While Yu Sheng and the store manager went upstairs, the blacksmith and Ding Qing stayed in the car, responsible for keeping an eye on pedestrians; The left and right are arranged to a high place to observe the situation around the block.

The store manager came to the target door, took out a notepad from his arms, took out two badges in his pocket, and handed one to Yu Sheng, "Put it on." ”

Yu Sheng took it, and the badge was printed with Lin Zhongcheng Heating Company, no name, no number.

Yu Sheng glanced at the store manager.

The store manager was a little embarrassed, "I used to do a lot of similar things, don't care about the details, and it's not a police ~ Hui military certificate, it's enough to get people." ”

The rest of his life looked incredulous.

The store manager coughed, ignoring the strange gaze of the rest of his life.

The store manager sorted out his status, took off the pen clipped to the notepad, and knocked lightly on the door.

The two of them stood outside the door, and waited for a moment, but the door did not open.

After a while, when the two of them made eye contact with the store manager for the rest of their lives, and whether they needed to knock on the door again with eye contact, an elderly man's voice asked sullenly behind the door, "Who?"

The store manager replied in an impatient tone: "Heating inspection, open the door." ”

The door opened, and a half-bald head came out from behind the door, with that tired face, everything displayed outside the door showed that this was an ordinary person who was almost overwhelmed by the burdens of life.

Yu Sheng suddenly felt a ridiculous sense of uneasiness in his heart, and he couldn't help but suspect that if everything had not changed at the beginning, he had not encountered all this, and he was still that quiet office worker, maybe the man in front of him would be what he would look like twenty years later.

This feeling was fleeting, and after being stunned for a moment, he immediately gathered his mind and concentrated on what was in front of him.

The store manager tapped on the badge with a pen, deliberately making a look of impatience common to official units, "Heating company, I need to check the heating of your house, please open the door." ”

"What is the heating to check for this big summer...... There is no problem with the heating in our house," the middle-aged man said suspiciously, "and the winter is very warm. ”

"I said this ......," the manager pretended to look at his notepad, on which the names of the residents were copied on the papers, "...... Mr. Weng, is there a problem It's not that you have the final say, nor is it me who has the final say, but the uncles above us who don't work have the final say," the store manager changed in a blink of an eye, and showed a grassroots employee who was forced to work more by the leader to the fullest, "Didn't there be a collective coma incident here some time ago, and the top people were afraid to take responsibility, so let's check from house to house." Don't embarrass us, let's just take a look around and make a record. ”

The middle-aged man surnamed Weng hesitated, looked back and forth on the faces of the two people for a long time, and finally motioned for the two people to enter the door.

The store manager handed the book and pen to Yu Sheng, "Xiao Liu, go from house to room to see if there is any problem with the plumbing and heating, and if there is any problem, write it down and we will report it." ”

"Good. Yu Sheng exchanged a look with the store manager and entered the house together.

The house is quite large, a standard three-bedroom apartment, but the light is very dim, and the furnishings are old, as if it has not changed for more than ten years.

For some reason, there was a faint strange smell in the air in the room, and the rest of my life quietly distinguished, it was the smell of medicine and rotten gas, and there was almost a sense of heaviness that could be touched by reaching out, although it was not disgusting, but it was indeed a little uncomfortable to touch.

Intuition tells the rest of my life that there is something strange in this house.

His heart was pounding, and he tried to behave naturally for the rest of his life, and began to check it out of the living room master valve in a good way.

Mr. Weng didn't speak, just stared at Yu Sheng in a daze, as if he was afraid that Yu Sheng would steal something. Yu Sheng noticed the other party's gaze, and his already nervous heart became even more chaotic, and his forehead faintly oozed sweat after a while.

"Your house is pretty good. The store manager suddenly broke the silence, startling Yu Sheng and Mr. Weng at the same time.

The store manager looked back and forth, deliberately without words, "The size of the area is enough, if you buy such a house now, you can't come without a million, right?"

Mr. Weng hesitated for a moment, "It should be...... Now our housing prices here are not low, they have risen sharply in the past two years, and I heard that the main city is ridiculously high. ”

"Isn't it," sighed the shopkeeper, "a cousin of mine lives in the main city, and is in his forties, and because he can't afford to buy a house, no woman wants to go with him until now." ”

For this kind of homely gossip, this Mr. Weng is obviously a little interested, "I saw that the housing prices in the city were 40,000 yuan last year, and who can afford it." ”

"Why don't you say it, let those black-hearted bosses earn, and we can't save a flat in a year with a salary, don't say it, it's gone up again this year, 60,000!" the store manager gritted his teeth.

Mr. Weng's attention was completely attracted by the store manager, and he sighed loudly, "My house was divided into units at the beginning, only 200 yuan per square meter, and now I earn more, but the house is more expensive, no matter how poor we were at that time, we could buy our own house by gritting our teeth, and then look at the young people now......

"But isn't it, today's young people can't afford to sell themselves, let alone grit their teeth. The store manager echoed.

"Young man, look at your age, are you married?" asked Mr. Weng.

"I've been married for three years, I've had a mortgage for thirty years, and I'm just in time for retirement, and I'll be able to save some money to buy a coffin when the time comes, haha. The manager laughed.

"Bah, that's unlucky, you young people, don't pay attention to what you say. Mr. Weng smiled and scolded.

"Yes, yes, my brother is right. The store manager echoed as he peeked at the rest of his life.

Taking advantage of the time when the store manager and the middle-aged man were messing around, Yu Sheng quickly searched around the room, there was nothing suspicious, and no one else was here except the middle-aged man. But when Yu Sheng tries to push open the door of the second bedroom, he finds that the door is locked.

