The sky was terribly gloomy, with heavy dark clouds pressing down, and everything was leaden gray. The wind seemed to be getting stronger and stronger, and on the mountain, thousands of branches were swaying left and right, and the leaves were surging like waves. In such weather, the sanatorium looked even gloomier.
When the off-road vehicle passes through a muddy road, it sways from side to side and only relies on its strong grip to avoid slipping.
Jing Xian was driving, and Lu Yingjiu was sitting in the passenger seat catching up on his sleep.
It's half past seven in the morning.
Ye Feng was restless after listening to Lu Yingjiu's story about Zhao Ziming and Spider. He still felt that he should go to the villagers to ask for clarification. So he asked Xiao Li to go out in the rain more than half an hour ago.
Lu Yingjiu calmed down the big dragon in red clothes, asked them to stay in a room and not walk around, close the doors and windows, block the gaps between the windows and doors with towels, and finally gave them a few more talisman papers.
The two were extremely panicked, especially A-Long, who was almost crying.
Lu Yingjiu could understand their feelings very well, but now was not the time to comfort them slowly.
He asked the man in red to keep an eye on A'long, borrowed his SUV, and prepared to go look for Ye and Li - they must be having a hard time walking in the mud.
In the car, Lu Yingjiu was fed with a hand-pulled pancake and a cup of soy milk by Jingxian.
The pancake was filled with cheese, egg, and ham, the lettuce was crisp and tender, and the fillings were so filling that the whole pancake was puffy. The soy milk was smooth and delicious, and the fragrant and hot taste drove away the coldness of the rainy day.
Lu Yingjiu ate his meal in small bites and asked vaguely, "Where did you get this from?"
"I made it myself." Jing Xian said, "Weren't you trying to comfort someone at the time? I'm not good at this, so I borrowed the hotel's kitchen."
Lu Yingjiu was skeptical about this "borrowing".
But he thought it would be better not to find out in detail how Jing Xian "borrowed" the money, as the result would definitely be beyond his imagination and would raise his blood pressure.
Anyway, after finishing breakfast and taking a nap for ten minutes, he finally saw the two people in the rain.
Ye Feng and Xiao Li were in an extremely miserable state.
My shoes were soaked, my clothes stuck to my back, my pants stuck to my calves, and my socks were full of water. It was really uncomfortable.
They borrowed an umbrella from the hotel, but the umbrella was extremely thin. When blown by the strong wind, the ribs were about to fall apart and could slip out of their hands at any time.
Jing Xian drove the car over and honked the horn gently.
The two men turned around.
Lu Yingjiu rolled down the window and said to them, "Come on in, there are towels in the back seat."
They were stunned for a moment, then opened the car door and got in.
There were several thick towels on the back seat, which were brought out from the hotel room by Hongyi and placed in the car. They picked them up and started wiping them vigorously.
"Oh my God," Xiao Li wiped the rain off his face with a towel and couldn't help but sigh, "Luckily you guys came. If you were a little later, I would have been blown away by the wind. What kind of bad weather is this..."
Ye Feng said: "What a pity, we didn't find out anything."
Lu Yingjiu asked, "How many households have you asked?"
"I don't know." Ye Feng thought for a moment, "There are at least a dozen or twenty families coming from the south. It's raining heavily, and there are people in almost every family, but their attitudes are not very good, and they all say they don't know."
When he heard Lu Yingjiu say that this village was a bit strange, he was cautious and did not tell everyone everything. He just said that a friend of his was bitten and he wanted to study the spiders here and inquire about the sanatorium.
I ended up ringing the doorbell.
The first person to open the door was a middle-aged woman. She said, "Who cares about spiders? I see so many bugs every day. Why should I study them one by one?"
The second one was a young man: "I just got here and I don't know anything."
The third one was a sturdy man: "You guys are still live streaming on a rainy day? You are crazy..."
Just as Xiao Li was about to explain that they were not anchors, the burly man slammed the door shut.
Next, the villagers' attitude became extremely cold, probably because they were annoyed by the harassment from the anchors.
Ye Feng used a towel to wipe his hair roughly, causing clumps of hair to stick up here and there. He concluded, "In short, we found nothing. There are only two or three families left in this area, and we were just about to go and ask them."
"Where is it?" Lu Yingjiu asked.
Ye Feng pointed in the direction and the SUV headed that way.
The last few families were scattered.
Jing Xian stopped the car in front of the nearest store and said, "There are several large umbrellas behind the car."
Ye Feng turned around and felt around, and sure enough, he found them. They were all long-handled umbrellas with thick and heavy umbrellas, and he took some effort to take them down.
