Ye Feng was furious this time and stood up suddenly: "Impossible! What evidence do you have?!"
Ah Mei raised her head and looked at him: "It's been many years, and I don't have any substantial evidence. I overheard their conversation, and it's impossible for me to record it. Besides, I don't know how to exorcise ghosts, so how can I figure out what happened?"
"Aren't you just spitting blood out of your mouth?!" Ye Feng clenched his fists, but when he saw Ah Mei's pale cheeks and determined expression, he felt as if his anger was hitting cotton, and he became even more irritable.
Ah Mei then spoke up: "Ashes, I only know ashes."
Ye Feng was stunned.
Lu Yingjiu also remembered the ashes that were placed in the little crocodile toy.
Ah Mei said: "Your grandfather once said, 'Only ashes can pray to her.' I don't know the rest. Later, they summoned the Spider Mother, and the dogs in the village began to transform into spiders."
She closed her eyes and said, "My mother used to be a cleaner in a nursing home. She didn't know how to exorcise ghosts at all. She just did simple cleaning every day. She was even not allowed to enter some patients' rooms. But you have a so-called activity called 'worshiping the mountain'."
"The people who come to pay respect to the grave are mostly exorcists who use some scraps of paper talismans or something like that. My mother doesn't understand anything. But you have to bring offerings when you pay respect to the grave, such as a lot of paper money, paper ingots, or all kinds of apples and meat. During grand ceremonies, they will also carry two or three suckling pigs or roast geese... In short, they have everything for worship."
"For several of our exorcists, just carrying the talisman paper is heavy enough, not to mention the mountain roads they have to climb. So, they occasionally ask other people to help carry the things and give them some extra money. My mother has done this twice."
Ye Feng slowly loosened his clenched fists.
Although there was still a mixture of anger and horror in his heart, the situation described by Ah Mei was the same as what he learned from the elders of the Ye family.
Plus the ashes thing...
Could it be that Amei didn't lie
Confused thoughts crowded into his mind like a tangled mess.
The sound of rain became a little softer, dripping on the top of the pavilion, and then slowly flowing down the body of the carved snake.
The others didn't know what was going on. They just stared at each other, not daring to ask.
Lu Yingjiu asked, "So, your mother has participated in the mountain worship?"
"Yes." Ah Mei nodded, "She also died because of the Baishan incident. There were accidents during the Baishan incident. One was in 1995 or 1993, I can't remember, and the other was in 2000."
She coughed heavily twice again, her face paler. "Both accidents were caused by mudslides caused by heavy rain. The first time they were just trapped on the mountain and soon returned to the courtyard safely. The second time they were not so lucky. Several lives were lost. My mother died because of this."
Ye Feng's face also turned pale and he slowly sat down.
Lu Yingjiu asked him in a low voice: "When did your second grandmother pass away?"
"00..." Ye Feng murmured, "It was exactly 00, but they clearly told me that she died of illness."
Ah Mei added: "They didn't say that my mother died in the nursing home."
She smiled sarcastically, "You don't know the situation at the time. In fact, many villagers have a lot of opinions about the sanatorium. They think it's unlucky. Who would want their mountain to be full of ghosts? In this case, if something happened in the hospital and their employees died, how could the sanatorium continue to operate?"
"So after the mudslide, the people in the courtyard found me and asked me to announce to the public that my mother had fallen when she was climbing up the mountain by herself."
"Are you satisfied?" Lu Yingjiu asked.
"I'm very satisfied." Ameitan said, "Because they gave me a large sum of money. With that money, I can go out to study. My mother's dream is to send me out of this small mountain village. We have never seen so much money in our lives."
"What's hateful is that half a month before I left, all the people in this village turned into spiders. The spiders can't leave this mountain range for the rest of their lives, and I'm trapped here. Going with you this time is my last gamble."
"That's why," she almost gritted her teeth, "I'm so unwilling. Obviously, if I had been a little later, I could have left this village and never come back! It's just too fucking unfair!"
There was another gust of wind outside the pavilion, bending the sea of trees.
