Chapter 19
Looking at this reply, which was completely different from Gu Hongying's usual speaking style and full of elder-like earnestness, Yu Tu only had the following six points: ...
Subway, elderly, cell phone.
On the other side of the screen, your existence is quite unscientific!
Yu Tu had thousands of words in his heart, but in the end they just turned into "Yeah, got it" in the dialogue box.
He understood that everything that could not be explained by science was feudal superstition, but the end of science was metaphysics.
There's nothing wrong with it, it's logically consistent.
After turning off his cell phone, Yu Tu looked at the feudal and superstitious items on the table, sighed, and then began to feel sorry for his wallet.
His meager little treasury has shrunk again!
Hit by the fact that he was "almost out of money", Yu Tu's eyes were dull. He touched his pocket and went to the supermarket and grocery store in the town to buy some things - palm-sized dolls that could change clothes and tie hair, colorful rubber bands, animal hairpins of various shapes, colored glass candies of different flavors...he bought a big bag of things.
Yu Tu avoided the crowd and carried the big bag to the old building. When he stepped over the threshold, he felt a chill all over his body.
He was using his true body instead of the vest at this time, and his perception of the surrounding environment was much duller. He could only feel that the air was abnormally cold, but could not see the black that was crowded in the corner.
"I didn't know what you guys liked, so I just bought some at random."
Yu Tu put the big bag in his hand on the ground, then took out things one by one to demonstrate how to play with and use them. Colorful little things were spread all over the ground, and even under the dim light, the colors were still beautiful.
After Yu Tu finished showing it, he stood up and dusted himself off: "If there's a chance in the future, I'll buy you something else."
He curled his eyebrows and smiled: "Let's go, bye~"
He said goodbye and left the old building, so he didn't see that after he turned around, the black surge that he couldn't see came up and tried to grab him, but when it hit the door sill, it was burned by the sunlight and made a "hissing" sound.
The crowded black "whooshed" several times. They stood upright in front of the threshold and collapsed like melting snow after a while. The black waves spread out and swept away the colorful colors.
*
Maybe he encountered too many frightening things during the day. Even though he knew from Gu Hongying that his luck was really bad, Yu Tu also had a strange sense of Buddhism.
What is meant to come will eventually come, and what is meant to go will eventually go. Whether it is a blessing or a curse, you can't avoid it.
Yu Tu thought it through and locked the doors and windows at night and fell asleep. He had checked the doors and windows of the small building during the day and found that they were of very good quality. If the groom who had turned into a corpse came over again, he might not be able to open them even if he pounded them all night. As for the bride... it was useless to be afraid. He couldn't beat her, so he might as well just lie down.
At twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, when everyone had fallen asleep, Huailin Town suddenly became foggy. The fog became thicker and thicker, gradually covering the entire street.
“Sizzle—”
It seemed as if something was being dragged in the thick fog. The sound spread from the east to the south, from the Feng family's home to the door of the old building.
The true identity of the things being dragged was revealed—five living people, three men and two women. They were dragged upside down on the ground, leaving blood marks. Their eyes were tightly closed and it was unknown whether they were dead or alive.
Each person's ankle was held by a paper man, the red one was dragging a man, the green one was dragging a woman.
Five paper figures stood in a row in front of the threshold of the old building. The two red spots on their simple and pale heads stared straight at the tower-shaped load-bearing column in the center of the first floor, looking quite scared.
"Gurgle, gurgle—"
Under their gaze, masses of black liquid gushed out from the fist-sized black holes on the load-bearing columns of the 18-story tower. The black liquid flowed down from the columns and slowly accumulated to the threshold.
A floating figure fell down from the crossbeam of the old building. It was the same paper man as the one at the door. The only difference was that this paper man had no red paper on his arms, revealing his bamboo skeleton.
The black wave slowly climbed up the body of the paper man with bare arms. The two red dots on the paper man's head flickered, and it took a long time for them to stabilize.
The paper-bound man walked to the threshold with stiff steps and looked at the other five paper-bound men. After a while, the five paper-bound men took a step forward at the same time and stepped over the threshold at the same time. The five people they were dragging behind were also dragged into the old building, leaving faint bloodstains on their heads on the ground.
After the paper-made man threw the five people near the tower-shaped load-bearing columns, faint green lights suddenly emerged from the places on the walls of the old building where the candles were lit. The entire old building was illuminated, and the dirty hemp ropes and dusty white cloth strips hanging from the beams moved without wind, whistling and making a mournful sound that was almost a scream.
Amid such horrible noises, the most muscular of the five men and women who were dragged into the old building woke up first. He opened his eyes dazedly and felt a sharp pain in his forehead. He touched his head and saw blood all over his eyes.
His rigid and sluggish thoughts suddenly came to a halt. He looked at the surroundings, the white cloth strips and hemp ropes whistling in the wind, and the eerie tower-shaped load-bearing columns under the dim green light. He couldn't help but shiver.
He was clearly...clearly on the bus leaving Huailin Town...where is this?