Just right, four in total.
Ye Feng asked: "Do you two want to get off the car? Actually, it's enough for me to hold Xiao Li, so that you don't get wet again."
"It doesn't matter. I've already been caught in the rain this morning." Lu Yingjiu said indifferently, taking the black umbrella from Ye Feng, "Let's go together."
Since he was going, Jing Xian would definitely follow him, so he took the last umbrella.
As soon as Ye Feng and Xiao Li opened the door, strong wind mixed with rain rushed in. The two of them were splashed with rain in the face. They struggled to open the umbrella against the wind.
It was the same when Jing Xian opened the door. The wind blew his black hair, and he held out his hand to hold the umbrella.
Lu Yingjiu was also about to get off the car when he suddenly heard a "click!"
Loud, crisp and decisive.
He looked back.
Jing Xian held half of the umbrella and looked at him innocently.
… The reason why it is half an umbrella is because the upper half of the umbrella has disappeared.
Lu Yingjiu subconsciously looked outside the car and saw a black object that looked like an umbrella rib connected to an umbrella, fluttering in the wind.
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
Jing Xian said, “It’s broken.”
Lu Yingjiu silently handed him the umbrella in his hand, thinking, isn't this right, it was cut in half directly.
This time, Jing Xian opened the umbrella safely.
Ye Feng and Xiao Li's umbrellas swayed left and right in the wind and they were almost impossible to hold on to.
But Jing Xian didn't know what method he used, even when the umbrella was blown by the wind, there was not even a wrinkle or shake.
When he walked around to the passenger seat and opened the door, Lu Yingjiu didn't feel any rain at all. He single-handedly blocked all the wind and rain.
So Lu Yingjiu inexplicably thought that when Jing Xian walked beside the abyss of the ghost world, it should be the same scene - no matter how the strong wind tore the flesh and blood of other ghosts, Jing Xian could still walk by lightly. If he wanted to, the wind couldn't even lift the corners of his clothes.
Lu Yingjiu got off the car, and Jing Xian naturally hugged him. They felt safe and secure under the umbrella, with no wind or rain, and it was like a little world of their own.
but…
Lu Yingjiu said, "You broke the umbrella on purpose, didn't you?"
Just based on this performance, even a typhoon can't blow Jing Xian away.
Respect for leisure and pause.
Seeing his reaction, Lu Yingjiu understood everything and said helplessly: "This is someone else's umbrella, how can you just break it?"
"It's not that I won't compensate you." Jing Xian saw that he was exposed, so he simply stopped pretending and laughed softly, "I just want to share an umbrella with you."
Lu Yingjiu was stunned.
He didn't expect Jing Xian to suddenly hit him with a straight ball. He didn't know how to respond, so he just said: "What is this, a walk in the rain?"
"It should be called a typhoon walk." Jing Xian still smiled, "It's just a hardcore romance."
"It's a good thing you could think of that." Lu Yingjiu smiled.
They walked towards the lighted house in the wind and rain.
The family's doorbell was broken and there was no response no matter how many times they pressed it.
Ye Feng started knocking on the door. The house was brightly lit, but no one came.
He was getting impatient and was about to knock a few more times with more force when the door suddenly closed by itself.
His hand paused awkwardly in mid-air.
Bright light poured out from the house, lengthening the shadows of the four of them. The person who opened the door was a woman in her thirties, with almond-shaped eyes, pigtails, and shiny black hair.
There's a gentle temperament about her that makes people feel good about her.
When she saw them, she was stunned for a few seconds: "What... is going on?"
Ye Feng said: "Don't worry, we are just here to ask about the nursing home. You don't have to let us in, we can just stand outside."
"Sanatorium," the woman bit her lip and said, "I don't know much about it..."
It seems there is no hope this time.
Ye Feng said, "Do you know what's going on with the spiders here?" He began to make excuses, "One of our friends was bitten yesterday, and the wound is still swollen. I wanted to ask if there is any folk remedy in the village that can cure it."
He has been using this trick of "making friends out of nothing" all the time.
The woman stopped talking, looking a little hesitant.
Looks like there's hope!
Ye Feng's eyes lit up, and he added, "Anything is fine, it will definitely be of great help."
The woman began to look at the four of them.
Fortunately, Lu Yingjiu, Ye Feng, and Xiao Li are all young and kind, and they don't look like bad people, except...
Her eyes fell on Jing Xian.
In a flash, Lu Yingjiu poked Jingxian quickly.
Jing Xian immediately gave a "friendly" smile - he had mastered this skill over the past two days and could finally pretend to be somewhat friendly.
