The town is quite lively in the early morning, and the street where the hotel is located is also relatively prosperous. There are hawkers and people passing by early in the morning.
Chen Tao and others were sitting at a bun stall downstairs. One of them ordered steamed buns and ate tofu puffs and tea eggs. Shan Gui sighed:
"In our line of work, if you can sleep well and get up early to have a hot breakfast, you are very satisfied." After saying this, he ate the whole bun in one bite.
Haozi smiled and said: "Uncle Ghost, I can't pack a sack for you to take with you! This thing down there is simply the best!"
"Well, that makes sense. A few more tea eggs will be perfect!" Chen Tao agreed.
"You can't keep these things if you take them with you. They'll go rancid within a few days." Shangui took a bite of the tea egg and took another big sip of the tofu. "It's so good..."
While everyone was eating, they heard people at the table next to them chatting animatedly.
A lean man said: "Hey, hey, have you heard that Heizigou is crazy again?"
Another middle-aged man said: "Huh? Another one is crazy?"
"Isn't that right? I heard that he is the son of the grocery store at the entrance of the village. Hey, hey, it's so pitiful that he is going crazy at such a young age!" said a woman next to the middle-aged man, who looked like the thin man. daughter-in-law.
"Oh, what a pity. What do you think is going on in Heizigou? I heard from my uncle that there were people in this village who went crazy before. They had convulsions and spit out white foam every day, as if they were possessed by evil spirits!" said the middle-aged man.
"Oh! That's right! There is an old lady in my second aunt's village who was married from that village! I heard from her that the man suddenly went crazy for no reason. He was lying on the ground with twitching hands like chicken claws. I keep scratching my body and I can’t stop scratching until it bleeds! I keep scratching and I can’t hold it down!” the woman said, putting down the bowls and chopsticks in her hands.
"Oh, I don't know what kind of evil he has done! You said this thing is weird. There are so many people in Blackwater Town, but only their village has a madman! I heard that he died miserably in the end, cramps Tumo scratched himself to death! Oops, maybe he offended the mountain god and violated the gods!"
"Who knows, it must have provoked some gods! Let me tell you, this village was not like this before! But many years ago, I don't know when, someone was mining in the mountains, and later a life was lost. ! From that time on, some people started going crazy after a few years!" A thin, dark old man joined the conversation at the table next to him.
"Really! What is that about?" the woman asked curiously.
The old man took a bowl of tofu and steamed buns and sat on the table of the three of them. He picked up the bowl and took a big mouthful and said:
"I also heard from other old people that there is a man-eating valley above Heizigou. Once people go in, they can't get out! In the past, I heard that several children ran into Liangzikou and they all died!"
"Oh, I heard about this when I was a kid. I thought my mother was making up stories to scare me!" the woman said.
"No, it's true!" The thin black old man ate a bun and said while chewing: "Later, a stranger came and said that there was some kind of mine in the mountain, and he paid someone to dig it. It's the same thing in the mountain usually. Some people go to herd sheep, cut down some trees, etc., and the boss offers them a good salary, so someone will follow them."
"What happened next? Are you digging?" the middle-aged man asked.
"We were digging! But the mine was too deep and far away. At that time, I was digging blindly in the cave with no direction. I dug wherever there was more ore. As a result, I dug further and further. Guess where I ended up digging. !” The thin old man spoke with great joy and his eyes were shining.
"Where are you digging?" the lean man asked.
"They are digging and digging, right down to the man-eating valley!" the old man said, slapping the table.
"Oh, down there in the Cannibal Valley! Isn't something going to happen?" the woman took a breath.
"That's right! Something happened!" The thin black old man patted the table again, "They dug to the bottom of the Cannibal Valley, and I don't know what they dug. It is said that it was a large black area."
"A large piece of black? What is that?" the middle-aged man asked.
"They say that underneath the Man-eating Valley is the eighteenth level of hell in the underground Hell's Mansion, and all those dug out are evil man-eating ghosts! Those workers were all eaten alive down there!"
"Oh! I'm so scared, so scared!" The woman smacked her lips.
"That person is dead, where did you hear that?" the lean man asked.
"A worker escaped at that time. He was at the back of the crowd. He survived!"
"What happened to that person in the end?" the middle-aged man asked.
"After that person came back, he was fine at first. He might have been frightened. After he came back, his nerves were a little abnormal, and there were small red spots all over his body. They were neither painful nor itchy. I thought he had been hit by moisture under the ground. After a while, the red spots will go away, so I won’t worry about it.”