There were still a few people unconscious around him. He reached out and pushed them, and turned the unconscious people over - it was clearly the family of his previous buyers!
The burly, ferocious man suddenly shuddered, and all kinds of horrible guesses came to his mind. He didn't even wake up his unconscious companion, and ran out softly. He tripped when passing the smooth threshold and fell far away. After struggling to get up, he found a pair of feet in his sight - white paper attached to a bamboo frame, wearing red paper shoes.
His eyes moved upwards and he saw a red paper man. It was bending over, with two red eyes on its head staring at him. Suddenly, it turned 180 degrees and hung upside down, with its curved mouth on top and its red eyes on the bottom. The paper man's arms were draped over his shoulders, eye to eye with him.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa——”
The shrill screams in the middle of the night awakened the four people who were unconscious next to the tower-shaped load-bearing column. The middle-aged man at the edge opened his eyes and was shocked by the environment in front of him: "Where is this?"
The old man next to him, who had just woken up from a coma, was shaking with a headache and didn't hear his question clearly.
The middle-aged man was afraid and pushed impatiently: "Mom! I'm asking you a question!"
"I don't know..." The old man with a big bruise on his forehead just kept shaking his head, "I don't know..."
The situation was really scary. The middle-aged man stretched out his leg to kick the skinny old man next to him: "Dad! What's going on?"
When he saw another middle-aged woman who had just woken up next to him, his expression finally changed: "Didn't they both leave?!"
Their line of work has its own rules. After the money and goods are exchanged, they leave immediately. He has been gone for more than a day, why did he come back in such a weird way? !
The middle-aged woman was also frightened: "Brother, is there something strange in your town? I'm just doing something to help two people get married. It's not against the law!"
"Why are you asking me? I don't know!" The middle-aged man, Feng Sheng, was visibly panicked. "What the hell is this place?"
Feng Wei, who had just been kicked without saying a word, spoke up: "Shengzi, this is the old building."
As soon as he finished speaking, Feng Sheng's face became even uglier. Everyone in the town, from childhood to adulthood, knew that the old building was a strange and mysterious place. Anyone who entered it would either suffer from nightmares or become seriously ill. No one had ever been seen to get well!
Feng Sheng touched his forehead and his hands were covered in blood. He was angry and scared - how could he have fallen asleep and ended up in such a hellish place!
Since he was sure that this was an old building and not some other place he had never seen before, he stood up and tried to run out the door. No matter what the situation was, he would go back first! Anyway, the farther away from here, the better!
He ignored his parents and staggered towards the fog-filled door. Before he reached the threshold, he backed away step by step as if he had seen something horrible. After falling with a thump, he used his hands and feet to crawl backwards.
In front of him was a red paper-made man, with his ankles held upside down, walking step by step from the threshold of the old building. On his head was a mouth corner painted with paint, with its mouth corners curled up.
A man walked forward, dragging a living person whose life or death was unknown. Five other paper men slowly walked out from the shadows blocked by white cloth strips and long ropes. They walked with the same steps, the same movements, and the same upward grinning mouths, and slowly narrowed the encirclement.
The four men were forced to lean against the tower-shaped load-bearing pillars. Next to their cheeks were black holes on the tower as big as fists. The cold air coming out of the pillars almost froze them.
They had no way to retreat, but the paper-tied people did not stop. Except for the paper-tied person without red paper on his arms, the other paper-tied people approached them one by one, grabbed their shoulders, and stuck mouths painted with paint on their foreheads.
After being stained with human blood, the red dots at the position of the paper-pierced man's eyes seemed to be brighter, and the white paper and bamboo bones seemed to have turned into copper bones and iron frames. No matter how they kicked and hit them, they were not damaged at all.
The wind howled even louder without any source, and the white cloth strips and hemp ropes slapped against the beams and walls, making it even more terrifying.
In such an environment, Feng Sheng was the first to collapse. He looked at the crude face made of paper in front of him and burst into tears: "I have no grudge against you, why did you arrest me? It was not my idea to buy a wife for my son, it was my parents' idea!"
"If you want to catch them, go catch them!" he yelled, "Don't catch me! It has nothing to do with me!"
"And the woman next to her, the man that the paper doll was dragging in her hand—" he shouted, "They brought the man here! Every wrong has its perpetrator! It has nothing to do with me!"
He was shouting here, but the paper man holding him just tilted his head, and the upturned corners of his mouth became more obvious. Although he was obviously a silent dead object, at this moment there was a kind of silent mockery in his expression.
"Stab-stab-"
From outside the misty threshold, a sound of feet dragging on the ground came closer and closer.
A pair of red wedding shoes crossed the threshold, and the hem of the red wedding dress slid along the threshold to the stone bricks inside the old building. The long black hair covered the bride's face, and with every step she took, the hairpins on her head made a low clinking sound.
Her feet twisted strangely, and she walked forward step by step under their horrified gaze.
The wind blew away her long hair, revealing a pale face. Her face was stiffly made up, and when she lowered her head, one could see that her mouth was filled with rice bran.