The strange story of Huai'an Inn

"How did you and the shopkeeper... know each other?"

Chong Liu followed Song Mingzi, walking in the giant lantern that would float and move with them.They were on a short cut, groping forward while avoiding the bottomless black hole that appeared in the ground.

Chongliu realized that this was an excellent opportunity to inquire about the shopkeeper.

Song Mingzi held a bag of flower candy in his hand, and threw it into his mouth as he walked.Hearing Chongliu's question, I thought about it for a while, "Maybe...five or six years ago? At that time, I was traveling around Xihuangling, telling people's fortunes to make money. I found a jade pendant on one of the customers. It has a strong foul smell. I thought it was strange at the time. Usually, it is people who carry dirty smells and things that are contagious to themselves, but this person doesn’t have much foul smell, but the jade pendant. It's like being restricted by something."

Chong Liudao, "Is that the shopkeeper's guest?"

"That's not true. I was curious at the time, so I asked a few more questions about the jade pendant. But the guest became nervous and left without even giving me the money." Song Mingzi is still very angry when he says it now, "I've seriously calculated his fate for a long time, at least leave me lunch money, right?"

Chong Liu said to him, "You are a dignified disciple of Zilu Mountain. Instead of going to conquer demons and slay demons to earn some popularity, you just go to be a quack warlock to tell fortunes for others. You can't even earn money for meals. You are strange enough." .”

"What's wrong with quacks? Quacks have dignity too, okay?" Song Mingzi replied in an unscrupulous tone while chewing candy, "Besides, am I the kind of person who cares about money?"

"...If you don't care about money, why did you come to partner with the shopkeeper?"

Song Mingzi cleared his throat as if being exposed, "Anyway, after that time, I made up my mind and asked more when I saw similar things. Gradually, I heard that there is such an inn, and you can live in it and think about things. What the hell... just when I had some clues, hey, guess what?"

"...The shopkeeper came to you by himself?"

Song Mingzi looked at Chongliu in shock, "You can guess this?"

"With the aftermath service level of our shopkeeper, if someone asks him everywhere to harass his customers, he will definitely come forward..." Chong Liuyi thought of the shopkeeper's so many orders, and those contracts are all five or ten years old. Whenever someone will run over crying and shouting that they violated the contract and begged for help...

This money is really not easy to earn...

Song Mingzi smiled and elbowed Chong Liu's arm, "You really know your shopkeeper well?"

Chong Liu glanced at him in disgust, "I'm doing my job as a buddy."

"Hey, are you shy? Hey, it's actually normal. Your shopkeeper is so good-looking, you take good care of your subordinates, and you are very knowledgeable. I thought about it a little bit at the time~" Chong Liu glared at him angrily. , "You fake Taoist!" "I just moved my mind, and I didn't really do anything. Besides, your shopkeeper is like a solid piece of wood in this regard. Really, let me tell you, I have traveled so much in the rivers and lakes." In [-], your shopkeeper appeared to be very pretty in fancy dress, but in fact he was more calm than a monk.”

Chong Liu pursed his lips, not knowing why he was a little nervous, "So... our shopkeeper has never kissed before? There is no relationship?"

"Anyway, since I've known him, I haven't."

For some reason, Chong Liu felt a little...happy.

Song Mingzi at the side quietly caught a glimpse of the corners of Chongliu's mouth that could not be restrained, and thought it was a bit silly and simple and cute, so she didn't point it out to bury Xiao Paitang, but just smiled and handed over the paper tube containing the flower candy, "Eat candy!" ?”

Chong Liu took one in a good mood and stuffed it into his mouth, "It's delicious!"

"Really? Let me tell you, the fruit sold at the stall in Baihua Lane is very delicious!"

"It's just that the queue is too long..."

The two gossiped, but the journey was smooth and they didn't meet a dog.Occasionally, a distant and strange long cry comes from nowhere, or a rustling whisper comes from nearby, but through a layer of lantern paper, nothing can be seen, and the sense of terror of the unknown instinct is reduced many.

When approaching the destination, Chongliu recalled what Song Mingzi told him about the "craftsman" this time, not a human problem.

In Daqing Town, not far from Yiquan City, there is a very famous fan shop.The shop buys and sells all kinds of fans, ranging from silk fans, feather fans to sandalwood fans, but the most famous ones are the folding fans drawn by a painter named Su in their shop.

This painter named Su Rong is good at drawing figures, and his most famous works include Lady Hairpin Fan, Qin Yang Drunk Fan, and Sales Picture, etc... The fans he painted were once popular in the circle of literati, who is so romantic? If a gifted scholar doesn't have a Su Lang fan in his hand, it's like a Taoist priest doesn't have a whisk in his hand. It always seems that something is missing.

Three years ago, Su Rong died suddenly in the process of painting a fan, and he died in the special workshop for him behind the fan shop.

As soon as the news came out, it caused waves in the poetry circle.Everyone remembered it one after another, and several literati wrote eulogies.

Birth, old age, sickness and death are common things, nothing unusual.

But the problem is that on the third day after Su Rong's death, a clerk entered his studio, packed up his belongings and returned them to Su Rong's wife.He was shocked to find that the unfinished fan on the table in the studio was finished.

