The strange story of Huai'an Inn

"Haunted?" Chong Liu became more and more interested, "What kind of trouble?"

The farmer said, "Our family was originally just one of the tenants of Shi Jianxun, the landlord of Shuilipo, and I have been working for his family since my father. Later, the Shi family and the Feng family had disputes over real estate, and several times. Due to some entanglements, the two families became enemies.

Three years ago, the imperial court issued a rice control order, didn't it prohibit the cultivation of rice on private fields?The Shi family was reluctant to plant the seeds they had already planted, so they planted them secretly, but the Feng family reported it to the county government.The property of the Shi family was confiscated, and all the fields were sold off.Most of the fields were bought by the Feng family, and the rest were bought by tenants with some cash.

Later, I heard that Shi Yuzhi, the current head of the Shi family, passed away in depression last year. Before he died, he cursed all the fields of the Shi family that they would never grow half a grain of grain again. "

The meter-controlling Ling Chongliu knew about it.Most of the salaries issued by the imperial court are calculated according to the number of stones of rice, and folk traders often use rice to offset money in transactions, so rice has gradually become something similar to silver money.For a while, some rice merchants and rice farmers colluded to raise prices, which caused turmoil in private transactions, so the imperial court issued a rice control order.That is to say, only the public fields of the imperial court and the fields of nobles can grow rice in the future, and private fields are not allowed to produce rice anymore.

The time between the imperial order and its implementation was very short, and Cui Guang, the incumbent magistrate of Tianliang County at that time, resorted to arbitrariness.

It seems that this Shi family is one of them.

Chongliu raised his chin and asked, "And then? Is it true that the fields you bought can't grow food?"

"It's not just the few acres of land I bought, but even the few acres of small fields that my family bought later. It's clear that there is plenty of rain and the soil is good, but nothing can grow. Those seeds rotted when thrown in, and none of them germinated. of.

It's not just me, the whole Shuilipo bought Shijiatian land, all of them are like this.We also invited alchemists to look at it, but they all said that there were no traces of ghosts and ghosts. Only the Taoist priest named Song Huangzi mentioned Mr. Zhu here.

Now the spring harvest is over, if the summer crop doesn't grow again, it will be over. "

The farmer heaved a long sigh, and continued aggrievedly, "You said, the one who killed his Shi family was clearly the Feng family, and it wasn't us small tenants. Who did we provoke? Who did we provoke?"

Chong Liu thought for a while and asked, "Brother, what's your surname?"

"Ah, my surname is Ding, and my name is Ding Buqiong. Little brother, what's your surname?"

"My name is Guan Chongliu, you can call me Chongliu or Liuzi." Chongliu smiled and said comfortingly, "Our shopkeeper will come back in a while, so you can tell him all this clearly, but there must be no any concealment."

"Good! Good! I remember."

Chong Liu patted him on the shoulder, then ran up to the second floor of the lobby, opened a private room, cleaned the dust and wiped the tables and chairs, and then hurriedly brought in incense and Snack fruit, and then went downstairs again.

Not long after, when Chong Liu was standing at the door and pasting tonight's special dishes on the door, he saw the shopkeeper's carriage approaching from afar.Xiao Shun lifted the curtain, and as soon as the shopkeeper appeared, Chong Liu ran over.

"Boss! Come to work!" He said to the shopkeeper excitedly but mysteriously.

Shopkeeper Zhu raised his eyebrows, "What job?"

"You'll know when you come in!" Chong Liu turned his head to the lobby, "His surname is Ding, and he said Song Mingzi asked him to come to you."

Seeing the farmer's back, the shopkeeper Zhu said softly "Oh~~", then walked in with his usual lazy steps, looked at the farmer with a friendly and friendly smile, "this guest officer, I heard Do you have something to see Zhu? "The farmer probably has never seen such a handsome person as the shopkeeper, and he was a little dumbfounded for a while.Chong Liu coughed heavily from behind, and then he stood up abruptly, even bringing the stool down.Ding Buqiong hurriedly helped the stool back up, and said awkwardly, "You...you are Mr. Zhu?"

The shopkeeper's smile was still bright, "It's a mere area, it's not suitable to talk here, please come upstairs with me." After speaking, he looked at Chong Liu, "Liu Er, go get ready..."

"It's ready! Danxia's room is here! You sit down first, and I'll bring the tea right away." Chong Liu replied with a smile before the shopkeeper finished giving orders.

The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows again, and there was interest in his eyes, "You are very diligent."

Chong Liu smiled, seemed a little proud, and ran to the back kitchen to prepare tea.

Chong Liu came down after delivering the tea, just in time for Zhu Yi to come back after cleaning the guest room.When Zhu Yi saw Chong Liu coming downstairs, he guessed that the shopkeeper's toothbrush business had started again.

"Sigh...should we be more careful these days... last time, Mr. Censorship Division didn't know what trouble he was going to cause..." Zhu Yi said worriedly.

