Volume 1 Chapter 009: Dark Willows and Flowers
My head suddenly felt dizzy and I fell to the ground with a thud, unconscious.
When I woke up, I was already in a room without windows on all four sides. I was lying face down on a large table. The room was dark, with only a few simple wooden tables and chairs and a candlestick. There were two white candles lit in the corner, and the candlelight flickered, which made people feel creepy.
I climbed down from the table. This room looked very strange. The roof was very high, more than twice the height of an ordinary room. The color of the wall was very unusual, a very glaring dark red. I scratched it with my fingernail, and it was as red as blood. I smelled it from close up, and it smelled like cinnabar. I guess a lot of cinnabar was mixed into the wall when it was first built.
Cinnabar has the effect of warding off evil spirits. Yet so much cinnabar has been added to the walls and roof of this house. What are they trying to protect against?
I wanted to run away quickly while no one was inside the house, but after a careful look, I was stunned. This house not only had no windows, but also no door.
This is totally irrational. This house looks like it has been there for some time, and it cannot have been newly built. Since I was thrown into this house, it means there must be an entrance.
But the house was so small that I could see everything at a glance. The floor was paved with bluestone slabs, and the roof and walls were made of earth containing a lot of cinnabar. The furnishings in the house were also very simple, with only a few wooden tables and chairs, and there was no place to hide.
This seems to be an incredible and bizarre thing. If ordinary people encounter this kind of situation, those with weak wills will probably collapse.
But people in our line of work usually deal with dead people and ghosts, and we have encountered many strange things. We know that there must be something wrong when things are abnormal. At this time, you must not panic or be timid. If you panic or be timid, you will be confused first, and no one can save you at that time.
I didn't yell "Is there anyone here?" or "Let me go." In this situation, the use of doing so was basically zero. Since they had already captured me, could they let me go just because I yelled a few times?
I found a chair and sat down to calm down.
The person who threw me here should be the one who showed up at my house that night. Judging from his appearance, he reminded me of someone, the one named Zhong mentioned by Liu Zian. He was about fifty years old, wore glasses, and looked gentle . All these matched.
I am sure now that it was ! This black-hearted man obviously couldn't handle that devil girl Liu Nan, so he brought the trouble to us. He is trying to ruin our village!
I walked along the wall inch by inch, but I didn't see anything strange. There was no special trick or secret door here.
There were only two white candles lit on the candlesticks, which flickered in length, causing the light and shadow in the room to change, making it look particularly eerie and scary.
I had an idea, and seeing a bag of incense sticks on the candlestick, I took out a few sticks, lit them next to the candle flame, and waved them in the air to extinguish the flame.
Then he moved an incense stand to the center of the room and put a few lit incense sticks on it. I stepped away and stared at the smoke rising from the incense sticks.
From where I was standing, I could clearly see several streams of smoke that were not rising straight up, but curling like snakes, drifting in one direction.
This room has neither doors nor windows, which means it is a sealed place. Since there is no air convection, smoke cannot drift.
Now that there is drift, it can only mean one thing, that there is actually air convection in the room, but I just can't feel it!
I went over and grabbed three incense sticks, held them in my hands, and took a slow step forward in the direction the smoke was drifting. I stopped after taking a step, waited for the smoke to point to a clear direction, and took another step forward.
I didn't care if I would bump into the table or the wall if I continued walking like this. I held my breath and concentrated, with only a few . I walked and stopped along the way, creating a maze-like route in the house. In the end, the direction pointed by the smoke was the wall about a few inches away from my nose.
I gritted my teeth and was about to step forward to hit the wall, but at this moment, the three incense sticks in my hand broke! Then I felt a huge suction force behind me, pulling me backwards and making me fall backwards, rolling on the ground several times.
This time it was all in vain.
I got up from the ground, covered in dust, and saw that there was a new person sitting on the chair where I had sat before. He had gray hair, was wearing a navy blue Tang suit, and was reading a book.
