lame, hurry up, hurry up!"

"No hurries?"

The lame man walked towards the village unhurriedly. The moment he walked into the village, the thick darkness just drowned the village. The prey on his back was a colorful tiger. It wasn't dead yet. Its tail was swept away by the darkness. Suddenly, the tiger let out a mournful roar. Qin Mu hurriedly looked at the tiger's tail. His fur and flesh were all gone, as if it had been eaten away by something.

He looked curiously at the darkness outside the village, where it was pitch black and nothing could be seen.

"What on earth is there in the darkness?" he wondered in his heart.