Chong Liu shrugged his shoulders, "If they really want to trouble us, it's useless to restrain them no matter how hard they try."

Zhu Yi glanced at him with strange eyes, "You got used to it quite quickly. Are you not afraid?"

"What are you afraid of? Xu Hanke?"

"Afraid of what you might see?" Zhu Yi said with a very incomprehensible expression, "The situations the shopkeeper handles, the things made by the craftsmen... none of them are normal... Are you afraid?"

Chong Liu thought for a while, and said, "I'm afraid, but I'm afraid...but to be honest, I'm also a little curious."

"Brother Six...you are really a weirdo."

Chong Liuxin thought that it would be even more strange for people who talk in their dreams to predict the death of others...but he didn't say it because he suspected that Zhu Yi didn't know that he had this ability.

If so, how many people can bear such a heavy burden?

............................................................

There were a lot of people eating at night, Chongliu and Zhu Yi were so busy that they forgot about the shopkeeper's affairs for a while.After seeing off a wave of customers, the shopkeeper brought Ding Buqiong to the counter and began to register his name.

"Liu'er, prepare him a small room called Shuxia, and light Chang Lingxiang."

The shopkeeper gave such an order, it seems that he has accepted this order of business.Chongliu was in a good mood for no reason, so he quickly went to the warehouse to get a set of bedding and pillows, and made a bed in the small room with the Shuxia brand. I lighted it with the Chang Lingxiang stored in Jikuai's warehouse.The resin-scented smoke curled up in the misty halo of the sunset. After watching it for a long time, Chong Liu suddenly felt that the fragrance seemed... a bit strange.

Next to the wisps of smoke, there seemed to be some thin red threads, twisting with the smoke column.

But if he stared at it for a long time, the red thread disappeared again.

Every time the shopkeeper does dental business, he will always light this kind of Chang Lingxiang in the guest's room.Does this thing have any special effect?

He held out a finger to poke at the smoke.Qingyan was disturbed by him and was broken and messy, it seemed no different from ordinary smoke.

But suddenly, the red silk wrapped around his fingers.He felt a slight numbness and quickly withdrew his hand.

But he saw the granulation growing under the nail that he had almost forgotten squirmed.

After weighing six, the hairs on his neck stood up.He almost rushed out of the guest room, and when he ran to the lobby, the shopkeeper was whispering something to Ding Buqiong.

The shopkeeper looked up and saw that he was out of his mind, frowned and said, "What's wrong? Hell again?"

Chongliu realized that there were other people in the lobby, and it was not suitable to talk about these things.He shook his head, trying to maintain his composure, "No...it's nothing, the guest room is ready."

After putting Ding Buqiong in place, Chong Liuyi saw the shopkeeper holding the cat on the stone bench under the locust tree waiting for him when he went out, and waved to him.

"What's going on?" The shopkeeper patted Cihuamao's head while carefully looking at Zhong Liuzhou.

Chong Liu stretched out his right hand and showed the shopkeeper what was growing under his nails.

The shopkeeper frowned slightly, and clicked his tongue, "How long has this thing grown? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"It's been less than half a month... At first I thought it was an accidental injury while working, but...it grew more and more, and now I have it on the other hand."

"Then why were you so scared all of a sudden?"

Chong Liu stroked his nails and said in a low voice, "When I lit the incense just now... I felt something move on my index finger..."

The shopkeeper sighed softly, put the cat on the ground, then picked up Chong Liu's right hand, and looked at it carefully.He said in a low voice, "As I said, everyone reacts differently to the bad smell. Some people just have worse luck, some people reflect on their spirit, while others may experience physical changes. It seems that you are very unlucky, anyway, the latter two are all accounted for."

Chong Liu shuddered, "Boss... what will happen to me? Is there any cure?"

The shopkeeper let go of his hand, raised his head and looked into his eyes, "You didn't have a lot of filth, but your reaction was more severe, and the symptoms were obviously increasing. Liu'er, you are the one named Faxuan on Zilu Mountain. The alchemist Tuoya introduced you here, saying that you are his distant relative. Since your family has alchemists, did you also have the experience of being contaminated with filth when you were young?"

Chong Liu was taken aback, a little guilty, but still scratched his head with a smile, "No, it's all quite normal."

"That's very strange. You seem to be very sensitive to the filth, and the filth can easily find you, but you have grown up to be infected today." The shopkeeper narrowed his eyes slightly, and his tone seemed to hide a few words. Very suspicious, "Are you sure you remember correctly?"

Chong Liu broke into a cold sweat, "No..."

The shopkeeper didn't go any further, "Okay, you can go. I will find a way to grow something on your hand."

"Thank you, my boss!" Chong Liu hurried to run after saying that, but was stopped by the shopkeeper again.

"Oh, by the way, Liu'er, after closing tonight, you have to go out with me. We're going to meet a coppersmith."