The strange story of Huai'an Inn

A new play was quietly staged in Taihe Theater today.

Quite a few theatergoers just came to enjoy the excitement when they had nothing to do, or their minds were not on the theater at all, but they just found an excuse to bring their children to chat with their neighbors, uncles and daughters-in-law.

Every square table on the square first floor is full of people as usual. The table is full of peanuts, walnuts, and sweet candies. pour water.Most of the private seats on the second floor were also occupied.The whole theater was in a state of turmoil, and you had to shout to hear what you said.

The sound of gongs and drums sounded, and the play was about to begin.

Zhu Helan, Chong Liuhe rushed to the outside of the Taihe Theater, and they saw a series of opera signs on the wall outside.The first one, the most conspicuous one, the ink is not even dry, is "The Story of Yellow Clothes".

There was a lively drum beat in the building, followed by babbling singing.The play had just begun.

Chong Liu went in first, handed the ticket money for three people to the clerk at the door, and asked by the way, "Hey, brother, I want to ask you, the Luzhou layman who wrote the play, is he here today?"

The little brother didn't even bother to raise his eyelids, and directly gave him three theater tickets, "I didn't hear that."

Chong Liu sighed, had no choice but to take the ticket, and waved to the shopkeeper and Song Mingzi.As soon as the three of them entered the lobby, Dr. Tea immediately greeted them, "Guest officer, who are you?"

"Three people." Chong Liu looked around, so many people...

"Unfortunately, we don't have any vacant tables here. Would you mind sharing a seat with the two guest officers over there?"

At the table Dr. Tea pointed to, there were two middle-aged men drinking tea and chatting. They looked like workers in a dyeing workshop, and their clothes were still stained with color.Chong Liu looked at the shopkeeper inquiringly, but the shopkeeper simply agreed, "Okay."

Song Mingzi is probably not a person who listens to opera very much. As soon as he was seated, he was shocked by the sudden burst of applause.

"It's so loud, can they hear what is being sung?" Song Mingzi complained as she picked out her buzzing ears with her fingers.

Chong Liu looked at the contempt of the layman, "You don't understand, what you want is this excitement."

The shopkeeper's eyes lingered over all the guests around, silently observing carefully.

The two middle-aged men on the opposite side saw the strange combination of the three of them, and started talking, "Even alchemists come out to watch the theater these days?"

Song Mingzi was not happy, "What happened to the alchemist, so the alchemist can't relax?"

Chong Liu kicked him under the table, and quickly apologized with a smile, "Brother, the three of us don't usually come here, but I heard that today's play is good. Do you come often?"

The older man with the beard and the haircut said, "Come here often, we are both old theater fans."

"You guys watch all kinds of dramas, do you still have a special role?" "I don't choose, but my brother likes to listen to that Gu Xiao's Hu Sheng saves his mother, Yuan Xiao will or something."

In this way, Chong Liu chatted with two workers in the dyeing workshop, and the conversation was lively.Song Mingzi and Zhu Helan looked at each other, unable to speak at all.

Chong Liu found an opportunity to ask, "Have you seen this drama written by Layman Luzhou before?"

"I've seen it, I've seen it, it's his play, and it always makes me feel creepy after watching it." Another tall and thin dyer said hesitantly, as if he was afraid of being heard.

The bearded dyer said: "That's right, everyone else is singing opera roles, but this Luzhou layman writes plays that are different from others, and they are mysterious. But anyone who plays his plays will be popular." For a while, many theater troupes liked to perform his plays." Chong Liudao, "I've seen a few of them too. It's quite scary. It's all demons and ghosts..."

"Oh, that's not true. But to be honest, sometimes I have nightmares at night after watching it."

"But... I always want to come back and watch it." The tall dyer said, "It's the feeling of eating stinky tofu. The more stinky it is, the more I want to eat it... It's quite evil."

At this time, Song Mingzi, who couldn't get in the conversation, asked the shopkeeper in a low voice, "Have you seen that Luzhou layman?"

Zhu Helan said softly, "I looked around, but I haven't noticed it yet. The atmosphere here is strange, and the filth on everyone's body is not heavy, but... the smell is a bit similar."

Song Mingzi clicked his tongue, and his hand holding the mahogany sword tightened even more.

Everyone has a bit of filth in their bodies, but not much, and it will not affect the Dao Qi that fills everything.The combination of filth and dao is not the same for everyone, so you'd be hard-pressed to find two people who smell alike.

But now Zhu Helan said that the tastes of the audience in the whole building are somewhat similar.

This is ghost.

"Should we let the Qingming faction come forward in this matter?" Song Mingzi said in a low voice, "There are only three of us, and we have no power. Let my senior brother come forward and forcibly control that Zhuang Cheng, maybe it will be easier .”

Zhu Helan thought for a while, then nodded, "That's fine. After a while, you can go back and see if your senior brother is willing to help... Don't mention me, lest he refuse when he hears my name. Just say that you discovered it yourself. "

"..."

Song Mingzi was about to say that he could leave now, since he had no interest in these plays anyway.But at this moment, an exclamation came from the crowd.

Chong Liu returned his gaze to the stage, only to find that the Tsing Yi who had written the lyrics had disappeared at some point on the stage, and the musicians who were playing the erhu, the sanxian and the single-skin drum were all sitting in their original positions. at every turn.

And in the center of the stage, stood a man wrapped in a yellow cloak and wearing a pale mask.

No one saw when he came to power.He didn't sing or read words, just stood motionless in the center of the stage like that, giving people a very strange and strange feeling that gave people goosebumps.

It's like the uncomfortable feeling of seeing something that shouldn't be there.

At this time, the masters of gongs and drums began to beat again, and an old student, a painted face, and Tsing Yi from just now came on stage again.The three of them sang lyrics lively and walked around, as if the person in the yellow cloak in the center of the stage did not exist.

