My monsters are going to heaven

Wen Yuan was awakened by the crowing of the cock.

He opened his eyes and sat up slowly.

Habitually pick up the clothes on the bedside and put them on.

Halfway through the set, he paused.

He remembered that no one kept cocks around.

Especially a rooster with such a clear and high-pitched crow.

And the chicken seemed a little too close to his window, so he was a little annoyed by the crowing.

Suspiciously, he opened the door and followed the sound. After seeing the thing under the window sill, Wen Yuan's eyes widened.

A fat black-feathered pheasant is singing loudly there.

Its wings were entangled in things like thatch, so it struggled to froze from time to time.

Wen Yuan guessed something, couldn't help laughing out loud, walked over and picked up the pair of chicken wings, weighed them, they were quite heavy.

It is estimated that it is much fatter than the one that was stolen last night.

It seems that there is chicken soup to drink tonight.

He looked around, but didn't see the little doll.

Maybe slip away again?

Carry the chicken into the house and tie it to the toilet.

Seeing that the time was almost up, he was about to pack his bag and go out when suddenly his left chest twitched.

It was as if an invisible palm had suddenly ruthlessly pinched five nails into the heart.

Wen Yuan staggered in pain, clutching his chest and leaning against the wall to stabilize his center of gravity, he gasped involuntarily from his mouth and nose.

In just a short moment, the pain disappeared.

Like a gust of hurricane, it came suddenly and then dispersed on the spot.

When Wen Yuan came back to his senses, the dense cold sweat on his forehead had already rolled down his cheeks.

He took a few deep breaths to confirm that there was no longer any pain in his chest and his whole body was fine, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

what happened?

Wen Yuan walked slowly to the side of the bed, and hurriedly picked up his briefcase, thinking, maybe the wound had just healed and hadn't fully recovered yet.

Through his clothes, he lightly stroked the area on his left chest that had been injured not long ago, feeling indescribably strange.

Here, since the things inside have been changed, it has become more and more vibrant.

He often works very late now, but he doesn't feel as tired as before. He even always feels that his energy is like the water overflowing from a well.

-

Jinling Town.

The clock tower rang the first bells of the morning.

Qingyue's long bell rang, and the bell ringer put down the bell and pestle in his hand, and narrowed his slender phoenix eyes against the rising red sun.

A thin layer of gold was immediately reflected in the eyes.

This is his job.

He loves the job.

Ease.

In addition to ringing the bell once in the morning and once in the evening, I usually only take care of the occasional maintenance of the bell tower.

He finds it even more interesting when he thinks that the people in Jinling Town are like wind-up dolls, pouring out with the morning bells, and scattered into countless houses with the evening bells. up.

People, you have to find more fun for yourself.

Otherwise, how boring it would be to live for such a long time.

The bell ringer wiped the bell pestle carefully with a cloth, placed it on the shelf next to the bell, and walked slowly into the dark corridor of the bell tower.

There is a small skylight on every other floor on the wall of the bell tower, through which light can penetrate through a hole, and the steps under the feet can be barely seen.

The steps of the bell tower are steep and long, spiraling down along the central axis.

People walked on it, stepping on the wooden boards and making creaking sounds.

The sound rang for a long time before he finally reached the bottom.

Heaving a sigh of relief, the bell ringer walked quickly to the door and opened it.

The bright light instantly illuminated his fair face.

At the same time, his eyes were shining brightly.

Before he raised his eyes to appreciate the early morning sky, he was startled by the two people standing motionless in front of him.

They were two handsome young men who looked to be in their twenties.

One, wearing a bean-green gown, with gentle eyes, holds a folded black bone fan in his right hand.

One, wearing an off-white shirt with black horse hexagrams on the outside, eyebrows flying into the temples, eyes full of luster, and looking younger.

They stood expressionlessly in front of the gate of the clock tower, as if they had been waiting for a long time, but they were not in a hurry.

The bell ringer saluted hurriedly, and said with an apologetic smile, "You two are early in the morning, but do you want to visit?"

There is a trouble with this place, that is, as the tallest building in the town, people often want to visit it.

He doesn't like to receive such people.

trouble.

"Yes." The man in the green shirt nodded, and shook the folding fan in his hand lightly.

The fan spread out, but it was empty and white on both sides, as if something was missing.

