Chapter 70

The moving on the second day was unexpectedly smooth.

With the help of Lando and the others, both the packing and the tidying up after arriving at the new house were completed very quickly. The only troublesome part was moving the luggage to the car, but because there was a moving master to help, Xu Ming himself basically didn't have to do anything.

It's just that the moving fee is a bit expensive... This really hurts Xu Ming, who is still in the window period.

The house in the south of the city is a self-built small house. The house is a bit old, but it has many rooms. There are three bedrooms, including the master bedroom, the second bedroom and the guest room, as well as a living room, dining room, and kitchen. There is also a large study. Next to the study is a separate small room, which was Aunt Xu Ming's former office.

Due to some subtle feelings, Xu Ming left the things left by his aunt in the house. The bedroom where his aunt lived before she disappeared was also kept, and he lived in the second bedroom. Fortunately, other people didn't need to sleep in the bedroom -

Gu Yunshu still had a special liking for closed cabinets, so Xu Ming found one for her and placed it in the guest room. Landuo usually rests during the day, and he just nests in an umbrella when he rests. At night, he likes to sit at the door. Xu Ming put a folding recliner outside the door.

As for Landuo's dog, Xu Ming plans to buy a big doghouse for the living room. When there is a new source of income, a small house will be added to the yard.

After all, the space is large now, and people can be a little wild. There is no need to always force children to be puppies. Any golden retriever, border collie, or Caucasian can be arranged.

Landor, however, thought it was unnecessary -

"It's not a living thing anyway. No need to be too particular." After listening to Xu Ming's plan, he immediately said, "Just enclose a piece of open space in the yard. Or a greenhouse will do."

"..."Are you sure?

Xu Ming lowered his eyes, looking at the Border Collie who was holding his trouser leg angrily and biting it, not knowing whether he should ask this question.

The next second, the Border Collie seemed to have figured something out, and stood up suddenly, sat on the spot, tilted his head, widened his eyes, and looked over eagerly.

It even knew to change its appearance. Xu Ming didn't know how it did it, but in a blink of an eye, the Border Collie in front of him turned into a Samoyed.

Xu Ming: "..."

Let's buy a nest. She made up her mind decisively.

No matter how hard it is, the child cannot suffer.

As for the "greenhouse" that Landor mentioned, it had actually been reserved long ago - it was said there to be a glass greenhouse, but in Xu Ming's memory, it was used to grow vegetables before, and now it is completely abandoned due to long-term idleness.

Even so, the horse-faced gentleman from the Rubik's Cube Building is still very interested in this place and plans to use it as a place to rest. The reason is that there is a natural breath here, and you can see a sky full of stars when you look up.

Just like Gu Yunshu said, this gentleman seems to be quite romantic. This may be the reason why he named himself "Tagore".

But Gu Yunshu and the others seem to prefer calling him Brother Xiao Ma.

Speaking of which, the name of the other bull-headed gentleman is also very interesting. I don’t know if it was to express his dissatisfaction with the current bull head shape, but he named himself "Bu Geng". In Xu Ming's opinion, this is more unique than "Tagore", and even has a sense of self-mockery.

Compared with the special name, Mr. Bull Head's personality is much more low-key. He basically only participates in activities with Mr. Horse Face, and usually lets him speak. He is only responsible for nodding and shaking his head, not making decisions. Like this time, it was Ma Taigor who said that he wanted to live in the greenhouse, so he followed silently without making any other requests.

As for Lu Yueling, she was very impolite and directly occupied the bed in the guest room, which was equivalent to living in the same room with Gu Yunshu. So far, everyone's accommodation has been arranged.

Because the yard of the villa is quite large, Xu Ming even considered releasing the Ajiao in the rule book and letting them move around outside - but thirty is still too many, and it is estimated that they can only be rotated in batches, and they have to be careful not to scare the neighbors nearby.

It is said that it is difficult for living people to see spirits, and even if they can see them, they can only see some traces. But in this kind of rural area, almost every household has cats and dogs as pets, and these animals are very sensitive to spirits, so it is better to be cautious.

- In fact, Xu Ming has also considered whether he can let them move into Guo Shuyi's ghost story. After all, Guo Shuyi said that now only light enough souls can pass through the entrance and exit of the ghost story, and these Ajiao, in addition to momentum and fast crawling, the biggest feature is that they are light enough.

Unfortunately, Guo Shuyi has not come out since she went back last time. Xu Ming didn't know what she was busy with, and he was embarrassed to ask her out for this matter, so he planned to wait for her to come next time to discuss it in detail.

On the other hand, just as Xu Ming expected, not long after she finished moving, she received a call from Tian Yiliang.

