Master Sculptor

Chapter 1

Just after dinner, Li Hanlin went upstairs.Enter the room, close the door, lock it, and then open the double-secured glass cabinet.

The freshness of the vegetation and the fragrance of the soil rushed to his face, making Li Hanlin burp happily and let out a mouthful of stale air.Li Hanlin bowed his head to appreciate the treasures hiding behind various plants: cheetahs with fierce eyes, goshawks eyeing tigers, majestic black bears... both satisfied and proud.

The scene in this glass case is a miniature forest!The trees are alive, the soil is real, but the animals are sculptures.The frightening thing is that these wood carvings seem to contain a vitality stronger than living things!

This is also the reason why Li Hanlin loves these wood carvings so much.Every animal born under his hands is a new life created by himself. This idea, which he had when he first came into contact with wood carving at the age of five, made him plunge into this art activity for the next 20 years. Can't help it.

Li Hanlin never engraved his own name on these animals, but imitated his grandfather and put a drop of his own blood on their buttocks.

This is a birthmark.Li Hanlin thought to himself.

After carefully taking care of his "children", Li Hanlin re-applied the insurance and opened the door happily.Unsurprisingly, Comrade Li Jianguo was hunched over and trying to look inside.Li Hanlin quickly closed the door, and said leisurely with his hands behind his back: "Dear Comrade Jianguo, why don't you go out to drink tea and walk the birds to guard your son's door?"

Li Jianguo's old face has long been invincible after thousands of years of tempering. At this moment, he showed no signs of shyness. Instead, he put on a feudal patriarch's style and said sharply: "The good young people don't work hard and hide in the room all day long. What are you doing again?"

Li Hanlin had imitated his father's thick skin a lot, raised his eyebrows and raised his lips: "I'm a single young man locked in the room alone, what else can you say?"

Li Jianguo said with a shy smile, "I really don't know, why don't you let me go in and have a look?"

Li Hanlin was too lazy to argue with him any more, and said firmly, "No!"

Two months ago, Li Jianguo took away the giant python from him. Of course it was a wood carving, and it was gone after a month!Li Hanlin trembled with anger, which made Comrade Li Jianguo feel guilty once in a while.However, now that they came to covet his treasures again, Li Hanlin would not let him succeed, so he had to lock them.

The Li family has sculpted for generations, and grandpa was a well-known master sculptor, but he stopped in his father's generation.After a few years of school, he said that a man must serve his motherland, so he ran to join the army under the black face of his grandfather.

His father is good at everything when he is young, he is upright and straightforward, and he is handsome, but he loves to be rude.He showed off his wife when he was young, and when Li Hanlin showed off his carving skills with the same carving skills as his grandfather, his father's career of showing off his son began.His boa constrictor was lost when his father was spitting and dancing.

Li Hanlin became angry when he thought about it, he turned around and went downstairs.Li Jianguo smiled embarrassingly, and suddenly changed his face again, feeling that the dignity of the head of the family had been challenged.

Li Hanlin went downstairs and complained to his mother so that his father could settle down for a while.His father loves his wife and is also afraid of her, so telling his mother will save trouble the most.After Li Jianguo was scolded, Li Hanlin felt refreshed and slept very peacefully that night.

After a good night's sleep, Li Hanlin opened his eyes refreshed.He yawned comfortably, and then he kept his mouth open for a full 3 minutes without being able to close it.

What the hell? !

blue sky!Baiyun?wilderness!

Li Hanlin gave himself a backhand slap, and then seriously did a set of eye exercises.Take a deep breath, open your eyes, and... slap yourself again!

hell!Is he awake or not? !

Li Hanlin looked around cautiously, there was no one around, only the sound of the wind blowing against his face.The "swish" sound of the woods sounds a little creepy at this moment.Li Hanlin turned his head slowly, fearing that some unknown creature would suddenly appear from the woods behind him.However, his eyes widened in the next moment, a whole piece of lush ebony!

Li Hanlin's hands couldn't help shaking with excitement.Ebony, also known as black sandalwood, is known as the "wood of kings". It is extremely precious and rare. Although Li Hanlin once tried to get some, good quality black sandalwood is hard to find. This kind of tree has grown for more than 800 years. Can become useful, supply exceeds demand.The ebony in front of him had a diameter of at least one meter and a height of more than 25 meters, which made Li Hanlin unbelievable.He had never seen such a well-grown ebony in one piece!

After recovering, Li Hanlin immediately got up to search for the forest guard.He rubbed his hands secretly, determined to get a little bit out of shame.He is not greedy, just a little bit is enough for him.