"Later, a few years later, the man started to feel itchy, and his flesh was itchy and painful! He couldn't stand it, so he scratched it with his hands. The more he scratched, the more itchy he became. I heard that he even soaked it in hot water, and the result was... Red bumps all over."
"Then the red bump also hurt and itched. Slowly, the person started to go crazy. He was rolling on the ground, foaming at the mouth, howling and screaming, and there were blood marks all over his body!"
"Oops..." Everyone felt goosebumps all over their bodies, and their whole bodies shivered.
"Then what happened?" the woman asked, rubbing her arms.
"What else can I do? I'm going to die! I'm crazy, I'm scratching myself to death! I'm scratching myself all over!"
"Hiss..." Everyone took a breath of cold air
"This place is so terrible! I don't even dare to eat!" The woman shrank away from the lean man next to her.
"It's been said like this. Who knows what's going on? I'm afraid those people are digging underground, provoking the gods and ghosts underground, and are coming out to settle accounts with them!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, I don't know what happened to the child in Heizigou. Oh, what a miserable person!" the woman said.
"Oh, that's not true..." the thin old man sighed.
"Eat, eat, it's getting late, you should work after eating!" said the middle-aged man.
"Ah! I forgot the time, eat quickly, eat quickly!" The lean man looked at his watch and hurriedly shouted to the woman next to him to eat quickly.
Chen Tao and others were listening to the conversation and were also surprised.
"I didn't expect such a thing to happen in this little place where birds don't poop!" said the mountain ghost.
"It sounds so oozing, and you're scratching your whole body, tsk tsk, tsk, that's too miserable!" Haozi smacked his lips, held his arms with both hands and rubbed them up and down a few times, "I'm getting goosebumps."
"They are talking about Heizigou. Isn't that where we are going?"
Chen Tao looked at everyone in surprise. "The question is, how is this possible? I'm crazy and itchy, how can I have such a disease? It shouldn't be..."
"This thing is passed from person to person, word of mouth, and things change, but there is one thing, have you noticed?" Uncle Long peeled off the tea eggs and soaked them in a bowl and asked.
"Uncle, is there something wrong?"
Chen Tao directly stuffed the bun into his mouth and looked at Uncle Long seriously. Shangui and Haozi also stopped what they were doing and looked up at Uncle Long.
"Yesterday, Li Guangsheng said that they encountered a black ghost in the Man-Eating Valley, and the 'black mass' mentioned in the words of the group of people just now may be the same thing, or in other words, may be the same thing. A creature that only lives under the man-eating valley."
"Creature? Didn't you say it was a ghost?" Chen Tao asked.
"Humph, there are no ghosts. You have no fear of ghosts and gods in this industry. This place is remote, and the people living here are superstitious. I also guessed that it might be some kind of creature, and this creature only lives in In the special environment underground in the Cannibal Valley."
"But, if it is a living thing, it must be everywhere in this place. How can it be possible that it is only found in the Man-Eating Valley?" Chen Tao asked, stuffing a bun into his mouth.
"I don't know about this. It may have something to do with the Feng Shui pattern there. In short, what I am sure of is that that place is not peaceful and very dangerous. You all should do something good, especially you, Taotao!"
Uncle Long stared at Chen Tao, his meaning was very clear. If Chen Tao disobeyed, he would not hesitate to tie him up, pack him up, and throw him back to his hometown in the ancient city.
"Yeah, I'm sensible. No matter what, I won't make fun of my own life, right?" Chen Tao smiled and lowered his head to eat his own tofu.
"Master Long, why don't we go to Heizigou first and then go into the mountain?" said the mountain ghost.
Uncle Long nodded and said, "Well, you can drive directly through the path at the bottom of the mountain in a moment."
"Yeah!" Mountain Ghost responded.
Everyone said nothing and lowered their heads to eat their breakfast.
After getting in the car, we walked west out of the street, turned around a few major roads, and then took the path at the foot of the mountain that Uncle Long had mentioned.
This road should be the closest to these mountains. It is at the foot of the mountain and is a dirt road walked entirely by people.
The car drove up there, bumping along the way. After walking for a while, it suddenly turned a corner and drove directly into the mountains. It turns out that there is a section here that goes around the hills.
Walking on the mountain road, looking at the lush trees on both sides, Chen Tao felt a little excited. He was finally going into the mountain. He didn't know what he would encounter. Is it really as dangerous as Uncle Long and the others said?
After walking for about half an hour, the car reached the highest point of the hill and stopped. Following Uncle Long and getting out of the car, Chen Tao asked, "Uncle Long, why did we stop here?"
