Chapter 2 Festival

Name:Mirror: Twin Cities Author:Cang Yue
Han people. "The girl said, already sitting beside him, grinning, "I am from Dongba." "

"Dongba?" He was a little surprised.

"Well, we live next to the Lancang River-as a result, there have been wars there recently, so we had to escape." The girl sighed, picked up a dead branch and rowed across the snow.

He shook his head slightly exhausted-the war in the Central Plains has lasted for more than 20 years, and countless people have been displaced. It seems that the flames of war have spread to southern Xinjiang. No wonder this group of people are so anxious to escape from the Central Plains, right?

"My name is Na Sheng-everyone calls me A Sheng." The girl's voice rang in her ears, warm and lively, "What about you? I didn't see you talking all the way, what's your name?"

"Su Mo." He still didn't move half of his body, holding Su Nuo in his arms and replied faintly.

"Sumo? It doesn't look like the name of a Han Chinese!...Which clan are you from? Tatar? Loulan? Turkic? Goryeo?" Na Sheng was a little surprised, and reported all the country names he knew, but he leaned on Xueku The sitting man has not nodded his head, his eyes are drooping, expressionless.

After receiving a cold reception, Na Sheng didn't mean to move away—she had been paying attention to the young man who was with him for a long time. Although she was displaced and as unkempt as all the refugees around her, the handsome face of this young puppet master could not be concealed. His face was neat and handsome, and his features were almost impeccable. For such a beautiful and eye-catching youth, even in the difficult and difficult way of exile, it is enough to attract the attention of the enthusiastic Hmong girls."Ah, your puppets are so well made...just like they are alive!" Without words, Na Sheng saw Suno who he had been holding in his arms, and laughed, reaching out to touch him, "You Is it a puppet master?"

"Bang", before the girl's hand touched, the puppet's hand suddenly lifted up and opened her hand.

"Don't move my brother." Sumo still didn't look at her, and said, holding the puppet in his arms.

The little man's hand slowly lowered, and Na Sheng saw an almost invisible transparent silk thread connected to the joint of the doll's hand. The other end of the silk thread was tied to the ring of the young man's right middle finger. Somo's hand is half exposed outside the robe, his fingers are long and he wears bizarre rings on all his fingers, each ring is tied with a thin thread, and the other end of the thread disappears from the doll's knuckles.

That man was even less than two feet tall, had a handsome face, draped black hair, and wore strange non-Hu Fei-Han costumes. Compared with his master's shabby appearance, he was neat and dazzling. It seems that Somo has kept his props very well.

"Your brother?" Na Sheng was taken aback, and couldn't help but laugh, "It's really interesting... it really looks like you."

However, smiling and laughing, the girl's face slowly turned pale, and she fixedly looked at the doll in Somo's arms, Na Sheng bit her lower lip with her teeth, and then she didn't blurt out in exclamation—God, it looks too much. …The level of similarity is so subtle, even if the doll is a strand of hair or skin, it is exactly the same as the Suma in front of you!

I don't know if it was an illusion, or it was because of Somo's finger in his sleeve moving-Na Sheng suddenly saw the little puppet who was only two feet tall and turned his head, and smiled at her slightly.

Such a weird smile.

"He laughed!" Unable to bear it anymore, Na Sheng stepped back and pressed his body to the snow cave, blurted out and screamed, "He laughed!""It's you who are dizzy." Sumo still didn't look up at her, but replied lightly, and then hugged the little puppet named Su Nuo in his arms and said nothing.

The howling wind pulled the snow in from outside, as if to freeze the two people in the shallow snow cave. Somo did not speak, except for the sound of wind in the snow, there was only the burning sound of dead branches beeping and peeling, and the aroma of the food had begun to diffuse.

"Perhaps, maybe it's too hungry, right? Dizzy." In the silence, Sheng gave in. She raised her head and looked at the puppet master holding the doll in front of her, her eyes changed a few times. Finally, as if finally remembering what could break the current embarrassing state, the Dongba girl excitedly proposed: "Suma, can I help you tell the fortune?"

Seeing the young man's slightly surprised expression. She smiled, a little proud: "I am very accurate in fortune-telling-I have been relying on this to make money for food since I was a child. When I ran to Chudi, those people said that I was a witch. Everything is fine!"

"Then what do you plan to do?" Sumo asked as if he had a little interest.

Na Sheng put his frozen hand to his mouth, looked at the scattered branches on the ground, and smiled: "Just help you!"

The two dead branches are tied together, one horizontally and continuously, forming a "D" shape.

