The second day after waking up drunk was the most uncomfortable. Song Cheng had a splitting headache and felt weak all over. He barely opened his eyes, and the sun was already shining outside.

He was sluggish for a few seconds before his brain started to function, and he subconsciously shouted.

"Old Zheng." His voice was hoarse.

No one responded, Song Cheng got up and looked around.

He was the only one in the empty house, and the person who agreed to meet every morning was late today.

Song Cheng was silent for a while, pursing his lips tightly.

If a man is here at this moment, he will find that the youth is angry early.

But the young man didn't show much emotion on his face, he just got up with his sore limbs, and went into the bathroom to wash.

During this period, Ning Yan called and asked him if he felt uncomfortable.

Song Cheng simply replied a few words, and hung up the phone not wanting to worry Ning Yan.

His voice rang a few times in the room, and it returned to calm after a while.

Song Cheng poured himself a glass of water, sat on the table with bread that could not be eaten for a long time, and frowned subconsciously.

It's space, where did Zheng Yanxu go, and he hasn't come back yet.

It is already ten thirty-four.

He let out a sigh of relief, just as he was about to reach for the breakfast slices on the table, he caught a glimpse of red in his wandering eyes.

Song Cheng paused, and at some point there was a wedding invitation on the coffee table, which looked so abrupt in the simple and elegant furniture.

The invitation was originally placed on the locker at the entrance, but yesterday Chu Zihan helped him into the house, so the invitation was taken away and thrown on the coffee table.

Song Chengquan remembered everything, he walked over and took the invitation, his brows furrowed even deeper.

This wedding invitation looks weird. Although the color is bright red, the overall style gives people a dull and old atmosphere.

Especially on the top paper-cut is a grotesque animal with a flat mouth, but its eyes are deliberately dotted with a golden brush, which makes it look weird and realistic.

There is an illusion of being watched directly.

On the left and right sides of the big red "囍", two small shadows are deliberately cut out, one is the groom, with a red flower on his chest, and the other is the bride, with a kerchief on her head.

It seems that traditional and conservative wedding invitations are rare, at least in the era when electronic invitations are popular nowadays, they are rare.

Song Cheng stared at it for a long time, always feeling a hairy feeling in his heart.

After opening it, there was a neat blessing written with a black brush on it.

Ming Xi Jun Xi knows it as the god of the river, and a woman looks forward to it as marriage.

Below this sentence are the names of the two newcomers, He Tu and Shen Yan.

Song Cheng didn't know any of them, and he didn't have any classmates and friends with these two names in his memory.

When he saw this invitation yesterday, he thought it was Zheng Yanxu who brought it back.

But after waking up today, I looked at it again, and it was clearly written under the post: The groom Hetu invited distinguished guests.

Song Cheng's name was filled in behind the honored guest.

This invitation card that appeared on his cabinet for no reason was for him.

Song Cheng thought about it for a while, maybe the groom is a friend of his family, so he even got a share with him.

But the post did not specify the location, there was only one time, at six o'clock in the evening on September 9th.

Let's wait for Zheng Yanxu to come back and ask, why does he vaguely remember that the neighbor next door, Chu Zihan, also received the invitation.

Song Cheng thought about it, and still sent a message to ask, and by the way thanked the neighbor for sending him home yesterday.

Chu Zihan didn't have time to return to him until lunch break at noon, and he did receive the same invitation.

It's just that the bottom line says that the bride is entertaining distinguished guests, and Shen Yan is the daughter of Chu Zihan's distant cousin's family.

There was an accident at his family when he was a child, and the cousin rushed over from her husband's house in person and sent 3 yuan.

At that time, 3 yuan was already a considerable amount of money, enough for Chu Zihan's family to survive for a year or two.

Although the money was paid back in time later, my cousin died of cancer.

Chu Zihan said that although people leave, Enyou is still there.

He has already asked for leave to attend the wedding, at least to see how his cousin is doing.

Moreover, he is not the poor boy he was in the past, and he still needs to help those who can.

