treacherous world

Zhan Zhao was troubled by the dream just now, always thought it was an ominous omen, but he also heard that the dream was the opposite, and that dreaming of water was a good omen.

Bai Yutang couldn't sleep because he just heard about the mermaid.

In the middle of the night, the two tossed and turned in the room.

The fourth son and Xiao Liang were sleeping together on the small bed, and they had already fallen asleep, while Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were lying on the big bed, thinking about their own affairs vigorously.

I didn't know what time it was, but Zhan Zhao suddenly asked, "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Can't sleep." Bai Yutang muttered, "What about you?"

"I just woke up..." Zhan Zhao thought for a while, and added, "I just dreamed about the time you were caught by a female hooligan..."

"Ahem." Bai Yutang coughed.

"Where did you go just now?" Zhan Zhao asked

"cat……"

Zhan Zhao flipped his leg lightly and kicked Bai Yutang, "Who is the cat!"

"You should be more knowledgeable about fish." Bai Yutang continued to himself.

Zhan Zhao was silent for a while before asking, "West Lake vinegar fish or steamed mandarin fish?"

……

"Mermaid, have you heard of it?"

"Sea mermaid?" Zhan Zhao turned sideways. Although he couldn't see it, he still faced Bai Yutang with his arms under his pillow, "You mean mermaid?"

"Yes."

"I've heard that some people seem to buy and sell them along the coast, and some caught them by mistake while fishing." Zhan Zhao thought for a while, "Didn't you say that eating sea mermaid meat can make you immortal?"

"Is there such a saying?" Bai Yutang smiled, "There are so many sayings."

"It's just a rumor in the rivers and lakes... Besides, I heard that the fishermen who go to sea are actually very afraid of seeing this thing, because they will encounter wind and waves when they see it."

"That is to say, do sea mermaids really exist?" Bai Yutang thought for a while and asked, "Then is it a fish or a human?"

"Then I don't know. Are you still concerned about the thing you saw in the pond in the backyard of the Horse Belly Temple?"

"Well... and what the lame old catcher said earlier."

"I just asked Xiao Liangzi to search in the yamen, and the lame old policeman is almost gone. When I asked someone, I didn't know anything."

"Oh?" Bai Yutang also turned sideways, facing Zhan Zhao, "The people in the yamen deliberately concealed his affairs?"

"Maybe." Zhan Zhao felt that this matter was strange, "By the way, did you find any clues?"

Bai Yutang shook his head, "It's all rumors, just like a horse's belly, it's all..."

"what……"

Before Bai Yutang finished speaking, suddenly, he heard a hoarse scream from outside.

The cry was extremely loud and terrifying.It seemed that she was frightened by something, and woke up Xiao Sizi and Xiao Liang who were already asleep on the bed.

The fourth son got into Xiao Liang's arms, "Little Liang, what's your name? It's so scary."

"It's okay, I guess I met a robber when I woke up at night." Xiao Liang quickly patted the fourth son to comfort him.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao had already turned over and got out of bed. When they reached the door, Bai Yutang said, "The voice came from inside the yamen, I'll go and have a look."

Zhan Zhao nodded, knowing that Bai Yutang asked him to stay and take care of the fourth son, of course he wanted to follow, but there was no sound to remind him in the middle of the night, it was inconvenient after all.

Bai Yutang chased him out.

Zhan Zhao waited anxiously in the room.

...After a while, Bai Yutang came back.

"How is it?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Bai Yutang ran back in a hurry, went to the table and poured a glass of water to drink quickly, suppressing the feeling of nausea.

"What happened?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled.

"The fish is gone!" Bai Yutang replied.

"Huh?" Zhan Zhao was surprised, "How could such a big fish disappear?"

Bai Yutang waved his hand, "Don't mention it, listen to evil nature."

"What... did you see?" Zhan Zhao felt that Bai Yutang seemed to be in a bad state.

"Dead rats." Bai Yutang answered calmly, "It's all over the place."

Zhan Zhao was silent for a moment, reached out his hand, and patted Bai Yutang's back, "Brother Bai, did you say that the water in the yamen has a strange smell?"

……

Bai Yutang looked up at Zhan Zhao helplessly, sighed, put down his cup, turned around and walked out quickly.

Zhan Zhao smiled and shook his head.

Xiao Liang said to himself, "Oh, it's just like what Master said, Big Brother Bai is not afraid of the sky and the earth, but he is afraid of being dirty..."

It was a long time before Bai Yutang came back.

The fourth son looked up at him, "Bai Bai, your face is so pale!"