It seems that it has to be sprinkled with a few plum blossoms, decorated with a few tendons of ebony, or smeared with a few lotus leaves and hooked with a few crimson petals, to be what it should be.

"That's really unfortunate," the bell ringer was full of apology, "I'm afraid it's not very convenient today... You two should come back another day."

"What's wrong?" the youth from Xuanma Diagram choked directly.

"...Uh, I'm rushing to visit relatives today, and I hope you two will forgive me." The bell ringer still had a smile on his face.

Hearing the words, the man in the green shirt raised his eyes, smiled, and said lightly: "The Chen family is dead, what kind of family can you visit?"

Although the face of the bell ringer did not change, an imperceptible astonishment flashed in his eyes.

The man in green and the boy in black involuntarily approached the door, and the bell ringer's eyes widened and he took a step back.

At this time, the door automatically closed with a heavy knock.

The bell ringer turned and ran up the steps.

Strange to say, none of the doors of the dark rooms in the bell tower could be seen.

Could it be that I was too flustered and couldn't remember where I was?

The bell ringer ran to the roof and closed the door of the roof heavily.

There is only one road leading from the ground floor to the rooftop in the bell tower, and that road can only accommodate one person at a time.

He thought to himself that he was not overtaken by these two when he ran up.

He just breathed a sigh of relief and turned around, only to find that the two young men were standing by the clock on the rooftop looking at him expressionlessly.

The bell ringer yelled in fright, shrank to one side, and said, "Two, two, I'm just a poor bell ringer. If you want to rob, you're probably in the wrong place." A few copper coins were thrown out, and they jingled on the floor.

The man in the green shirt tilted his head slightly, as if admiring his performance.

After a while, the man in the green shirt slowly stretched out a hand, palm up, and said, "Give us back the things."

"What?" The bell ringer looked terrified.

"We don't like wasting time." The man in the blue shirt looked up at the rising sun in the east before turning his gaze back to him, "That thing doesn't belong to you at all."

"I, I don't know what you are talking about..." the bell ringer said tremblingly.

"The box." The man in the green shirt sighed faintly, "Our Zhou family's box."

The face of the bell ringer looked like a bowl had just been broken, and the panic that had just been filled disappeared instantly.

After a long time, he raised the corner of his mouth and smiled slightly.

"Oh, people from the Zhou family? You are still here after all."

He wiped his chin with his right hand, lifted a human |skin|mask|mask, revealing a fair and handsome face.

"You guys, how did you find me?"

"Found you?" The man in the blue shirt shook his head, "No, we just found the box, and the bad luck here suddenly became scary. As for who you are, we don't care."

"The box you mentioned," the bell ringer said with a smile, "was pawned into my house by someone else, and it has long been mine."

"No." The man in the green shirt continued to shake his head, "Stolen goods are not eligible to be traded, and if you buy stolen goods, you must return them."

The bell ringer laughed heartily, nodded and said, "You are right, but I like it very much, and I don't want to give it back to you."

The man in the green shirt lowered his head slightly, and slowly closed the folding fan in his hand.

"That's boring."

The bell ringer was leaning against the door of the roof, his brows and eyes were full of unscrupulousness.

"I've heard of you."

"Oh?" The man in the blue shirt raised his eyebrows, his calm eyes gradually brightened, "What have you heard?"

The bell ringer stared straight ahead, becoming far away.

He eloquently said:

"...In ancient times, there was a tribe that was never recorded in any history books."

"This tribe uses the non-existent ancient fierce beast Taotie as the guardian animal, so it calls itself the 'Youtao Clan'. Before the Great War between Yan and Huang, the Youtao Clan had internal strife, split into two, and one branch moved to the middle of Sichuan. One branch moved to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River."

"Among them," the bell ringer glanced at the man in the green shirt with a half-smile, "the one that lost was the one that fled to the middle of Sichuan. Their descendants have been hiding their names with each other in order to avoid being chased by the other one." Isolate from the world, maintain many customs from ancient times, and continue to hate and fear the enemy."

"But what they don't know is that another tribe that moved to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River has long since given up hunting them down, giving up those ancient religions and customs, intermarried with the surrounding people and changed customs, and quickly integrated into the society , become unremarkable ordinary people, live and work in peace and contentment, reproduce their descendants, and continue. More than 1000 years ago, this branch even stopped telling future generations about this past, and gradually gave up the text that it had used for thousands of years. Only One or two scribes of local chronicles will engrave this past event on the old clock in characters that most people have forgotten."

