Suddenly, I saw the abbot raise his arm, and a sleeve arrow shot out. Because the distance was within a short distance, most people couldn't avoid it, but the man dodged like lightning and dodged the sleeve arrow. A sleeve arrow was deeply embedded in the pillar behind. Almost at the same time, I suddenly saw that the abbot seemed to have been hit by something. His whole body and the chair fell back together, and he fell heavily to the ground. The abbot didn't even make a sound. There was no sound, he struggled painfully on the ground for a few times, and then became motionless. I could vaguely see a stream of blood flowing out of his neck.

The man stood nearby, looking at the abbot struggling in pain with a strange smile on his face.

Fear, sadness, and some kind of indescribable loss made my head confused. I squatted quietly on the ground, bit my lip with my teeth, and tried hard to control myself not to make any sound. I knew that as long as I was afraid that my life would be lost if I made even a little noise. I wanted to run away quickly, but my legs were so weak that I couldn't control them anymore.

I don’t know how long it took, but I felt the ground beneath my feet shaking slightly. After a while, there was another shaking, and then there was no movement in the room. I knew that the person had gotten into the crack again. So, I gritted my teeth and summoned up the courage to stand up and peek into the room secretly. Sure enough, the room was empty.

Only then did I regain my composure, and hurriedly stumbled into the house. Under the dim and swaying light, I found the old abbot lying on his back on the ground, his face pale, and a dart nailed to his throat. His eyes were big. With his eyes open, he seemed to be in a lot of pain and unwillingness. He really refused to close his eyes. The scene was really tragic.

I jumped on him and cried loudly. I could feel my heart bleeding. I felt sad for the abbot's death, and felt ashamed and guilty for my own cowardice and cowardice.

After crying for a long time, I went to the front yard and called all my brothers and sisters out, saying that my master had been killed by that person who often came here. Then I hurriedly reported it to the official. Someone from the county came to examine the body and examined me. After making inquiries, I was cautious and did not mention the details of the man escaping in a crack in the ground after killing the abbot.

Because I think people in the officialdom will not believe it. In their opinion, it is just nonsense. This is not good for me. They must either think that I have a mental problem or that the abbot’s death It has something to do with me. By then, even if I jump into the Yellow River, I won’t be able to wash it away.

I just said that after I noticed something unusual and rushed into the house, the man disappeared. I don’t know how he escaped, because the monks in the temple all knew that the man had been to the temple, so they would be less likely to let him go. People misunderstood me or acted against me.

In addition, there is another point that I think is very important, that is, I vaguely feel that after this incident, maybe the crack will no longer crack regularly at the end of each month as usual. It is closed, because once the abbot dies, that person will definitely be afraid that this most important secret will be exposed, so it is very likely that he will try every means to prevent the crack from appearing again. Although I am not completely sure about this, my intuition tells me that This situation is likely to happen.

In addition, if I tell the official truth completely, in order to prove that what I say is true and not nonsense, the officials will definitely verify it on the spot on the last day of next month to see with their own eyes that the crack is real. It will happen, because people will never believe such a weird thing unless they see it with their own eyes, but if that crack doesn't appear again, by then, I won't be able to explain it even if I am full of words.

Therefore, I did not tell the truth rashly. Later, I thought about it and realized that it was the right thing to do. Not only could I not tell the truth to the officials, but I could not tell the truth to the monks in the temple either, because if you have never seen such a thing with your own eyes, , no one would believe it, no one would believe that the stone ground would crack for no reason, and the cracking time would be so regular. Soon after, the situation I was worried about actually happened.

At that time, the old abbot left a suicide note, saying that in case of his death, he would let me be the abbot of the temple. This was something I never expected, and I was even more grateful to the abbot. Although I had very little experience in the temple, I Because I am always hardworking and humble, I am quite popular. In addition, because I was appointed by the old abbot, there was no major backlash from anyone, so I became the abbot of the temple in a daze.

Not long after the abbot was killed, several young and courageous monks in the temple clamored to move to the abbot's house, because the abbot's house was in the backyard of the temple, close to the mountain, and not only had a quiet environment , and it is warm in winter and cool in summer, making it very comfortable to live in.

I didn't say anything at the time and agreed, because I was the only one who knew the secrets in this house. If that crack appeared again, I would be able to take the opportunity to tell these monks the truth. When they saw it with their own eyes, I would tell them the truth. You will believe it, and then everyone can avenge the master and deal with that person together, and you can also convince the officials of this incident. If so many people witness this incident, then the officials will also believe it. This is the best the result of.

