The strange story of Huai'an Inn

The shopkeeper drew spells on the dirty table of the coppersmith for a long time, and finally put down the pen when the cock crowed for the first time, stretched vigorously, and let out a long yawn.And Chong Liu had already dozed off against the wall until it was dark. If it wasn't for the pillars blocking it, he might have fallen to the ground.

Zhu Helan put her hands in her hands and looked quietly at Chong Liu who was smacking his mouth a few times in his sleep, his eyes were deep and gentle.

"Is he your apprentice?" The coppersmith stood next to him with a jug of wine at some point, and took two sips into his mouth, "You are also interested in taking apprentices in this line of business?"

"No, he is the waiter in my shop."

"It's been so many years, and this is the first time I've seen you bring people from the store. I think this little brother must have something special?" The coppersmith glanced at Chong Liu and said, "The filth on him How did it come here?"

"Infected others."

"Can it be so contagious? Even I can smell it."

"Who knows." The shopkeeper sighed softly, and there was still a bit of worry in that seemingly relaxed attitude, "Maybe it was there, but it was brought out by other people's filth. Maybe, that's not all. .”

The coppersmith took another sip of wine and sighed, "You are human after all."

The shopkeeper squinted at him, "What do you mean?"

"If you are a person, you will always want to have a close friend by your side. No matter how lonely you are, there will always be times when you want someone to talk to." The coppersmith wiped the wine from his mouth with the back of his hand, "I see you After so many years of calmness, the mundane life seems to have nothing to do with you, and I almost think that you are not human."

"I just brought a helper to help me record the details of each business so as not to make mistakes in the future. You have already given me too much imagination. I think you are not honest at all as a coppersmith." The shopkeeper sneered slightly, and put He picked up the two spells he had drawn and handed them over.

Every stroke and every inch of the drawing of these spells has to go through precise calculations, and a slight deviation may cause serious consequences.The coppersmith looked at the delicate and complicated strokes that looked like tangles of twigs, and clicked his tongue, "This is a bit of fun when the mother is carving the mold."

Shopkeeper Zhu walked up to Chong Liu who was about to lose his temper, and reached out to pat Waitang on the shoulder.

Chong Liu gasped and jumped up from the stool, and said blankly, "Ah, guest officer, your red-oven roasted duck will be here soon!"

Shopkeeper Zhu burst out laughing, and knocked on Chong Liu's forehead with his hand, "What kind of duck is burning, pack it up quickly, let's go back."

Chong Liu just woke up like a dream, hurriedly put away the pen, ink, paper and inkstone, moved the small bench back to its original position, bowed and bowed to the coppersmith, and followed the shopkeeper out the door.

The trip back was smooth, and it was just time to open the door when I "cut the corner" and returned to the inn.

The two hurriedly stuffed some of the breakfast prepared by Master Liao into their mouths, and then the shopkeeper asked Chong Liu to catch up on the two-hour sleep, but he wanted to stay in the lobby and help Zhu Yi.How dare Chong Liu, hurriedly said, "Master, I have already taken a nap before, but you really didn't sleep all night. You should go back and catch up on sleep!"

Unexpectedly, the shopkeeper put on a straight face, "Go if you are told, why are you so disobedient?"

Zhu Yi and Xiao Shun sniggered at the side, and were glared at by Chong Liu.

Chong Liu rubbed his nose, so he obediently went back to the backyard to catch up on sleep.

As soon as the door was closed, he took out the Four Treasures of the Study as usual, recorded everything he saw last night, and drew a big circle on the three words "Huang Yi Ji".

The shopkeeper seems to be very taboo about this name?

Chong Liu went through the memory in his mind, as if he had seen a similar name somewhere, but couldn't remember it for a while.I probably have to look through my notes from a few years ago to find it.But those notes are not with me now, and I won't be able to get them for a while.

He decided not to think about it, put away his things, but took out the sachet given to him by the shopkeeper, and stroked the exquisite embroidery on it with his fingers.

Is this the remuneration received by the shopkeeper in which business?

He held the sachet to his nose and took a deep breath.The cold and unique fragrance with a hint of secret decadence, like a mandala blooming from a corpse, made him slightly fascinated.

He lay down with his clothes on in this fragrance, his consciousness slipped into a chaotic dream.

In the dream, he saw the huge locust tree shaking countless twisted arms again.Those deformed, twisted, animal-like and human-like hands of unknown species opened and closed in the air, as if they were waving, as if they were dancing, or as if they were trying to grab something.

It is still the men and women wearing scarlet crane cloaks and women's skirts singing strange languages ​​in the circle, and you can still see the masked shopkeeper waving the red rope on his wrist, dancing under the locust tree, full of ritual sense dance.

Chong Liu was not so afraid this time.He knew what was coming.

