“Buzz buzz buzz—”
“Buzz buzz buzz—”
At six o'clock, the sky was hazy.
The phone vibrated beside the pillow. Lu Yingjiu closed his eyes and fumbled for a few times before picking it up: "…What's the matter?"
"Chief Lu, when can you come to the club? Is it okay now?" The person on the other side was a little flustered. "A new commission just came in. That ghost killed three or four people in succession. They all said they are waiting for you to come and deal with it."
"I understand." Lu Yingjiu still closed her eyes, "I'll come over now."
After hanging up the phone, he sat up with his eyes closed, put on his slippers skillfully, and went to the bathroom to wash up.
His sleep quality is poor, so he is used to seizing every opportunity to catch up on sleep.
After washing his face with cold water, his sleepiness finally dissipated a little. He changed his clothes, turned on the light in the living room, and prepared to get a loaf of bread from the refrigerator before going out.
The cow cat was sleeping in the living room. When it saw the light come on, it meowed twice.
Lu Yingjiu grabbed the cold toast in one hand and scratched his chin with the other, causing him to snore.
"Go back to sleep." He said with a smile.
There was no time to heat up the bread, so he ate a few bites while it was cold, changed his shoes, and prepared to turn off the lights in the living room.
When he turned off the lights, he was stunned for a moment.
There seems to be a little crack and warping on the wall directly opposite.
Could it be that there was a water leak somewhere, causing the wall to peel off
Lu Yingjiu was just about to take a closer look, but in a blink of an eye, the crack disappeared.
The walls are clean.
He frowned slightly, thinking to himself that he was really too sleepy.
After reaching the basement, he drove the second-hand Honda to the Qingdeng Festival.
There were almost no cars on the streets early in the morning, and the journey was smooth. By the time he parked his car and walked to the gate of the Green Lantern Festival, the sky was already very bright.
Several anxious exorcists came up to him and quickly explained the situation to him:
The general story is that there was an old man named Cai who had been living in the old building for three decades, and then the building suddenly became haunted.
Not only that, the ghost killed four tenants in succession.
The other residents had all run away early, only the old man stayed there.
"Old Man Cai said that his wife hasn't come home yet, so he absolutely cannot leave, for fear that his wife won't be able to find him and will be scared." Xia Ping'an told him.
Xia Ping'an is Lu Yingjiu's assistant.
Lu Yingjiu asked, "So where is his wife?"
Xia Pingan replied: "He has been dead for about 10 years. Old man Cai is crazy and has forgotten about this. I just asked the president for instructions. He said we can see if we can bring the old man out by force. What do you think?"
"Let me go to the scene and take a look." Lu Yingjiu said.
"Plop, plop, plop—"
"Plop, plop, plop—"
"... What's wrong with you?" Xia Ping'an's voice came from a distance.
Lu Yingjiu came back to his senses: "I'm fine."
"Hey, I just talked to you, but you didn't seem to respond..."
Lu Yingjiu rubbed his brows and said, "I may be too tired. Please tell me again."
"Oh, okay." Xia Pingan began to tell what happened.
Five minutes later, Lu Yingjiu and a few others got into the car.
Xia Pingan drove them quickly to Yihe East Road, where several dilapidated old houses were located on the side of the road.
One of the buildings was cordoned off with yellow and black police tape, and there were police officers guarding it.
Everyone passed through the cordon and went upstairs.
The stairwell was covered in graffiti and advertisements, and there was a faint gloomy aura and a faint smell of blood.
Several bloody handprints were left at the corner, very creepy.
The entrance to the sixth floor was open, and an old man in a sweatshirt was sitting on a recliner, muttering something.
Lu Yingjiu knocked on the door: "Hello?"
The old man didn't respond.
Xia Pingan whispered, "Just walk in, he doesn't really care about people."
So Lu Yingjiu walked in and saw the old man holding a wedding photo tightly in his hand.
Old man Cai's face was green, his eyes were cloudy, and he looked listless and didn't care about anyone at all. He looked a little scary.
Lu Yingjiu said for the first time: "Hello, I am from the Qingdeng Society..."
“Bang!!”
The box in the corner fell off.
Lu Yingjiu looked over and saw a black cat with scarlet eyes glanced at him and then disappeared under the sofa in an instant.
"Strange." Xia Ping'an muttered, "No one has ever mentioned that he has a cat at home."
Lu Yingjiu frowned slightly.
He heard some chattering coming from the bedroom.
He opened the bedroom door, and a large group of things poured out.
Ragdoll cat, rabbit, hamster.
Canary, monkey, puppy.
There is even a scarlet snake and a little peacock.
