Chi Yan thought for a while and nodded in agreement.
But he didn't leave immediately, but returned to the place where they parked the motorcycle, took out a lighter and lit two charms. This talisman is called a guiding talisman. Zhu Hui's family and the two police officers have not been able to come back after walking down this road before. He suspects that there may be strange things on this road. With this guiding talisman, there is no fear of ghosts hitting the wall or something else. What ghost means can find the way back.
The two slowly rode forward along the road, paying attention to the situation on both sides of the road as they rode. The ruts of the motorcycles on the ground gradually became inconspicuous, and the path of the path that was stepped on gradually disappeared, and there was a cluttered mountain forest in front. Just when the two of them were not sure which direction to go in, and hesitantly decided to return, Chi Yan saw a faint light of lights ahead.
He stopped his motorcycle and climbed onto a large boulder next to him to look in that direction—not a light, but a piece that looked like a small town.
Chi Yan climbed down from the stone, motioned Song Jin to look up, stood below and looked up at his friends and said, "Da Song, do you think there is a village over there? Have you heard of other villages and towns nearby?"
Chi Yan followed her mother to R City when she was in high school, and has been living in the urban area since then. She rarely travels to nearby county towns except during holidays. He knows the approximate locations and names of the eleven counties under R city, but he has no idea about the other villages and towns under those counties. They are called Fengshui and Qingyao.
Song Jin jumped off the stone and nodded: "There is a village. I checked the maps near Fengshui and Qingyao many times before, but I didn't notice that there is such a village, but this mountain is Pinggu County and Huilin. The boundary of the county, if you go there, you should reach Huilin County, so I may have overlooked it."
There are nearly 30 villages near the towns of Fengshui and Qingyao. If it wasn't for on-the-spot investigation, it would be easy to ignore this village that is not within the jurisdiction of Pinggu County. After all, it is not on the normal route between the two towns.
He hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Chi, shall we go back now to check the situation in that village, or come back tomorrow and take a look at it directly?"
It was already nine forty-five in the evening. Judging from the scale of the lights just now, the village should not be too small, and there may be dozens of households.
Chi Yan saw that Song Jin probably wanted to continue the investigation. This village, which had been ignored before, was likely to provide some clues about the missing five people. He estimated the distance and time of the round trip, and suggested, "How about we continue walking and rest in the village?"
It was very cold in the mountains at night, he wore less clothes, and riding a motorcycle in the wind only felt unstoppable shivering. He now desperately longs for a warm room to warm him up, preferably he can get into the bed Take a good rest there. It takes about an hour to ride back to Fengshui Town or Qingyao Town, but it takes another ten minutes to reach the village.
Song Jin nodded: "Okay, stop at the entrance of the village, I'll go first to check the situation, if you see that I haven't come out after a quarter of an hour, don't hesitate, hurry up and go back to the town to get rescue soldiers." At this time, he was not afraid of monsters, ghosts or the like, but worried that, as shown in some TV dramas, this village hidden in the mountains actually harbored criminal gangs of criminals. Zhu Hui's family and the two police officers may have found out They were kidnapped or even killed because of their location. Thinking of this possibility, he couldn't sit still.
Chi Yan nodded, turned over and got on the motorcycle, and the two of them continued to drive towards the village.
Sure enough, after walking in the direction of the village for only ten minutes, the mountain road gradually opened up, and the road into the village became clearly visible. Although the network signal is still intermittent, the mobile phone also receives the signal, but the network speed is very slow and intermittent.
With the signal and the network, it is much more reassuring. Open the map and you can find that the village they are in is called Hejiacun. Song Jin still hangs his heart, so he finds a place with a good signal outside the village to call himself. Master, reported his current location and the relevant clues he had found, and asked the other party to help him check the relevant situation of this Hejia Village.
The result of the other party's investigation was that everything was normal. This is an ordinary village. The only thing that is slightly special is that most of the villagers in this village moved from the south many years ago.
After hearing this answer and reporting his whereabouts, Song Jin was obviously relieved, and took Chi Yan into the village directly. A small shop at the head of the village was still lit. Song Jin stopped the car and bought a pack of cigarettes and two bottles of water, and inquired about the situation by the way.
The owner of the commissary pointed out to them that there was a guest house not far away, which was the only restaurant and hotel in the village. Song Jin and Chi Yan decided to rest here for the night, and inquire about relevant news in the village tomorrow and then make plans.