When the blood stained the ground, when the corpses were pulled into the ground, and the sound of bones being squeezed and flesh being torn came from under his feet, Chong Liu stood under the locust tree.The tree body suddenly opened its eyes, one after another, occupying the entire tree body.There are eyeballs that look like humans, those that look like horses, cows, sheep, snakes, spiders, eels... There are also many eyes that should not exist in this world at all.They were crowded together like a mass of frog eggs floating in a swamp.

Those eyeballs moved slightly, but they were fixed on him.

Chong Liu couldn't move, his whole body was cold.The tree was so huge that it seemed to have reached into the sky.It is also too ancient, even before the appearance of inns, before the appearance of Tianliang City, before people began to learn how to farm and weave cloth, even before humans appeared... its seeds had already been planted.

How ancient, terrifying and...fascinating.

"You shouldn't be here."

Chong Liu suddenly turned his head and saw the shopkeeper wearing a mask standing in front of him.At this time, a scarlet lightning flashed across the sky, and the dense and low cloud mass that looked like meat lit up for a moment, and through the gaps covered, one could peek at something huge in the universe... Slowly wriggling.

"Who are you?" the masked shopkeeper asked him.

He opened his mouth six times, but for some reason he couldn't answer such a simple question.

who is it.

Who is he?

His name... what is it?

Chong Liu's head began to throb and throb, and the pain got worse.It seemed that there were many, many things surging in his mind, trying to burst his mind.

The next moment, something sticky protruded from his swollen eyes...

Chong Liu lay on the bed and suddenly widened his eyes.He hastily reached out to touch his eyelids to make sure that his eyeballs were still there.He breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and wondered why the shopkeeper's sachet didn't work?Why do I still have such strange dreams?

Even now, that sense of uncertainty, somewhat confused and unreal, lingers.

But when he looked at his fingers, he found that the strange granulation-like protrusions under the nails seemed to have indeed lightened a bit.

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

Na Ding left that afternoon, and the shopkeeper didn't even take his rent.Before leaving, the shopkeeper talked with him for a while in the private room. This time, he asked Chong Liu to record the price and delivery date they finally agreed on.

The shopkeeper took a tael of silver from Ding Buqiong, plus a pot of soil from his field as a reward.

Chong Liu remembered that he had seen the price agreed upon by the shopkeeper himself with the national teacher... 100 taels of gold...

The price really varies from person to person...

It's business as usual for the next eight days.Chong Liu went to the halls as usual, opened and closed shops, and tidied up the guest rooms, and his life was as peaceful and trivial as before Xu Hanke appeared.The only difference is probably that now the shopkeeper occasionally asks him a few more words.

"Liu'er, come here." The shopkeeper was drinking tea and snacks under the tree with the cat in his arms, and happened to see Chong Liu running across the atrium after cleaning up the guest room.

Chong Liu ran over with a grin, his face was still covered with dust from cleaning, "Master, what's the matter?"

"Stretch out your hand," said the shopkeeper.

Chong Liu stretched out his palm without knowing why, and the shopkeeper put a handful of freshly peeled walnuts in his palm.

"Widow Liu gave me a lot of walnuts yesterday. I tasted them pretty good. I'll give you a taste too."

The shopkeeper said it in a normal way, but Chong Liu was very moved, "Master, you didn't peel it for me on purpose, did you?"

The shopkeeper rolled his eyes, "Don't be shy, if you don't eat it, I'll eat it myself."

"No, no, no! I'll eat it! I love walnuts the most!"

Chong Liu happily carried walnuts into the lobby, putting one or two in his mouth while working.Zhu Yi saw it, and wondered, "Where did this walnut come from?"

"Given by my boss."

Zhu Yi pretended to be annoyed and rolled his eyes to the sky, "My boss is becoming more and more biased. If you see it, please give me some."

"No."

"Sixth brother, don't be so stingy!" As he said that, he wanted to grab it.

While they were fighting, they heard Master Liao coughing at the door of the back kitchen with the curtain lifted, "What's the fuss, didn't you see there are guests at the door?"

As he said this, the two waiters noticed a young lady who was around her teens looking in at the door.You can see that although the clothes are plain and clean, they are of high quality.I think it's the maid of some family.

Chong Liu hurried over and said, "Little lady, do you want to come in for some tea?"

The girl looked at him timidly, and said, "Excuse me, is Boss Zhu here?"

"Yes, what do you want from him?" Chong Liu had already started to guess in his heart, could it be that Yaren's business came again?

"I am Xizhu from the Shen family in the south of the city. My wife asked me to come here. I have to ask the shopkeeper for important matters."

After Chong Liu spoke to Zhu Yi, he led the little lady into the atrium to meet the shopkeeper.But she never thought that as soon as she saw the shopkeeper, the little lady who called herself Xizhu rushed over and knelt down with a plop.

"Mr. Zhu! Please save our aunt!"