The woman looked him over and over again, and finally said, "Come in. It's not a good idea to stand outside in this heavy rain. I'll make you a cup of hot tea."
She smiled and said, "You can call me Amei."
Jing Xian whispered in Lu Yingjiu's ear: "How well am I pretending?"
The voice was low, mixed with the sound of rain, making people's ears numb and itchy.
"Not bad," Lu Yingjiu said, "good progress." He lowered his head and smiled.
The four of them walked in, put their umbrellas aside, and changed into clean slippers.
The rain slid down the umbrella and instantly formed a small puddle of water, which was showing a trend of continuing to expand.
Lu Yingjiu looked around.
Although the house is small, it is neatly decorated. The whole room is beige, suitable for women. There are artificial flowers on the windowsill of the living room, white cloth on the dining table, and even the dust cover on the TV has beautiful rose patterns.
A-Mei went to the kitchen to make tea.
They sat on the sofa, which was very old and had a lot of frayed areas on it, as if it had been scratched by the claws of a pet.
Do you have a cat or a dog? Lu Yingjiu wondered.
He looked around subconsciously, but saw no signs of pets.
The TV was on, and a clear female voice came: Now it's the weather forecast. The Meteorological Observatory issued an orange typhoon alert at 3 o'clock this afternoon. This year's 17th typhoon "Lang Zhu" is moving northwest at a speed of 16 kilometers per hour. The radius of the level 7 wind circle is 150-250 kilometers...
"'Wolf Spider', I don't like this name..." Xiao Li muttered, "It sounds too unlucky."
After a while, A Mei put three cups of chrysanthemum tea on the table and sat opposite them. Ye Feng observed carefully and found that just as Lu Yingjiu said, she put the teacups up with her left hand.
Is left-handed.
The tea is piping hot and exudes a fresh fragrance.
Ah Mei asked: "Are you the anchor?"
Ye Feng said: "No, my relatives stayed here for a while before, and I wanted to come here to play, but I didn't expect to encounter this kind of thing."
"Oh—" Amei smiled, "I see."
Lu Yingjiu leaned forward slightly and asked, "What about the spiders here? Have any of you been bitten?"
"I haven't heard of anyone being bitten. They only seem to bite tourists, probably because they are shy. So, we don't have any folk remedies to treat spider bites."
A smile flashed across Ah Mei's face, but she realized that it was inappropriate, so she lowered her head, took a sip of tea to cover it up, and continued, "This matter started a long time ago. You must have heard the rumors about the sanatorium on the mountain, right? There were accidents with the patients there, some of them disappeared mysteriously, and some died."
“I probably heard about it from other anchors.” Lu Yingjiu said.
What Amei said was consistent with what Ye Feng said.
Ah Mei nodded: "That's fine. I was too young to remember much at that time. My mother told me about it later. At that time, the sanatorium had just had an accident. The village knew a little bit about it. Everyone was very scared and was thinking about whether to move away."
"My mother was also going to take me with her, but before we left, there was a heavy rain and the way out was blocked by a mudslide."
Xiao Li: "Ah then and now..."
"Yes, it's just like now." Ah Mei said, "In the end, my family didn't escape. Gradually, the villagers realized that only the people in the courtyard were in trouble, so they were not so scared anymore. Later, the roads became smoother, and not many families escaped."
This is the same as what Ye Feng said.
Lu Yingjiu asked, "Do you know anything else? About sanatoriums or spiders, or anything related to patients or exorcists, anything small will do."
This time Amei was silent for a long time.
She unconsciously turned the cup in her hand, her fingers exerting force, and her finger bones turned slightly white.
She glanced quickly out the window.
It was gloomy outside the window and I couldn't see anything clearly.
Then she lowered her voice and said, "There's another thing that other people don't talk about... My mother secretly told me that she felt that after the mudslide, there were a lot of spiders in the village."
Ye Feng and Xiao Li looked at each other—
Lu Yingjiu asked, "What's so special about those spiders? Haven't you seen any strange patterns on them?"
What he actually wanted to ask about was the human face in the spider's abdomen.
Amei frowned.
After a long while, she said, "I don't remember much..." She held her forehead slightly, "I tend to get headaches when it rains, and I can't remember it all of a sudden."
She didn't look fake.
Although Ye Feng was anxious, he couldn't ask any more questions, so he said, "How about this, I'll leave you my contact information. If you remember, you must contact me."
A-Mei nodded: "Okay." She pressed her temple.
Before leaving, Amei saw them off to the door.
The four of them went out holding umbrellas.