Sure enough, after the two walked forward another thirty meters, they saw a rectangular signboard with white characters on a red background, with the words "Hostel" printed in Song script. The facade is not big, and the dim and pale incandescent light shines through the door. You can see an old-fashioned counter inside, and a middle-aged man is sitting behind the counter.
After the two entered, the man put down the handheld game console when he heard the sound, stood up and greeted, "Do you live in the store?"
There was a light tube hanging on the roof. The light tube had not been replaced for a long time. The ends were black, the middle was foggy, it made a humming sound, and the light projected was not very bright.
Chi Yan lowered his head and glanced at the game console. The black and white pixel display showed the picture of a tank battle. He remembered that when he was five or six years old, he also had such a game console. His mother bought it for him from outside. Before meeting that person, the game console had spent a lot of boring and boring time with him. Unexpectedly, there are still people playing this kind of game console. I think it should be used by the owner to pass the time.
The two asked for a double room, and after paying the bill, the owner took them into the room with the key in person. The door here is still opened with a key, not a room card. The three of them chatted casually along the way. Chi Yan and Song Jin pretended that they were visiting the neighborhood, and they went back late. The weather was cold, and they happened to pass by, so they planned to stay overnight before leaving.
The owner told them that it was just over the New Year, not many people came to stay, and now there are only two of them in the store. There is no clerk in the store, and he and his wife do the daily cleaning and checkout work. In addition, there is their eight-year-old daughter in the guest house.
The hostel is not big and has two floors. The first floor is where the counter, restaurant and the owner's family live. There are seven or eight rooms on the second floor. The owner showed them the room, left the keys and left.
The environment of the room is not good, there are white walls on all sides, slightly yellowish, and if you look carefully, there are stains left by bugs or something else. There is no bathroom. There is only a table, a chair and two beds in the room. Fortunately, the white sheets look relatively clean.
Song Jin doesn't pay much attention to it, and Chi Yan is not a spoiled person. Although his mother loved him, she never spoiled him. The only person who could be called spoiled was that person. After returning to his grandfather's house with his mother, his mother's health deteriorated day by day. Both grandparents and grandparents were elderly people in their sixties. At home, he had to be self-reliant. Not only could he not depend on his elders, but he also took care of his mother as much as possible and three grandparents. Under such circumstances, the little temper that was pampered by that person when he was a teenager was quickly smoothed out.
Therefore, I am not picky about the accommodation environment. The only thing I feel bad is that there is no heating in the guest house, and the room has been unoccupied for a long time, which makes it feel extremely cold. Even if I have been indoors for more than two hours, I wrap myself with a quilt. It is still difficult to get rid of the chill in the body.
Chi Yan took out the phone and looked at it. It was already half past eleven in the evening, and Song Jin on the bed next to her had already fallen into a deep sleep, making a slight snoring sound. The room was dark, the curtains were drawn, and the night outside could not be seen. The village was very quiet, as if all had fallen into a deep sleep.
He got up lightly, took the door key and mobile phone, locked the door and went to the bathroom. Each room in the guest house has no private bathroom. There is a public toilet at the end of the corridor and a small bathroom. The corridor was very dark. I don't know if it was because there were not many people living there and the lights were not turned on to save electricity. Chi Yan had to use her mobile phone to follow the road and walked to the innermost bathroom.
After coming out of the bathroom, Chi Yan also took out his mobile phone and turned on the flashlight, pointing towards the corridor. The bright white light flashed by, illuminating a small figure standing on the other side of the corridor, facing him.
That thing was small in stature, like a child, but with a big head. At that moment, Chi Yan didn't look carefully, only vaguely saw the smile on his face with a curved upwards, but there was no white in his pupils, staring at him motionless.
Chi Yan suddenly remembered the earthbound spirit that he met in the bathhouse in the third year of high school. He also had the same pale and wooden face, like the clay statue in the temple, with a constant, upward smile, no matter what. Wherever you go, it will look at you.
His heart jumped up, and he shouted, "Who!" At the same time, he flashed the flashlight of his mobile phone to look over there again.
When it was swept by the light, the thing let out a little girl's hee hee laughter.
"What's the matter?" The owner's question came from the first floor, followed by the creaking sound of going upstairs, and then with a "pop", the lights in the corridor were turned on.
