At least one thing can reassure the two foul team members who are active in Dizi Jiayuan tonight: they don't have to worry about being hit by the homeowner who is returning home.

At half past eight o'clock in the evening, in a newly opened hot pot restaurant on the side of the road outside the alley, Dante and Zheng Haohui guarded the mandarin duck pot divided into two on the dining table in the corner of the wall, and they were already full of "water" and food, and they were too lazy to move their chopsticks. At this time, the store was in a commotion, but the two of them only intermittently exchanged a few empty polite words from the moment they entered the store, and it seemed that they had spent the main effort on eating. As a result, their table was almost empty, like a battlefield that had returned to peace, except for the pot that kept steaming.

The mandarin duck pot is red and white, one side of the clear soup is Dante's "base", and one side of the red soup is the "war zone" of volunteers in Hunan. Now Dante peeked in and saw Zheng Haohui staring at the boiling red soup, still slightly intoxicated, and couldn't help but smile secretly.

"It turns out that your family lives here, I just found out today. Zheng Haohui grabbed the cup and took a big sip of Coke and said. "Are you familiar with this area?" asked Dante, scratching his chin. "No, I've learned a little bit about it online. Come, today is the first time. Zheng Haohui turned his head and looked outside, "Then I thought you were going to take me to the one of the nearby bars for a drink." "Oh, bar, do you really want to go?" "No," Zheng Haohui shook his head happily, "I don't like to drink, how comfortable it is to eat hot pot." ”

"I'm not a big drinker, but even if I do, I don't want to go there. "Not only the bars, but also the endless arts and crafts shops, fake antique shops, and entertainment venues in the alleys, let alone entering, even looking at the signs, I am disgusted, because they do not represent the original face of this place." I grew up here and have seen its tranquil, simple and peaceful appearance. No, it can't be called insight, I grew up in this environment. And now with the flood of those faces, huh...... It's like a simple girl with a face that isn't too pretty, and then you take a mess of cosmetics and paint her with a flower and moon look, maybe it looks pretty on the surface, but that's ...... Is that her?"

"What a wonderful analogy. Zheng Haohui politely waited until his colleagues finished pouring out before saying, "It seems that my feeling is right." "How do you feel?" "I think you're a very emotional person. But I don't know, you still have a lot of nostalgia. ”

Dante was stunned for a moment, and while asking in his heart why he was complaining about this guy, he clumsily covered it up: "Really?" Zheng Haohui paused, and then said: "I dare to say that the peers who grew up here with you, they must be more accustomed to 'looking forward' and enjoying the current life, and they will not miss it as much as you...... What you call the 'plain' past. "What about you?" Dante realized that he couldn't let the stickman comic book writer take the initiative in the conversation, "Do you like to go back often?" Zheng Haohui frowned suddenly, and said a little crampedly, "No...... I...... I don't always want to reminisce about the past, but by reminiscing...... I was really inspired. ”

The lock was sliced open, leaving only a faint sound. White Snake felt like it was taking more time than usual this time. Although she had made many assumptions about what she might have witnessed during the short time she had picked the lock, and even caused her to have heart palpitations for four or five seconds, she was still surprised when she quietly pushed the door open. If the furnishings of the houses in this villa give a sense of emptiness, the small room in front of it, cut off by a partition wall and another locked door, is the complete opposite—it is "full". However, what fills the space of about 10 square meters is not luxury furniture, famous appliances, or valuable treasures, but paper, which is like fallen leaves stacked on top of each other to cover the floor.

