mchenry-crisis.org Chapter 456 Whoever gets called out will die!
Chapter 456 Whoever gets called out will die!
As Zhou Ping finished speaking, the sounds of pots and pans on the shore erupted into chaos. Old Zheng's pot stick slammed against the edge of the pot, startling someone on the dry earth. The person's heel brushed against the ash basin, but Old Zhou pulled them back.
"Don't retreat!"
Old Zhou's voice was hoarse and cracking. He turned the iron pot upside down on the ground, and the edge of the pot scraped across the dry soil, raising a ring of gray-white smoke.
"Whoever retreats to the water's edge will give away their name!"
Old Zheng was being held down by two people, and the veins on his neck were bulging.
"Uncle, who did you say sold you?"
Zhou Ping's afterimage clung to the underside of the unlit boat, bubbles rising from his mouth. His shattered reputation was held aloft by the nail marks on the boat planks, and his voice drifted intermittently through the sounds of boiling pots.
"It wasn't the ship that came looking for me first."
Old Zheng's eyes reddened, and the stick in his hand slipped in his palm.
"Who is that?"
"They are people on the shore."
The seventh eye, huddled at the bottom of the wrecked boat, with wet red bubbles bubbling from its hollow eye sockets, laughed out loud at the sound of this.
"Ask him, have him call out names."
Shopkeeper Hu hugged the small box tightly, the white paper lamp pressed against the edge of the box, the flame turning bluish due to the moisture.
"Mo Chengyue, let him finish speaking."
Mo Chengyue's Rain Flower Sword lay across the threshold, the talismanic ash on the sword becoming increasingly dark as it was washed away by the black water.
"We can't let him call out names."
Manager Hu looked at him, his eyes reddened by the smoke from the fire.
Why?
"He is now speaking from inside the ship's tent, and every time he utters an old name, the unlit ship will follow that name and feel its way to shore."
Old Zheng heard this from the shore and managed to squeeze out a sentence.
"So my uncle died in vain?"
Mo Chengyue looked at Zhou Ping's afterimage below the ship's railing and wiped the blood ash on the back of his sword with his left hand.
"For your uncle to say something like this, he's already pulling himself out of the boat."
Old Zheng's chest heaved violently.
"I just want to know who it is."
Old Zhou slammed his stick into the bottom of the pot, the metallic sound silencing Old Zheng's remaining words.
"If you want to know, stop right there. If the living move around, the dead will just be wasting their time."
Zhou Ping's lips were still moving as his afterimage appeared. The afterimages below the ship's side were drawn by his voice and veered toward the shore, with more broken shouts mixed in with the sound of the water.
"I didn't walk there by myself either."
"Someone took my family's old name."
"I paid off my rice debt a long time ago."
My mother didn't see me off on the ship.
Someone screamed from the crowd on the shore.
"Stop shouting!"
Another woman, holding her child, shrank back, her feet scattering dry ash, but Old Zhou blocked her way with his stick.
"Don't step on the dry soil, the fire must not be extinguished!"
The fat shopkeeper squeezed half of his body out of the red mist, his fat face turning yellow in the firelight.
"Don't believe everything you hear. Things in the water can be deceiving. Who knows if the boat is just trying to provoke us?"
A man in a short jacket immediately took over.
"That's right, Hongfeng Ferry has lost a lot of reputations over the years. If boats could mimic voices, what language couldn't they imitate?"
Old Zheng turned his head and glared at him.
My uncle just told me not to go over there.
The fat shopkeeper wiped the sweat from his forehead, his fingers covered in soot, and hurriedly wiped it on the hem of his clothes.
"The reason you're not allowed to go over might be because the ship is afraid you'll disrupt its plan."
Old Zhou slammed the pot stick into the ground.
"Fatty Chang, stop pacing around here."
The fat shopkeeper's face twitched.
"Uncle Zhou, I'm doing this for everyone's benefit."
"If it's for everyone's good, then bang the pot."
"I'm banging the pot."
"Then stop spouting nonsense about letting people leave."
Manager Hu listened with a furrowed brow as he listened in the abandoned shipyard.
"They're going to cause chaos."
Mo Chengyue looked at the figures swaying in the red mist on the shore. His right palm was touched by the old soul nails and tents found in the hull of the ship without lights. The red lines crawled along the edge of his palm towards the dock.
"If things get chaotic, let the boats choose their own people."
"What should we do?"
"Don't let the deceased continue to cry out; silence the remaining sounds first."
Manager Hu immediately shouted towards the shore.
"Old Zhou, don't let Zhou Ping call him out again. Shut him up!"
Old Zheng yelled back at the top of his lungs.
"Why was I granted this title?"
Mo Chengyue took over the conversation, pressing the Rain Flower Sword into the ashes of the threshold talisman, and the golden arc of light pushed outward along the black water.
"Do you want him to reveal who harmed him, or do you want him to send all of you into the tent?"
