The strange story of Huai'an Inn

After Xu Hanke finished speaking, he didn't hear Chong Liu's reply for a long time.When he turned his head, he saw the waiter looking at him with a worried expression.

"Master Xiansi..." Chongliu was preoccupied, "You told me so much...won't you kill me afterwards..."

Xu Hanke laughed loudly, and his voice did not match his weak appearance, "Brother, I am an official, not a bandit. How can I just keep my mouth shut. I think you are very Interesting, and it saved my life, so I chatted with you. If you go to the capital and the Zhongwang Mansion to inquire about these things, you will always be able to ask. So many people have seen the vision of Zhongwang, even if it is clearly ordered It is forbidden to speak, but can the officers and soldiers still stop the mouths of all the people?"

Chong Liu didn't believe that Xu Hanke took the initiative to explain so much to him without any other deep meaning.

Xu Hanke didn't care whether he believed it or not, and sighed, "I went through that strange thing just now, if I hadn't been stopped by you, my brother, I would have been buried at the bottom of the cliff now. It seems that you have to believe it if you don't want to believe it. "

"Then why did you come to Tianliang City to investigate the Zhongwang case? Are there any suspects here?"

"It doesn't count. In recent years, apart from the Zhongwang case, there have been frequent difficult and miscellaneous cases on Jingji Road, Zhaoning Road, and Wuchang Road. They are all as weird as the Zhongwang case. It took me a lot of effort to clear these cases. They are connected together. In fact, there is no connection between the dead, injured, or missing persons in these cases, and the suspects around them have been checked one by one, and nothing can be found. If I hadn’t accidentally asked the next deceased No trace of clues will be found in the travel situation within three years." Xu Hanke snapped his fan shut and told Chongliu in a low voice, "In these cases, either the person involved in the accident or the suspect has been to the sky. Liang Cheng. Maybe not recently before his death, but he must have been there once before the incident, but the time is different, and not necessarily recent."

Chong Liu frowned, "But many people have been to Tianliang City. We are so close to Zilu Mountain, so it's not surprising that many people either come for sightseeing or to worship the mountain."

"So I said, I can't say it's a very important clue. It's just that I have an intuition that I might find something here. Investigating a case is [-]% hard work plus a little bit of intuition. If I don’t have an intuition, no matter how I search, it’s just a blind search. Now I don’t have any other clues except here, and the pressure from above is so intense, I just came out for an excuse to relax and relieve the pressure.”

After going down the mountain, Xu Hanke took the initiative to pay and hired a carriage to take the two of them back to the city.It was already sunset when we arrived at the inn.

When Chongliu and Xu Hanke walked to the gate of the inn together, they suddenly stopped.

I saw the shopkeeper standing at the door of the passenger station with his hands in his hands, a loose turquoise crane cloak fluttering slowly in the evening wind.

The shopkeeper seemed to be waiting for him.

Chong Liu swallowed his saliva.The way the shopkeeper looked at him seemed a little... different?

Usually, the shopkeeper looks at him as he looks at everyone on the street, the same way he looks at a tree by the roadside, or a flower in a pot, the kind of eyes that look but don't seem to see.But now, shopkeeper Zhu really stared at him.

The biggest characteristic of the profession of waiter is that it is ignored by others.They quietly listened to the conversations of the guests, quietly inquired about the fragments of life left by strangers who met once, and kept all the secrets of the ten miles and eight villages in their hearts, but they themselves would not be remembered or remembered by anyone. see.This feeling of being hidden from the world makes Liu feel safe, but also extremely lonely.

But now, Shopkeeper Zhu saw him.This person who he always wanted to find out about the truth but always knew nothing saw him.

Chong Liu felt that his breath had been lifted into his throat, and his whole body was hairy.

Xu Hanke nodded to shopkeeper Zhu and went into the inn first.The shopkeeper returned a salute, but his eyes were still fixed on Chong Liu.When Xu Hanke walked away, the shopkeeper reached out his hand to Chongliu.

Chongliu quickly took out the things he was holding in the handkerchief from his arms and put them in the palm of the shopkeeper.

