I live on the 18th floor of Nether Community

Jiang Miao laid out a wet towel to help You Ji wipe his wounds, and when his hands brushed over the strangle marks on his neck, You Ji's brows were visibly furrowed.Jiang Miao sighed and lightened his grip.

"The other party must have kept his life alive on purpose." Jiang Xiao said in a low voice, "Otherwise, You Ji's neck might be strangled directly."

"He has something in his coat pocket."

Hearing this, Jiang Miao put his hand into You Ji's pocket and took out a cigarette case.

"This is..." Jiang Miao's eyes darkened, and he hurriedly opened the cigarette case, only to see six characters written in blood on the overturned case - the Tang family's ancient house in Sui Town.

"Ajiao...Ajiao!" You Ji suddenly opened his eyes, jumped up from the bed, his pupils dilated, gasped for breath, grabbed Jiang Xiao and shouted, "Pi...! Ah Jiao’s skin was peeled off in its entirety! It’s in the Binzhi Guest House in Nancheng!”

"Brother, calm down first."

"I can't fucking calm down!" You Ji seemed to be terribly frightened, and said in disbelief, "His skin just fell on the ground, like paper, without a drop of blood on it..."

Jiang Miao and Qi Chi glanced at each other, and said to You Ji in a deep voice, "Don't worry about getting angry. That skin is not A Jiao's."

"What did you say?!"

Jiang Miao sighed: "Qi Chi took a picture of a beautiful woman." After a pause, he continued, "A Jiao, in fact, he has been looking for his own skin."

You sir was so dazed that he opened his mouth and was speechless for a long time.It wasn't until the wound was accidentally touched that he gasped and said, "So, A-Jiao's face is, is it fake?!"

"You Ji." Jiang Miao rarely called You Ji's name directly, and said seriously, "I don't know what you have in mind for A-Jiao. But it can be seen that you care about him."

"..." You Ji glanced away.

Jiang Xiao: "I don't have to understand you, but you have to be able to understand yourself. For A Jiao, do you really care about this person, or just his face?"

"Fucking bullshit!" You Ji frowned and scolded, "Of course I like this person!" After he finished speaking, he obviously relaxed a little, and asked slowly, "Did you mean to say, A Jiao? It's just that someone peeled off a fake skin, so he should still be alive?"

"Alive." The person who answered was Xichi. He raised his hand and drew a Dao talisman in the air. Watching the talisman light up and disappear, he said solemnly, "But the situation is dangerous."

Jiang Xiao looked at You Ji: "You sir, what happened to you after we separated? Why did you run to Nancheng again?"

You Ji looked around for his cigarettes, Jiang Miao took one knowingly and lit it and put it in his mouth.You Ji took two sips before he opened his mouth and said, "On the way back, he and I met two folk artisans playing shadow puppets..."

……

"The sky is full of clouds and mist, and the clothes are wet, like being next to the Milky Way. Where can I find the misty spring? The misty moon is too cold..."

The gentle tone reached You Ji and Ajiao's ears with the evening wind.Ajiao stopped and looked in the direction where the voice came from.

"This is... an aria from "Luo Shen"." Ajiao said in a daze.

You Ji followed his gaze to the deep alley, and saw two people slowly walking out from the depth of the alley.A man and a woman are about twenty years old.Each of them holds a thin paper figurine in their hands, and they interact with each other by bumping back and forth with the paper figurines while singing.

"Looking like a frightened bird coming to take a picture, it's like a dragon playing on the seashore... Moving and leaning, hesitant and uncertain, watching the separation and reunion of the gods and the yin and yang."

As the figures of the two got closer, You Ji saw that what they were holding in their hands were actually two exquisitely crafted shadow puppets.One of them was wearing a water-blue long dress, with a begonia on his forehead, floating like a fairy, and his eyebrows and eyes were somewhat similar to A Jiao.

"Hey, look at that little shadow puppet, it looks quite similar to you." You Ji smiled at the shadow puppet in the girl's hand and raised his chin, and said to A Jiao.

"This is Luoshen." The girl looked at Ajiao as if she had heard You Ji's words.His expression froze for a moment, and he said foolishly, "I, did I meet Luoshen reincarnated..."

The boy also rubbed his eyes vigorously, and said stupidly: "It's really, really like it! Are you a human or a fairy?"

Ajiao raised her sleeve to cover her mouth, bent her eyebrows and smiled, and asked softly, "It's so late, where are you two going?"

