The strange story of Huai'an Inn

Chongliu still got up early in the morning and finished the work of opening the shop.After finishing the work in the lobby, I picked up the broom and swept the fallen leaves of the pagoda trees in the yard.

From time to time, he raised his head to look at the unmoving tree, looked left and right, always feeling unreal.

What he saw in that secret room and what he saw in his dreams were far from the appearance of this locust tree.

Chong Liu couldn't help but began to suspect that all the daily affairs he saw every day, the house tiles, plants, flowers and fruits that he passed by several times a day without paying attention, and even the passers-by or acquaintances he often met, really Are they all what they appear to be?

Is there a hidden, incomparably deep, unfathomable and filthy world that is silently spreading its arms of darkness.

He was slightly lost in thought, when suddenly he was brought back to reality by the sound of the door opening.He turned his head and saw the door of a room on the first floor of the east building opened, but it was Xizhu who came out with a washbasin.

"Yo? Miss Xizhu, why do you get up so early?" Chong Liu waved at her.

Seeing him, Xi Zhu froze for a moment, "Huh, are you recovering from your illness?"

Presumably it was the shopkeeper's words to other people, so Chong Liu responded with a smile, "Okay, okay, it's not a serious illness."

Xi Zhu also laughed, and gradually approached, "There have been too many unrests recently, you have to pay attention to your body."

Chong Liu noticed that the copper basin she was holding was not filled with water, but a few pieces of paper.Ink blots were faintly leaked from the paper, but it was lumped up.

In Xizhu's other hand, she was still holding a book with fire.

"Are you going to burn something?" Chong Liu pointed to the ball of paper in her basin.

Xizhu hurriedly covered the basin with her sleeve, and said in a low voice, "Yes, our wife let it burn."

"Paper money? Something happened to your wife's house?" Chong Liu asked with concern.

"No, no... these... are the words my wife practiced in the past two nights..."

It was only then that Chong Liu remembered that Yan Lvzhi did write excellent calligraphy. I heard the shopkeeper mention it before, saying that she was proficient in more than one typeface, such as cursive script, lower case script, Luo style, Qian style... all kinds of fonts are different. Very well written, and the style I created was all the rage.When she was not out of the cabinet, someone begged her for calligraphy at a high price, but her father refused them one by one, fearing that it would not sound good if it was spread.

The shopkeeper once said that this could be a way for her to make a living.

"Why did you burn it?" Chong Liu asked in wonder, "If you don't like it, just throw it away?"

"These... are different from Madam's previous characters..." Xizhu hesitated to speak, and when she saw no one around, she approached and whispered, "Madam won't let me read these characters, saying they have 'ghosts'."

"A ghost? What do you mean?"

"Actually, I don't really understand... She said that the writing is alive, and she won't let me read it." Xizhu said, with a sad face, "Sometimes she writes all night without sleeping. I wonder if it could be that the blow I received was too great...do I need to see a doctor?"

Chong Liu listened, and gradually realized that the filth began to affect Yan Luzhi's writing, "When did this start?"

"It's just these two days. But you are sick, Mr. Zhu has been taking care of you, and she doesn't want to cause you any trouble."

My boss...has been taking care of him?

Chong Liu knew that his focus was wrong, but he still only heard that sentence unconsciously...

But now Xizhu is still waiting for his idea with eyes wide open, Chongliu thought about it, and said quietly to Xizhu, "Give me a piece of those words."

"Ah? But Madam has repeatedly ordered it to be burned!"

"I want to show it to my boss. If there is any problem, I will deal with it as soon as possible. You still have to be careful with things like filth."

Xizhu was reluctant at first, but after all, she was worried about Yan Luzhi's situation, so she gave Chongliu a rolled up paper.

As soon as Chong Liu put the ball of paper into his arms, he saw Song Mingzi coming out of the guest room in the east building yawning.Seeing him, Xi Zhu blushed and ran away in a hurry.

Song Mingzi was about to say hello to Xizhu when she saw her blushing and ran away, so she laughed and said, "This little girl likes me, right? So shy?"

Chong Liu rolled his eyes to the sky, "Maybe people think you are annoying and don't want to talk to you."

"Hey, don't you still remember the grudge of last night? I really didn't mean that you are not good-looking, in fact, you are very good-looking! I was just teasing your boss..."

"I thank you. You are, on the other hand, barely handsome."

"reluctantly?!"

Chong Liu sneered, thinking that you haven't seen the evaluation I wrote in the notes yet.

At this time, the shopkeeper also came out sleepily.Today, he was wearing an elegant ultramarine round-neck gown, and a rare towel on his head, which added a bit of gentle and jade-like bookishness, which was very attractive.

"Hey, wipe off the drool, it's about to flow out." Song Mingzi said beside him.Chong Liu, furious and furious, secretly kicked a certain alchemist's calf.

Zhuang Cheng's home is on Lianqiao Street, about five or six streets away from Bianhe Street.At this time, the street has gradually become busy, and most people have started to go out to work, shops have opened one after another, and the stalls for buying breakfast are next to each other, with steaming steam.

But when entering Forsythia Street, there were suddenly fewer people for some reason.The doors of the houses on both sides were closed tightly, and the feeling of depression made Chaoyang lose its color.

Chong Liu took two steps and felt something under his feet.As soon as he lifted his foot, he saw a dead mouse.

"Ah! Mouse!" Song Mingzi jumped up like a ghost.

He is obviously an alchemist who deals with scary filth all day long, but he is so afraid of mice...

