Sleeping Valley (VIII)
The clouds obscured the stars, and the bright moon cast a white glow.
The boss felt that the old man had left his house, so he ran out to meet with Bai Shi to discuss something and did not return home until ten o'clock.
Usually, if he didn't get home until after 9:30, his wife would definitely not be happy with him. But tonight, she didn't get angry at all and even prepared some sobering soup for him.
"Wife~" the boss got into bed.
The wife turned her back and yawned: "Didn't you say you have something to do tomorrow? Go to bed early tonight and get some rest."
He withdrew his outstretched hand awkwardly. His wife was very angry. This was a revenge after the fact.
"What we have to discuss tonight is indeed very important, but it's a little late. If we don't resolve the problem, it will be difficult for our scenic area to continue operating." He said sincerely.
"Okay, got it." The wife said nonchalantly.
Usually, the old couple would play with their mobile phones tacitly before going to bed, and they would just watch Douyin and other videos of handsome men and beautiful women.
Tonight his wife went to bed early, leaving him alone with shining eyes.
But he didn't care. He opened Douyin skillfully and watched a few carnivals for his favorite beautiful anchor.
Suddenly, a message popped up on the top of the phone from someone with the word "wife" on it: What are you doing?
The screen's bright light reflected his nonchalant smile. He swiped past his wife's message and immediately typed into the livestream: "Host, give me something more exciting."
He gave a lot of gifts, and the anchor responded quickly by putting on a pair of red combat boots and doing an even more exciting dance.
Messages from my wife kept popping up on my phone.
"You're so brave! It's already eleven o'clock and you're still not home."
"You didn't even reply to the message. Are you itching for trouble?"
"Okay, if you have the guts, don't come back."
He was stunned. His wife had just told him to go to bed early, so why was she so angry and talking nonsense now? He turned his head to look at his wife who was already asleep next to him, and his doubts in his heart became even stronger.
"Wife?" He pushed the person next to him doubtfully.
His wife shrugged her shoulders, shook his hand away, and said lazily, "I just dozed off. Why are you waking me up?"
"Did you just message me?" he asked uncertainly.
The wife turned around and asked in the dim light of her cell phone with a frown: "Are you hysterical?" Then she took out the cell phone from the bedside table and threw it in front of her husband, letting him see it for himself.
The boss pushed the phone back.
It wasn't that he didn't want to see it, but the moment he touched the machine, he knew there was no need to. The cool touch spread from his fingertips all the way up the body, and there was no sign of it having been used at all.
At the same time, his phone rang with another message: "I just asked Shiraishi Zemu, and he said he had nothing to do tonight. You're not coming home so late, are you fooling around?!"
Just the words made him imagine his wife's aggressive and fierce appearance.
But there is already a real wife lying next to him.
He started to panic and typed a reply: "Honey, stop playing. I came home early and you even made me some hangover soup."
At the same time, his wife lying next to him was looking at him with sharp eyes, like a cheetah lurking in the darkness, ready to bite off the neck of its prey.
He noticed the sharp gaze beside him and turned his head with a bit of hesitation. He could no longer tell who was on the other end of the phone, so he had to choose to trust the flesh-and-blood, warm-hearted person around him.
His wife took the phone and turned off the screen. Then she pressed his shoulders down and said softly with a slight smile, "It's late. Don't watch it. Go to bed first."
The gentle wife before him made him dazed. When they were young, his wife was indeed gentle and considerate, but after he started to run the scenic spot, he had to attend social events every day. There were some relationships that he couldn't refuse, and he couldn't let others lose face, so it was inevitable that some dirty facts would flow into his wife's ears.
Hearing his wife's gentle voice again made him miss it so much.
The phone that had just gone out lit up again. He didn't reply to the message, and the "wife" on the phone started a series of life-threatening calls, which also pulled him out of the false illusion.
His wife answered the phone, and her furious questioning suddenly made him sober: "How dare you answer the phone? I'll count to three. If you don't explain clearly, you'll die outside." Fortunately, he was connected to the Bluetooth headset.
He snatched the phone back and tried several times to hang up but failed.
"What's wrong?" His wife stroked his hand with a worried look on her face.
His heart was in his throat, but the person on the other end of the phone seemed not to hear what he said, and kept chattering: Where is the person? Answer me, come back quickly.
"Why, you're not daring to speak even after the call is connected, hiding your true intentions? Are you up to something?"
His wife lying next to him looked calm, even looking at him with a half-smile, as if she was expecting his answer.
"Nothing, I dialed the wrong number." He would rather believe the real touch in front of him.
His wife squinted her eyes and smiled, then lay back down with her back to him and continued to sleep.
The phone received another message reminder.
Shiraishi: Where have you been? Your wife's been ringing all over the place, and now she's calling me. Didn't you get home early? You didn't really go out fooling around, did you?
His eyelids twitched when he saw the message.
"You called a designated driver for me, and you even followed the car to take me into the house." He typed these words tremblingly.
Bai Shi replied with three question marks, and then added: "You must have drunk too much. I only drove you. I didn't get in the car with you, let alone take you to the house. I'm afraid you were drunk and went to the wrong floor."
"No, my wife is lying next to me."
Bai Shi didn't reply, he was getting a little anxious waiting, and opened Douyin again.
However, the live broadcast room of the beautiful anchor was the same as the one he watched just now, even the barrage was the same. He couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with the phone or with his mental state.
"The designated driver told him to leave after you got off the car." Bai Shi sent another message.
???
