Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 19
"It's not me. A friend of mine wants to find out something from the corpse dancers, so he may not necessarily offend them." Bai Qianyun said cautiously.

"If you have no choice, it's best not to deal with corpse dancers," said the swordsman, "their minds are not filled with what normal people think. In their eyes, we are all just a bunch of prepared corpses. It is only valuable if you die and become a walking corpse."

"Preparing the corpse...that's really a good title," Bai Qianyun muttered, "but my friend must go to find the corpse dancer, I hope he can just prepare the corpse when he comes back instead of turning into a corpse dancer." A real corpse."

"I'm pessimistic about it," said the swordsman honestly.

three

While sitting in the carriage going to the Illusion Forest, An Xingmian had been thinking about a question. Could it be that those monks back then were killed by Sumeru just because they accidentally bumped into the Corpse Dancer's seminar? What about?Ever since he got the clue about the seminar from Bai Qianyun, it was difficult for him to restrain his curiosity, even though such curiosity was completely contrary to the cultivation that a long disciple monk should have.

The fight between the corpse dancers is such a frightening, but at the same time, an unstoppable spectacle.An Xingmian imagined that in a deep night where you can't see your fingers, everything is quiet in the phantom forest. Suddenly, a sound of fine footsteps broke the silence of the night, and groups of pale-faced dead bodies walked in orderly and stiff steps. However, there was a stern phosphorus fire floating on his body, like an undead that just broke through the ground from the nether world.The green grass they stepped on became withered, the land turned into black sand, and even the wind in the forest seemed to stagnate.

Of course, this is just his random imagination, he has never seen a real corpse dancer, nor a real walking corpse.Maybe the walking dead look like normal people on the surface?In any case, only by seeing the corpse dancer can he get the truth. Although this action is very dangerous and he will lose his life if he is not careful, he has no choice.

The Illusion Forest is located in the southwest of Wanzhou, covering a vast area. Historically, it was a dense virgin forest with complicated paths. It is also said that there are monsters and poisonous insects infested. There are many reports of missing people every year.Later, people began to cut down here, and the forest area was once greatly reduced.It was only then that everyone realized that those bizarre legends did not appear in the end, and they all disappeared in front of the flying saw blades and axes.

Later, an emperor saw the god in a dream. It is said that the god was very angry in the dream, claiming that the phantom forest maintains the luck of Kyushu and does not allow mortals to invade.After the emperor woke up, he actually believed such nonsense and ordered a ban on logging.This caused a major blow to the nearby shipbuilding industry - the Illusion Forest extends to the southwest, and there are famous ports and towns, and the shipbuilding industry has always been developed.

"That's why people don't have much energy in living in this world, so they have to be emperors," said the half-drunk alcoholic. "Look at how majestic the emperor is, he can save a large forest with one sentence, and destroy it with one sentence. A single sentence in a city can send thousands of people to their deaths."

"Keep your voice down," An Xingmian patted the back of his hand, "I heard that the emperor is in a bad mood recently, it's best not to mess with him."

This tavern and inn is located in the northeast corner on the outskirts of the Miragewood.After entering the forest from here, it will soon be difficult to see human habitation.An Xingmian intentionally stayed here all night to see if any corpse dancers would pass by to rest, but the result disappointed him.All the drinkers and residents who come and go here look normal, and there is nothing unusual about it.Thinking about it carefully, this kind of observation is actually useless at all, because he has neither seen the corpse dancer nor the walking corpse with his own eyes, so how can he tell the difference.

So in the end he simply gave up and started drinking, chatting and joking with the people around him, hoping to get some unexpected news from them.As a rich man, he generously announced that "everyone can drink whatever they want, and I will be responsible for tonight's account", which immediately won everyone's cheers and goodwill.The drinker who happened to be sitting at the same table with him even introduced him as a confidant, and he started talking endlessly. This man is a hunter, and he often goes hunting in the forest. An Xingmian happened to make up for it from him. A lot of knowledge related to the Illusion Forest, so as not to get black eyes after breaking in, and be eaten by a tiger before touching the wolf's den.

"Then, do you know where Ten Thousand Snake Lake is?" After beating around the bush, An Xingmian finally asked.

"Why are you asking about this?" The hunter was a little surprised, and then his face sank slightly, as if recalling some very unpleasant past.

"It's okay, I'm just asking around. The name is very strange, is it because there are many snakes there?" An Xingmian made a very casual look.

"Ten Thousand Snakes Pond...in fact, there is not a single snake," the hunter half-closed his eyes, his expression was very sad, but mixed with some kind of helpless anger, "there are not snakes in there, but monsters, a kind of long Much like a snake-like monster.”

"Monster? What monster? Have you seen it?" An Xingmian asked hurriedly.

