"It can't be hell, right?"

Fang Yue muttered, and his steps quickened.

After walking a few steps, another figure appeared on the road ahead, but this time it was a few yamen watchers who were patrolling the night, carrying long knives at their waists, wearing soap-red official uniforms and black crowned hats.

Fang Yue relaxed a little.

The few yamen catchers came closer, and they saw that Fang Yue was wearing a Lan dress, and he was a scholar, and his attitude was quite polite, and the head of the fast-catching team said: "This Xiucai, there is about to be a curfew, please go home immediately, don't wander around the streets." ”

"Oh, good." Fang Yue nodded yes and passed by them.

At this time, Fang Yue remembered that the direction they came from seemed to be the same as the old man just now, and he couldn't help but turn around and ask: "A few bad masters, when you came over there, did you see an old man walking in front of you, holding a white lantern, looking for people everywhere?" ”

"Is there an old man holding a white lantern looking for someone everywhere? Didn't see it. The head of the fast catching squad stopped and replied to Fang Yue.

"Oh, well, thank you for telling me." Fang Yue saw that except for the leader of the fast catcher, the other fast catchers also stopped, turned their heads to look at him, and looked a little strange in the hazy moonlight.

Fang Yue's heart tightened, thinking that he had said something wrong, but he didn't want to ask too much, so he didn't say anything more at the moment, and buried his head in the road.

……

Walking to the door of the inn, Fang Yue breathed a sigh of relief.

Something always feels wrong when I'm out at night, but I can't tell where it's wrong.

"Maybe I'm thinking too much, suspicious, if the nightmare doesn't come by then, I am scared to death by myself, wouldn't it be ridiculous and generous."

Fang Yue frowned and thought, he felt that his current mental state was a little wrong, too negative, like a frightened bird.

"Yo, guest officer, you're back."

The inn's shopkeeper was standing in front of the counter, and when he saw Fang Yue walking in from outside the door, he immediately greeted him warmly.

The hall was a little dimly lit, except for a kerosene lamp lit on the counter in front of the shopkeeper, there was no light source anywhere.

Lighting lamps at night was a relatively luxurious act in this era, and some poor families may not even be able to afford a candle.

Besides, there was no one else in the hall of this inn except for the counter, and the few guests were in their own rooms, so there was no need to light more candles and oil lamps or anything.

"Little Er, help me fix some ......"

Fang Yue drank a lot of wine in the drunken flower building, but he didn't eat much, after all, that kind of occasion is not really to eat, after this rush, he felt hungry again, so he wanted the shopkeeper to eat some wine and food, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he remembered that he was just a poor scholar now, and he didn't have any money to spare.

Helpless, Fang Yue had no choice but to change his words: "Help me get a pot of hot water, my mouth is a little thirsty." As he spoke, he pulled out a copper plate from his body.

The shopkeeper got a copper plate, although it was not much, but it was an unexpected income, so he was very happy, went to the back kitchen, and came back with a pot of hot water in a short time, and still held a tea bowl in his hand.

"Guest, do you want this hot water to be brought to your room?"

"Put it here, I'll drink a little, and you can clean it up later."

"Okay." The shopkeeper replied and placed the kettle and tea bowl on the table in front of Fang Yue.

Fang Yue brought himself half a bowl of hot water, the hot water was piping hot, and the rising heat could still be faintly seen under the dim kerosene lamp.

Fang Yue half-covered the bowl and waited for the hot water to cool down before drinking it.

"Little Er, have there been funerals in the county recently?"

"Yo, guest officer, birth, old age, sickness and death are common things in life, there are so many people in the county, almost every day, there are people who do happy events, and there are also people who do white things. If you want to ask me which ones in the county have been doing white things recently, then I can't say, but if you want to ask if there have been any white things recently, of course there are. ”

"That's right." Fang Yue was silent, he originally wanted to check whether the old man holding the white lantern he met on the road just now was a human or a ghost, whether he was too nervous, suspicious and suspicious, and regarded other people's big living people as ghosts.

But now that I think about it, it's not so easy to investigate, and time, energy, and money are not allowed at all, and staying in this county for an extra day is a cost, and the silver taels on his body are almost not enough to spend, and he will go to the pawnshop tomorrow to redeem the jade pendant, and he will rush back to his home in the countryside.

And he is still a school teacher, there are students in the private school waiting for him to go back to teach, he went to the county town annual examination this time, and he has given the students in the private school three days off, and he can't always give them holidays, so he doesn't have time to stay in this county for a long time.

"I wonder why the guest officer suddenly asked about this?" Seeing that Fang Yue was sitting there and didn't speak, the shopkeeper couldn't help but ask, he was guarding in front of the counter, in fact, it was quite boring, it was rare for someone to be there, so he looked for a topic to chat.

Fang Yue came back to his senses, shook his head, and said, "It's nothing, just ask." ”

He picked up the tea bowl and took a sip lightly, it didn't feel so hot that it was ready to eat, and he drank it slowly.

The hot water entered the abdomen, the whole body warmed up, and the spirit was also lifted, Fang Yue said: "Xiao Er, you are here, you have seen a lot of three sects and nine streams, and you are well-informed, have you ever heard some ghost rumors?" ”

"Goblin rumors?"

"It's a haunted thing." Fang Yue put down the tea bowl in his hand.

"I've heard some, for example, recently in the city of the king's house, there was a strange thing, that someone saw a woman in red clothes and hair in the backyard in the middle of the night, and it was like this for several days and nights."

Fang Yue became interested and asked, "Then how did you solve it later?" ”

"Later, Wang Yuanwai invited the masters of Guangyuan Temple to come to the door to do a ritual, and also set up a flowing water mat to invite the neighbors to eat for two days, and then the red-clothed female ghost did not appear."

The shopkeeper smacked his mouth while talking, reminiscing about the flowing water banquet of the past two days, which was full of big fish and big meat, how could there be such an opportunity.

Fang Yue pondered in his heart, Guangyuan Temple he knew, it was a well-known temple here in their Ping'an County, with a history of two or three hundred years.

However, he doesn't have the financial resources outside the king, so he can ask the monks of Guangyuan Temple to come to the door to exorcise ghosts.

In the final analysis, he is still too poor now, he doesn't have enough money, and it is difficult to do something, otherwise, like investigating the old man holding a white lantern he met at night, to verify whether the old man is a human or a ghost, he can directly hire more people with the money to do it, and the results will be available soon.

"Maybe I should find a way to get some money, but I've crossed over anyway, and there's always a way. I just hope that the content of the nightmare will come a little later, and give some buffer time. ”

Fang Yue thought in his heart, rubbed his eyes, got up from the chair, and prepared to go upstairs to his room to rest.

As soon as he walked up the two stairs, Fang Yue suddenly remembered something, turned back to the shopkeeper and said, "It should be curfew now, no guests will come to stay, Xiao Er, don't you go to rest?" ”

"Curfew?" The shopkeeper raised his head, looked at Fang Yue with a strange expression on his face, and said, "There is no curfew, there has never been a curfew in the county...... No, I heard from the shopkeeper that we had a curfew here for a while, but that was a few years ago. ”

"There was a prefectural magistrate who seemed to have a surname Wen, and when he was in office, he had a curfew, and he couldn't walk around the streets at night. However, the county order is said to be a chaotic party, and it was later discovered by the imperial court, and it was arrested and beheaded, and several scribes and servants in the county government were also cut down, and many people died. ”