Lao Lin poured a glass of water for Tang Mingjian and comforted him for a few words, Tang Mingjian suddenly had a strong interest in water for some reason, and drank several large glasses in a row, and then explained to us intermittently.

It turned out that about four months ago, the old man he said found Tang Mingjian in Yunnan. Although it is not illegal to sell hallucinogenic mushrooms, Tang Mingjian is still very cautious, and only interacts with a few dealers who often cooperate, and has very little contact with the outside. For this old man who suddenly appeared, Tang Mingjian was still very nervous.

But the old man seemed to be very familiar with Tang Mingjian, and took out a letter with some stains on the surface and yellowed corners and handed it to him. Tang Mingjian read the letter carefully, and was immediately surprised. The letter turned out to be written by his father to a person named Song Chaoming, and the letter said that the remittance had been received, and Song Chaoming entrusted him with the matter of finding the mound mushroom, and he would hurry up, but he had not done this work for many years, and his craft was born, and he was not sure if he could find it.

The letter was dated October 1956.

Although Tang Mingjian's father occasionally told him some family stories, and even instructed Tang Mingjian to identify herbs, and took him to show the villagers around him common diseases, he usually regarded himself as a barefoot doctor. But Tang Mingjian always thought that his father was an ordinary person, and he had never seen him pick hallucinogenic mushrooms, let alone contact with mushroom dealers. It was only when his father talked to him about the family's past before he died, and Tang Mingjian knew the family's professionalism in hallucinogenic mushrooms.

He didn't expect that his father would take over the mushroom picking job after liberation, and he still picked the mound mushroom, which was extremely difficult to find.

The old man's intention was direct, and his shot was even more bold, giving a high price that Tang Mingjian couldn't refuse. Of course, you have to find the mound mushroom, outside the old man's words, Tang Mingjian heard that this seemed to be a cultivator, without the mound mushroom as a guide, his exercises would be difficult to achieve.

Tang Mingjian didn't have any good feelings for the old man who always had a gloomy expression, but for the sake of his father's cooperation with him and a large amount of income, he still went up the mountain.

This time, Tang Mingjian picked a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms, but he never found the mound mushrooms, and when it came to the appointed time, the old man did not appear, but two twins dressed in black came. Tang Mingjian handed over the hallucinogenic mushrooms he had picked to them and told them about the situation. The man in black didn't feel the slightest displeasure, but just told him to think of a way to help find some, and at the same time gave him the full amount of the payment.

A month later, Tang Mingjian finally found an abandoned Miao village in the depths of the mountain, and on the tombs behind the village, he found two mound mushrooms.

After that, the man in black went to Tang Mingjian to pick up the goods twice, until two weeks ago, the man in black informed him to bring the goods to Beijing, and when Tang Mingjian was waiting for them to pick up the goods, he never wanted to be reported by the hotel attendant and was imprisoned in the detention center.

After listening to Tang Mingjian's narration, my heart suddenly became suspicious. According to him, the old man who initially contacted him was Song Chaoming, but Song Chaoming only met Tang Mingjian once, and then two people in black contacted him, so obviously the man in black was Song Chaoming's subordinate, and he listened to Song Chaoming's arrangement.

Song Chaoming has cooperated with Tang Mingjian's father since the fifties, but I don't know how long they have been cooperating and when they started. And what Song Chaoming is looking for is not an ordinary hallucinogenic mushroom, but the kind of mound mushroom that grows on the old tomb, according to Tang Mingjian, the mound mushroom seems to keep the user in a state of hallucination for a longer time, so the mound mushroom can explain why Lu Panzi and Xiao Rao have amnesia for a few days.

Thinking about the uncertainty of Zhao Guoding's portrait of the man in black, could it be that the man in black did not exist at all, but was only imagined in a state of illusion? This can explain why the face of the man in black has not changed for such a long time span.

And Tang Mingjian abides by the ancestral teachings and has never taken hallucinogenic mushrooms, so he doesn't know the physical reaction after taking it, so ......

"Tang Mingjian, after you met the man in black, did you feel any discomfort?" Thinking of this, I asked again.

"It's not uncomfortable, it's just a little nauseous the next day, I want to vomit, and I smoke too much at one time, and the feeling of being drunk is about the same. But every time I meet and trade with the man in black, I always have a strange feeling, that old man seems to be near me, still staring at you very close, and you can't find it, it's creepy, it's not good, it's a strange feeling. ”

"How did the man in black usually contact you?

Tang Mingjian shook his head, "Only the first few times I picked up the goods, they came to me at home, and the orders were all letters from me." ”

"Where is the shipping address?"

"Beijing, a compound in the North Third Ring Road of Haidian District, I can't remember what it is, but I keep all the letters, at home in Yunnan. ”

"Are the mound mushrooms you are talking about the kind that are put in glass bottles and later emit a stinky smell?" Lao Lin asked as he wrote down in his notebook.

