That night, we spent the last night staying in Boss Xu's small hotel. Early the next morning, we hurriedly set off to catch the bus and prepared to go back to school.
"Goddess Su! You should hurry up!" Shi Yitong yelled anxiously, "If you wait any longer, you will miss the bus! I have to go back to class for three or four periods!"
"Wait!" Su Xiaoyun hurriedly ran down the stairs, her hair and clothes didn't know how long it took to take care of her hair and clothes, and she was carrying big and small bags in her hands, "Here we come, don't rush me !"
"My ancestor, you have finally come down." Shi Yitong breathed a sigh of relief, and waved to Su Xiaoyun desperately, "Go, go!"
"Wait!" Su Xiaoyun exclaimed again.
"What did you forget?" I asked helplessly.
"Gulu! I've been fostering Gulu with Boss Xu for the past few days!" Su Xiaoyun said and ran upstairs in a hurry. Seeing this scene, Shi Yitong and I both sighed dissatisfied.
"It seems that we can only catch the next bus." Shi Yitong said helplessly, "I will definitely miss my class."
"Forget it, let her go." I smiled, "It's impossible for Su Xiaoyun not to spend a few hours dawdling every time I go out."
"I knew it would be like this." Shi Yitong muttered, "That's why I took three or four classes off in advance."
"So you are finally planning to leave." At this time, Boss Xu Yingchen walked down the stairs with a smile on his face.
We nodded and smiled at the genial boss.
"Well, we're going back. Thank you boss for taking care of us these days."
"Where is it, this is my job." Boss Xu said leisurely, "It should be said that you have taken care of me a lot during this time."
Both Shi Yitong and I frowned slightly, not understanding what Boss Xu meant. At this time, Su Xiaoyun walked down closely behind Boss Xu, holding the familiar black cat Gulu in his arms.
"I'm sorry, I almost forgot about you. If you don't follow me back to school, I will be in bad luck."
"Okay Goddess, we can't go yet." Shi Yitong complained. It's no wonder that he has been carrying the heaviest luggage on his back since just now.
"Let's go, I'm sorry." Su Xiaoyun put Gulu on the ground, and the spiritual cat followed Su Xiaoyun's feet lightly.
"I've been bothering you a lot these days, Boss Xu." Su Xiaoyun also smiled at Boss Xu and said, "Speaking of which, I don't know why, but I always think you look familiar."
Boss Xu said with a smile, "Oh? Really?"
"It's as if I met you when I was a child. But it's unlikely." Su Xiaoyun said with a smile, "It must be because your smile reminds me of my father. He is a very gentle and kind person."
"Is that so?" Boss Xu smiled even more happily, "That would be a great honor. Be careful on the road."
"Ok, no problem!"
We left Xu Yingchen's small hotel just like that. What we didn't know was that after we left, Xu Yingchen slowly walked out from the counter.
"You guys have taken care of me these past few days, you are absolutely right." Xu Yingchen muttered to himself with a smile on his face.
With that said, Xu Yingchen walked towards the empty living room on the first floor, where the landscape painting was still hanging alone on the wall. He reached out and took off the painting, put it on the counter and looked at it carefully.
"You are still not strong enough. I thought you could delay them a little longer. If I had known this would be the result, I would have killed you instead of sealing you in the painting. Useless things ah."
Xu Yingchen shook his head, then looked at the sky outside the window, "But... Although time is tight, it should be in time."
Finish this sentence. Suddenly a whirlwind blew up out of nowhere in the small hotel. Then, at the place where Xu Yingchen was originally standing, a small figure made of a piece of paper slowly floated down, just landing on the landscape painting.
———————
The bus started slowly, and the three of us sat side by side in the last row of the bus, drowsy.
At some point, the sky also became groggy. The originally clear blue sky was covered with dark clouds, and the dark clouds exerted pressure invisible.
In a daze, I felt a touch on my shoulder, and Shi Yitong's voice rang in my ears.
"Gu Yu, Gu Yu."
"Why?" I opened my eyes and looked at Shi Yitong with dissatisfaction, annoyed why he was so good at disturbing my waking dream.
"Have you brought toilet paper?" Shi Yitong pointed at his red nose pitifully, and sucked it, "I think I have a cold."
"No way, Su Xiaoyun and I don't have a cold, but you, who looks like the thickest person, actually has a cold?" I teased him, put my hand in my pocket, took out a stack of napkins and handed it over.
"Thank you." Shi Yitong took the paper and blew his nose, and when I closed my eyes and decided to squint for a while, Shi Yitong spoke again.