This book looks familiar to me, it is the Investiture of the Gods that accompanied me throughout my childhood. And the person reading the book is the old man who appeared in my house that night.
"I read it again from the beginning, and I still don't like Daji." The old man flipped through the book and said slowly.
I had no idea how this person showed up. Although I was scared, it was useless to be afraid. I brushed off the dirt on my body, moved a chair and sat down, and followed his words: "Who do you like? Lao Jiang?"
The man closed the book, looked up at the roof for a while, and said slowly: "King Zhou. I like him the most."
I thought to myself, damn, is this old guy interested in men? Is he gay?
I heard the word "gay" from some Hong Kong and Taiwan movies, and I think it is just the right word to describe this old guy.
"This guy is dissolute and immoral, bringing disaster to the country and the people , and yet you still like him?" I had no idea what this guy was up to, so I could only go along with what he said.
Although this old guy looks good, his face is pale, his eye sockets are deep, and he looks like a dead person. It makes people feel uncomfortable. He looked at me with his dead eyes, and said with a weird twitch of his mouth: "Is it impossible to like someone who brings disaster to the country and the people?"
This guy is really abnormal, he's a gay! I shuddered, goosebumps all over my body, and said quickly: "Of course, it's your freedom to like whoever you want!"
The dead face gave me a deep look that made me feel creepy.
"Did your uncle teach you that method?"
I was surprised: "Do you know my third uncle?"
Dead Face shook his head: "I've heard of it. I heard that in your line of work, your skills are the best within a hundred miles."
I was moved when I heard this. He said "your business", which means he is not in the same business as us. Is there someone else who uses the seven-star twist buckle method to tie the ink line? Or is this person also quite knowledgeable about our business?
"You are the master named Zhong hired by the Liu family, right?" I stared at him.
"What do you mean superior or inferior? I just have an old acquaintance with the old man of the Liu family, so I'll help if I can." The dead face's voice sounded flat, just like a dead person.
"You haven't answered me yet. Was it your uncle who taught you the method just now?"
I shook my head and said that my uncle didn't know these things, it was my teacher Tian who taught him. The dead face said "Oh" and asked who Teacher Tian was.
I said Teacher Tian is Teacher Tian, my homeroom teacher.
"Our teacher Tian taught me that everything in the world can be analyzed scientifically."
"Tell me about it." Dead Face seemed quite interested.
"This house has neither doors nor windows, which is illogical in itself. It is very likely that there is some kind of sleight of hand in this house, just like those magicians on the street, deceiving my eyes and making me unable to see the way out."
"But no matter what, a sleight of hand is a sleight of hand. It can deceive people's eyes and confuse people's senses, but it cannot violate the laws of nature. As long as there is air convection in the room, it cannot be a closed place, and the smoke will definitely drift!"
"Smart kid." The dead face clapped his hands a few times, his voice was extremely unpleasant, "It's a pity that your teacher Tian taught you to be so stupid. You are so stupid!"
I don't even bother to pay attention to him. You said I was a blockhead, so I am a blockhead? I also said you are a dead head, why don't you die?
Dead Face sat on the chair and suddenly waved his sleeves: "Try again. If you can get out, I will let you go."
"It's a deal! An old dog doesn't keep his word!" I quickly agreed. I was absolutely confident in my method just now. If that dead face hadn't suddenly appeared, I would have escaped for a long time.
I was afraid that the dead face would change his mind, so I quickly moved out the incense stand, took out three incense sticks, lit them over the candle flame, extinguished the flame, and put them on the incense stand.
Then I stepped back a few steps and stared at the smoke from the incense stick. I first had to capture the path of the air flow by the direction of the smoke.
But after watching for a while, I broke out in a cold sweat. The three streams of smoke were rising straight up without any fluctuations. This meant that there was not even a trace of air flowing in the room at this time!
How can this be?
