When Xing Baotou opened his eyelids again, what he saw was a clear moonlit sky.
He tried to get up, but the pain all over his body suddenly broke out, causing him to let out a breath of cold air.
"Hiss~"
"The boss is awake?"
With an exclamation, a circle of heads surrounded him in darkness.
There was an old wife who was crying with joy, a timid little girl next door, and even more, a group of brothers who came after hearing the news. Their expressions were complicated, with joy, anxiety, and fear mixed on every face.
Lao Xing endured the weakness and severe pain and stared at the government officials.
"Where's the monster?"
he asked.
The atmosphere in the field was stagnant, and the government officials looked at each other in confusion.
"Where's the Taoist Priest?"
he asked again.
The government officials were still speechless, but all looked at the closed door opposite. There was no sound inside, except for the thin mist slowly flowing down from the wall.
Alas~ He sighed inwardly.
Looking at the appearance, he didn't know. These brothers heard the news from nowhere and rushed here in a hurry. Perhaps due to his former prestige or fear of being held accountable later, they did not dare to leave easily. But on the other hand, I was more afraid of the monsters inside. I was afraid of delaying Qingqing's life, so I didn't dare to go in to help.
So, he, the woman, the child, and the injured person just became spectators outside the wall.
He shook his head and stood up.
At this time.
"Crunch."
The door that had been closed suddenly opened.
Everyone present shuddered and looked towards the door in panic.
Immediately, they relaxed together again.
But at the intersection of mist and moonlight, the short-haired Taoist strode forward with a sword in one hand and a bloody head in the other.
…
"Can the head catcher recognize this monster?"
The head in Li Changan's hand looked quite miserable, not as ferocious as the one in the yard who wanted to devour others.
The short black hair covering the cheeks was wet and stiff with blood; the two dim yellow eyes protruded from their sockets like dead fish; one of the fangs was smashed by the hilt of the sword, leaving only half of it hanging at the corner of the mouth; the neck The skin and flesh on the wound were jagged, dripping with smelly demon blood.
When Lao Xing saw it, he felt three parts happy, seven parts disgusted, and completely baffled.
After Taoist Li walked out of the house, without saying a word, he shoved the pickled stuff in front of his eyes, Lao Xing. What else did he ask, did he recognize this monster?
Pooh!
I, Lao Xing, am an innocent person. How can I recognize any monsters? !
"It's just the poor guy who's being rude."
The Taoist priest saw the other person's expression was different, slapped his forehead, and asked for a torch from others.
But I heard the "sizzling" sound of roasting accompanied by the smell of burnt meat and the aroma of meat.
Li Changan turned his "smooth and clean" face to Xing Captou again.
"What now?"
Lao Xing's eyes widened.
This... isn't this the woman next door who hired to take care of three little babies? How did she become a monster? How can you attack a child you have grown up with?
Xing Qiao's head was pounding, he was so angry that he couldn't control it, his blood surged up, and he fell over again.
…………
When Li Changan bid farewell to everyone and returned to Didian.
The sky has become brighter.
But Xiaoshui City is still immersed in the exhaustion after the carnival, and has not yet woken up.
There were few pedestrians on the street, and the shop was deserted. Only the wisteria on the wall and the old locust trees in the courtyard added to the excitement.
The store owner yawned when he heard Li Changan push the door open and came up to greet him.
"Do you need to prepare some food for Taoist priest?"
"No need." Li Changan said with a smile, "Father, go to sleep."
The two of them sang and went back to their rooms.
As expected, the room was empty.
The Taoist priest left a pile of food on the table, and there was no other movement. Only the small bag of wisteria cakes was eaten clean, and no residue was left. There was only a small note left in the oiled paper bag.
Li Changan took it out, and there was a line of small words on it.
"Tonight at midnight, on top of the Bacchus' cave."
…………
The Bacchus Festival has come to the last day, and it is also the grandest and most important day.
According to tradition, today, in the Bacchus kiln, the best wine brewed in the last round should be selected and presented to the Bacchus God, so as to bless the wine with mellow wine and all the best in the future.
Starting today, old wine can come out of the cellar and new wine can begin to be brewed. Xiaoshui, a city on the water and a city of wineries, has also begun to operate again, and the streets and alleys will once again be immersed in the fragrance of flowers and wine.
Therefore, as noon passed, people had already gathered their energy and once again put on their costumes and gathered towards the Dionysus kiln.
Officials, scholars, gentry, wealthy businessmen, wine shop owners, etc. can enter the kiln to observe the ceremony, while ordinary people have to wait outside.
