The sun is hot.
The dazzling noon sun shines directly on the street trees on the side of the road, dyeing the dark green leaves with a layer of gorgeous gold. It was the hottest day, and the high temperature of thirty-five to six degrees made the supposedly bright sunshine dry. The air was steaming with heat, and there were not even a single bug on the road, let alone birds.
Xiao Yining took a taxi to the destination.
The car stopped at the entrance of the community, Xiao Yining took out his mobile phone to confirm the building number and house number, looked at the distance of only a few hundred meters on the navigation, hesitated for a moment, and clicked to start navigation.
Huang Shiba, who came out with Xiao Yining, was beside him giggling like hell.
Huang Shiba is the youngest Huang Xian in the hall, and ranks eighteen in his branch, the youngest. Because of the short practice days, he has no official name, nor has he been honored by others. So everyone calls it by its ranking.
Huang Shiba: "Lu Chi Ning! Lu Chi Ning!"
Xiao Yining stared at it with dead eyes.
Huang Shibaxu babbled after Sui Sui Nian: "Lu Chining, what kind of wine did you bring to Bei Wang? Did you forget?"
Xiao Yining held up the headset and pretended to be on the phone, and replied angrily: "I brought it with me, I haven't forgotten it."
Huang Shiba clicked his tongue, flicked his big yellow tail and turned it into a beam of light, which disappeared after a flash.
Xiao Yining didn't care about it.
He opened the handbag and checked his "equipment". He had all the cinnabar yellow paper talismans and pens, the small portable incense burner was filled with incense ash, and other odds and ends were also in place. A bottle of fifty-five-degree Laobaigan was unopened, lying quietly in the bag.
Xiao Yining felt relieved that he hadn't forgotten anything.
She turned on the phone's camera to observe herself again. Because he was a new client, in order to look formal, Xiao Yining deliberately put on exquisite makeup in the morning, and wore a new style Tang suit full of antiquity, with a string of one hundred and eight peach trees hanging on his hand. The hair is not a ponytail that is usually tied casually, but a perfect and round ball head, and a silver hairpin is conveniently inserted to match the Tang suit on her body.
Although it still can't hide the youthful collagen on the face, it looks a lot calmer.
Xiao Yining nodded in satisfaction. OK, start working.
Relying on the navigation, Xiao Yining successfully arrived at Building No. 6 where the customer was located ten minutes later. After taking the elevator to the 8th floor, Xiao Yining was relieved by Huang Shiba who was squatting at the door, and solemnly rang the doorbell.
Soon there was the sound of kicking footsteps in the house, and the footsteps stopped at the door, and someone was looking outside with cat's eyes.
Xiao Yining cleared his throat: "Hi, door-to-door service."
The people in the room seemed a little hesitant. The door didn't open right away.
Xiao Yining was a little confused, she looked up to confirm the house number again: "Hi, 805, Building 6, right? Is it your appointment for door-to-door service tonight?"
The door was silent for a few seconds, and then the door was slowly opened, revealing a familiar face full of doubts.
Four years of sleeping together in college, seven years of friendship with Tieci, and two months of girlfriends who hadn't reunited due to the epidemic and work met so unexpectedly.
Xiao Yining's eyes widened: "Miyou?!"
Ten minutes later, Xiao Yining and Mi You sat opposite each other at the dining table in the living room, looking at each other.
The ten minutes just now should be the longest ten minutes in Xiao Yining's life. Since she was forced to take over the family business in her senior year, even though she has been a horse fairy for more than three years, she has always kept it a secret and never revealed it to anyone. Until today, I fell off the horse unexpectedly in front of my best friend.
The simple word "social death" is not enough to describe her inner breakdown in these ten minutes.
Xiao Yining is a horse fairy.
Chumaxian is the master who enshrines the five great immortals, helps people eliminate disasters and solve problems, and sees things and diseases.
In the north they are called Shaman and Chumaxian, while in the south they are called Si Niangzi and Xianniangpo. But it's actually all the same genre, with slightly different branches and beliefs.
Xiao Yining's is the traditional northern style of running horses. Her family is ancestral and belongs to the family business.
Miyou examined her face: "So, when I ran into you offering incense when I was in college, you had already started this business?"
Xiao Yining quickly retorted: "No, no, I just treated them to a meal at that time."
Miyou recalled carefully: "That was the year of your senior internship, you were always pale and dizzy, and you said you had a cold..."
Xiao Yining also thought of the painful process of running in with the old fairy, and he had mixed feelings for a while: "Yes, it was just a while ago that I had to practice and go to work during the day, and at night I had to bind my orifices and open acupoints, learn the Book of Changes and gossip …”
Miyou snorted coldly: "So you kept it from me for three years!"
Xiao Yining was full of bitterness: "Ah, what do I say???"
Miyou choked up. The two looked at each other again.
Xiao Yining scratched his head: "So how did you find my master?"
This time it was Miyou's turn to be embarrassed: "...it's a long story. Do you believe me when I say that a dead horse is treated as a living horse doctor?"
Xiao Yining: ...
Miyou explained: "You know about my house renovation before, right?"
