They didn't care about eating, so they bought some steamed buns and pickles from the small shop next to them, eating them while walking, and asked around with a photo of Cao Daoping, but no one knew where he was. Only one driver of the van had been chartered by him for a few days, but then he didn't use his car again.

According to the driver, Cao Daoping visited the old people in the village and the temple of the village temple everywhere, because he went so much that he really couldn't remember where he went, let alone who he talked to.

Lu Xiaoling was really relieved, so Sun Yang tried to summon his soul with a soul talisman.

Luckily, nothing happened when the spell was lit.

"If the Soul Talisman can't recruit him, at least it means that he's still alive." Sun Yang comforted Lu Xiaoling and Xu Hai. "At best, he's just staying in a village where there is no cell phone signal."

Xu Hai shook his head: "This is impossible, Xiaoyue's birthday, his old man will definitely find a way to call back even if he walks more than ten kilometers of mountain roads!" ”

"Then he's stuck somewhere." Sun Yang's brows furrowed again, and in this way, the matter became more and more urgent.

But they are not familiar with the place here, how can they travel to such a large area in a short time?

They went to the town government to find the staff on duty to learn about the general situation of Nanyou Town, Kuishan is the largest area under the Zhijiang River, but it is also the most remote and remote county, and Nanyou is the most remote and desolate town in Kuishan, bordering eastern Guangdong Province in the southeast direction, and it has been one of the poorest and most isolated places in southern Hunan since ancient times.

The town covers an area of more than 300 square kilometers and is located in the north-central part of the Nanling Mountains, with 95 percent of the land being mountainous and rugged. The total population of the town is only more than 20,000, scattered in more than a dozen administrative villages and nearly 200 natural villages, the vast majority of which are three Miao people, many of whom still retain the customs of hundreds of years ago, never intermarry with the outside world, and children do not go out to school. Up to now, there are still nearly 50 natural villages in the town that do not have access to roads, but rely on small roads that can only be used by tractors and horse-drawn carts to communicate with the outside. In many places, as long as it rains, the car can't get in or out at all.

There are only seven police officers at the police station in the town, and most of the time they can only manage household registration, which is almost useless, and can only report to the county to ask the county police station to temporarily send someone to deal with it.

They didn't know about Xu Hai's case reported in Linjiang, they only knew that the county leaders had come down to ask about someone's situation, and then left.

He wanted to ask them to call the villages to ask if there were any outsiders in the village, but this request was directly refused, saying that there was no number.

Xu Hai threatened to complain about them, and the other party turned his face at once.

"We just can't do that kind of thing." The other party replied directly. "We're going to get off work, you guys come to the leader tomorrow."

"What the hell is he doing here in a place where birds don't!" Xu Hai was so anxious that he stomped his feet. He called back to Linjiang to find someone, but the relationship traveled thousands of kilometers, and it was estimated that it would not be of much significance.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" There was no way to know Cao Daoping's whereabouts through normal means, so Sun Yang could only find another way and start with the things that Master Cao investigated.

"This kind of wood carving? Seems to have seen it somewhere? A driver who was pulling people on a farm truck on the side of the road said with some uncertainty.

"Really? Could you please remember where you saw it? ”

"It looks like those villages on the other side of Jiaoxi will have this thing on their cars."

"Reef Creek?"

"The village in the southeast of here is far away, and it takes more than three hours to walk by car." The driver replied.

"Is it open?"

"It hasn't rained in the past few days, it should be through."

But they asked some more people, but no one knew about it.

"Do you want to check it out?" Sun Yang asked Xu Hai for his opinion.

This is the only clue they have at the moment, and if they have to wait, they will get the big set in two days.

"I can only be a dead horse as a live horse doctor!" Xu Hai said. "Let's go over there first, and then rush back!"

But the driver refused to go overnight.

