Strange events in the imperial capital

Finally running out of the small mansion, Chu Han even wondered if he should go back and rub the iron bar back to its original position for another 15 minutes?Mr. Chu does things from the beginning to the end, and he is very dignified and elegant.But before he got up and took a few steps, he found that his third uncle and Officer Cheng were standing in front of him on the left and on the right, not leaving, and their expressions were a little embarrassed.What's the matter?

Just outside the door opposite the vermilion lacquer, there was a row of people standing densely, all of them in uniforms, almost bluffing him again.

The leader knocked on his cigarette butt, half-smiling: "Yo, Mr. Han, it's really you."

Chu Han took a look, ouch...

He was immediately discouraged: "...Liu team, good evening. It's late at night, how many of you didn't sleep?"

This is Liu Xuecheng, the captain of the "Special Affairs Department" operation team of a certain bureau. "You guys haven't slept yet." Liu Xuecheng looked down at Mr. Chu and the other two with a condescending smile, with a mocking meaning: "Success, it will be easier for everyone to be here, and it will save me from visiting you specially! Mr. Han , What's the matter? Get in the car and walk with us."

When Captain Liu saw that Luo and Cheng were also present, he was more polite.Especially for Cheng Yu, maybe because he was considered half of his colleagues, Liu Xuecheng pretended to light a cigarette for Cheng Yu, and exchanged a few words about the recent situation of their respective departments.Liu Xuecheng said with a smile, "Hey, Director Cheng, I heard that the Dongdan East Chang'an Street area is very busy recently. The National Day military parade is just over, and the New Year is coming soon. Next year, the Olympics will be held again in the spring, so you are so busy." Yes, you still have time to spend with Young Master Xiao Chu and go out for a walk in the middle of the night?

Officer Cheng took a puff of smoke and said flatly, yes, I am very busy, but not as busy as your team. It seems like you are making great strides to welcome the Olympics every day, and you still pull the team out for a "military parade" in the middle of the night?

Liu Xuecheng laughed dryly twice.

Captain Liu is a friend of Mr. Chu.This person respectfully called Chu Han Mr. Han, which always sounded like a kind of teasing.When talking to Beijingers, sometimes they like to say "you". It's fine if you don't use the word "you", but if you use it between acquaintances, you have malicious intentions, and you are always ready to make fun of it.Of course, Liu Xuecheng didn't come to arrest Chu Han for breaking into private houses.As long as this guy has a difficult case and wants to ask Chu Han for help without paying wages and allowances, he will take advantage of him.

Sitting in the car, Chu Han thought about it, and couldn't help but said, "Captain Liu, you just watched us trapped in the small building and didn't save you, isn't it enough buddies?"

Liu Xuecheng laughed unabashedly: "We arrived on the back foot, and we have been outside all the time. I just wanted to see how you, Chu Han, who is so awesome, turned out by yourself. In the end, you still had to climb the window!"

Chu Han immediately understood: "You set up the cameras in the courtyard?"

Liu Xuecheng said: "Otherwise, who do you think is safe? You actually destroyed our monitoring equipment."

Chu Han thought to himself, he has been tricked again.There must be cameras elsewhere, but he was still careless.

Liu Xuecheng was only ten years older than Chu Han and became the team leader. He was dark-skinned and strong-bodied, quite shrewd and capable.At that time, Captain Liu often came to meet him for dinner and discuss the case.This person is so stingy, he always carries a bottle of wine and a drink with him every time he eats, and doesn't order drinks from the restaurant's menu.Chu Han said, captain, the bureau is short of funds, so you have to bring your own drinks when you treat me to a "reward meal"?Liu Xuecheng can turn around and say to the waitress girl, you can deliver the dessert and fruit plate, don't charge me for the private room fee, I know your boss!Moreover, this person only ordered three dishes at a time, and said, "Recently, you have cut three public expenses, you understand that the future between our brothers will be long." As a result, Chu Han couldn't get enough to eat every time. ==

Captain Liu was desperate to sleep when he was working, and he didn't let Mr. Chu sleep, so he directly got them into the team, closed the door and forced him to work.

They went through a lot of files together.Chu Han also learned roughly that Daxiangfeng Hutong and Xiaoxiangfeng Hutong at the end of the tail, this large area, was said to be an official coal yard at the end of the day, storing most of the coal used by the court.At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the prosperity of the Qing Dynasty, the coal yard was filled and a garden was built on it, which became the Heshen Mansion which was later prominent.After Heshen's house was ransacked during the Jiaqing period, the mansion changed hands and became the private residence of Prince Gong Guiziliu. The house was more luxurious and beautiful than the Qianlong Garden and Cining Garden in the Forbidden City.

