Although this village is located in a plain, there is a small hill behind the village.
It’s not very high, but it takes at least half an hour to climb from the foot of the mountain to the top if you walk fast.
"What are these old men and women doing up the mountain for no reason?" The fellow villager kept muttering to himself as he walked in front and led the way.
As the saying goes, live by the mountain.
Their hill is not big, but it can produce some mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and even wild raspberries.
During the famine years, many people survived by relying on these scraps from the mountains. But now that life has improved, most people don't care about these little things anymore.
Most of the time, the children were young and would run around the mountains to explore. Because there were no dangers over the years, the adults were very relieved.
"Are there any temples or anything like that in your mountain?" John Woo asked as he followed him.
It is also common for elderly people to go up the mountain to worship in groups.
Furthermore, if there is a temple, it may be more or less related to the formation of the domain.
"What can we expect? Just some flowers, plants, and trees for the kids to play with." The local shook his head. "The weather has been bad lately. It's always dry. It doesn't rain. Look at these trees; they're all dead. There's no mushrooms growing. It's a waste of effort to go up the mountain."
After hearing what he said, several people looked carefully at the trees on both sides.
It was green, but a dry green. The bark did indeed appear dry.
"But I just looked at the fields below, they were green." Lin Fan asked curiously.
"That's all artificial rainfall, water is pumped by water pumps. Most of us here are elderly, and we don't have as many fields as before. The water we get is only enough to irrigate the farmland, so we don't have time to take care of these things in the mountains," explained the fellow villager.
"If you had come two months earlier, during spring planting season, the ground would have been so dry it was cracking, and the stream in the mountain behind us was said to have run dry. In my entire life, I can't recall seeing anything like this so dry right at the start of spring."
The fellow villager shook his head as he walked, as if he was also surprised by the weather.
"It was dry last year. In the summer, there was a fire in Sichuan Province. I thought it would be better this year, but it turned out to be even drier..."
"Do you have a river here?" asked Sister Xu.
"Yes," the fellow replied. "It's called a river, but it's actually just a big pond. We used to play in it when we were little, and the water was quite clear. But later on, they dammed the river on both sides to build roads and stuff, so now it's just a big pond at best."
Mountains, rivers, temples, and caves are all places where problems can easily arise. That's why Sister Xu asked this question.
Now, halfway up the mountain, everything looked fine. There was no temple either, and she was still wondering what the problem was when the river appeared.
"Where is the river?"
"It's at the foot of the mountain opposite. We have to climb over it." The fellow was a little breathless. "Why? You want to go play? That place is now a stagnant pond. It's not fun anymore. You won't see anything if you go there."
They climbed all the way to the top of the mountain without seeing anyone else.
"Hey? Where have all these old men and women gone?" The fellow stood on the top of the mountain and looked around.
Maybe it was because it was a familiar place and he had just seen people on the surveillance camera, so although he was worried, he was not that nervous.
Lin Fan and the others felt even more strange, but they couldn't say it directly.
"Is this your only way up the mountain?" John Woo confirmed with him.
"Yeah, it's because there are so many people walking on it, and the paths have been worn out," the fellow villager replied. "Actually, we can walk anywhere on this dirt hill. But there are more mosquitoes in the tall grass, so most people don't go there. Especially since my family has children."
No normal person would take the initiative to go to a dangerous place with a child in their arms.
"Where is the river you are talking about?" Sister Xu had already looked around and found nothing.
"That's right there, the sparkling water..." The fellow turned in another direction and pointed. "Hey? Where's the water?"
Lin Fan looked in the direction of his finger and saw a large area of brown in the midst of green, which looked like land.
"Eh? Could it be that the water has dried up?" The fellow scratched his head. "No way? Although it was dry for a while before, hasn't it been back to normal recently? Could it be that even the river has dried up?"
"Go down and take a look." Sister Xu said after making sure there was no problem on the mountain.
The fellow villager didn't find his family, so he had no choice but to continue exploring. "Do you think anything will happen?"
"What could possibly happen?" John Woo smiled nonchalantly.
“…That’s right.” The fellow nodded.
He already felt that something was wrong, but because of his limited vision, he couldn't think of anything else.
The way down the mountain was harder than going up, but Lin Fan was the steadiest and even helped Sister Xu several times.
After walking down the mountain and going a little further, I saw a dry riverbed that was quite large.
"Is this river so deep?" The fellow looked at the land that was not covered by the river water and was completely exposed. It gradually deepened from the shore downwards, and was already as high as a person four or five meters away.
To some extent, I felt shocked.
Apart from him, the other three were the first to discover a series of footprints, extending along a not particularly steep slope into the riverbed.
"Are all the villagers here?" Lin Fan muttered softly.
"Looks like it." John Woo nodded.
The locals also noticed the footprints and were stunned for a moment before reacting. "What could be in this river? So many people are walking this way?"
Who knows? It can't be a fish.
Having footprints is much better than searching aimlessly just now.
The four of them followed the footprints down to the riverbed. Sister Xu took the opportunity to feel a handful of soil and found that it was indeed not normal.
There are a lot of plants along the river. Although they are not growing very well, they are still lush and green. Why is the soil in the river so dry?
It feels like a world...
Sister Xu suddenly turned around and climbed onto the shore five or six meters to the right of the footprints.
Lin Fan was confused, but Wu Yusen reacted and ran to the left of the footprints, about ten meters away, kicked off and flipped onto the shore.
He looked at Sister Xu who had also climbed ashore and shook his head slightly.
no!
"Hey~ What are you doing? Why are you up there again?" The fellow was walking and felt that there was no movement behind him. He turned around and saw that only the little girl was down there. The man and woman were standing on the shore, quite far away.
The three people stand like the three points of a triangle.
"I'm here. I dropped something just now and came back to look for it." John Woo jumped down with a smile and walked quickly towards his fellow villager.
After Sister Xu came back, she whispered to Lin Fan about their previous speculation.
"Is there a boundary here?" Lin Fan's eyes widened. "Isn't that something only big guys can do?"
"It's not a boundary. The entrance and exit of the boundary are very small. We guessed wrong." Sister Xu shook her head. "But there must be something wrong here. You should be alert."
"Okay, I will definitely follow you closely." Lin Fan put his hands in his pockets, touched a dozen paper talismans, and felt much more at ease.
John Woo and his fellow villager were walking in front, and when they passed a narrow river mouth blocked by fallen bushes, they saw something that made his brows jump.
In the middle of the riverbed, there is something like a tombstone, tilted and lying on an inconspicuous mound behind it.
But it doesn't look like a tombstone because there are two opposing stone doors on it.
Now, one door is leaning askew and the other is completely open.
There was no light behind the door, so I couldn't see what was going on inside.
The dark shadow huddled quietly in the doorway in the sunny weather, as if waiting for them to pass.