Brownish-yellow, cold pupils, but when looking at him, they looked like they were on fire.
This was only a momentary change, and soon disappeared under the sunlight – when Kou Dong looked over again, the Beauty Snake still had normal human pupils, nothing out of the ordinary, and if he hadn’t just waited for this moment with Ye Yanzhi, Kou Dong would have almost thought that he was hallucinating.
The beauty snake was still singing. His arms were smooth and clean where they should have been, no sign of disability, but there were no arms that should have been sticking out. When he finished the song in detail, there was a lot of cheering and shouting around him, yelling that he should sing another song.
But he refused to sing again, and only smiled faintly in the cage: “Thank you, gentlemen, today I’d like to show you a new thing.”
Kou Dng exchanged glances with the two men beside him, and a bad mood came over him.
A few moments later, a boy with a head twice the size of a normal man, but a body as thin as a hemp stick, came out from behind the door, pulling a piece of rope in his hand. The crowd probed, knowing that the big-headed doll was a circus original, and that this was not the most bizarre, no one thought it was unusual. What they were waiting for with applause was what was tied to the rope.
“Bring it out!”
“Pull it out!!!”
The big-headed doll exerted a little force and pulled the thing out from behind the door. That thing was covered with brown hair, whimpering and grasping the doorway, it wasn’t willing to let go until the big-headed doll hit it, and only then did it cry out in pain, then it was dragged out of the door.
When it was lying on the ground, the crowd finally saw clearly, it was a dog.
But this dog was bigger than normal, the front paw toes were also far longer than ordinary dogs, but it was born with a short tail.
But it was a dog, nothing surprising, watchers couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
The big headed doll seemed to be aware, and with a tug of the rope in its hand, it forced the dog to lift its head. The onlooker only then realized that thing…..
A closer look showed that the dog was covered with hair, but it had a face similar to a human being’s. The eyes, eyebrows, nose, and hairs of the dog were all covered with hair!
Its eyes, eyebrows, nose …… Were all clear, if not for the little hair on its face, it was simply no different from ordinary people!
The people present were shocked, and then clapped their hands and shouted. The beauty snake smiled, but wasn’t in a hurry: “Next, let him sing a song to everyone ……”
Before he could finish speaking, they saw the dog crawling forward and actually heading in one direction.
Someone in the crowd let out a scream of surprise, stumbled and trembled as they retreated, as if they had seen a ghost in the blue sky.
“Ah! Don’t come over …… don’t come over!”
She fumbled with her hands and almost stumbled, “Get away from me …… Get away from me!”
“……”
Only then did Kou Dong realize that Xiao Yu had stood in the crowd at some point, probably attracted by the sound of the singing just now. Now that he glanced around, there were quite a few beggars mixed in with these people, some with terrified faces and some with expressionless faces, rather like they were used to seeing them.
Ah Xue frowned, but felt bad, “She retreated too obviously.”
It wasn’t that she had to do something for Xiao Yu, after all, the scene before her waa really terrifying. It wasn’t human, yet not a dog. If it were someone else, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to avoid fear ——
But at least they had a real friendship, showing such fear and reluctance made the little girl feel somewhat uneasy.
The little fat man who was made into a singing dog suddenly stopped in his tracks, also seeming to find it very unbelievable.
He paused in place, then timidly waved his tail twice, still crawling towards Xiao Yu.
…… Save me.
Tears slowly trickled from his eyes.
Save me ……
Xiao Yu, however, couldn’t care so much. She looked at the hair tangled monster moving closer to her, it even carried a heavy heavy stench, and felt only disgust, she no longer cared about him. Earlier in front of A Xue no matter how righteous she seemed, she was just a usual spoiled girl, who had never suffered half a bit of wind and rain, so how could she see the current scene?
When she saw him drawing the wood, the singing dog was still just a vague concept; now, this monster was right at her feet.
This was her lover?
…… How could this be her lover!
She screamed, only afraid that she would be caught by him, under the extreme panic and helplessness, she actually got on her feet, used all her strength, and stomped and kicked him a few times with deadly force.
