Lu Ning picked up the wine glass. Just as she had asked, there was no overly strong smell of alcohol in the glass. A slightly sweet smell slowly evaporated from the strangely colored wine, but it made people uncomfortable. It doesn't feel particularly comfortable.
After Sera served the glass of wine, she went to receive other guests, which made Lu Ning unable to guess whether this was a hint.
She took a sip.
It was hot, bitter, and completely different from what she looked and smelled like. She even felt that her tongue was numb. It was not alcohol, but some other ingredient at work.
"Hehehe, the little girl actually dares to try this." A man with gray hair and beard sat on a seat not far from Lu Ning, "Sela really likes to show off her skills."
"It is my obligation to choose the type that meets the requirements of the guests." Sierra placed a large glass of beer in front of the man, "Can't this glass of wine represent our town?"
The man laughed, then took a sip of beer and said to Lu Ning: "The taste of this glass of wine will make people feel painful, followed by numbness, just like how the legend in the town targeted witches before. However, the alcohol content is very low, so it is not It makes people drunk. They are in pain but cannot hypnotize themselves. This is where the witch comes back."
"You understand very well." Sera raised her eyebrows and said, "But this period of history is real and there is no need to avoid it."
"Yes, yes, but who knows if the witch will really come back? What will people do then? Apologize? Or continue the atrocities of the past?"
"No one makes a stupid mistake twice. Now everyone knows that those things should not be done." Sera retorted, "But now the town's concept of witches as a potential threat also makes me disagree. .”
"Silly boy." The man smiled and shook his head. "If the witch returns, she will definitely take revenge on this town. She won't care whether the people here understand the mistake or whether they are the same group of people."
"Why are you so sure that the witch will come back?" Lu Ning asked.
"Because...she will always come back, just like in the legend." The man took another sip, "And then, other than using the same violence to fight against her, the people in the town will have nothing to do."
"Sounds like you've been through it."
"If he had experienced it, he wouldn't drink here." Sierra smiled, "That's just the shadow left by the previous generation."
"That's right. You and I are just guessing here without any reason. There is no essential difference, ha!" The man raised his glass and shook it at Lu Ning. "Cheers!"
Lu Ning raised her glass and nodded to him.
After drinking only half of the glass of wine, Lu Ning didn't want to continue, so she asked Sera for a glass of mead. Sera also knew how that glass of wine tasted, and immediately gave her a glass of golden wine with an understanding look on her face, which cured Lu Ning's battered tongue.
It was getting dark outside, and there were more and more people. The smell of food was filling the room. Sharma was bringing out plates of food from the back kitchen, and the tavern gradually became noisy.
"The Taylor family has all moved away."
This sentence penetrated into Lu Ning's ears.
It was a table nearby, and they were talking about the Taylors.
"Having been paranoid all day long, you're almost having a nervous breakdown, right? Even if she moves away, isn't the company that accepted her job still doing a good job?"
"But that house is really evil."
"Then why don't you get too close? How can anyone in the town run there without any trouble? They always say that there is evil there, but none of the women who clean the house died suddenly."
"What happened to the boy from the Cowan family? The hunters searched in the forest for a whole day, but they couldn't find anything that could beat someone with stones like that."
"Did you fall from somewhere? Children don't know the way in the forest, so it's normal for something to happen. Wasn't it saved by a doctor who came to the town? Since he was saved, it means it's not a big deal."
People's mentality is obviously very optimistic. As for the cats and dogs that were previously rumored to have died, most of them don't care much because there are no obvious "abnormalities" in their lives.
At this moment, the door of the tavern was pushed open again. Karl walked into the tavern with his waist in his arms. He was quite satisfied with the atmosphere here. He walked to the bar and sat down. He happened to see Lu Ning and raised his hand to say hello. , then looked at Sera.
"I assume this is where to order drinks?"
Sera nodded: "What do guests want to order? We will try our best to satisfy your taste."
"Then..." Karl didn't even look at the drink list, "How about a warm and bold drink worthy of a cowboy?"
"Mixed wine or brewed wine?"
"Brewed, I still like the pure natural taste... By the way, give me a plate of those fried pork sticks that look so fragrant."
"Of course, no problem, please wait." Sera walked to the kitchen door and said something, then turned around and took a large glass full of slightly turbid wine from a row of wine barrels on the wall. Come back and put it in front of Karl.
"Thank you, my name is Karl, what do you call me?" Karl took the wine and drank half the cup in a big gulp, sighing with satisfaction.
"Sierra."
"What a good name. I have a very good friend with the same name, but I haven't seen him for a long time."
"Really? So how is she doing?"
"Definitely better than me." Karl grinned, "As you can see, I am here to travel. Sera, can you tell me about the recommended attractions here? And what are the taboos in the customs here? I don't like to offend. Local people.”
"There have been no special taboos in Baihu Town in recent years. It's just because the transportation is not convenient that it doesn't have much connection with the outside world. If you have to talk about it, don't mention what happened in the past in front of the Herman family. , just don’t mention the mine to the Turner family.”
"What? What happened to these two families?"
"Hahaha!" Some of the drinkers laughed out loud, apparently hearing the conversation between the two.
"Brother, if I want to buy you a drink, why don't you tell me what's funny and make me happy?" Karl turned his head and extended an invitation to the laughing person.
"It's just funny to say it." The drinker said, "Everyone in the town knows that this is the biggest scandal of those two families. The Hermann family was at the forefront of witch executions. Their dungeon probably collected all the As a torture device, after the matter was denied, his status was embarrassing and he could only be locked up and become a wealthy idler. As for the Turners, they were unlucky. They insisted on developing the surrounding areas of Baihu Town and invested in a lot of mining businesses. As a result, everything was lost.”
