The mines south of Gengsheng Town were among the first to be closed. They have been abandoned for more than 20 years.
The terrain near the mine is dangerous, and the town government has designated that area as a no-entry zone. Even if Shi'an has great magical powers, he still has to follow the process - Qi Xin did not take them to the mine immediately, but led the five people towards the center of the town.
She wore a pair of old-fashioned flat shoes, and the soles of the shoes made a clicking sound on the stone pavement, and the regular sound was like the ticking of the second hand.
"Eat a full meal and buy some things before going. There are no homes near the mine, and you can't find any drinkable water." Qi Xin explained.
On the way, everyone in Shi'an fully felt the "enthusiasm" of the local people.
It's Tuesday, work time. The street they were on was like a promenade in a nursing home. There were all old people walking back and forth, and there were not even a few children.
The old people walked very slowly, and their cloudy eyes followed the crowd.
The townspeople ignored Qi Xin who was walking at the front, and their eyes were fixed on the five Shi'an people. If the vision had real meaning, the latter's journey would have been like a straw boat borrowing arrows, and everyone would be sieved.
Fortunately, Ge Tingting and Huang Jin were protected by Shi'an's protective spiritual weapon, and their special abilities were suppressed, so they would not suffer too much interference.
Even though he looked as outstanding as a sword, he could not withstand the unusual hostility of the townspeople. Rather, he and Zhong Cheng said they received much more malice than the other three.
The other four people in Shi'an said: "..."
His technique supported the old man's legs, and the old man assumed a very classic forward leaning posture of 45 degrees, and every wrinkle on his face showed confusion.
Lord Ghost King took a few steps back with concern, just shy of drawing the border between Chu, He and Han: "Old man, are you okay?"
Yin Ren didn't worry about his reputation in Gengsheng Town at all. He was busy looking around the streets.
And in this half-dead building cluster, the circular line goes back and forth again and again.
It divides Gengsheng Town into two inner and outer circles, passing equally through the lifeblood of this mountain town. The fog has not yet dissipated, and the shadow of the train shuttles through it, like a giant snake, and the rumbling sound of the train is getting closer and further away.
"It's okay." The old man looked uncertain and slowly let his body return vertically to the ground.
It is simply the most dynamic thing in Gengsheng Town. The train broke through the mist all the way, and the scene was solemn and spectacular, somewhat reminiscent of the past.
The situation is not normal.
A few decades ago, they were still at the forefront of trends. Now those portraits are all mottled and faded, covered in dust, with more or less deformed evil things stuck to the edges.
The old man was hunched over and walking on the side of the road, half a step away from Yin Ren. He approached the group of people slowly, looking only at the ground.
The buildings are all low-rise, with cracked and mottled paint on the surface, and the originally bright colors are stained with dirt. The shop signs still use the old-fashioned official script font, accompanied by rustic scenery pictures, and a few unknown male and female celebrities are added.
The child fell down in front of them and howled loudly; a few vicious dogs broke free from the chains and ran towards everyone with drool... As soon as Ge Tingting took two steps into the street, a flowerpot fell from the sky and almost touched her. His back fell to the ground. Ge Tingting was so frightened that he almost got scratched by the fragments of the flower pot.
However, at the moment when he was closest to Yin Ren, the old man suddenly screamed and fell face forward... halfway.
Yin Ren admired it very attentively and passed by a dry old man.
Yin Ren breathed a sigh of relief and turned his head towards his companions: "This town is too strange, everyone, please be careful."
"Just eat here."
But so what
The situation was so weird that Xiang Jiang, the team leader, ignored it, and even Qi Xin remained calm, as if all this was a common occurrence.
The architecture here retains many styles from the last century, giving it the feel of an old movie.
It was obviously broad daylight and we were walking on a regular street, but this journey felt like we were seeking Buddhist scriptures from the Western Heaven, and people from all walks of life were waiting in the street to welcome us.
After walking for about thirty minutes, the footsteps as precise as a second hand stopped, and Qi Xin finally spoke.
Her voice was hoarse and not very pleasant. For everyone in Shi'an, those words are like the sound of nature ringing in their ears - ghosts are scary at night, and people are scary during the day. This ghost place really makes people not want to stay for a second longer.
Their destination is a bakery.
The store itself was not big, and the signboard was so smokey that it was hard to read. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in at least decades. However, the store is clean and there are no stains on the tables and chairs. There was the sound of oil boiling in the back kitchen, and the fried round cakes were stacked fairly neatly. Their skin is charred and slightly brown, and they exude an attractive oily aroma.
Next to the stainless steel plate containing the pancakes, two deformed hungry ghosts lay prone. They swayed their skeleton-like bodies and passed through the cakes with their hands again and again. The hungry ghost's protruding belly rubbed against the white tiles, making a squeaking sound.
It seems that the cakes here are really good, Yin Ren commented fairly in his heart.
Qi Xin: "Ten beef pancakes, served with clear soup, ready to eat. Twenty pork pancakes are packed, and we pick all the pancakes ourselves."
The shop owners are a father and daughter. Compared to the expressionless old father, the daughter is a little bit nicer to them.