Walking in with a piece of paper, illuminated by a flashlight, the white snake leaned over to take a closer look, and found that the waste paper under his feet was not ordinary waste paper. From them, you can recognize not only the images of the rising sun, the great waves, the black hole, and the "eye in the sky" that appear in the large cartoons hanging outside, but also the broken stickman, as well as other images that have not appeared. Even if he hadn't flipped through the imported American comic books on Zhuowu's bookshelf with the author's original pages, White Snake was sure that these were Zheng Haohui's drafts. However, it is difficult to understand what the previously unseen images represent, such as a net-like pattern that resembles both withered vines and the distribution of blood vessels in the human body, another pattern that is not clear whether it is an eagle with angry wings or a pair of eyes hidden behind an open book, and a thick curved line that looks like a snake that sits like a snake or an undrawn question mark...... In fact, whether they are in the final work or buried in the waste paper pile, these images that reappear in the draft or their backgrounds are mixed with vermilion, dark ochre, dark brown, dark blue and other colors that are not used in the comics, so that they are more mottled, and their forms are more exaggerated and distorted. If the paper carrying them had not been torn into large pieces and discarded to the ground, they would have had a sensory impact when combined in the complete composition.

Is this where he paints? Has his wife ever come in?, White Snake thought. In the evening, being alone in this small dark room admiring the discarded manuscripts full of abstract and mutated features made her feel an indescribable discomfort. She pulled her gaze away from the shattered images and saw a few paintbrushes lying in the corner. Immediately, she stared at the door on the partition wall.

The other doors in the villa, except for the entrance and exit on the first floor and the security door on the balcony on the second floor, are all paint-free wood doors, but here is a painted iron door, which looks like the lock on the top is quite strong, and it is estimated that it will be more difficult to open. Without any other means, the white snake took out the tool from his pocket again.

"Did you say in the text message that you wanted to meet and talk to me about artistic creation?" Zheng Haohui's text message was sent the day before yesterday, asking Dante to finalize when and where. Dante chose today in order to give his "colleagues" more time to respond. "No......" the stickman cartoonist's expression was not very relaxed, "That's right, I've quit our group and don't volunteer at the center anymore." "What?" Dante was taken aback, "what's going on?" "There's something going on back in my hometown that I need to go back to." This reason is very vague, but Dante is not in a hurry to get to the bottom of it: "Then you have said hello to your group?" "Yes, I went to the center to talk to Teacher Hu and Trini, and later sent a text message to Sister Yun and the colleagues in the group who were not there that day. "Then you are looking for me......" "Hehe." Zheng Haohui smiled with relief, "Seriously, although the two of us don't have much contact, I think your thinking has a lot in common with me." "Huh?" Dante didn't expect him to say that. "We don't have many opportunities to communicate, but I'm sure you're someone who understands my thoughts. Since I was a child, there are not many people like this around me, and it is also our fate to be able to know you, so I should politely say goodbye to you. ”

Behind the sturdy iron gate, there is a "hole in the sky", and there is also drawing paper on the ground here, but it is a dozen intact and unstained pens, neatly stacked in the corner. In addition, this compartment has only a simple small table, a folding chair, a laptop on the table, matching wireless Internet access, and a closet, as if the style is the same as the other rooms.

The closet was also locked, but White Snake opened it without much effort, only to see that there was nothing but two rows of white cardboard boxes stacked on the floor. The cartons were each as tall as a brick, but a little thicker, and their tops folded into angles, looking a lot like the large-capacity milk cartons found in the supermarket. She picked one up, touched the cardboard shell, and shook it. The box was filled with liquid, but there was not a single Chinese character on the surface, nor was there a pattern related to milk, but it was printed with colorful fresh fruits. White Snake thought for a while before remembering the juice that Zheng Haohui drank on the day Dante came. She subconsciously turned the flashlight to the small table, and found that there was a glass like a can and a bottle behind the side of the computer screen that had been lifted.

A drop of purple remnant night condensed at the bottom of the cup. Following the cup, White Snake's gaze shifted to the laptop. But instead of plugging it in right away, she glanced at her watch. Approaching the time for the security guards to patrol here, the small table was next to the window, and White Snake decided to wait for the security guards to go away before turning on his computer. She turned off her flashlight and walked away from the small table, only to retreat to the closet door before she knew it, and she almost stumbled and fell. Fortunately, she grabbed the cabinet door with one hand and slapped the other hand on the inner wall of the closet to hold it up, so that she could stabilize her body. "Knock", it was the sound of her right hand slapping against the wall, and it was this sound that made her instinctively feel strange. "Knock knock", "Knock knock", she waved her hand a few more times. That's right, something is wrong with this wall. Coincidentally, this inner wall happens to be part of the large wall shared by the two families in the row.

