magician in town

Chapter 5 Country Stories

Du Zhengyi didn't tell Roche where they are now, but Roche didn't need to ask him either. He just had to take out his phone and look at the map to know that they were in a seaside city not too far from home. And it could be seen that Du Zhengyi was driving the car towards the beach.Look, this is human magic, how convenient it is, without the burden of the brain.By the way, he can also tell Du Zhengyi not to drive forward on a straight road, there is a traffic jam ahead, the lines on the map are so red to purple, didn't you see it?

It was already dark when they arrived at the beach. When Luo Qi followed Du Zhengyi and walked uphill along the road facing the sea, the city was brightly lit on the left, and the endless ink was on the right.The vast ocean without sunlight is like an abyss of nothingness.Roach couldn't say whether he liked the ocean or not.If the sea has an intoxicating blue color only when the sun shines, is the sea a pervert with a huge dark side?Oh, maybe he looks a bit like Du Zhengyi, a man with marine attributes.

Luo Qi followed Du Zhengyi, "Can you read minds?"

"In principle, it is possible, but it has no practical value." Du Zhengyi said, "It takes a lot of energy, and it must be a directional superficial awareness, that is to say, I must roughly know the scope of the other party's thinking, and what the other party thinks It also has to be something simple and concrete.”

Luo Qi was relieved a lot, and suddenly felt that the world was wide open.

He followed Du Zhengyi into a shop by the sea. When he entered the door, he didn't pay attention to the sign because he was thinking about these chicken thieves.Behind the door is a very old-fashioned storefront, with a marble screen in front of it, and shallow stone water channels under the walls on both sides, where a few swimming fish are raised.

After bypassing the screen, a welcoming lady left, she was an elf-like girl, thin and small, with bright eyes and a very dexterous walking posture.She was wearing an improved retro dress with a slanted collar and buttons. Her hair was parted in the middle and arranged symmetrically in two balls above her ears, with a red tassel hanging behind one ear.Luo Qi's eyes lit up when he saw it, and he couldn't help but recite the sentence "Sang Zhe's daughter on the swing outside, with two crows in a bun and a slanting flower branch".The girl really looked at him and smiled sweetly, Luo Qi was very excited and felt that he was really educated.

Unexpectedly, Du Zhengyi slapped him on the back of the head, "Fox Immortal Lord, quickly follow Miss Sister."

Luo Qi blushed, and followed the little girl in a double bun into the hall full of ancient charm. Together with Du Zhengyi, he was led to a platform surrounded by curved water. There were four tables on the platform, three There was a reservation card on it, and they sat down at the vacant table.

Unexpectedly, crises always appear at the most careless time. Du Zheng ordered Tieguanyin as soon as he sat down, and he felt that something was wrong. The ass just said no to eat and change to another store.Men have to reach a very old age, go through many years, and pay a lot of price before they can learn to reject women. Roach read this sentence somewhere, and now he thinks it is very correct.

He watched Du Zhengyi order some more food. This restaurant will undoubtedly cost him a lot of money tonight, but when he asked Roach if he wanted to add something more, Roach didn't even have the desire to kill him. .He thought about it, and asked the girl with the last glimmer of hope, "Are there any mooncakes filled with meat?"

Shuang Yaji almost burst out laughing, "I'm sorry sir, we don't have any here."

"Where's the meatloaf?"

"No, sir. Our place...is a tea house."

"Shortbread stuffed with meat can also be regarded as refreshment?"

The girl looked at him silently.

Roach sighed and waved his hand.Plates of exquisite refreshments were quickly placed on their tables. Roach stared at these unattractive items and became annoyed. The hungry elders could only want to eat meat at this time. "Is this how you treat your mascot? Do you still want me to bless you? I'm wondering, tea house in the afternoon, tea house in the evening, you have grown here, are you a teapot spirit?"

"Isn't seeing a beautiful lady enough to soothe your soul?" Du Zheng said unhurriedly, pondering over a plate of teacups and cups.

"Looks good, can I eat her meat?" Luo Qi snatched the teacup held by Du Zhengyi, set it up together, scalded it with hot water, and skillfully brewed Kung Fu tea.

"Work first, and I'll treat you to dinner after I'm done." Du Zhengyi comforted him, reaching out for a cup of tea.

