When Lu Qingjiu got off the train, it was already completely dark. With his heavy luggage, he wanted to take a taxi, but the taxi drivers refused to hear where he wanted to go.
"Shuifu is too out of the way, don't go." The taxi driver looked up and down at Lu Sake with a bit of vigilance in his eyes.
Lu Qingjiu was looked at inexplicably, he said, "Master, why don't you add money?"
The driver hesitated for a moment: "Did you come back from out of town?"
Lu Qingjiu nodded: "Yes, I came back from city a." He pointed to the suitcase next to him.
The driver saw Lu Qingjiu's suitcase and gritted his teeth, "How much did you add?"
Lu Qingjiu calculated the distance and said, "Two hundred lines?"
The driver was relieved: "Okay, come up."
Lu Qingjiu felt relieved, quickly put his luggage in the trunk, and sat in the co-pilot's seat.
It was already early in the morning, and the streets were empty. I saw a few taxis in a hurry occasionally. The weather was still a little cold in the spring, and Lu Qingjiu, who was wearing short sleeves, rubbed his cold arms.
It is far from City A and belongs to the outer suburbs of the province. Its economic development is far from that of City A. Most of the surrounding buildings are relatively low-rise buildings, revealing an old taste.
The driver drove forward, asking if there was something in his mouth. Lu Qingjiu answered it one after another, and only then did he know the reason why the driver didn't want to go to Shuifu.
Shuifu is a relatively remote village, some distance from their county seat. Two taxi drivers died there some time ago, and the murderer has not yet been found. Later, there were rumors that the two drivers were not killed at all, but because they collided with dirty things, so the taxi drivers in this area don't like to go there, especially this dark night...
If it wasn't for the two hundred yuan Lu Qingjiu added, he would really have to stay in the county town for one night today.
"What are you doing back from City A?" The driver looked ahead and chatted with Lu Qingjiu, "Is your hometown here?"
Lu Qingjiu said, "Yeah, it's not going well outside, so I simply resigned, thinking that there are still a few fields at home."
The driver said: "How can this backcountry be so fun, young man, I don't think you can stay here any longer."
Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu just smiled and didn't answer. He came back this time after careful consideration, not just a whim.
The car went all the way forward, driving through the narrow country road, and the surrounding environment became more and more remote. At the end, no light could be seen around, only the endless night was left.
Lu Qingjiu had been on the train for a day, and after chatting with the driver for a while, he became a little sleepy. When his eyes were about to fall asleep, the driver suddenly braked.
Lu Qingjiu woke up suddenly, and asked suspiciously, "What's wrong?"
"You... can you see that thing in front of you..." At this time, the driver's face was terribly ugly, his eyes were round, and his whole body was still trembling slightly, as if he might faint at any time.
"What?" Lu Qingjiu was stunned for a moment and looked forward. When he saw clearly what was in front of the vehicle, he showed the same expression as the driver.
I saw a white thing floating on the narrow mountain road, because the distance is a little far, I can't see clearly, but I can vaguely see that it should be a person...
"What's this?" The driver's tone was as if he was about to cry. If it weren't for the fact that it was too narrow to back up, he would have turned around and ran right away.
Lu Qingjiu: "…"
"Ah, that thing is floating over!" The driver grabbed Lu Qingjiu's arm in fright.
Lu Qingjiu: "Calm down, there are no ghosts in this world!" As soon as he finished saying this, the driver next to him screamed again, "That thing is approaching us!!"
Lu Qingjiu looked forward and found that the white figure was actually approaching them, and the driver beside him was screaming like a pig.
"That seems to be a person!" However, as Bai Ying approached, Lu Qingjiu could see that the person in white clothes was indeed a person. Although the appearance was not very clear, it should not be something strange.
"It's a person." Lu Qingjiu felt that his arm was about to be snapped off by the driver, and hissed, "Master, stop catching me, that's really a person."
"People?" The driver seemed calmer.
The figure slowly walked in front of them. Using the headlights, Lu Qingjiu finally saw Bai Ying's appearance. It was a man dressed in white. He looked very handsome, with no expression on his face. He stopped in the taxi. next to the co-pilot's seat.
"Sir?" After confirming that this is a human being and not some strange dirty thing, Lu Qingjiu felt a little relieved, he rolled down the car window, revealing half of his face, and said, "This place is so biased so late, you have What's the matter?"
The man glanced at Lu Qingjiu, then at the shivering taxi driver next to Lu Qingjiu, smiled slightly, and said, "It's okay, I can't sleep at night, so I came out to find something to eat."