The old house is very dark, and the Xiangfeng Hutong, which is only separated by a wall, must also be contaminated with the gloomy temperament of the old palace, making troubles from time to time.Chu Han guessed that the movement in the small building in Courtyard No. 3 had nothing to do with the female writer who later moved here, she just happened to live here.In the past, crouching dragons and crouching tigers, this place is no ordinary place.

Captain Liu got up and patted Chu Han on the shoulder, and said in a low voice, "Hanzi, let me show you something."

The man drew the conference room curtains.Chu Han also thought, in the middle of the night, does it make a difference whether you draw the curtains or not?

They sat around a long table, and Team Liu turned on the electronic device and played a video.

As soon as Chu Han looked at the picture, he knew that this was still the content captured in the small courtyard No. 3, but it was not him and Boss Luo, but another group of people who entered the courtyard before. They looked like the two backpackers who disappeared a week ago.The camera was originally installed above the small red door in the inner courtyard, between two lacquered door hairpins, very concealed.After the two of them entered the building, their general travel route was similar to that of Chu Han and the others. They first investigated the first floor, and then went up to find the second floor.Everyone knows that the images captured by the camera are not very clear, they are all black and white, and there is no sound.Through the curtain glass, I saw the two figures passing by occasionally, felt it, and then suddenly panicked, and started to circle the stairwell frantically!

Those two were actually on the second floor.

But judging from the horrific scene, the two thought they had fallen into the basement, so they ran to the window to check and kept beating on the iron bars, like two depressed animals in a cage.Chu Han stared at the projection screen, still feeling uncomfortable in his heart.He recognized the terrified expressions on other people's faces, as if seeing his own stupidity two hours ago.The curtains in the conference room were drawn, but he felt oppressed by an invisible and heavy air outside. The night sky was dim and the air pressure was very low.

Then, sure enough, the floor moved and the walls changed.The picture was not clear, and all of them stared with wide eyes.The two unlucky ones ran to the stairwell again, the gray-black shadows on the wall protruded, stretching out countless tentacles, struggling to entangle.The scene was too penetrating, and the shadows gathered and danced.In a blink of an eye, the two disappeared into the shadows.

"How did it disappear?!"

Everyone has such a question mark expression.

Liu Xuecheng stared at Chu Han.Chu Han couldn't tell, it was too weird.

"Why didn't you disappear like this back then?" Liu Xuecheng asked seriously.

This question was asked in such a rude manner, Chu Han immediately imagined that a group of people surnamed Liu stood outside and stared at the crowd, and even took a video, waiting to see if he would also be swallowed by the shadow, it was frantic!

"Maybe they took things in the house without authorization, but we didn't take anything." Chu Han said.

"People die for money, greedy." Captain Liu nodded.

……

For the next two days, Chu Han kept thinking about this matter at home after get off work, searching for various materials in the study, and the images from the camera lingered in his mind, making people uneasy.

He missed a call from Captain Liu during the day when he was dealing with company affairs.Boss Luo immediately called him and yelled on the phone: "Chuhan! Did Team Liu tell you about this? Did you see the next day's newspaper!"

Chu Han is inexplicable, what newspaper?

He ran to the private restaurant and took the newspaper from Boss Luo.It was the newspaper published by the newspaper in Courtyard No. 3. The front page was dated October 10, and the front page was full of photos of him, Luo Zhan and Cheng Yu.All the photos were reproduced exactly the same and filled the entire page, all black and white images of the three of them circling the stairwell with terrified faces.The wall is convex, and there is a faint shadow...

That night Chu Han stayed in the private restaurant and didn't go home. He chatted head-to-toe with his third uncle on the same bed all night, and couldn't sleep.

He deliberately called Cheng Yu to explain the matter, feeling very sorry for his Uncle Cheng Yu.Director Cheng has a public office, and if the newspaper is published for many people to read, he is afraid of causing unnecessary trouble and being punished.

Liu Xuecheng also couldn't explain this matter clearly, saying that the newspaper workers started printing in the early morning, and finally found that the newspapers printed that day were just such a bunch of things.Captain Liu admitted that the cameras were installed by investigators from the "Special Affairs Department", but firmly denied that the newspaper was done by their staff.

