August 31, 1936, the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the Midyear Festival.

A year ago, Xing Renju went to the Jiacuo Hall in Tongshan Ridge, Xiangxi.

Although it was on Futian's tail, the sweltering heat of Sichuan still made Xing Renju almost faint several times.

The muddy mountain road, which had rained a little more than an hour before, had re-solidified in just an hour, and the mud ditches that had been washed out by the torrential rain had become so hard that the rubble in them could have made it easy to puncture straw sandals.

After crossing that mountain, you will arrive at Qinglian Town. Xing Renju kept telling himself this, and at the same time made himself believe this self-deceptive white lie, because he was lost, he didn't know how far away from Qinglian County was, he only knew that the child he met two hours ago told him that as long as he saw Panjiang, it would not be far from Qinglian Town.

Xing Renju stopped, climbed a big tree next to him, looked into the distance, and said to himself, "Who knows where Panjiang is?" ”

Perhaps it was due to excessive exertion and heat stroke, Xing Renju finally fell under the tree and fainted.

I don't know how long later, Xing Renju was woken up by the sound of gongs, he opened his eyes, and found himself lying in front of a thatched hut, and the door of the thatched hut was closed, and the floor of the small courtyard where he was lying was deliberately swept very quickly, and there was no fallen leaves or dung left by livestock.

The strangest thing is that the wooden door of the thatched hut also has the word "well" written in lime.

The sound of the gong beating came from far away in the village, and the gong beaters shouted loudly, but Xing Renju could only understand the simple Sichuan dialect, so he could not understand a word of what the gong beaters shouted. He gritted his teeth and got up, touched his aching shoulder, turned to the well, fetched a bucket of water, and put his whole head in it.

After a long time, Xing Renju, who was a little more sober, walked out of the courtyard, and as soon as he walked out, he saw a woman with a pious expression and wearing gray linen clothes walking through the path outside the courtyard, and Xing Renju immediately stopped her.

"May I ask ......" Xing Renju had just said two words, but was interrupted by the sound of a gong, he subconsciously looked at the village, and said to the woman who stopped, "How far is it from Qinglian Town?" ”

The woman didn't answer him, but raised her hand blankly and pointed in the direction of the outside of the village, and then bent her outstretched finger to the right, as if telling him to leave the village and turn right and go straight.

"Thank you." Xingren nodded, watched the woman slowly walk away, then remembered something, took two steps forward, stopped the woman again, and asked again, "May I ask again, do you know who saved me?" ”

The woman didn't answer anything this time, just waited for Xing Renju to finish asking and then raised her feet and continued to walk towards the center of the village.

Xing Renju had to whisper, "Thank you." ”

Subsequently, Xing Renju and the woman walked in different directions.

As he left the village, he found that all the small farmyards in his path were cleaned, and the word "well" was written in lime on the doors of each house.

Xing Renju shook his head all the way, and at the moment when he was about to walk out of the village, he stopped and looked at the stone tablet with the name of the village at the entrance of the village also written with the word "well" written in lime, and the word "Cai Village" under the word "well" was blurred.

"Cai Village?" Xing Renju squatted down and looked at it, "What does the word 'well' mean?" ”

Maybe it was because he had been a policeman for many years during the Beiyang government, Xing Renju was very sensitive to strange things, and he wanted to find the person who saved him and thank him in person, so after thinking a little, he walked towards the village with his bags on his back.

When entering the village, the sun had set, but the sound of the gong was still beating rhythmically, which made the already sultry night even more impetuous, just when Xing Renju was about to walk to the center of the village, the gong suddenly became very urgent, and then the suona, leather drum and other beating and blowing sounds were mixed together, resounding throughout the village, so that Xing Renju immediately covered his ears and ran to the side.

Xing Renju, who originally wanted to avoid and move forward, found that the noise did not mean to stop, so he had to cover his ears and continue to move forward, and finally when he ran to a spacious flat dam for drying grain, he saw an astonishing scene - more than 100 villagers in gray linen clothes with dull expressions standing on top of the flat dam, surrounding a simple stage set up on the hillside west of the flat dam.