So, on the last day of that month, I made an excuse and came to this house. After chatting for a while with the seven or eight monks who lived in this house, I asked them to go to bed first. I slept on an empty bed next to me. At that time, there were self-cultivated fields in the temple, and the monks had to work during the day, so at night, everyone was very tired. After lying on the bed, they fell asleep quickly, with snoring everywhere.

And I was extremely excited, because this was the last day of the first month after the abbot was killed. Will the cracks still open and close automatically tonight as before?

Under the flickering oil lamp, I was extremely nervous and excited, staring at the place where the crack appeared, but except for snoring, the sound of insects outside, and the occasional talking in my sleep, there was no other sound.

Until the second half of the night, there was still no sign of the crack appearing, but I still refused to give up and kept staring at that place. In this way, until the east turned white and the rooster crowed three times, the crack finally did not appear. At that time, I thought, it was as expected, and I was secretly glad that I had been more cautious and did not tell the truth rashly, otherwise my situation would have been too passive.

After everyone started working during the day, I went to that house, lay down on the ground, and carefully observed the ground where the cracks appeared, because the ground of this house was actually the rocks of the mountain, all stones, without any soil, and It is very flat. This house is built according to the mountain. It stands to reason that since there will be such big cracks on such a stone, even if the cracks are closed, they will definitely leave some lines on the surface of the stone. But what surprised me was that there were no traces at all.

Even human skin, if it is cut, will inevitably have scars after it grows back. Why does this stone crack and close without leaving any traces? It is really strange. I almost doubt what I have seen in the past. Is all that real, or is it just a dream?

I also hired three masons, on the pretext that they wanted to carve a groove in the ground to use as a bath for everyone, and asked them to dig down where the cracks appeared. I wanted to see if there would be anything abnormal underneath. The three masons worked for almost a month and dug down to a depth of half a meter, but I looked carefully at the place where they had dug and still didn't see anything special.

This is so weird that it cannot be explained by common sense.

Just when life in the monastery gradually returned to its previous calm, and I felt that that person and that crack had disappeared forever, something unexpected happened again.

It was a sultry night, and I thought it was going to rain, so I closed the doors and windows, blew out the candles, and began to meditate in the room. After a long period of meditation, I felt refreshed and energetic. Listening to the sound of drums outside, I knew it was already late at night.

I began to think over and over again in the dark about the abbot's murder and the deep hatred of my second brother, hoping to sort out some clues and find some clues. Just when I was lost in thought, suddenly, I heard someone knocking on the back window. , I was suddenly startled and asked "Who" in a low voice. The man outside the window also lowered his voice and replied, "It's me, third brother." When I heard the voice of my eldest brother, Huizhong's father, I Quickly light the lamp and open the door.

He is indeed the eldest brother.

He had already turned around from the back window. As soon as I opened the door, he came in in a flash. He seemed to be very panicked. He was breathing heavily and looked like he was in shock. I knew it must have happened. What happened.

I quickly asked, "Brother, what's wrong? Why did you come to my place in the middle of the night? What happened?" My eldest brother didn't answer immediately. Instead, he grabbed the kettle on the table and drank a few gulps. , then walked over and blew out the light. In the darkness, he sat on the chair for a while before his mood slowly stabilized. Then he took a deep breath and said, "Third brother, I encountered something strange today." '.

It turns out that in order to thoroughly find out how the second brother died, the eldest brother has been visiting the graveyard almost every day for many years. However, the time he went there was very special. He always went during the day or at night, instead of choosing to go there. On the night at the end of every month, because the eldest brother felt that accidents to the Li family always happened on the night at the end of the month, so he avoided this time, not because he was afraid of death, but because he wanted to save his own life, hoping to He wanted to avenge his second brother's wrongdoing, and he wanted to find out what was so special about that mass grave. Even if it wasn't on the last day of every month, would there be anything unusual there?

That night, the eldest brother went to bed earlier, but he dreamed of the second brother again in his dream, so he woke up. Once he woke up, he couldn't sleep again. When he was a child, every bit of the second brother's life appeared in his mind very clearly. In his mind, he especially recalled the mysterious and tragic death of his second brother, which also led to the indirect premature death of my father. One incident took two lives and caused us to lose two of the closest people to us.

The more the elder brother thought about it, the sadder he became, and the more he thought about it, the more he hated the murderer. His heart was extremely tormented, so he got up from the bed, quietly put on his clothes, and went straight to the mass grave in the dark night.
Chapter completed!