"What are you doing?" Luo Qi was taken aback, and looked around. It was dinner time, and there were not many people in the restaurant.There are only a few scattered tables of people drinking tea and chatting, most of them are middle-aged and elderly people with some achievements in their careers. Most young human beings don't like this kind of place.The restaurant hired a young girl to play the zither in the middle of the lobby, looming behind a bogu shelf.There is a corridor close to the east wall, and there are some private rooms in it, and it is not clear who is in it.

"Look at that player." Du Zhengyi whispered.

Roach moved, finding a position where he could see the girl's face.The girl lowered her head halfway, and couldn't see her eyebrows and eyes clearly, but the faint feeling made him find a sense of familiarity in his memory.He looked at her for a while, and suddenly thought of who she was. She was one of the subjects of this investigation. She cut off the pink hair at the end, so that he couldn't see her for a while.

"This isn't that..." Roach thought for a while, then went to his pocket to find the phone to look through the files, "What's her name?"

"Guan Xinyue." Du Zhengyi said, "16 years old, a first-year high school student with a major in music. There is no mother at home, and the family lives less than five kilometers away from here, and works here in his spare time."

"Oh," Roach shyly put the phone on the table. Du Zhengyi remembered it much better than he did.

"Okay," Du Zhengyi said, "have some of this... yokan, and then serve it bravely."

"Me?" Roach asked in surprise.

"Otherwise, why would I bring you here? You can't eat for free, right? Come on, kid, show your value a little bit, and find a way to lure her over for a talk. You're not a self-taught anthropologist, the learning method is experiential, Now is the time to send you on the expedition." Du Zheng coaxed him with a slap in the face, with a bit of complacency that made Luo Qi's teeth itch.

Luo Qi didn't reply, he turned his head and looked at the girl named Guan Xinyue for a while, then mustered up the courage to stand up and walk towards Bogujia.

Looking closely, Guan Xinyue's skin is very fair. For her age, the skin color is beyond fair. Even a light blue vein can be seen.It's weird, she looks so young, her pictures are more mature than real.

At this moment, her slender fingers were covered with fake nails, and she was plucking quickly on the strings. The proficiency of her skills was self-evident, but she didn't look like she was immersed in music.She showed the same micro-expression a few times, which was a little strange, and each time she looked at the fingertip of a certain finger.Although Luo Qi is not good at music and is not familiar with the guzheng, he can still guess that she must play it wrong, and the mistakes are quite frequent.It's just that those minor technical errors don't affect the fluency of the music too much, and the diners here don't care at all.

At the end of the song, she breathed a sigh of relief, and raised her head to find a boy leaning on the shelf looking at her. She couldn't help being surprised, her face turned red, which restored her pale complexion to a healthy color. "Can I order some songs?" the boy asked her, with a frankness that was rare among boys these days.She watched him cautiously, he looked very kind, not like the Teddy who was eager to strike up a conversation.What's more, those eyes are strangely black and pure, girls sometimes have nothing to do with boys with deer eyes.Without realizing it, she blurted out, "Yes."

After she finished speaking, she quickly added, "If I can play."

The boy nodded, "Do you know "Thousand Sakura"?"

She burst out laughing.She has neat bangs, long and straight black hair, and her habitual tilting of her head. She is so cute. It is not difficult to see that she is an anime girl.

He could see that she understood what he meant, "You must have uploaded a video on station B?"

"No." She smiled again, a little embarrassed.

"Why?" The boy looked at her in surprise, "You play much better than them, you are too humble."

Du Zhengyi watched from a distance as Luo Qi quickly talked to Guan Xinyue, which made the girl giggle non-stop.Du Zhengyi didn't eat, but just leaned back on the back of the chair to make himself more comfortable, and heard the girl play another high-pitched and weird tune that didn't fit here for some reason.He got rid of the loud music, just like sinking into the water, turning everything around him into silence, and gradually sank into the world of consciousness.After some time, he came back to his senses, Luo Qi and Guan Xinyue were standing beside him, looking at him.

"Are you okay?" Roach asked him, with a strange look on his face, and it seemed that he was really worried about him.

The girl blushed when she took one look at him, turned her gaze away hastily, and then boldly glanced at him quickly.