"Guys, this place is not a joke." He shook his head repeatedly. "It's okay to walk during the day, and you can see the road somewhat. There was too much fog at night, the road was slippery, and if you accidentally turned a corner, you fell under the cliff, this is not a matter of money, you can't joke with your life. ”

They were looking for a car all over town, but when they heard that they were going to Jiaoxi Village overnight, everyone shook their heads.

"It's okay tomorrow morning, but it's not okay to go overnight!" Almost everyone says so.

"Why?" Lu Xiaoling was very puzzled.

"That place is very evil, it's okay to pass during the day, but at night when you pass by, you often overturn and die!"

In desperation, they had no choice but to settle down in the town first.

"Is there anyone in town who knows all the villages?" Xu Hai couldn't sit still, so he went to chat with the shopkeeper again.

"Then there are only people from the police station or the town government, or those who run sales." The shopkeeper replied. "For example, we have been to a few villages where we have relatives in our lives."

He looked to be in his fifties and was very talkative, and Sun Yang suddenly felt that Master Cao should have talked to him like this.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" He took out the photos he had with him.

"Isn't that what the old gentleman you looked for showed me?" But he said. "I haven't seen it."

"He talked to you about these things all the time?" Lu Xiaoling asked in surprise.

"He stayed with me for eight days, and we talked twice."

"What did you talk about?"

"He just showed me some pictures, asked me if I had seen anything like it, and then he talked about our local story."

"And what did you talk about?"

"It's the cockroach, the old horse monkey, and the mountain ghost." The shopkeeper replied.

They had already heard of the python on the way here, and it was said to be a flat, net-like thing that could fly in the air, often hiding in the bushes, and at night when people were unprepared to jump out and take them away.

But old horse monkeys and mountain ghosts?

"Can you tell us about it?" Lu Xiaoling asked.

The owner's house was in the store, and it was okay to leave and right, so it blew up.

Legend has it that in the mountains around Nanyou Town, there have been many monsters, and the old horse monkey is one of the very fierce ones, they look like monkeys, but they have no tails and can't climb trees. They have red fur all over their bodies, only the hair on the top of their heads and the soles of their feet is white, their faces are as long as horses, but they are larger than cattle and more ferocious than tigers, and they love to eat other animals, especially people. It is said that a long time ago, the ancestors of the Sanmiao people in Nanyou Town had a battle with them on the mountain in the south, and both sides suffered heavy casualties, but the old horse monkey never dared to go down the mountain to eat people blatantly, but would catch and eat those who went into the mountains to collect medicine, mine or hunt.

It is said that they often run into the village to catch the children and take them to the mountains to eat them, so when the parents in the neighborhood threaten the children, they will say, "If you don't obey the rules, let the old horse monkey catch you and eat you!" ”

Sun Yang felt that the thing he said was a bit familiar, but he couldn't remember it all of a sudden.

"What about the mountain ghosts?" Lu Xiaoling asked.

"Mountain ghosts are terrible." The shopkeeper smiled. "Be careful with a girl like you."

The appearance of the mountain ghosts feels more like wild people in the mountains, with long hair all over their bodies, tall and powerful, and they can use weapons, but the most important thing that makes the Sanmiao people put them on their lips is the legend that they only have males and no females, so they will regularly run down the mountain to snatch beautiful women. This is probably the ancient version of the legend of Beauty and the Beast, but Lu Xiaoling feels that this is definitely a story made up by ancient people in order to scare women and make them stay at home honestly.

But the shopkeeper didn't agree with her: "I haven't seen or heard of the old horse monkey and the python, but the mountain ghost really made trouble a few years ago, and there were two female babies in the village on the other side of the Jiaotouwo who were robbed to the mountain by the mountain ghost when they were working in the field, and they never got it back." ”

"Is there such a thing? Don't the police care? Sun Yang was surprised.

"What's the matter? Dozens of people came down from the county, and hundreds of people from the surrounding villages were mobilized, but Nanyoushan is so big, and there are so many ditches and ditches, that they can't be found at all. ”

Hearing this, Sun Yang couldn't help but raise his head and look at the dark mountains outside the hotel, and sighed slightly.