Chapter 1 Don't go out in the dark

　　Don't go out when it's dark. 　　This saying has been passed down in the village of the disabled old man for many years, and there is no way to prove exactly when it was passed down. However, this saying is the truth, no need to doubt. 　　The Si Granny of the Crippled Old Village was nervous again when she saw the setting sun hiding a little bit behind the mountains. As the sun set and the last rays of sunlight disappeared, heaven and earth were suddenly silent all of a sudden, without any sound. Only to see the darkness from the west slowly flooded over, along the way devouring mountains, rivers, roads and trees, and then came to the old village, the old village will be submerged. 　　The four corners of the village of the remnants of the old erected four ancient stone statues, stone mottled, age, even the Si Granny does not know who carved this stone statue, when erected here. 　　As darkness descended, the four stone statues emitted an eerie glow in the darkness, and the statues remained lit, causing Granny Si and the village elders to breathe a sigh of relief. 　　The darkness outside the village grew thicker and thicker, but with the light of the stone statues, the Village of Elderly Remnants was still considered safe. 　　Suddenly, Granny Si's ears twitched, froze, and lost her voice, "Listen, there's a child crying outside!" 　　Next to her, Ma Lao shook his head and said, "Impossible, you heard it wrong ...... Hehe, there really is a baby's cry!" 　　The sound of a baby's cry came from the darkness outside the village, the other old people in the village except for the deaf ones all heard this cry, the old people looked at each other, the Remnant Old Man Village is remote and desolate, how could a baby appear nearby? 　　"I'll go and take a look!" 　　Granny Si got agitated and tiptoed on her small feet to a stone statue in the village, Ma Lao rushed over, "Granny Si, are you crazy? It's dark, leaving the village is death!" 　　"Carrying this stone statue out of the village, things in the darkness are afraid of stone statues, I won't die for a while and a half!" 　　Granny Si bent down and tried to carry the stone statue on her back, but she was a hunchback and couldn't carry it. Ma Lao shook his head, "It's better for me to do it. I'll carry the stone statue to accompany you!" 　　Another old man limped over and said, "Master Ma, you only have one arm, you can't carry the stone statue for long, I have both hands, it's better for me to carry it." 　　Ma Lao glared at him, "Dead cripple, you have a broken leg, can you walk? Although I only have one arm, this arm is very strong!" 　　He picked up the stone statue with his one arm and stabilized it, it was unimaginably heavy: "Old lady Si, let's go!" 　　"Don't call me a dead old woman! Cripple, mute, all of you should be more careful, the village is missing a stone statue, don't be touched by something in the darkness!" 　　...... 　　Ma Lao and Si Granny walked out of the Crippled Old Man Village, there were some weird things wandering around the two in the darkness, but when they were illuminated by the light of the stone statue, they retreated back into the darkness with a strange squeak. 　　The two followed the sound of the cry, out of a hundred steps, came to a large river, the baby's cry is from the river. Stone statues emit a ghostly light, not too far, the two carefully capture the sound orientation, along the river upstream to go, out of a few dozen steps, the cry is nearby, Ma Lao one-armed has been difficult to support. Si Granny's eyes lit up, saw a tiny bit of fluorescence, it was a basket resting on the river bank, fluorescence from the basket, the cries also came from the basket. 　　"There really is a child!" 　　Granny Si went forward and lifted the basket, but she was slightly stunned and failed to lift it up, underneath that basket was an arm that was whitened by the river water, and it was this arm that lifted the basket and the child in the basket, all the way to the shore. 　　"Don't worry, the child is safe." Granny Si whispered to the woman underwater. 　　The woman's corpse seemed to have heard her words, and her palms loosened, being washed away by the river and disappearing into the darkness. 　　Granny Si lifted the basket, in the basket was a baby in swaddling clothes, on top of the swaddling clothes was a jade pendant, which emitted fluorescence. The glow of this jade pendant was similar to that of the stone statue, but it was much weaker, and it was the jade pendant that protected the child in the basket from the things in the darkness. 　　It was just that the jade pendant's glow was so weak that it could only protect the child, but not the woman. 　　"It's a boy." 　　