Li Changan and his family, who owned the restaurant, took advantage of the Yan family wine shop next door and were able to sneak into the Bacchus kiln to watch the Western scenery.
Entering the Bacchus Cellar or Temple of Bacchus, even a modern man like Li Changan could not help but be amazed by the architecture in front of him.
When he first arrived in Xiaoshui, the Taoist priest also walked around a few times outside the Dionysus Cellar. At that time, from the outside, the Dionysus Kiln was nothing more than a circular hall built on a stone platform at the end of a long street, with gilded eaves and green tiles and vermilion paint. Even though it was grand and exquisite, it was nothing extraordinary.
But I never expected that in this main hall, covered by bricks and tiles, the body of the temple was actually a huge deep well, more than ten feet deep underground and more than thirty steps wide.
For example, it is like a nearly ten-story building falling upside down.
Planks and stairs are built on the walls of the well, interconnected with each other, and many stone chambers are cut out layer by layer, specifically for storing wine. According to the store owner, every year the wine brewed by various stores in the city is moved into stone chambers and aged for at least one year.
With the blessing of the God of Dionysus, the wine stored in the cellar will be extraordinarily mellow, which is why Xiaoshui Niang is famous in the north and south.
Li Changan was noncommittal about this.
Anyway, he had been hanging around outside for a long time, and the name of the so-called "Xiao Shui Nong" had never entered his ears.
So he learned a little about it and turned his attention to the bottom of the well.
There is nothing else at the bottom of the well except for a statue of the same height as a human being enshrined on a altar. Different from the ordinary solemn statues of gods and Buddhas, this statue looks like a man with a light fur coat and a slow belt. He is reclining and drinking from a cup. It's a birthday party and the clothes are scattered, which is quite the style of Wei and Jin Dynasties.
Should I say that he deserves to be called the God of Dionysus?
There was also a mage on the altar, leading a few children, to preside over the ceremony.
The mage holds a dragon horn and wears a divine forehead, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Lushan Dharma sect.
Li Changan looked carefully and saw that the mage was still a female crowned woman. She had white hair shawl, a stooped figure, and layers of folds on her face, making her look like she was past her octogenarian years.
"Who is the old mage?"
"That's Immortal Qingping." The shopkeeper saluted from afar and then explained to the Taoist priest, "The host of Shuiyue Temple outside the city is the famous Taoist priest nearby. The Taoist teachings are profound, and all the merchants who come and go seek talismans from this immortal. Prayers."
Li Changan nodded and continued reading.
After a strange ceremony, this year's wine master selected hundreds of new wines from dozens of wineries in the city and presented them to the God of Bacchus.
Unexpectedly, several large wineries in the city were not selected, but the Yan family's small winery got an advantage.
Master Yan was overjoyed immediately, opened the kiln on the spot, scattered most of the wine and drank with everyone, and the restaurants present followed suit.
For a while.
The cups are flowing and the wine is flowing.
In a short time, the fine wine was passed outside the cellar, to the long street, to the bridges, and to the boats. The city toasted and drank together, cheering loudly.
But in the end.
After drinking all the wine, the sun sets in the west.
The prosperity is gone, and people go home drunkenly.
Of course, excluding Li Changan.
…………
Li Changan has always found it difficult to understand why these people in the world always choose strange places to meet.
For example, the top of the Temple of Dionysus.
It was dark, and after two nights of carnival, Xiaoshui City felt deserted.
The Taoist priest stood alone in a corner outside the temple, speechless facing the thick and tall red lacquer beams.
a long time.
He sighed resignedly, rolled up his sleeves, and pressed himself against the smooth pillar, like a caterpillar, rising up bit by bit.
After a lot of effort, I finally managed to get myself to the roof, carefully avoiding the fragile glazed tiles, and stepped on the ridge all the way to the highest point in the center.
Look around.
The moon hangs high and the fields are wide open.
There were only a few lights in the market, except for the wisteria, which cast a large swath of purple in the moonlight in the silent city.
Li Changan couldn't help groping for his arms.
Pity.
It's not the time of the full moon. Otherwise, wouldn't this situation make it appropriate to drink a cup of moon wine?
Suddenly, his expression changed and he turned around.
But on a corner of the cornice that was tilted into the night, a ghost-faced man or a crooked eyebrow stood quietly, and the night wind raised his red skirt, like a cluster of floating fireworks.
…………
Yumei stood in the wind without saying a word.
