The strange story of Huai'an Inn

Baizhize, that uninhabited swamp is not only full of poisonous insects and foul odor, but even has a miasma that makes Chong Liu's hairs stand on end. Where would they choose not to be, but that ghostly place? !

Moreover, the distance is so far, and it may take half a day to ride a fast horse. Do you want to ask Master Liao for leave?

But now the shopkeeper is not here, and the store is full of gloom. If he leaves, what will happen if there is any trouble...

Or... could he take a shortcut?

The problem is, the shopkeeper drew a map for him last time, so he could find the way.How could he go without a map this time?

And the so-called map is obviously different from the road he actually saw.How did the shopkeeper draw that picture?

Chongliu found the map drawn by the shopkeeper, and examined it carefully with a soybean oil lamp.He drew the real road from the inn to the coppersmith's house on another piece of paper, and compared them two by two, but he still couldn't see the way.

He recalled that when the shopkeeper took him to take a shortcut on Zilu Mountain for the first time, and when he took him to take a shortcut in a carriage for the second time, he didn't need a map.

The map is only prepared for him, that is to say, the map is in the shopkeeper's mind.

He carefully recalled those two experiences of taking shortcuts, and suddenly recalled that each time the shopkeeper would put his hands on the ground for a while, as if he was feeling something.

Chongliu didn't know, so he took the map and ran into the yard, imitating the shopkeeper's appearance, putting his hands on the ground, and closing his eyes tightly.For a long time, I felt nothing.

At this time, Fuzi, who came back from the night to relieve his hand, narrowed his sleepy eyes and saw Chong Liu squatting motionless in the yard, and was startled, "Oh my god, brother Liu, are you squatting here in the middle of the night?"

Chong Liu rolled his eyes and reprimanded, "You're just a kid, hurry back to sleep!"

"Oh..." Fuzi left aggrieved.

Chongliu sighed and stood up, giving up learning the method of the shopkeeper.Thinking about it, he has only been in Huai'an Inn for half a year. Didn't something happen when the shopkeeper was not in the inn before he came?

Master Liao must have seen everything, and besides, there were so few people in the past two days, so he couldn't be too busy.

He doesn't have to think too much of himself.

Early the next morning, he went to ask Master Liao for leave, packed a bag, put his wooden box in it, and ran out of the inn with his wages.

At the ferry, he boarded a ferry heading for Baizhuze, hoping to get there sooner with today's favorable wind.Chong Liu, who hadn't slept well all night, was crouching in the cabin with his bundles in his arms, and gradually dozed off while listening to the crowded merchants chatting livelyly about the strange guests they met on the road.

After sleeping for an unknown amount of time, Chong Liu suddenly woke up.He wasn't sure what had disturbed him from his sleep, and with his hazy and unfocused eyes open, he felt his body swaying gently with the waves.

There was silence all around, only the slow sound of breaking waves hitting the bottom of the boat.

The color...isn't quite right...

Why is it so dark?

He rubbed his eyes, sat up straight, and then suddenly became stiff all over.

All the people in the cabin, no matter the passengers or the boatman who was rowing the oars outside, were expressionless, with their heads raised high, their eyes widened, and they looked towards the direction of the sky.

They didn't move, they didn't even blink their eyes, and the eyeballs stared so hard, as if they were going to burst out of their sockets with a bang.

Even if the top of their heads is obviously just the cabin...

Chong Liu immediately woke up, sat up straight, stretched out his hand and waved in front of the nearest businessman next to him.The man didn't respond at all.

Chong Liu tried to reach out his hand and pushed the man.But the people he touched were cold and hard, as if they were ancient rocks that had been sitting here since ancient times.

The feeling of bristling hair caught him again, an incomprehensible absurdity and coldness, like this narrow cabin, was constantly shrinking towards him.He hurriedly and stumbled out of the cabin and stood on the deck, but his body was shivering from the growing cold.

A thick fog enveloped the boat, and there was a black sleep rippling and repeating ripples all around.

The color of this water...was it this deep in the first place?

They are... where did they drive to?

The mist covered everything in Zhou Zhang, and all that could be seen was a thick and thick black shadow in the distance.

As if... an island?

How could there be such a huge island on the river? !

And is the surface of the Bian River so wide?

He hurried to shake the body of the boatman, but the boatman was like everyone else, motionless, just stiffened his neck and looked at the sky.

Chong Liu couldn't help but also raised his head, looking at the dark sky...

That is……

In the next instant, his eyes widened suddenly, every drop of blood in his body solidified into stone, and his mind also exploded with thousands of crazy colors in an instant.

He screamed and jumped up, hitting his head on the roof of the cabin, causing the surrounding merchants to stumble in fright.

Chong Liumao hunched over, dressed roughly, and couldn't react for a while.He blinked his dry eyes and looked around slowly.

The color... the color is different...

The colors are back to normal...

All the merchants looked at him blankly, and an uncle in his 50s smiled and said, "Have you had a nightmare?"

Another merchant laughed, "Did you get beaten by your wife in your dream?"

Everyone laughed, but Chong Liu couldn't laugh, and sat back in his seat dumbly.

Dream?

The sense of fear that destroyed his mind still left a sticky and cool tail, adhering to his heart.It took a long time before the feeling that my mind was going to explode was slightly relieved.

The problem is...he can't remember what exactly he saw in the sky at the end...

Just like what often happened in the past, the scene that was so vivid in the dream just a moment ago was quickly forgotten in the moment of waking up, unable to grasp like quicksand.Kong left a hollow feeling of unwillingness and frustration in his mind.

But this time, the feeling of emptiness was so strong that Chong Liu almost felt sick and wanted to vomit.

