Chapter 104 The Dream of the Nine Willow Temple
"Young Master, the hotel has been booked in the Langang New District."
Meng Caiyun suddenly woke up from his drowsy state, glanced at the scenery outside the car window, frowned and said, "New district? Didn't they mention Hongfu Village?"
The driver, wearing white gloves, replied respectfully, "Yes, the hotel in Hongfu Village..." He thought of a euphemism: "It's all very plain."
"It doesn't matter, let's just stay in Hongfu Village. It's convenient there." Meng Caiyun yawned.
The driver was a bit embarrassed, but still tried to argue: "We live in the new district, so the ride is pretty quick, 20 minutes at most."
Meng Caiyun fiddled with her phone. The white light from the screen reflected on her jaw, making the black tattoo look several inches shorter. She smiled and said, "Just drop me off and go back. Tell Uncle Tong I'm busy and won't be back for dinner."
"Okay." Seeing her resolute tone, the driver stopped trying to persuade her. He reached out and adjusted the rearview mirror. "It seems Young Master Meng Zhao is also in Lan Port. Do you need me to notify him?"
"What's the point of notifying him? It's not like the leader is inspecting," Meng Caiyun teased. "He's at work, don't disturb him."
The driver replied, “Okay.”
The screen lit up and several message reminders appeared.
[Becoming Rich: Do you really want to investigate on your own? The Alien Control Bureau is already involved.]
Meng Caiyun looked down and perfunctorily sent back a sunglasses and soybean emoticon to get rid of it.
She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, but her mind was still restless.
Her intuition told her that something was wrong, but she couldn't tell exactly what.
First, a mysterious informant claimed that his nightmare came true and he turned into a scarecrow. Then, the nightmare was "contagious", causing the two police officers on duty to almost go insane. Finally, the mud house in the dream was actually found, and the corpse dug out not far away from the place where the murder in the dream took place turned out to be Wen Caishen Yingsi.
It's weird no matter how I think about it.
However, since all this is related to "dreams", she must go to Liuxian Temple to take a look first.
The phone vibrated again, but this time it was not a new message, but a recent popular push notification.
Meng Caiyun subconsciously wanted to click "Not Interested" to close it, but suddenly, his finger stopped on a subheading.
[Master Ding of Metaphysics discusses the supernatural hot post incident]
Although the original post has been harmonized, many people have read it because of its popularity. Some people even took screenshots and made them into PDFs, and sold them at a fixed price in the comment section.
If you ignore it at this time, the heat will die down on its own after a while, and the public's memory of it will gradually fade, and it will eventually become an Internet unsolved case that is difficult to distinguish between true and false. There is no need for the Paranormal Control Bureau to specifically clear the memories of netizens, after all, netizens are inherently forgetful.
Therefore, internet celebrities like Master Ding need to seize the tail of traffic and find ways to create some gimmicks.
In this interview blog, he talked about recent hot posts and mentioned a key word: nightmare.
People sleep and dream, and nightmare ghosts feed on dreams. The more disturbing the nightmare is, the more delicious it seems to the nightmare ghost.
Nightmare, nightmare, the word nightmare contains the word "ghost".
Wen Zu's creation of characters was not groundless. Even though Meng Caiyun had never seen the ghosts related to nightmares that the other party mentioned, he believed that such things existed.
After the last incident at Qingcheng Mountain, this internet celebrity master Ding Yihe somehow dug out her identity, shamelessly added her on WeChat, and said a lot of flattering words. Because he was knowledgeable and had a sense of boundaries, Meng Caiyun acquiesced to the fact that he existed in her friend list, but just ignored him.
Now that she thought about it, she found the other person's profile picture from the recent additions on WeChat, clicked on it and sent a greeting emoticon.
Who knew Master Ding would reply in a second: "How are you, my dear Meng? It's the White Dew season, with warm days and cold nights. Be careful of catching a cold!" [Drinking tea][Drinking tea]
Meng Caiyun exchanged a few polite pleasantries and quickly got to the point: Master Ding, I would like to ask, is there any basis for the nightmare ghost you mentioned in your blog?