"I haven't seen it before," the hunter shook his head. "No one knows its name, but people who have seen it and escaped by chance describe that the monster suddenly emerged from the ground. It looked like the tentacles of an octopus in the sea. Hundreds of tentacles Thousands of them are intertwined. But they will quickly separate, and each tentacle can open a big opening, like a greedy python, swallowing people whole. If you cut them with a knife, they will It also spews poisonous juice like a poisonous snake."

"Look at your expression... Has anyone you know been killed by this monster?" An Xingmian asked cautiously.

"My younger brother. He went to explore Ten Thousand Snake Lake with a few friends of the same age when he was 15 years old, and he never came back." The hunter sighed, waved his hand and stopped talking, and grabbed the wine bowl.

It seems that the corpse dancers chose such a dangerous place to gather on purpose, An Xingmian thought.This is indeed a group of people who are unwilling to deal with outsiders, and at the same time a group of guys who are brave enough. That kind of strange monster that looks like a poisonous snake and an octopus tentacles can't scare them back at all.

Suddenly, An Xingmian had a strange illusion, as if the corpse dancer and the long door monk had become the same kind of person.Although on the surface, there is absolutely no similarity between the two, the long door monk always brings the gospel to people, but the corpse dancer only brings disaster and fear of death, but for some reason, he faintly felt that , Deep in the hearts of these two groups, there is a certain kind of peculiar tenacity, peculiar persistence, peculiar stubbornness and stubbornness.

He slept peacefully in the inn, gathered all the necessary supplies, packed them into a heavy rucksack, and set off into the forest early the next morning with the rucksack on his back.According to the experience that the hunter told him the day before and a rough map, the itinerary for the first few days went smoothly.And some of the jungle survival skills he knew as a Nagato monk also came in handy. On the first afternoon, he caught an injured rabbit with his nimble skills, which saved a lot of dry food.

At the beginning, I could occasionally meet hunters, herbalists and even adventurers in the jungle, but as I continued to go deep into the center of the illusion forest, I couldn’t see living people, even human leftovers. There are very few traces, and there are more and more wild animals, poisonous snakes, and dangerous insects in the forest.Fortunately, he had already prepared medicine to repel snakes and insects in advance, and sleeping on a tree at night was fine.

This kind of itinerary is arduous and treacherous, and it is completely different from the easy and comfortable journey in Wanzhou's official roads and waterways before, and it is even more exhausting than the penance of the long-door monk.It was already October, and the heat in the forest had already subsided. It was not as sweltering as in August, but it had entered the season of flying mosquitoes. Despite the insect repellent, his skin was still covered with traces of gnat bites. , and the clothes were ripped by the thorns.At this time, if he were to be placed in his favorite places of food and romance in Wanzhou, he might be beaten out by the guards as a beggar before he even entered the door.

What's worse, because wild beasts and poisonous snakes and insects would jump out of the forest at any time, he had to close one eye even when sleeping, which was really painful torture for a sleepy person.But when he thought that those corpse dancers would go the same way and suffer the same hardships as him, An Xingmian would grit his teeth and move on.In his heart, this was obviously a confrontation between the long door monk and the corpse dancer.If the Corpse Dancer can touch the Ten Thousand Snake Pool, then the Changmen monk can too, and must be able to.

On the sixth day, even the experienced hunter's map has come to an end, and the front is an unknown territory, and he can only rely on the compass to move forward.And An Xingmian knew that the compass was not necessarily reliable, sometimes it would malfunction, and sometimes it would be disturbed by the underground mines, so he had to try his best to correct the direction through the sunlight and the growth of trees.And this is not easy, because the deeper you go in the jungle, the taller the trees are and the luxuriant branches and leaves almost block out the sun, and in many cases completely block the sun.

In any case, although the journey has been hard, it has not encountered any special major events, and it can be considered smooth.According to the hunter's estimate, walking westward from the end of the map for another three or four days will approach Ten Thousand Snake Lake.

At dusk that day, he found a good place to rest. There was a clear pond and a big tree nearby.The footprints of all kinds of wild animals, big and small, are all over the pond, which shows that the water here is not poisonous and safe to drink—although the feces and urine of wild animals are mostly in it.

An Xingmian washed her hands and face, tried her best to suppress the urge to fill her stomach with cold water, and still boiled the water in the small pot she carried with her, then leaned against a big tree and waited for the water to cool.At this moment, he suddenly heard a sound in the distance, which seemed to be the sound of dead branches on the ground being broken.

He thought that some ferocious beast was approaching, so he quickly prostrated himself on the ground and listened to the sound to distinguish the number of comers.Hearing this, he realized that what came was not a beast, but a bipedal human being, and there were three of them in total.

