Chapter 44: First entering the Holy Village

It was a moonless night, and the surface of the Yellow River was dark.

I sat at the bow of the boat, and could see nothing but the dark silhouettes of the mountains on both sides of the river and the occasional shimmering water in front of me.

The messenger was extremely fast and silent, and apart from the sound of splashing water, the air was quiet and still. All my companions who had entered the cabin were silent.

But I knew that, in addition to our boat, another boat had also followed, right behind us. Even though the two messengers were like robots, even the frequency of rowing and paddling was the same, and the sound of breaking water overlapped, there was always a slight difference.

This thought made me feel a little bitter. Those poor old people were still sent to the dangerous Holy Village. I hope they can escape because of us.

Bored, I played with the lighter in my hand, lit it, and hoped that the faint light would dispel the slight heaviness and uneasiness in my heart. This was the first time I had this experience of sitting in a wooden boat and traveling at night on the Yellow River. I always felt that there was something huge , dangerous thing following us. In the light of the fire, I saw that the messenger had removed his hat at some point, revealing a skull-like face with a smile on the corner of his mouth. This expression felt like a sneer, mocking me.

“Is my man okay? When will he wake up?” I couldn’t help but ask. His smile always made me feel like there was a huge conspiracy, but I couldn’t figure out where it was. I was just instinctively worried about my companion.

“They will wake up when they reach their destination. Since I dared to bring you here, I would not have done anything to harm you on the way.” I thought the silent messenger would not answer my questions, but he actually answered me. However, the angle of his mouth was even more severe, and I felt his mockery of me was even deeper.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, we had the advantage before, and I wasn’t afraid of him at the moment, but he had a sense of superiority and always remained calm.

In the silence, the boat became bumpy after a sharp turn, and the water made a thunderous roar as we entered a section of the river with a rapid current.

I had never felt such a jolt before. It was difficult to sit still on the deck for a moment, and I could only lie on the deck to barely stabilize my body. But at this time, I vaguely saw that the messenger suddenly stopped rowing and stood still, turned around and looked at me. I was on guard, just about to make a move, when I saw him raise his hand…

What was he going to do? At this moment, I had just stabilized myself and was about to stand up when I smelled a strange sweet fragrance in the air. As I breathed in, it surrounded me warmly, and my body began to feel drowsy and my consciousness began to blur… I tried to bite my tongue to stay awake, but I couldn’t get rid of it.

I suddenly fell back onto the deck, and a strange thought came to mind: Is there a powerful medical expert in the Holy Village? This medicine is very powerful… Then, a deep sense of drowsiness surrounded me, and before I fell into a deep sleep, I heard the cold voice of the messenger.

“Since you are determined to become a sacrifice, I will not stop you, but how can you possibly know where we are?”

I tried to say something with my lips, but I felt that the tiredness from my body had spread to my soul, and then I inevitably fell into a deep sleep.

This time the sleep was exceptionally deep, but the bizarre dreams came one after another. For a moment I dreamed that the original holy village was inhabited by all kinds of demons and monsters, and these demons and monsters were all from the Journey to the West that I loved to watch when I was a child. For a moment I dreamed that my master was standing in the misty holy village in ragged clothes, looking miserable. I desperately tried to get closer to him, but no matter how hard I tried, he always kept a certain distance from me. I could not get close to him…

In my dream, I could feel the sadness that seemed to come from reality, but my body had no experience of the outside world. This oppression made me struggle desperately, and then with this struggle, I suddenly opened my eyes.

My body was floating, and in front of me was a green field full of vitality. The morning mist shrouded the green, like the morning mist in the southern mountain villages.

“Where am I?” This was my first thought, and then I heard a continuous groaning sound behind me, like the sound of waking up with a headache after a hangover. I subconsciously looked down and saw that it was a hard wooden board. I suddenly remembered that I was on a boat and was drugged by the so-called messenger. This memory made me suddenly roll over and sit up, but my head inevitably hurt a little.