He shook his head at Roach.

Luo Qi graciously pulled the chair over for the girl, "Please sit down."

The girl sat down cautiously, tugged at her skirt, and straightened the skirt.Looking at Luo Qi's appearance, he almost wished he could go over and help the girl pull up her skirt. Du Zheng smiled teasingly at him.

Luo Qi didn't see it. He sat back in the old seat opposite, looked up at the girl seriously, and said in a low voice, "This is my friend, Du Zhengyi, the master ghost hunter."

What the hell?

Du Zheng was taken aback for a moment, then raised his head and chin to Roach - dare to say it.Roach looked at him for a second, his eyes were sneaky, and a smile was suppressed at the corner of his mouth.

"Hello." The girl said to him politely, her expression was indescribable.Du Zheng saw it at a glance. She might be a shy girl, but that didn't mean she was stupid. Just because she didn't expose Roach's deception didn't mean she was fooled.

But Luo Qi didn't care, he also poured a cup of tea for Guan Xinyue, and then he started talking. "I haven't known Du Zhengyi for a long time, but my family and I have great trust in his ability. The chance for me to know him is this. I have a younger sister named Luo Dan .”

This is nonsense. Du Zhengyi sipped his tea slowly. He briefly read Luo Qi's resume and knew that he was an only child.But Roach has the ability to continue to talk, "My sister is much younger than me, and she is only seven years old this year. Most people have a first child and if they have a boy, they will not have another child, but our family is different. My parents want girls more. When I was a child, I was very annoying. People came crazy when I was three or four years old, and I was disgusted by dogs when I was seven or eight years old. My parents didn't like me very much, thinking that I would be unreliable in the future, and I had to have a daughter. Dad is a civil servant, family planning is very strict for families like ours, and there is no room for extra children, so they can only think about it. Later, when I was ten years old, my dad resigned and went to sea in order to improve his life. He worked hard for two years. I was lucky enough to get a small achievement in [-], at least I can afford the social maintenance fee. My parents thought about having a daughter again, and this time it really came true, my sister is very cute."

Du Zhengyi looked at Luo Qi's nonsense with great interest, he could see that Guan Xinyue was completely attracted by his words, yes, even a person like him who knew that his words were all nonsense, wouldn't he? Still listened to it.When Luo Qi told the story, his eyes were very bright, and the starting point was to choose a story that would make young girls feel good about him. Guan Xinyue looked at him as if he was a peerless warm man.

"My younger sister is a very kind little girl. We bring her snacks to the kindergarten, and she will give most of them to the children. When she was six years old, she found out what happened to the beggars on the road. From then on, as long as she sees a beggar, she will definitely give out all her pocket money to others. When she encounters wild cats on the road, she must also feed them, and she also wants to take care of those little ones who are injured." Luo Qi smiled when he said this, As if briefly caught in some kind of warm memory, the girl also laughed.Du Zhengyi had a little doubt, he found that he couldn't judge that the girl Roach described must not exist at all.

Unexpectedly, the smile on Roach's face disappeared somehow, and his brows were also clustered. He whispered, "But I don't like my sister."

The warm atmosphere came to an abrupt end, Guan Xinyue was stunned for a moment, and asked puzzledly, "Why?"

"Because the little bastards in the kindergarten always force her to give up more snacks, most of the beggars on the road are fake, and she was scratched by a stray cat and bled, we had to take her to get vaccinated, it hurt so much She was crying." Luo Qi's eyes were soft and helpless.

Guan Xinyue's doubts were dispelled, and she sighed empathetically. As a girl, she was bullied and deceived because of her innocence and kindness when she was young. This kind of experience is always inevitable, everyone is like this grown up.After a little thought, Du Zheng could understand that Roach himself was a master at deceiving girls.

"Good people are always bullied." Guan Xinyue helped Luo Qi sum up his point of view with a little conceit, showing the natural conceit of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old beautiful girl.

Luo Qi immediately agreed, and then said, "But it's not just that. I didn't realize until after Du Zhengyi told me that my sister's sympathetic physique is too easy to attract things."

