"Are you the descendant of that public loser?" the young man asked.
"Ah? What? The descendant of the public loser?" Chen Tao looked confused and completely confused. "What is this all about?"
I wanted to turn around and ask Haozi, but I heard Haozi's voice coming from behind: "I'm good."
He straightened his chest and took a step forward, raised his head and looked directly at the person in front of him and said, "Are you the person Grandpa mentioned? My name is Li Hao, you can call me Hao Zi."
"Yang Lixuan." The young man nodded to Haozi and said calmly, "Is the old man still okay?"
"Excuse me, Grandpa, he is very good." Haozi said.
"That's good. I'll pay a visit when I have the chance." Yang Lixuan nodded.
"So his name is Yang Lixuan." Chen Tao thought to himself and looked up at Yang Lixuan and Li Hao.
Yang Lixuan did not change much, he was as taciturn and calm as ever. Looking at Haozi, he saw that he was clenching his fists and looking at Yang Lixuan with a serious face.
"Huh? Weird, what's going on?" Chen Tao felt that the atmosphere between the two was a little strange. He couldn't help but feel a little surprised. He poked Haozi with his elbow and whispered: "Does this person owe you money?"
"It's nothing. This matter can't be explained clearly in one or two sentences. I'll explain it to you later when I have time."
Haozi didn't even look at Chen Tao, but looked at Yang Lixuan. The two just stared at each other without saying a word. But Chen Tao could feel that compared to Yang Lixuan's calmness, Li Hao was very nervous at this time.
Seeing the two of them looking like this, Uncle Long coughed and smiled at Boss Zhang: "This little brother is..."
"Oh, this little brother was invited by me to help with the cooking. Even though he is young, he is quite capable!" Boss Zhang smiled proudly at everyone.
"Yan." The red-haired young man raised his chin, looking cool.
"These two, Ah Cheng and Da Bing, are my capable bodyguards. Lord Long has dealt with them before. Look at this head and body. Isn't it great?" Boss Zhang pointed at the two mountains behind him. The strong man introduced.
Uncle Long chuckled and said, "Brothers Acheng, the well-known mercenary Titan soldiers in the industry, were attracted by you."
"Talents are hard to come by. It's a kind of fate that I met the two soldiers, Ah Cheng!" Boss Zhang chuckled, and the fat on his belly trembled.
"Tsk, poor bastard!" Chen Tao said with contempt in his heart.
"It's getting late, let's take stock of the countermeasures and then set off!" Uncle Long said.
"Hey, yes, yes, let's discuss it." Boss Zhang rubbed his hands and called the three people behind him to come over. Uncle Wang on the side took out a few cigarettes and handed them to everyone. When he gave them to Chen Tao, Chen Tao shook his head and said, "I don't smoke."
"Well, it's a good habit, but you will need it in the future." Uncle Wang retracted his hand.
Uncle Long took out the map, and everyone squatted in a circle on the spot. After briefly introducing everything they had learned before, Uncle Long pointed at the map and said:
"The situation is almost complete. We have stepped on this place, here, and here a few days ago. We can confirm that the hole is in this area."
"Now, there is only this place left, and all the clues point here!" Uncle Long pointed to the Heizi Channel on the map.
"Have you ever stepped on this place?" Yang Lixuan asked.
"Not yet, no matter what, Heizigou must go and take a look." Uncle Long packed up the map and stood up.
"If the legend is true, that mine is a good entrance. After so many years, I don't know if that kind of thing is still there." Uncle Wang said.
His voice was a little low, and Chen Tao couldn't see his expression through his glasses, but he just felt that this man had an indescribable coldness about him.
"Oh, there's nothing to worry about. There will be a road to the mountain." Boss Zhang waved his hand. "A Cheng, soldier, you two are heading out." He winked at the red-haired young man next to him and said, "Yan, you can go too."
On the way, Uncle Long drove in the driveway: "This trip to Heizigou has only one purpose, to find out what is going on with that disease that makes people go crazy and makes their whole body itchy."
"How...how to check this?" Chen Tao asked.
"Those people said in the morning that the crazy one was the son of the canteen at the village head, so we just thought we were passing by and went in to take a look." Uncle Long said.