Shopkeeper Zhu didn't even look at the thing, put it in his arms, and said to Chong Liu, "You come with me."

Chongliu anxiously followed the shopkeeper through the atrium, all the way to the backyard, and went straight to the small courtyard where the shopkeeper lived, which was never allowed to enter.

"Master?" Chong Liu stood at the gate of the small courtyard and dared not go in.

The shopkeeper clicked his tongue, beckoned to him, and urged, "Come in."

Chong Liu had the illusion that he was being tricked into the wolf's lair by the big bad wolf.

He stepped over the threshold cautiously and looked around.The small courtyard is arranged in a very elegant and unique way, with flowers and trees scattered in height and height, and Du Heng and Lan Zhi are entangled.Large tracts of flower vines hang down from the wall, blooming some kind of strange red flowers that Chong Liu has never seen before.The petals are quite thick, and there even seem to be dense blood vessels spreading inside, almost as if they were carved from the flesh and blood of animals.

The ground is also densely criss-crossed with the root system of some kind of plant, and the strange and mysterious colors are flowing and agitating slightly, just like the pulsation of living things.

Take a closer look, all the plants in this yard are a bit weird.Either the flowers grow too much like human hands, or the leaves shake by themselves without the wind...

The shopkeeper calmly walked through the path of flowers, and pushed open the carved wooden door of his room.That room was completely different from the chic and elegant Chongliu imagined.All kinds of antiques, decorations, and small objects of different styles and styles are piled up on the old furniture, which is crumbling, almost like the warehouse of an old pawn shop that has been neglected.

After Chong Liu took a few steps into the house, he accidentally kicked down a bronze lampstand made of kneeling palace statues.He frantically helped the lampstand up, and knocked over a cloisonné vase next to it.

"Okay, don't worry about them, come here."

Chong Liu carefully looked for a place on the ground where he could get his feet down, and moved it in front of the shopkeeper who was already seated.The shopkeeper pointed to a jujube wood square stool carved with exquisite bamboo patterns on the opposite side, "Sit."

After Chong Liu sat down, the shopkeeper took out the handkerchief bag from his arms and put it on the table, "Have you ever touched this thing with your hands?"

"It's all separated by cloth... That fairy girl told me not to touch it with my hands."

"Now it seems that it doesn't matter whether you touch it or not." The shopkeeper sighed and raised his eyes to look at him, "Didn't I tell you not to meddle in your own business?" Shopkeeper Zhu suddenly said in a low voice.

Chong Liu was not sure what the shopkeeper was referring to, nor did he know what the shopkeeper knew, "I don't have any..."

"Everything that has happened, is happening, and has not happened in this world has been determined according to the origin and effect of cause and effect. This is especially true for life and death. Any behavior that causes major changes will attract filth, and those who are contaminated by filth People, it's always hard to end well."

Chong Liu stared blankly at the shopkeeper with a dazed expression.

What is the shopkeeper talking about?

Seeing his expression, the shopkeeper sighed, and said, "Didn't you always want to find out what's going on in our inn? Do you think everyone in this inn is a bit strange?" Chong Liu nervously She clenched her hands, "I... am a little curious."

"You live in the same room with Zhu Yi, did you hear him talking in his sleep?"

"……You know?"

"The people under me, how can I not know." The shopkeeper pinched a handful of tea leaves into his tea bowl, picked up a pot of hot water simmering on the tea stove and poured it into the tea bowl to brew, "Did you hear Xu Hanke name?"

Chongliu knew he couldn't hide it, so he nodded.

"You want to postpone his death, why?"

Chong Liu was stunned for a while, then replied, "Death is never a good thing, saving someone's life should be good, right?"

"Death happens to everyone, why do you think it's not a good thing?"

Chong Liu thought for a while, and replied, "It happens to everyone, but it doesn't mean it's good. When people die, they disappear, and there is no hope."

"It seems that you don't believe in ghosts and gods, or that people have an afterlife?"

Chong Liu scratched his head, "I think... even if there is such a thing as an afterlife, it may not be the same as what we think... Since no one has come back from there, we can only guess wildly, it is better to pretend that there is no good."