“Roll ah …… roll!”
The bystanders who didn’t dare to stop, scattered toward the side, looking at this dog who suddenly attacked a beggar for no reason. On the contrary, the big head doll pursed his lips, and his hands were firm, pulling the singing dog back again hard.
“Sing,” he spat out words laboriously, “what are you doing running so far away?”
The singing dog struggled desperately, but in the end, it could not break free from the strength in his hands, and slumped heavily to the ground, as if its heart was as good as dead. As Kou Dong looked at him, he also felt heartbroken and frowned.
Ye Yanzhi, however, lowly reminded him: “Look at that snake.”
…… Snake?
Kou Dong shifted his gaze to the beauty snake in the cage. At this glance, he shuddered, and the hairs on his back rose.
He was laughing.
The beauty snake laughed with delight. He gazed at Xiao Yu, who stumbled and ran away after shaking off the dog, with a cold gaze, his red lips grinning deeply, revealing the snow-white, glittering teeth inside.
Ye Yanzhi: “And that big-headed doll–”
Except for the singing dog, they were all laughing. Their laughs were so deep that they looked like they had seen the most wonderful play in the world.
Kou Dong suddenly had a bad guess, he looked at Ye Yanzhi.
The villain also read his mind and said softly, “She shouldn’t live through tonight.”
Xiao Yu, had been completely targeted by the circus.
Next, the circus opened its doors and started doing business. Many of the people who had just watched the wonderful show paid out money, and entered one after another, and were greeted by people at the door, who bowed and saluted continuously, leading the guests inside, and the sound of bustling silk and bamboo could be faintly heard – if one did not know what was being exhibited inside, the scene was just like that of any ordinary store, with only a crowd of guests!
Kou Dong and the others didn’t look anymore. They were now beggars and couldn’t enter the circus. They turned around and walked in the direction they were coming.
But that scene just now, planted a see of doubt in their hearts.
“…… It doesn’t make sense.” Song Hong whispered, “If the circus can make so much money, why would he still let us beg?”
Compared to the rain of silver money of all sizes that they had seen just now, the money that the dozens of them could ask for from the streets was really very little. He didn’t understand why they were tugging at this mess of beggars when they had already made such a living.
Could it be they had a conscience?
Ah Xue shook her head: “You can’t think too well of them. This is not difficult to explain. If they don’t do it, it would be too difficult.”
Song Hong: “What do you mean?”
“It means that it is too difficult to successfully make an exhibit like that,” the little girl’s voice was faint, “If you look at the children in that room who are so afraid, you should know that they are afraid of more than just being made into monsters.”
She hit the nail on the head.
“–They should still be afraid of death.”
Looking at the posture in the morning, it was obvious that there were quite a few children who were being forced to draw wood. Every time someone entered the circus, the kid.nappers would bring in some new ones from this place and flee to the next place to continue begging and opening a circus… Over the years, the circus should have a large number of people.
But in the morning, there were only seven or eight people who came out of the circus in the yard, probably only those seven or eight……
The rest of the people ……
He was a little unnerved.
“The rest of them, they’re all scraps,” the little girl said, “the probability of there being a finished product, I’m afraid, is very low.”
Kou Dong glanced at her, realizing that the little girl was extraordinarily capable of digging out the evil in people’s hearts.
Ye Yanzhi sat on his shoulder, and actually also agreed, “She’s very smart.”
Even if she didn’t understand the reason for this, just by intuition, she was actually able to guess roughly.
He leaned over Kou Dong’s ear and briefly explained this passage, “In Yuan Mei’s” Zi Bu Yu “, there was a singing dog who said one needed to first use medicine to rot its body epithelium and completely remove it. Then, he used dog hair to burn ash and medicine to apply it, and took the medicine internally to calm the sore. Then, the body grew dog hair and the tail emerged, just like a dog. This method isn’t easy to survive… After killing a lot of children, this dog was born.”
Kou Dong pursed his lips, feeling nauseating. A few minutes later, he carefully thought of this passage, and felt wrong.
