I was busy calling someone from the photocopying company when suddenly my colleague Lao Zheng came over and patted me on the shoulder.

"Stake, someone downstairs is looking for you, it seems to be with a rare book."

I covered the microphone: "Ask him to wait for me in the small conference room." ”

"He's not going to live or die, it's weird and weird—go check it out."

I hurriedly checked with the photocopying company on what I was doing, drank my saliva, and hurried downstairs.

Let me introduce myself first, my name is Yan Zhuan, I am 27 years old, and I work for a cultural company in Weiyang City.

And the work I do in the company can be summed up in two words - that is, "mending the pot" and "carrying the pot".

"Mending the pot" means that I seem to have a job but no job, anyway, as long as there is a shortage of people, where there is a job that others don't want to do, the editor-in-chief will pull me over to replace me; As for "backing the pot", of course, if something goes wrong, it will also pull me over to blame.

For example, I am now in charge of a project that has no profit and no share - the collection and publication of folk rare books.

The editor-in-chief said that this project is a task assigned by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, which is particularly meaningful, so it must be done by interesting people.

I silently thought to myself, earlier at the department dinner, you fucking said that I was the most boring person in the whole company.

However, the compilation of rare books is indeed an interesting thing, because with the support of the government, we publish advertisements through various media, collect rare books from private collections, and select valuable content to photocopy, preserve, and publish.

Ever since it was advertised, there have been frequent visits from collectors of rare books. Of course, I have met people who hide and tucked them before, and those who are engaged in collecting know that in fact, the things in some people's hands do not come from so glorious. Most of them come just to explore the reality and feel the value of what they have.

But the person I saw today seems to be a little too cautious.

He was wearing a black coat, a dirty peaked cap, a thick mask over his face, and a pair of sunglasses that were darker than a black hole.

He stood hunched over the corner of the company's doorway, facing the wall, his head bowed deeply, his right arm stiffly tucked into his coat pocket.

I glanced at the sky, and the weather was indeed bad today, it was the weather of spring clouds and haze. However, his dress is too exaggerated.

"The editor of my rare book collection, you just came to me?"

"Oh......" he turned around in a daze, acting like a robot. He looked at me, but his sunglasses covered his eyes and I couldn't make out his expression.

"Let's go upstairs and talk!" I said to him.

"No," he refused simply and directly, and then he stretched out his left hand, pointing to the street park opposite, and said in a hoarse, dull voice, "go there—I...... It's not very convenient to meet people. ”

"Understood." I nodded.

He walked in front, and we crossed the road one after the other. He walked limping, his left trouser tube empty.

I chuckled inwardly – his left calf might have a prosthetic leg.

When we arrived at the street park, he walked through the flowers and the promenade to find a small pavilion surrounded by bamboo trees.

It seems that he has explored this road and this place many times.

He walked into the pavilion and sat directly on the stone bench. It was still a little cold, but he didn't care about the temperature of the stone bench at all.

I had to sit across from him, and the stone was so cold that I shivered.

He rubbed the knee of his left leg, then slowly pulled out a plastic pocket from his coat pocket, which he unfolded, and then took out a booklet from it and handed it to me.

I had formed a professional habit to quickly take out the white gloves from my pockets, put them on carefully, and picked up this mysterious booklet.

But as soon as I opened the booklet, I was disappointed. Because strictly speaking, it's not a rare book.

Generally speaking, rare books mostly refer to ancient books published or copied before Qianlong, or books that were printed in small quantities before the Xinhai Revolution and have academic value, or have celebrity inscriptions, proofreading, or even hand-copied books.

But none of these things can be touched by this booklet.

In terms of quality, the booklet is thread-bound and belongs to oil-paper engraving. The booklet has neither a title page, nor a table of contents, nor the name of the printing agency. Its printing and materials are extremely coarse. And the cover paper is yellow, damaged, and as fragile as ice chips on a river in early winter.

In terms of chronology, there are actually a few short prefaces at the beginning of the booklet, to the effect that in the 29th year of the Republic of China, someone found some ancient books in the Zhaoli Temple in Kuqa County, and the Dihua archaeological team went to investigate and found that they were fragments of documents from the Anxi Protectorate of the Tang Dynasty. This booklet is a transcript of the contents of the fragment.

The 29th year of the Republic of China was 1941, so in terms of time, it was not qualified for a rare book.