Haozi glanced at the rearview mirror as if he was nervous, without blinking.
"What's wrong with these two people? They are so virtuous when they first met... But it seems that Yang Lixuan has no influence, but Haozi, who is a bit overreacted." Chen Tao glanced at Li Hao quietly and couldn't help but feel funny .
"Is this kid nervous? Haha, it's interesting. I never thought that anyone could make this guy become like this. Who is this Yang Lixuan!" Chen Tao was thinking to himself.
There was no words along the way. Half an hour later, the group finally arrived at the place where all the clues converged, Heizigou.
"Is this Heizigou!" Chen Tao rolled down the window and looked at a winding path in front of him. On one side of the path, the hillside was covered with dense willows and weeds, and on the other side were several small farmland, planted with There are some local vegetables and fruits, and a small piece of corn. Looking down the path, you can see many dilapidated earth walls and old tile-roofed houses at the end of the road.
"Heizigou is ahead. The canteen they were talking about is on the other side of this road. It will pass in a while. Please don't say anything for now. I'll try to trick the proprietress." Uncle Long looked at the crowd and said.
Everyone nodded, and Uncle Long stepped on the accelerator and drove towards a canteen not far ahead.
This is a common farmhouse bungalow in the north, with red bricks and wooden windows. The paint on the windows has almost peeled off, and there are still a few cracks on some of the glass.
Uncle Long got out of the car, took an outdoor round-brimmed hat from the trunk, and pulled out a small box from underneath, which contained Uncle Long's SLR camera.
Chen Tao didn't know why, but Uncle Long always had a camera and a round-brimmed hat thrown in his car. Chen Tao once looked at the camera, but there was nothing in it. The photos were all taken away by Uncle Long.
After putting on his hat and carrying his camera, Uncle Long called to several people: "Put your bag on your back."
"Ah? Backpack?" Chen Tao was confused.
"We are pretending to be a geological survey team. I am the teacher and you are all my students. Just pretend to be more realistic and take out the bag."
"Oh!" Chen Tao responded, "I see, that's it," so he went to the trunk and pulled out his backpack, and then helped Shangui and Haozi take it out too.
Shangui didn't have much. The bag was probably just some food and a flashlight, which didn't weigh much. But when Chen Tao grabbed Haozi's backpack from the back of the trunk, it suddenly sank, as if it was filled with iron.
"Haozi, what do you have inside? It's so heavy!"
"Nothing, just some daily necessities." Haozi reached out to grab his backpack and put it on his shoulder.
On the other side, Boss Zhang, Uncle Wang and others seemed to have known about Uncle Long's plan, so they all prepared their things and came over. Uncle Long saw that everyone was ready, so he entered the store first.
This is a very small shop. The house is not big. There are two large display cabinets in front of the door. Through the glass, you can see that there are various goods, snacks and small commodities inside. There are many cabinets on the floor. Inside the cardboard box were some wilted vegetables, and some contained things like pickled mustard and peanuts.
When I walked in, I saw a large freezer on the right. The white cabinet was covered with leaflets and color pages from nowhere.
"Hey? Where is the person?" Mountain Ghost shouted, "Is there anyone?"
"What do you want?" A woman's voice came from behind, and then everyone heard the sound of slippers pattering on the ground.
The door curtain was lifted, and a slightly fat woman came out, wearing a dark red thick linen dress, with a dark complexion, and her hair was a little messy, mixed with a lot of white hair. He looks like he is only in his thirties or forties, but somehow his hair has turned so much gray.
"Hello, boss lady, buy some food." Uncle Long took off his hat and said.
"What do you want?" the woman asked.
"Do you have instant noodles? The kind that comes in a bucket."
The woman walked behind the counter and took out several buckets of instant noodles from a box.
"How many?"
"There are ten of us, let's get ten buckets, and some ham and that braised egg." Chen Tao said
"Oh my, there are a lot of things in this small place. What are these?" Boss Zhang squeezed over and pulled several cardboard boxes on the cabinet with his hands.
"Boss boss, please have some of this mustard shreds too." Uncle Long said.