Xia Pingan was stunned: "His house is like a zoo, this is too outrageous. Cats and dogs are fine, but how come there are even peacocks?! Is this snake poisonous?! Damn it, don't come over here!!"
He hid in a corner in fear.
The animals rushed towards Old Man Cai and climbed onto his legs.
For a moment, the scene was in chaos, with the barking of dogs and the meowing of cats mixed together, and a few birds flying around in the air.
It was not until this time that a smile appeared on Old Man Cai's face.
This is obviously a breakthrough in communication.
Lu Yingjiu asked, "Are these all your pets?"
This time, Old Man Cai finally turned his head and looked at him: "Yes, I have raised it for many years."
Lu Yingjiu sat down on the sofa again: "Where do you usually go to buy food for us?"
"It's nearby!" Old man Cai patted his shriveled thighs. "I can't walk, so I usually go to the nearby pet shop! Young man, do you like animals too?"
"I like it very much." Lu Yingjiu smiled and nodded, "I have a cat at home."
Old Man Cai immediately became excited, picked up the blue-green peacock, and said, "I like you the most. Your name is Chu Banyang."
"Chu Banyang?" Lu Yingjiu was stunned for a moment, "Your lover's last name is Chu?"
"What?" The old man snorted, "My surname."
"Then why did you choose such a name?" Lu Yingjiu tilted his head slightly.
Old man Cai was stunned for a moment.
A certain confusion overwhelmed him.
But he quickly said: "Nothing, because that's my name."
Lu Yingjiu didn't hesitate and pointed at the red snake and asked, "What's your name?"
"Ye Feng."
"What about the monkey?" He pointed at the monkey.
"Chen Zheng." The old man replied, and patted the puppy's head again, "This is Zhang Shuwan."
Lu Yingjiu smiled: "They are all people's names."
"Of course." The old man still hummed, "They are all my family, of course they have names."
“Bang!!”
Something fell in the corner again.
The pitch-black cat knocked the remote control down and stared at Lu Yingjiu with its red eyes across half of the living room.
"What about it?" Lu Yingjiu pointed at the black cat and asked, "What's its name?"
This time the old man thought for a long time, and after an unknown amount of time, he answered hesitantly: "It seems... it seems that his last name is Jing."
"Are you free?" Lu Yingjiu asked.
"Oh, right!" The old man slapped his thigh happily, "How did you know?!"
Lu Yingjiu was also stunned.
Then he smiled and said, "It's okay, I was just guessing, I didn't expect it to be right."
—His conversation with the old man was quite fruitful.
Old man Cai felt that he had a good relationship with him, so he told him everything: for example, at what time in the early morning screams were heard from the neighbor's house; for example, who was present when blood was oozing from the corridor; for example, the victims all mentioned that they heard knocking on the door in the middle of the night.
In the end, the old man was still holding the wedding photo, muttering to himself.
The novice exorcists were horrified when they heard this, but the experienced ones were all calm and composed.
After asking, Xia Pingan came up to the old man and asked, "What do you think? How should this ghost be killed?"
"That ghost is probably his late wife." Lu Yingjiu said, "Come with me, I have an idea."
Xia Ping'an has unconditional trust in Lu Yingjiu: time and again, Lu Yingjiu has convinced him.
This time will not be an exception.
However, after two days of waiting, the female ghost lost her patience and started to appear and kill people again.
The corridor and the ceiling were oozing blood crazily. Lu Yingjiu walked through the scarlet blood with a blank expression, and drove away the screaming female ghost.
That day, all the residents of the old building returned, filled with joy at having survived a disaster.
Only Old Man Cai was crying in the room, shouting, "I can't come back... I can't come back... I can't come back..."
A group of animals surrounded him. They were all human-like and tried their best to comfort him.
"Live well." Lu Yingjiu said to him, "Just think of it as doing it for us."
The old man nodded while crying.
And the next moment, he stretched out his hand with strange agility and grabbed Lu Yingjiu's wrist tightly again - the strength was also enormous.
His cloudy eyes, filled with tears, stared at Lu Yingjiu.
He said, "Lu Yingjiu, your time has come."
"..." Lu Yingjiu frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Do you like them?" Old Man Cai didn't answer him, nor did he let go. "Do you like them? Don't you want to take them home?"
Lu Yingjiu smiled and said, "I like you, but you raised us. How can I take you away?"
"...Yes, you are right. We know where home is," the old man continued to stare at him, cracking his lips, revealing a few dry and dark yellow teeth, "but you don't know."
The peacock was beside him and pecked his clothes gently.
"There's something I want to tell you." The old man patted the back of Lu Yingjiu's hand.
"He said, go home quickly before it gets dark, or it will be too late."
…
Back in the car, Xia Pingan asked, "Chief Lu, can I take you home?"