At that time, she was yawning and browsing her phone, wanting to buy some cheap and good things for the house, when an unknown call came in. Xu Ming was stunned for a moment, then quickly took out the number left by Tian Yiliang to check, then hurriedly sat up straight, cleared her throat, and tried her best to make her voice sound energetic -

"Hello." She said to the phone, "Is this Mr. Tian?"

"...Yeah. Yes." The person on the other end seemed to pause, "Do you know me?" "

Teacher Shan Ming mentioned you to me. And told me to pay attention and not miss your news." Xu Ming closed his eyes and spoke, trying to make the other party feel respected, "I'm sorry that for some reasons, Teacher Shan Ming cannot contact you in person. If you have anything you want to communicate, just tell me and I will convey it all."

"Okay." Tian Yiliang's voice on the other end sounded very cold, "Then it's Miss Lao Gu."

"It's okay, it's okay." Xu Ming said skillfully, got off the bed lightly, sat down at the desk, and quickly took a piece of paper and a pen, "You said... Oh, about the strange story about Guo Shuyi? This teacher Su Ming asked me to convey it, she said you can rest assured..."

"......?"

In the room, Xu Ming had successfully assumed the identity, holding the phone while listening and taking notes, looking very familiar; outside the room, Lu Yueling, who was carrying a large bag of tissues, happened to pass by, and quietly stopped outside the open door. After a moment, she frowned thoughtfully.

Gu Yunshu walked over from behind her with several clothes hangers in his hands. Seeing this, he also stopped and touched her in confusion.

What's the matter? Gu Yunshu asked with his eyes in front of him.

"...Nothing." Lu Yueling touched her chin thoughtfully, and spoke in a tone that only the two of them could hear, her eyes still fixed on the room, "It's just that, I don't know why, I always feel that Xu Ming looks very familiar, as if I have seen him somewhere."

Gu Yunshu: "?"

"Wait, I remember." Lu Yueling pondered for a while, and finally figured out where that weird sense of déjà vu came from -

She suddenly turned to Gu Yunshu: "Have you ever seen a public service promotional film called "Under the Shadow of Telecom Fraud"? "

"......?"

Gu Yunshu blinked blankly, and then shook his head gently.

"You can go and see it when you have time." Lu Yueling suggested sincerely, holding the tissue in her arms, turned around and continued to walk forward.

Gu Yunshu was left alone, frowning in confusion, and looked into the room again. After a pause, he finally shook his head in confusion and left.

On the other side, in the room - Xu Ming, who had no idea that he was almost classified as an example of telecom fraud, was still actively communicating with the other party, and the tip of the pen in his right hand kept sliding.

"Yeah, yes, that's it... Thank you for your understanding... Find someone else to connect with me? That should be possible, I'll ask for instructions later. You can send me the social account of the person you connect with, and if the higher-ups agree, I'll add it..."

"Okay, thank you."

In another office far away, Tian Yiliang and Gu Ming on the other end of the phone made the final confirmation and finally hung up the phone.

Then he let out a long breath.

"Brother Tian, ​​how is it?" A young man next to him put a full thermos on the table and looked over at him with concern. Tian Yilian exhaled again, picked up the thermos and took a sip, and nodded lightly: "I feel like there's a chance."

"Pay attention to her social accounts these two days. If she adds you, remember to accept it, don't reject her without thinking."

"Oh, okay." The young man next to him nodded repeatedly, thought about it, and couldn't help but say, "But Brother Tian, ​​no matter how good the person on the other side is, she's just an intern. Is it reliable for us to contact her?"

"Also, that weirdo Demolition Office acts weird, and did that kind of thing last night..."

The young man muttered, and subconsciously glanced around - he saw several strange claw marks in the small office, visible to the naked eye.

Huge, slender, beast-like, and not beast-like, people like them who have a bit of psychic physique can clearly see the wisps of black air floating above.

The surveillance footage retrieved during the day after contacting the young man showed an even uglier look on his face.

- Generally speaking, unless you are in a strange area, or you have been affected by something, it is actually quite difficult to capture the traces of abnormal creatures with electronic equipment in reality.

However, the surveillance in their office area is specially made, which can greatly increase the probability of photographing abnormal creatures, and at the same time can resist the interference of certain strange energies to the maximum extent. In this regard, they also specially invited the cooperative mutant roots to come for testing, and the quality is absolutely reliable.

But this morning, when he checked the surveillance video as instructed by Tian Yiliang, he saw nothing.

In the surveillance video, Tian Yiliang was the only one there from beginning to end.