At the checkout, Dante didn't let Zheng Haohui rob him, although Zheng Haohui took out his bank card first, the waiter still accepted the 100 yuan bill in his hand. "Don't, don't. Zheng Haohui wanted to call the waiter back, but was stopped by Dante. "I should have asked you. Said the stickman comic book author. "Where? Last time I was at your house, you were in for a treat. This time I should do my landlord's friendship, where can I let you break the bank?" Dante laughed.

Zheng Haohui suddenly stretched out his right hand, and Dante quickly stretched out his own, and the two hands were tightly clasped together. "If you have time, come and play with us, and call Sister Yun to come with you!" "Are you going back for a long time?" asked Dante. Zheng Haohui didn't answer, looked up at the ceiling of the hot pot restaurant, and said, "It's not early, I have to catch a long-distance bus, I don't know when I can get home." "Good fellow, it's almost nine o'clock. Dante had an idea, pressed the watch on his mobile phone and said, "Don't say whether you can catch the last train, even if you do, you may not be able to get home at what time." If you don't think my family is messy, you can stay here tonight and go back early tomorrow. "This ...... I'm afraid it will disturb your parents, right?" Zheng Haohui said embarrassedly. "No, I'm the only one at home!" Hearing this, Zheng Haohui's eyes lit up: "Oh, you don't like to live with your parents?" Dante was stunned.

White Snake's fingers flicked the mouse, closing the last image viewed. She turned off the computer, put the pieces back in shape, and took three deep breaths as she leaned back in her folding chair. It's not that there is anything "inappropriate" that reminds her of her painful past, it's that the things stored in the computer themselves are too shocking as new information about the actions of "bystanders". Before that, she had confirmed her judgment that there was a secret door on the inner wall. However, this secret door was extremely well-made, or rather advanced, at least she had never seen it. The gap between the door and the wall is so small that it cannot be found unless it has been carefully explored. What made her even more nervous was that there were no keyholes or handles on the secret door, and there were no buttons or mechanisms to be found inside or outside the closet, or even in the room that was divided in two by the partition wall, so the secret door was either opened and closed on the other side of the wall from the neighbor's house or controlled by a remote control.

In any case, the panic caused by this simple inner room to White Snake was already more than the messy studio outside, and she was eager to run back to Yugong's car and escape from the damned Emperor's Garden. She did withdraw from Zheng Haohui's villa as soon as possible on the premise of cleaning up the scene as far as possible, but to the surprise of the foolish man who was watching the real-time picture in the car, she did not slip out of the community as originally planned, but crossed the fence in the middle of the row and touched towards the gate of the villa next door. What a girl! Yu Gong's heart suddenly rose high.

In recent years, due to the exaggeration of some rumors, the two old men walking together may also cause some misunderstanding among others. Before leaving the hot pot restaurant, Dante deliberately explained to Zheng Haohui in a whisper that he had never had any intention in that regard. After passing through the alley and entering the courtyard, and coming to the strange old bungalow, Zheng Haohui raised his head and looked at the ceiling for a while, especially the four corners. Of course, this action did not escape Dante's eyes.

"I used to think that all men in the north could drink and smoke. Seeing Dante come over with two bottles of Coke, Zheng Haohui said. He was referring to the fact that when he passed by the shop in the alley, he wanted to buy Dante a cigarette, but Dante firmly refused, saying that he did not smoke. "It doesn't matter whether the southerners or the northerners are the same. Dante handed him a bottle of Coke and said, "This is a personal habit, and if you want to dig deeper, it should be more closely related to your personal life and growth environment." "Oh, is that your family has been in charge of you since you were a child and won't let you get into cigarettes and alcohol?" Zheng Haohui asked abruptly. "This ......" Dante became more and more surprised, he originally wanted to set up a set of privacy for this guy, why was he so interested in his family situation?