The so-called performers on the stage are a group of people dressed in strange costumes, some in costumes, some in white, with various faces painted on their faces. This group of people held all kinds of musical instruments and beat gongs and drums in a random manner, playing and singing.

Xing Renju hid in a low wall behind the Pingba, covered his ears, and watched carefully, he really didn't understand that in this noisy environment, he was so irritated that he wanted to go up and smash the stage, why did the villagers below behave so sluggishly on the contrary? Could it be that they are all a bunch of deaf and dumb people?

No way, when I asked the girl for directions, she could have heard her.

Xing Renju searched in the crowd, and finally found the girl standing at the outermost part of the crowd, and by the light of the torches around him, Xing Renju found that the girl's brows were slightly furrowed.

Gotta find out who's on the stage. After making up his mind, Xing Renju put down his hands covering his ears and insisted on sneaking along the low wall towards the hillside, and just as he approached the stage, he smelled a smell of livestock manure.

Xing Renju, who got into the bottom of the stage, was surprised to find that there were countless chickens, ducks, cows, sheep, pigs and other livestock tied under the stage, making the stench around the stage, and the sound of the troupe also masking the cries of the livestock below.

The most surprising thing was that Xing Renju also found a well in the center of the stage below, and the wellhead of this well was several times larger than an ordinary well, with a diameter of at least nearly four meters, and there was a cold air from the wellhead.

Xing Renju bypassed the cow in front of him and walked towards the mouth of the well, trying to find out what was in the well, but when he just walked to the mouth of the well, he stepped on a soft thing under his feet, and then a man wearing a costume and a white face painted on the ground got up, and asked in Sichuanese, "Which one?" ”

Xing Renju reacted very quickly, hesitated, and immediately responded in Sichuan: "I! ”

"Which one do you look like?" The man asked again, and when he got closer to see Xing Renju's face, he was lifted by Xing Renju's hand and struck him in the jaw, and then raised his knee and hit him in the abdomen, knocking him unconscious.

After knocking the man unconscious, when Xing Renju wanted to search his body and take a look at the big well, the beating on the stage suddenly stopped, and then he heard the sound of people walking above the stage, and feared that they would come down to check, so he immediately ran out of the stage, lurking in the shadows behind the low wall, and looked intently at the bottom of the stage.

The people on the stage did come down, but they were holding hands around the stage, muttering something in a low voice, like a scripture, like a mantra, in short, in this moonless night, it sounded very strange and terrifying.

Xing Ren counted the number of performers, and counted them and found that there were only 30 people in total, and these 30 people were obviously completely different from the mental state of the villagers who were "listening to the play" under the stage, and some of them were still smiling and laughing with the people next to them, but they were soon reprimanded by an old man wearing a wide hemp suit, long hair and shawl, and silver-white eyebrows.

Xing Renju frowned and looked at it, not knowing who these people were, what they were doing, what was the well under the stage? Does this well mean the same thing as the word "well" written on lime at the entrance of the villager?

At this moment, the strange old man lifted the white cloth surrounding the bottom of the stage and walked in, followed by the villagers below also scattered sluggishly, and two of the performers also walked into the bottom of the stage with an elderly man.

Xing Renju had a bad premonition, and when he was about to get closer to look, his ankle was grabbed by a hand.

Xing Ren was startled, retracted and kicked with one foot, kicked over the person who grabbed his ankle, reflexively pounced, pressed him down, and raised his fist to beat, but at the moment of swinging his fist, he saw that the girl who was restrained by himself was the girl who asked for directions before, and the girl also looked at him with a look of horror, raised a finger to his mouth, and signaled him not to make a sound.

Xingren raised his fist and was about to open his mouth to ask the girl in a low voice, but the girl pointed behind her, pointed to herself, raised two fingers, and gestured to the posture of a person walking. Xing Renju knew that the girl meant to let herself follow her.

