When Chi Yan arrived at the bus station, it was already past six in the afternoon. Fortunately, it was summer, and the sky was still golden, but the golden color had been rendered very thick, and it was no longer as clear and lively as the rising sun. Gives the illusion of a sense of despair.
The ticket he bought was for seven o'clock in the evening, but he didn't see the car when it was ten minutes away. At 7:15, the person in charge of the station arranged for them to board another train. There were five or six vacant seats on this train. , and finally to Suming City, it is a long time, and there will be a few small stations under the county in the middle. The original two-hour drive will take more than three hours. The person in charge said that if you are willing to get on the car, you can make up the price difference, and if you are not willing to wait, you can wait for the scheduling.
Chi Yan thought to himself that the difference between the two was not too long. At least he would be able to go back even if it took a little longer to get on this car. He didn't know when to wait for the dispatch, so he got on the car and sat in the empty back. At the window seat, a sturdy middle-aged man in a casual jacket sat next to him.
Seeing this, Chi Yan gave in again. He was prone to motion sickness when he didn't rest well. Today, he had been running around all day, and he was still very nervous. He didn't eat properly at night. At this time, he already felt a faint headache, so he leaned against the window and closed his eyes, ready to rest for a while.
Unexpectedly, when I closed my eyes, I was confused. He had been half asleep and half awake, and he could vaguely feel the brakes of the bus stopping and the passengers moving their luggage and getting off the bus, but he couldn't wake up in a drowsy state.
By the time he was completely awake, it was already dark, and the night outside the car window was dark, pressing towards the person along with the darker outline of the mountain in the distance. Chi Yan took out her phone and glanced at it. It was already ten twenty, and it was estimated that it was not far from Sumin City. The way back was different from the way back, and he didn't know it either.
There were only seven or eight people left in the car, and they should all go to Sumin like him. The eldest brother who was sitting next to him before may be too crowded, and he doesn't know when he will move to the empty seat in front of him. He sat in the penultimate row, behind the taller seats in the last row. Now, except for him, everyone else is sitting in the front, scattered in the compartment.
Chi Yan flipped through her phone for a while and felt sleepy, so she turned off the screen and prepared to put it away. Inadvertently, the black screen of the mobile phone against the dim light of the street lamps outside the window reflected the face of the person sitting behind him - pale face, flat facial features, dull and expressionless, a pair of eyes staring straight at him.
Chi Yan immediately stood up with chills all over his body. Pretending to be nonchalant, he picked up the phone again, his hands trembling slightly, he was too scared to move for a while, and he forgot to think, as if his thinking froze in an instant.
Chi Yan slowed down for a while, and pretended to be calm and quietly took out the peace talisman drawn by Zhang Daochang from his pocket—there were two peace talismans, one he used to wrap the ashes, and the other was kept close to him in his pocket.
He glanced at it, and then he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart, and the edge of the yellow talisman paper had become charred black at some point, as if it had been burned by something.
He pretended that he hadn't noticed the thing behind him, put on the backpack and moved to the front of the car with the armrest on his back, and sat in the row behind the middle-aged man sitting next to him.
He put his bag on the seat next to him, the car has entered the city, and the scenery outside the window has become bustling. He felt a little relieved that there were other people nearby, Chi Yan took out his phone and glanced at it secretly, his fingers on the screen suddenly froze - the "person" was still sitting behind him, and it moved to the front with him!
According to Chi Yan's personal experience, people's courage will not be frightened. Every time he encounters this kind of thing, especially the thing that obviously points to him and follows him, he still feels scared, flustered, and frightened. For so many years The only thing I've learned here is to keep at least superficial composure, not to be overwhelmed by fright and make a drastic move just now.
He knew that no matter whether the ashes of Ye Yingzhi that Zhang Daochang said really worked, at least his jade could protect him for a while, so he stayed calm until the bus arrived.
But the thing followed him out of the car.
Sumin City is not as prosperous as Shiming City in the summer nights until the early hours of the morning. It was already eleven o'clock at night when I got off the bus. Eight minutes away.
Chi Yan closely followed the middle-aged man who got off the car one step earlier, and summoned up the courage to take the initiative to chat up: "Where does the eldest brother live?"