"Brother Chen, this door is locked. Yu Sheng said hello.

The store manager glanced at Yu Sheng's side, and turned his head to look at Mr. Weng, "Brother, this ......"

Mr. Weng, who was still talkative just now, instantly changed back to his original state, and his expression twisted and pinched to reveal an unnatural look, "That room is nothing, it has been useless, so it was locked, and it will be fine if you don't check." ”

Yu Sheng pretended to complain: "Oh, Mr. Weng, we are also concerned about the safety of your family. This heating pipe is coming in from here, and we're all here, so we'll have to take a look. ”

The store manager looked at Mr. Weng and said half-jokingly, "Brother, you won't have anything there that can't be shown to people, right?"

Mr. Weng gritted his teeth and held back for a long time, and finally said: "Let's be honest, my son didn't know what kind of madness he had a few days ago, and he got sick at every turn, and he couldn't find anything wrong with the doctors he visited." So my wife and I locked him in that room to protect himself and others. ”

"We don't mean anything else," the store manager changed to an understanding expression, "just let my colleague go in and have a look, and come out soon, it's good if we can make a difference, and don't embarrass us." ”

"Yes, Mr. Weng. Just take a look, soon," Yu Sheng helped beside him, "I'll be careful." ”

Mr. Weng was still hesitating.

The store manager was helpless, "Brother, if you don't let us in, then we can only report it truthfully." At that time, if the person on the top comes with the police, you have to open the door even if you don't open it, and if something goes wrong, you will be the first suspect in endangering public safety, and no one will look good at that time. ”

The corners of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched, and he admired the store manager's ability to tell nonsense with his eyes closed.

Mr. Weng was resigned, he looked at the store manager, and then looked at the rest of his life, and finally sighed, "Hurry up, he just took medicine and fell asleep, don't wake him up." ”

He took out a bunch of keys from his waist and opened the door while saying, "If my wife knows, she will scold me again......"

The door opened, and the smell of medicine and decay in the air rushed from inside.

The rest of his life was overwhelmed by the strange smell, and he held his breath and frowned as he looked into the room.

The room was dark, and it took a while for the rest of his eyes to barely see the furnishings.

Facing the door was a window, which had been boarded up from the inside. Near the door was a table full of all kinds of medicines and injections, and for a while he couldn't see which ones were what they were.

But the most conspicuous thing in the whole room were the statues of different styles and sizes, and Yu Sheng walked a few steps inside to see that those statues were statues of different sizes but the same face.

The largest and most recognizable statue in the middle is a bearded man dressed in fancy clothes, while the smaller idol surrounds the perimeter like a star holding the moon.

There is a candle offering table under the statue, and there are flames dancing on the various candles, as if to welcome visitors. There is an incense burner next to the candle flame, and the incense that is inserted on it has been extinguished for an unknown amount of time, and there is almost no fragrance.

The wall above the table was covered with portraits of various gods, with different movements and demeanors, and he didn't know which god it was for the rest of his life, but he could see that the portrait and the idol depicted the same god.

All this in front of him really surprised the rest of his life.

The empire was founded 400 years ago, and it was itself built on the basis of killing gods and destroying religions. Before the empire was founded, each of the three major religions on the continent had its own armament, and each side claimed to be in the presence of the gods to destroy the pagans. The three religions attacked each other, preying on the common people, and the state of chaos lasted for hundreds of years.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the first emperor of the empire destroyed religion and almost cut off the religion in the world, and strictly prohibited any religious propaganda for a long time.

The store manager also saw the statue in the house, he frowned, and his expression gradually became serious, "I said brother, it's a bit illegal for you to get these things at home." ”

"In the countryside, no one cares about this. My wife believes in these things, and her parishioners know that my son is seriously ill, so they give these idols and let my wife visit them day and night, which is considered to pray for her son's blessing. Mr. Weng said.

was reminded by the store manager, and the look on Mr. Weng's face was also a little cramped, "You guys...... You're not going to tell anybody, are you?"

"That's definitely not going to happen, worship God in your own home, it has nothing to do with our brothers," the store manager agreed, "Isn't it Xiao Liu?"

"That's that, that's. Yu Sheng replied nonchalantly as he looked at the bed by the window.

There was a commode next to the bed, and a thin figure was lying on the bed, silent and motionless, even if the rest of his life was about to walk to the bed.

Yu Sheng came to the bedside, and through the light that penetrated through the gap in the wooden planks nailed to the window, he saw the appearance of the person on the bed.

It was a half-old boy, smaller than the left and right, he was wearing a wide clothes that didn't fit, and he looked like he was in junior high school, but he was so thin that it made people panic when they looked at it.

The boy's face seemed to have only a thin layer of skin left, tightly taut against the skull, like a dried corpse.

The boy's eyes were tightly closed, his face was painful, his eyelashes fluttering, as if he was in a nightmare, and his breathing was so weak that he could barely feel it for the rest of his life.

The boy wore an iron hoop around his neck, and a thin metal chain connected him to the wall, and he was chained to the house like a dog. Dozens of intricate symbols were drawn on the white sheets beneath the boy, enclosing the boy in the center. In this environment, it is both weird and ridiculous.

Yu Sheng's heartbeat suddenly slowed down, and then pounded violently.

Of course, Yu Sheng didn't have the ability to distinguish between ordinary people and gods at a glance, but at this time, he had a clear feeling in his heart.

They're looking for someone and they've found it.