Strangers

He laughs.

The next morning, Qi Xie sat on the dining table and made two cups of sweet-scented osmanthus tea, watching Ding Li lying opposite him with his head buried in his arms.

"Why, didn't you sleep well?" Qi Xiong said happily.

"I dream about monsters all night." Ding Li mumbled, "Big and small, red and green, round and flat, male and female."

"Oh? That's interesting."

"Not interesting at all."

Qi harmoniously drank tea with a smile.

Ding Li raised his head halfway: "What's the plan for today?"

Qi Xie tapped the folder on the table: "Research on the case."

Ding Li yawned and rubbed his eyes and sat up.

"If you are sleepy, go back and sleep for a while." Qi Xie said.

"Research the case with you." Ding Li said.

"No." Qi Xie refused.

"Oh." Ding Li leaned back on the table.

Just about to fall asleep in a daze, the other side began to hum a little song while tapping on the table.

Ding Li looked up: "What are you happy about?"

"No." Qi Xie smiled and turned over a page of the document.

"What's wrong?" Ding Li murmured, "Sometimes he's beaming and then he's dead."

"Probably because of bipolar disorder again." Qi Xiong said lightly.

"Then do you want to take some medicine?"

"No, I feel fine now."

Ding Li sat up straight: "I mean it."

Qi Xie stopped and smiled.

Seeing his expression, Ding Li suddenly felt something was wrong: "Well, no, I was joking."

Qi Xie stared at him: "It's funny that I'm sick, isn't it?"

"I didn't mean that!" Ding Li hurriedly explained, "I was really just joking, and I thought you were joking too, so I just said it along the way, I didn't think you were really—"

The eyes on the other side changed several times, and finally burst out laughing.

Ding Li didn't know what expression to put on for a moment.

"Are you sleepy now?" Qi Xie asked.

"You scared me again!" Ding Li glared at him.

"How?" His tone was harsh.

"Crazy." Ding Li muttered.

"Yeah, yeah." He nodded.

Ding Li frowned, and finally smiled and sighed: "Ah Jing, I have something to say, don't be angry."

"Speak." Qi Xie is very generous.

"You should know that your illness is lifelong." Ding Li said tentatively, "So I think you should pay attention, because every time you get overjoyed, you will be... like that."

Qi Xiong hummed: "I know how to regulate emotions."

"But did you really adjust that by yourself?" Ding Li paused, giving him a little psychological buffer, "I thought of something last night, and I was afraid that you would become depressed after hearing it, so I didn't say it. Calm down now, I tell you."

Qi Xie put down the folder: "Speak."

Ding Li sat upright and took a deep breath: "Last night you suddenly cheered up because you heard Assistant Qian's words and felt that things had turned around, didn't you?"

Qi Xie hesitated for a moment, then nodded in recognition.

"You said that the deal was a good deal. Indeed, if you don't accept these two cases, you will be in trouble, and the guard officer Xie Yu and I will not be able to escape. If you accept the case, it will still be trouble if you can't solve it. If you solve it, everyone will be free. You Boss Qi, who has been working for so many years, should know that there is only the truth of buying by mistake and not selling by mistake, so why does Boss Xun still raise this condition and do this loss-making business?"

"I've thought about it." Qi Xie said, "Maybe he wants to use the condition of total freedom to make me more actively involved in the case."

But Ding Li shook his head: "Yesterday's fishing for arrow clusters has fully proved one point, that is for us, you can die at any time. Since Guixintang has choked this one, it can force you to do anything, positive or negative. There is no difference in outcome, unless..."

Qi Xie raised her eyes, waiting for his next words.

"What he wants is not the result." Ding Li looked at each other.

"It's not the result, what is that?" Qi Xie asked.

"It's a process, a change in your mental state." Ding Li paused, "He's controlling your emotions."

Qi harmony was stunned.

"Assistant Qian is a smart person, and she speaks and does everything without leaking. Yesterday, she made a slip of the tongue and exposed the important fact that Boss Xun monitored us.——Do you think this is possible? At least I don't think she will make such a low-level mistake. In other words The reason why she did this is that Boss Xun told us clearly through her mouth: Your every move, every thought and thought are under my control, and I am not afraid to let you know this, because your future All reactions also cannot escape my calculations."

