Baxian Hotel

A single sentence drew all three of us to him, and as expected, he followed his light. Under the strong light of the flashlight, blood vessels could be seen on the surface of the "egg". It was very easy to associate it with the color picture of pregnant women that one would often see in hospitals, but seeing such a thing here was really a little strange.

I leaned my head against the side of the "egg" and looked around. Every few meters, there would be an egg like this, with rows after rows of them covered up in the middle of the branches. The front, back, left, and right were arranged very neatly.

I reached out my hand and touched it. The surface of the egg felt soft and warm, like a film of flesh. I thought again of the innkeeper I had just seen growing on a tree. I suddenly turned my head to look at them. My voice trembled a little as I said, "Could it be that all the people in this town grew up on trees?"

Before anyone could answer, there was a sudden click on the empty platform like the sound of a doorknob.

My first thought is that someone is coming! Without even thinking, he dove into a small space underneath the meat egg. This place was covered in lush tree branches, and as long as one was not too close, it would not be difficult to be discovered. Turning his head to look at those three people, none of them were slower than me, so each of them found a space to squat down and peek outside. Mao Babao even turned his head and smiled at me.

The cracking sound stopped shortly, followed by a series of clicks. When I looked towards the source of the sound, I was flabbergasted. Three old men around the age of fifty walked in with lanterns in their hands. They were casually chatting as they walked, and the conversation was quite lively. From the looks of it, they were here for an outing?

The three of them went to the altar table, set the lamps one at a time, and began to put things on. Incense, roast chicken, pig's feet, white wine, pastries... After coding the items, they first lit the incense. The three old men obediently knelt in front of the altar, kowtowing to the incense and even mumbling something. No matter how I look at it, it's similar to the rural ancestors I've seen before. But to say that this is an offering, the choice of location isn't very reliable. Did it really grow out of this tree? I frowned at the Old Taoist Qiu on my left, but he shook his head at me, which meant that he didn't understand either.

What happened next confused us even more. After the three old men finished their worship, they sat down on the floor, took down the roasted chicken and the white wine opened, the three old men started drinking just like that! Although they could not hear the words clearly, they could still hear the words "I will leave first", "I will follow my brothers" and so on. Moreover, these three old men were beaming with joy, and if you put aside the part where they kowtowed in front of the altar and the dead locust tree hanging around it, it would be like they were going on an outing.

The three old men's faces were flushed red. It seemed like they were having a good time drinking it. They thought that the ancestral worship event would end soon, but what happened next made me even more flabbergasted.

The one who looked the oldest stood up, cupped his fist towards the two who were still sitting on the ground, and said a few words before taking off his clothes. After a while, he took off his clothes completely naked, and after taking off his clothes, he carefully folded his clothes and handed them over to the other old man.

The other two old men also stood up and received the clothes. After clasping their fists in return, they watched as the old man with a bare butt walked to the entrance of the cave. The three of them waved their hands and the old man with a bare butt jumped into the cave!

I almost shouted out in shock, but the two old men acted as if nothing had happened. They returned to the altar, drank some more wine, and chatted happily for a while. After that, the two of them packed up their things and wobbled back the way they came.

After a long while, I slowly crawled out from the tree branch, and turned to look at Mao Babao who was similarly staring blankly at me, and Old Taoist Qiu who was frowning. "Mr Mao, Taoist Qiu, you two have lived for a long time, and have seen a lot of things.

The two of them shook their heads in unison. Mao Babao smiled bitterly at me, "Fourth Boss, I've seen evil before, but I've never seen such an evil one. If you can tell me what is going on right now, you can ask me to add two kilograms of salt into Yama's Babao's rice! "

Seeing that they had no other ideas, Hamborg took the initiative to change the topic, "I say, everyone, let's not study this for now. Whatever they want to do, should we research how to get out of here? "Since they can enter, we can also go out, right?"

Right now, there was clearly a path to follow. Could it be that he would really be trapped to death in this unlucky Scholartree? The four of them carefully walked along the path that the three old men had come from. They realized that this place was indeed very hidden. Several groups of branches intersected with each other, forming an S-shaped path. The branches of the trees in the aisle were intertwined and slick, obviously by some means.

As he walked out of the passageway, he saw a stone bridge that was about five feet wide. It was built on top of a tree and beside a pit. Even though he knew that this place wasn't very high, he felt his legs go weak looking at the darkness under the bridge. After crossing the bridge, I inadvertently looked back, and found that the left and right side of the railing were engraved with the words "bitter end of the day, joy never ends."

Hamborg asked me, "Fourth Boss, I don't think I've heard those words before? "Do you remember?"

I shook my head. "I have only heard that when a person has one generation of hardships, how can they live up to their promise for three lifetimes? This meant that a person had suffered enough in this lifetime. On the other hand, the bitter days will always pass. Happiness is limitless, so it's kind of interesting. "

Mao Babao was also in a good mood, he stood at the side and interjected happily: "Didn't you guys say that there was some revolutionary spirit of optimism? It's very similar to that, very optimistic, mm!

On the other hand, Old Taoist Qiu tilted his head and looked at these two sentences for a long time. He was indeed like that. If he wanted to say something, he would answer every question with ten answers. If he didn't want to say it, he would just roll his eyes at her even if she asked him a big question.

After crossing the bridge, the stone platform could open up to seven or eight people, but there was only a stone door in the middle that was as wide as two people. The stone door wasn't considered to be hidden. If the light was good, it could be seen from the bridge. Moreover, one could see that this stone door was very shiny. It could be seen that this was a commonly used item.