Before his daughter could say anything, the old man spat on the ground in front of everyone: "It's just a small amount of money. I just want to pick and choose. I won't sell it!"
"We pick it ourselves." Qi Xin repeated indifferently.
"I won't sell it! I don't know where the bastard came from, but I still want to take care of him."
"Stop talking, Dad..." The daughter tugged at the corner of her mouth, "Sell it, it's your choice."
Qi Xin glanced at the old man: "They are Mayor Ren's guests."
Hearing this sentence, a sneer came from the corner of the store: "Guest? She, Ren Jiying, has the face? If her parents weren't still from here, that woman would have been killed long ago." "You can't lead San from outside. I don’t know what An is thinking when a bad person comes back..."
"Seeing the sky, there are many things happening, and the chain line named Ren wants to move..."
That sneer was like a stone thrown into water, causing countless ripples.
The old people in the store started talking in low voices. The dialect here is softer, and whispers flow like a drizzle. But they brought strong hostility, and the drizzle turned into steel needles.
"I heard from my daughter that these people are going to the mine."
"Mine? Why don't you just die there and feed it to ghosts?"
"Did Ren Niuer finally react?"
The townspeople did not shy away from the nine groups on one side, assuming that they did not understand human speech. Everyone's views were surprisingly consistent, and there was no trace of discussion at all.
The relief on Yin Ren's face gradually disappeared.
Amid the humming whispers, an inexplicable sense of familiarity gripped him. The colors in front of me were blurred, and the sounds in my ears suddenly faded away. In a daze, he seemed to smell the stench and black smoke of corpses from thousands of years ago.
That feeling of familiarity did not come from the immediate malice, but from something deeper and more essential.
It floats in the air, adheres to evil things everywhere, and flows in the eyes and words of the townspeople... To put it bluntly, it is the breath of "this mountain town".
Bang, the bamboo basket containing the meat cakes was placed on the table.
The beef pancakes exuded a rich aroma. Yin Ren shook his head and his attention fell back to the ground from the sky. Needless to say, he noticed another serious problem -
"There are only nine loaves." Beside Yin Ren, Zhong Cheng said matter-of-factly.
“My dad dropped one while he was pretending,” the daughter explained. “The beef was sold out and he was cooking it now.”
Qi Xin seemed to want to say something, but in the end she lowered her eyes and remained silent.
Soon, the old man came over holding the freshly baked pancakes with steel tongs. He tossed the cake into the basket without any fuss, and the splash of hot oil almost hit Zhong Chengshuo's face.
The pancakes were placed in front of Zhong Chengshuo, so he simply went to get the freshly baked pancakes. But as soon as Zhong Cheng's chopsticks were halfway extended, they were suddenly pressed down by Yin Ren's chopsticks.
"Eat this for me." Yin Ren said with a smile.
He couldn't help but take away the steaming fresh pancake.
In the eyes of Lord Ghost King, this cake is far less attractive than its appearance. The meatloaf was laden with a malicious taste, almost covering up the aroma.
Yin Ren took a bite of the cake. From the corner of his eye, the old shopkeeper grinned, not hiding the anticipation on his face.
Click.
The beef patty was fragrant and crispy, but after a few bites, Yin Ren chewed something hard and foreign. The foreign object was thin and smooth, and smelled like metal.
There is more than one sewing needle.
His feeling was indeed good. The xenophobia in this town had reached the point of "mental abnormality".
Yin Ren sighed, chewed up the needles, and swallowed them together with the pancakes.
He ate quickly, keeping his eyes on the old shopkeeper as he chewed.
The smile on the latter's face gradually disappeared. He looked at Yin Ren as if he had seen a ghost, and after a while he ran back to the kitchen and broke open the unfinished pancakes one by one to look at them.
Zhong Cheng said he reacted instantly. He immediately turned to Yin Ren, with some raw worry in his brows. A strand of Yin Ren's hair quietly stretched out and wrapped soothingly around Zhong Chengshuo's ankle.
Until they left, the old shopkeeper was still working hard to break the bread and inspect it.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, they arrived at the foot of the mine carrying bags full of oil cakes.
More than twenty years later, the mountain is still bare and mottled like a burned scalp. Compared to the "man-eating mine" they had imagined before, the small entrance seemed unremarkable.
The target mine is embedded in the rocks, and most of the fixed wooden bars at the entrance are rotten. The entrance to the mine was covered with a crude wooden door, which was not locked and only had a ring of faded red cloth hanging around the outside.
The extremely rich evil spirit overflowed from the entrance of the cave, as ominous as the breath of a wild beast. Those red cloth strips were windless and automatic, more like some kind of sacrificial props than warning lines.
Xiang Jiang stopped outside the circle of red cloth, his turbid eyes looked at the cracks in the wooden boards, and his eyes penetrated into the depths of the mine.
"Ms. Qi is here. We'll clean up a little and come out."
He played with the spiritual weapon wood piece in his hand and spoke to the toe of his shoe.
"There are high-risk evil things that can be raised by sinking animals inside. While I'm stabilizing it, you can collect as much data as you can, and we'll do research back at the company."
Yin Ren and Zhong Cheng looked at each other.
Their execution mission finally came.
(End of chapter)