Old Zheng's face was illuminated by the firelight, flickering between light and shadow. He raised the stick in his hand, then lowered it back onto the edge of the pot.
"I don't understand these things."
"Then understand one sentence."
Mo Chengyue stared at the afterimages that kept emerging from beneath the unlit ship's hull.
"Anyone who forces Zhou Ping to call out names now is helping to overturn the living record of the ship."
Without further hesitation, Lao Zhou pulled out half a blackened old boat plaque from the gray cloth bag at his feet. The edge of the plaque was scorched by fire, and there were still splinters of wood left on the back after the red paint had peeled off.
"Uncle Zhou, what are you holding?"
Xiao Liu huddled behind the ash basin, holding a small copper basin in his hand, his face pale.
Old Zhou pressed the old boat sign into the dry ashes of the pot, letting the smoke from the third fire on the shore brush against the sign's surface.
"Retire the old wedding boat."
The chubby shopkeeper stepped back a little.
"You still keep this?"
Old Zhou looked up and glanced at him.
"Can't I save it for cursing my ancestors today?"
The fat shopkeeper choked, his lips moved, but he didn't take any more.
Old Zhou placed the old boat sign next to the ashes of the fire and shouted at the lingering shadow of Zhou Ping beneath the unlit boat.
"Zhou Ping, if you still recognize An, then don't mention the names of living people."
The outline of Zhou Ping's face was distorted by the water bubbles, and the white bubbles coming out of his mouth were dispersed by the sound of the pot.
"Dewang".
Old Zheng jerked his shoulder forward.
"uncle."
Old Zhou pressed down on Old Zheng's nape and shoved him into the dry soil.
"Don't answer the voices from the side of the boat, answer me."
Old Zheng gritted his teeth, his forehead pressed against the edge of the ash basin.
"I'm on the shore."
After Zhou Ping's voice was blocked by the old ship's nameplate, much less of the words came out.
"Don't check the water, check the shore."
Mo Chengyue's eyes darkened upon hearing this.
That's enough.
Shopkeeper Hu asked in a low voice, "He said to check the shore."
Mo Chengyue didn't look at her; the tip of his sword parted a trail of water that stretched towards the small box.
"I heard you."
Shopkeeper Hu tightened his grip, his sleeve supporting the small box, the flame of the white paper lamp licking the gap in the lampshade.
"This is the same as the case file being leaked."
Mo Chengyue glanced sideways.
"You thought of that too?"
"Someone in Red Maple Ferry sent an old name to the water's edge, and later someone else leaked the path in the dossier to an evil entity. Isn't this the same method?"
"It may not be the same person."
"But it's the same dirty stuff."
"Um."
The seventh eye is laughing at the bottom of the wrecked ship.
"Selling people is much easier than finding people by boat."
Manager Hu's face turned cold.
"Shut up."
The seventh, empty eye was facing her, with wet, red blisters dripping down her scarred face.
"You've been guarding this place for twenty years, did you think the red-light boats would come from the water?"
Mo Chengyue interrupted her.
"She's trying to get you to ask."
Shopkeeper Hu pressed the white paper lamp tightly against the edge of the small box.
I won't ask her.
The Seventh Eye's laughter crept out from under the ship.
"Why don't you ask me? Ask the living people instead."
The crowd on the shore was thrown into even greater chaos by this statement.
The portly shopkeeper spoke first.
"This evil creature is deliberately harming people; don't fall for its tricks."
The woman holding the child continued, "But Zhou Ping said someone used an old name to exchange for peace. In all these years, which family hasn't lost face, which family hasn't incurred debts by the river?"
Xiao Liu's voice trembled.
"My father also went missing back then. The authorities said he fell into the water while drunk at night."
The fat shopkeeper immediately glared at him.
"Children shouldn't interrupt."
Xiao Liu held the copper basin to his chest.
"I'm not a child. When my father went missing, someone at the dock came to ask my mother, saying that as long as she wrote my father's old name to him, she would stop dreaming about water."
The woman's face changed.
"Who asked that?"
Xiao Liu was about to answer when Lao Zhou slammed a stick on the ground.
"Don't call on anyone!"
Startled, Xiao Liu swallowed the rest of his sentence, and the copper basin slammed against his chest with a dull thud.
Mo Chengyue rushed ashore and said, "Old Zhou, take back what you said. No one is allowed to mention anyone's name."
Old Zhou shouted immediately.
"Did you hear that? We can talk about the past, but we can't mention the names of the living or the dead. If anyone dares to say it first, I'll stuff soot into their mouth."
The chubby shopkeeper raised his sleeve to wipe his sweat.
"How can we investigate then? If we can't name names, are we all supposed to stand here waiting for the boat to serve our food?"
Mo Chengyue looked at the crowd swaying in the red mist on the shore.
Who is most afraid of the words "roster"?