After Ding Li finished speaking, he looked at the opposite side, and the changes in Qi Xie's eyes could be seen at a glance.

"You guessed right." Ding Li said the answer, "He is indeed trying to kill you."

Qi Xie lowered his eyes: "So even when we sit here and analyze this, he already expected it, right?"

"Yes." Ding Li said, "Boss Xun is a scary person. He has been quietly wearing down your will: first pretend to be ignorant of what you are hiding, and then you think you have left behind. When you were about to fight back, he suddenly tossed you until you were half dead, opened all your cards, and when you decided to give up, he proposed this deal again, deliberately letting you see a glimmer of hope. I can't guess what he will do next, so I'm worried about your mental state going forward."

Qi Xie looked at him.

"Ah Jing, I know you are a person who does everything freely and doesn't like a life full of wind and waves, but today is different. We don't know what is waiting in front of us, so you have to be fully prepared, and you can't just give up for a promise of freedom. Xinxinran, you can't be depressed as soon as you are suppressed by the opponent, you can't be afraid of right and wrong, you can't have the idea of ​​retreating and running away, the most important thing is that you have to know one thing." Ding Li looked into his eyes, "That is, no matter what happens , I will not leave, I will always be here, and face all this with you."

After the words fell for a long time, Qi Xie still looked straight at Ding Li.

Ding Li didn't hide either, and made up his mind to win in this eye-to-eye patience competition.

Until a smile, the loser disarms and surrenders.

"I see." Qi harmony said softly.

"It's good to know." Ding Li also smiled.

Relaxing his shoulders, Qixie changed his posture and leaned back in the chair.

"This is terrible." He pinched the Jingming acupoint, "I probably need to take medicine."

"What?" Ding Li picked up his teacup.

"Because I suddenly had a hallucination."

"What illusion."

"There are thousands of horses and thousands of troops behind you."

☆, Tujia Village

The family name of Tujia Village is not Tu.

The village is located in a deep mountain depression at the junction of Henan and Jin. It is said that there were already people living in the village in the Song Dynasty, but it was not prosperous. Later, a wealthy businessman married a bandit. In order to avoid being chased and killed, he moved here with a family of nearly a hundred servants. .In the first ten years since he came here, the wealthy businessman lived in peace with the villagers. He didn't want a girl in his family to have an affair with a small tailor in the village. Her master found out and broke her legs.The girl died within a few days of being injured and sick. The tailor ran out of the village in grief and indignation, and found the bandits to inform him.When the bandits heard the news, they came in armed to the teeth, and wiped out all the rich merchants overnight. They also heard that this place is a treasured place of geomantic omen, so they took over the mountain and became king, and renamed the place "Tujia Village" to boost their prestige.Many years later, the descendants of the bandits gradually gave up their ancestral property, and that period of history was gradually forgotten. Only the surname Tu on their names witnessed what happened.

"But it's just a legend, and it's impossible to test whether it's true or not." Qi Xie brought the story to an end, and the sun visor outside the car window quickly retreated.

The seven-seater SUV was driving on the highway, all the way to the northwest.

Master Zhang was still driving the car, Qi Xie and Ding Li were sitting in the back seat, separated by two hiking bags, Assistant Qian and Fang Xun didn't come, so they called two men from Jingfang to help.

The co-pilot named Ma Chang was smoking a cigarette and chatting passionately with the driver. He was tall with a monk head, big arms and a round waist. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt and had a gold chain around his neck.The one in the middle seat was named Liang Dongsheng, with his head hooked and silent, with dark skin, lean muscles, thick eyebrows lowered, looking fierce, with a scar on the back of his neck extending into his collar.

The wheels ran over nearly [-] kilometers and turned into Qinyang at [-] pm. Qi Xie decided to enter the mountain the next day.The driver found a business hotel, opened three standard rooms with the front desk, and distributed the room card to go in. Ding Li suddenly followed: "Master Zhang, let's have one."

Master Zhang was a little surprised: "Okay."

Ding Li explained with an embarrassed smile: "Boss Qi likes to be quiet."