Li Changjing waited for a long time, but did not wait for her to speak.
The Taoist priest really didn't want to play the game of "who can speak first" and kept talking to himself.
"I killed a man-eating demon last night."
"After cutting off the head, the detective from Xiaoshui told me that the monster's body shape and face were the same as the victim's mother-in-law."
"It just so happens that I also recognize such monsters."
"The name is called Grandma Xiong, or Grandma Wolf, Grandma Cannibal, or Grandma Tiger, but she is not a natural fairy, but a monster that comes out of horror legends."
Although the word monster is often used interchangeably, it actually refers to two different types of monsters. "Demon" usually refers to ordinary things that have gained spiritual intelligence and can confuse people. "Monsters" are demons born from the dark side of people such as fear, jealousy, greed, desire, etc. They are usually born from legends and stories that have been widely circulated, and they also act completely according to the images in the stories. Before their birth, there is no entity.
Although there are rare cases of people transforming into monsters, Taoist priests have also heard of them. For example, people infected with corpse poison became a living zombie; But from a human to a monster...
"I'm weird."
Li Changan raised his eyes.
"Can the said demonic plague or spell also turn people into such illusory monsters?"
Yu Mei finally spoke out, but it was just one sentence.
"have no idea."
The Taoist priest unconsciously ground his molars and recited the Jingjing Sutra several times before suppressing the urge to draw his sword and kill people.
What the hell! Anyone who encounters this kind of communication barrier will have to spend more time talking.
The Taoist priest thought for a moment.
"How many times did the layman kill people in Xiaoshui before?"
"Seven out of thirty."
This number is actually twice as much as what was announced by the Yamen. However, it can be regarded as a common practice in ancient and modern times, and it is useless to delve into it at this time.
"Is there any precedent for this kind of transformation into a 'monster'?"
"None of the people I killed..." At this point, Yu Mei suddenly stopped hastily and abruptly changed the subject, "I haven't investigated many specific things."
"Since the Taoist priest has witnessed it with his own eyes, he must know that what I said is true. How did you think about my proposal last night?"
Taoist Li smiled, untied two oil paper bags and threw them over.
"What's this?"
"Let's consider it as a meeting gift for joining forces."
"What's this?"
"One pack of purple rosy cakes, and one pack is medicine for treating miasma."
Li Changan returned casually.
When they met last night, he had already discovered that this naughty eyebrow came to him for help, and something happened frequently. It was obvious that he had been tricked by a demon, contracted miasma, and was unable to survive.
After Yu Mei heard this, her movements suddenly froze. It took a while before two words came out from behind the mask.
"Thank you."
Then he accepted the Ziluo Su but threw the herbs aside.
The Taoist priest was not angry that the other party wasted his "good intentions", he just smiled and said:
"We can be considered partners now. We should be honest about some things."
Yu Mei didn't say a word, just reached out to take off the mask from his face.
"The layman misunderstood." The Taoist priest waved his hand, "Under the mask is beauty or ugliness, male or female, old or young. I have no intention of exploring. What I want to ask is..."
Li Changan said solemnly.
"The layman can always be the first to kill the demon-transformed person, but how do you determine that? How do you know it?"
"fog."
"fog?"
"People infected with the demon plague will only transform into demons at night, and a large amount of fog will appear around them. Just climb up and look down, and you will know at a glance."
This explanation is unexpected, but it makes sense. The three nights of Qian Dazhi, Beggar and Xiong Gapo were indeed accompanied by mist. Thinking back on it carefully, Capt. Xing also said that ghost-faced people would always take advantage of the night fog to kill people. It seems that it is not the eyebrows that attract the night mist, but the mist that attracts the eyebrows.
"That being said, that's right..."
Li Changan's words suddenly stopped. He looked behind Yu Mei, then raised his eyes and looked around.
But he suddenly laughed and pointed around.
"Is this the mist that accompanies demonic transformations that lay people call it?"
But seeing the clear moonlight, Xiaoshui City was still immersed in sleep, but at the bridgehead, in the shops, in the long streets, at the end of the alleys, and among the wisteria flowers, there was a very light and thin mist everywhere, curling up over the city.
Those fogs slowly surged in the dark and empty city, like the white fog rising from dry ice on the stage, waiting for the protagonist to come on stage.
Yu Mei seemed to be shocked by this change, and remained speechless for a long time under the mask.
until.
Ah~ A sudden miserable howl broke the silence of the city.
Just like the sound of a gong.
The show begins.