Song Cheng knew a general idea, and the two of them hadn't chatted for a while, and Chu Zihan was busy again, so they could only talk about it after get off work.

As a result, Zheng Yanxu was nowhere to be seen until Chu Zihan knocked on Song Cheng's door after get off work.

Song Cheng opened the door for him, Chu Zihan looked into the room with a surprised face, paused and asked:

"Then what, Zheng Yanxu is not at home?"

Song Cheng said "En", and suddenly raised his head to look at him.

"Old Zheng is not at home, you are... happy?"

The smile on Chu Zihan's face froze, he avoided the young man's gaze, and touched his nose guiltily.

"Hey, am I afraid that he won't want to see me... How long has it been since he came back, and he didn't seem to be here yesterday, right?"

Chu Zihan put on new slippers, and handed the invitation he got to Song Cheng.

"It's not long, it's just that I'm away for two days."

Song Cheng put his card together with his own, "Maybe he's busy, my invitation doesn't have an address, and neither do you?"

The two invitations were indeed exactly the same, even the slightly salty pen and ink on the posts were the same.

"Address?" Chu Zihan patted his head and remembered: "There is an address in the wedding invitation, written on a paper-cut piece of red boat, I didn't pay attention when I opened it yesterday, it seems that you dropped it. "

And his card was thrown away after writing down the address, it was not easy to store, and he didn't like the literary things very much.

When Song Cheng heard this, he hurried to the entrance to look for it, and sure enough, he found a red paper-cut in Zheng Yanxu's leather shoes.

The boat-shaped paper-cut is very delicate, and a small person sitting on the boat is cut out on it, lonely.

On the reverse side, there is a small typesetting address, No. 124, Hukou Town, Fanhe County, C City, Anhui Province.

Obviously, the place where the two new couples got married was a bit off.

Song Cheng frowned, and just about to say something, suddenly a little guy flew over his shoulder, and Fat Li stretched out his head and took away the paper in his hand.

He had no choice but to chase after the bad guy that grew so fast and could fly and eat: "Fat Li, that thing is not your toy, return it to me quickly, it will definitely be broken by you in a while."

Fat Pear flew to the bird stand, and the piece of paper was placed under its feet, staring at it with two round eyes, not sure if it could understand it.

Chu Zihan had also heard from the young man that there was a baby bird at home, but he didn't expect it to be so round and cute.

He became interested, and stepped forward to pull out the paper from under the little guy's paws. Before he could tease it, his finger was lightly pecked.

"Tsk." He withdrew his hand embarrassingly, turned his head and laughed at Song Cheng, "Am I so annoying? Look at him staring at me."

"Don't tease it, even when Lao Zheng was at home, he was chased and pecked by it." Song Cheng said with a smile, "Oh, by the way, where is your smiling cat? I haven't seen it for a long time."

When the name of the smiling cat was mentioned, the smile on Chu Zihan's face slowly subsided, and he said softly:

"After all, it's not a domestic cat, and I'm not familiar with it."

"You said before that you didn't know the groom? Then why did you receive the invitation?" Chu Zihan changed the subject calmly and asked.

Song Cheng felt a little melancholy when he mentioned this matter, and he simply told about Zheng Yanxu's receipt of the invitation card before, but he didn't disclose other contents.

Chu Zihan also felt strange after hearing it, but he couldn't say too much judgment, just a simple reminder.

"It's only the 27th today. You still have time to think about it. If you can't do it, just wait for Zheng Yanxu to come back. Anyway, I'm leaving on the afternoon of the 29th. You can just let me know if you decide."

Song Cheng nodded, the reason why he didn't make a decision immediately was because he wanted to wait for Zheng Yanxu to come back.

Although the wedding invitation was delivered to him, he always felt that things were not that simple, as if someone was setting him up.

Moreover, Zheng Yanxu didn't want him to know the existence of the wedding invitation at the beginning, so he secretly burned it behind his back, so it would not harm him.