"Oh, it's okay, I was also thinking about whether to open a separate room for him." Master Zhang picked up his luggage.

Qi Xie, who was next to him, saw it and knew that Ding Li had gone to find out the news, so he went into his room without saying anything.

Nothing happened overnight, and the five of them set off in the early morning.

After driving in the mountains for more than two hours until there was no way to go, Master Zhang stopped the car at a village called Niujiaogang.Qi Xie and Ding Li carried the mountaineering bags on their backs, and Ma Liang also pulled out two sets of marching equipment from the trunk, and carried them neatly on their bodies.

"Who are they?" Ding Li asked in a low voice.

"Assistant Qian said she would provide anything I needed, but I thought that nothing was as easy to use as a human, so I asked her for two helpers." Qi Xie pulled out a saber and handed it to him.

Ding Li weighed it: "Are we going to enter the village to rob?"

"Be prepared." Qi Xie squeezed out a handful of talisman paper, and then waved his hand as if magically, he didn't know where to put it, "Yesterday I summoned him and shook his head, and it said that it was threatened by Boss Xun and could not tell me anything. In short, there will be no free reminders in the future, and there will be no warning in case of danger, so you have to be careful in everything, but there is a relative advantage, and Guixintang will not be able to rely on its set of information in the future."

"Why?" Ding Li asked.

Qi Xie frowned: "Because Boss Xun can make it die, I can make it worse than death."

At this time, Ma Liang and his wife had finished their arrangements, and they were standing beside the car waiting for instructions.

"Drink this." Qi Xie took out three bottles of what looked like cough syrup.

Ma Chang unscrewed it and smelled it: "What the hell is this!"

"Chinese medicine." Qi Xie said, "Prevent miasma in the mountains."

Ding Li poured it down without further ado, Liang Dongsheng paused for a few seconds, squinting to see that Ding Li was fine and drank it all in one gulp, Ma Chang licked a little and grinned bitterly, and finally squeezed his nose before swallowing it.

Qi Xie grabbed the map, turned around and walked into the path leading to the deep mountain and dense forest. At first it was a section of dirt road, which gradually became narrower and intermittent, until it was completely blocked by a towering tree.Liang Dongsheng tapped the compass needle, and the needle pointed in several directions very freely. Ma Chang kicked the tree trunk: "I said, Boss Qi, you are leading the wrong way!"

"That's right, it's just that we don't need a map." Qi Xie said as he squatted down, stretched his palms and pressed them on the soil, and assumed the same posture as that night in Liling Mountain, closed his eyes and stopped moving...

His brows are serene and his face is peaceful. He seems to be integrated with the vast mountain. For a moment, Ding Li saw wild flowers and weeds sprouting from his back, sprouting green, and growing vigorously.

The wonderful hallucination ended when he slowly opened his eyes.

"This way." Qi Xie pointed to the dense forest.

Ma Chang pulled out his machete and said to start work, swiped off the branches blocking the way and forced a way, and walked like this for a while, Qi Xie suddenly called to stop, he staggered and almost stepped on the ground, looked down, a few yuan The gravel fell straight down the cliff tens of meters high, and fell into the river with a plop.

"Fuck!" Ma Chang turned around and cursed, "Do you have eyes! I have never seen you leading the way in my life!"

Qi Xie glanced over coldly: "Is your boss Xun asking you to talk to me like this?"

"Damn you!" Ma Chang slammed the machete and pointed at Qi Xie's nose, "I came here because of Master Xun's face! To put it bluntly, who are you! You want to show off in front of me In the next life, you won't be able to take the turn!"

"Okay!" Liang Dongsheng opened his mouth first, his voice was hoarse, and he shut up the man with a low reprimand, then he turned to Qixie and asked with his eyebrows pressed: "How to get there."

Qi Xie pointed at the cliff: "Go there."

Liang Dongsheng stretched his head to look, and a half stone platform was picked out more than ten meters below the cliff, hanging there with no village in front and no shop behind.

"Where are you going to fuck!" Ma Chang questioned.

Qi Xie didn't explain much: "Just do it."

Liang Dongsheng cast a gloomy glance at Qi Xie, took off his backpack and took out his climbing equipment, and found a thick tree trunk to hang a rope on.