"This kind of thing is very common, why aren't you allowed to mention it?"
"Everyone knows better than to say it out loud. After all, the nobles in the past wanted face! Hahaha!" Even though he said this, the drinker still laughed shamelessly.
Lu Ning noticed that most of the people in the tavern didn't take this seriously. They probably knew that there were no people from the two families present, but only two sturdy men in black undershirts in the corner were still there. They drank and ate in silence, barely paying attention to the sounds outside.
"Sela, can you ask what's going on with those two people in the corner?" Lu Ning asked in a low voice.
Sierra took a look and lowered her voice slightly: "Those are the two brothers of the Li family. Their family does not have much industry, but they must have taken some job recently. It seems that the job did not make them happy."
"Why do you say that?"
"Their favorite alcohol used to be cheap and enjoyable drinks like beer, but recently they tend to prefer distilled spirits that are more expensive but can get drunk quickly. This change explains some problems."
"Is this just a different flavor?"
"What changes is not taste, but habits. And changes in habits must be accompanied by changes in living conditions. It's normal if they occasionally want to try other flavors, but these days they all choose the same variety. Then it can’t be an accident.”
Lu Ning nodded slightly.
"Is this how you tell me?"
"These are all my guesses." Sierra smiled, "If the customer really tells me about his living conditions, I won't go around talking nonsense."
This is a very smart girl.
Lu Ning glanced at Sera who was busy again, drank the remaining half glass of "The Return of the Witch", confirmed that there was no mark on the bottom of the glass, and put the glass back.
As time went by, many people began to get drunk. Carl was already drinking his third glass of wine. Even though Lu Ning didn't really drink much, she was a little tipsy because of the atmosphere.
I don’t know how long it took, but the door was suddenly knocked open. A young man rushed into the tavern crawling on his feet. When he saw a room full of people, he felt like he had seen a savior. He shouted: "Dead, dead." ! There’s a body in the alley outside!”
The whole place was in an uproar.
Lu Ning raised her eyes, knowing in her heart that this moment would come sooner or later, but she didn't know who was doing it.
Some brave ones immediately took farm tools and hunting tools and helped the young man up. Sharma brought out a small glass of strong wine. People rushed to let the young man drink it, and his frightened and blue face suddenly turned red. got up.
"Take us over there and have a look!" Several older hunters spoke.
"Okay... okay!" The young man became brave and turned around and walked out the door. Most of the drinkers also ran out to see the situation, including of course Lu Ning and Karl.
The place where the incident happened was not far away, in an alley less than 20 meters away from the tavern. Most of the shops on this street were closed at this time. No wonder the young man ran directly into the tavern.
This dark alley was a dead end. There were some construction waste at the end, covered with a plastic sheet, and the body the young man said was thrown on this plastic sheet.
The reason why it is said to be "still" is because the scene looks like the corpse was hit on the plastic sheet with a huge force, and the scraps that were originally piled up underneath are now scattered.
And the appearance of the corpse was also miserable.
This was a man about forty years old. He looked ferocious and seemed to have endured great pain before death. His clothes from the neck down were covered in blood spots, his skin was wrinkled, his body was sunken, and there were blood all over his body. Everything seemed to have been ignored. When Lu Ning revealed her identity as a doctor and stepped forward to check, she didn't even find any obvious body spots.
"He died not long ago. Rigor mortis was not very obvious. The cause of death was... blood loss, visceral puncture. There was a violent struggle before death. Does anyone know who this is?" Lu Ning quickly completed a simple autopsy.
The town was not big, so the drinkers identified him and quickly recognized that this person seemed to be a farmer living in the south of the town. Although he had a grumpy personality, he was straightforward and had many friends.
Several people with better connections worked together to lift the body down, but inevitably the drinkers started to break the murderer's legs while worrying.
"I remember that this kind of injury seemed to be caused by a torture instrument used to execute witches in the past, right?"
"Yes, look at the wounds on his body. They are punctured so densely and neatly. They must not have been punctured with a needle!"
"This guy has a very bad temper. Last time I saw him having a quarrel with some people from the Herman family about acquiring land."
"Herman? Don't they have the most torture instruments?"
"They must have done the right thing! They still think that they are nobles! They kill people if they disagree with each other. Who can bear this?"
"Look for them! Ask them clearly!"
A group of people were so noisy that they somehow deduced the truth, and then immediately carried the body to the Herman family's house, leaving only a few people behind.
"Aren't you going to take a look?" Karl glanced at Lu Ning.
Lu Ning walked to the tavern: "Not interested. If it was really that family that did it, they should at least do it cleanly instead of throwing the body into a place where there is a high probability of being discovered."
"Maybe it's reverse thinking? They can use this argument to argue."
"Then let's change the reason. The Hermann family is not in power, and the mayor is the one who has the final say in this town. For them, living people are far better for negotiation than dead people. If It’s the kind of family that will be eliminated if they disobey you. It’s hard for me to imagine that they can survive in the town to this day.”
Karl smiled: "Then I'm going to take a look. Maybe I'll find something special. See you later."
Lu Ning waved goodbye and returned to the tavern.
Most of the people were gone, and the place suddenly became much deserted. Sera stood at the bar and was a little surprised to see Lu Ning coming back.
"I thought the guests would come and see it together."
"I've seen too much about life and death, and I don't have the heart to take this matter as a show." Lu Ning sat down where she was, and was blown by the cold wind outside, which made her head sober again.
But she felt irritated.
"So, since you are willing to come back, what else would you like to drink?" Sera asked.
"In my impression, every bartender will make a drink named Bloody." Lu Ning raised her hand and rubbed her temples, "Then please give me a glass of something similar, preferably with Bloody." The same bright red color.”
"As you wish."