He lowered his voice and asked softly: “According to this method, doesn’t it take ten days or even half a month?”
He nodded: “Yes.”
Kou Dong suddenly stopped, only to feel a burst of chills upward in his heart, “But he was just taken away in the morning.”
There were two possibilities. One was that the copy had shortened the time it took to make each exhibit in order to speed up the game and to give them a bloody example to put in front of them; the other possibility was that the people in this circus ……
were not human at all.
He thought again of the brownish-yellow eyes that slowly changed into vertical pupils in front of him.
Alteration could only change the fur, but not the human eyes.
Unless that wasn’t a change at all, but ……
Kou Dong had a strong intuition, he suddenly turned his head, “I’ll go back and take a look.”
Song Hong was puzzled and asked, “What’s wrong? –We’ll go with you.”
Kou Dong waved his hand hurriedly, “Just one more look,” and ran back in a hurry. When he arrived at the entrance of the circus, the people gathered in front of the door had almost entered, only three or two penniless ones were still probing their heads, wanting to enter, but they were heavily stopped by the guards, so they could only leave unhappily. The beauty snake and the big head doll were gone, Kou Dong violently stopped and calmed his breathing.
The door was almost closed. He didn’t have fifteen silver coins in his hand to get in.
He mentally contemplated whether or not he should pander to this door guard with his face.
But he didn’t know what the consequences would be ……
While pondering, a soft and slender hand suddenly poked out from the door.
Why was it so thin?
Kou Dong had never seen a hand like that before, as if it had no flesh at all, only a thin layer of skin – it was barely erected on that jagged skeleton, and the protruding bone joints could almost be seen, one section after another, as long as chopsticks.
That pale hand hiked out and slowly clasped onto the vermilion door panel. Immediately, from that doorway, an eye peeked out.
A brownish-black, unusual human eye.
As soon as Kou Dong looked up, he met his eyes. Those eyes sized him up from behind the door, blinked again, and asked, “Are you here to see the show as well?”
The voice sounded like it was very uncomfortable talking, and the words were mumbled, containing a slight nasal tone.
Kou Dong shook his head, turning his empty pockets over to the other man.
“I don’t have any money.”
Brown-black eyes scanned him up and down in a different way, asking, “You want to come to the show, too?”
He slowly appeared in the doorway. The hand spread out toward Kou Dong, and the man inside looked at him.
“You can come,” he said, “even if you don’t have money.”
Kou Dong glanced at the man next to him. Surprisingly, the doorman who had just kicked a few poor people out looked as if he hadn’t even seen him, a small beggar, and was still standing by the door as usual, with no intention of coming forward to stop him. He hesitated a little, and took a step towards the vermilion door.
The gate was magnificent, painted red, with two protruding bronze lions as door rings. If it wasn’t for those in the know, no one would have known that this was such a business, and would have just assumed that this was a rich and noble family.
The vermilion door gradually opened halfway, and the hand poking out from the inside firmly tugged on Kou Dong’s wrist, dragging him in. When Kou Dong got into, he realized who just pulled him.
He had seen it before, it was the big-headed doll.
When he looked closer, his head was even more conspicuously large, almost square. The rest of his body was thin and weak, it was out of shape, he wasn’t stable when walking and looked extremely incongruous.
But such a body pulled the singing dog, so it could be said to be powerful.
The Big Head Doll dragged him, “Hurry up, the show is about to start.”
He dragged Kou Dong towards the deep courtyard at the back without any hesitation. First, there was a big screen with twelve panels, on which were painted ordinary flowers, birds, insects and fishes at a glance, but upon closer inspection, one would realize that all of them had human faces, either smiling or angry, and were full of strangeness and weirdness.
Further inward, the inside had a simple wooden stage, in front were dozens of wooden chairs. Now the wooden chairs were full of people and some people stood around, the crowd of people eagerly watched, with drums and gongs in their ears. There was a thin steel wire above their heads, and another big headed doll was standing on one end of the wire, walking unsteadily towards the other end.
His body wasn’t well balanced, and each step was thrilling, swaying from side to side, as if he could fall off at any moment. Kou Dong heard the audience’s shrieks, one louder than the other, and was obviously frightened by them as well.