At first, he just sat quietly, eating meat jerky and browsing the computer. At a certain moment, he suddenly froze, and then he looked up in surprise, scanning the surroundings, with obvious tension all over his body, as if he had sensed something terrible...

Then, he saw Tian Yiliang groping around in the office, as if he was trying to avoid something. Even through the camera, he could feel the other party's nervousness. The next moment, he suddenly raised his head, showing a moment of sluggishness, and his eyes swept around, finally falling on his desk.

Two envelopes had appeared on the table at some point.

The strange thing was here - the surveillance camera was clearly recording, but no matter how he adjusted it, he could not figure out when the two envelopes appeared on the table.

In addition, there was another very puzzling thing.

According to Tian Yiliang's description, the lights were turned off for a while last night. However, from the surveillance, the lights in the office were on from beginning to end.

Including the computer. In fact, they were always on.

All the lights were there. It's just that Tian Yiliang couldn't see them.

"The ones who can do such a thing are either mutant roots or dead people who possess roots." The young man couldn't help but frowning, "Can you just let this kind of thing out to scare people? Even if you don't want to contact you, Brother Tian, ​​there's no need to do this. Or can't you just let the intern come over to communicate? Why do you have to do this..."

"Why else?" Tian Yiliang had an expression as if he had seen through it, and he picked up the thermos again and took a sip, "To demonstrate."

The young man: "......?"

"It's also my fault. I said too much in Guo Shuyi's ghost story. We have different ideas on how to deal with this ghost story, or how to deal with Guo Shuyi. Now, they have taken over Guo Shuyi's ghost story, but they are worried that we want to interfere in this matter in other ways, so they want to be decisive and let us retreat..."

Just like what his assistant said. What appeared last night must be an abnormal creature, and a very powerful abnormal creature.

The Ghost Story Removal Office conveyed the information in this way, and the hidden message behind it was obvious - Guo Shuyi, I will protect you.

My ability is here, you can rest assured. You don't need to interfere in this matter anymore, and don't interfere anymore. If you don't listen, I won't be polite.

The abnormal creature that appeared last night was both a guarantee of their own strength and a demonstration of their vigorous weed control.

This is why Tian Yiliang did not further inquire about the situation of Guo Shuyi's strange stories and the handling method of the Strange Stories Removal Office when communicating with Gu Ming this time - the other party has already hinted, no, it should be stated explicitly. If you continue to ask, it would be too stubborn.

"But... according to what you said, Brother Tian, ​​this organization, to put it bluntly, does not care about us at all." The young assistant next to him thought for a moment and frowned again, "In this case, they can just leave a message. Why do they have to leave a contact number... and it's an intern."

Who is he looking down on?

Upon hearing this, Tian Yiliang shook his head again: "No, I don't think this is a kind of contempt."

Assistant: "......?" What kind of statement is this?

As if seeing his confusion, Tian Yilian crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, his expression gradually becoming serious: "Let me put it this way, if you want to analyze this problem, you must not limit it to this point. Remember what I taught you? Connect the dots to make a line. When you have enough 'dots' in your hands, the line representing the truth will naturally emerge."

"..." The assistant nodded as if he understood, and leaned forward carefully, "Brother Tian, ​​what do you mean..."

"Don't rush to ask for the conclusion." Tian Yilian waved his hand at him, and then spoke meaningfully, "Let me ask you, before today, have you heard of the Ghost Story Demolition Office?"

"No." The assistant said immediately. He was usually only responsible for clerical work and had little communication with Anxin Gardening. It was only this time when he saw the letter on Tian Yiliang's desk that he heard of this term for the first time.

"Yes. Like me, I also heard about it through Anxin Gardening. And when did Anxin Gardening hear about this organization?"

Tian Yiliang put one hand on the table and poked lightly: "I went back last night and specifically asked about it. They first learned about this term when they were investigating the "Hongqiang Company" ghost story, and the second formal contact was when they were investigating the "Butterfly Building." "

"Coincidentally, the opportunities for their two contacts were both related to the intern named Gu Ming."

The first time, it was Gu Ming who printed a bunch of badges of the Ghost Story Demolition Office in order to escape the ghost story, which made Anxin Gardening come into contact with this term for the first time. The second time, Gu Ming simply revealed his identity as an intern of the Demolition Office, and sought cooperation from Anxin Gardening.

"And this time, Gu Ming did not actually participate in Guo Shuyi's strange talk, but still appeared in the subsequent finishing work as a 'contact person'." Tian Yilian said meaningfully, "In other words, every appearance of the Demolition and Relocation Office must be related to Gu Ming."

"Think about it carefully, what does this mean?"