"That's right, it's those two, the mound mushroom can't be dried like the usual hallucinogenic mushrooms, the man in black told me that once exposed to the sun, the medicinal ingredients in it will be lost, and even the shade will affect the effect, so I sealed it in a glass bottle for preservation. ”

Tang Mingjian began to analyze his experience in collecting hallucinogenic mushrooms and processing techniques again, but my thoughts slowly drifted elsewhere.

Starting from Xiao Lei's coaxing and scare, I think everything Tang Mingjian described should be true. So, what was the reason why the man in black did not go to Yunnan to pick up the goods, but asked Tang Mingjian to come to Beijing to deliver the goods? It must be because the man in black was delayed in Beijing because he couldn't travel far.

From the point of view of time, the first time the man in black got the mound mushroom was two or three months ago, and since then, there have been successive disappearances of Lu Panzi and Xiao Rao, and the interval between Lu Panzi and Xiao Rao's three disappearances is just enough for the man in black to go to Yunnan to pick up the mound mushroom. In other words, when the man in black went to Yunnan to get the mound mushroom, there was the next disappearance.

Continuing to deduce from this clue, after Tang Mingjian was accidentally arrested, the matter on Lu Panzi and Xiao Rao came to an abrupt end, can it be explained by the fact that the man in black did not get the mound mushroom?

Of course, this is just a coincidence of time, and I don't have any evidence to prove it. Also, in Tang Mingjian's description, it seems that when he met the man in black, he was also in the same state as Lu Panzi and Xiao Rao, although he was sure that he had never eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms, but it was precisely because of this that he couldn't distinguish whether the man in black was his hallucination or real, and the physical reaction was exactly the normal reaction after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms, was it a coincidence?

The most important thing is that all the people in black they witnessed, although they were very consistent on the surface, but when they thought about it, it was just because the characteristics of the men in black were too prominent, twins, tall and straight, with beautiful faces, covered in black robes, visiting at night, and even able to fly against the wind, as long as the brain had this impression, naturally all witnesses and listeners would think that they had met the same people.

Why do you want to use such a vivid and prominent image? Is it to cover up something?

The only one who doubts this is Zhao Dingguo, not that he found anything suspicious in the incident itself, but that when he describes the portrait based on the missing person, he finds that the narrator's image that should be clear and memorable has become different, and even the details are blurred, and this uncertainty makes him full of doubts.

I don't know why, a picture suddenly appeared in my mind: in the gloomy old house, the candles are flickering, and a woman dressed in ancient style has her back to the door, facing a bronze mirror, and her beautiful face is dimly reflected in the bronze mirror. A gust of wind blew, the candle flame flickered and dimmed, and the woman slowly peeled off her face, revealing the carrion and white bones inside.

The woman was calm as usual, gently stroked the dough on her hands, then picked up the brush on the table, dipped it in paint, and slowly painted. A sound from outside the house startled her, and she slowly turned her face. At that moment, the candle flame was extinguished, and the surroundings were plunged into endless darkness.

This is a clip from a movie twenty years ago called "Painted Skin". It is said that the film was banned because it scared people to death when it was released. When I watched it back then, I didn't think it was terrifying, but when I thought about it at this time, it had a special meaning.

Maybe the man in black is a skin, a skin that hides the truth, a skin that is depicted all the time.

I almost forgot how I left the detention center, and I forgot whether I promised Tang Mingjian to help him release him as soon as possible, but I suddenly felt that the lights around me were shining, and the car entered the third ring, and I reacted from my contemplation.

The driver was replaced by Xiao Lei, and when he saw me reaching out to take my phone from my bag to check the time, he hurriedly asked, "Uncle Chang, has there been progress? I can't understand a little, why did we investigate the matter of Lu Pan, so inch, crash into Tang Mingjian's case, and there is such a close connection between them? Also, why did Team Cao choose this case, just because the location of the crime was close to Zeng's sister-in-law's house? Are these really coincidences?"

"Maybe it's the providence in the dark, Xiao Lei, think about it, how many headless cases are there every year, and how many clues are bumped into by chance every year? You can ask you Uncle Liao this question, and he will definitely be able to give you an answer from the perspective of probability. ”

Xiao Lei shook his head on the steering wheel, and said slowly: "If you can know the mystery, the process doesn't matter." ”

"Xiao Lei, you have to be prepared, maybe I can't lose alcohol in this case, and Team Cao can't quit drinking. ”

"Why? Are we going astray?"

"No, it's my intuition, but there is also a little basis, I was thinking just now, if the contents of the genealogical record are true, the man in black who walks against the wind has existed for thousands of years, and the hallucinogenic mushroom has been used for alchemy for a longer time, why has it lasted so long? Why hasn't anyone seen through the truth? I can only say that the main messenger is very well hidden, and we can't even guess his purpose. ”

(All worlds are always born and destroyed, before and after, gathering and dispersing, thoughts and thoughts are continuous, cycles are repeated, and all kinds of choices and trade-offs are all reincarnation.) If you are not out of reincarnation, but you are aware of it, it is the same circulation, and if you avoid reincarnation, it is useless. - "Yuanjue Sutra")