Shopkeeper Zhu tilted his head slightly and looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time.

"You are right. The so-called afterlife and karma are indeed different from what most people imagine." He closed the lid of the tea bowl and pinched the silkworm chrysalis. "Do you know what this is?"

"Silkworm chrysalis? But it's a bit too big."

"It looks like a silkworm chrysalis, and it was indeed taken out of the 'cocoon'. But they are different from ordinary silkworm moths. A certain silkworm moth of its predecessor was contaminated by dirty air, and this dirty air continued from generation to generation, forming a Such a rare breed. Their cocoons are not made of silk, but... something else. And this one's cocoon is broken, and it is currently in a state of suspension, not completely dead, but Nor can it break out of its cocoon as an adult. It will be desperate to find a new cocoon that will protect it, allow it to grow safely and finally break out of the cocoon."

"What is the filth you keep talking about? Is it a ghost?"

The shopkeeper glanced at him and said, "How the filth is formed and how it has measurable characteristics, we still know very little. What is certain is that it is not any specific thing, but more like a phenomenon. It’s like the phenomenon that thunder and rain usually appear. The ups and downs of all things in this world have their own laws, which is what people call Tao. Just like a flower must start from a seed, a leopard must rely on To hunt and kill prey for a living, a tea bowl is a vessel for holding tea, and a knife is a tool for cutting things.

But sometimes, for reasons that are still unknown, the Tao becomes disturbed.Law and cause and effect are disrupted, and you can no longer predict what your actions will trigger.For example, when you slaughtered a pig, you found out that you were the one who was cut open after the knife went down; or when you were walking on flat ground, you suddenly fell into an abyss that did not exist, and fell into pieces on the hillside behind you. Bolognese; or when you look in the mirror and see not yourself but another surprised stranger.We call this phenomenon dirty. "

For a moment, Chong Liu couldn't be sure whether the boss was cheating him, but when he thought of all the weirdness of the people in the inn, such as Master Liao's endless teapot, Xiao Shun's companion who couldn't see, hear, or touch, Zhu Yi's... The weird sleep talk, and the monster he saw when he held Xu Hanke today... He felt like he was in a dream and couldn't believe it.

Seeing Chong Liu's expression of doubting his life, the shopkeeper Zhu chuckled a few times, as if he felt that his face was amused.He picked up the teacup and took a sip of hot tea, "The alchemists in this world, especially the alchemists of the Subduing Demon Sect, are mostly committed to eliminating filth. But they don't always understand that filth cannot be removed. The filth in the universe is Like the Tao in the universe, it is constant, and it is impossible to increase or decrease. What they do is just transfer the filth from one place to another. Then go to another place to transfer the filth to a third place , so repeatedly, passed down from generation to generation, like a dog chasing its tail without knowing it." The shopkeeper's tone was tinged with sarcasm.

Chong Liu rubbed his hands, a subconscious movement when he was nervous.He has stayed in this Huaian inn for more than three months, and he knows almost nothing about the shopkeeper.But now I heard the shopkeeper talk about these mysterious truths that ordinary innkeepers cannot know.

He remembered the rumors that his neighbors told him: Ever since the old people in their 80s and [-]s moved to this Bianhe Street, and even a few sporadic old people who lived here for generations, the owner of this inn has never changed... …

And the shopkeeper's mysterious dental business...

There is also Zhaoning Road Xiansi who suddenly came to their Huaian Inn to stay...

It all seems to be interrelated.

"Then Xu Hanke was stained with filth, and I noticed it as soon as he came. Maybe he got it when he was investigating the Zhongwang case, or maybe it was for some other reason. But I know, he probably won't live long. Although filthy Contrary to the Tao, it is also a natural thing. Being contaminated by filth and dying is also a natural cause and effect." The shopkeeper Zhu said softly, and once again focused on Chong Liu with somewhat vacant and unpredictable eyes in the darkness. "But, you interrupted this kind of cause and effect. So... that Xu Hanke's filth is sticking to you now."