"Okay, then I'll wait for Lao Zheng to come back and make a decision."

However, two days passed, and it was the 29th in a blink of an eye, and Zheng Yanxu still hadn't come back.

Song Cheng survived the most panicky first day, and he was not so nervous afterwards.

There is no news for so long, and nine out of ten probably won't be able to come back.

He felt that his family must have encountered some trouble, otherwise it would be impossible not to know how to go home.

Because the man must know that he is waiting for him.

Chu Zihan didn't think so, he told Song Cheng to relax, maybe Zheng Yanxu just went to the wedding early and that's not necessarily the case.

Although he knew that this possibility was unlikely, if he really attended the wedding, the man would have time to come back and talk to him.

Song Cheng was in a mess, every minute and every second of sitting at home was incomparably tormented.

Only then did he realize that he really had no way to contact the man, not even acquaintances like his friends.

This sense of powerlessness made him very strange and unaccustomed to it.

In the end Song Cheng decided to attend the wedding with Chu Zihan and try his luck.

Maybe the groom, Guan Hetu, will know Zheng Yanxu.

They set off at three o'clock in the afternoon on the 29th, and the distance was not too far in less than four hours. The two drove in turns and had enough time to rest.

Before he left, Song Cheng told the two children about his departure, as well as Song's father and Song's mother. If Zheng Yanxu hadn't attended the wedding, he would have known his whereabouts as soon as he came back.

And Fat Li was handed over to He Cancan, the little anchor upstairs, to raise her for a few days.

In return, Song Cheng had to agree to the little girl's request to show her face in the live broadcast room to increase her popularity.

After all, his face is quite shocking.

When the car got on the road, Song Cheng's restless heart slowly settled down.

Chu Zihan took the initiative to tell the general situation he knew, so that Song Cheng could understand.

Shen Yan is not an only child, she also has a brother who is three years older than her. She is just 20 years old this year and not long after graduating from high school, she dropped out of school to work.

And her mother died too early, and her father was an incompetent employee in a small factory. All the savings in the family were used for the older one's education, and the younger one had to work part-time to earn money.

"My cousin is a very capable woman. Before she passed away, she started a garment factory and made a lot of money every year." Chu Zihan took a sip of mineral water and continued:

"But my uncle is not very good."

"To put it nicely, it's honesty, but to put it bluntly, it's really timid and fearful. My cousin is in charge of the family's affairs, and the education of the two children also falls on her. Maybe it's because of too much work. , I got stomach cancer in my thirties.”

"It was already in the middle and late stages when we found out. My good-for-nothing son-in-law sat down on the ground in fright on the spot."

Song Cheng was driving, and it was not easy to answer his words, so he nodded to show that he was listening.

"Later, in order to treat my cousin's illness, my uncle sold the family factory, but the money he got was only half of the real value." Chu Zihan shook his head, his tone a little light.

I don't know whether it was his cousin who took it for himself or was cheated. After knowing it, the cousin's health is getting worse and worse, and the food that he didn't eat much is getting less and less.

That clothing factory is almost half of her life, and she has worked so hard to achieve the size it is today. Even if she really can't hold on, no matter how stupid her man is, she can still maintain it for a few years. is more than enough.

But he was stupid and stupid, and he wanted to swallow part of the money and plan for the future.

It may be that Chu Zihan's cousin saw through his cousin's thoughts and died within two months of being disheartened.

At that time, Shen Yan was only seven or eight years old, and Shen Qi was only eleven or twelve years old.

The family suffered a change. The two children originally attended the best local school, but they dropped out of school not long after, and returned to their hometown in Anhui according to their father's arrangement.

What happened after that, Chu Zihan is not very clear.

Once the cousin left, the contact between the two families became less and less. When Shen Yan was in junior high school, she still liked to call Chu Zihan, and especially admired her cousin.

As a result, not long after, Chu Zihan's family had to change their mobile phone number in order to avoid their creditors, and thus lost their only contact with Shen Yan and the others.