Master Ding replied: Haha, sorry for the joke, I dare not teach you how to be an expert, it's just my guess! [grin][rose]
Meng Caiyun asked again: Have you ever seen a nightmare ghost before?
Master Ding replied meaningfully: "Oh, you, Mr. Meng, want to know about the nightmare ghost? Then why don't you just ask your father?" [baring teeth]
Meng Caiyun frowned: My dad?
Master Ding sighed and said: At the beginning, I accidentally entered a nightmare ghost acupoint and was trapped in a dream. I almost couldn't wake up. It was your father who split the ghost acupoint with a sword and captured the nightmare ghost. Only then were I and a few friends saved.
Meng Caiyun was stunned and thought, I don’t think I’ve heard Old Meng mention this before.
The car suddenly braked, and Meng Caiyun quickly used his arm to hold the front seat backrest to resist the impact of inertia.
The driver in front looked back apologetically and said, "The road ahead seems to be blocked."
Meng Caiyun looked past the driver at the crowd behind the windshield. Some volunteers wearing red vests were directing the transportation of materials needed for the Dharma Assembly.
She nodded: "It's not far, I'll walk over, don't wait for me, I'll come back by myself tomorrow."
Without waiting for the other party to say anything, she opened the door swiftly, jumped out, and slammed the door shut.
Liuxian Temple is just in front. The eaves of the temple are low, and there are a lot of red paper remnants of firecrackers hanging on it. The hazy air is filled with the unique sandalwood scent of the temple, without the pungent smell of burning. Open flames are prohibited here.
Meng Caiyun gathered his sleeves and stepped into the temple gate. Facing him was the willow tree with red stripes twined around its branches. Several dark golden copper bells hung among the branches, and occasionally the bells tinkled, with a distant meaning.
The temple is very small, with only one main hall. There is no proper statue inside, only a painting hanging on the wall, which depicts Lady Liu from folk legend. Below it are mainly offerings, a merit box is placed on the right, and there are two cushions. Apart from that, there is nothing else.
Meng Caiyun thought, it's really simple, and there is no entrance fee. No wonder they have to rely on subsidies from above to maintain daily expenses. Because they are close to each other, Taiqing Palace has also established a public welfare emergency fund for these small temples in the surrounding area. I heard that this money was used for the reconstruction after the last fire.
She walked around the temple with her hands behind her back. Since there was really nothing to find out, she felt that three minutes was too much.
Finally, it stopped in front of the willow tree in the yard.
"Red cloth costs ten yuan a piece, fifteen yuan for two pieces. One piece can bless one person. Do you need it, sister?"
The aunt in the Taoist robe looked at me from behind with a smile, holding the freshly washed dishes under her arm, and took out a payment code from her collar.
Meng Caiyun smiled and said, "Then give me two."
Finally, she stretched out her hand to count and said, "Six."
"Okay, forty-five." The aunt liked her straightforwardness and went to get a stack of red cloth strips from under the altar.
"Just tie it to a branch. Then, silently recite your wish in your heart. Madam Liu can hear it."
Meng Caiyun took the cloth strip, walked up slowly, and wrapped it around the branch: "Big sister, have there been many people coming lately?"
The aunt shook her head and said, "Not many people come from the countryside. They've only come to see the Dharma Assembly in the past two days."
"Did you see a middle-aged man from another place come here some time ago?" Meng Caiyun wanted to ask about the person who reported the case.
The aunt thought for a moment and said, "No, there aren't many people in the village, especially from outside... but recently there have been a lot of young people coming here to take pictures, wearing colorful clothes, which is quite novel."
She remembered something else: "Or maybe two police officers came a few days ago to do a community fire inspection. Hey, sister, are you looking for someone?"
Meng Caiyun laughed it off and asked, "Are you the only one on duty? Where's that woman in green clothes?"
The aunt muttered, "There's no such thing as a woman in green clothes. You must be mistaken. I've been here for over ten years."
It seems that there is still a deviation between what the people who reported the case said and the reality.
