When I got home, I told my grandmother about it, and she was not at first at ease, but she knew that she was already old, and she could not help me except take me to the business of robbing the demon mound, so she had to let me go to the Yellow River alone, briefly asked me to say something, and packed my bags and dry food for me.

The next morning, I went to the Maitreya temple early, and the door of the temple was already open, and there was a little monk outside the courtyard cleaning the fallen leaves on the ground. I don't know why, this monastery always gives me a sense of unrighteousness, I don't feel too much of the kind of piety in Buddhism, whether it is the sound of beating wooden fish or the sound of reciting scriptures, it gives me a kind of disordered distraction, and I always feel a little strange inexplicably.

I walked towards the monastery, my feet on the fallen leaves, and I made a salsa sound.

When I came to the gate, I could see the monks sitting cross-legged on the ground, their eyes closed, muttering poetry in their mouths. I looked around, but there was no trace of Liu Da's crooked mouth. This guy can't be fooling me, is he? I said that I would meet in front of the Maitreya Buddha Temple, but now I can't even see a single hair.

Just as I was frowning and thinking, a hand suddenly put on my shoulder, and I was immediately scared. I looked back and saw that it was the little monk sweeping the floor. He looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, not much older than me, very good-eyed, smiling, and very kind.

"The donor is waiting for someone, right?" He opened his mouth to me.

I nodded.

The little monk smiled again and said, "Come with me." With that, he put down his broom, leaned it against a tree, and then turned around and walked into the monastery. I looked at his back, and without hesitation, followed him.

Maybe it's because I've been here once, and I don't feel so uncomfortable when I step into this strange atmosphere again, but I still know that this place is extraordinary.

The little monk led me to a side room, near the backyard, near the entrance to the demon market. The door of the wing room was tightly closed, leaving no gaps, as if the whole door had been inlaid into the wall. There is also window paper, which is pasted with at least two layers of thickness, and you can't see the slightest figure at the head of the house.

The little monk knocked on the door, at this time I noticed that the sound and interval of his knocking were different, three long and two short, three heavy and two light, the knock was like a kind of code, sure enough, when the little monk's hand was put down, the door was opened with a creak, and the inside was half hidden and half exposed, but I didn't see anyone. The little monk folded his hands on his chest and bent down to me, and then Amitabha Buddha left.

I looked at the back of this little monk and was stunned, at this moment, a hand suddenly stretched out from the door and dragged me directly in, and before I could react, I was pulled into the room, and then I only heard a bang, and the door was closed.

I was about to shout, but someone covered my mouth.

"Shhhh Be quiet, little brother, it's me. ”

I found out that the person who covered his mouth turned out to be Liu Da's crooked mouth. He was standing in front of me with his eyebrows twisted, his voice low as if he were afraid of being known to him. I wondered, what is this old guy doing, is this thing so nervous?

Then, he let go of the hand covering my mouth, and said to me again in a low voice: "Little brother, let's be quiet, if the news of this gluttonous mound spreads, it won't be good, this piece of fat is enough for a few of us to eat, if the rest of the people in the line know, and we will not be able to taste the minced meat at all!" ”

I nodded. Immediately afterwards, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a young man sitting at a table not far away, but he looked like he was seventeen or eighteen years old, and he was relatively fat, and it must have taken a lot of effort to eat like this in this era when even pigs couldn't eat fat.

"What is this?" I asked.

Before Liu Da could open his mouth, the fat man said, "Shopkeeper Liu, this is the guy you told me about, right?" This guy looks like a stunned young man, can he do it? For the master, I carried the luggage and served the tea, but it was okay. ”

I wanted to scold my mother when I heard it, where is there such a bully, who is not stunned when he first enters the industry, if he had been mixed up for a year or two, you may still follow my ass and pick a toothpick to pick my teeth! The dead fat man spoke in an urn of anger, as if he had urinated in his mouth, which made people panic when they heard it.

Liu Da crooked his mouth and smiled awkwardly when he saw the fat man's words, and said, "Little brother, this is the person who went to the Yellow River with you this time, Wang Erbao." He has been working for me for many years, and his skills are also good, so he can take care of you this time. You don't have to be inhibited, he's not much older than you, you can call him whatever you want. ”

I glanced at this fat man, and he was really a stinky fart. But after all, now I don't have anyone who can do it, and there are many things that he does have to dial me a little in the future, although the poor can't move the mighty and can't bend, but in order to make people less stumbling on the road after me, I can only nod.

Later, when I inquired, this fat man is also interesting, when he was born, his mother had a difficult birth, said that the fetal head could not come out, at that time his father wanted their mother and son to be kept, the child was named "Erbao" before it came out, although later the mother and child were safe, but this barely enough name has been following the fat man, and was jokingly called the bustard (Bao) on the road, indeed, it looks like the security in the kiln.