During the preparations over there, Qi Xie looked at Ding Li: "What's wrong with you."

"I don't know." Ding Li supported the stone and sat down, "I've been dizzy since just now."

"It may be a side effect of the medicine, and it will be fine after a while."

Ding Li rubbed his temples: "What kind of medicine is that?"

"An anti-miasma medicine."

"Remember to change the reason next time. This is not the southern mountainous area. Where does the miasma come from?"

"Knowing I'm lying to you and still drinking so briskly."

"You won't harm me." Ding Li glanced at the two over there, lowered his voice, "They don't seem to agree with you."

"No rush." ​​Qi Xie chuckled, "Of course I'll give him a bad shot."

The equipment on the other side was ready during the conversation, Qi Xie was the first to put on the rope, and Ding Li saw his figure slid down the cliff slowly, and it didn't take long to land on the stone platform, and disappeared without a trace.After descending behind, Ding Li discovered that there was a hole in the cliff next to him that was as wide as a person, and there was a dark passage behind it. He picked up the military search light and took a look at it. Manual excavation.

Ma Chang followed behind and poked into the hole. There were a lot of things behind him, and he got stuck halfway through. He was kicked in by Liang Dongsheng with his equipment and he fell into the mud. He was about to raise his head cursing, but he was startled when he glanced at it. one jump.

There were five coffins parked in front of them!

"What the hell is this place!" Ma Chang got up.

"A haunted place." Qi Xie disagreed, raised the light and looked around.This is a spacious stone room, in addition to the coffin, there is a stone table, some broken jars and pots, and a large group of bats hanging on the top in the distance, staring at countless pairs of bright red eyes under the light.

Touch, the shoulder was bumped lightly, it was Ding Li who backed away.

"That..." Ding Li looked into the dark corner.

When the two beams of light hit, Liang Dongsheng immediately held down the saber, and Ma Chang picked up the engineering shovel with a pale face.

"What?" Qi Xie asked tentatively.

"Ghost..." Ding Li's voice trembled a little, looking at the back of the white-clothed and long-haired figure.

"That's just a gatekeeper, just don't startle her." Qi Xie got into the doorway under the female ghost's feet, walked a few steps but found that the three of them were completely in place, so he laughed, "If you don't come here, Do you want to wait for her to look back and see how she looks?"

Liang Dongsheng spat when he heard the words, clutched his saber tightly and walked into the door like a cat. Ding Li took a deep breath and followed behind.With a pale face, blood flowing from the eyeholes, he swooped towards him with his mouth wide open!

Ma Chang's hair stood on end!Shouting, he raised his engineering shovel and slashed wildly, causing all the bats to fly into the air!Liang Dongsheng was about to rush back when he suddenly felt a force on his shoulder!A figure jumped out with the help of his strength, and raised his hand to throw a talisman!

"Disperse!"

After the sword was commanded, the ghost image twitched twice and melted away, leaving only a half-wailing cry in the cave!

The bat fluttered out, and the stone room finally fell silent. Qi Xie looked down at the guy sitting on the ground, and sneered mockingly.Ma Chang just stood there in a daze, until Liang Dongsheng scolded the coward and gave him a hard kick before recovering, picked up the search light to find the engineer shovel that he had lost.

On the opposite side, Ding Li was standing by the door opening, and in front of him was another stone chamber, with several coffins parked in the middle, all the boards were cracked, and a large crack was split at the bottom of one of them, and a piece of dry bone could be seen faintly.Seeing Qi Xie come back, Ding Li silently retreated behind him, pointed slightly above the coffin: "What is that?"

Qi Xie glanced casually: "It's also a ghost."

"Oh." Ding Li followed a little tighter.

"Aren't you not afraid?" Qi Xie smiled.

"I'm not afraid." Ding Li murmured, "It's just that it's the first time I see so many things that I don't feel used to."

"How many are so many?"

"three."

"not bad."

"Why can I see."

Qi Xie whispered into his ear, "Because of the medicine."

"You said the bottle was—"

"Hush." ​​Qi Xie pressed his lips and looked behind him.