According to his experience, when such an adult man is in his prime, with strong yang energy, those things will be farther away. For example, his three roommates in college were all young and young men. At that time, the frequency of encountering evil spirits or being entangled by ghosts when he lived in the dormitory was much lower than when he lived alone now.
The man took two wrong steps to the side without a trace, and was slightly farther away from Chi Yan, before he answered hesitantly, "Tianlongyuan."
Tianlong Garden was next to the community where Chi Yan lived. He was overjoyed and walked to the main road while chatting with the man slowly.
Chi Yan was very worried about taking a taxi late at night by himself. If he was walking on the road, he would just run away even if he didn't see something, but if he was taking a taxi and the driver was not human, it would not be so easy to run. When he got to the main road, he took advantage of the situation and proposed that the two of them share a car to go back. The man hesitated for a while, but agreed.
After the taxi stopped, Chi Yan sat in the co-pilot, and the man sat in the back seat. Chi Yan deliberately looked at it. Since they got in the car, the thing stopped and stopped following.
Chi Yan reported the place name and went to Huarong New District. This is the newly developed CBD, and it is also the most prosperous place in Sumin. Chi Yan’s unit and residence are there.
The driver is a young guy, reminding Chi Yan: "The handsome guy wears his seat belt, why don't you sit in the back, the co-pilot doesn't have room in the back."
Chi Yan looked at the back seat, smiled and said, "It's alright, don't squeeze."
The driver glanced at him, didn't speak, didn't know what he was thinking, and started the car silently.
The elder brother hadn't spoken since he got in the car, but the two were not familiar with each other, so Chi Yan didn't care, and silently looked at the familiar street scene outside the window.
When he arrived at the place, Chi Yan took out his wallet and paid for it. He looked back and saw that the eldest brother had gotten off the station and waited outside the car at some point. Tianlong Garden is still ten minutes' walk from here, but it's not too far, so Chi Yan didn't find it strange.
The driver's brother took the RMB and glanced at it, then raised his head to look at Chi Yan, as if he wanted to say something, but finally closed his mouth.
When Chi Yan got out of the car, the elder brother nodded to him and said, "Thank you."
Chi Yan thought he was talking about the taxi fare, so he smiled, waved his hand and said, "It's okay." He should have said thank you.
The middle-aged man said, "Little brother, then I'll go home and take a look, and leave it alone."
Chi Yan also smiled and said goodbye to the other party, turned around and prepared to walk into his own community.
He heard the other party mutter in a low voice: "There seems to be something on you, I dare not get too close to you."
The smile that Chi Yan had no time to take back suddenly froze on his face.
He looked back with a stiff face, just in time to see the back of the middle-aged man receding away. It could be clearly seen under the bright orange street lamp at the entrance of the community, and it had no shadow.
Chi Yan's hands were trembling, and he could barely hold the key. He quickly ran into the building, and he didn't even dare to go in after the elevator door opened—he was afraid of meeting again.
The impression of things from childhood has faded. Since his grandmother gave him jade, although he has also encountered evil, he has rarely "seen" these unclean things one after another in recent days.
He touched the jade on his chest, and inadvertently came across the small porcelain vase containing Ye Yingzhi's ashes. He silently comforted himself that no matter what he saw, he just pretended to ignore it, at least they didn't dare to harm him directly.
In this way, I comforted myself and finally arrived at the door of the house smoothly. After looking around suspiciously, I opened the door and entered.
The moment he turned on the light and closed the door, he was almost completely paralyzed on the ground.
But soon Chi Yan insisted on persevering, found the tablets and incense burners prepared, and placed them on a table in the living room. There was a bit of weirdness in this scene, but Chi Yan, a bachelor, lived alone and usually had no guests at home, so he didn't care.
According to Zhang Daochang, he had to carry Ye Yingzhi's ashes to protect himself, and he had to worship Ye Yingzhi's tablet in the morning and evening every day from the day he carried it.
He didn't dare to neglect, since Ye Yingzhi's ashes were already on his body, he lit three sticks of incense and offered them to the tablet when he came back.
The custom-made tablet is all black and engraved with six golden characters "The Spirit of Ye's Welcome".
Chi Yan bowed his head and bowed his head respectfully with the incense in his hand, and then inserted the incense into the incense burner in front of the tablet.
Behind him, a black human figure stood, silently watching him do all this.