Speaking of this, Chu Zihan's face was full of regret.

So when he received Shen Yan's wedding invitation this time, he was very surprised and delighted. After all, after Chu's father and Chu's mother passed away, there were not many relatives who could be contacted.

Song Cheng thought for a while and said: "Since you haven't been in touch with your cousin for a long time, then...how did Shen Yan know your home address?"

Especially since Chu Zihan had just switched to the door opposite him not long ago.

If he didn't say anything, Song Cheng didn't think there was anything wrong, but when he mentioned it, the whole thing seemed weird.

Leaving aside the strange wedding invitation, and the weird monster and paper-cut boat, how could a person who hadn't been in touch for a long time suddenly get in touch again?

And that invitation from Song Cheng came uninvited.

After hearing the young man's words, the man froze for a moment, frowned and said uncertainly:

"Maybe I got it from somewhere else, some relatives may know the address."

After he finished speaking, there was a long silence in the carriage. Obviously, even he himself couldn't convince himself.

They took turns driving, and when they reached Fanhe County, Chu Zihan stopped the car directly at the entrance of a supermarket.

He asked Song Cheng to wait in the car, and then went into the supermarket.

Song Cheng didn't think much about it, thinking that he was buying cigarettes or water, but who knew that the man came back and handed him two fruit knives and three small bottles of things, namely chili water, pepper powder, and mustard.

This is... planning to make pepper spray?

Song Cheng was full of doubts, but Chu Zihan started the car very calmly:

"After listening to your words, I decided that for our personal safety, it is still necessary to take some self-protection measures."

Especially when the person next to him is often in a variety of situations.

Song Cheng: "..."

The young man didn't speak, but silently took out an electric shock baton from the backpack in the back seat, and asked sincerely:

"Is three enough? I'm afraid I won't have time to charge them."

Chu Zihan: "...enough, very enough."

He was the one who lost, and the fruit knife and chili water were weak in front of the electric shock rod.

Only then did Song Cheng feel relieved to take the good guy back. When he decided to go, he had already considered his own safety.

After all, he was not so naive as to think that Zheng Yanxu's friend could be an ordinary human being, or a pure natural and pollution-free god.

After entering Fanhe County and driving for half an hour, we arrived at Hukou Town. It was said to be a town, but it was actually a village built by the river.

The range is not small, but biased enough.

The two of them drove around the town several times before finding Shen Yan's home.

Shen Yan's house is next to a snack street, the front door is very narrow, it's easy to overlook it if you don't look carefully.

The one who opened the door for the two was a slightly fat middle-aged man in a gray shirt. It was Shen Yan's father, Shen Kangshun.

With a cigarette in his mouth, Shen Kangshun looked at them sideways, and it took him a long time before he said:

"Are you Xiaohan? I haven't seen you for so many years, I almost can't recognize him."

"Uncle, I haven't seen you for nine years. Compared with before...you have changed a bit."

There was a humble smile on Chu Zihan's face, but that smile didn't reach his heart.

Shen Kangshun's face froze, subconsciously covering the worthless copper-plated watch on his neck.

"Hehe, you know, since your cousin left, my life has become more and more difficult." The man looked at Song Cheng who was standing aside, smiled and stepped aside to open the door, "This is you Are you my friend? Come on, let's come in and talk."

After entering the house, Song Cheng clearly felt that Shen Kangshun's real life was more difficult than it appeared on the surface.

The old sofa with a hole showing the spring was reluctant to throw it away, so it was placed on the wall to put a change of clothes. Those clothes were also old-fashioned and worn for a long time.

"Sit, sit."

Shen Kangshun asked them to sit down, and went into the kitchen to pour tea.

Chu Zihan hadn't looked at it much before he saw women's underwear and bras drying on the balcony. Shen Kangshun didn't know when he would remarry.

"Come, drink tea." The man just poured two cups and put them in front of them.

Song Cheng lowered his head and looked, there were a few solitary tea leaves floating in the cup, the kind that could be counted at a glance.