The girl looked straight at Ajiao and replied: "We and the master have just arrived in Yecheng, and in two days we will perform a shadow puppet show in the small theater in Nancheng. No, we have to go outside the theater to guard now. Wait until the door is opened before moving the shadow puppet box in..."

"Tsk, it's not easy. Nowadays, folk craftsmen are really rare." You Ji continued.

"This sister, ah no, brother..." The boy swallowed and said, "Would you like to come and see it then?"

"I..." A Jiao's lips curled into a smile, "If it's a performance at night, maybe it's really okay." After he finished speaking, he looked at You Ji with a smile and said, "Will Sir You go with me? "

"Cough." You Ji coughed pretendingly, and said seriously, "I still have a lot of things to do."

"Really? It's a pity..." Ajiao let out a sigh of regret.

"But it's okay, I seem to have time off."

Really, it doesn't take more than three seconds to pretend.

"Little sister, can you lend me the Luoshen shadow puppet in your hand?" Ajiao looked at the girl and smiled slightly, "I will be very careful."

"Of course!" The girl couldn't refuse A Jiao's request at all, and handed the shadow puppet to A Jiao in a hurry.

Ajiao reached out to take it, and looked at it carefully under the moonlight.But I saw that his expression changed from quiet and gentle to flustered and shocked a little bit...

"Ajiao?" You Ji felt that Ajiao's expression was very strange, looked at him suspiciously and asked, "What's wrong?"

Ajiao looked up at the little girl in a daze: "This shadow puppet... is, who made it?"

"Ah?" The little girl was a little confused by A Jiao's question.Ajiao grabbed the girl's arm and asked again with a trembling voice, "Say! Who made this shadow puppet!"

"Yes, our master did it!" The boy was so frightened by A Jiao's sudden change of attitude that his local accent came out.

A Jiao's body staggered, You Ji hurried forward to support him: "Are you okay?"

"I found it... I finally found it..." Ajiao murmured foolishly to himself, with joy and resentment on his face at times.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the girl quickly snatched back the shadow puppet from Ajiao's hand, and took a step back timidly.

Ajiao took a deep breath, suppressing the mixed feelings surging in her heart.He looked at the little girl again, and said earnestly, "Can you please take me to meet your master? I have something very important to ask him."

"But master, he hasn't gotten up yet."

"Please……"

"But we still have to go to the theater to put the shadow puppet box!" On the one hand, the boy didn't dare to offend the master, but on the other hand he couldn't bear to refuse Ajiao, and his anxious accent became heavier.

You Ji saw that it was time for him to earn his performance, and immediately said to the two young people: "Hey, you don't need to follow, just tell us where your master lives."

The two young men looked at each other, then looked at Ajiao together, and finally nodded hesitantly and said, "It's in Room 302, Binzhi Guest House in the old district of Nancheng."

……

Regardless of the lack of people in the underworld Mingyuan, it is located in the north of Ye City anyway.Unlike the south, no matter how much Ye City develops these years, it still looks dilapidated.

Narrow and messy alleyways, stretches of shantytowns, and intricate wires are a major feature of Nancheng.Correspondingly, those who live here will definitely not be rich people.

Accompanied by You Ji, Ajiao turned from North City to South City according to the address given by the two young people.Along the way, You Ji saw more and more lonely ghosts wandering around the corners and alleys as the direction became more and more south.It can also be roughly seen from their dead appearances that most of their lives were not very nourishing.

You Ji took out two talismans from his pocket and ignited them, and the green smoke went straight down from the talisman papers into the ground.

"Send a message to the brothers below, so that everyone who has nothing to do can come to the south." You Ji said with a dark face while burning paper, "Mother is so messy, how can the people in Nancheng be so poor?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard Ajiao whisper beside him: "Here we are."

You Ji looked at the guest house in front of him at Ajiao's words, and frowned even tighter.

"Is it so unprofitable to play shadow puppetry? You actually live in this kind of place." He patted the ashes on his hands, "But maybe it's because he made money and didn't want to spend it."

Following You Ji's gaze, they saw a dirty billboard in front of them, which said Binzhi Guest House.

The light on the billboard was half broken, and there was a sizzling sound of electricity, and it became a mess.

The light in the guest house was also very dim, shining on the blackened floor that had been laid for an unknown period of time and the sofa with a hole in it, it looked dirty as if there were many mites.

