One day at the beginning of July, the streets were sweltering and scorching hot.
As far as the weather conditions in S City are concerned, it's really not good. It's basically hot in summer and cold in winter. In the days when the high temperature hits midsummer, the asphalt road surface is so hot that it can be used to fry poached eggs. There is no way, these days, the amount of carbon emissions in big cities...
At noon, a ragged man came to No. 13 Dongfang Road. He turned into an alley on one side, walked up the fire stairs to the second floor, and took out a bunch of keys from the pocket of his ragged jeans.
The door opened, and there was a foreigner sitting in the room, watching TV there boredly. When he saw someone coming in, he didn't bother to move at all, but asked in a very casual tone: "Are you back?"
Wang Xu closed the door, picked up a piece on the table that looked like a towel and half like a rag, and wiped his face: "It's terrible... that hide-and-seek monster..."
Elbert said: "The poster demon I dealt with is really powerful."
Wang Xu was dissatisfied: "Oh shit! Awesome? Awesome, why did you come back earlier than me?"
Albert smiled wryly: "I only arrived ten minutes earlier than you..."
At this time, there was the sound of parking outside, and ten seconds later, the door opened again, and it was Mr. Cat who came in. He was full of energy and didn't sweat much: "Hey! Boys, the battle this morning is over. ?”
Wang Xu squatted in front of the refrigerator and searched for cold drinks: "Don't worry, my struggle with you in my life has never stopped..."
Master Cat smiled: "I just came here to take a look. It seems that you are doing well, so I can rest assured." He said as if he was about to go out.
"Let's go now? I said who opened this firm?" Wang Xu said angrily.
Master Mao said: "At this stage, I already have other jobs. Although July and August are holidays, I am quite busy in life, so... from now on, I will treat this place as the two of you."
Albert interjected: "Mr. Cat, since we are talking about management, I have to mention that our firm has already suffered a serious financial deficit!"
Wang Xu put it more directly: "Well... Simply put, the two of us are already so poor that we can't get rid of it."
They really didn't lie. Although Master Cat's supernatural detective agency mainly operates in catching ghosts, its real source of income depends on taking over some ordinary commissions.
We have also mentioned before that when Master Mao was working alone, the business that made the most money here was to find evidence of the infidelity of rich men and women. Audio recordings, photos, and even videos. Master Cat can get it all, his methods cannot be described as brilliant or professional... that is simply divine...
But when he and Wang Xu went to Chengdu, this place basically became a scene where Elbert was alone. This handsome German guy, aside from technical issues, just his image of a foreigner... to follow The candid filming was too eye-catching, which directly caused the cat master to lose a lot of customers.
Furthermore, there are not many people who would hire private investigators these days. Wang Xu and Albert accepted a firm from Cat Master that had no real profit but only some ghost coins.
"The ghost coins sent by the regent Uncle Tuo Wu, and some marginal people spent money here to buy some information a few times ago, although it feels like we have money in our pockets... But we can't spend this paper money. Right?" Wang Xu asked.
Master Cat thought for a while: "Well... it makes sense, so let's do it..." He took a paper and a pen on the table and started to draw, completing a scribbled map in just ten seconds, "You guys Go to 'Scare Box' for some cash."
Both Wang Xu and Albert had inexplicable expressions and asked in unison, "Where are you going?"
"The Scary Box is a place name. You go three streets south, find a sewer, and go in, um... don't forget to cover the manhole... Then follow the instructions in my picture and walk for fifteen minutes, and you should be able to I found it. It's the underground trading center of S City, there are marginal people, ghost hunters, monsters, ghosts, anyway, there are all kinds of guys, there you can exchange all kinds of materials you want, of course, like you If you are in a hurry to exchange money, you must give some of the profits to others." Master Mao explained.
Wang Xu was startled at the time: "What? A group of demons and ghosts gathered in the sewers. You, the person in charge of the city, knew it and didn't care? Are you planning to promote economic prosperity?"
Master Cat disdainfully said: "Almost every big city has a market like this, each with its own name, and several neutral cities in the Yin-Yang world also have this kind of market. The basic rules for entering are to hide spiritual knowledge and ensure neutrality. You can fight or cause trouble, and all personal grievances should be settled outside. By the way, you must strictly abide by what I said above, otherwise... "
Albert's expression became a little nervous: "Otherwise..."
"If you break the rules there, the boss of that market will come to sanction you... I won't talk about the specific situation, so as not to scare you, anyway, remember, although this 'Scare Box' is under City S, it doesn't belong to me. The area under the jurisdiction of the person in charge of this city, if you cause trouble, you can only ask for blessings." Master Cat replied: "Well... I have been talking to you for a long time without knowing it, but I am on the way home from shopping Those who came here have to go, goodbye."
Master Cat closed the door and left, and he could still hear the sound of him running down the stairs and starting the car. Elbert shrugged: "Do you need to be in such a hurry?"
Wang Xu said: "Let me think about it... If he goes back too late, maybe his wife will use a frying pan to shoot into the wall, and he can't pick it out..."