The woman's face was covered with a mixture of rain and sweat, and was filled with anger.
I don’t know how much time passed before Amei took a deep breath.
Then she slowly relaxed her lower body muscles.
"Now that things have come to this," she added, "I am not bringing this up to blame. After all, you are the one who meant it, and you are the one who took the money, so I have no right to speak any more. I just want to point out that your so-called 'second grandmother' may not have died in such a simple way."
"If the Spider Mother granted a wish, she would definitely make the wisher pay a price. That must be why there are those strange disappearances and deaths in the sanatorium."
"You said your second grandfather came back here again and again to find the prime minister. I'm afraid it was not out of a sense of responsibility, but guilt."
There was no more speech for a while.
Ye Feng sat there dejectedly. Even though the rain came in and soaked half of his body, he was completely unaware.
There was a long silence.
Finally, it was Lu Yingjiu who spoke first: "The rain has subsided, let's hurry up and get on with our journey."
He patted Ye Feng on the shoulder, signaling him to cheer up: "Think about it when we get there, these things are things of the past."
This topic made the already bad atmosphere even more serious.
Everyone hurried on in silence, heading for the hilltop where the next pavilion was located.
There were no spiders along the way. The typhoon was so strong that I could hardly open my eyes. The rain poured down on my face without a break for even a second.
Even on the way to the third pavilion, a thick branch fell from the sky and hit the top of the two people's heads. Fortunately, Lu Yingjiu reacted quickly and directed Mao Tuan to fly out and grab the branch in one gulp, avoiding any danger.
Fortunately, after a while, they saw that there were no pursuers behind them and had a good rest in the pavilion. Everyone calmed down and finally did not fall so badly on the mountain road.
According to the mountain worship route drawn by Ye Feng, they don’t need to walk the entire way.
There are 35 hilltops in Wanming Mountain, which means there are 35 pavilions, and the distance between them is not too far.
According to the route, the 21st pavilion was very close to the main road at the foot of the mountain, and the journey took no more than 30 minutes. They only needed to reach the 21st pavilion and then survive the dangerous journey to reach the place with smoke.
We walked all the way down and finally approached the 10th pavilion. The time showed 8 o'clock in the evening.
Lu Yingjiu looked back and saw that everyone looked tired and their pace had obviously slowed down a lot - even though he had been constantly applying talismans to them and distributing the hot tea and snacks that Jingxian had given him along the way.
I saw another man's hands trembling slightly.
Lu Yingjiu remembered that he was the one wielding a fruit knife at the foot of the mountain.
Along the way, Jing Xian looked at this person with great displeasure, as if this person would be doomed if Lu Yingjiu was not there.
Lu Yingjiu sighed softly and poured him another cup of hot water: "Drink something, we're almost there."
The man was stunned for a moment, took it, and whispered, "... Thank you."
After this round, there was no hot water left in Lu Yingjiu's cup, and the thermos cup was empty.
He felt a subtle hint of guilt.
It wasn't because he regretted giving away the hot water, but because he felt that Jing Xian had given him a bottle of hot water specifically for him, and now he didn't even have time to drink a few sips, and his attention was all on the surrounding environment and the talisman paper.
He was afraid that Jing Xian would be unhappy, and just when he was about to say something to Jing Xian, Jing Xian secretly hugged him to the side.
Then she quietly gave him a new thermos cup.
When Lu Ying opened the door, he saw that it was filled with hot wolfberry tea.
Jing Xian smiled at him and said, "Drink it quickly."
Road to welcome wine:
His eyes fell on Jing Xian's mysterious backpack again, and he couldn't help asking: "How big is your bag..."
"It's not that big." Jing Xian still hugged him and said with a muffled laugh, "Drink it quickly, this is for you. Don't share it with others."
Upon hearing this, Lu Yingjiu couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth.
He looked down and saw that there were some large characters engraved on the thermos cup: LYJ Exclusive
The handwriting is beautiful and the strokes are powerful, which is completely in Jingxian's style; this strange and cute behavior is also completely in Jingxian's style.
but…
Lu Yingjiu asked again: "Why does your name need to be abbreviated in Pinyin?"