Guan Xinyue didn't say anything to this sentence, her face seemed to be covered with a mask, she instinctively entered a state of defense, and subconsciously resisted what Luo Qi was about to say.When Du Zhengyi's name was mentioned, she hurriedly raised her head to glance at Du Zhengyi who was sitting alone across the table, and turned away as soon as her eyes met.She was very curious about Du Zhengyi, but Roche, who was easy to get along with, made her relax even more. Du Zhengyi was so unpredictable that she didn't dare to contact him directly.

Luo Qi didn't seem to notice Guan Xinyue's reaction, but he didn't say anything absurd and terrible after that, and he started talking nonsense again. "During my summer vacation last summer, my parents gave me my younger sister because they were too busy with work, and asked me to take her to my grandpa's house in the countryside. My grandpa's house is in the mountains. I don't know if you have been to the countryside. , the mountain is not bad in summer, the wind blowing from the valley is very cool, there are only about a hundred households in a small mountain village, my sister and I are the guests of the whole village, who made something delicious at noon , can think of sending us some."

Guan Xinyue nodded lightly, "My hometown is also in the countryside. When I was young, I often spent winter and summer vacations at my grandparents' house."

Luo Qi smiled more cordially, as if this could be regarded as an acquaintance from an old friend.But his happy expression quickly disappeared, his brows frowned again, and he continued, "Everything is fine at the beginning, my grandparents let me and my sister be very laissez-faire, not as strict as my parents, I can sleep late, I My sister doesn’t need to go to cram school. From time to time, I can ride my second uncle’s broken motorcycle at home and take my sister to larger villages and towns to play games and buy some snacks. Life in the country is leisurely and casual, which is possible for me. Slightly boring, but perfect for a child my sister's age."

Luo Qi stopped and drank the tea in his cup, and continued, "The only disadvantage is that there are no children of my sister's age in the village, and she has been unable to find a suitable playmate, so she can only pester me to play. So one afternoon when I woke up from a nap, I was very happy when my sister told me that she had made friends with a little girl. At that time, I didn’t think much about it. My sister said that the child was very poor and couldn't speak, and she wanted to be best friends with that poor child. I added another word and asked my sister why she didn't bring the child home as a guest. That's it, I My sister went out to play with her new friends every day when I was taking a nap. It was like this for three consecutive days, and nothing happened. Until the noon of the fourth day, my sister took a lot of snacks out, because that was when we were leaving The day before I went home from the country, so I think she probably wanted to say goodbye. I didn’t take a nap that day, and I was helping my grandma pack my sister and me. About 10 minutes later, I was talking to When my grandma was talking, my younger sister came back crying suddenly. I was surprised and asked her what was wrong. She told me that she invited a child to play at home, but the child suddenly lost her temper and pushed her to the ground. I was really angry when I heard that. If it was my parents, they might think that the things between children are irrelevant, but I am not so well-bred. I took my sister's little hand and asked her to take me to find that Kid, I just think we should find justice for my sister."

When Luo Qi said this, he suddenly looked at Guan Xinyue and stopped, which made Guan Xinyue's hair stand on end. He couldn't help but look back to see if Luo Qi saw something behind her.

Luo Qi laughed, "I was thinking, I've come to this point, you must think this is a vulgar ghost story, my sister must have taken me to the graveyard outside the village."

Guan Xinyue didn't answer him, her expression was very bad.

Roach laughed at himself, and continued, "I was really surprised at the time, but it was because my sister took me to the crossroads at the entrance of the village and told me that the kid was waiting for her at this place every time. But living in I know the two families at that intersection. One is an old extinct family in the village. He has a strange personality and never wants to associate with everyone. His relatives have already severed ties with him, so his family will not have children. The other The old grandma of the family has a very good relationship with my grandma. She would come to my house to gossip with my grandma every day. If her family had an extra child, she would definitely have brought her here to play. So I feel that I really can’t understand the world of children. I don’t understand why the two of them meet and play in this place every day. I mean, it’s a crossroad, there’s nothing there, and the village is very closed. At noon, there’s no one at the entrance of the village. , and there won’t be much excitement to watch. If two children go to a place with little flowers, grass, chickens and ducks to play, I can understand it. But the world of children is always difficult to explain. I had no choice but to take my sister home with me, my irritable child. Unexpectedly, my sister started to have a fever that night. At that time, we thought she was just suffering from heat stroke. The countryside has its own way to treat children's diseases, so my grandma decided to scrape my sister. Just as grandma was taking off the little vest the child was wearing, I suddenly saw a small black handprint on her back."