Ding Li nodded knowingly, and didn't ask any more questions. Ma Liang soon followed, and the four of them passed through several stone rooms and came to a place like a sacrificial room.Moving away a stone table with five offerings, Qi Xie picked up a stone and touched it along the rock wall behind the table, drawing a square more than one meter high: "Here is a stone slab, pry it open."

Ma Chang stopped talking nonsense, pulled out his saber and scraped off the yellow mud on the surface, and there was a stone slab standing exactly behind it, and he moved it down along the gap, and a passage appeared.Ding Li got in behind Qi Xie, and walked for more than ten minutes with his waist bowed. A faint light appeared in front of him. After a few steps, he pushed aside the overgrown weeds, and leaned out of the cave.

The fresh cool wind blows over, and you can have a panoramic view of a village among the open mountains.

"Tu Family Village." Qi Xie said.

"Is this the end?" Ding Li asked.

"That was the burial area just now, and all the famous people in the village stopped there. We borrowed its way, otherwise we might not be able to find it if we walked for a few hours." After finishing speaking, Qi Xie turned his head and looked at Ma Liang coldly. "Do you need to rest, or go directly to the village?"

When Liang Dongsheng saw that he was underestimated, his brows darkened again: "No need!"

"Then let's go." Qi Xie stepped on the road up and down the mountain.

☆, outsider

A hundred-year-old tree stands at the entrance of Tujia Village.

The trunk is as thick as two people hugging each other, but it is a pity that it is dead. The black branches twisted and twisted towards the sky, and a few big black birds stopped on it sporadically, flapping their wings from time to time, screaming hoarsely .

Qi Xie stopped under the tree, and said with his hands behind his back: "Perhaps Assistant Qian has conveyed the precautions, and I'll emphasize it again. The purpose of coming here this time is to solve the strange disease in the village. Since the cause is not yet clear, just in case, don't Get too close to the villagers, and don't eat anything in the village, including water."

The three of them agreed and walked in.

Inexplicably, there is no wind blowing in the village, and there is a strong dampness, mixed with the smell of dead branches and rotten leaves, which makes people breathless.The road is very narrow, and the road is lined with all stone houses, the highest of which is no more than three floors.The color of the stone is neither dark blue nor ripe brown. There are also large areas of moss, which are spotted and mixed together to look dirty. It has been eroded by rain all year round, and rust-like substances flow from irregular stone cracks. Come down, it looks like it's oozing blood.

There were few people along the way, and I occasionally met two or three villagers who looked at them with extremely wary eyes, walked through several alleys together, and found the gate of the client's courtyard.

Knock knock, no one answered.

"Major Tu!" he shouted, but there was still no one.

Qi Xie knocked vigorously on the door knocker twice, suddenly a few big birds flew over his head and brought up a gust of air, and in an instant, the four of them smelled an ominous smell at the same time.

"Turn in and open the door!" Qi Xie said, Ma Chang immediately built a hand ladder, Liang Dongsheng jumped over the two-meter-high courtyard wall, and unbolted the door from inside.

There were two chickens tilted by the door, their legs had already kicked. Liang Dongsheng swept aside with his feet, only to find that the chicken body was as hard as a rock.Further inside lay a dead cat, its eyes were wide open, a few flies settled on the cloudy pupils, its purple-black tongue was hanging out of its mouth, and a lot of maggots crawled in and out between its teeth.

Qi Xie didn't look much, went around and opened the door, and couldn't help covering his mouth and nose.

A stench came over, causing Ma Chang to retch a few times. He walked into the main room, and on the table were rotten meals. When he looked up, five posthumous photos hung side by side in front of him. The brand new one is a woman.

The door on the right was ajar, Qi Xie stretched out his hand and slowly pushed it open.

squeak-

One dead body, two dead bodies, three dead bodies, four dead bodies.

In the messy room, a man collapsed at the door, an older child was lying on the kang, and two young children were lying on the side of the kang.

The man was highly decomposed, his mouth and eyes were wide open like a dead cat in the yard, his bones were bent, his hands and feet were extremely twisted, his neck stretched forward stiffly, and he was convulsed into a state where a normal person would never be able to pose.The children were less corrupt, with their heads drooping limply, with a few bruises on their faces, and bleeding from their mouths.