"I'm afraid others will see it." Jing Xian said as a matter of course, "How can I let others know my wife's name casually?"
"What?" Lu Yingjiu laughed, "What kind of weird concept do you have? It's just like a primary school student."
"Don't worry about it," Jing Xian urged him, "Just drink it."
Lu Yingjiu held the thermos cup and took a sip.
The fragrance exploded in his mouth, and the warmth warmed the tip of his tongue, falling down like a ball of fire, soaking every drop of blood. He drank a few mouthfuls in a row, and suddenly he felt too warm and comfortable all over.
"Is it delicious?" Jing Xian asked him.
"Yeah." Lu Yingjiu nodded.
Jing Xian stuffed him another bag of snacks: "Is this delicious?"
Lu Yingjiu laughed and said that this was just like coaxing a child, but she still replied, "It's delicious."
Jing Xian's eyes lit up immediately, and after a few seconds, he said, "Look, after a few days, have you started to like me a little bit?"
The drunkard's intention is not wine, and the leisurely person's intention is not tea.
In a sense, the meaning of respecting Xian is also about the wine... the one he is hugging now.
Lu Yingjiu smiled at him with his eyes curved: "Guess."
Jing Xian said: "Then he must like her a little bit."
“Well,” Lu Yingjiu still smiled, “I won’t tell you even if I guess right.”
When Jing Xian saw him smiling like that, his heart was as happy as a little deer, jumping around and skipping, and he wished he could make eighty cups of wolfberry tea for him.
Unfortunately, the environment was really bad, so Lu Yingjiu let go of Jingxian's hand, quickened his pace, and continued to walk to the front to explore the way.
Another half an hour later, everyone finally arrived at the 10th pavilion.
According to Ye Feng, the location of the 10th pavilion is very good, and it is specially built for mountain worshippers to rest. Now that we have arrived at the place, it is indeed the case. The pavilion is on the top of the mountain, and a little below is a mountain lake, and there are five old wooden houses.
One of the wooden houses was broken, with half of the roof gone. The furniture in the house was exposed to the wind, sun and rain all year round, making it impossible to live in. There was another house with complex patterns painted on the walls. They were talisman paper from the Ye family, and no one knew what was hidden inside.
The remaining three rooms are still intact.
In order to visit the spiritual sanatorium, the anchors brought a series of things, including instant food, snacks, small canned food, flashlights, and sleeping bags.
Although a lot of things were left behind when fleeing the hotel in a hurry, it was a blessing in disguise that the remaining things could be used here.
They were divided into two groups, one group cleaned the house and plugged the leaks, and the other group sorted out the edible and digestible things.
The rain was very light, just a little drizzle.
I don’t know if it’s a good sign.
Seeing that there was no problem with the anchors, Lu Yingjiu went to find Ye Feng again because Jing Xian didn't know what he was doing.
Ye Feng was squatting in front of the wooden house with the talisman paper, studying it and muttering something.
Lu Yingjiu stood beside him and asked, "Can you solve it?"
"It can be solved. It's very simple." Ye Feng replied, "These talismans are not familiar to me. Moreover, they are very old and have not been maintained. They have faded a lot and the effect is far from being as powerful as it was a year ago."
He checked it carefully again, took out a few pieces of talisman paper and pasted them on the door of the wooden house.
A few seconds later, accompanied by a creaky sound, the door of the wooden house opened automatically.
The stale smell came over him, very pungent. Ye Feng covered his nose with his sleeves and walked in quickly.
Lu Yingjiu thought, although Ye Feng looked fine, his every move still showed anxiety.
He must still be upset because of what happened between Ye Deyong and Zhang Nianyun.
Sure enough, Ye Feng started searching around as soon as he entered.
There is a small bed in this room, as well as several cabinets and bookshelves filled with books.
Those books were basically all damaged due to moisture, and would fall apart if touched. Ye Feng quickly glanced at them and said, "These should be the books that the Second Master has read. This should be a small private room of his."
He ran his hand across the head of the bed and picked up a photo on the bedside table.