There were also people who were very happy about this, whistling or deliberately making noises to scare him. Kou Dong looked at his situation and felt that it was critical, and asked in a low voice, “Isn’t it dangerous for him to perform this?”
The big-headed doll who was pulling him looked up, and his expression didn’t fluctuate a bit, as if he was used to it.
“It’s nothing.” He faintly said, “Of course it won’t work if we only have big heads – we have to have other skills as well.”
Otherwise, it would be impossible to even stay at the circus.
He led Kou Dong to the corner, far enough to see the backstage. After the tightrope walk, the human bear strode onto the stage, torch in hand, and burst into a huge, orange-red fire.
This was the official start of the show.
From then on, the circus members took turns on the stage.
The human mouse dragged his long tail and crawled in the circle of fire; The beautiful woman in the vase could only sit inside the vase, poking her head out of the delicate bottleneck and singing small songs to people intermittently; Ren Xiong disguised himself as a playwright, but also dressed in green clothes. He sang a twisted little song with a thick voice, which made everyone laugh; The singing dog was led by people, walking in front of everyone, just like an ordinary little dog. There were also double headed people, amputees, legless people, long tailed people, who were either incomplete or had strange shapes, with wrinkled skin on their bodies and faces, trembling and bowing to everyone.
This scene was really a scene of demons and ghosts, like a scene that would only appear in the Night Journey of a Hundred Ghosts. The sound of the suona was deafening, the flute was haunting, one after the other, one after the other, all the world’s forms came on stage one after the other, all the anger, laughter and curses were on this square inch stage. The audience sound wave became higher and higher, almost sounding drunk on this unheard of scene and could only shout good.
…… good?
Kou Dong, however, watched with cold hands and feet. He looked at the group of monsters with human faces trying to please the audience, listened to the sound of the opera that seemed to be grumbling like sorrow, it was like a head fell into a deep pool, breathing became difficult. He opened his mouth and desperately gasped for breath in order to ease up from the scene in front of him and cancel out the surging resentment and hatred in his heart.
Ye Yanzhi hugged him without a word, seemingly comforting him.
The big-headed doll beside him, however, turned his head around. He looked at Kou Dong, the corners of his lips slowly lifted in a smile, “Do you think it’s good?”
Kou Dong took some effort and finally shook his head.
“Not good,” he whispered, “Not good.”
The big-headed doll’s smile deepened.
“Not good?”
His thin fingers came up and caressed Kou Dong’s face, “But I think it’s good. We’re all together, isn’t that good?”
Kou Dong vaguely thought he was crazy, where would any sane person think this was good!
He wasn’t a villager who had been deceived, but someone who knew what was going on – and if he knew what was going on, how could he think that such a monstrosity was beautiful or strange?
The emotions on his face perhaps manifested too clearly, the big-headed doll opened his mouth and suddenly sighed lowly, saying, “What a pity ……”
He rubbed Kou Dong’s cheeks, his gaze indescribably infatuated.
“If you hadn’t come, we wouldn’t have made you into these. You’re so beautiful, you deserve to be intact ……”
His mouth grinned completely open in an extremely pleasant smile.
“We’ll put your ears on, we’ll stick a tail on you-”
“From now on, you’re one of us. –You’ll be a good, nice furred rabbit, okay?”
Kou Dong was forced to take a step backward by the malice in these words.
He subconsciously dropped his gaze downward, vaguely sensing that something was wrong, and when he looked again, he realized that something was missing from the ground. The ground was flat and sprawling, without any trace, missing ……
What was missing was the shadow of the big-headed doll in front of him.
Kou Dong finally knew where the sense of dissonance came from.
From the very beginning, the members of this circus had died out – those who performed in the street, those who spoke to him, those who stood on the stage to solicit guests ……
were all a group of evil spirits with grudges in their hearts who wanted to take revenge on this Taoyuan Town!
TN:
HAPPY NEW YEARRRR 🎉🎉🎉🥳🎉🎉🎉