At this time, the sound of gongs and drums beating outside continued, and the bell of the wake inside the house began to ring restlessly.

The hilt of the knife stood in the crack of the door with the talisman, and the puppet finally lowered its head and hands, as if it was blocked by some boundary. However, at this time, Li Zhonglou saw that the puppets were dressed differently, and the Western puppets were very complicated in workmanship, and the ball joints and faces required a certain level of craftsmanship, not to mention making each set of clothes. However, these puppets are all old, and you can see that the ashes of the cabinet have been sitting for a long time.

The clothes on the puppet are only roughly shaped, and there is no fine cutting joint, which means that the puppet is exquisitely made, but the clothes on the body are shoddy.

This makes Li Zhonglou very suspicious, what chance will such a closed ordinary village have to come into contact with Western puppet making methods? Or, where did these puppets come from? What's more, these cloth bag dolls, as mentioned by Jian Jie, are also in the style of southern Fujian.

"Jian Decision," Li Zhonglou called him, only to find that Jian Decision closed his eyes, reverently continued to chant the mantra of death, Guanyin statue quietly leaning against the wall, the face of Guanyin Bodhisattva with lowered eyes was quiet, looking at it, you can clear your heart.

The incense slowly burns out.

Unexpectedly, just when everyone thought that the surroundings were quiet, a crisp sound came from the ground, which shocked the two.

In despair, they saw that the statue of Guanyin had fallen, shattering half of its body, and it was unable to turn over with its face down.

“... That's it. The sweat overflowing from Jian Jie's forehead flowed down his face one by one, and he wiped his face without any expression. Finally, he sighed, slowed down, and said nothing more.

The puppet moved again, followed by a strange babbling overhead.

Li Zhonglou squatted down and patted him, and the two didn't talk. They were a little stunned, they all looked at the ground, except for a little burn marks, they were dazzled, and they could see some hallucinatory shadows.

However, Jian Jue and Li Zhonglou reacted at the same time, and they actually fell to the ground at the same time. Li Zhonglou nodded at Jian Jie, and he said softly, "The ground, there is really a ..... of shaking." ”

"I didn't feel the tremors, there was a sound underground!" Jian Jue glanced at Li Zhonglou in shock, and quickly put his ears on the ground, no longer distracted, and carefully searched for the sound.

A little vibration and a rumbling sound made Jian Jue understand that although the puppet on the ceiling was weird, it was controlled by someone, and the sound deliberately created outside was to cover up the sound of the underground mechanism!

"Brother Li, whole underground!" Jian Du groped for the ground and crawled over, feeling some unevenness. Li Zhonglou hurriedly drew his knife and went over, and also explored the gap in the ground in the same way as Jian Du, found a piece, and pried it in with a knife.

With a prie, a wooden door was pried out, and the paint on the façade was mixed with the stone floor, and it was impossible to see at all. Open it, and the underground is really a dark passage!

Li Zhonglou put away the knife and the tools he brought, Jian Jue laughed, and put away his peachwood sword disdainfully, "I'll just say how can alcohol burn it and leave marks on the stone floor, this piece is wood!" ”

"Let's go down and have a look." Li Zhonglou finished speaking first, supported by one hand, and jumped down. Hearing a muffled sound of landing, Li Zhonglou's voice shouted with a little echo, "Jian Du, it's not high, you can go down..... What people! Hold it! ”

"Hey! Brother Li" Jian Jue called him anxiously, gritted his teeth, took the wooden door with his backhand, and jumped down. I didn't stand still and sat down on the ground.

The puppets on the ceiling suddenly struggled with their eyes, opened their mouths wide, and made a "rub and rub" sound of their teeth colliding, but no matter how agitated they were, the thread on their backs couldn't put them down and bite anything...... They stared at the ground, their eyes rolled around, their hands and feet moved, and they continued to "click" up and down with their mouths open.

At this time, Jian Du rubbed his buttocks and frowned: "This is not high, hey, Brother Li, what did you see?" ”

"I saw a few figures," Li Zhonglou turned on the light of his mobile phone and walked out of a corner, "and ran away." Is this a former bomb shelter? It looks like it's been a while. ”

"I've only been to Chongqing to see their air-raid shelter...," Jian Jue turned on the flashlight and saw some wheel-like mechanisms, he saw that they were indeed pulling something to the ground, but the mechanisms were very cumbersome, and ordinary people couldn't twist the wheels. Jane had tried, no wonder the puppets were descending so slowly.

The underground passage is stuffy, but occasionally there is a little wind, and it seems to lead to a certain place.

"It is said in the information that Shenmu Village, which used to be Liujiagou, was renamed after the reform. The craftsmen in the village are all puppets who make traditional puppet shows, and the result is a whole Western puppet... Jian Jue moved the bag to the front, took out a stack of paper materials, he picked up the flashlight and looked through it.

Li Zhonglou helped to turn on the flashlight, he followed and looked for it, and suddenly pressed Jian Jie's hand to turn the paper, "Don't move, look, isn't this written?" At that time, American missionaries came to the village and opened a church, and in 1937, in order to prevent Japanese bombing, an air-raid shelter was built under the church to open to the outside of the village. ”

After speaking, Li Zhonglou helped take down the flashlight from Jian Jie's mouth, so that Jian Du could speak: "There are old photos in the label bag in my bag, help me flip through them."

Li Zhonglou helped find the label bag, opened it after finding it, and gently twisted one and pulled it out. One look: It is a group photo of two Americans in robes and the puppet troupe of the time.