Lu Yingjiu was being held by Jing Xian's shoulders. He was thinking seriously about the situation. He took a few steps and suddenly heard Ye Feng say, "Oh no! I just changed my phone number and it seems I left the wrong number. Go back quickly."
He took a few steps, but Xiao Li didn't catch up.
He turned around and saw that Xiao Li had fallen behind and was standing in front of Amei's window, staring into the house with a focused expression.
Ye Feng was shocked: "You, you, you are peeking! How can you do such a thing!"
Xiao Li waved at them without saying anything.
Ye Feng went up to him and pulled him: "Come with me quickly, I don't want to watch."
Xiao Li refused to leave.
When he got closer, Ye Feng noticed that there was something wrong with his expression.
Lu Yingjiu, who was standing next to him, also looked serious and walked over quickly.
Ye Feng looked towards the window.
Thick curtains blocked most of the window, leaving only a corner exposed on the side, where the light leaked out.
He leaned over.
The house was empty.
Ye Feng was stunned for a moment, then his eyes moved downwards. Under the bright light, he could only see one person lying prone—Amei was crawling on the floor using her hands and feet!
At this moment, Ye Feng's hands and feet felt numb!
The fear in his heart was like a raging wave, but after all, he had been in the business for a long time and his reactions were quick. He subconsciously held his breath and looked behind Amei.
—His talent is not low. If he observes carefully, he can still see most of the ghosts.
But Amei's back was clean.
There is no little devil lying down.
In other words, she was doing this entirely on her own volition... which was even more creepy.
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
He narrowed his eyes and his gaze fell back on the claw marks on the sofa.
Was it really caught by cats and dogs
Ye Feng immediately took out his mobile phone and prepared to record the video.
Suddenly, a strong wind blew, the chill was sharp, and the rain was blown sideways, all splashing onto the screen. The screen was not sensitive enough to see the water droplets, and he cursed inwardly, swiping several times before turning on the recording function, aiming the camera at the gap in the curtains—
At this moment, he was pulled back by Lu Yingjiu.
Ye Feng was stunned for a moment, but soon found out why: a pair of eyes were staring at him, with clear black and white.
Amei stood up at some point and looked at the two of them through the gap.
Xiao Li was holding a piece of talisman paper and was about to throw it away, but he was frightened by this scene and took a step back.
Bumped into someone.
He turned back stiffly: it was a man in his fifties, wearing a dark raincoat over his old shirt, with sunken eye sockets.
Xiao Li: "Ahh! Oh my god!"
Lu Yingjiu patted him on the shoulder and said, "It's okay, it's okay. He's a human."
Xiao Li looked carefully. Although the light was not strong, the man in front of him had a shadow, and his face was ruddy and there was no sinister aura. He definitely did not look like a dead person.
Moreover, the man looked very familiar.
No matter how you look at it, it's the village chief Feng Mao!
Feng Mao frowned and said, "Why are you here? What are you doing? You're sneaking around. Are you trying to steal something?"
Xiao Li then remembered Amei and turned back suddenly.
The curtains have been drawn.
Feng Mao poked his head out and took a look: "What are you looking at? There's nothing there." His brows furrowed even more and he sighed heavily, "You are thieves. I shouldn't have given you the map to the mountain yesterday. You must have had no good intentions!"
Ye Feng calmed down and assured him, "Absolutely not. We are here to ask questions. If you don't believe me, you can ask the families in front of us."
Feng Mao looked at them, half believing and half doubting: "Then what are you looking at outside the window? Do you think Ah Mei is a fool and want to take advantage of her? I see that you four grown men are so shameless. I warn you, don't bully others like that."
"... Idiot?" Ye Feng hesitated.
"That's right." Feng Mao snorted, "You youngsters are still pretending. You stay here and I will teach you a lesson when I get back."
Lu Yingjiu remained calm and didn't say a word throughout the whole process.
Feng Mao held an umbrella and arrived at the front door of Amei's house and knocked.
He held an umbrella in one hand and something in the other.
After more than ten seconds, footsteps were heard in the room.
Ye Feng quietly held a few talismans in his hand, just in case.
Squeak—
The door was unlocked.
Ah Mei stood at the door, her eyes dull and her hair disheveled, looking as if she hadn't combed her hair in more than ten days.
Where is the neatness from before? It's crazy.
Lu Yingjiu frowned.
Feng Mao handed over the plastic box in his hand and said, "This is the food I made for you tonight. Eat slowly."
A-Mei paused for a few seconds, then suddenly madly snatched the lunch box, put it on the table, and gobbled it up with her hands.
The way he ate was just like a wild beast, with rice all over his face.
In just a few minutes, the lunch box was empty.