"Let's withdraw, the client is dead, there is no need to continue the case." Qi Xie exited the back room, but saw Ding Li squatting down to check the corpse at the door, and pulled him away in fear, "I tell you not to Messed up!"

Ding Li didn't take his eyes off the corpse: "Judging from the symptoms of the deceased, it is very likely that he was poisoned by heavy metals. If we can conduct further examinations—"

"Don't use your knowledge of Western medicine for anything other than science." Qi Xie interrupted, "The affairs of this village are not your business, and you can't."

"Why not take care of it, this disease can be cured!" Ding Li looked at him firmly.

"Then are you going to treat them?" Qi Xie didn't care.

"At least we can find the source of the pollution, or persuade the villagers to go to the city for medical treatment, instead of making them expect to solve the problem from the aspects of Feng Shui ghosts."

"These aspects?" Qi Xie said, "What's wrong with these aspects, ignorance? Is it ridiculous superstition?"

"These are two different things." Ding Li said in a firm tone, "Maybe you can solve some weird problems, but this disease can obviously go to a regular hospital for treatment, why delay it like this!"

Qi Xie sneered: "If the hospital can cure the village chief, what else will he ask me for?"

"Are you doubting the ability of medicine?"

"It's your ability to suspect strange things first."

"I don't doubt it, I just don't want to die."

"Then neither do I, I'm just too lazy to meddle in my own business."

Ding Li frowned: "Do you think saving people is meddling?"

Qi Xie glanced at the corpse: "Life and death are fates. If he wants to die, it means his life has come. God wants to take him, so what has I to do with it?"

"Ah Jing, I'm very disappointed." Ding Li said directly, "I thought we had the same idea on this matter."

"It doesn't seem to be consistent." Qi Xie turned around and left without any intention of backing down.

"Stop!" Liang Dongsheng said suddenly, "Master Xun didn't say to withdraw, no one can withdraw."

"Master Xun?" Qi Xie turned his head, "Is he still going to do voluntary labor after the client is dead? Could it be that your Guixintang is a charity organization?"

Liang Dongsheng was unmoved: "Master Xun said to solve the strange disease, so it must be solved."

Seeing his hand on the saber, Qi Xie sighed, looked at Ding Li and said mockingly, "Are you happy now?"

"What am I so happy about..." Ding Li muttered, and followed him out of the courtyard.

Walking deeper into the village, there was not a single person to be seen along the road, and the air became more humid and stuffy. Ding Li wiped the sweat from his forehead, but when he raised his hand, he saw a strange shadow flashing past in the distance.

—a huge brown frog.If you want to describe him, you can only say this. The problem is that this frog is one meter tall!And it is standing with two hind legs with its front legs tucked in, running forward rapidly!

Ding Li thought it was because he was dazzled for a moment, he shook his head, and just as he regained his composure, a giant three-winged bird suddenly flew out from behind him!One wing was as wide as a door panel, flapping its edges vigorously, but what fell was not feathers but scales, and a closer look revealed that what was dragging behind it was actually a fish tail!The half-fish, half-bird circled twice, screamed and rushed over the head and disappeared into the alley. After a while, they flew up into the sky one by one, holding something in their mouths, it turned out to be the big frog just now!Ding Li stared blankly at it as it flew into the deep mountain, and suddenly heard a burst of strange laughter, giggling, like a baby and like a toad, first one sound, then overlapping several times, and finally the front and back merged into one piece!The sound went straight into his head, as if two surround sound speakers had been implanted in his frontal lobe, causing him a headache and even twisting the bouldering path under his feet.

"Hello." His shoulders were suddenly supported.

Ding Li finally came to his senses, it was Qi Xie who was looking at him.

"That sound is made by a corpse-eating demon insect. Don't listen to it deliberately, you will get used to it after a while." Qi Xie said.

Ding Li nodded, but found that Ma Chang and Liang Dongsheng on the side didn't respond at all.

"Now you should understand why I don't let you approach." Qi Xiong said in a deep voice, "Only we can see those things."

"You said those are..."