"Grandpa, have you found someone to accompany you these years?" Chu Zihan asked calmly, "There should be a woman to take care of me at home, life will be much easier."

Shen Kangshun was taken aback for a moment, and then said with a little evasive gaze: "Yes, because Yanyan and Xiaoqi have someone to take care of them, they have to remarry."

Shen Kangshun had nothing to hide in this regard. Not two years after the death of his cousin Chu Zihan, Shen Kangshun married a widow in a similar situation in the town, and his remarried wife was accompanied by a daughter who was about the same age as Shen Yan.

Originally, it was for someone to take care of the children, but who knew that this honest-looking woman was very shrewd and had a great gambling addiction. Shen Kangshun lost most of Shen Kangshun's money.

The middle-aged man complained to his nephew, whom he had not seen for a long time, and said how difficult it had been for him these years. When he mentioned his cousin Chu Zihan, tears came to his eyes.

It's a pity that Chu Zihan didn't answer a word from the beginning to the end, and looked at Shen Kangshun indifferently throughout the whole process.

When the man couldn't continue talking, he said: "It's still in the air, I'm here to attend my sister's wedding this time, let's talk about other things after the wedding, my lord."

"I haven't seen her for so many years and I don't know how she is doing. Why are you so eager to get married at the age of 20?" Chu Zihan couldn't help asking a lot, "How is the man's family?"

When Shen Yan was mentioned, Shen Kangshun's face became a little stiff.

"She, she's not here now."

"Not here?" Chu Zihan frowned, "Isn't she getting married tomorrow? What's going on?"

Shen Kangshun sighed deeply, took out a cigarette from his pocket with trembling hands and lit it.

"The wedding to be held tomorrow is not a wedding, it is a... sacrifice."

Hearing the man's words, Song Cheng was startled, and Chu Zihan's face darkened immediately.

Shen Kangshun's eyebrows were full of melancholy, and he said in a vicissitudes of life:

"Did you see the Laizi River when you entered the town? The person she is going to marry is not someone else, but that river."

Shen Kangshun remembered that when he was very young, the Laizi River was not called the Laizi River.

I don't know which spring of that year, many toads suddenly appeared on the bank of the river, one by one ugly one lying in the grass and calling.

This kind of thing is not a bullfrog, so it cannot be eaten. Its medical value has not been discovered at that time, and the mucus on the body will cause the skin to fester if it is accidentally touched. This is of no benefit to the local people, except for curing bad insects .

If no one cares about it and there are no strong natural enemies, the toads will overflow, and the river will become a veritable river of toads.

After hearing this, Chu Zihan frowned even deeper, "What does this have to do with Shen Yan's marriage? Isn't it just messing around!"

Shen Kangshun smiled wryly, "Nephew, let me finish my sentence."

"Just five days ago, Shen Yan went to the river to have a conversation with her boyfriend from that shitty tourism development company, and she didn't know what happened, so she fell into the water."

When Shen Kangshun mentioned this incident, he kept shaking his legs anxiously, and there was even a bit of fear on his face.

"At that time, three or four people with good water skills came down to fish, but they didn't even get a piece of clothes!"

"And then?" Song Cheng couldn't help asking.

"Then, the next morning, the person washing vegetables by the river saw with his own eyes that Shen Yan was dragged ashore by a group of toads, and he was still breathing when he was pulled up."

Shen Kangshun quickly smoked a cigarette, cursed in a low voice, threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it.

"How is it possible?!" Chu Zihan was shocked. It was absolutely impossible to drag a person weighing more than a hundred catties in the water just by the toad's bite force.

Shen Kangshun couldn't say a word, and his voice was very bitter: "You didn't see the scene that day, otherwise you wouldn't question what I said."

Those things were not only big, but also in unprecedented numbers. Some of them supported Shen Yan's body, and some of them bit Shen Yan's clothes and brought him to the shore.

The scene was so unimaginable that Shen Kangshun was shocked at the first sight.

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