"Could it be.... Was the Americans taught to make puppets? Jian asked Li Zhonglou incredulously.

Li Zhonglou was also strange, "People are here to preach, why are you in a hurry, and they want to teach you to be puppets?" You look at other photos first. ”

Another photo is taken of several Taoists, in which several veterans have solemn expressions, stiff postures, and stand very uncomfortable. I guess that's because people at that time saw a camera every time.

"Do you want to say that these veterans are Fujianese, and they make Hokkien bag dolls, right?" Li Zhonglou looked at Jian and said.

Jian Jue was sorting out the clues, and he also felt aggrieved when he heard Li Zhonglou say this: "Ouch, Brother Li, it's good that we can collect information as a ghost detective, and these old photos are all downloaded after thousands of searches." I'm so confused right now that I don't know what's going on, and the village is a hodgepodge. Xiao Ran's father said that he was a craftsman, a traditional puppet show; As a result, as soon as we came, we saw puppets, Western marionettes, and evil runes, refining zombies... My head is big! ”

"Okay, let's go out and have a look first." Li Zhonglou was also unconscious, feeling that he couldn't stay here for a long time, so he proposed to escape first.

Jian Jue put away his backpack and followed Li Zhonglou out. On the way, he was still thinking, traditional craftsmen... Road.... American missionaries, what does this have to do with that? Don't...

On the way, the two of them came to a fork in the road, and Jane decided to pull off a hair, stared at it, and made sure that the wind was on the right, and decided to go to the left passage.

As he was walking, the bell of the wake hanging on Li Zhonglou's backpack rang. The bell of the wake-up bell is not ringing at the touch of the heart, and the wind blows and jingles, in fact, the bell used for the wake-up is very heavy. Therefore, the sudden and faint vibration of the bell sounded particularly noticeable as it lingered faintly in the empty passageway.

"No, a wave has not settled, and a wave has risen." Jian Jue licked his dry lips and said weakly.

"It's night. The sound of the spirit is up, and the soul returns to its hometown..., it is obviously to block the lonely soul and wild ghosts from stringing relatives, what is it ringing blindly at this time. Li Zhonglou simply wanted to put away the bell, but he kept an eye on it, thought about it, and didn't pick it up again.

Jian Jue said as he walked, "I don't know the rules of your guardians, in my hometown, sometimes some rusty copper bells that are not easy to ring will be put to prevent corpses, and to prevent any black cats and dogs from approaching the coffin." ”

"Corpses?" Li Zhonglou suddenly frowned.

He nodded at the bell of the vigil, looked somewhere in the passage, and lowered his voice and said, "That's right, in front of us, in the east corner, the evil qi is very heavy. The Guardian Bell is not chasing away lonely souls, it is alarmed by evil spirits. Jian Jue took out a long chain from his bag, and the chains were covered with copper coins and copper beads one by one, and he wrapped these around his peachwood sword, circle by circle, and finally tightened.

Li Zhonglou also understood, after all, the color of the blood-silk jade on his palm began to become cloudy. He had a yellow scarf in his bag, tied directly to the handle of his knife, wrapped tightly and tightly, without removing the knife.

Both men held their breath, waiting for something to arrive.

"Heaven and earth have righteousness, and miscellaneous manifolds. The lower is the river mountain, and the upper is the sun and the stars.....! Jian Jue exhaled and chanted Wen Tianxiang's righteous song.

However, the two would never have imagined that they would hear a familiar voice:

"Brother Li? Why are you here? ”

"Poof!" Jian Jue was instantly deflated, his eyes widened and he pointed over, "Little... Xiao Ran? I'll go! Why are you here? You can't be here! ”

Li Zhonglou didn't say anything for a long time, his expression twitched twice, and he was in a hurry to speak: "Xiao Ran!" You....! ”

Ran Qin opened her innocent big eyes, but unexpectedly "shh I thought I had been discovered, and when they told me about you, I knew you were here. ”

"Put the zombies? No wonder the evil qi is so heavy..., I don't have time to care about anything else now," Li Zhonglou regained his momentum and protected Ran Qin behind him, "Xiao Ran, do you know what a zombie looks like?" ”

"I know," Ran Qin thought about for a moment, "I followed down, went to the wrong room, and was locked up with zombies. That zombie is so tall, with a big nose and a talisman covering his face. Well... Also, I hid behind him, remembered what my grandfather said, and found a very dirty and smelly cloth to wrap around myself, and rubbed it on the zombie by the way. With other scents, when the zombie woke up, he jumped around the room, and as soon as the door opened, the zombie was gone. I also hurried out and heard an old man talking, his voice was very strange, as if he was pinching his throat and shouting, what did he overtake the two little Taoist priests on the spot. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was you, and I came to you. The zombie is looking for you, too, because everyone else has gone back to the surface, and here are the three of us. ”

"You... Not afraid, huh? Jane couldn't believe that such a thrilling story was told from the mouth of a weak girl.

Li Zhonglou sighed, "She's really, she's not afraid of people and ghosts, she's been like this since she was a child, with her grandfather..., Xiao Ran, that... I.... Li Zhonglou realized that he was holding a knife and a spirit bell, while Ran Qin was looking at him.

Ran Qin didn't know that Li Zhonglou had been a ghost detective before, she lowered her eyebrows, and said in disbelief: "Why... You're carrying these with your grandfather just like you... I don't know the name of the thing.... ”