Back in the Crippled Elderly Village, the villagers all gathered around, all of them old and sick. Granny Si lifted the swaddling clothes and took a look, grinning, her broken teeth scattered, "Our Crippled Old Village, finally we have an able-bodied person!" 　　The cripple with only one leg was surprised, "Granny Si, are you planning to raise him? It's hard for us to even feed ourselves! I think it's better to send him out ......" 　　Granny Si was furious: "Why should I give away a child that I picked up with my skills?" 　　A group of villagers were coy and didn't dare to refute her, the village chief came over on a stretcher, he was a bit more miserable than everyone else, the others at least had arms and legs, just less than normal, while he was armless and legless. But everyone treated him with respect, even the ferocious Granny Si didn't dare to put up a fight. 　　"Since we're raising him, we should give him a name, right?" 　　The village chief said, "Old woman, do you see anything else in the basket?" 　　Granny Si rummaged through it and shook her head, "There's only this jade pendant, no other notes or anything. There are words on the jade pendant, a Qin character. This jade pendant has no impurities, and there's a strange power inside, it's not a mortal product, it should be from a big family, right?" 　　"Is his name Qin, or is his surname Qin?" 　　The village chief pondered and said, "Let him be surnamed Qin, and his name will be Mu, Qin Mu. When he grows up, he'll be told to go herding, so he'll be able to make a living at least." 　　"Qin Mu." Granny Si looked at the baby in the swaddling clothes, and the baby wasn't afraid of her, and actually babbled and laughed. 　　...... 　　By the river, the sound of a flute came from a shepherd boy sitting on the back of a cow and playing a flute, the sound of the flute was clear and melodious. This shepherd boy eleven or twelve years old, looks clear eyebrows, red lips and white teeth, half-open shirt, chest hanging a jade pendant. 　　This teenager is eleven years ago Si Granny picked up the baby from the riverside, the village elders over the years to bring up this child, Si Granny do not know where to get a cow, so that the baby Qin Mu drink milk every day, survived the period of easy early death. 　　Although the villagers of the village were fierce, they treated him very well. Granny Si was a tailor, so Qin Mu learned tailoring from Granny Si, medicine picking and refining from the pharmacist, legwork from the crippled grandfather, sound recognition from the blind grandfather, and breathing from the village chief who had no arms and legs, and the days went by very quickly. 　　The cow was his childhood nurse. Granny Si originally planned to sell it, but Qin Mu didn't want to give it up, so the task of herding the cow was given to him as well. 　　He often herded the cows by the river, with the green mountains like a sea, and the blue waves and white clouds, it was very pleasant. 　　"Qin Mu, Qin Mu, save me!" 　　Suddenly, the cow underneath him spoke, Qin Mu was startled and jumped down from the cow's back in a hurry, only to see the cow with tears in her eyes, spitting out human words, saying to him, "Qin Mu, you grew up eating my milk, I'm kind of half a mother to you, you have to save me!" 　　Qin Mu blinked his eyes and said tentatively, "How can I save you?" 　　The cow said, "You have a scythe at your waist, strip off my skin, then you can save me from being trapped." 　　Qin Mu hesitated, and the cow said, "Have you forgotten the grace of feeding?" 　　Qin Mu raised the sickle, carefully cut the cowhide, it is strange to say that the cowhide was peeled off, but there is not a trace of blood flowed out, and the cowhide inside is actually empty, there is no flesh and blood and skeleton. 　　Cowhide peeled to half, from the inside rolled out a woman in her twenties and thirties, two legs are still wrapped in the cow's legs, skin and flesh connected to the cowhide, but the upper limbs have been disengaged from the cowhide. 　　The woman was cloaked in hair, snatched the scythe from the hands of Qin Mu who was already stunned, cut the cowhide on the legs and feet in two or three times, looked at Qin Mu, and the evil was born out of fear, the scythe was set on Qin Mu's neck, and laughed coldly and said: ''Little Evil, because of you I have been turned into a cow, and I have only been able to eat grass for eleven years, but also have to feed you milk to drink! Pity, I just gave birth to a child before I turned into a cow, and then I was backstabbed by that demonic woman, turning me into a cow to feed you milk! Today, I'm finally free, so I'm going to kill you first and then I'm going to wash away the villagers in this village!" 　　