A few people sat there until seven or eight o'clock, and when the noodle shop closed its stall, they slowly got up and walked to the inn. When they returned to the inn, the boss was taking a nap. When he saw them coming back, he hurriedly greeted them: "Hey, I thought you guys were going to Yinping too. Hey, come up quickly, the door will be closed soon."
"Boss, when did you take over the Yin Shen you mentioned?"
Yue Guanchao said in his heart that when he was talking to the Taoist Priest at dusk, he didn't bother to ask about this matter. He just happened to ask Boss Qiu about it.
"Well, it's probably at the end of March. How many more days are there? Why do you ask?"
Boss Qiu knew that they were from out of town and seemed to be very curious about their whereabouts.
"I heard that there is a temple fair to meet the Yin God. Don't we want to go to the temple fair? Just ask, just ask."
After saying that, Yue Guanchao took everyone upstairs and returned to the room. After they went back, everyone had eaten and drank and stood outside the railing to look at the ancient town. The middle street commercial road was brightly lit, like a bright shuttle facing the Yin Temple. The further they went to the north and south As we walked, the lights became sparser, and eventually it became silent and dark.
In this darkness, every household invariably lit an oil lamp and poked it on the roof. It looked like the faint starry sky spread over the mountain bay, stretching all the way to the steep distant mountains on both sides.
Just as Boss Qiu was pushing a wooden cart to deliver hot water, Yue Guanchao took the copper kettle and asked, "Boss Qiu, why is there always an oil lamp burning in this ancient town at night?"
"This is the rule of Jiangyou Ancient Town. As long as the lights in Jiangyou Pass are on, the Yinping Ancient Road will have a cover, and all the strange forces and gods will not be able to get past Jiangyou Pass. This is the trick given by the old Taoist Master Bai Chongyang. I heard that even the lamp oil They are all specially made and have a special fragrance when ordered at night.”
"oh, I get it!"
Yue Guanchao thought to himself that this was probably Bai Chongyang's attempt to comfort him again. He and Boss Qiu exchanged greetings a few more times before picking out two pots of tea and bringing them to the guest room.
"I heard from Boss Qiu that this water is drawn from the mountain spring nearby. It tastes very sweet and is delicious for making any kind of tea."
After saying that, Yue Guanchao picked up the teapot and poured a cup for everyone in front of him. The clear spring water was boiling and bubbling. The tea leaves immediately curled up and stretched out, trembling like small insects in the water. After a while, the tea soup was already visible. It turns green and smells different.
Yue Guanchao blew his tea cup and was about to taste the mountain spring water the boss mentioned. The white hedgehog in the cage beside the table ran over, scratched his wrist, and kept chirping.
"You can't be hungry, right?"
Song Siyuan took out her pocket and handed it some dried alfalfa. The little hedgehog just sniffed it and still held on to Yue Guanchao's wrist.
"This white hedgehog has been sleeping until now, why did he suddenly wake up?"
Lan Ruling looked at the hedgehog with serious eyes: "It's not like he woke up, but he seems to have sensed something. Put down the tea cup first."
After Yue Guanchao listened to Lan Ruling's words, he put the teacup on the ground. As expected, the little hedgehog circled around the teacup, stretched out his hind legs and kicked the teacup over.
"That's weird. Could it be that there is something in the teacup?"
Ren Peacock took out the medicinal powder and sprinkled it on the surface of the tea soup: "This is the poison powder. It can kill any poisonous insects. I think there is something in the tea soup."
When the powder was spread nearby, it could be seen that something seemed to be wriggling in the tea soup, and eventually turned into pinhead-sized worms, appearing in flakes like sesame seeds.
"Sure enough, there are bugs in here."
This scene made everyone stunned. They had almost been poisoned before they even entered Yinping. Yue Guanchao looked at the white hedgehog again, already knowing what its strange movements meant.
"It's so dangerous. What kind of poison is this?"
Song Siyuan looked at the table. The tea that was full of tea was probably all poisoned.
"This is nightmare Gu!"
"Nightmare Gu?"
"right!"
Lan Ruling lowered her head, picked up a silver needle, and pricked a nightmare Gu worm. She leaned under the oil lamp and observed carefully. The Gu worm was as small as sesame seeds and looked round like black rapeseeds. She explained in a cautious tone: "After taking this kind of Gu, There will be hallucinations and even nightmares at night, but it is not life-threatening, and there is no painful feeling. If you want to cure the poison, you only need to take Glauber's Salt and Licorice Decoction, or take Hedgehog Pill, which can cure hundreds of poisons anyway. "
"What grudge do we have against Boss Qiu? Why does he want to harm us like this?"
Yue Erpao was furious and was about to go out to settle accounts when he was immediately pulled back by Siyuan.
"It's not necessarily him who harmed us. These teapots were placed on the wooden cart, and we randomly picked two pots and brought them in. Could it be that he could have predicted which two pots we were going to take away?"
"Then you mean, all the tea has been poisoned?"
Yue Guanchao's eyes became curious.
"right!"
Let's try another pot of tea to see if this is the case. After that, Song Siyuan picked up the untouched new pot and poured two cups of tea. One cup was water, and the other cup was just tea leaves. After being covered with poison powder, the tea was Gu insects appeared, but there was no movement at all on the tea leaves.
She looked at everyone cautiously: "It seems that the poison was hidden in the tea. If our guess is correct, I think the real poison is mountain spring water."
"This boss Qiu doesn't look like he's a bewitcher. How could he be able to cast a spell on us?"
Ren Peacock paid special attention to the fact that there was dust and cobwebs on the eaves and corners of the inn. Ordinary people who raised voodoos would not have cobwebs.
"It's not necessarily his poison. I'll go down and try him later."
After saying that, Yue Guanchao poured the tea into the drain outside the window, took the empty kettle and walked down the stairs. Seeing Boss Qiu there, he walked to the counter and said: "Boss Qiu, your tea is good. It's good to drink spring water. Can you give me more?" Bring us a pot and we can heat it and drink it ourselves."
"Okay, okay, this spring water is indeed sweeter than Fujiang water. People in Jiangyou often go there to get water to make tea. Every morning early in the morning I have to ask the farmers to go to the back mountain to pick up three big tanks for me. You wait. , I’ll get it for you.”
"Hey, I see you are busy settling accounts. Just tell me the place and I will pick it up myself."
"Well, there are three waist-high tanks in the kitchen yard near the hay shed. You can see them when you go to the backyard."
Boss Qiu was busy settling accounts and didn't care about it. Yue Guanchao took a kettle and opened the curtain behind the stairs. When he walked into the backyard, he could see a square courtyard filled with firewood, fruit trees, bacon and sausages, and an old locust tree with leafy branches in the middle. The mouth of the well is covered with locust leaves.
In the innermost hut, there were indeed three large vats half as tall as a man. He walked to the mouth of the vat, scooped out water, poured it into the kettle, and quickly returned to the guest room.
After returning home, I made the poison powder as usual, and sure enough I saw that the spring water was full of poisonous insects.
"This is strange. Did Boss Qiu put the poison directly in the spring water? What is his plan? In this case, it is not to harm us, but to harm everyone?"
Before Lan Ruling finished speaking, Song Siyuan retorted: "Maybe he was also kept in the dark. Someone had tampered with the spring water!"
Some people died, but not completely...