"Monster." Qi Xie let go of his hand, "The frog-like one is 'Buji', and the bird-like fish-tail is 'Pengkun Beast'."

Ding Li searched his memory, and remembered that Qi Xie had indeed mentioned these two kinds of monsters the day he came back from the Fuyu Building, but what he saw with his own eyes at this moment was far more real and shocking than hearsay.

"Can I still go?" Qi Xie asked him.

Ding Li said yes, the strange laughter was no longer so piercing.

"Now let's go to the old village chief's house to have a look. We always need to find someone to talk about."

Ding Lin let out a hum, cheered up and followed. Along the way, he saw all kinds of things hanging from corners, roofs, and treetops from time to time. He tried hard to recall that they were all monsters he had heard about from Qi Xie.

In front of an old house, they knocked on the wooden door in unison.

"Excuse me, is the old village chief at home? We were called by village chief Tu, and we want to treat the people in the village." He called into the yard.

After a while, the door opened.

Opposite is a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, not very beautiful, only a pair of eyes are very clear.The girl was timid, opened the door and lowered her head to hide in the room, and then an old man came out with a cigarette stick in his mouth.

"Hello old village chief." Qi Xie greeted, "We are..."

"I heard it." The old man glanced at the four of them and interrupted impatiently.

"We just went to visit Village Chief Tu, and his house has..."

"I know!" The old man looked displeased.

Qi Xie smiled: "It seems that you don't welcome us very much."

"Nonsense!" said the old man, "There are no doctors in the village! Why did he bring outsiders in? He deserves to die!"

"Cun Chief Tu is also thinking about the village..."

"Fart!" The old man knocked on the copper pipe, "If he was doing this for the sake of the village, he shouldn't have done that shit! Otherwise, how could the village have such a disease!"

The door panel slammed shut, leaving only the knocker to swing back and forth.

"This old and immortal thing!" Ma Chang gritted his teeth and was about to kick the door, but he heard a cry from inside: "Grandpa, come quickly! Xiaogui is dying!"

The four looked at each other, and the one who kicked the door was replaced by Ding Li in an instant.

He kicked it away and ran into the house, only to see the old man sitting on the Kang and hugging a boy tightly, just like the dead village chief Tu, the boy was black and thin, with protruding eyeballs, his whole body convulsed and stretched his neck, Appears to have difficulty breathing.

Ding Li reached out to pick it up: "Let me take a look!"

"Get out!" The old man opened his eyes angrily.

Ding Li looked directly at him: "I am a doctor, please trust me!"

The old village chief stared tremblingly, looked down again, and finally handed the boy over to him.Ding Li opened his mouth and took a look. He asked the boy to lie down on his side, lowered his forehead with his left hand, and lifted the corner of his jaw with two fingers of his right hand. Then he saw that the chest had risen and fell steadily, apparently returning to normal breathing.

"It's the back of the tongue, it's all right." Ding Li covered the boy with a blanket.

The old man looked at his grandson distressedly, and it took him a long time to look at Ding Li, when he pointed out the window.

"That." Ding Li whispered, "I'm sorry, I seem to have kicked the door of your house just now."

The old man was taken aback for a moment, and finally laughed wryly.

Back in the courtyard, several people sat around under the big poplar tree.The old village chief lit the pipe again, and asked the girl to bring some tea, but she only brought four bowls of well water, and was scolded by the old man for being clumsy, and hid away with red eyes.

Ma Chang was so thirsty at this time, he gave up seeing Liang Dongsheng lowered his head and didn't touch the water, but Qi Xie took a few sips without hesitation.After thinking about it for a while, Ma Chang took a mouthful, and the old man called the girl over, grabbed her arm and whispered something in his ear, and the girl ran out of the yard and disappeared.

Ding Li offered cigarettes to a few people, the old village head pointed to the cigarette stick in his hand and refused, and said solemnly: "We haven't had any outsiders come to our village for decades, um... since I can remember. "

"Is it because of the legend of the Tu family village?" Qi Xie asked.

"We have an old saying here that outsiders are a disaster." The old village chief slowly breathed out a puff of smoke, "Since ancient times, outsiders who enter the village every time are not good things. That's good! Hmph, if it wasn't for that bastard who broke shoes with the widow in Niujiaogang and brought in infectious diseases, my grandson wouldn't have to suffer like this!"