Xing Renju pondered for a while, nodded, let go of the girl, followed the girl towards the farmhouse courtyard in the distance, and then ran towards the hillside, and after going around the hill behind, he finally came to a farmhouse courtyard, and then the girl pushed the door in, and let Xing Renju enter.

At this time, Xing Renju realized that he had returned to the courtyard where he woke up, could it be that this girl was the one who saved him?

Impossible, although this girl has flexible legs and feet, no matter how strong she is, she can't carry herself back from the mountain, no matter what, go first and ask about the situation.

As soon as Xing Renju entered the house, after the girl closed the door, she lowered her voice and asked him, "Are you looking for death?" ”

The girl spoke Beiping dialect, which was commonly known at that time as the so-called Chinese national pronunciation with "Beijing pronunciation as the mainstay, taking into account both the north and the south".

Xing Renju frowned: "You are not from Sichuan?" ”

Xing Renju's slightly loud voice made the girl extremely nervous: "Shhhh Please! You're going to kill us. ”

Xingren nodded, the girl opened the door a gap, looked outside, and then turned her head and said: "Wait for my uncle and aunt to come back, you go to the firewood room next to the pigsty to hide, no matter what you see or hear, don't come out, remember?" ”

Xing Renju nodded suspiciously, followed the girl's instructions to go to the firewood room, hid behind the pyre, waited quietly, and pricked up his ears to listen to the movement outside.

About ten minutes later, Xing Renju heard slow footsteps, followed by the sound of pushing the door, and then there was no sound, as if the girl's uncle and aunt had not said anything to her when they returned, and after a few minutes, Xing Renju saw the fire shaking outside, and immediately leaned to the door to look, and found two players with torches standing in the courtyard.

Performers A and B both held steel knives in one hand and torches in the other, searching around the courtyard, but it seemed that they were obviously perfunctory, and after looking for a while, they simply pushed the door into the house, and came out again not long after, during which there was no sound in the house.

Their sudden intrusion did not cause any dissatisfaction among the girls in the house and their uncles and aunts, which made Xing Renju even more puzzled.

After the performer A and B came out, they stood in the courtyard and smoked, and the player A took a deep puff of cigarette, and then said: "Huang Sanwa's turtle son must have broken into the ghost." ”

Performer B looked around: "Xiaoqiu can't tell whether Le is real or fake, look for a circle, and nothing is found." ”

"Count the balls, find another one, hurry up and cut back, I'm hungry and panicked." Player A said as he walked out with a cigarette in his mouth.

Player B nodded, glanced back again, and then focused on the door of the firewood room, and walked over with his knife.

Xingren was startled, and immediately left the door, hid behind the firewood room, and grabbed a firewood stick next to him.

Just as Player B walked to the door of the firewood room, the door to the main room was opened, and then an exaggerated yawning was heard, followed by the screams of the girl, followed by the hurried footsteps of Player A and B, and one of them was still saying, "What are you talking about?" ”

After a while, the girl pushed open the door of the firewood room and asked in a low voice, "Which one is who?" Where are you? ”

Xing Renju came out from behind the pyre, and the girl was relieved to see that he was still there, and then said, "I'll go get you two steamed buns, you can wait a while." ”

Not long after, the girl walked in with a jar full of porridge, two steamed buns and a bowl of kimchi, put it in front of Xing Renju and said, "Eat, you must be hungry." ”

Xing Renju was indeed hungry, but in fact he fainted in the afternoon, and in addition to heat stroke, there was also a reason why he had not eaten, so he gobbled up all the things that the girl had brought.