Everyone couldn't sit still.What does the man in the yellow suit do?Does he have a role?Why do other characters seem to be unable to see him?

The dyer on the opposite side couldn't bear it anymore, "Who is that one in the yellow dress? Is it in the drama?"

Another dyer said, "I didn't know, this is a new show today."

But Chong Liu quietly leaned into the shopkeeper's ear, and whispered, "This...is not in the version of Huang Yi Ji I read before."

The shopkeeper narrowed his eyes and looked carefully at the man in the yellow cloak.

Can't see anything.

As I said before, how can a normal person carry a little filth.But this man in yellow has none.

He is a dark hole, empty of nothing.

Missing.

Absence like death.

The plot of the story of Huang Yi Ji is roughly that a general, with his military advisers and concubines, plus a million troops, was ordered to crusade against a small country in the Western Regions, but when he arrived, he found that everyone there was wearing yellow clothes, and all of them were devout. A foreign god named "Emperor in Yellow".Because the city is surrounded by mountains on three sides and has geographical advantages, the general was unable to attack for a long time, but found that soldiers in his barracks began to wear yellow clothes.

It was probably here that the mysterious figure in yellow clothes and a mask quietly stood in the center of the stage.

Chong Liu almost began to wonder if that character was Zhuang Cheng?

A playwright who has written a work that he is proud of should really want to stand on the stage and see the audience's reaction to his work, right?

Strange things happened frequently in the barracks, and many soldiers began to show sleep talking or sleepwalking symptoms. Some people said that they saw people in yellow cloaks and masks standing in their tents at night and staring at them without saying a word.Soldiers began to discuss quietly, and the title of emperor in yellow was frequently mentioned in whispers.

They said that the emperor in yellow was not an auspicious god like the Jade Emperor, but an evil god who ruled death and decay.And when it comes, death, madness and carnage follow.

At this time, the general issued a military order that no yellow things should appear in the barracks.But no matter how he ordered it, it couldn't be banned.Superstitions and rumors are everywhere, and the morale of the army is unstable, which makes the three protagonists worried.

At this time, the general's concubine proposed to pretend to withdraw the troops and lie in ambush in the mountains.Wait until the city defense is relaxed, and then kill them from the mountains in one fell swoop.

The first half ended here, and all the wrestling ended, and the musicians also stood up one after another, drank tea, rested and stretched their bodies.

But the man in the yellow cloak remained motionless.

The troublemaker finally couldn't bear it anymore, and shouted, "Hey! What are you doing! Do you have any words!"

The yellow cloak remained motionless.

The shopkeeper made a move at this time.He dipped his finger in the tea and began to draw a mark on the table.And Song Mingzi also drew out the mahogany sword.

Chong Liu was stunned, "What is this... for?"

"We can't let them sing the second half." The shopkeeper's face was serious, his brows were tightly knit together, "Liu'er, no matter what happens in a while, don't leave this table."

The two dyers on the opposite side listened to their conversation with puzzled faces.

Chong Liu pursed his lips, vaguely guessing something.

The last time he mentioned that he had watched Huang Yi Ji, the shopkeeper's first reaction was to ask him if he had finished reading it.He was relieved when he heard that he hadn't watched the second half.

It seems that if someone watched the second half of Huang Yi Ji, something big would happen?

The problem is that the shopkeeper has never seen it, how did he know?

But the shopkeeper stood up slowly, paused to avoid a child running wildly past, and then slowly walked around the tables and people who got up to relieve their hands one by one, and gradually approached the stage.

And Song Mingzi also stood up, his eyes were instantly awe-inspiring, and a murderous aura was slowly pushed away from his body, which was completely different from his usual sloppy look.

This is... a posture to fight?

The dyer sitting opposite Chong Liu asked in a low voice, "What are you two brothers doing?"

Chong Liu just told them, "For a while, don't leave this table."

The conversation of the crowd died down for a while, and many people noticed that Zhu Helan had stepped onto the stage.A clerk rushed over to stop him, but the shopkeeper waved his sleeves without hesitation, and the clerk stopped suddenly, showing some kind of bewildered look, turned around and left after a while.

The shopkeeper walked up to the man in the yellow cloak and mask.The height of the two is the same, which means that there is a confrontation.

The shopkeeper suddenly stretched out his hand and lifted the man's mask all at once.

Originally there was supposed to be a face under the mask.

But it didn't.

The moment the mask was lifted, the yellow cloak collapsed in full view.There is only a yellow cloak on the ground.

There were no trestles, no dangling ropes, and no people.

So who has been wearing this yellow cloak just now?

Many people screamed in horror, shouting "There is a ghost!" Some people began to run out the door, pushing and shouting, occasionally mixed with the sound of children crying.

But suddenly, all the sound is gone.

It was as if a candle had been extinguished. The first moment was still deafening chaos, and the next moment, even the sound of a needle falling to the ground was too clear.

Chong Liu shuddered, and turned his head together with the two completely stupid dyers, only to see that all the guests, whether they ran or not, were staring in the direction of the stage with expressionless faces at this moment. .

Their bodies still maintained their previous postures, only their heads turned to the stage at an angle that a living person might not be able to do, staring at the shopkeeper on the stage.

Clap, clap, three clapping sounds came from the second floor.

Chong Liu raised his head and saw a young scholar in his 20s leaning on the railing. On his handsome face from a distance, a pair of eyes shone with a chilling and crazy light.

"The play hasn't finished yet, so no one can leave." The scholar said calmly.

The author has something to say: the prototype of the Emperor in Yellow is the King in Yellow, which was first created by Ambrose Biers in the [-]th century, and later appeared in the works of Lovecraft, Robert Chambers and others.