Bai Yutang waved his hand lightly, went back to bed and lay down, "Sleep."

Zhan Zhao lay down beside him, and asked, "Oh, you haven't finished talking just now, how is it?"

Bai Yutang turned over, looked at Zhan Zhao with a smile, and asked, "You want to know?"

"En." Zhan Zhao nodded.

Bai Yutang stretched out his hand, and gently tapped Zhan Zhao's nose, "I don't seem to remember, I'll tell you when I remember."

"you……"

Zhan Zhao knew that he had deliberately disgusted him just now in revenge, but there was nothing he could do about it. It was his own mistake, and he should have asked about the specific situation before disgusting him.

"By the way, cat, what did that female hooligan look like in your dream?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Next time I see it, I can avoid it." Bai Yutang covered the quilt and chose a comfortable angle to lie down.

Zhan Zhao couldn't help being curious, and asked, "Why didn't such a big fish disappear?"

Bai Yutang just smiled and replied, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

……

Zhan Zhao heard the fourth son seriously say to Xiao Liang on the other side of the bed, "Little Liang, don't bully others, this is called the reward of the world."

"Yeah." Xiao Liang also nodded.

Zhan Zhao was lying on the bed sullenly, and he couldn't see him. He just fell asleep again, and this time he was even more bored.

Just as he was falling asleep, he felt Bai Yutang's hand wrap around his waist.

"Hey, don't touch your hands!"

Bai Yutang was already a little drowsy at this time, and was woken up by Zhan Zhaoyi, not quite understanding, "Huh?"

"Get your hands away!" Zhan Zhao said, and was about to grab Bai Yutang's hand behind him, but Bai Yutang grabbed his wrist, "Don't move!"

Zhan Zhao froze for a moment, the one holding his wrist was Bai Yutang's hand, so what was on his lower back made a "huh".

Zhan Zhao was feeling the chills all over his body, and a gust of wind passed behind him... Shi Shi patted something on Zhan Zhao's back with his paw.

Xiao Liang got up and lit the lamp, and everyone took a closer look - they saw a snake.

The snake looked very strange, it was as thick as a child's arm, milky white, very clean and beautiful, not too thick, it was just an ordinary snake.The only strange thing is that the snake's skin is soft and there are no scales. No wonder no one heard the sound when it crawled in.

"What?" Zhan Zhao couldn't see it, but felt that it was definitely not a good thing.

"It's a snake." Xiao Liang replied.

Show a shock.

"Dead?" Bai Yutang squatted down to look, and saw the strange snake opened its mouth and bit the stone's claw...

The raccoon's claws were as hard and powerful as black gold, and the raccoon itself was also poisonous, so this bite didn't hurt the stone, but it annoyed the stone.

It tilted its head to look at the little white snake, and suddenly... took a bite, chewed and swallowed.

……

"Ah!" The fourth son yelled, "Why are you eating so much, Shitou!"

"That's right, I don't even know what it is." Xiao Liang was also anxious.

Stone blinked, and stuck out his tongue to lick his mouth, as if to say—the taste is not bad.

"Is it okay to eat it?" Bai Yutang was also a little worried, "I don't know if it's poisonous."

"Shishi." The fourth son grabbed Shishi's ears, "spit it out!"

Stone squeaked and went to sleep.

"Did you see what it was just now?" Bai Yutang had no choice but to ask Xiao Liang to make sure again.

Xiao Liang shook his head, "It's like an ordinary white snake... Well, it should be the one with a skin change."

"Change the skin?" Bai Yutang pondered for a while, as if he had heard an allusion that the white snake's skin changing indicated something, but he never quite believed in it, so he didn't remember it.I had to wait for Gongsun to come and ask him again.

Let the white snake make a fuss, and then look, the sky outside is a little white, Bai Yutang thought he should sleep, he has been tossing all night.

As soon as he lay down, Zhan Zhao patted him, "Oh."

"Huh?" Bai Yutang felt a little sleepy, "Still asleep?"

"That...are there any snakes?"

Bai Yutang froze for a moment, then raised his eyebrows suddenly, "By the way, I remembered!"

"What do you remember?" Zhan Zhao asked puzzled.

"That snake is called a beauty snake, and it's not poisonous." Bai Yutang said, reaching out his hand to gently wipe Zhan Zhao's chin, "Didn't you cat just dream about being molested by a female hooligan, and it came true."

"you……"

Zhan Zhao was furious, Bai Yutang shook his head with a smile, turned over and fell asleep under the blanket.

Zhan Zhao lay down, thought for a while, and then got up and shook the quilt to make sure there were no more snakes before lying down and continuing to sleep.