Na Sheng stretched out his left and right hands that were red with cold, and gently supported the ends of the crossbar with his index fingers, so that the ends of the vertical branches lightly touched the snowy ground, closed his eyes, his lips moved, and lightly chanted long and complicated spells.

The girl's voice was extremely soft, but Su Mo, who had been sitting indifferently in the snow cave, was suddenly startled, and turned his head in her direction like lightning. The doll in his arms also turned his head with him in an instant.

"Snow Fairy has been invited by me... Somo, what do you want to know?" After chanting the spell, the Sheng didn't open his eyes.Su Mo turned his head and looked in her direction, but his empty eyes seemed to pass through her body, falling somewhere unknown. The expression on his face instantly became a little strange. After a long time, he said: "In the past. Now. In the future."

"Fairy Xue with a pen, write your instructions." After reciting a mantra again, the thin body of the Miao girl shivered in the gale outside the snow cave, but she closed her eyes religiously and moved her left and right. The pen held by the index finger hangs on the snow.

As if there was an invisible force holding Na Sheng's hand, and as if the wind was blowing the dead branches on the ground, the pen was moving on the snowy ground, writing rows of scribbled symbols.

Move, move, move.

When I switched to the third line, the pen suddenly stopped, the wind and snow still roared, but the dead branches did not move.

"Okay." Na Sheng let out a long sigh of relief, as if suddenly feeling cold and shivering, but she still closed her eyes and did not open them. "Look, this is your past, present and future. ."

Su Mo's eyes looked at her direction, and for a long time, he said lightly: "You read it to me."

Na Sheng shook his head, still closing his eyes: "I never read the prophecies I wrote myself. I can't read it—just like I can't calculate my own destiny. Look at it, and I will erase it after reading it."

Su Mo's mouth suddenly had a fleeting smile, and he shook his head slowly: "Don't you figure out that I am a blind man? A great pen fairy?"

The wind and snow were heavy, and the little heat of the firewood filled the air, and it had become cold without blowing on people.Hearing that sentence, Na Sheng was taken aback, and he blurted out and asked, "What?"

"I said I was a blind man." Su Mo said lightly, but he straightened his body from the wall of the snow cave, leaned over in front of the girl, and covered the snow with the prophecy with his hands. You can't'see', but you can still'read'."

His fingers were slender and pale, almost the same color as Bai Xue. All five fingers are wearing special bizarre rings, which are connected with thin lines of puppets, which are no longer visible on the snow. His fingers touched the first line of words and paused.

Suddenly, the ironic smile on the corner of his mouth disappeared.

Fingers trembling uncontrollably on the snow, and paused, the young blind puppet master leaned over anxiously, and fumbled for the second prediction with his fingers. The corners of his mouth were unconsciously pressed into a line, and a strange blush suddenly appeared on his handsome face that had been pale all the time.

The second prophecy. Sumo's breathing started quickly, and his fingers cramped against the snow, as if he couldn't believe it. For a moment, there was a strange expression in his empty eyes.

"Have you finished reading it?" After waiting for a long time with his eyes closed, when Sumo's rapid breathing was heard in his ear, but his comment was not seen, Na Sheng finally couldn't help but ask.

As if awakened, the puppet master's hand trembled, trembling, and approached the last prophecy.

However, in the moment of pause, the frantic wind and snow on the barren mountain has already rolled in, erasing the last prophecy written on the snow.

"What? What? What is the last sentence?..." Somo's hands groped around on the snow, but he couldn't find the third sentence anyway. For a while, the strange young puppet master eagerly called out He said, "You write it again soon! Write it again! I didn't see it!"Hearing such a drastic change in tone, Na Sheng was startled and opened his eyes. However, in a blink of an eye I saw the puppet master leaning over on the snowy ground. Sumo raised his head in the snow and looked at her with empty eyes: "Write it to me again!"

With such a weird look, Na Sheng couldn't help feeling frightened. He walked on his knees and involuntarily backed away, tremblingly: "No! I can't write it out... For the same person, I can only ask the pen fairy to help you once in a year!"

"I didn't see the third sentence." Sumo muttered to himself, looking at the snow-filled sky with his empty eyes open. After a long time, I laughed strangely, "Maybe it's God's will-preventing me from seeing the so-called ‘future’. Or, for me, there’s no such thing at all?"

"Huh?...Then the first two sentences, are I correct?" Finally, still unable to restrain his curiosity, the Sheng huddled in the wind and snow and asked. Su Mo did not speak, and slowly clenched his fingers on the snow, holding a handful of empty mountain white snow. With his head down, a strange, fleeting smile suddenly appeared at the corner of his mouth—