I closed the booklet and looked at the vertical line of ink on the cover - "The Ancient Documents of the Protectorate of Tang Anxi Duhufu Hook and Sink".

That's when I noticed a page in the middle of the booklet with an orange spacer stuck to it.

It stands to reason that the material of the booklet is so fragile that it is easy to destroy the paper if you rush to paste something, so the place where the separator paper is pasted must be an important part of the collector's mind and repeated reading.

I glanced at the mysterious man, who was sitting there like a wooden carving, and did not object to me looking through it.

I gently flipped the page in the middle.

Due to the age and printing technique, the ink has soaked the paper, and it looks a little diffuse. The words were arranged in vertical lines, and I looked down to read them, only to see that one of the passages had an emphasis underneath. It's intermittent, and it seems to have been pulled from an ancient book with few words and pages—

"Yonghui...... year, all protect firewood...... Vassi Night ...... The Hive Nation is also ...... Surrounded the city of Gandharva, there were 10,000 people in the city, and there was no trace of ...... overnight"

Yonghui was the first era name of Tang Gaozong, only six years. These 26 words read like a dragonfly in water, but after reading it, I have a feeling that it involves a mysterious history more than 1,300 years ago.

What is Hive Nation? What do you mean by 10,000 people in the city, without a trace overnight?

I frowned and flipped through a few more pages, but who knew that the mysterious man coughed, and he directly reached out and took the booklet.

"It's an interesting book," I said, "but it's not enough for a rare book, I'm sorry." ”

He didn't speak, just looked up at me. His sunglasses reflected my distorted face, which looked unpleasant.

"Young man, when it comes to value, it is not inferior to any ancient book." He spoke again, his voice still hoarse, but his words were very particular and sounded like that of a literate man.

He put the booklet in a plastic bag and handed it to me again.

"Let it be with you first, they want to harm me. I'll contact you to pick it up when I'm safe. ”

"Huh? Hurt you? "I was stunned - it could be that I had encountered a victim paranoia.

He turned to me again, and seemed to read my thoughts. He suddenly raised both hands at the same time, one hand to remove his glasses, and the other hand to remove his mask.

The shiver suddenly ran like electricity, from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair, and I almost stood up in amazement.

Because that's a skinless face! His whole face was flushed, and in some places you could still see the texture of his muscles, he had no eyelids, no eyelashes, only red clumps of ears, and even the upper and lower eyelids were tightly constricted!

His eyes were red, like a mad animal, and his sockets were still glistening with water.

He raised his hand, wiped away his tears, then lowered his head again and put his sunglasses and mask back on.

"See? My face has passed through the fire of hell—I am a man who has crawled out of hell and died. He sniffed hard a few times before turning to me, "Yes, you have that smell on you, too." ”

"Smell?" I asked, surprised.

He giggled a little, then suddenly approached me mysteriously, lowered his voice and said, "You kid, you must have met the black ship too......"

"Huh?!" I was taken aback. I only told one woman about this, how did he know about it?!

I was still stunned, but he pushed the pamphlet to me again, and then Hodi stood up and limped briskly out of the park.

"Hey!" I paused for a moment before I came to my senses, "Wait! Wait a minute! ”

How could I be so distraught that this man had a terrible appearance, an unknown origin, and an unknown language that I hastily took what he had commissioned?

There were many forks in the street park, and there were many trees and greenery, and when I picked up the booklet, rushed out of the pavilion, and bypassed the bamboo forest, I found that the person was long gone.

I sighed, looked at the mimeographed booklet in my hand, and thought to myself, it seems that I can only keep this book for the time being.

I walked out of the park to get back to work, and just as I was crossing the crosswalk, I suddenly saw a white pickup truck blaring its horn towards me like crazy.

I jumped back in fear, and the car sped past me. The wheels rolled, kicking up a cloud of dust that choked me with a cough.

Frightened, I walked quickly across the road, and from a distance, I saw several people gathered in the direction of the car, as if they were talking about something.

Regardless of these, today it seems that I didn't look at the yellow calendar when I went out, and everywhere seems to be in danger, so I'd better go back to the office early.

Thinking of this, I grabbed the brochure tightly and hurried towards the company building.

I went upstairs and walked into the desk with Lao Zheng, the phone on the desk rang urgently, I picked up the phone, and put the booklet in the drawer by the way.