……

The next day, Xiao Liang got up early, brought breakfast and put it on the table, and everyone washed up and got up.

"Can we talk now?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang, "Why didn't the fish disappear?"

"It was a yamen servant who yelled last night." Bai Yutang gave up on it and told him that he passed by, "The yamen servant said that he was patrolling and saw that the door of the room that was closed and used to refrigerate big fish was open. He was curious. , so I walked over and saw the fish come out."

"Come out?!" Zhan Zhao felt incredulous, Xiao Liang and the fourth son also had the same expressions, and looked at Bai Yutang with wide eyes while holding their chopsticks in their mouths.

"I guess I had the same expression yesterday." Bai Yutang picked up a chopstick for Zhan Zhao, and said, "He said he came out, but at first glance he was so scared that his soul flew out, so he yelled that loudly, The big fish did him no harm, however, and hurried to the well and jumped in.

"And then?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"I went to the well to look, and the well water was still stirring, and then I went to the room where the ice cubes were placed, and saw dead rats all over the floor." Bai Yutang said, put down his breakfast, and asked Zhan Zhao, "Isn't it weird? "

"How could the big fish leave?!" Zhan Zhao shook his head, "Could it be that this is a sea mermaid?"

"Isn't the sea mermaid not talking about the human body and the head, but also extremely beautiful?" Bai Yutang smiled half a smile, "That's a whole fish. I've lived on Sunken Island for so long, and I've never seen a walking fish."

"Squeak."

At this time, I saw the stone screaming.

Everyone looked down and saw that it had already finished its breakfast, was standing at the door jumping around, sniffing the ground from time to time.

"There is a white road on the ground." Xiao Liang walked over and knelt down to look.

"Could it be the snake last night?" Bai Yutang also walked over.I saw the white path extending from the outside of the house, which seemed to clearly point out the swimming path of the snake last night.

"Go and have a look." Zhan Zhao patted Bai Yutang and said, "It's a bit strange, why did a snake suddenly come here?"

Bai Yutang thought it was feasible, so he led everyone to search along the shallow or deep white roads on the ground... The white road passed through the back door of the yamen, winding straight and winding, and stretched far and wide until it reached the back of the yamen. It stopped at the southwest depression of a small hill, and turned around, leaving a white circle.

"Is it here?" Xiao Liang asked.

Bai Yutang knelt down and took a look, "Did you lure us here sincerely, or was it just a coincidence?"

Everyone was wondering, and the stones were digging up the ground.

"The soil is very loose." Bai Yutang squatted down to look, and saw that the stone had been dug quite deep, and in a big hole... there appeared some gray-white things—bones!

"It looks like a human hand bone!" The fourth son with sharp eyes stretched out his hand and ordered the stone, "Dig the stone slowly!"

The stone slowed down, and Xiao Liang also helped to scrape the dust out with a branch.

Soon, a humanoid skeleton appeared.

"It's a woman." The fourth son looked at his head, "Very young, in his 20s..."

He raised his face while talking, and saw Bai Yutang looking at the skeleton in surprise.

Bai Yutang has always been a calm person, he seldom changes his face when encountering anything, and it was the first time for the fourth son to see such a puzzled expression on his face.

Zhan Zhao only heard the silence, and asked Bai Yutang, "What's wrong?"

"Uh..." Bai Yutang shook his head.

"This woman is pregnant!" Xiao Liang pointed to the small black skeleton in her abdomen, "at least six months! How pitiful."

"Jin'er." Xiao Liang patted him on the shoulder, "You... look back."

The fourth son turned his face to look over, and also jumped in shock.

"Hello." Zhan Zhao got a little anxious, and pulled Bai Yutang back, "What did you see?"

Bai Yutang replied in a deep voice, "Fish tail!"

"Huh?" Zhan Zhao felt that he didn't hear clearly.

"This corpse is a fish tail!" Xiao Liang said to Zhan Zhao, "Brother Zhan, this is a pregnant sea mermaid!"

"what?"

Zhan Zhao was astonished.

"It seems to be death or death." Bai Yutang said, pointing to the brow bone of the skull, where there was a big hole.

The fourth son also nodded, "And her neck bones were also broken, so she died a miserable death."

"Does the snake want us to see the mermaid's body?" Xiao Liang asked.

"Or..." Bai Yutang patted the dust off his hands and looked at Zhan Zhao.

"Yeah." Zhan Zhao also nodded, "I'm more convinced that someone wants that snake and brought me to see the body of the sea mermaid..."