Qin Mu's mind roared, not knowing what this woman who had drilled out of a cow's hide was talking about. 　　The woman was about to slash him to death when she suddenly got a chill in the back of her heart and looked down as a mouthful of knives pierced through her chest. 　　"Mu'er, your pharmacist grandfather told you to go back and take your medicine." The woman's body fell, behind her stood the village's crippled grandfather, kind eyebrows, a naive face, carrying a blood-soaked knife in his hand, smiling at Qin Mu. 　　"Grandpa Cripple ......" Qin Mu's body is soft, looked at the cowhide and the woman's body on the ground, still did not come back to his senses. 　　"Go back, go back." The cripple patted his shoulder and laughed. 　　Qin Mu walked towards the village with one foot high and one foot low, looking back, but he saw the cripple throwing the woman's body into the river. 　　The shock of this scene was so great that he didn't even know when he returned to the village. 　　"Qin Mu! Dead boy, what did I tell you? Don't go out in the dark!" 　　As night fell, the stone statues at the four corners of the Remnant Old Man Village automatically lit up again, and Granny Si summoned Qin Mu, who was planning to sneak out of the village to check out the cowhide by the river, and dragged him back. 　　"Granny, why can't we go out in the dark?" Qin Mu looked up and asked. 　　"When it's dark, there will be some terrible things moving in the darkness, going out is death." 　　Granny Si solemnly said, "The stone statues in the village will protect us, and the things in the darkness won't dare to enter the village." 　　"Do other villages have such stone statues?" Qin Mu was curious. 　　Granny Si nodded her head, but her face was a little worried, she couldn't stop looking outside the village and whispered, "The cripple should be back ...... Really shouldn't have let the cripple go out, this guy only has one leg ......" 　　"Granny, something strange happened today ......" 　　Qin Mu hesitated for a moment and said the matter of a woman drilling out of the cow's stomach, and Granny Si said carelessly, "You mean that woman? The cripple told me about it, and he handled it well. As early as when you were four years old and weaned I said I would sell the cow, but you just couldn't bear to part with it, so I let you feed it. See, now something's happened, right? I told you that if you eat milk until you're four, you'll get attached to the cow." 　　Qin Mu reddened, weaning at four was indeed a bit too long, but it seemed like the key wasn't to wean at four, right? 　　"Granny, that woman was killed by Grandpa Cripple ......." 　　"Well killed." 　　Granny Si laughed, "That was cheap for her. She should have died eleven years ago, if she didn't have to milk you, could she have lived until now?" 　　Qin Mu was uncertain. 　　Granny Si glanced at him and said, "This woman is the wife of the city lord of Set Long City, which is thousands of miles away from here. The city lord of Set Long is lustful, and she is jealous, and the city lord of Set Long likes to womanize outside, and forcibly prey on women from good families. And set dragon city master every bad a woman's innocence, this city master wife will send people will that woman alive. I sneaked into the set dragon city, originally intended to kill her, saw her just gave birth to a child, the child is only three months, and thought that you still have no milk to drink, and she has milk, so she will turn her into a cow back to milk you. I just didn't expect this woman to break free of the seal and be able to speak, almost harming you." 　　Qin Mu's jaw dropped and he lost his voice, "Granny, how can a person turn into a cow?" 　　Granny Si hemmed and hawed, revealing half a mouthful of scattered teeth, "You want to learn? I'll teach you ...... The cripple is back!" 　　Qin Mu looked over and saw that the cripple was limping along with one hand on his cane and one hand grasping the prey on his back. The darkness was like a tidal wave flying towards the village, and Granny Si hurriedly called out, "Dead cripple, hurry up, hurry up!" 　　"What's the hurry?" 　　The cripple was still walking unhurriedly towards the village, and the moment he stepped into the village, the intense darkness flooded the village just in time. The prey on his back was a spotted tiger, not dead yet, its tail was swept by the darkness, suddenly the tiger let out a wailing roar, Qin Mu hastened to look, only to see that the tiger's tail was actually only a section of bone left, the fur and flesh and blood on the tail were all gone, as if it was gnawed off by something. 　　He curiously looked at the darkness outside the village, where it was pitch black and nothing could be seen. 　　"What the hell is in the darkness?" He wondered in his mind.