Ah Mei threw the lunch box to the ground, laughed strangely at them, and shouted: "Ashes! Ashes, ashes, ashes! Only ashes are useful, hahahaha!" Then she ran back to the inner room, slammed the door, and never came out again.
Feng Mao sighed.
As he put the lunch box away, he said, "I brought her chopsticks, knives and forks, but she always hurt herself, so I just stopped bringing them." He looked at Ye Feng and Xiao Li, "What's wrong with your expressions? Are you scared by her?"
"No, no, that's not it." Xiao Li opened his mouth, "We, we just listened to her talking..."
"Talk?" Feng Mao laughed. "How is that possible? In a year, she is lucky if she can speak three complete sentences. But one year, she forced a few tourists to come, saying that there were spiders here and they were not allowed to come. Those people were scared to death - of course, they were all scared by her."
Ye Feng said: "Wait, what's going on with the spider?"
"She's afraid of spiders."
"Something's wrong. There are too many spiders here, and they appeared overnight."
"There are so many bugs in the mountains. How can I catch all the spiders? If I get bit, do I have to turn into Spider-Man?" Feng Mao picked up the lunch box. "You city people are just ignorant. Go away, come with me. Don't come near her house anymore, or I'll call the police and have you arrested."
He chased the four people away.
…
Back to the car.
As soon as Ye Feng closed the door, he murmured, "Something is wrong. It's really wrong. There is definitely something wrong with this village."
"I think so too." Xiao Li was still in shock, glancing out the window from time to time, as if he was worried that Feng Mao would follow him. "Since it started raining yesterday, the whole village has been gloomy."
Ye Feng took a deep breath.
This morning, his family members sent him the route for visiting the grave.
But it was raining and something like this had happened, how could we possibly go up the mountain
They also shouldn't abandon the dozen or so anchors and innocent villagers who hadn't left yet - even though this village was extremely weird, it couldn't be that all the people there were abnormal, right
"Let's go back to the hotel first." Lu Yingjiu said, "See how they are doing."
The SUV headed to the hotel.
When they arrived at the place, Ye Feng and Xiao Li got off the car, but there was no sign of Lu Yingjiu.
Lu Yingjiu rolled down the window and said, "You guys go up and see how those people are doing. It's better to gather all the people from other places together, so it's safer." He then said, "Don't you have ashes in your crocodile toy? Remember to put it away."
Ye Feng nodded and asked, "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to go check out something and I'll be back soon." Lu Yingjiu said, "It's okay."
He rolled up the window.
The air conditioner in the car was whirring, and the wind mixed with raindrops hit the glass.
He took a deep breath and said respectfully, "Go directly to Feng Mao's house."
Feng Mao's home is not far from the hotel, maybe just a ten-minute drive away.
Along the way, Lu Yingjiu stared out the window expressionlessly, the butterfly knife in his hand constantly flying up and down. His fingers were slender, and it was really pleasing to the eye to play with, as if he was really a nimble butterfly fluttering.
If someone who is familiar with him saw this, they would know that he had murderous intentions.
When we arrived at the place, we parked the car steadily.
Jing Xian took the umbrella and was about to open the door when Lu Yingjiu stopped him.
Lu Yingjiu said helplessly: "Don't break it again, I will share an umbrella with you."
So Jing Xian was very satisfied and opened the umbrella intact.
He first went around to the co-pilot seat to pick up Lu Yingjiu, and while the others were away, he went even further and directly reached out and pulled Lu Yingjiu out.
The light from Feng Mao's house shone through the rain, lengthening their shadows.
The red door was right in front of them, tightly closed, as if hiding thousands of secrets.
I could vaguely see a figure walking by the window. The few pots of flowers outside the window had been destroyed by the typhoon, and the bright petals were mixed with the soil.
They stood side by side in the wind and rain, the sky darkened in the distance, and the sea of trees collapsed. A typhoon named "Wolf Spider" swirled, breaking through the sultry air in the south and bringing a great rainstorm.
Jing Xian leaned down slightly and asked Lu Yingjiu in his ear: "Are you scared?"
His tone was teasing: After all, they all knew the answer to this question.
Lu Yingjiu glanced at him.
The eyes were filled with the same helplessness as always, but with a hint of smile. The light illuminated his delicate skin, from his forehead to his smooth jawline, from his neck to his delicate collarbone, all covered with a layer of light, and just by looking at it, one could imagine the wonderful touch.
Jing Xian's Adam's apple rolled up and down, and the hand that was holding him tightened a little.
"Don't be afraid." Lu Yingjiu said lazily, and the butterfly knife in his hand flew beautifully again, "Aren't you here with me?"