Guan Xinyue moved back and leaned on the back of the chair, trying to stay away from Luo Qi, "Why are you looking at me again, keep talking!"

Luo Qi smiled softly, "Sometimes things in the world are unfounded, and no one will just believe them. But sometimes things in the world are so bizarre, even if the society is constantly developing, it will always be true. There are unexplainable things. So in order not to make you think that I am a person who talks about running trains, I'd better prove the existence of ghost things with a little fact."

Luo Qi picked up a napkin from the table, spread it on the table in front of Guan Xinyue, and took out a pen from his schoolbag and put it on the napkin.

He raised his head to look at Du Zhengyi and Guan Xinyue, both of them were staring at him.He smiled, "I want you to write a word on the paper."

Guan Xinyue looked at Luo Qi vigilantly, then at Du Zhengyi, showing a sarcastic smile, and said bluntly, "Then the master will test my characters? Is this a fortune-telling trick at the gate of the temple? Do you have any new ideas?" How about this, I will write a word and ask the expert to guess what it is.”

Luo Qi was not angry when he heard this, "If you say that, you really don't know Brother Du. When I first met him, I really wanted to ask him for a fortune-telling. I want to know if you are not interested in the future. But Brother Du Tell me that ghosts are real, so they can be caught and destroyed, but the past is so vast and the future so uncertain, it is really unpredictable. Isn't it, brother?"

At the end of the conversation, he turned to Du Zhengyi with a smile on his face.Du Zhengyi suddenly understood what Roach meant, and he nodded.

Luo Qi turned to Guan Xinyue, "Let's do what you say, you write a word, and ask Brother Du to tell you what word you wrote."

Guan Xinyue was taken aback, she didn't expect them to dare to do this.At first, she suspected that they were charlatans with some tricks. If they took out the cards now and asked her to draw cards to guess the suit, then she would definitely stand up and leave.But writing on paper is different. There are always [-] Chinese characters in common use. Is there any way to guess one in [-] right at once?

She thought for a while, and finally said, "I'm going to write at another desk."

Luo Qi looked up at Du Zhengyi, seeing Du Zheng nodding, he laughed, "Girl, you are really treacherous, then you can write at another table."

Guan Xinyue walked to the table diagonally behind Luo Qi, turned her back to Du Zhengyi and Luo Qi, and blocked her hand with her body.

She wrote on the napkin, folded the napkin, and sat down on the chair next to Roach again, "I've already written it."

Du Zhengyi looked at her in confusion, "what?"

Luo Qi was taken aback, "What English are you talking about, and you suddenly became wet."

Guan Xinyue's face turned pale in an instant, and she put down the napkin.

Luo Qi immediately took it over and looked at it, "what!" He stared at Guan Xinyue, "what? English? Sister, are you too treacherous?"

Guan Xinyue twisted her hands together, trembling uncontrollably.She raised her head and looked at Du Zhengyi with a pair of eyes that could no longer hide her horror. Those eyes were filled with fear and hope at the same time, and they looked even bigger than before. "Why can you..."

Du Zhengyi didn't speak, and seemed more and more unpredictable.He just waited for Roach to answer, the copyright of this lie belongs to Roach.

Luo Qi was very satisfied with this situation, and first took a few glances at Du Zheng, who really lived up to his expectations, thinking that this man really did not speak blindly, and said modestly that this little psychic ability is not practical, it depends on how to use it Well.It is true that Du Zhengyi cannot detect the complex panorama of the other party's thinking, but he can coax the other party to concentrate on thinking about a concrete image, such as a word, which is a corner of Du Zhengyi's mind that can just be glimpsed.Satisfied with his talent, he turned to Guan Xinyue half-heartedly, and said without thinking, "Because the master also has a little ghost, and the little ghost looked at you and told the master just now."

The girl took a deep breath in fright, her back straightened and pressed tightly against the back of the chair, her skirt was tightly clutched with one hand, as if she couldn't even breathe.