The people in the photo are Ye Deyong and Zhang Nianyun.
They stood side by side on the rooftop of the sanatorium, with an endless sea of trees behind them. A huge morning sun was rising from the green sea, and the light it emitted dyed a beautiful orange-red sea of clouds.
Zhang Nianyun wore a simple dress and smiled beautifully, showing her unique charm. Ye Deyong's expression towards the camera was still indifferent, but there was a smile in his eyes.
Ye Feng gently wiped the dust off the two men's faces and said, "You know, all along, I thought that you, the Second Master, would never get married in this lifetime."
He sighed, "He had a weird temper and liked to exorcise ghosts. He didn't even glance at the most beautiful woman. He remained single until he was over 50 years old. Suddenly one day, he met the second wife. They hit it off right away, and almost everyone was stunned."
Ye Feng continued, "I don't know exactly how they met or what happened. But they had a very good relationship. They were obviously two older people, but they were still as close as a young couple. After his second grandmother passed away, he was indeed depressed for a very long time."
Lu Yingjiu was silent for a while, then asked, "So do you think he would sacrifice his principles for love?"
"… I don't know." Ye Feng smiled bitterly, "To be honest, I don't know. Before today, I firmly believed in him, but now I don't know."
"After all," his fingertips stroked the photo again, "I have never had any passionate love, I don't know what love at first sight is, I don't know what it means to die for love, and I don't know what I can do for love. Perhaps, I have never really understood Second Master."
They didn't know how long it had been before they smelled the faint aroma of food coming from next door.
It smelled like instant noodles and sausage.
It seems that those anchors have finally made some progress.
Ye Feng sighed deeply: "However, if he sacrificed the sanatorium and made a wish to the Spider Mother in exchange for Second Grandma, then why is Second Grandma still like this today?"
I guess Zhang Nianyun is still climbing some mountain.
If they continue walking, they might bump into her.
"You also know," Lu Yingjiu said, "making a wish to a ghost is very risky. Nine times out of ten, the final result is completely different from what you imagined. Maybe the Spider Mother did bring back Zhang Nianyun, but she is just a crazy, ghost-like Zhang Nianyun."
"…Yes, you are right." Ye Feng couldn't help sighing, "Between life and death, it is not so easy to cross."
He touched his waist bag again.
Feel the outline of the key.
This time when he escaped, he took all of Erye's belongings with him, including the small note, the bronze key, and the little crocodile doll.
The number on the note had been seen in the nursing home, and they also had some guesses about the doll's ashes.
But I don't know what the key is - Ye Feng took a photo and showed it to his family, but no one knows what lock it can open.
Originally, Ye Feng was in this room, wanting to see if there was a corresponding lock.
But it was just a guess after all, he didn't see anything that could be opened.
Ye Feng had just figured it out when he suddenly heard Lu Yingjiu say, "Is there something under the bed?"
Ye Feng was stunned for a moment, then he and Lu Yingjiu worked together to move the bed away.
The bed was moved to the side amidst a flurry of dust. There was indeed a small pull ring at the very end of the bed, but it was invisible unless you looked carefully.
Lu Yingjiu took the initiative and opened the door with some effort.
A wooden staircase appeared before my eyes.
Shining the flashlight down, I saw another small room with a bed, a bookcase, a desk, and even a small wardrobe.
The two looked at each other, and Ye Feng was the first to pick up the flashlight and go down the stairs.
The stairs creaked underfoot, making her feel uneasy, but they still supported the weight of the two men.
When she took a look downstairs, she could tell from the color of the bed sheets, the hairbands on the desk, the skirts in the closet, and the various jewelry and earrings in the drawers that this was obviously where a woman lived.
Lu Yingjiu asked, "Your Second Master and Second Madam still sleep in separate rooms?"
Ye Feng was also surprised: "I don't know what's going on. But the Second Master's snoring is really loud... I can't sleep next to him, or rather, I feel that no one can sleep well."
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
There is no way to refute this reason.
There was nothing special about the little room.
It was originally a temporary resting place and there were not many personal items.