This kind of excitement made him temporarily forget his situation, and instead walked into the forest with great interest.Going east and west along the way, Li Hanlin found that this place was much bigger than he imagined.After several hours passed, Li Hanlin still didn't see a single person.Anxiety and hunger came together in my heart.

□□It was quiet, Li Hanlin could not hear other sounds except the rustling of leaves.There are no birds. There is not a single bird in such a large forest.It's not that he didn't see the animals, and at this moment, several chickens entered his field of vision.

A chicken that doesn't crow.

Li Hanlin was wondering, when suddenly, the cock crowed.First there was a sound, and then one after another, they became one piece.

It's getting dark.

Li Hanlin's eyes widened, and cold sweat instantly drenched his back.A wood without birds, a chicken that crows at sunset, a ghostly place where there is no one but him.The previous excitement has faded, replaced by a strong sense of loneliness and fear.The fall of night makes the chickens in the woods seem to be more excited, and their sharp and piercing voices are interspersed with the rustling of leaves, which is particularly penetrating.Li Hanlin couldn't bear it anymore, turned around and ran away in the direction he came from.

His physical fitness was not bad under Li Jianguo's training since he was a child, but his trembling legs made him almost fall several times.When he finally ran back to the place where he woke up, the cock crowing in his ears remained unabated, and even became more and more intense.

What should I do now?Where should I go?Or just sit back and watch what happens?The protest in his stomach made him finally choose to find a way out.Now he is in no mood to find out why he is in this weird place, maybe it was kidnapped, maybe it was a ghost encounter, or maybe it was just the result of his brain pumping and his own fantasy.But he decided to act on instinct, as if he were sculpting.

Li Hanlin walked in the opposite direction of the ebony forest, and there was a hillside in front of him. It seemed that the slope was not high or far away, but when he walked to the top out of breath, he felt that his visual estimation was a little off...a bit big.However, looking into the distance, a simple log cabin almost made him jump with excitement!

Li Hanlin scrambled forward, but stopped suddenly when he reached the door.I was too excited just now, thinking that I had found a family anyway, but now my heart skipped a beat, and I realized something was wrong.It was extremely weird to wake up and lie in this strange place, and the chickens that croaked at sunset, and the woods full of precious ebony but no birds inhabited, were even more creepy.The cabin in front of me didn't even have a roof. Although it was extremely simple, it looked normal, but there might be man-eating beasts living in it.

Li Hanlin swallowed his saliva, his heart beat like a drum, and he retracted his one foot.To go or not to go, that is a serious question.He wanted to seek refuge to find out the situation at the moment, and more importantly, to find a creature of the same type as himself. The feeling of being alone in a strange place was too terrifying for him to bear.But the anxiety of the unknown also made him retreat.

After thinking for a while, Li Hanlin chose a compromise method.He took a few steps back, took a deep breath, and shouted towards the cabin: "Is anyone—"

No one answered.

Li Hanlin slowed down and tried again: "I... I'm just lost, I'm not a bad person, I need your help, and I will repay you. If... If you are willing..." said At the back, Li Hanlin was already in a cold sweat.There was a slight rubbing sound in the room, which convinced him that there was someone inside, yes, it should be a person.He wiped the sweat from his palms on his body, and took another two steps back.There were footsteps in the room, and they were getting closer, presumably they were about to open the door.

Li Hanlin waited quietly for the moment when the door opened, his disordered breathing betrayed his pretended calmness.Until the moment the door creaked open, Li Hanlin felt that his heart was about to pop out of his throat.

"Who is it?" It was an immature child's voice.

Li Hanlin suddenly had goosebumps all over the floor, probably because of the influence of ghost movies, the voice of a child seemed too weird in this situation.Li Hanlin said tremblingly: "Are you the owner of this house?"

"Want to come in?" The door opened a little more.

Li Hanlin nodded hesitantly, while trying to spy on the other party's face through the narrow door, but he couldn't see clearly because of the sky, so he could only guess from his height that he was a child of five or six years old.

"You're new here, aren't you?" The child finally opened the door, speaking with a little excitement in his voice.

Before Li Hanlin could digest the meaning of his words, he was taken aback by the child's appearance.The other party was not wearing any clothes, and his whole body was so dark that it was impossible to tell which skin color he was.The filthy hair covered half of his face, like a beggar.Li Hanlin lowered his eyes and glanced slightly, and found out the other party's gender, it was a little boy.

"You must be new here." The child whispered to himself.The new guy just came to call my door.

He didn't say the second half of the sentence, and he didn't dare to say it, for fear of scaring the visitor away.