Li Ying's family lives in the southernmost part of the village. They are a single family. Compared with most farmers, their living conditions can be said to be quite poor.

Ling Yun and his party of six walked for more than 20 minutes before they found this place. In the open land to the south, there stood a lonely and dilapidated earthen house with black tiles.

Many of the tiles on the roof were broken, and the dead leaves stacked on them were blown by the wind, mixed with the yellow and white paper money scattered on the ground in the yard, flying all over the sky, making it look particularly desolate.

The wall coverings around the earthen house have long since fallen off, exposing the gray stone walls inside. Many dense weeds have grown in the cracks between the bricks on the ground, and thick dead leaves cover the ground, making a crunching sound when stepped on.

The strange thing is that the fence outside the yard is not tightly closed, but is only partially covered. When the wind blows, the door frame rattles and swings back and forth, adding a bit of a weird atmosphere to the already gloomy house.

"Is there anyone there?" Ling Yun stepped forward and shouted several times into the deserted yard. After about ten seconds, everyone heard a hoarse and low voice mixed with intermittent coughs coming from inside the house:

"Come in..."

Walking into the yard and looking at the paper money flying around, Zhao Sicheng couldn't help but feel a little wary. The room was dark and the windows were closed tightly. As soon as they entered the room, everyone smelled a pungent smell of herbs.

There is a needle basket on the table in the living room, with a half-embroidered red handkerchief of a mandarin duck playing in the water stuffed inside. The handkerchief is exquisitely embroidered, and the pattern is lifelike. It can be seen that Li Ying is a girl with ingenuity.

Following the sound into the bedroom, they discovered that an old woman with a famished and haggard face and sunken eye sockets was lying on the earthen bed.

After hearing the sound of footsteps, the old woman slowly turned her head, her lips were chapped, and her tone was trembling. Her pupils were covered with a layer of gray-white haze, and she had obviously been blind for many years.

"Is it A Guang..." Due to poverty, this old woman suffered from diseases and her body was extremely weak. It seemed that she would die at any time.

"Old man, we are from outside the village. We happened to pass by nearby, why is there no one around you to take care of you?" Ling Yun sat beside the bed, quickly took out a bottle of water from his backpack, and carefully fed the old man to drink.

However, the old woman's mind seemed to be a little unclear. She did not hear what Ling Yun just said. After drinking the water and lying down, she pursed her lips, looked at the beam with dull eyes, and said tremblingly: "Ah

Guang, Aguang, please help me find where that girl Xiaoying has gone and why she hasn’t come home yet..."

"Mother-in-law, don't worry." Ling Yun did not continue to explain. Instead, he turned around and motioned to Zhao Sicheng and others not to enter the house. He followed the other person's words and asked, "When did Xiaoying disappear?"

"Three days."

The old woman murmured: "Before she left, the girl told me that the village chief asked her to get medicine, which could cure my disease. But she went out and never came back... After that, she still

Brothers Jia Ren and Jia Yi came to deliver the medicine. But when I asked them where Xiaoying had gone, they said, they said..."

The old woman suddenly stopped, as if she had thought of something, and two lines of turbid tears slowly flowed down the corners of her wrinkled eyes: "This girl Xiaoying is no longer here."

"Mother-in-law, what happened? Was Xiaoying taken away by the village chief?" Ling Yun asked.

The old woman gave a trembling "Yes", and then she remembered what Jia Ren had told her that Xiaoying had been chosen by the River God and became his bride. This kind of blessing was something that no other girl in the village could enjoy.

Arrived.

"But what kind of blessing is this? If I had known that Xiaoying had exchanged her life for those herbs, I, a bad old woman, might as well have killed myself." The old woman burst into tears.

Seeing that the old woman seemed to know something, everyone was shocked. After Ling Yun caught the clues in the other party's words, he immediately asked the other party if she knew anything about the sacrifice.

The old woman stretched out her hand, grabbed Ling Yun, and said tremblingly:

"I once heard my father talk about this. When he was young, in order to treat his mother's illness, he ignored the village's warnings for hundreds of years and went up to Qingyuan Mountain to collect medicine alone. After that, his father accidentally fell

He injured his leg. Qingyuan Mountain is full of fog and wild animals come and go at night. Therefore, he had to spend the night in the mountains and wait until daylight before finding a way to return home."

"In the middle of the night, my father, who was resting in the cave, suddenly heard a movement in the forest. At that time, he stepped forward to take a look and found that the former village chief and a few people were walking quickly towards the cave, carrying something.

Head towards the top of the mountain."

The old woman recalled: "When I saw that scene, my father knew that this should be a ceremony for the river god that takes place every twenty years."

In Guxun Village, such sacrifices have long been a tradition; all previous sacrifices have been conducted by the village chief and several of his relatives.

The village chief told everyone that it is a girl's greatest honor to be chosen to be the bride of the river god, and her family will receive the best treatment in the village.

But the strange thing is that the sacrificial ceremony has always been held at night. The village chief and his party will carry the dressed-up bride in a sedan chair to the Yong River on the mountain for sacrifice. In this process, except for the village chief and a few others, even

The girl's parents were not allowed to follow her, lest they offend the River God.

Therefore, for thousands of years, no villager has known the true nature of the ceremony.

"My father was young at the time and couldn't contain his curiosity, so he quietly followed the village chief and the others," the old woman said.

Except for the village chief, the four people following him were all wearing black cloaks, and their faces were also covered so tightly that they could not see their appearance clearly. They carried a large dark red box and held torches in their hands, walking along the path.

Walking towards the mountains. The whole process was extremely quiet, not even a sound of communication.

Watching the five people disappearing, my father felt a cold chill on his back, and he suddenly felt horrified: This place is already halfway up the mountain. In his memory, the Yongjiang River is at the foot of the mountain. Even if they want to offer sacrifices, the village chief and the others should not

This is the way to go.

My father looked at the dark woods, and by some mistake, he actually raised his feet and followed them secretly. He wanted to see what the village chief and his clan were going to do when they went up the mountain in the middle of the night.

At night, the mountains were filled with erratic mist, but it was surprisingly quiet.

The narrow old shrine in the mountain is winding, and the moon is covered by the incoming black clouds. Only the sparse and mottled light shines on the ground through the branches and leaves of the trees, while the mountain wind blows in the forest, making huge and slow rustling sounds.

.

Because he was not familiar with the terrain in the mountains, my father almost lost him several times. The further we walked, the more rugged the road became.

For some reason, looking at the backs of the village chief and others, I had a feeling that told my father that there was some unknown secret hidden in the forest ahead.

Although he was very scared, he still gritted his teeth and sped up and followed.

At midnight, my father gradually began to feel a little exhausted. He kept breathing heavily while holding on to the tree, wiping the sweat from his temples, hesitating whether to give up. However, when he raised his head, he suddenly found that the fire in front of him had suddenly disappeared.

Already.

The father was startled and thought he had lost him. When he quickly caught up, he found a bush in front of him.

He bent forward and took a look, and then he discovered that behind the bushes, there was a large open space. And directly in front of the open space was an ancient well covered with moss. Not far from the ancient well, there was another

There is a ruined temple.

Unknowingly, he followed them to the top of the mountain.

"My father said that he had heard his grandfather tell the legend about the mountain temple in Qingyuan Mountain since he was a child. But the mountain god has long since become an immortal and left. The village chief and the others held a ceremony for the river god, so why should they go to the mountain temple?"

At that time, my father suppressed his fear and hid in the grass motionless. He quietly watched the village chief and others put down the box, and then lifted out a young girl in a wedding dress from inside.
Chapter completed!