As he spoke, the bell ringer caressed the face of the clock in front of him regretfully, and continued: "Now, even the last clerk who understands this language has long since changed his profession, and the last old clock is broken, and the new clock What is inscribed is only the Kangyue chant written by Kai Shu, and no posterity will know that ancient history."

The bell ringer looked up at the man in the green shirt, with piercing eyes: "The people in Jinling Town and the surrounding area are descendants of the Youtao clan who have given up the ancient customs, and your Zhou clan is the one who hid in the middle of Sichuan." loser."

The man in the green shirt listened with great interest, his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Where did you hear that?"

"My great-grandfather was the last clerk in the family. He changed his career and opened a pawn shop." The bell ringer smiled, "So this past event is only known to the Chen family. It's just that we think that this kind of history is no longer passed on. It is necessary. After all, in this age, it is good enough to survive."

"Then how do you know that we are another tribe?"

"There are Chongwen written on that box. Although it only says 'spring, summer, autumn, winter', there should be no one else who knows this kind of writing except you." The bell ringer said lightly, "From the box I can see that you still retain many... wonderful spells and customs. If you are not isolated from the world, this is very difficult to do. This is what makes you different from us-this I appreciate it. Unlike the ancestors of our branch, who abandoned many ancient things just to let the descendants become ordinary people and integrate into this world, it is really a tyranny."

The man in the green shirt shook his folding fan again as if suddenly enlightened, and laughed: "No wonder, not long after we first arrived here, we felt that this place is different from other places, so there is such a reason."

After a pause, he added: "However, I still want to make a few corrections: first, our branch is not isolated from the world; second, thanks to your ancestors, our family has been living in a difficult situation for thousands of years. Great, so I have to hold a grudge."

"Your Excellency's words also solved the confusion in my heart." The man in the green shirt said warmly, "Because this box of ours can only be opened by people of the same clan."

"I see." The bell ringer nodded, "So, we were still a family thousands of years ago. Now this box has recognized me as its owner. Why don't you be beautiful?"

The man in the green shirt shook his head and said, "You are not its owner."

"Oh?" The bell ringer disapproved, his eyes were unrestrained, "but it obeyed me."

The man in the green shirt let out a cold snort: "It obeys every slave." Then he added with a smile, "If it weren't for this, how could it make you greedy and greedy? ——The greed of you laymen is It's favorite thing to eat."

Before the bell ringer could speak, the boy in black who had been silent beside him suddenly took out a mirror, threw it into his hand, and said coldly, "Look at it for yourself?"

The bell ringer glanced into the mirror suspiciously, was startled for a moment, and then threw the mirror on the ground in fright.

"Tsk," the boy in black picked up the mirror. "My mantra mirror is very expensive. It takes ten years to make one. If it breaks, you can't afford it." He explained, "This mirror of mine ignores all illusions and can only reflect the most real appearance."

As he said that, he grinned and held the mirror in front of the bell ringer, "You haven't seen your real appearance for a long time, right?"

The bell ringer was caught off guard and saw himself in the mirror again.

An aging, puffy face.

The gully on his face seemed to be washed away by years of rain, and it was so deep that it was uneven.

He stroked his face in disbelief.

The eyes are wide open, bloodshot veins gradually appear.

He muttered in his mouth: "How...how...how is it possible..."

The man in the green shirt said: "This box likes to lie the most. Illusion is one of its ways of lying. It promises you youth, wealth, and everything, but often only uses illusion to please you."

The young man in Xuanyi looked at him with eyes that were half compassionate and half contemptuous: "How can a person like you become its master. Tch."

"In addition, I have to correct one thing to you." The man in the blue shirt said.

The bell ringer slowly moved his gaze towards him dully.

The light in the blue-clothed man's eyes moved slightly, and he said softly: "Just now you said that Taotie does not exist in the world, this is wrong."

**

Early in the morning, Chengdong Police Station received a murder case.

Another death occurred in Jinling Town.

This time it was an unaccompanied bell ringer who died.

He died on the bell tower, and was discovered by a few children who secretly stayed on the bell tower to play.

Since it is a case in Jinling Town, Wen Yuan must be present in person.