"Waiting for someone..." Uncle Long looked at the distance of the road and said.
Chen Tao didn't ask any more questions, and they just stood on the roadside. There were not many people on the mountain in the early morning. The sun had just risen halfway up the mountain, and it was warm and comfortable on people's bodies.
After waiting for about ten minutes, Chen Tao saw a black off-road vehicle and two off-road pickup trucks coming up from a distance.
"Damn, that car is so cool!" Haozi sighed.
He was talking about the two off-road pickup trucks, which he probably bought and modified by himself, with large off-road wheels and dazzling paint jobs. The back of the car was covered with a big black canvas, and it was bulging inside. I didn't know what it contained, but it just looked like big boxes.
Several cars stopped in front of them, and Chen Tao saw that there were several people sitting in the cars. Two burly men got out of a pickup truck. They were so tall that they looked like mountains standing next to them.
Another pickup truck got out of a somewhat stout middle-aged man. He was not tall and had a big belly. He was wearing a floral shirt and his short hair was shiny. Next to him was a young man, dressed in fancy clothes, with a red haircut and small black earrings on his ears.
"Let me go, is this guy cool enough?" Chen Tao thought to himself.
Only two people got off the black off-road vehicle. The leader was a man in his thirties or forties, wearing black sunglasses and a black leather jacket. When Chen Tao saw the person behind him, he couldn't help but froze.
I saw that man with sharp eyebrows and starry eyes, clean black broken hair, and a long black coat that was very stylish on his slender figure. What attracted Chen Tao most was the large painting tube he carried behind his back.
"Hey? How come this person seems to have been seen somewhere before?" Chen Tao squinted his eyes and thought carefully. The person in the distance gave Chen Tao an inexplicable familiarity, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him before.
It's really strange...
When those people approached, the smooth middle-aged man said: "Oh Lord Long, it's been so long!" The person's words were mixed with a strange Hong Kong and Macao accent, which sounded very awkward.
"Hey, Boss Zhang, you're finally here. I've been waiting for you for a long time." Uncle Long responded with a smile. The two met and shook hands, cordially like old friends they hadn't seen for many years. Chen Tao was a little confused.
The man in sunglasses stepped forward and said, "I have brought you all the things and people."
Uncle Long patted him on the shoulder: "Thank you for your hard work. This is the legendary Little Brother Yang of the Stick. He is indeed extraordinary."
"Hello." The young man carrying a painting tube nodded to Uncle Long.
"Master Long has found a big pot this time. He even invited the famous Stick Yang!"
"There's nothing wrong with the pot. It's just that the fire underneath is too great. It's so hot that one person can't hold it up."
"How angry is it?" Boss Zhang raised his eyebrows.
"If you have some ideas, you can beat me!" Uncle Long stamped out his cigarette butts and looked at Boss Zhang and the man in sunglasses.
It's a slang saying on the street that you can beat the melon if you have some stupid ideas. It means that it's very dangerous down there, and it's not an ordinary danger. Someone might be killed.
"Is it such a big fire?" the man in sunglasses asked in a deep voice.
Uncle Long didn't speak, just nodded.
"This is the little boss of the Chen family, hello, little brother!" The shiny middle-aged man greeted Chen Tao, and Chen Tao quickly responded:
"Hello, Boss Zhang!"
"My nephew, Chen Tao, is coming out for the first time. Follow me to see the world." Uncle Long introduced, then turned around and introduced the man wearing sunglasses to Chen Tao: "This is Lao Wang, you can just call him Uncle Wang! "
"Hello, Uncle Wang!"
"Well, I often hear Lao Long mention you, which is very good!"
"The new dancer is half-opened. Please bear with me if you don't know what to do!" Chen Tao smiled and nodded at Boss Zhang and Uncle Wang.
What Chen Tao said was also a slang polite way of saying that he had just entered the industry and knew a little bit about things. If there is something wrong, please don't mind it too much.
Chen Tao wanted to save face for Uncle Long, so he specially chose a cliché to say it.
Sure enough, when the two of them saw that Chen Tao knew slang at such a young age, their eyes lit up and they looked at him with admiration.
Boss Zhang smiled and nodded and said: "The young man is pretty good, so work hard!"
Chen Tao smiled slightly, looked at the young man and said, "Hello, have we met somewhere?"
"Yeah?"
The young man nodded and did not say much to Chen Tao. Instead, he raised his head and looked at Li Hao. The dark and deep Mou Zi stared directly into Hao Zi's eyes and said slowly:
"Are you the descendant of that public loser?"