Albert wiped the sweat from his forehead: "Hey... I really don't understand, since a married man's life is like a nightmare, why does he still get married?"
Wang Xu tore off the tattered clothes on his body, found a fairly clean T-shirt from nowhere and put it on, "I didn't quite understand it before, but recently..." He looked forward and thoughtfully: " Forget it, when you meet a good woman one day, you will understand."
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the two of them went out to eat two bowls of the cheapest beef ramen, and then walked three streets south as Master Mao said.
Albert found a manhole cover at random, put two fingers into the gap, and lifted the manhole cover without much effort. Wang Xu glanced at him and said, "I'm getting better at strength recently."
Elbert replied to him in Chinese: "It's a small skill."
Unexpectedly, Wang Xu immediately answered: "It's really not possible, why don't you just do this business of stealing manhole covers from now on..."
"Hey... this is illegal..."
"Brother El, we are superheroes, don't care about those little things."
Elbert's complaint skills are obviously not at the same level as Wang Xu's, so he finally chose to shut up...
The two walked through the sewer according to the map given by the cat master. Although the place was dirty and smelly, there were some disgusting objects that you would only see in nightmares floating by on the water surface, but fortunately Wang Xu could hold his breath. The curse and the water-dividing curse, for him who can't swim, among the seventy-two tricks in the Chapter of Fumo, he was the first to learn these two tricks. Elbert is also considered to be in Wang Xu's favor, otherwise, when he reaches his destination, the stench on his body may make him ashamed to speak to people.
Perhaps because they were not familiar with the route, they had to twist and turn in the sewer for half an hour before arriving at their destination. Then, what Wang Xu and Albert saw was a very strange scene.
At the intersection of many circular pipes less than the height of a person, a slightly upward-sloping arch-shaped pipe appeared. Looking inside, it was a not-so-large room, and there were actually four elevators in the room.
The doors of these four elevators are also of different colors, namely green, yellow, red and black.
Wang Xu and Albert looked at each other and walked into the room one after another. Then, they noticed that there was a female ghost in white waiting for the elevator like them. The reason why she was sure that she was not human was very simple. This person had everything on her face, except that she had no skin...
Muscles, bones, eyeballs, gums, everything can be seen clearly, and judging from the current time period, she must be a character who can appear and disappear during the day, has no geographical restrictions, and can walk around. Great ghost.
"What are you looking at?" She asked Wang Xu and Albert fiercely.
Albert really didn't know how to answer, but Wang Xu acted quite calmly: "This eldest sister..."
"Who is your eldest sister? I'm only eighteen!" She shouted in that standard aunt's voice.
"Well... Miss..." Wang Xu said again.
"What Miss! Who is Miss? You stinky rascal! Taking advantage of me?!"
"Then... this girl." Wang Xu paused here, seeing that she didn't seem to have a seizure this time, and continued: "Excuse me, what kind of scare box are you going to?"
"Why?" She sized up the two of them with her round eyes: "Is this your first time here?"
Wang Xu was also a big old man in those days, and he understood very well that under such circumstances, he could only talk a little bit when meeting people. If he told the truth, he would probably be fooled by others, so he replied very naturally. Said: "No, no... Of course not, we just haven't been here for a while, and I want to ask about the current market. I wonder what this girl is going to buy?"
"Why did I tell you?" She said angrily, but then she said again: "Tch... Actually, it's okay to tell you, I heard that a kappa smuggled a batch of high-end oil paints from Japan. Get some to try."
Wang Xu thought to himself: Just try with your face? Even if it is pasted with shit, it will look better than now...
But he said: "Oh... this girl is naturally beautiful, after using it, she must be even more graceful..."
After hearing this, Albert's goosebumps fell all over his body.
"Hmph... It's up to you to say." The aunt's voice actually accepted Wang Xu's compliment very calmly.
Now even Wang Xu felt a little creepy: "Actually, I am also quite interested in that batch of imported goods. I wonder if I can go with the girl to see and see together?"
"The feet are on your body, can I still stop you?" The attitude of the white-clothed female ghost was still lukewarm.
At this time, the green elevator door opened, and a guy wearing a pumpkin head walked out, followed by a white sheet floating in the air.
"This damn weather is too hot."
"Isn't it? My head is almost cooked and smells like pumpkin pie!"
Looking at the backs of these two, Wang Xu and Albert were shocked again...
They followed the female ghost in white into the green elevator, and the person in charge of driving the elevator was a very short, fat man in a suit and leather shoes, with a pointed nose on his face and a shrewd light in his eyes.
Wang Xu searched for a long time, and found that there was only one button in the elevator, and it was not in a place where ordinary people could press it. The position of the button is very close to the ground, and its shape resembles the sole of a foot. To be precise, it resembles a duck's flipper.
The short fat man stretched out his foot and kicked the button, just in time...
Albert whispered to Wang Xu: "Could this be the legendary Penguin..."
Wang Xu laughed dryly: "Leave this alone, have you noticed? As soon as we entered the elevator, he didn't even ask where we were going, but just kicked the button. It seems... this is actually a direct elevator, right? Then if this It leads to the so-called 'Scare Box', and where do the other three... go?"