The phone call came from the owner of the photocopying company again, and he was rambling on and on. But maybe it was because what had just happened was too weird, and I was a little upset, and he talked for a long time, but I couldn't listen to a word.

After the call, I was about to take a drink when I saw my colleagues gathered around, chattering and discussing something. The two female colleagues also let out surprised cries from time to time.

I saw Lao Zheng also standing there, so I stood up and walked over, patted him on the back and asked, "What's wrong?" ”

"You don't know, it's all on the hot search, it's on the road not far from our company."

"What?"

"The car accident, the escape, just happened." Lao Zheng shook his head and said, "But this is not the weirdest - Xiao Ruo, replay it for the mast." ”

Xin Xiaoruo has just graduated and is a rookie beautiful girl in the company. I don't know why, I've never messed with her, and I don't even have a chance to speak, but every time she looks at me, she looks annoyed.

She snorted coldly, but clicked on a video on the webpage.

The angle of watching the video should be the convenience store at the intersection north of the company. I remember there was a camera in front of the convenience store.

At first, all that appears in the video is a quiet road. Two customers had just walked out of the convenience store, still carrying their things in their hands. On the zebra crossing of the road, there was a pedestrian crossing the road with strange steps.

When I saw the pedestrian's outfit, I couldn't help but gasp and hold my breath.

Because he's the mysterious man who claimed to have crawled out of hell!

The time I glanced at the video, 10:13, should be the time when I returned to the office from the street park.

I searched for the mysterious man to no avail, and decided to return to the company, no more than two or three minutes, right? But in this short period of time, how could he, a person with a prosthetic leg, cross the street park and appear farther away at the intersection of the road?

Just between the calcium carbide firelight, a familiar white pickup truck suddenly rushed from the left side of the video screen, it was extremely fast, but it didn't slow down at all!

It crashed into the mysterious man in a daze, and there was no sound in the video, but it could still feel the impact of the car hitting the person. The mysterious man was knocked over and somersaulted and flew up, and finally fell the curb of the road.

The white pickup truck did not brake, let alone hesitate, it slammed the accelerator and flashed in the picture at a faster speed. In the next few seconds, it should have sped past the side that was about to cross the street.

"Look! Look! Lao Zheng pointed to the video and reminded me.

In fact, I didn't need to be reminded by him, I was staring at the video and didn't take my eyes off it.

In a shocking scene, the mysterious man who had been hit by the pickup truck suddenly got up, seemed to bend over his waist in pain, patted the dirt on his body, and finally limped out of the frame under the gaze of the surrounding passers-by.

"Niu Cha, I didn't kill me like this, and I don't want to pursue the perpetrator, it's really King Kong's incorruptible body." Xin Xiaoruo was not weak at all when she spoke, she commented with a sigh.

"However, how can a person who can't be killed by a car walk before and his leg seems to be disabled?" Lao Zheng was also thoughtful.

"Probably...... His leg must have been broken in hell too. I couldn't help but mumble to myself.

"Teacher Yan, what are you talking about? It's too big, right? Xin Xiaoruo turned off the video and said sneering at me.

I didn't pick up the stubble because my mind was completely messed up. I silently walked back to my workstation, opened the drawer, opened the plastic bag, and pulled out the brittle paper, but still smelled of ink.

The booklet in my hand is wrapped in a plastic bag, which may be a psychological effect, and I always feel like I am in a different world when I touch it.

The booklet is thin and light, and although it is young, it is still a record of 1,300 years ago.

What's more, the few broken words in the booklet seem to hide a secret from 1,300 years ago.

Later, when I think about this scene, I feel embarrassed.

Because I didn't expect that the obsession recorded in the pamphlet more than 1,300 years ago would lead to the life and death of the whole city more than 1,300 years later.

Therefore, whenever I read this booklet, I repeatedly want to type down the words to describe this strange and magical experience.

This experience involves not just a few people and a few things, but an entire city and five million people, all of whom are the warm, living people you and I have met in our lives.

Moreover, some of them are my friends and relatives. Some have closed their eyes forever and lost their breath after a series of bizarre events.

They are either actively or passively involved in it, and then they are either evil or righteous, and finally they go to heaven or hell.

So I thought I had to write down the whole story, even if it was an unsatisfactory end to that period of history 1,300 years ago.