"Okay." Lu Yingjiu nodded, lowered his seat and prepared to catch up on some sleep, "Just drop me off at the bus stop."
He closed his eyes.
In the distance there was a huge setting sun, falling towards the end of the city, and its scarlet light filled the world.
"Plop, plop, plop—"
"Plop, plop, plop—"
The heartbeat sound appeared again.
The whole soul is trembling with it.
Lu Yingjiu thought that he really should have a good rest.
The car drove silently and stopped at the bus stop when there was still a little light in the sky.
Lu Yingjiu got up and got out of the car, holding the door and said, "Thank you."
"Oh, you are too polite." Xia Pingan said with a smile, "Then I will leave?"
"Yeah." Lu Yingjiu nodded, and suddenly called him again, "Safety."
"What's wrong?" Xia Ping'an looked at the scene in front of him. A thick shadow covered half of his face.
Lu Yingjiu said, "Didn't you die two years ago?"
Xia Pingan didn't answer him.
There was a rustling sound from the seat, and a small red snake, with its tongue spitting out, silently wrapped around his neck like a bloody ribbon.
This is the old man’s pet snake, and it actually followed them into their car.
The little snake spit out its tongue several times.
Xia Pingan reached out and touched the snake's head: "Tell me, your time is running out, remember the way home."
Lu Yingjiu wanted to say something else.
The heartbeat sound came up again.
"Plop, plop, plop—"
"Plop, plop, plop—"
"Plop, plop, plop—"
He was extremely depressed, almost going crazy.
He frowned almost in pain.
When he came to his senses, he was the only one on the street.
Perhaps the old man and Xia Ping'an's instructions were lingering in his mind, Lu Yingjiu really quickened his pace and walked on the way home.
He disappeared completely in the daylight and returned home.
As soon as he entered the house, the cow cat rubbed against him with its tail erect and meowed.
Lu Yingjiu smiled unconsciously and turned on the light in the living room.
Bright lights filled the house.
Cow Cat is very well behaved and doesn't cause any damage even when he is not at home for a few days.
Lu Yingjiu glanced over and suddenly, his eyes stopped on the wall opposite.
The cracks in the wall appeared again.
“Meow—”
A cat's meow sounded behind me.
Lu Yingjiu then remembered that she hadn't closed the door yet. She turned around and saw the black cat with blood-red eyes sitting obediently at the door.
"Why did you follow me?" Lu Yingjiu asked, "Your name is... Jingxian?"
The black cat swung its tail, stood up, and walked gracefully into the door.
I don't think of myself as a human being at all... or a cat.
Suddenly, an uninvited guest appeared at home, and it seemed that he could not be driven away. Lu Yingjiu smiled helplessly, closed the door, took off his shoes, and began to pour cat food for them.
The cow cat ate his meal with big mouthfuls, while the black cat showed no interest and just stood nearby wagging its tail.
While they were eating, Lu Yingjiu looked at the wall again.
The crack disappeared again.
He thought to himself that he was so tired that he was hallucinating, and he really had to take a leave of absence.
The black cat paced over to the wall and scratched it hard with its claws.
"We can't do this." Lu Yingjiu quickly hugged him.
However, there were already several claw marks on the wall.
"Meow--" the black cat called, still trying to stretch its claws towards the wall.
Lu Yingjiu said: "How could you do such a destructive thing? You've only been here for eight minutes and you've already scratched my wall."
"Meow." The black cat bit his tiger's mouth.
I didn't use much force, but it still left shallow tooth marks.
"Why are you biting me?" Lu Yingjiu frowned slightly, "You are also a little ancestor."
The black cat took another light bite and showed its sharp claws to the wall.
As if to hint at something.
This time, Lu Yingjiu followed his gaze.
A bright patch on the wall.
It seems... there are a few cracks
The crack was thinner than spider silk, and it would be impossible to see it unless you looked closely.
When Lu Yingjiu noticed the crack, the black cat suddenly broke free from his arms and scratched the wall with its claws.
This time Lu Yingjiu suddenly understood: "You want me to build the wall by myself?"
"Meow—" The black cat raised its tail.
Lu Yingjiu: "…Is there something on the wall?"
The black cat didn't respond, just looked at him with its scarlet eyes.
Lu Yingjiu always trusted his intuition: there must be something wrong with this wall.
But this is his home, what could be inside the walls
He found the tools, including screwdrivers, electric drills and hammers, and laid them out neatly.
After a lot of trouble, Lu Yingjiu knocked off a few pieces of wall with a small hammer - they were smashed to pieces on the ground. The cow cat came over and sniffed curiously, then left again.
When the last piece of wall peeled off, he leaned forward to take a look.
There was no cement, no bricks, nothing at the crack.
Only one eye.