Could it be that he bumped into a corpse dancer who was going to participate in the Ten Thousand Snake Pool?An Xingmian was excited for a while, and didn't care about the hot hands, quickly picked up the pot and hid it in the bushes beside him, then kicked the burnt ashes on the ground into the pond, and then shrank herself behind the big tree.But there were still some scorched black marks left on the ground, and the heat could be felt by touching it with his hands. He could only hope that the other party would not pay attention to such details.

The people who came soon appeared, and there were three of them, the leader was a small young man with a machete on his back, dressed like a local hunter.Behind him is a man and a woman. The man is strong and powerful, and his figure is a head taller than the average person. He looks like a martial arts practitioner; .

"Just spend the night here," said the young man dressed as a hunter. "You can't drink the raw water in the woods. I'll go and make a fire to boil it."

Yuren nodded, put a piece of cloth on the ground, and sat down, while the strong man beside her sat down on the ground.An Xingmian reckoned that the man dressed as a hunter should be a guide, and the remaining one man and one woman were the ones who wanted to enter the forest.Will they be the corpse dancers they are looking for?

He began to pay attention to these three people.He found that the feather woman's expression was very strange, as if there was a kind of indifference to nothing, the light blue pupils seemed to be looking at something, and it seemed that she was not looking at anything, her eyes were focused on the infinitely distant void middle.But the strong man was a little tired, and he hung his head down after sitting on the ground.As for the hunter who led the way, he seemed to be full of energy. He had already filled a large iron pot with water and started to cook it.

But An Xingmian keenly noticed that this person was not honest.When he was fetching water, he had already hidden some kind of medicinal powder in his palm in advance, and then mixed it into the kettle.Is this trying to murder someone for money, or is it a matter of money and sex?An Xingmian sighed inwardly.Normally, he would probably take care of this nosy business, but now that he is in a dangerous situation, especially since the identities of these three people are completely unclear, he is not willing to act rashly and cause complications.

But I am a long door monk, he thought, if a "standard" long door monk encountered such a thing, such as his teacher Zhang Haoge, how would he deal with it?Zhang Haoge is very knowledgeable, but he knows nothing about fighting, but if he caught a glimpse of this scene, would he not interfere because he was powerless to protect himself?That is absolutely impossible. If Zhang Haoge is really here, he will definitely step forward without hesitation and expose the plot of the leader. Then he may be punched to death or stabbed to death, but these , he will not consider it first.

Thinking of Zhang Haoge, An Xingmian's heart warmed up slightly.He gritted his teeth, and was about to show up to subdue the guide, but before he could take a step, the feathered woman suddenly spoke.

"Using the poison of the seven-step snake can't deal with me." She still looked into the distance, and did not shift her gaze to the guide. "There are not many poisons in this world that I can't cure, let alone this kind of seven-step snake." The poisonous powder made from snake venom is too smelly, I have already smelled it."

The guide was startled at first, then an indescribable smile appeared on his face, he stretched out his hand, and knocked the pot of poisonous water to the ground.He clapped his hands nonchalantly, and took a few steps forward: "Your nose is really good, it seems that no poison can hide from you, you are indeed a corpse dancer."

This seemingly beautiful and pure Yuren turned out to be a corpse dancer!An Xingmian was slightly startled at first, and then excited: Anyway, I finally found a living corpse dancer.He thought viciously: No matter what, you can't let the guide kill you, because you need to live to help me find Xu Mizi.

He moved his knuckles lightly, ready to rescue him in a critical moment, but the feathered woman still seemed so nonchalant, as if she had a plan in mind.Or in other words, this incident didn't seem to affect her at all, because she still didn't even look at the guide, let alone offer to fight back.Such an attitude of extreme contempt undoubtedly angered the other party.

"Don't you want to ask me why I killed you?" He asked in a deep voice.

"What does that matter?" Yuren said in a flat tone, "Aren't all the people living in this world the ones who want to kill me and I want to kill you? Knowing that killing is enough in itself, the reason not important."

"But you...didn't...to me..." The guide was a little incoherent for a while.

"You wanted to kill me, but you failed, but I don't want to kill you, I still need you," Yuren seemed to be saying jingle, "So, re-boil a pot of water, rest early, and go on the road early tomorrow."

Even An Xingmian was shocked by this Yuren's weird way of thinking, and the guide's face was flushed, it seemed that he was very angry.He suddenly untied the machete from his back, and rushed towards Yuren!

"I'll kill you!" he growled, "I'll kill every corpse dancer in the world!"

An Xingmian shook her head, not wanting to read any more.As soon as this person took the first step, he could tell that this person's martial arts foundation was really not that good, and his steps were flimsy and superficial.If this Yuren is really a corpse dancer, then she should have ten thousand ways to bring him down to the ground.After the poisoning failed, probably the guide was completely desperate, and simply made a final futile struggle at the cost of his life.

(End of this chapter)