Unlike the high-density lighting of the commercial circles of big cities, the nightlife of Taiping Town does not have a prosperous and lively rendering. Scattered barbecue signs are lit, bus stops are deserted, and only colorful vending machines operate 24 hours a day, barely bringing a little modern comfort.

I don't know who the street lights are on, and there are no tourists on the streets. Dou Xiantong ran too fast, and he seemed to be more familiar with the local area, Xu Yunge rode a few laps, and he was actually very embarrassed.

The few junior high school students I encountered before were also in a hurry all the way, and went home directly without saying much.

Xu Yunge remembered that in the surveillance video where Dou Xinwei disappeared mysteriously and Dou Mengyao disappeared: When Dou Xinwei appeared, there were still some people on the road, and after Dou Mengyao went out, there was no one on the road.

The locals of Taiping Town seem determined not to stay out too late. At that time, Dou Xinwei didn't come home on time, and her sister almost blew up her phone.

Thinking of the entrance to the ghost market on the mountain, as well as those ghost market buildings made of bamboo and paper, the masked ghost girl danced the old welcome song and dance.

Inexplicably, Xu Yunge thought of the legends of ghosts and gods of previous dynasties. I can't help but think of those mysterious nights when the air was clean and the sky was full of stars, but the curfew was uniform for hundreds of years.

If horror legends have been present here over the course of decades, how would they have dealt with everything if there had been a curse?

Staying here for two nights, Taiping Town gave him the feeling: the folk customs are relatively traditional, and there is a trace of backwardness in the transformation and development. A certain consensus invisibly weaves people's thoughts, allowing them to reach a high degree of agreement on the laws of work and rest life.

It's almost unrealistic to ask for directions at this point in time.

A dog barking is not familiar. People may not be able to tell the difference between dogs, but dogs remember the smell of you.

Riding a bicycle, looking for Dou Xiantong's figure. Xu Yunge heard the scream, and suddenly felt a stiff and cold fur rubbing against the side of his leg, and a black and slippery shadow was staggered.

"Big Black?" Xu Yunge pinched the brakes and cautiously stared at the black shadow 50 meters away.

"Wang!" The dark shadow flickered, and a clear dog bark came. Its face was blurred under the streetlights, and only the collar could barely be seen.

After all, Da Hei's pet name is rotten on the street, and Xu Yunge can't be sure if it's the black dog of Dou Xinwei's family. If it really was, and it was hit by a truck with blood, why did it appear here?

"There should be a pet ID card on the collar, just look at it."

Avoiding scaring the dog away by riding, Xu Yunge walked with a cart. For some reason, the black dog wagged its tail slightly, and was also waiting for him at the edge of the streetlight, as if as long as he didn't come any closer, time would freeze here, and it wouldn't go anywhere.

Xu Yunge was puzzled, his eyes fell on its shadow, just looking at the protrusion of the shadow outline, it vaguely looked like a human face. The well-dressed parents had already seen it, and he was not simple enough to believe in a dog casually.

"Wang!"

Without waiting for Xu Yunge to get closer to a distance of 10 meters, the black dog turned around and ran into the corner on the right.

There was a slight reaction to the scarlet rune in his mind, and the itch that had touched the bloody handprint before gradually flooded the lower part of the eyeball.

Xu Yunge gently rubbed the corners of his eyes twice, pushed the bicycle to the intersection, kept an eye on it, and stood a few steps to the left. The time on the phone came to zero o'clock, and various horror stories began to wake up on the scale.

"Am I being too nervous?" Xu Yunge looked at the other side of the road, and there were only shrubs, flower beds and vending machines, and a few wooden seats that were not smooth in the far side of the sidewalk. It doesn't seem that there is a homeless uncle who spends the night there wrapped in newspapers.

raised his head, under the monitoring of the street lamp and the electronic eye, there was only Xu Yunge, a strange man wearing a mask, and he deliberately made a selfie gesture towards the electronic eye.

There was no sign of the dog anywhere, only a faint barking from the cold wind of the night.