Xiao Yining nodded: "I know, isn't it because of this that we have been so busy that we haven't seen each other for several months?"
It was also because of this that Xiao Yining only knew that his best friend had bought a house in the third ring road, but he didn't know that Miyou bought a house in this neighborhood, so he was so caught off guard today.
Miyou said sadly: "I didn't expect that it was all because of this house. I am in a disaster for no reason."
Xiao Yining glanced sideways at Miyou's waist, which was still wearing a brace, and asked tentatively, "So your waist hurts?"
Miyou nodded sadly: "Yes."
A child without a mother is a long story.
Miyou's house went smoothly when it was bought, but after the purchase, there were twists and turns.
First, the brand-new all-in-one steamer and oven that was embedded in the wall failed for no reason, and I had to find someone to repair it two or three times. Then the wall lamp in the kitchen also broke, and the wiring was repaired. Miyou paid a lot of money to hire a design and decoration company, but as soon as she moved in, such things happened one after another. She was so angry that she almost wanted to complain, feeling that she had spent too much money.
In the end, before she had time to complain, Miyou suffered a back injury.
As a person who has to work at a desk all year round, the lumbar spine and cervical spine are high-risk areas. Miyou has a little lumbar disc herniation. In the words of the doctor, the degree of this lumbar injury is very subtle. It is neither serious enough to require surgery, nor mild enough to pay more attention to it. In other words, it is grinding people. Usually not only pay attention to rest the waist, but also regular follow-up visits to avoid aggravation.
According to Miyou's past experience, as long as she rests and takes medicine as prescribed by the doctor, she will recover in three to five days.
But this time the back pain came on fiercely. Two weeks later, not only did it not get better, but the pain intensified. The painful Miyou couldn't straighten her waist.
"Then I went to see a doctor, and I spent thousands of dollars on examinations, and I told you about this." Miyou said. Xiao Yining nodded, she remembered this. That was last month.
The doctor took the film of Miyou and was amazed: "It didn't compress the nerves, why are you still in so much pain? It shouldn't be!"
Filming, fluoroscopy, traction, physiotherapy and acupuncture, tried all the rice pomelo that should be done and should not be done. It's useless.
She took sick leave and lay flat on the big bed at home, with Miyou's face full of lovelessness.
"And then I started having nightmares."
Recalling the previous scene, Miyou still has lingering fears.
Continuous overtime work and staying up late lead to neurasthenia, poor sleep and messy dreams. Workers have encountered this situation more or less.
It's not shabby to make money.
Miyou also thought so at first.
But things are starting to get a little weird.
Miyou began to dream frequently of yin houses, ghosts, cemeteries, and cemeteries.
In the dream, she was walking alone in the dark wasteland, surrounded by winds and ghosts. There was an old house with big red lanterns that looked like something out of a horror movie. She was about to go there when she was woken up by some small animals.
Social animals who have become a habit of working overtime and staying up late have more or less experienced neurasthenia and poor sleep. Miyou didn't take it seriously two days ago. But for a week, the dream every night is these contents.
Miyou noticed that even the time of waking up was exactly the same every night, exactly at four o'clock in the morning.
The rigorous Miyou made an analysis and summary of this.
What these dreams have in common is that they all appear in various horror movies or classic scenes in legends, all have ghostly houses, and they are all disturbed by animals before going to them, and then wake up.
The difference is that the animals that bump into her are different every day. Sometimes it was a snow-white rabbit with ruby eyes. Sometimes it's a fox with fur as bright as a flame.
When she was talking about this, Xiao Yining interrupted her.
Xiao Yining: "Rice, do you have any fragrant roots in your ancestors?"
Miyou:? ? ? ?
Miyou: "What is vetiver?"
Xiao Yining: "Is there anyone in your family who opened a church or raised immortals?"
Miyou: "Shouldn't there be? I haven't heard of it."
Xiao Yining fell silent, her eyes shifted to Huang Shiba who was squatting on the TV cabinet beside him.
Huang Shiba pretended to be old-fashioned and scratched his chin: "She has, I have seen it."
Following Huang Shiba's line of sight, Xiao Yining spotted a fluorescent, fluffy tail behind the door of Miyou's bedroom. Red, like a fire.
The same dream, the same waking time, the coincidence made Miyou's back tingle. One of her good colleagues, A Zhai, stayed at her house one night because she was too late to go back because of overtime work. After witnessing her waking up in the middle of the night, she recommended Daoist Xu to her.
A Zhai: "Is there such a possibility that for things that science can't explain, you can ask metaphysics for help?"
Because of the kindness of her colleagues, Mi You added Daochang Xu's WeChat with the mentality of treating a dead horse as a living horse doctor.
Xiao Yining came to a sudden: "That's why you found my master."
Xu Daochang is Xiao Yining's leading master, he lives in NMG, and his family runs a dojo.
The Daoist Xu that Miyou thinks is: Immortal, aloof and serious, with a face of "Believe it or not, don't disturb my ascension".
The actual Daoist Xu: gentle and talkative, funny and lively, even the profile picture is a four-clawed weasel running in the air on the snow, commonly known as "yellow man".
Newcomers and new pits, chatting for self-entertainment.
(end of this chapter)