Lu Qingjiu thought to himself what food you can find in this wilderness at such a late hour, but there are weird people everywhere, and he doesn't like to talk about people's hobbies, so he smiled politely: "Yes, then you pay attention. Safety."
Hearing the words, the man suddenly stretched out his hand and patted it on the taxi door, then turned to leave, and his figure gradually disappeared in the dark night.
It wasn't until he disappeared that the driver on Lu Qingjiu's left caught fire again and continued to drive towards his destination. It's just that he was so frightened that he didn't speak much for the rest of the way.
Lu Qingjiu didn't take this episode to heart. After he got out of the car, he thanked the driver, took out two hundred yuan from his wallet and handed it to the driver.
The driver took the money and didn't say a word, just drove away, looking like he was being chased by a ghost. It seemed that he would not receive another order from Shuifu Village for a long time.
Seeing the appearance of him fleeing, Lu Qingjiu laughed dumbly.
It was the darkest time of the day, the surrounding buildings were hidden in the darkness, and only the quiet sound of insects could be heard. Lu Qingjiu dragged his luggage and walked towards the location of his old house based on his memory. He hasn't come back for three years, and the most recent one was at his grandmother's funeral. After that, the old house was abandoned, and I don't know what it looked like at this time.
The surrounding buildings changed slightly, but the general direction was still right. After walking for more than 20 minutes, Lu Qingjiu finally found his goal.
The old house was as desolate as he had expected. On the red door, there was a rusted lock. Lu Qingjiu took out the key, inserted it and twisted it several times before opening the lock. The dust fell, causing him to cough a few times involuntarily.
"I haven't been back for a long time." After muttering in a low voice, Lu Qingjiu opened the door of the small building on the first floor and saw the furnishings in the room.
Because he said in advance that he would come back and ask the neighbors to help pay the electricity bill, there was still electricity available. Lu Qingjiu turned on the light and saw the furnishings in the house clearly.
There wasn't much change, it was almost the same as what he remembered, except that all the furniture was covered with a thick layer of ash, Lu Qingjiu simply cleaned the bed, and thought about making do with it for the night. He was lying on the hard wooden bed, looking at the ceiling covered with cobwebs above his head, thinking about spending more time cleaning the house tomorrow...
The nostrils were filled with the stale smell, and Lu Qingjiu fell asleep.
The next day, Lu Qingjiu slept until after nine o'clock before waking up naturally. The bright sunlight casted on him through the window, he opened his eyes in a daze, and saw countless tiny dust filled in the light, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and shook off the hazy drowsiness.
Lu Qingjiu ate something casually and started to tidy up the house.
I haven’t lived in it for a few years, and the house needs to be thoroughly cleaned. In the early years, there was no running water in Shuifu Village, and the villagers had to go to the mountains to pick it up. Fortunately, the government invested in the water supply here in the past two years, which saved a lot of trouble.
Lu Qingjiu found a broom full of cobwebs in the corner of the room. He was about to roll up his sleeves to clean it up, but he felt a tingling pain in his arm. He was a little puzzled. After the painful part of his left hand, he involuntarily took a deep breath.
I saw five purple-red circular marks appear on his left arm, which were particularly striking on his wheat-colored skin. He touched it lightly with his hand and felt a burning pain.
"Where did you touch it?" Lu Qingjiu muttered, "Or was it crawled by a bug?" He was a little confused, and after thinking about it carefully, an incredible idea popped into his mind.
It seems that the one who touched his arm last night... was the only taxi driver. Could it be that the driver was too scared, so he grabbed such a mark on his arm
Lu Qingjiu laughed dryly, feeling that his idea was a bit ridiculous.
However, these marks seem to have no other effect than pain. Lu Qingjiu watched for a while, then put down his sleeves and started cleaning the room. He still has a lot of things to do today.
"Dong dong dong." At about ten o'clock, Lu Qingjiu, who was sweeping with his head down, heard a knock on the door. He walked to the door, opened it, and saw a familiar face behind the door.
"Little Jiu'er, you're back, did you arrive last night?" The one who greeted Lu Qingjiu was a young man who was slightly shorter than Lu Qingjiu. He smiled, revealing a playful tooth, "Why didn't you call me."
Seeing the young man, Lu Qingjiu also laughed, "Xiao Xun, long time no see."
The person in front of him was named Yin Xun, who was Lu Qingjiu's childhood playmate, but since Lu Qingjiu left Shuifu Village, the two hadn't seen each other for a long time.