“Chengyi.” I heard Chengxin’s voice behind me. At this moment, the cabin curtain had been pulled up by Chengxin, who was standing in the cabin looking at me. Behind him were my friends who had all woken up.

Seeing that they were all awake, I was slightly relieved, and then I let out a long breath and looked at Chengxin, who had a strange look on his face, and said, “It seems that we have arrived at the so-called Holy Village.”

Cheng Xin Ge did not pick up on my words, but continued to maintain a strange look and said, “There are definitely masters of the medical pulse. I can’t even smell what the main ingredient of this powder is just by the smell. He cleverly uses other flavors to cover up the flavor of the main ingredient. I can’t even guess the ingredients of this drug…”

“Come on, you’re here. Do you still want to get a prescription? Just save your life first.” At this moment, Xiao Chengqian also stood up unsteadily and said a word to Chengxin.

I guessed they would argue next, so I ignored them and endured the dizziness caused by the slight swaying of the boat with the waves and the headache, and began to take a look at the surroundings.

The place where we were was a small harbor with boats moored there. There was a long wooden bridge extending into the water, and the piles of the wooden bridge were tied to one small wooden boat after another, just like ours. There were about twenty boats.

The water under the boat was clear and calm, and the river was not wide. At first glance, it looked like a small river common in the south…

Beyond the wooden bridge is a large tidal flat, but unlike the vast stretches of yellow earth elsewhere, this tidal flat is covered in green grass for some reason. Even in late autumn, it is still green, just like the grass in the south. In winter, it does not wither completely, and it is still green.

Behind the tidal flats is a huge mountain range. As far as the eye can see, it is all green and lush, not at all desolate or weathered.

The mountains stretch on and on, and I can’t see the end of them. Behind us are mountains, but compared to the mountains in front of us, the mountains behind us look like the mountains in the Northwest, covered with layers of loess, appearing vigorous and full of vicissitudes. All the strangeness exists only in the mountains in front of us.

The river extends to the front, but is blocked by the mountains. I don’t know if it has formed a huge bend here, or if it has merged into a lake, because there is a layer of mist there…

In short, we have arrived at such a place, surrounded by mountains on three sides, with a calm tributary (presumably a small tributary of the Yellow River), one side of the mountain resembling the mountains of the south, and the other side retaining the appearance of the Northwest. The strange contrast and impact, but the scenery in front of us is really not bad, and it is fundamentally different from the holy village in hell that I imagined.

At this time, everything was quiet. I looked at all the boats. Except for the one with people in it, the others were quiet and scary.

“I’m hungry.” Hui Gen’er also came to the deck, stretched, and in front of me, this kid never had a sense of crisis. When he came to such a place, all he thought about was being hungry.

“That’s right, what does this mean? Just leave us here and that’s it? Why did they bring us here?” Xiao Chengqian also grumbled in dissatisfaction, which made me feel strange. What does it mean to leave us on the boat?

I didn’t say anything, but bent over and washed my face with the clear river water. The stimulation from the cold water made my headache go away in an instant. After I felt a little clearer, I stood up and said, “Anyway, let’s get off the boat and take a look. I don’t think they just brought us to a random place. This is where the Holy Village is.”

After saying that, I jumped off the deck and onto the long wooden bridge tied to the boat, ready to lead everyone forward.

“Who knows where that village is hidden?” Xiao Chengqian squatted lazily on the deck, washing his face, and said in dissatisfaction, but he also believed that we had not been taken to a place at random. As long as we observed these “bridal boats” tied with red flowers, we knew that this place definitely belonged to a port of the Holy Village.

Then, everyone washed their faces and followed me onto the wooden bridge. We were about to leave when we heard a distant sound of ‘tick-tock’ and ‘creak-creak’ coming from the mountains in front of us.

However, such a sound immediately reminded me of the sound of a carriage or a donkey cart. Is someone coming?