"Would you like to soak some noodles for you?" the woman asked.
"Well, yes, yes, thank you very much, boss lady!"
"Then you wait a moment, the water hasn't been turned on yet."
"It's okay, we're not in a hurry, thank you!" Uncle Long smiled.
The woman brought food for everyone, went into the back room to boil water, then came out and asked, "You don't look like locals, do you?"
"Yes, I am a teacher at xx University. This time we are cooperating with a magazine to do some geological survey. These are my students, and the one over there is the editor of that magazine. These two big One is our driver."
"Oh, what a strong young man! People in big cities are different, they look so solid!"
"It's not safe to go out and run around in the mountains. There are a lot of things, so I hired two stronger ones who can be drivers and bodyguards."
"That's a good deal."
Everyone laughed, and the woman asked again:
"What are you doing?" Her Mandarin was not very standard, with a bit of a local accent, but it didn't matter.
"We do geological surveys and then publish them in magazines."
"What is a geological survey? It sounds like it's very powerful. I'm not well-educated and don't understand what people in big cities do."
"Just look at what kind of land is the ground, what kind of soil is the soil, and what kind of stone is the stone!" Haozi explained.
Listened to what he said. Chen Tao was speechless for a while... What kind of geological survey is this? But having said that, it seems to make some sense. At least the woman in front of me understands what they are going to do.
"Hey, universities are different. You are doing research! I only went to elementary school in the town and don't understand this." The woman smiled and said, "The water in the back is probably almost boiling. I'll go and take a look."
After saying that, the woman went to the back and came out after a while carrying a large aluminum kettle. This kind of pot is very big, and one pot of water is enough to soak five or six buckets of noodles. There were too many people in Chen Tao's group and there was no place to sit, so they had to put the instant noodles on the lid of the freezer to soak first.
"Where are you going to see the soil?" The woman put the kettle back and boiled it again, then came out and asked.
"We have been here for a few days. We just came from Liangzikou. We mainly measured these mountains. We can go back after the measurement is completed."
"Oh, then you have to be careful. There is a millet in this mountain called the Man-eating Valley. It can eat people!"
"When I came here, I heard what the folks there said, is this millet really that powerful?"
"I also heard from people in the village that the Gu Xie family is very evil! And our village, alas, I don't know what kind of evil has been done!"
The woman sighed heavily,
"Oh, they are all poor people. Why do they have to suffer these crimes? I don't understand these. You are from a big city and you are college students and teachers. You know more than us. Let's see what's going on. What’s going on!”
"Really? Then please tell me, the landlady, what's going on in this village?"
"This is a long story..." So the woman told the whole story about the madman in this village again, and the content was similar to what those few people discussed in the morning.
Everyone pretended not to understand and listened to it again, but after all, this kind of thing happened to the woman's own son. As they talked, they had already broken down in tears.
"Oh, I don't know what evil I have done in my life. The man left early, and now my son has also contracted the mad disease. How can I live?"
Seeing the woman wiping her tears, Chen Tao felt very uncomfortable and said: "Auntie, there must be a reason for this kind of thing. We must be scientific and not superstitious. This disease does not exist anywhere else, only Heizigou has it. After we finish the investigation this time, maybe we can find the cause of this disease, and by then, maybe your child will be cured!"
After listening to Chen Tao's words, the woman seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw, and knelt down with a thud.
"Thank you, you must save my son!"
"Hey, hey, boss lady, don't be like this!" Seeing this, Uncle Long quickly helped her up.
"Oh, we will try our best. If we can really find out the reason, we will definitely find a way to save your son!"
Chen Tao looked at Boss Zhang quietly, and saw a hint of irritation and disgust in his eyes. Then he looked at the woman anxiously and said:
"Oh, boss lady, your matter is our matter, and we will definitely do our best!"
"Oh, man..." Chen Tao sighed in his heart.
While everyone was talking, there was suddenly a sound of things breaking, accompanied by a burst of shrill roars from boys.
The woman was startled and rushed to the back of the house.
Everyone didn't understand what happened. They only heard bursts of noise from behind, and then heard a woman crying:
"My son! My son! What's wrong with you!"