"I arrived too late last night, so I didn't tell you." Lu Qingjiu raised the broom in his hand.
"Oh." Yin Xun nodded, "Are you cleaning? I'll help you!"
Lu Qingjiu said, "Have you finished your farm work?"
Yin Xun said, "It's almost there, I just planted the seedlings yesterday, and I won't be fat until next month."
Lu Qingjiu smiled and said, "Okay, then I'll trouble you."
Yin Xun rolled up his sleeves, picked up an old rag and started helping Lu Qingjiu clean the furniture, chatting with Lu Qingjiu while working.
Although the two were childhood playmates, maybe they hadn't seen each other for a long time, and there were endless topics to talk about. Yin Xun still wondered why Lu Qingjiu had resigned from the big city and returned here.
Lu Qingjiu said sincerely: "My boss told me that if you don't work hard, you might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes. I thought about it and thought it would be good to go home and sell sweet potatoes, so I came back."
Yin Xun: "...True or false."
Lu Qingjiu stared at his big eyes with double eyelids: "Really."
Yin Xun: "..." He pretended to believe it.
The two of them cleaned up all morning, and the house was roughly cleaned up. When Yin Xun saw that it was almost time, he invited Lu Qingjiu to go to the small restaurant in the village for lunch, and Lu Qingjiu readily agreed.
Shuifu Village is a very small village. You can hear quarrels at the head of the village and at the tail of the village. There is no business in this village, so there are two small restaurants, one selling regular dishes and the other selling rice noodles of various flavors.
"You just came back, what do you want to eat? I'll treat you!" Yin Xun said in a grin.
"Eat the rice noodles." Lu Qingjiu also ate the rice noodles from that house when he was a child.
"Okay, let's go." Yin Xun took Lu Qingjiu to the rice noodle shop.
The owner of the rice noodle shop saw Yin Xun saying hello, and then saw Lu Qingjiu standing next to him. After looking up and down, he asked with some uncertainty: "Is this the little grandson of the Lu family? It's grown so big!"
Lu Qingjiu smiled and nodded.
"Uncle She, I want two beef noodles and more chili." Yin Xun said, "Give me another handful of chives, do you want sake?"
"Okay." Lu Qingjiu also ate leeks.
The boss sighed, then turned around and went into the house to cook rice noodles.
Lu Qingjiu observed this small shop. The shop is not big, and the tables are all placed on the ground outside. Although the furnishings are outdated, they are very clean and don't look messy. When Lu Qingjiu retracted his gaze, he saw something flashing past under the table. This thing was so fast that Lu Qingjiu could only barely recognize that the skin was red, and it seemed to be some kind of insect.
"What are you looking at?" Yin Xun asked.
"It looks like there is a bug." Lu Qingjiu replied.
"Insects?" Yin Xun said, "Yeah, this spring is here, and there are more and more insects. I'll go home and get you some herbs later, you can take them home and light them up... You slept there last night and actually Didn't you get bitten?"
Lu Qingjiu shook his head: "No."
Hearing this, Yin Xun blinked and rolled up his trouser legs, only to see that three or five red bags on his legs were very conspicuous, Yin Xun said, "Hey, I was walking outside for a while last night, and I got stung in the leg. package."
Lu Qingjiu thought for a while: "Maybe I'm lucky?"
Yin Xun grinned, and the playful tiger teeth on his lips were especially cute: "Maybe."
The two were chatting, and the boss brought the cooked rice noodles, exuding a strong aroma.
Lu Qingjiu picked up his chopsticks and sighed after taking the first sip, "It still tastes like when I was a child." The rice noodles are soft and chewy without edible glue, and they absorb the taste of bone broth. The taste is rich and delicious. The seasoning is very simple, and it is sprinkled with a handful of fried charred chilies and green chives. The leeks are very fragrant after being scalded by the broth, which just offsets the greasy feeling of the bone broth.
The two of them were already a little hungry, so they stopped talking when the food came, only the sound of eating rice noodles remained. After Lu Qingjiu had finished eating the whole bowl of rice noodles and drank a few mouthfuls of soup, he sighed contentedly.
"I'm so full." Yin Xun hiccupped and touched his stomach contentedly.
"Delicious." Lu Qingjiu was also quite satisfied, he wiped his mouth and said casually, "By the way, when I got here yesterday, I called a taxi, and I heard from the taxi driver that two taxis died here. driver?"
"Oh, you said this." Yin Xun said, "Yes, there are no more than two, but it's not the driver but the passenger."
