The Dharma Sea of ​​the Green Snake

Chapter 341 The Price of "Eternal Life"
"Zhao Mu's situation is different from ours..."

"We're a 'collection' of mirages, but they're not, because even we don't know if they're human or not."

Following the old man's narration bit by bit, Pei Wende also began to understand bit by bit the "history" that happened in this fog.

Just like what the old man said before, the people in the village are now almost all "collections" of Mirage, a ray of obsession of those who have fulfilled their wishes.

But apart from the identity of "the person in the painting", the people living in the village are actually no different from ordinary people.

They need food, they need farming, and they also need emotional venting...

No matter what era or place they come from, since they are ordinary people who live here in groups, they will naturally develop feelings and become husband and wife after a long time.

Then the question arises, are the children born of those couples considered human beings?

In the old man's narration, none of them realized the seriousness of this problem at first, after all, those children looked no different from ordinary children.

Cry, make trouble, grow up...

Apart from being born in this fog, these children look no different from ordinary people.

It wasn't until they were seventeen or eighteen, closer to adulthood, that problems arose.

"They... will disappear."

The old man also couldn't tell how to describe that strange phenomenon.

The people in the village only know that all children born to the "person in the painting" will be summoned by the mist when they are seventeen or eighteen years old, and then suddenly disappear into the mist one day.

Or to be more accurate, those children who were born in the mist eventually returned to the mist and became a part of the mist, just like the "people in the painting" who were swallowed by the mist.

The only difference between the two is that the "person in the painting" will be assimilated by the fog only when he intends to escape from the fog.

And those children born in the mist will be assimilated by the mist when they reach adulthood.

No matter how the villagers try their best, they can't stop this inevitable fate. They can only sadly accept the fate of their children who "grow up and die".

This situation continued until the arrival of young scholars.

"Young scholar?"

Keenly capturing the key words in the old man's words, Pei Wende immediately thought of the young man who went to Tongqing Temple.

"Yes, that is a scholar who looks to be in his early thirties."

"We don't know his name because he never lived in the village."

"But everyone in the village knows that the scholar is not an ordinary person, and he may not even be a human being."

After the young scholar came to the mist, the originally peaceful mist would make strange noises from time to time, as if it was resisting the invasion of something.

And after the young scholar learned about the situation in the village, he offered to help the villagers solve the problem that children "grow up and die".

To be honest, no one believed the young scholar's words at first.

Because in the eyes of the villagers, the young scholar, like himself and the others, is trapped in the fog, a "person in the painting" trapped here forever, and it is impossible to think of any solution to the problem.

However, with so many people in the village, there are always some couples who cannot bear the pain of losing their children and go to the mist to seek help from young scholars.

What solution did the young scholar use to solve this problem? People in the village still don't know until now.

But the only thing that is certain is that for those couples who have sought help from young scholars, their children have indeed escaped the fate of "grow up and die".

"But it didn't come for free."

Sighing deeply again, the old man's eyes showed a rare look of fear.

"In return for helping the children get rid of their fate, one of the couple must give his life."

"Or take the initiative to escape from the fog, at the cost of your own life, to help the scholar explore the operation rules of the fog."

"Or the carrier of the 'Phantom Bead', to suppress the increasingly frequent riots of those invisible monsters for the scholars."

Without any further description from the old man, Pei Wende finally knew where the skeletal giant he had seen before came from.

Even the origin of the "Mirage Pearl", Pei Wende can roughly guess.

It is nothing more than a young scholar who is not willing to be trapped here, and uses a special method to create props that are specially used to check and balance those invisible things.

Even the increasingly frequent riots in the mist are most likely caused by young scholars constantly encouraging the villagers to escape from the mist.

"It's just that the people in the village are just mortal bodies after all, so how can they fight against the fog for a long time?"

"Any existence that turns into a skeleton giant can only persist for ten years at most, and will be assimilated by the invisible monsters deep in the mist."

Although ten years is not a long time, the people in the village are all old monsters who have lived for hundreds of years.

Most of the villagers who have lived for hundreds of years and are still willing to give birth to children are the kind who look down on their own lives and regard children as the only hope.

Subtly, the villagers reached a strange tacit understanding and deal of "one life for one life" with the young scholar.

Such days continued until several decades ago, when a new "person in the painting" - Zhu Nu came to the village.

Zhu Nu was a native of Tanzhou during the reign of Emperor Dezong of Tang Dynasty. She also appeared in the mist because of a deal with "Mirage".

According to the normal situation, Zhu Nu's next life trajectory will be the same as that of the villagers in the village.

After lingering on for an unknown number of years, whether she voluntarily leaves the mist or gives birth to a child, the final result is that she cannot escape the ending of assimilating with the mist.

But here lies the problem, Ah Da fell in love with Zhu Nu.

Ah Da is not a pure "person in the painting", but a member of the new generation who are growing up.

As a new generation who doesn't know the truth about the mist, Ah Da is born with curiosity and longing for the outside world, so he naturally falls in love with Zhu Nu from the outside world.

That is Ada, who is the heir of the "person in the painting" and also inherited the attribute of "eternal life". After living for an unknown number of years, he finally truly realized what it means to be moved.

So, what happened next was logical.

Ada and Zhu Nu got married, and learned from each other the truth that the villagers have been hiding.

"Then Ah Da followed the old path of his parents..."

"In order for Zhao Mu to get rid of the fate of death, he is willing to be the carrier of the 'Mirage Bead' and transform into a skeleton giant capable of suppressing invisible things."

There was both envy and regret in his tone, the old man who couldn't give up "eternal life" said in a low voice.

"And unlike the previous villagers who persisted for less than ten years, this time he persisted for a full 12 years, and there was little turmoil during the period..."

—Recommendation ticket—/—Monthly ticket—

(End of this chapter)