Liu Da crooked his mouth and asked me to sit down, poured a cup of tea for me and the old bustard, and rubbed his hands together with a smile and said to the two of us: "In this way, let's talk about it briefly." Two little brothers, you must have known what you called here this time. This is a big job, but you can't make a big deal so as not to leak the rumors, you know, people in this line are eyeing the legendary gluttonous mound! So I asked you to take over the work, and we will first test and test whether the water is muddy, and then we will see the opportunity to act. ”

The bustard and I nodded in response. But in fact, I already knew in my heart, there is no such thing as seeing the opportunity to act in the future, if this life is really dangerous, then Liu Da crooked mouth, this old guy will be like the two of us are stones, and then replace someone to take this job after losing it, to put it bluntly. The two of us were there for him.

But at this time, it doesn't matter what people think of us, it's good to have a job to do, if this job is done well, Liu Da will definitely let me continue to do it. In this way, firstly, you will have some income, and secondly, you can better understand this industry.

At this time, Liu Da crooked his mouth and took out a roll of parchment from his pocket, and opened it to see that it was a map of the main road of the Yellow River. Then he said: "The clues given to us by the mask of the ground wolf are roughly in the area of the Yellow River, but it is still very widespread, if we look for it from place to place to get the Year of the Monkey and the month of the horse." Last night I asked someone to inquire about what was wrong with the Yellow River, and guess what? There really is. ”

Liu Da crooked his mouth and took out a pen from his pocket, circled the end of the map, and said: "See, it's the tail of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, that is, in the area of Zhengzhou, where strange things have been happening these days." ”

I asked, "What's weird?" ”

Liu Da replied with a crooked mouth: "This place in my circle is a small village within a radius of five kilometers, called Cutting Village. It is very desolate, and it is very backward and remote, and it will not be able to go there for 50 years of reform and opening up. Just ten days ago, when the villagers went down to the river to fish, they suddenly found that a wooden coffin floated up on the river, and the villagers may have washed down the coffin by soil erosion or something upstream, and after all, the deceased was big, so the coffin was moved to the hillside outside the village, but in the next few days, the villagers continued to find that there were red lacquered wooden coffins floating up on the river, and then the elders of the village felt that there was something strange about it, and they couldn't hold back their curiosity, so they asked people to open it and take a look, and there was no gold, silver and no bones in it. Only a shriveled skin. The other coffins were opened in turn, all like this, one by one, shriveled skin. ”

"Skin?"

"Human skin, a whole piece, the kind that was cut alive."

When I heard this, I was very frightened, and the coffin floating up from the bottom of the river was already a terrible thing, but it turned out to be even more terrifying when I opened it and contained a human skin. I looked at the old bustard on the side, the dead fat man had a serious face, frowning and almost twisting his eyebrows. I saw him smack his lips and say something I didn't understand: "Is it a coffin skin?" ”

Liu Da tilted his mouth and nodded.

I'm confused, what the hell is this coffin? Liu Da also noticed my confusion at this time, and explained: "The coffin skin, as the name suggests, is the skin that is contained in the coffin, in fact, to be precise, it refers to a sacrificial ritual. In this area of the Yellow River Basin, there were many ethnic minorities in ancient times, and they had their own totems and many unusual sacrificial ceremonies, and coffin skin was one of them. It is rumored that there is a tribe, there is a demon living at the bottom of the Yellow River next to the tribe, who likes to eat human skin, and if it is not eaten, it will bring disasters such as floods to people on the ground, and it was still slavery at that time, and the leader of the tribe in order to ensure that the wind and rain are smooth in the coming year, and he will kill nearly 100 slaves every year, and then let the tailor completely cut off their skins, put them in coffins one by one, and throw them into the Yellow River to feed this demon beast. ”

The old bustard also added on the side: "This coffin skin is actually a word for tomb robbery, because there are quite a lot of Tufuzi who have gone to the Yellow River to fight in recent years, and most of them have encountered this phenomenon, but after all, there is no treasure in it, and there is no organ to hide it, so they don't care so much." We in the industry of stealing demon mounds have some understanding of these, and at the same time, we also believe that the occurrence of this phenomenon is not just a legend. ”

I asked, "Do you mean that there are really demons in this area of the Yellow River?" ”

Bustard: "There should be, not to mention, the clue of the mask can't point to the Yellow River for no reason." ”

I thought about it, and if nothing else, the place where the clue on the mask pointed to was the area in the lower reaches of the Yellow River.

At this time, Liu Da crooked his mouth and interjected: "I think the coffin skin is an important clue, if there is no mistake, the rumors involved behind it should be true." So this place we went to this time, nine times out of ten, there is a demon mound, you must be more cautious, I have prepared some of the things and dry food that should be prepared for you. When you get there, go to the village to find the informant connector I arranged for you, and the joint code is: Dizhen Gaogang, a group of streams and mountains through the ages. Just read the first half of the sentence. He'll receive you after the joint. ”

After that, he put his hand in his pocket and fumbled for a while, then took out two tickets from it and put them neatly on the table: "The train ticket to Zhengzhou will leave at noon." ”