"Old village chief, I don't think this disease has anything to do with outsiders, it may be heavy metal poisoning." Ding Li explained.

"What kind of metal poisoning!" The old man stared, "We don't have metal here, where did the poison come from! Besides, if it's poisonous, I've already been hit. Why didn't I have any problems before, that girl got hit as soon as she came! Even if she was poisoned, it's unlucky girl It's bad luck!"

Ding Li was about to speak, but was stopped by Qi Xie: "Is the woman you're talking about the one who just hung up in the village head's house?"

"It's not her who else!"

"But according to our previous investigation, she doesn't seem to have died of illness."

The old village chief laughed: "How about that widow is unlucky, she rolled down the mountain and kowtowed to death after only three days of marriage."

Ding Li frowned: "Then it's not her illness."

The old man snorted through his nose.

"One more thing." Qi Xie paused, "Just now I looked at the corpses of Village Chief Tu's family. It's true that he died of illness, but those three children... seem to have been beaten to death."

"It's not the same as being sick or being killed." The old man took a puff of cigarette and said, "Those babies can't grow up without parents or mothers. If you reincarnate earlier, you can get a better seat."

"Really." Qi Xie smiled.

The old man also laughed, spit out his mouth after laughing, put away his pipe slowly and knocked on the soles of his shoes: "Now that everything is clear, you should go on your way."

Ding Li looked into the room: "But your grandson's situation is still—"

"On the road?" Qi Xie interrupted him, "I don't know which road you want us to take."

The old man grinned.

"It's them!" A voice suddenly came from behind.

Several people turned their heads, and it was the girl standing at the door, followed by more than a dozen villagers rushing in, all of them were burly men, shirtless and bare chested, with sharply sharpened machetes in their hands!

Ma Chang was alerted immediately, he pulled out his saber in a panic, and Liang Dongsheng also raised his shoulder blades.

Ding Li immediately explained: "Did you misunderstand! We have no malicious intentions!"

But he saw the old village head sticking out a finger and nodding himself.

"This kid saved my baby's life, forget it." The old man pointed to the other side, "Those three, can one not be kept!"

Qi Xie laughed: "It seems that these bandits haven't done their best yet."

"You bastard!" Ma Chang slammed the bowl and kicked over the table, "Your father and I haven't seen human blood in half a year, so I'm the first one to kill you today!"

After finishing speaking, he roared, raised his knife and slashed at the old man's Tianling cover, but was stopped by the rushing village bandits. Ma Chang threw himself away from the man, and raised his hand to slash at the rushing bandits!Liang Dongsheng on the other side is even more difficult to mess with. An army bayonet knife is popular, but the village bandits are so numerous and powerful. The more they see their accomplices down, the more jealous they become.

Ding Li was startled, and drew out his saber to block him behind him. The village bandits in front were scruples about the old man's words, so they didn't kill him directly, but the ones behind ignored him, raised their axes and greeted Ding Li's forehead!

"Get away!" Qi Xie waved his sword finger, and the ax snapped into two pieces, and flew out under the action of inertia, smashing through the guy behind Ma Chang who was about to sneak attack.

"Leave me alone! Run first, then talk!" Qi Xie broke a few more weapons and rushed out, grabbed his clothes and threw them out of the courtyard.

Ding Li stared behind Qi Xie, then pushed him away——

He saw a sharp blade pierced into his right abdomen.

Qi Xie on the opposite side froze for a moment, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Go!" Ding Li swung his knife to catch the falling sharp blade, and pushed him out forcefully.

Qi Xiong stood upright and remained motionless.

All the clashes of gold and iron seemed to have nothing to do with him. In another world circled by the soles of his feet, he slowly lowered his head...

More village bandits came from all directions, old and young, men and women, rushed to the old village head's door, but stopped.

—a monster, that's all they could describe it.

Among the scattered corpses, one was dressed in black and stepped on a pool of blood. His figure was as straight as a blade, and he stood firmly in the middle of the yard.Several gangsters coweringly surrounded him until he shouted, three