"The people in this town like to gather in this dark and sloppy Ghost Tree full of dead people when they have nothing to do?" Hamborg muttered as he slowly pushed on the edge of the stone door. Under his deliberate control, the stone door was gently opened halfway without making too much noise. The Old Taoist Qiu turned his body and dashed out with the horsetail whisk in his hand. After he lightly knocked the door to indicate for us to be safe, Mao Babao and I went out together.

He came out of the stone door and looked around, discovering a small room. The room was neatly cleaned up, and from a glance, it looked like a waiting room, as if everyone was waiting here. Then, he queued up to enter the stone door to drink and jump into the pit. The only decoration in the room was a horizontal signboard above the stone door, with the words "Ending Suffering" written on it.

When I came out of my room, I knew exactly what this place was. This was the secondary room on the east side of the ancestral hall. When we came to visit the ancestral hall that day, there was no one in this room. There was nothing to see through the window, so we didn't come in. I pointed to the room opposite it that was the same size as the one before and said to Mao Babao in a low voice, "Mr Mao, do you believe that there's a stone door inside as well?

Mao Babao patted my shoulder, pointed to the white sky, and whispered into my ear. "Fourth Boss, the most important thing for us to do now is to make use of the fact that the sky is still dark, and quickly return to the hotel."

By the time he got back to the hotel, it was already past five in the morning. The sun was already half out. He crept back to his room through the back window, took off his clothes, hung them up, and got into bed to catch up on his sleep. Only those few people on night watch at the ancestral hall knew that we were going out, but looking at how boldly they pushed us into the locust hole, they should think that the four of us are already dead. As long as we don't take the initiative to show our faces in the ancestral hall, we should be relatively safe for the next few days.

But the plan did not change too quickly, the ancestral hall did not come, and Zhao Hai did.

I had just dozed off when this kid came to find me in the name of being responsible for a hundred thousand yuan a day and told me to keep thinking of ways to find his brother-in-law. I really wanted to directly tell him that Kong Shuangquan was already dead. Not only was he dead, he was even chopped into meat sticks and strung onto a branch. I was afraid that this fellow would pester me to bring him to that damned place. With no other choice, he could only use Old Taoist Qiu's method from last night, and Mao Babao would also go to the Underworld to find the Ghost Servant at night to check. With no other choice, he could only use the Old Taoist Qiu's method from last night, and Mao Babao could also use the night to find the Ghost Servant to check. During the process of making up nonsense, I suddenly thought of the face on the tree, and conveniently gave it to Zhao Hai as a mission to "chat more with the people around me, and get more information about the town".

After getting rid of Zhao Hai, I thought that I could sleep peacefully for the whole morning. But before half an hour had passed, someone pounded on the door with a loud bang, and I got up with the intent to kill to open the door. Seeing that it was Zhao Hai again, I drooped my eyelids and asked him, "Do you want to commit suicide or do you want me to slap you to death?"

Zhao Hai anxiously looked around, and then said with a mysterious low voice. "Fourth Boss, I have to tell you something extremely important! I just found it, first-hand material! "

My hand has already reached behind the door to touch the thermos bottle, "Boss Zhao, everyone has worked very hard for you, can you forgive me? Even if it's just for half a day? "

Zhao Hai's face became extremely serious, "Fourth Boss, you let me in, two minutes! Just two minutes! This is really very, very important. "

I rolled my eyes and opened the door to let him in. The guy looked around once he got in the door, made sure no one was in the hallway, locked the door, and hung the chain. This string of actions made me feel like I've been wearing my pajamas for years. What is this kid trying to do?

After Zhao Hai finished all of this, he sat on the side of the bed and spoke to me in a hushed tone, "Fourth Boss, I just listened to you and went to look for the shop owner. If he's not here, I saw his daughter."

"Hmm? You have taken a fancy to him? You want me to help you propose? " I didn't even look up as I lit a cigarette.

"Eh? He's only seventeen or eighteen when you say that. Oh, don't interrupt! " Zhao Hai was a little anxious: "You don't know how terrifying the process is!"

"He shouldn't be so ugly, right?" I was a little more serious, but I didn't care.

Zhao Hai was so anxious, he took out his phone and took it out for me to see. It was written by a reporter about thirty years ago. This reporter is my classmate's dad. Back then, we worshipped him for a long time, but when the old man passed away, I helped scan all of his works into electronic form. "

My fingers glided a few times. It was nothing more than an article in the late 1980s celebrating the reform and opening up of the city. The main topic was the great change that the reform and opening up had brought to rural life. I asked him listlessly, "What do you want me to see this for?"

"Fourth Boss, you are really ~ ~ ~ Sigh ~ ~ You don't have any sensitivity! I just asked my classmates to come specially for this. " Zhao Hai looked at me with regret.

"No, Boss Zhao. What do you want to say? Can we do it?" I was in a hurry. I really wanted to kick him out and fall back to sleep.

Zhao Hai pointed to one of the photos and said, "Fourth Boss, look at this one and look carefully."

"Well, I saw it. It's marked by the 37-year-old rural woman who carried firewood by the side of the road and her 20-year-old son. The location of the interview wasn't far from here. This reporter was quite professional, even going to the mountains. " I nod impatiently

"Okay, look at this again." This time, Zhao Hai ignored my attitude and took out a mobile phone from his chest, handing it over to me. "This is a photo of the inn's owner and his daughter that I secretly took."

I looked at the two different photos on my cell phones and felt goosebumps all over my body.

Although it wasn't that clear, it was obvious that the woman in the photos looked exactly the same! There was an obvious scar on the side of the man beside the woman!