Zhao Donglai inspected the corpse and quickly came to a conclusion: "The corpse is warm and died not long ago. There is no trauma on the whole body surface, and there is no sign of poisoning. The eyes are wide open and the expression is grim... The preliminary judgment is that it is a heart attack or something. Sudden illness. It is likely that he was frightened to death, and a detailed report will take two days."

"Scared to death?" Wen Yuan couldn't help but laugh.

At this time, some people from the town came to watch the excitement.

Someone shouted from a distance: "This is not for ringing the bell!"

Wen Yuan lowered his head and looked at it, slightly taken aback.

"Hey?"

"What?" Zhao Donglai cast a cold glance.

Wen Yuan rubbed his chin, staring in shock.

He was deeply impressed by the facial features.

More than a month ago, in the case of the extermination of the Chen family, Chen Liancheng, the head of the Chen family, was placed in the most obvious position, and he looked roughly like this.

The person in front of him looked exactly like Chen Liancheng.

but……

Wen Yuan muttered.

Didn't that Chen Liancheng claim to have obtained some kind of secret technique that would allow him to remain young forever?

What happened to the young and handsome Chen Liancheng I saw these days?

Could it be that he was fooled?

What the heck.

At this time, a police officer approached and whispered something in Wen Yuan's ear.

Wen Yuan gave him a squinting look impatiently, pulled him aside and said in a low voice, "You can handle this kind of thing yourself."

"But...didn't you say..."

Wen Yuan said coolly: "In the past, some people in the prison had occasional emergencies. If they were locked together accidentally, everyone in the same room would be infected. Why don't I teach you how to do it?"

The police officer was startled, said "yes" in a low voice, and hurried away.

Looking at the figure of the policeman leaving, Wen Yuan was a little dazed for a moment.

...Wait, what did I just say?

"Wen Detective... No, Superintendent." Zhao Donglai's voice sounded not far away, interrupting his thoughts.

Wen Yuan turned his head: "Huh?"

"Here is a human|skin|mask|mask." Zhao Donglai seemed to have found some great toy, rubbed the thing he just picked up from the ground, put it on his face, and played with it.

Lu Yiming was in the shop listening to a few customers who were picking up medicine talking about the murder in the bell tower, and he couldn't help but interjected curiously: "Another bell ringer died?"

"That's not it. How long did that old Zhou die last time?"

"That's right, who else would dare to take on this job now?"

"I heard the bell in the morning."

Lu Yiming dialed his abacus, thinking of something: "How did you die?"

"Who knows, some people said that when he died, his eyes were so wide." The guest who spoke compared the circles that were bigger than two eggs with his fingers, "it seemed that he was frightened to death after seeing a ghost."

At this time, two young men came in one behind the other.

One was wearing a green shirt, and the other was wearing a black vest.

The man in the blue shirt was shaking a black bone fan in front of his chest, and asked with a smile: "Who? Who was scared to death?"

On the pure white fan in his hand, there are only a few strokes of a human figure kneeling on the ground, which looks unique and interesting.

Lu Yiming raised his head to see the person who came, he was startled for a while, then he chatted and called a waiter to pour tea for the two of them.

"Boss, are these two...?" The man asked with a smile.

"These are my two... clan brothers." Lu Yiming didn't know how to introduce Zhou Xiaosheng and Zhou Yunxuan for a while, so he answered vaguely.

"No need." The man in the green shirt waved his hand, approached Lu Yiming and said in a warm voice, "I said I would talk to you in two days, but there are still some things that are delayed in these two nights, so we can only postpone our meeting. Three days later , I will definitely come to find you."

After a pause, he suddenly turned his head and added, "You must be careful these few days."

After saying that, the man in the green shirt led Shi Shiran, the young man in black, to leave.

Lu Yiming laughed.

These two distant cousins, he really has nothing to do with them.

Thinking of what he saw and heard that night, Lu Yiming's heart trembled slightly.

I don't know what Qingchen said.

Maybe Kimporo would know about this matter, so why not ask him?

By the way, where did Ah Jin go today?

Lu Yiming raised his eyebrows.

This morning, Lu Yiming was woken up by the group of crows on the roof, but Jin Poluo had long since disappeared.

Thinking that Kim Poro came to the shop to do some business, but he was not seen in the shop.

Normally, he would always wait for him to go out together.

Forget it.

I guess I got tired and went out.

Maybe I ran to another tree to sleep late.

Just give him a vacation.