The scene of a monk playing chess together, the lines are elegant, the ink is dense, and there is a trace of uninhibited Zen in the details, which is exactly the same as Su Rong's usual style.

The problem is, since someone died in the house, the studio has been locked and no one has ever entered.

The people in the fan shop said that Su Rong didn't know that he was dead, so he painted the fan on purpose.But it seems inappropriate to sell the fan painted by the dead, and it's frightening to keep it in the shop.Finally, the owner of the shop decided to return the fan to Su Rong's family.

I thought it would be all right, but about a month later, in the emptied studio, where the painting table was originally placed, there was another fan lying quietly.

This time, the painting on the fan is a beautiful woman who is doing her makeup in front of the mirror.That style of painting seems to be Su Rong's handwriting.

Su Rong had been dead for two months, and everything in the studio was emptied, not even a chair left, where did this fan come from?

And it is said that the woman on the fan looks a little weird.

If you look closely, you can find that her mouth is upside down and upside down.

At the same time, something happened to Su Rong's family.It is said that Su Rong's younger brother and Su Rong's father fought for the fan. Later, the younger brother severely injured the old man and was arrested by the government.

New fans kept appearing in that room, each time they were fans that had never appeared before, each time the people were more... slightly deformed and distorted, but it could still be seen that it was Su Rong handwriting.

Whenever a new fan appears, anyone who has seen the surface of the previous fan and has actually touched it for a while will suddenly feel an inexplicable urge to completely monopolize the previous fan and make a All sorts of unbelievable madness.

Some people say that after owning that fan, there will be a strange feeling.It's as if the mind is suddenly filled with inspiration, with wonderful images, with the urge to create.But once the new fan appeared, that feeling disappeared, and what was left was an irrational, even compulsive urge.Someone even tried to eat the fan, and was choked to death in the end.

The fan shop called many alchemists to take away Su Rong who had turned into a ghost.But the problem is that those alchemists walked around countless times in the studio and shop, but they didn't see the so-called "wraith".

Fans appear every once in a while, ranging from one month to half a year.Wang Xing, the owner of the fan shop, didn't dare to let anyone enter that room again, and didn't know what to do with the fans, so he had to lock the room and let it fall into disrepair.

Until the shopkeeper appeared.

If you can't find Su Rong's soul, who is making the fan all the time?Chong Liu didn't understand.

"Maybe Su Rong was originally born with filth. His filth affected that room, and maybe even the void, so after his death, he continued to make fans. Usually these painters, poets, and luthiers... …It’s just that people who do these kinds of businesses have a lot more filth than ordinary people. According to your shopkeeper, it is precisely because of the uncertainty and confusion of filth that inspiration can be produced.”

People are dead, but the filth still remains, and they are still imitating people's works.But Hui is ignorant after all, the imitated characters will always be slightly different from the ones drawn by real people, and gradually become more deformed as the years go by.

At this time, they were standing outside the gate of the fan shop.A clerk stayed in the shop, watching the shop with a lamp.Presumably it was specially waiting for them.

Song Mingzi looked at the gate, and said, "You go in, I won't go in. Foul usually doesn't react very well to alchemists, and I don't want to trigger it to cause problems."

Chong Liu nodded, thinking it was just a fan, it should be soon.But just as he was about to leave, Song Mingzi suddenly remembered something and pulled his arm, and stuffed a fan cover into Chong Liu's hand.

"When you arrive at the backyard studio in a while, don't open the fan, just put it in the fan case, the less contact you have, the better.

"Oh, I understand." Chongliu just wanted to complete the task quickly, and walked into the gate of the fan shop in twos and threes.The guy was woken up by him, and took him to the backyard in a state of sleepiness.

Chong Liu followed him into the yard, and saw the dark hut with a big lock.

Abandoned, dusty smell, even time seems to be frozen.The window paper was torn in several places, and it smelled of decay.

The guy didn't want to approach that room, so he gave the key to Chong Liu.

Chong Liu was a little nervous when he opened the door with the key.

The craftsmen he usually sees are human beings, at least he has confidence in his heart, but this time he met... what the hell is it?

There was a harsh and hoarse sound from the door, and a beam of moonlight shot into the room, pushing away an inch of darkness.

The room was just as Song Mingzi said, empty.There is only a folding fan lying on the west side near the wall.

The problem is, there is another person squatting beside the folding fan at this moment, staring at him with a pair of surprised eyes.

It was a young man who seemed to be about the same age as Chong Liu, with sword eyebrows and star eyes, very handsome, wearing a purple Taoist robe of the Da Luo School.He was stretching out his hand, as if to touch the fan.

"Don't touch it!" Chong Liu shouted.

The alchemist of the Da Luo sect frowned and said, "This thing is filthy, I want to take it away and destroy it."

"This thing is ours!"

"This thing is very dangerous, don't interfere." The purple-clothed alchemist ordered in a cold tone.

Hearing this, Chong Liuyi was furious, "Who are you, wearing the clothes of the Da Luo School, why are you breaking into houses at night to steal things?! The fan belongs to us, of course we have to intervene!"

The alchemist sneered, with a hint of contempt in his arrogance, "Ah, I see, you are the guy from the pagoda tree inn? Selling filthy things for money and killing people, are you not guilty of taking the money? "

Chong Liu blinked his eyes twice, and got angry all at once.

Is this person sick?