It seems that it is also the same as Dou Xinwei at that time, the moment when it inadvertently crossed the darkness, it directly entered another plane of the world.

"Or is it like a ghost baby, trying to take me to something?"

The brain circuit of the ghost, Xu Yunge still can't understand it for the time being. There weren't many clues at hand, and the cursed were hiding in the shadows, pushing the cart forward, and it seemed to be the only option tonight.

"Big Black?" Trying to call the name of the black dog, Xu Yunge pushed the cart and walked on the sidewalk. The dog's barking was not very frequent, but it always came from time to time, as for him to lose his way.

As I walked along with the sound, the air became a little clammy and cold, and the neat road surface became more and more strange.

Water, mud and sand gradually became part of the sidewalk.

With the downward pressure of perspective and attention, the brake marks on the road quietly increased, which was also captured and detected by Xu Yunge, who had excellent night vision.

He remembered what his university teacher said: brake marks on the road usually play a decisive role in judging the severity of an accident, and the calculation of speed and angle can be used for qualitative purposes.

The bigger and messier the brake marks, the more accidents have occurred on the road. If you see a lot of strange brake marks at an intersection, it's best to wait a little longer before crossing the road.

"I don't know if there are any of these traces on the road when Dou Xinwei goes home?"

"Or, I'll try throwing stones and asking for directions?"

Xu Yunge has come into contact with Dou Xinwei, and there should be no curse on her body. And the situation at that time could not be restored by investigation, which is why he has not been able to find a breakthrough.

Pick up a rock and lean the bike aside.

Xu Yunge stood on the sidewalk, holding his breath, and threw the stone towards the road.

The stone bounced a few times on the ground and flew into the grass across the road, and nothing happened.

"It may be that some hidden special conditions are not met, and if you throw a random rock, you will definitely have a car accident, and the news report in the town must be very unpeaceful."

His eyes flowed around, and inadvertently, Xu Yunge saw another notice board.

"The hallucinations in the bloody handprints are the same, and they are the same here, and I didn't pay attention to them until night, all the signs were set up near the street lights. Why are there so many billboards in this town, is it necessary? ”

"Is there something that must be conveyed by words, and must be reminded all the time?"

His eyes were a little itchy again, and Xu Yunge slowly walked towards the notice board. When I looked closer, I found that although there were no bloody handprints on the notice board, the date on the newspaper was a week apart, and a sense of déjà vu came to me spontaneously.

However, if you look closely, there seems to be some wrinkled paper soaked in water under the acrylic sheet.

There was no one around, Xu Yunge opened the buckle, separated the newspaper and the back board with his nails, and found that the soaked and wrinkled paper was very resistant and could not be pulled out, as if it was deliberately glued to the board.

Thinking about it, he simply pulled out all the newspapers on the surface.

I saw that on the paper, there was a black and white portrait with mold and mottled faces, and a string of text descriptions were marked below.

"If you go out in a hurry at night, if you encounter a stranger asking questions, you must not answer casually. If you feel bad without warning and have suicidal thoughts for no reason, you can call the hotline below...... That's what it says on the notice. ”

Maybe it's a long time ago, and the paper in the number part has rotted away.

The paper was indeed glued to the notice board, and a large part of it was rotten, like a cracked chalkboard that had not been wiped clean, full of traces of time erosion.

Xu Yunge struggled to distinguish the mutilated handwriting on it, and inadvertently swept his gaze to the small corner of the inner layer of the notice board, where there was a small totem carved from wood with a beast face.

Does this seem to be a public good for the locals, to be kept for themselves? It looks so exquisite, if it has some kind of special function, wouldn't taking it away also improve the safety factor?

Xu Yunge's hand slowly stretched out towards the beast-faced little totem, he didn't know if it was right to do this, but there was a desire to possess it in his heart.

Suddenly, a rapid dog barking in the distance interrupted his movements. Xu Yunge's chest was a little hot, and he remembered that there was a curse charm in his arms.

Isn't it funny that you have already taken the benefits of evil spirits, and then use the totem to seek some weird protection?