Sitting at the front desk was a fat lady with a full head of perm, holding a corn cob in her hand, facing a picture tube TV and following the sketches in it.After seeing You Ji and A Jiao who entered the door, greasy smile appeared on his face.

"Handsome guy, are you staying at the hotel?"

"We have a friend who lives here." Ajiao nodded politely at the eldest sister, "Room 302."

"Oh, an old man with a yellow face, isn't he? He also brought two children with him." When the fat sister heard that she was not staying at the hotel, her expression collapsed instantly, and she muttered, "Look at what you two are wearing. It’s quite ostentatious, to be friends with the poor guy in that house? I don’t know how three big people can live in only one room!”

Ajiao frowned slightly, but still politely said to the eldest sister, "Then let's go up first."

The fat lady waved her hand impatiently, and continued to nibble on her corn cobs.

You Ji followed Ajiao up the stairs, and along the way, he could smell the stinky smell of his clothes.The sound insulation of the guest house is not good, there are quarrels, children beating, men and women, etc., all kinds of noises... Just when you turned a flight of stairs and walked to the third floor, You Ji suddenly heard a sound coming from the first room A blushing and heartbeating sound.

The important thing is that they are still two men.

"I...fuck..." You Ji couldn't help but sigh.

Ajiao looked back at him: "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

What she was looking at in front of her was Ajiao, a stunning beauty, and an indescribable voice came from her ear.You Ji only felt that his eyes were burning, so he hurriedly walked a few steps and flashed in front of A Jiao.

The two stood at the door of 302, and Ajiao took a deep breath to stabilize his mood.Then he raised his hand and knocked lightly on the door twice.

No one in the room responded.

Ajiao patiently knocked twice more.

Still no response.

The violent temper of the downstream season came up again, knocking on the door like a police raid to crack down on pornography, and shouting harshly: "The ones inside, hurry up and open the door!"

After a while, there was a violent coughing sound in the room, and then an old voice sounded.

"Who?"

"Don't ink, hurry up!" You Ji shouted pretending to be impatient, and then turned his head to wink at A Jiao triumphantly.

Ajiao smiled helplessly, and You Ji felt his body and mind fluctuate again.

The door creaked open from the inside, and then an extremely sallow face protruded from the inside.

Looking at this man's face, You Ji even suspected that he must not live long, and even considered whether to help him call a ghost soldier to lead the way.

The old man looked at You Ji with his cloudy eyeballs, coughed violently again, and asked weakly, "Who are you looking for?"

You Ji took a step back, and said coldly, "It's not me, it's him who is looking for you."

The old man's gaze moved from You Ji's body to the person behind him dully, and his pupils shrank suddenly after seeing A Jiao.

"You, you are...!"

"You recognize me?" Ajiao asked the old man with a frown.

The old man stared at Ajiao for a long time, his body undulating violently, but he didn't say a word for a long time.

In the end, Ajiao couldn't help but said first: "Old man, I met two of your apprentices on the road. I would like to ask, did you make the shadow puppet in that girl's hand?"

"Cough, cough, cough—!" The old man coughed and clutched his chest out of breath, and You Ji always felt that he would have to pass in the next second.

"It's me..." The old man nodded slowly.

A Jiao's eyes darkened: "Then do you know what is the raw material for making shadow puppets?"

"I know it myself."

"You know?" Ajiao's expression became gloomy.

The old man covered his heart, breathed heavily from his nose, and said hoarsely: "I know what you want to ask, the one who should come will come sooner or later..."

After he finished speaking, he turned around, walked to the bedside table, picked up the tea-stained water glass and swallowed two pills.

Old man: "You want to ask me, where are the remaining skins now, right..."

"Tell me." Ajiao bit her pale lips and forced out a few words from between her teeth.

"Yes." The old man turned to Ajiao and said, "But this matter is about the secret of the Tang family, this person must avoid it."

He was referring to Yuji.

"Me!" You Ji was about to refute, but Ajiao turned around and looked at him with a consoling smile, and said softly, "You sir, please go out and wait for me."

"Can……"

"Don't worry, I'll come out as soon as the matter is clarified."

You Ji stared at Ajiao for a while, finally nodded and said: "All right, then I'll go downstairs to smoke a cigarette and wait for you."

"Sorry, Sir You."

"Well."

……

The author has something to say: the libretto quotes excerpts from the Peking opera "Luo Shen".