Chi Yan also completely saw what that thing was. It was a little girl about seven or eight years old, with a big white mask like a New Year's picture doll on her face. The corners of the face on the mask were raised upwards, smiling eyes with thin eyebrows and large eyes, but only the whites of the eyes and no pupils.
The owner pulled the little girl into his arms and scolded in a low voice, "Yingying, why didn't you sleep and ran out? Where's your mother?"
The little girl took off her mask and pouted to her father: "Mom is asleep, I can't sleep."
The owner said a few more words to her, grabbed the mask, drove her to sleep, turned to face Chi Yan after watching her daughter disappear downstairs, and said a little embarrassedly: "I'm really sorry, my daughter is rather naughty. There are no guests, so I don't think about keeping the lights, does it scare you?"
"No, it's fine." Chi Yan smiled and looked at the mask in the owner's hand, "What is this?"
"It's Nuo noodles. It's used when dancing Nuo. Almost every household in our village has one, and I don't know how she found it." ceremony."
"I know. Cuicui and Nuo sent them." Chi Yan nodded and stepped forward to take a closer look at the mask.
Nuo is a relatively traditional sacrificial activity. Its history can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty. When dancing Nuo, people will wear this mask dance called Nuo face. This word was mentioned in "Border Town", saying that the name Nuo sent means "sent by the god of Nuo". However, this tradition and this kind of worship of gods are mostly prevalent in Sichuan and Jiangxi. City R is located in the north. Chi Yan has never heard of such a ceremony. He recalled the information that Master Song Jin had told them, that most of the people in Hejia Village moved from the south many years ago, so it is easy for the villagers to bring this custom with them. There are many reasons for population migration. In the past, it was mostly due to natural and man-made disasters, such as droughts, floods or wars; However, there is no need for them to explore why the villagers of Hejia Village moved here. This has nothing to do with the whereabouts of Zhu Hui's family and the two police officers.
The owner of the shop didn't realize what Chi Yan said, so Xiang Chi Yan smiled and left with a mask.
Chi Yan had just walked into his room, locked the door, and was about to go back to bed when he heard a soft knock on the door. The knock on the door rang three times, and seeing that there was no response, the person outside the door knocked three more times.
That voice sounded a little strange, not because of the strange sound, but from the strange place where the sound was made. Usually people knock on the middle of the door, and the sound comes from there, but this time the sound came from the bottom of the door, as if someone was lying on the ground knocking on the door - lying on the ground, through the crack of the door below Peeping inside, he reached out and knocked on the door.
Chi Yan frowned.
From the moment he entered the village, he always felt an indescribable strangeness. But can't tell what's wrong.
After thinking for a while, he squeezed a ghost charm in his hand, unscrewed the lock, and opened the door.
This time, a corridor lamp was lit in the corridor, and a small figure outside the door could be clearly seen, it was the little girl Yingying just now.
She is short, no wonder the knock on the door is also on the bottom.
The little girl held two dolls in her hands, and when she saw Chi Yan opened the door, she looked up at him, and said timidly, "Did my uncle scared me just now? Then, shall I let my younger brothers and sisters accompany my uncle?" She Saying that, he handed over the two dolls in his arms.
The dolls were a pair of average size. It could be seen that they were a boy and a girl, about the size of an adult man's forearm. At a glance, the workmanship was very simple, like a child sewed it himself. Maybe the little girl sewed it herself.
Chi Yan didn't know how to respond. He bent down and said in a soft voice, "Thank you, uncle doesn't need it. Uncle wasn't frightened just now."
His refusal didn't work, and the little girl still insisted on handing him the two dolls.
In the middle of the night, Chi Yan had no choice but to take the two dolls and instruct the little girl to go to bed.
When Yingying saw that he took the doll, she smiled happily and jumped downstairs.
The owner of the shop should still be guarding at the counter. I really don't know how the child escaped her father's line of sight and ran upstairs.
Chi Yan shook his head, locked the door, and placed the two dolls on the empty table in the room. Anyway, after they check out, the owner will definitely take these two away.
I don't know if it was his illusion, or just because he was too cold. The moment he took the two dolls from the little girl, he felt the warm touch of human skin. That feeling was fleeting, and what he held in his hand and placed on the table was still only two rag dolls with rough and rudimentary workmanship.