"This means..." The assistant spoke uncertainly, opened his mouth and closed it again, like a poor student who was pointed out by the teacher in class and had no idea what to do, "It may mean... that the Demolition and Relocation Office was run by her?"

"..." Tian Yilian grabbed the bag of snacks on the table and smashed it on his head.

"No, Brother Tian! If you think about it carefully, this is very possible!"

The assistant took the bag and put it aside. After careful consideration, he felt that what he said made sense: "The work badge of the demolition office was written by her, and she called herself an intern. Why did she leave an intern's mobile phone number this time? Maybe it's because she only has this one mobile phone number and has no other choice. She is afraid that the real-name system will find it out, so she just leaves her real name to do the work..."

"You're still talking nonsense - she did it? Why don't you say she made it up!" Tian Yiliang saw that he was still righteous and almost threw the pillow behind him. "It's good for people to have imagination, but can't they be more practical? Can they use their brains?"

A student who just graduated from college set up a mysterious organization, collected a bunch of dead people, and raised more than one mutant root. Do you really think that the second dimension is shining into reality?

The most important thing is -

"If it's really like what you said, then she doesn't need to leave her mobile phone number. What's the point?"

Tian Yiliang muttered, leaning back in his chair again: "But there is one thing, I think you are right."

Assistant: "...Ah?"

"Her appearance is too coincidental." Tian Yiliang said slowly, "Too coincidental that she doesn't look like an ordinary intern at all."

"?" The assistant couldn't help but lean forward, "Brother Tian, ​​what do you mean..."

"I suspect that this Gu Ming is probably a 'window' deliberately found by the Demolition Office - or, 'bridge'." Tian Yiliang continued.

It's the same sentence - before the Hongqiang incident, at least in the two organizations of Anxin Gardening and Dali Weeding, no one had ever heard of the Ghost Talk Demolition Office.

Whether it was the information that Fang Xueqing relayed to him or his previous conversation with the "mid-level salesperson" Su Ming, they all revealed a crucial piece of information -

the Ghost Story Dismantling Office used to only deal with ghost stories. It does not interfere in real affairs.

In other words, the Ghost Story Dismantling Office itself is likely not for the service of humans.

Because there is no need to care, there is no need to establish diplomatic relations. From the current situation, the members of the other party's organization should include a considerable number of dead people and at least two mutant roots.

The previous contact also indirectly proved this point - leaving aside the instability of the dead, the three views of the mutant roots are often very strange, and it is difficult to reach a consensus with humans. Even if they can cooperate, they are often only willing to provide limited help.

Like the demolition office, they directly sent mutant roots to investigate strange stories, and they had to obey the orders of their companions. In Tian Yiliang's view, this was incredible.

Of course, whether Landor was a mutant root or not was still debatable. At least Tian Yiliang couldn't make a conclusion at the moment. But he was sure that "Shan Ming" who was traveling with him was most likely not a human.

- If you want to shake the foundation of a strange story, you will inevitably have to pay a heavy price. This is especially true for humans. But when he was communicating with Gu Ming just now, he specifically asked about Shan Ming's physical condition. The other party's response was just "a little tired and still recuperating."

In this matter, Tian Yiliang didn't think Gu Ming had any need to lie to him. The greater possibility is that the assassins themselves are not human beings, but some equally powerful mutant roots, which is completely justifiable.

If this conjecture is true, can we further propose a hypothesis based on this - the Ghost Story Demolition Office is an organization dominated by the dead and the mutant roots. Humans are a minority group in it, and even in their original membership, there is no place for humans?

In this way, some of the previous points of concern are explained. For example, why has the Ghost Story Demolition Office never appeared in public in the past? Why are the only two confirmed human members currently Gu Ming and her friend Qiu Yufei? For another example, why in Guo Shuyi's ghost story, Su Ming was unwilling to communicate with himself directly, and was only willing to use Lando's mouth to convey...

"In other words, in the past, they have been trying to hide their existence?" The assistant tried to keep up with Tian Yiliang's words, "But is this possible?"

"Why not?" Tian Yiliang said, "If humans hide in ghost stories for a long time, it is difficult to catch their traces, let alone those abnormal existences?"

It is too easy to hide yourself in ghost stories.

In fact, if Landor had not been separated from his colleagues when he entered the strange story, and if he himself lacked intelligence and the ability to collect intelligence, and was even a little stupid, Tian Yiliang felt that he would probably not have come into direct contact with them.

It is more likely that until the whole strange story began to shake and collapse, he was sent out of the strange story in a daze, and he did not realize the fact that the strange story removal office had been there.

"That makes sense." The assistant nodded thoughtfully, "But what does that have to do with Gu Ming?"