"It's better not to touch things of unknown origin."

Xu Yunge followed the voice, because he didn't encounter any particularly difficult existence at night, this time he sped up. It's just that the dog barking is also a little weird, sometimes far and sometimes near, and every time I want to catch up with it, I can only see a black shadow that slips away.

"It's a notice board again." Xu Yunge walked farther and farther, and judging from the map, he had approached the area around the back mountain of Taiping Town, which was the old part of the town that had not yet been demolished.

It's just that this land is not a residential area or a local characteristic commercial street, but an abandoned factory site. From the sign on the door, it can be identified as a food processing factory, as for fruit juice processing or nut snacks, this belongs to Xu Yunge's knowledge blind spot, and it is not clear at the moment.

Come to think of it, there should have been people in Taiping Town who wanted to open factories for development, and small farmers under the mountain turned over to improve their lives. Regardless of whether the pollution discharge is serious, as long as it affects the local environment, factories must be withdrawn.

Over the years, air pollution in big cities has indeed been treated a lot, and Xu Yunge feels obviously. But the number of factories in the rural generation has sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

If you take a bus and take a bullet train, you can see many factories in non-busy areas. In particular, the factory also has a specified green area, and the camphor trees can be seen at a glance, so you can understand it without investigation.

"The boss who was able to open a factory in this poor rural area to drive development back then was also a local. Maybe the people of their time knew something and had the opportunity to find Lao Li to check it. ”

"There is also a notice board at the entrance of the factory, I don't know if Dou Xiantong ever worked here back then. Unfortunately, this area is almost abandoned, the road surface is cracked and overgrown with weeds, and in order to save energy, the density of street lights is very low, so few residents should walk this way. ”

"There are wet shoe footprints on the ground, some mud and sand, what is Dou Xiantong doing here? He seemed familiar with the place, and there must be a reason for it. ”

Climbing over the barbed fence of the abandoned factory, the barking of the dogs stopped abruptly.

There was a crushing sound of scratching claws, like a swarm of big, fat rats, or someone hiding in a container to scare the intruders.

His eyes itched again, Xu Yunge couldn't help but rub it a few more times, and found that his night vision seemed to have weakened a little. After stepping on the rusty scrap metal object several times in a row, he almost fell, and his health was already very poor, so in order to avoid getting trouble such as tetanus again, he could only turn on the mobile phone flashlight to find the way.

There is a click under your feet, and in the strange place in the dead of night, it is inevitable that your heart will beat faster.

Bending down to pick it up, the surface of the jar has faded very seriously, but the printed font is still relatively clear, and it can be seen that the workmanship is good, and it is a local conscience product.

"Aluminum cans, it's a juice processing plant."

"It turned out to be a sweet and sour candy-flavored orange soda, I liked it very much when I was a child, but later I was afraid that my body would rely on sugar to quit...... I haven't drunk it or seen it for years, but I didn't expect it to be produced here. ”

Taking a few clear photos of the jar in case of emergency, Xu Yunge dropped the jar and picked up a mobile phone flashlight to illuminate the factory gate.

A grey shadow of a raccoon flower slipped past the door, and there was no sound of speech in the abandoned factory, only a few footprints left by Dou Xiantong earlier could be used as evidence.

Xu Yunge stepped back a little, Dou Xiantong's emotional state was not very stable, in case he grabbed a steel bar casually in excitement, it was really irrational to walk rashly to the front door.

"Huh? How can there be a well here in the factory? ”

Xu Yunge picked up his mobile phone and took a picture, and vaguely he heard a grunting scream.

The evening breeze suddenly became a lot stronger, mixed with some fog and rain, and inch by inch it was wet and cold. Even the fingers pressed on the screen were a little painful, and Xu Yunge hurriedly found a place to hide.

It was when he entered the factory gate to avoid the wind, but Xu Yunge strangely found that Dou Xiantong's broken socks and shoes were placed at the door. A pair of barefoot footprints, which gradually dried and disappeared, slowly moved towards the interior of the factory.