Boss Luo has been on the road for most of his life, and he has never encountered such a strange thing, so he probably felt haunted, and asked him: "Nephew, I think... your 'little friend', Fang San'er, is quite capable." , or you ask him to help us resolve it? I'm afraid we've got it right, the enemy is very arrogant!"

Chu Han had no choice but to confess: "I also want to find someone with the surname Fang, but I can't find him."

With his third master behind his back, Chu Han quietly went to Beixinqiao.

The Beixinqiao Subway Station has long since resumed operation, and passengers are still coming and going at night.A small pavilion was built on the mysterious well that once caused trouble, and it was surrounded by a wall.Chu Han climbed over the wall and entered in the dead of night, sat in the pavilion, stared at the Suolongjing in a daze, imagining the blue waves at the bottom of the well, there is something hidden in the sky.

"Fang Saner, what is the principle behind the ghost hitting the wall in the spiral stairwell, can you tell me?"

"The two groups of people at the front and back disappeared into the shadows, as if they were suddenly sucked in at the corner of the wall. Where did they go?"

"Little Chitose, can you stop sleeping and wake up for a few minutes? What is so weird about No. 3 Courtyard? Why is my photo on the camera printed in the next day's newspaper and almost sent out everywhere? Who did it? "

A new bluestone lacquer wall with a dragon-shaped relief was built at the mouth of the well, and thick iron chains around the mouth of the bowl were wound three times horizontally and vertically, making the decoration grand and solemn.

The iron chain didn't vibrate at all, and it didn't respond to him at all.

"Forget it, go to sleep."

He knew that Little Chitose could not be woken up easily, and he might never come back to look for him again, and he would not care about his life or death.

At that time, Chu Han felt that Fang San'er was ruthless to him from beginning to end.

The case is at an impasse.The residents began to whisper that every night in Xiangfeng Hutong, you can vaguely see the figure of an old lady with small feet, walking from the north end of the alley to the south end, and the shadow is projected behind Prince Gong's mansion. On the wall, people's shadows floated, their little feet didn't touch the ground... People's hearts grew grass, and soon rumors spread in several nearby alleys.Some people say that the female writer came back to see her old house.Some people also said that it was the ghost of a certain side Fujin who died unjustly in Prince Gong's mansion.Others said, nonsense you guys, those Manchu women don't have bound feet, they are all natural feet.

No. 3 yard was cordoned off, people were not allowed to come in and out at will, and the newspaper office was moved.

Chu Han lived in Luo's house for several days in a row, sitting on the old sofa in the warehouse, not caring about choking on pneumoconiosis, looking through the boxes of manuscripts and letters collected by the third master, hoping to find new clues.

The accident site was only 200 meters away from them, and the night in late autumn was getting colder and biting.

He strolled along the south wall of the alley. Although there was no one in the No. 3 courtyard, the bird cage hanging on the eaves of the door was still there, and the red-billed starling stared at him with teary eyes.

"Big...Xiangfeng...No. 3." Chu Han murmured.

"Big...wall gap...umbrella loss!" Mynah continued.

"……What did you say?"

"Big... wall gap! Big... wall gap! The wall gap sucks! The wall gap sucks!" Mynah turned his body up and down, his eyes were like beans, he babbled and laughed "brother".

"..."

Chu Han was silent for a moment, then turned around and returned to Luo Mansion.He asked Boss Luo, what was the original name of this Daxiangfeng alley?

"During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was originally called 'Daqiangseam Hutong'. Later, I thought the name was too ugly and indecent, so I changed it to Daxiangfeng." Boss Luo said.

"Yes, that's right, big wall gaps. Where were those wall gaps before?" Chu Han asked again.

"There are really gaps in the walls! The area of ​​Houhai is a prime tourist spot. All the nearby alleys have been renovated many times, and the bluestone brick walls are very flat and beautiful." Luo Zhan said.

Chu Han took out the map of the palace boundary from the box.The map is dated. Daxiangfeng Hutong is wide in the north and narrow in the south. It is a peculiar funnel shape. It becomes narrower as it goes south. At the narrowest point, it connects to a narrower alley, namely Xiaoxiangfeng Hutong.The two alleys were the passages between the various mansions at that time, and the eaves on both sides were continuous, as narrow as a crack in the wall.The narrowest fork between the two alleys happens to meet at the back of No. 3 courtyard, presenting an intricate stronghold.

Chu Han said: "We have to go again, I need to find those 'wall gaps'. There is something strange about this place, and I can guess what the problem is."