"Don't you understand? Gu Ming's existence itself is what makes her most noteworthy." Tian Yiliang said seriously,

"Assuming that the previous speculation is true, why would an organization whose main members are mutant roots and dead people suddenly start recruiting human interns? And what a coincidence, it only started to show its strength after recruiting her?"

"..." The assistant rolled his eyes and suddenly realized, "Brother Tian, ​​you mean that this Gu Ming was actually specially selected by the Demolition Office as a window for external communication?"

"It's just a guess." Tian Yiliang pursed his lips, "If this is true, then there are two possibilities under this fact."

"One possibility is that after she was recruited, she inadvertently exposed the existence of the Ghost Story Demolition Office. The Demolition Office could not cover up this fact and could only push her as a window, so that the Demolition Office itself continued to hide from reality; the other possibility is that the Demolition Office itself already had the idea of ​​wanting to get in touch with reality, but is still in the trial stage, and the existence of Gu Ming is the first step in their attempt. It is very likely that Gu Ming was recruited for this purpose."

Regardless of which one it is, it means that they must attach importance to the existence of Gu Ming. She is the bridge between the Demolition Office and the outside world, and the Demolition Office - whether it is directly taking away Guo Shuyi's ghost story, or breaking through the numerous defense lines last night to prove its strength and demonstration, it is enough to prove its terrible strength.

In fact, some things, if you look into it more carefully, will get more interesting "points" - for example, according to observations, Hongqiang Company is shrinking, and the reason for the shrinkage is speculated to be the looting of the roots. The Butterfly Building has been closed, and according to the information shared by Anxin Gardening, Hu Yang, who temporarily controls the Butterfly Building, has obviously reached a cooperation with the Ghost Story Demolition Office. Many notices in the area are named after the Ghost Story Demolition Office...

With all these things, can Gu Ming, an intern, really do it?

Could it be that behind these two incidents, there were also official employees of the Ghost Story Demolition Office secretly manipulating things? And Gu Ming was just a symbol pushed to the front by them?

If this is true, it can only mean that both the strength and purpose of the Ghost Story Demolition Office are much more unfathomable than they know.

"The current Demolition Office is still too well hidden." Tian Yiliang closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and finally gave the final conclusion, "They hid themselves behind the identity of 'Gu Ming'. And the only thing we can do is to try our best to grasp the only thread of 'Gu Ming'."

Unlike most members of the Demolition Office. Gu Ming is a real person, a living person. And since they are living people, they will always have various needs. Perhaps, this is one of their entry points - if the appearance of the Ghost Story Demolition Office really has other purposes, this human being will be the most direct help they can get.

"So, remember my words."

Tian Yiliang said, glancing at the dazed assistant next to him: "Be smart. Add people's social accounts later, and remember to be warm to them."

"Warm?" The assistant frowned in confusion, "...Then how should we do it?

Tian Yiliang looked at him deeply: "I remember that before joining Dali Weed Control, you were an insurance salesman? "

The assistant nodded. In fact, before working in insurance sales, he worked in real estate for a while. In the end, he couldn't stand the days of treating others like ancestors every day for the sake of performance, so he resigned in anger.

After leaving the real estate industry, he joined an insurance company. Unexpectedly, he still had to treat people like ancestors every day due to his life... This is why he chose to change jobs without hesitation after Dali Chucao threw an olive branch to him because of his psychic physique.

Although, after he came in, he found that the specific work content was completely different from what he thought, and he was still on the route of a social animal.

"That's right." Tian Yilian listened to his words and nodded meaningfully.

"Now, it's time to put all your precious previous work experience to use. "

After saying that, he picked up the thermos on the table, stood up and left.

The assistant was left standing there in a daze, unable to come back to his senses for a long time.

*

What Tian Yiliang didn't know was that he had just clarified his future course of action. Anxin Gardening, which had come into contact with Gu Ming two versions earlier than them, had already carefully pushed forward the next step of work.

"?"

In the small villa in the south of the city, Xu Ming was changing the bed sheets with the help of Gu Yunshu. Suddenly, the phone rang again. When he picked it up, what caught his eyes was a long message from Shi Mian.

Xu Ming quickly scanned the message and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Gu Yunshu on the opposite side looked over curiously, Xu Ming shrugged and directly answered her question:

"Don't worry, it's no big deal. It's Shi Mian - the salesperson at Anxin Gardening, you still remember it? Send me a message.

"She said that Anxin Gardening has set up a new department dedicated to collecting clues about ghost stories. It allows part-time or flexible employment personnel to be affiliated with it, with generous remuneration and social security payment. She asked me if I was interested."