Except that there seemed to be something buried under the clothes in the closet.
When Lu Yingjiu reached out and touched her clothes, she felt something foreign.
He reached out and touched something, his fingertips touched some kind of metal object, it was quite large. He told Ye Feng, took out all the clothes, and piled them on the bed temporarily.
When the clothes were cleared away, this time, what was underneath was finally revealed.
That's a huge... rectangular iron box
The iron box was locked with a huge lock, which was very large and out of proportion to the size of the entire box.
Lu Yingjiu stretched out his hand and knocked on the box with his knuckles. A relatively hollow "dong dong" sound was heard.
"What the hell is this?" Ye Feng was confused.
Lu Yingjiu said, "It can't be your second grandmother's private money."
"Impossible, impossible." Ye Feng rejected it decisively. "Why would she need to keep her own money? All of Second Master's money is hers, and he still has to ask her for living expenses every month."
Lu Yingjiu looked at the huge lock again.
He suddenly remembered something: "Ye Feng, take out the key. The one among your grandfather's belongings."
Ye Feng was also startled when he heard this, and when he realized what was going on, he immediately took out the key in a hurry.
The key was a little longer than his palm and heavy.
He tried to put the key in the lock -
The penis was inserted into the vagina.
Lu Yingjiu and Ye Feng looked at each other.
They originally guessed that the key should correspond to a very large door, but they didn't expect it to be such an unremarkable small box.
Ye Feng held the key tightly and swallowed.
His legs were beating so fast that his hands were almost sweating.
This should belong to Zhang Nianyun. He wondered if it was related to the Spider Mother's affairs. Would it tell them what the elixir was
He turned the key.
He didn't know if it was because the lock was very old, but it felt very heavy in his hand and it took a lot of effort to turn it. Veins bulged on the back of his hand.
“Click—”
Finally, after a moment, the lock was opened.
Ye Feng took off the lock and put his hand aside. Lu Yingjiu reached out and touched the lock, frowning.
The padlock actually had a very strong talisman fluctuation.
Without this key, I'm afraid there is no way to open it. Even if it is placed in a ghost-exorcist family, this is the highest-level and most complicated talisman paper.
What is worth protecting in this way
Zhang Nianyun is also from a family of ghost exorcists. Could it be that this is some secret of the Zhang family
Ye Feng opened the iron box.
There was another blank piece of paper on the top. He picked it up and saw only one line of numbers:
"What is this?" He scratched his head. His mind was blank. "This is not their wedding date. Did they secretly have a child? Is this the child's birth date?"
"… No," Lu Yingjiu said, "It shouldn't be any of their children. No one knows this date."
Ye Feng was stunned: "Ah? You know?"
"Yeah." Lu Yingjiu nodded.
The flashlight shone on his cheeks, outlining beautiful lines, and his fan-like eyelashes cast shadows. There was not much expression on his face, and when he breathed gently, the light dust in the air was dancing.
He said, "It's my birthday."
Ye Feng was completely confused.
Lu Yingjiu reached out and took out the things from under the iron box.
There were a lot of papers underneath, stapled together. He reached out and picked up a stack, from which suddenly a dozen photos fell.
The photos swayed and fell to the ground.
Ye Feng looked carefully.
Surprisingly, all of them are photos of Lu Yingjiu!
The photos are very old and faded, and they show Lu Yingjiu as a child. He carries his schoolbag to school, he builds sand castles on the beach, he squats down to touch the head of a stray cat on the roadside, he plays hopscotch at the door of his house...
All of them are daily photos.
It looks like it was taken secretly.
It was as if... something had been spying on him!
Why is it that the person in the photo is Lu Yingjiu
Could it be that Zhang Nianyun or Ye Deyong had once monitored him
For a moment, the room fell into dead silence.
The two men looked at the iron box in confusion.
After an unknown amount of time, Lu Yingjiu let out a sigh of relief.
He picked up a few photos and turned them over.
The backgrounds of most of the photos are blank, with nothing on them.
But on the back of one of the photos, it says 1/59 in black pen.