He did rush out of the cabin, leaned on the side of the boat, and vomited up all the breakfast he had eaten in the morning.The other passengers and the boatman laughed at him, saying that he was a fool who had not experienced storms.

After the boat docked, there was only more than an hour's journey to Baizhuze.He rented a horse with the wages he saved, climbed onto the horse's back tremblingly, clamped the horse's belly, and raised the whip unskillfully.

When I was learning how to drive a car with Xiao Shun, I learned how to ride a horse. The problem is... I'm really not very proficient.When the horse started to run, he was so frightened that he almost fell off.

Chong Liu sat on the horse's back like an octopus, thinking that he really lost half his life for the shopkeeper this time...

Baijize is hidden in the ancient and inaccessible deep forest of Bi'er Mountain.A vast water marsh, which is full of reeds, salicornia, and quinces. There are golden water lilies floating on the water surface, and long algae are densely covered under the water.Countless mosquitoes hover and lay eggs on the water.Black and chapped dead trees are stuck in the middle of the water like the tip of a knife, reminding the danger and mystery of this place in the swollen bubbles of vibrant life.

Chong Liu has never been to Baizhuze, but he has a rough map based on the collected information. He can only tie the horse to a conspicuous place outside the mountain forest, and roughly follow the location marked on the map according to the sun's position. Walk.

By the time he was sweating profusely and walked near the water lake, it was almost dark.

There is indeed a willow tree beside the water, but the willow tree grows strangely.The trunk leans toward the water like a neck about to break.The heavy green branches are really like a woman washing her hair, immersing her hair in water.

Ghost-haired willow... probably that's how it got its name.

The ghost story about Baizhuze is quite popular in the generation of Tianliang City, and the rumors about this ghost-haired willow account for two-thirds.Some people say that a woman accidentally fell into the water and died while washing her hair, and her resentful soul turned into that willow tree.Anyone who dares to stand under the tree will be pulled into the swamp by her as an alternate.

At that time, Chong Liu only thought the rumors were ridiculous. Whose girl would go to the deep mountains and old forests to find a dirty Mizusawa to wash her hair...

But now that he saw the willow tree, he could understand a little bit how the rumor came about...

There was still a long time before midnight, Chongliu spotted the location, looked around again, and after confirming that there was no one there, he walked away for a certain distance, found a secluded backside of the hillside, unpacked his bags, and began to change clothes.

He changed into the lotus-stem green cross-neck long-sleeved gown that the shopkeeper gave him back then, fumbled to lift up the hair at the temples, tied it in a bun on the top of his head, and inserted a simple sapphire hairpin.

He squatted at the foot of the hillside, eating the spicy vegetable pancakes that Master Liao had packed for him, and patiently waited for the time to pass slowly.When it was almost midnight, he put on the green Tara mask, took the wooden box containing the four treasures of his study, hid the bundle in a hollow rotten log, and then walked towards the swamp.

The ghost hair willow looks more and more eerie in the night, especially when the cold wind blows, those branches follow the pattern, there is always an illusion that the tree is shaking by itself.

Zhongliu straightened his back and stood with his hands behind his back, completely missing the shadow of the small running hall of Huai'an Inn.

In the middle of the night, a lantern light and shadow slowly approached from a distance.Chong Liu narrowed his eyes and looked at the person coming.

If he didn't know that someone would come to see him, he might have thought it was a will-o'-the-wisp...

The visitor was tall and thin, with an elegant light blue gown covered with beige gauze, an elegant silver hair crown on his head, and a face like a heavy six, wearing a Dragon King mask.

When the two met, they did not speak, and at the same time bowed deeply to each other.Then the two each took out a wooden box, opened it, took out the inkstone inside, turned the inkstone over, and exposed several symbols engraved on the back for each other to identify.

After a while, the "Dragon King Mask" on the opposite side nodded, and said in a calm but alienated voice, "When did you come to Tianliang?"

Chong Liudao: "It's been half a year."

The Dragon King mask said: "You just came out? Why did you choose such a place as Tianliang City. The water here is too deep."

"It is precisely because of the depth of the water that there are places worthy of digging." Chong Liu didn't want to waste time, so he said bluntly, "Brother, I need to use some Tianlong veins on Jingji Road."

The person on the opposite side was silent for a moment, then sneered, "You are a newcomer, but you really dare to ask for it. You can also touch the Tianlongmai?"

"Brother, I know the pros and cons of this. But this matter involves another secret, which will greatly involve everyone in charge of the Tianlongmai. I need to clear the deadlock, but after all, I am alone and weak, and it is a last resort to do this now."

The Dragon King mask didn't take him seriously at all, and said arrogantly: "The Tianlong vein is buried so deep, unless there is a cinnabar order directly issued by the six gentlemen, it must not be moved. You, you should go back first." Master, learn the rules carefully before you come out."

Chong Liu sighed and began to rummage through the box.One by one, he took out the pens, ink and books from the box and placed them on the ground one by one.Finally, he turned up the interlayer of the box, turned it around, and showed the dragon king mask.

However, in the interlayer, there was a piece of... human skin!

Air-dried human skin with a cinnabar mole!

The face under the Dragon King's mask suddenly changed color, his eyes widened through the hole of the mask, and he looked at Chong Liu incomprehensibly.

"You...how could you have..."

He went to the mezzanine again, and said very cautiously and modestly, "Forgive me, brother. My master once told me not to use this thing lightly. But now, this secret involves the destiny of the Tianjia, so I have to use it."

Tutor...

This kid in green is actually...

The dragon king mask took a step back, put away the arrogance of being a senior just now, and even slightly bent his back, appearing cautious.

"That being the case, give me three days, and I will immediately make arrangements and notify all relevant people in the vicinity of Gyeonggi."

Chong Liu breathed a sigh of relief, and bowed deeply, "Thank you, Senior Brother."