"Hey, don't, don't be afraid." Roach reacted and quickly comforted her. He didn't want to scare the girl. "It's okay, it's not a bad thing, you see, I don't care at all."

Guan Xinyue's face was still pale with fright.He stretched out his hand awkwardly to pat her shoulder, and looked at Du Zhengyi in embarrassment.Du Zhengyi inhumanely refused to help, and hid in the safe area opposite the table to watch the fire from the other side.Luo Qi had no choice but to stammer and coax the girl, but Guan Xinyue finally calmed down after a while, Luo Qi quickly poured water for her, the girl drank the water, and declined the walnut cake that Luo Qi offered.

She paused for a while and asked, "Let's talk about what happened to your sister? Has she recovered?"

"Do you... really want to listen?" Roach looked at her cautiously, "Won't you be more afraid if you continue to listen?"

"If you don't tell me what happened next, I'll be even more afraid." Guan Xinyue said.

"Well, let me make a long story short." Luo Qi had to say, "My sister is also lucky. When I returned to the city with my sister who had a high fever, I met this Mr. Du on the train. He saw that there was something wrong with my sister. After convincing me, we went back to the small village of our hometown. As soon as we arrived at the entrance of the village and looked at the intersection of the loess road, he understood the problem. That’s right, it was the intersection where my sister played with that so-called kid. We poured water at the intersection first, and then took a shovel to dig a hole. After a few shovels, we saw a small shoe worn by a child. After digging for a while, we found a woven bag commonly used in rural areas buried under it. We put The bag was completely dug out, pulled up and opened to see, it was still wrapped in rags, and there was a stench. When the smell dissipated, I pulled it with a spade and pick, and it turned out to be the skeleton of a three or four-year-old child. All the bones in the limbs were broken, and two steel nails were stuck in the eye sockets."

Guan Xinyue shivered, "Who would torture and kill a child and bury it at the entrance of a village where people come and go? Aren't you afraid of being discovered?"

"Well, it's a small village in the mountains. It's very quiet on weekdays. There are few people living at the entrance of the village, and it's even more secluded. If it's late at night, it doesn't take much effort for an adult to dig a pit to bury such a small corpse. So The key point of this incident is why it must be buried under the crossroads at the entrance of the village. And this incident was very mysterious afterwards. My first reaction at that time was to call the police immediately, but my grandpa and grandma tried their best to stop me after they found out. It was only then that I realized that there are only a hundred or so families in this village, and the child may belong to someone, why they died, and why they were secretly buried at the entrance of the village, in fact, everyone in the village knows it well."

"Then why?" Guan Xinyue asked him in a low voice, as if if she spoke louder, she would arouse the child's grievances.

Roach looked at her and said, "Because it was a little girl who died."

Guan Xinyue didn't respond, Luo Qi understood that she didn't understand.He leaned forward a little, his elbows on the table, as if struggling to speak, but finally he did. "People in some places think that the reason why they can't have a son is because female ghosts rushed to reincarnate. If they can be scared so that they don't dare to enter this family, their family will be able to have a son. So the situation at that time couldn't be clearer. Well, someone did it according to this custom, not only broke her daughter's limbs, but also pierced her eyes with a steel nail and stuck her in her brain to kill her. This is a terrible way to die. But death is not counted, Her family also buried her under the crossroad at the entrance of the village for thousands of people to step on."

Guan Xinyue took a breath and couldn't say anything.

Luo Qi shook his head, "I don't know what to do is right, so I just stood there and watched Brother Du save the child's undead. After that, my sister's fever went away, and the child's handprint on her back disappeared. I was very scared. I quickly took my sister and left. Although it is our hometown, I don’t think I will ever take my sister back to that place.”

He finished his story, and for a moment no one spoke.Such a tragic story made even Du Zheng feel uncomfortable when he heard it.He was silent for a while and looked at Roach. To his surprise, he saw a real sorrow on Roach's face. He suddenly understood that the part about him and gods and ghosts in this story was not true. , but the rest are not necessarily false.

He was at a loss for a moment, but Luo Qi's blood returned suddenly, and he tilted his head to look at Guan Xinyue with a lively face, "I'm done talking about my business, now it's your turn."

Guan Xinyue wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and nodded.

(End of this chapter)