Chong Liu was not afraid at all, and even knelt down, frowned and stared at the mouse corpse that had been trampled open by something, pointed to the mouse's still intact head and said, "Boss, look, it Why do you have five eyeballs?"

Zhu Helan moved closer to Chongliu and bent over to watch.Indeed, on the mouse's cheeks and forehead, there were three other eyeballs scattered indiscriminately.Moreover, among the three eyeballs, there is a compound eye that looks like an insect, and the other is red in color.

"Distortion... It was exposed to extremely strong filth before it died." Zhu Helan raised his head, looked around, and took a deep breath.

There is a slight damp and rotten smell, but it is not very strong.

Zhuang Cheng's house is very dilapidated, the blackened wooden doors are squeezed between the doors on both sides, it looks crowded and pitiful.

When the shopkeeper knocked on the door, Chongliu noticed a few pieces of irregularly shaped fungi on the base of the wall, which looked like Ganoderma lucidum growing on rotten wood.There were some small circular openings on the top of the fungus, which seemed to be wriggling vaguely.

Song Mingzi was afraid of scaring people, so he didn't bring his usual weapon today, but carried a mahogany sword on his back.At this time, he pulled out the mahogany sword and held it vigilantly in his hand.

No one answered the door.

Zhu Helan turned around and looked at Chong Liu and Song Mingzi.Song Mingzi sighed, "I'll go over the wall and open the door for you."

The alchemist's foot touched the ground, and he jumped up like a white crane, easily climbed onto the top of the wall and jumped down.

The shopkeeper said to Zhong at this time, "Go in later, if you see something strange, don't touch it, tell me right away."

"okay."

After a while, Song Mingzi pulled the latch and opened the door, but her expression was not very good.

"It doesn't taste very good here."

Chong Liu followed the shopkeeper in and looked around the narrow yard.

Dead rats everywhere...

Some had no heads, some had stomachs that seemed to be torn apart, and some were just lumps of blood and mud that had lost their shape.Maggots wriggled and devoured among the rotting viscera of the corpse, and flies flew here and there.

The rotten stench was transpiring in the air, and Chong Liu covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, but he couldn't block the disgusting smell.

Song Mingzi stood at the door, not wanting to enter the yard at all.

There is a place for cooking under the shed outside the house, but there is no firewood in the yard, and the pots and pans are covered with dust, as if no one has used them for a long time.

The shopkeeper strode directly to the only room, stretched out his hand, pushed the door open and entered.Chong Liu hurriedly followed.Seeing this, Song Mingzi struggled a few times in her heart, and walked quickly across the nightmarish yard on her feet.

All the windows in the house were closed and the light was dim.There were large mold spots on the wall, and there were many strange and irregular-shaped fungi that Chong Liu had seen at the door.

Everything seems to be wet.Mold had grown on the table, a layer of yellow water droplets floated on the tea bowl, and half of the Hubing in the bowl had turned black and green...

Chong Liu thought to himself, even the surrounding environment has become like this... That Zhuang Cheng... I don't know how distorted it has become...

He followed the shopkeeper's order and dared not touch anything.But after looking around, there was no one in sight.

The owner is not at home?

Suddenly I heard Song Mingzi say, "Come and see!"

Chongliu and shopkeeper Zhu hurriedly entered the inner room, but found that there was no place to set foot.

The whole room is full of scrolls and books.Some of the paper on which it was written was yellowed and rotted, but the writing was apparently new.

Quite a few books were soaked in light yellow slime, exuding an unpleasant sour smell.

"What should we do if he's not around?" Song Mingzi asked.

"The door is locked from the inside, so why is no one there?" The shopkeeper looked around, "Check to see if there is any secret door to the cellar."

The three of them looked at each other separately.

Chong Liu squatted down and looked at the scattered papers on the ground.Looking at the ink marks, it was probably written in the last few days, and there are many traces of alteration.

The handwriting was scrambled and almost illegible.Chong Liu read it twice carefully and realized that it was a play.

And he hasn't seen it...

New play?

He used the tip of his toes to push aside a few pages of paper, only to find that some of the words in front of him looked familiar.Turning over a few more pages, I suddenly saw the words "Huang Yi Ji" written on the far right of the page.

It's the play that I didn't finish listening to on Chongliu!

But...some words are different, Zhuang Cheng revised the previous record of Huang Yi, it seems to be longer than before.

And this one looks like a draft...

What about the original draft?

Chong Liu went through the information in his head, and suddenly stood up and shouted to the shopkeeper, "He went to the theater!"

Shopkeeper Zhu and Song Mingzi looked at him in astonishment.The shopkeeper asked, "How do you know?"

Chong Liu pointed to the scattered papers on the ground, "Huang Yi Ji...he rewrote Huang Yi Ji! The previous version may not be strong enough, but now he has finished it!"

The shopkeeper hurried over and picked up the drafts directly from the ground.He took a few glances, then quickly put it down, and said in a deep voice, "Which theater do you think he will go to?"

"The one with the largest number of people." Chongliu hesitated for a moment, but gradually confirmed his guess, "Taihe Theater."

Chong Liu didn't know why he was sure, maybe it was because of the Su Lang fan, or maybe it was because of the contact with the locust tree in the secret room, but now, he seemed to be able to perceive Zhuang Cheng's purpose and obsession.

Just like Su Langfan, he has been trying to create the strongest and most perfect version.The first edition was a defective product, so it was quickly withdrawn.And now, he has completed the most perfect version.

So this edition of Huang Yi Ji is his latest and perhaps his last work.

He wants to spread and infect more people...

He wants to take his "believers" and let the entire Tianliang City fall.