He clearly remembered that it was the designated driver and Bai Shi who sent him back.
"Be careful, don't get into trouble." Bai Shi sent another message, waking the dreamer up.
The owner of the scenic area and Bai Shi were not happy to speak directly, but the old man had plenty of ways to force them to speak. This was exactly the scheme he and his daughter had set up.
It's strange that the river valley is full of people who can't get out once they enter, but ghosts are not restricted and can come and go freely.
"You guys must have put in so much effort and put on such a big show just to pry some words out of their mouths." Yu Shu sighed.
The old man sighed helplessly and glanced at Jiang Yu with a dark look. "He didn't say much about his brother's affairs. He just said that he was stubborn and wouldn't listen to advice. He would never come back."
"I asked him for some of his brother's belongings." The old man took out a small silver safety lock from his pocket and solemnly presented it with both hands. "This is actually the main reason why you asked my daughter and I to help you."
Jiang Yu nodded with satisfaction and asked the ghost father and daughter to take action to find out the secret of the valley. Finding out the true identities of Boss Dao and Bai Shi were secondary. The main thing was the boss's younger brother.
The boss said that he didn't stop his younger brother from coming in. When Jiang Yu heard that, he was very confused. If they were really brothers, how could he not stop them? How could he watch his younger brother go to a place where there was no return?
"Bai Shi's gang has a huge organization with various identities, living in and around the scenic area. Their goal is to observe and destroy the dragon veins, ruining the fortune." Seeing that Jiang Yu didn't say anything, Qianjin changed the subject: "It just so happened that the owner of the scenic area was short of funds, so they injected some money and started their plan naturally."
Therefore, Bai Shi, a Japanese Onmyoji, disguised himself as the person in charge of the scenic area, so that he could observe the dragon veins of the Baishui Town valley day and night.
"That's why he and his girlfriend have been dating for more than ten years and have been dragging their feet on getting married. It turns out they can't get one because they don't have a Chinese household registration." Qianjin felt a little sympathetic towards Zhou Ziyu's situation, and the cruelty in his eyes disappeared in an instant.
The old man touched his chin and said seriously, "Whether it's a dragon or a dragon vein, they all have reverse scales. The reverse scale of the river valley dragon vein is under the bridge right in front of the village."
At that time, the old man turned over and lay on the other side of the boss, which scared him to death. The daughter who was pretending to be his "wife" also turned around on the other side. The two ghosts on the left and right scared him to death.
The old man followed the boss's conversation with Shiraishi on the phone and asked the boss to find out the location of the item. To put it bluntly, the boss was just an ordinary person who was greedy for money and afraid of death. He asked for help for the sake of his life, but he was smart. He didn't ask Shiraishi for fear of arousing suspicion, but asked another person who didn't have a good relationship with Shiraishi.
"The magic circle on the other side of the valley was also their work?" Yu Shu was so impressed by the forest that he still felt a little scared when he thought about it.
The old man shook his head. "I don't think so. They have some skills, but they can't find me and my daughter, let alone such a complex magic circle in the forest across the way."
Jiang Yu lowered his eyelids and planned to let the father and daughter go back to find Liu Xu.
The old man was a man of discernment. He glanced at the Siyang fish in the corner of the tent and said earnestly, "Use less Siyang fish. This trip will cost you three to five years of your life."
The speaker had no intention, but the listener took it seriously. Yu Shu's face remained calm, but his heart was still churning with waves and he felt very uncomfortable.
Jiang Yu changed the subject with an indifferent look on his face, asking them to report safety to Liu Xu outside and not to worry about them getting out soon.
As the cold wind blew away the mist, the father and daughter left.
The dim sky seemed to be covered with a layer of gray cloth, and soon, the invisible missing persons appeared again.
They repeated yesterday's words word for word, even replicating their movements one-to-one.
"Are they really missing persons?" Yu Shu forced himself to focus and start a conversation.
Jiang Yu nodded affirmatively: "Yes. They are trapped here, repeating the same day. You still remember what happened last night."
The reason why Jiang Yu came to this conclusion was that he encountered the same thing for two consecutive mornings, and he also saw a team of red-clad people passing through the village last night.
"You mean, they were trapped on the day when the river god got married?!" Yu Shu continued the topic.
"Yeah." Jiang Yu responded.
It was a little late when they came out of the woods, but they saw it clearly last night. At eight o'clock in the evening, the red-clad team appeared again, and the little girl and the little boy followed at the end of the team just like that night.
A long procession of red-clad people marched from the end of the village to the front, stopping by the river to sing a Cantonese ballad before lowering a festively decorated bamboo raft into the river. After being processed, the raft slowly sank to the bottom, though no one was on board.
The difference was that the two children obviously noticed them observing from a distance and smiled at them strangely.
"I don't know what the purpose of trapping the missing people is, but they should be safe." Jiang Yu continued.
Yu Shu pretended to be relieved. Of course he was happy that the missing person was fine, but the old man's reminder was like a huge rock, weighing on his heart.
In order to conceal his true identity, he met Jiang Yu's gaze and asked, "We know the location too. You must have figured out a solution."
Jiang Yu is a smart man. He knows that Yu Shu has taken the old man's words to heart. He knows that the old man is reminding him kindly, but he really doesn't want Yu Shu to know because of the psychological pressure.
He couldn't help but ruffle Yu Shu's hair and said, "Blow up the bridge and build a magic circle."
"And don't worry, I'm fine." He moved closer, his nose sliding across Yu Shu's earlobe.
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