"Hey, Gu Yu, you seem to have dropped something just now."
"What?" I opened my eyes.
"On the ground, a piece of paper seems to have fallen out when you just took out your pocket." Shi Yitong pointed to my feet, and I looked down, and there was a yellowed piece of paper lying beside my feet.
What's this? How come I don't remember having this thing in my pocket
I picked up the piece of paper, unfolded it, and was stunned.
This piece of paper was a painting, a huge fox grinning ferociously, showing its sharp teeth, with nine huge tails dancing wildly in the wind.
I remember this painting, which I found in Grandpa Shi Yitong's storage room in order to investigate the Jinhua cat. It depicts a scary nine-tailed fox. I didn't know why at the time, so I secretly hid the painting, and then I completely forgot about the existence of this painting.
But why is it in my pocket now
I stared at this painting in a daze, and suddenly remembered the short poem Zhu Xuan said before parting.
That's right, I've seen that poem in Wen Jiubai's ancient book. That is the earliest poem about the nine-tailed fox recorded in "Lushi Chunqiu", "Dayu Tu Folk Song".
—Suisui white fox with nine tails.
- As a family, I am all Youchang.
No way. Could it be that…
At this moment, the bus stopped suddenly with a sudden brake, and my head hit the back of the seat in front of me unexpectedly. Although I didn't hit it, I was taken aback.
"what's up?"
"what happened!"
It seemed that I was not the only one who was frightened, and all the passengers on the bus complained for a while. Shi Yitong and Su Xiaoyun were also woken up, Su Xiaoyun looked around, "Where are we now?"
"I don't know, the car stopped suddenly." I hurriedly folded the painting of the Nine-Tailed Fox and put it back in my pocket while saying.
While the passengers in the car were whispering, the driver stood up and said very apologetically.
"Well, passengers, I'm really sorry. The fog is so thick that I can't see the road ahead at all. I just almost collided with a car on the opposite side. It's too dangerous. It's not far from the station. Please everyone get out of the car and go."
Passengers immediately complained.
"what's up."
"How can you be so irresponsible?"
it's foggy? How can there be fog? Obviously the sky was still clear when we first got into the car.
I stood up suspiciously, and looked out from the glass window.
Sure enough, at some point, the window was covered with a thick layer of fog, and the visibility was less than 50 meters. The road, pedestrians, and buildings could not be seen clearly. No wonder the driver stopped here.
However, relying on our familiarity with Yancheng, we can barely recognize that this is a block not far from the school.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The driver uncle was still apologizing to the passengers in a good temper. "The fog is too heavy. For everyone's safety, please get out of the car and walk."
"Why is there fog?" Shi Yitong muttered, followed the team in the car and got out of the car, and looked at the thick fog around him with a puzzled face, "The sky was so cloudy just now, I thought it was going to rain. What the hell kind of weather is this place?"
"Forget it, it's not too far away from school anyway, let's walk back. Just treat it as exercise. Gulu?" Su Xiaoyun's attitude is very optimistic, and the cat in her arms seems to respond to her called out.
"Forget it, it's what the goddess says." Shi Yitong shrugged.
But even if the two of them said this, there was always a lump in my heart. My intuition told me something was wrong, but my intellect couldn't tell.
This weird dense fog gave me the feeling of a heavy heavy stone pressing on my chest, or a bed of ghosts who woke up in the middle of the night and found that I couldn't turn over anyway. There was an indescribably weird feeling.
"How long do we have to go?" Shi Yitong's complaint suddenly broke the quiet air, "My shoulders are sore."
"What's the rush, this road is not very close. The fog is so thick, please be patient." Su Xiaoyun said nonchalantly, and asked me by the way, "What time is it?"
"Uh..." I glanced at my phone, "It's half past eleven."
"Let me just say, it's time for lunch, no wonder my stomach has been growling." Shi Yitong said with a curled lip.
"Come on, you know how to eat all day long." Su Xiaoyun frowned as soon as she teased, "But...it's already half past eleven? I remember it was seven o'clock when we left the house, and the departure time was eight o'clock. At half past one, if calculated according to the normal time, we should arrive at Yanda around ten o'clock. Even if the weather delays another half an hour, we should get off at half past ten."
"I looked at my watch when I got off the bus, and it was ten twenty." After Shi Yitong finished speaking, his expression became strange.
"In other words, we have been walking here for more than an hour." Su Xiaoyun's eyes were as sharp as an eagle, she stopped, looked at the thick fog around and said, "But, after walking for so long, you Have you seen this road ever fork?"