Xing Renju wiped his mouth after eating, and was about to thank him, but the girl said seriously: "You ate my things, now it's time for you to repay the favor, you take me away!" ”

"Huh?" Xing Renju was stunned, "What do you mean?" ”

The girl folded her fingers and calculated: "My uncle carried you back from the mountain and saved you for the first time, you are going to the stage, I stopped you and saved you for the second time, just now you almost starved to death, I brought you something to eat, saved you the third time, three times!" As the saying goes, the grace of a drop of water should be reciprocated by a spring, I don't need you to spring up, you just take me out of this ghost place. ”

Xing Renju felt that this girl was really interesting, but he smiled and asked, "Thank you, I will definitely repay the favor, but I have to figure out what the hell is going on, what is this place?" I saw the stone monument of Cai Village at the entrance of the village earlier, this is Cai Village, right? How far is it from Qinglian Town? ”

The girl pointed to the door: "Didn't I tell you before?" Turn right out of the village, go straight, climb the mountain, and then cross the Panjiang River, and you will arrive at Qinglian Town. ”

Xing Renju immediately asked, "Then why didn't you let me go at that time?" ”

"How do I know if you're one of theirs?" The girl frowned and said, "And what you said is also official, and their leader said the same, I thought they were deliberately sent to tempt." ”

Xing Renju immediately asked, "Who are they?" ”

The girl shook her head: "The troupe, I knew it was the troupe, they would use spells to stun the people in the village." ”

"Spells?" Xing Renju couldn't help but laugh, "Then why aren't you stunned?" ”

The girl said: "I arrived two days earlier than you, and on the evening of the day I came, I found that as long as there was a singing opera in the village, the whole village was like being possessed by a demon, and they did nothing, but left the house one by one, walked towards Napingba, and then stood there to listen to the play." ”

Xing Renju shook his head: "Is that a play?" That's called Hu Lai, something is wrong here, you tell you what you know in detail. ”

The girl was anxious: "What are you talking about, we have to run at night!" ”

Xing Ren said: "If you can really run at night, you would have run early yesterday or the day before yesterday, wouldn't you?" I suspect that at night, they will definitely have someone guarding the entrance of the village and the surrounding places, and it will not be so easy to run out, you see that I am a bit skilled, so I want to take you out, right? ”

Seeing that her careful thoughts were seen through by Xing Renju, the girl stood up suddenly: "Anyway, I saved you, you have to repay your kindness!" ”

"I promise you, but it was your uncle who first saved me, no matter what, I have to save your uncle first, right? Otherwise, how can you repay the favor? Xing Renju looked at the girl, "What's your name?" ”

The girl hesitated and replied, "My name is Xifeng, you can call me Xifeng, or Xiaofeng'er." ”

"Okay, Xifeng." Xing Renju pointed to the ground, "You have to tell me what you know when you have time, otherwise, we'll just walk away, regardless of your relatives and other innocent people here, it's too cruel, right?" ”

Xifeng sat down: "Cruel? They're cruel! You also saw it before, they took the old man to the bottom of the stage, there is a well below, a big well, I heard that there is a man-eating monster guarding the well vein, if you don't sacrifice a living person to it every once in a while, it will block the well vein, then the whole village will have no water to eat, the nearest water source from here is the Panjiang River, you have to walk for two days, when I came, I took a boat down the river from the pass, so I know. ”

Wells, stages, troupes, man-eating monsters, well veins, water sources...... Xing Renju quickly analyzed these words in his mind, and deliberately disrupted Xifeng's words, regrouping them, trying to find some clues from them.

It didn't take long for Xing Renju to speak: "Let me talk about my speculation first, you can listen to it or not—this village is called Cai Village, and there is a big well in the village, which is the main source of water for the entire village. One day, the well no longer comes out of the water, everyone is very anxious, at this time, a troupe came, the troupe owner told the villagers that there was originally a man-eating monster living in the well, this monster blocked who bought, the solution is to let them set up a stage on the top of the well, so as to calm the monster's anger. Everyone was suspicious and asked the troupe to set up the stage to sing, but who knew that after a while, the villagers would all change. You happened to appear in the village at this time, and you found that the people in the village began to disappear mysteriously, and then found out that in the process of singing, you were brought under the stage by the people of the troupe, so you think that those people were sacrificed to the monsters in the well by the troupe, right? ”

After Xing Renju finished speaking, Xifeng was so surprised that she couldn't close her mouth for a long time, and then said, "Almost, how do you know?" Who the hell are you? ”

"My name is Xing Renju, and I'm just a passing businessman." Xing Renju simply said, "But I used to be a policeman." ”