"This temple must be a hundred years old, right?"
The aunt said, "It's been there for hundreds of years, but it's been demolished and renovated. It's said that in the last century it was occupied by a warlord named Zhao as his own yard."
Meng Caiyun thought, it’s the Zhao family again.
She quickly wrapped the cloth strips, patted the tree trunk, and was about to leave when she suddenly noticed something in the gaps between the layers of red cloth on the tree trunk.
She bent down and moved closer, gently rummaged through it a few times, and pulled out a small, yellowed, wrinkled triangular piece of paper.
The edge of the paper was burned into black ash, and this corner probably survived because it was not completely burned.
Meng Caiyun frowned and calmly put the piece of paper into his pocket.
The aunt put the dishes and chopsticks into the cupboard, pulled a stool under the eaves next to the donation box, took out a few balls of wool, put on her reading glasses, and began to crochet the unfinished flower carpet.
Meng Caiyun dusted off his hands and asked casually, "Sister, there are quite a lot of people with the surname Liu in your village."
"That's right, it's named after Madam Liu," the aunt smiled. "When I was a child, my grandma told me that there were few people living here before, and there were frequent mountain torrents, so crops couldn't grow well. Later, a high-ranking official named Liu was demoted here. He planted trees and repaired riverbanks, and healed the land. Look at how many willow trees we have here. It's because willow trees like moisture and can tolerate waterlogging. As long as water and soil are not eroded, crops can grow well..."
When the aunt talked about her hometown, her eyes lit up and she talked without stopping.
Meng Caiyun brought the topic back to the topic: "There's a young man named Liu Wu who lives near Tianwan. Do you know him?"
The aunt thought for a moment and said, "Oh, so many children are named Liu Wu. There are also those whose fathers are fifth and whose children are also fifth. Later on, they all started calling by their full names."
"They say their family used to be in the musical instrument business?" Meng Caiyun asked uncertainly.
The aunt suddenly had an idea: "Ah, are you talking about Old Man Liu's family? The one who opened a workshop and went bankrupt? Oh, their family..."
She looked a little emotional and didn't know where to start for a moment.
Meng Caiyun felt that he had asked the right question and said with a smile, "Yes, that's their family. What happened to their family?"
"They and several other wealthy families in the village are all descendants of that high-ranking official. Their ancestral surname was Liuxia, which happened to have a character for Liu in it. Later, it was gradually simplified along with the others."
The aunt sighed, "After being demoted, Senior Official Liu loved to study music at home. Several of his descendants have become famous musicians, but in recent years they have all gone out to do business. Old Man Liu must be the last of his family to change careers. He's very stubborn and can't change his mind. The village chief even tried to persuade him to start a business with a partner, but he refused and insisted on staying at home to run the workshop. Later, they heard that someone outside had taken a fancy to one of his books and wanted to buy it for a high price as a collection, but he refused to sell it. Tsk tsk."
"Book? What book?" Meng Caiyun listened with great interest.
The old lady pushed her reading glasses up, frowning in thought. "Hmm...it's a sheet music, right? It's a family heirloom. If it were me, I'd definitely sell it. Such a good thing doesn't come along every day. It's not some ancient emperor's collection of books, how much can it be worth?"
"So where is this old man Liu's child now? The fifth child."
"What kind of children does he have?" the aunt muttered. "He's just an old bachelor."
Meng Caiyun was surprised and said, "Huh? Someone asked their neighbor before, and the old man said that his family did have a child named Liu Wu?"
"Neighbor?" The aunt came to her senses and laughed heartily. "Him! He's got Alzheimer's. You asked one thing and he answered another. He probably misremembered it. Old Man Liu is the fifth child in the clan. When he was a child, the adults called him Liu Wu, Liu Wu. The Liu Wu you're looking for, could that be Old Man Liu?"
Meng Caiyun was surprised and asked, "Then... do you know where he is now?"
The aunt grinned and said cheerfully, "He died more than ten years ago!"
Dead?!
So that nightmare... happened more than ten years ago?
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