Lu Qingjiu: "…"
Yin Xun didn't notice that there was something wrong with Lu Qingjiu's expression, he just said as if chatting gossip: "But it's not necessarily dead, the body hasn't been found yet, only their luggage."
"Isn't it from Shuifu Village?" Lu Qingjiu asked.
"No." Yin Xun said, "It's from another village, I just want to pass by Shuifu Village... What are you asking about this?"
Lu Qingjiu said, "Oh, I just heard someone say something."
Yin Xun didn't take it seriously: "The law and order in our Shuifu Village is still pretty good, there's not even a single petty theft, it's much better than other places."
While talking, the two returned to the house. The cleaning was only halfway done, and they had to continue.
At the end of the day, the old house finally looks like a person can live in, but the yard needs more time to take care of it.
The old house is actually quite big, and the backyard is almost a small villa, but because it has not been inhabited all the year round, there are fewer rooms that can be lived in, and many roofs and walls need to be reinforced.
There is also a well in the backyard of the old house. In the evening, Lu Qingjiu went to the wellhead to check and found that there was still water in the well.
"I still remember using this water to ice watermelon when I was young." Yin Xun sat on the edge of the well, propping his head to look inside, "What are you going to do when you come back this time? Are you farming?"
"Let's raise some animals and plant some fields." Lu Qingjiu said, "I still have some savings, and then I will repair the livestock shed next to it..."
Almost every household in this village will keep some animals, chickens are always available, and if conditions are good, they will raise a few more pigs or cows.
"Okay." Yin Xun said, "I'll tell the carpenter tomorrow and ask him to come to your house to fix the shed. What do you want to buy? We'll go to the town for a market in a few days, and we can go see it together."
"Okay, thank you." Lu Qingjiu said gratefully.
"You're welcome." Yin Xun waved his hand and said nonchalantly, "Why are we talking about this relationship? It's getting late, so I'll go back first."
"Okay." Lu Qingjiu said, "Be careful."
Yin Xun turned around and walked out of the courtyard gate. Lu Qingjiu saw that he had gone far before returning to his old house.
Although there was a TV in the old house, but the signal had not been turned on yet, Lu Qingjiu had to take out his mobile phone and climbed into bed, clicked on the app and watched the news.
He watched for a while, but suddenly remembered something, opened the search bar with his finger, and entered a few words in the search bar: The taxi passenger in Shuifu Village is missing. After a while, the search results jumped out. Lu Qingjiu browsed the news roughly and found that the news was similar to what Yin Xun said, but the details were more detailed. Roughly, some people disappeared suddenly, and the family members called the police. Finally, their lost luggage was found near Shuifu Village. Then, after investigation by the police, it was found that these people got into a taxi...
Seeing this, Lu Qingjiu put down the phone and rolled up the sleeve of his left arm. Five purple dots were clearly visible on the skin covered by the sleeve.
Lu Qingjiu reached out and touched it, and hissed softly, the red spot still hurts badly. He had already realized that something was wrong with the taxi driver last night, but fortunately he left the taxi safely without any accident.
Lu Qingjiu thought about it, and drowsiness flooded into his heart. After a busy day, he was also a little tired, and he fell asleep after closing his eyes for almost a moment.
He didn't even dare to think about this kind of sleep quality when he went to work. After all, their company requires employees to turn on the machine 24 hours a day, especially if he does a project. If there is a problem with the project, he has to be called to the company at any time, although the salary is high enough. , but people are also made mentally haggard.
Lu Qingjiu thought that he would sleep until dawn, but in the early morning, he heard a very subtle noise.
The sound was as if something was pulling on the tiles above his head, causing Lu Qingjiu's head to make a rattling sound.
Lu Qingjiu was awakened from his sleep by the sound, and opened his sleepy eyes and saw a faint light above his head. This light made Lu Qingjiu stunned, and his mind did not turn around for a while. When he realized something, his eyes widened instantly—the tiles on the roof of the house had been lifted by something, and the bright moonlight fell on the sheets from above his head, like a hot mark.
"Kaza, Kaza." The voice above his head sounded again, Lu Qingjiu's first reaction was that a wild cat or the like ran up to the top of the building, but just when this idea came to his mind, a circular The thing appeared in the hole in the roof, Lu Qingjiu could see the shape of the round thing clearly, it was a red eye, the pupil was dilated, the white nictitating membrane slipped over the eyeball, leaving a moist liquid on it , Lu Qingjiu recognized that it was an eye belonging to a reptile.