At sunrise, Blackwater finally came into view.

It should be noted that the reason why it is said to be sunrise is based on the time displayed on our phones and watches, and in fact, except for a bright light in the eastern sky, the sky is still very dark.

"Black clouds are crushing the city and want to destroy it."

The old knife sighed.

I looked up at the sky, and although it was early in the morning, it looked like night was approaching.

I immediately remembered the description in "Black Town", where the main character, Jolo, discovers that the night has lasted for 12 hours, and the dawn has not yet come......

Li Yi and Lao Dao also looked at me at this time, and when we made eye contact, we already understood the meaning of each other's transmission: looking at this sky, it seems that our group has also encountered the plot described in "Black Town".

Another situation is that until Lao Dao and I woke up, neither of us dreamed, and just now I asked the three people on Cheng Cheng's side through the walkie-talkie, and they didn't dream either.

In other words, none of the six of us have the incarnation of "Jolo", and although we have all experienced similar events, we do not have those strange dreams.

Li Yi was a little worried about this.

The basis for his concern is the "protagonist survival theory" - generally, the protagonist in a movie or series, no matter how tragic the danger is, will not die, but the supporting characters are not treated so well, and the more thrilling the work, the greater the chance that the supporting characters will receive a boxed lunch.

Now the question is, we seem to be the characters in that weird "Black Town", and the events we are experiencing will be replayed in this book from the perspective of the main character, Jolo, so the question arises: if none of us are the main characters, will we be able to easily get the bento?

This assumption and my strong foreboding also corroborate each other.

Li Yi has been very unreliable many times, but this time, Lao Dao and I did not refute Li Yi's words, and we didn't say anything, but we were very uncomfortable.

It's like a dark cloud overhead.

But if the sun is shining and our group is visiting Blackwater as tourists, we will definitely enjoy this town surrounded by mountains and revel in the scenery.

When we came down from the winding road, although it was dark, we still had a panoramic view of the whole town.

It is a small town nestled in a basin, surrounded by mountains, which silently guard the town in the dark sky like hooded shadow guards.

The shape of the town presents the shape of a swallow's nest, a small river crosses the town, although the buildings in the town are somewhat dilapidated, but here is surrounded by mountains on three sides, one side is the river outlet, this is a typical "three dragons spitting pearls" topography, in feng shui is an excellent pattern of great wealth.

The winding mountain road is a tree-lined road about 2 kilometers long, leading to a small square in the town, and the boulevard is filled with a milky white mist, and there is a street lamp at a long distance, sprinkling a pale yellow light.

Blackwater is silent and mysterious in this layer of fog.

I looked out the window for a while, and suddenly I noticed that the street trees planted on both sides of this asphalt road were all cypresses!

I told the two people around me about this discovery: "It's all juniper, so tall that it must be at least a few decades old." ”

Li Yi smiled: "This kind of remote town, even if the roadside is full of trees that are more than 100 years old, is there anything special?" This is not Jinguan City, there are new development zones everywhere, demolished, built and demolished......"

"The ancients used pines and cypresses to symbolize loyalty, pine branches are proud, cypress trees are solemn and solemn, and the four seasons are evergreen...... Do you know where it is often planted? ”

Li Yi shook his head.

The old knife replied, "Cemetery." ”

I finally nodded: "The ancients called the cypress tree 'the length of a hundred trees', which is known as a symbol of righteousness, nobility, longevity, and immortality. The cemetery planted cypress trees is the admiration and nostalgia of the predecessors, and the planting of cypress trees in front of the town, I don't understand what it means...... On top of that, cypress is a common tree in the north, but on our side, it is not actually a natural climatic distribution area of cypress, nor is it a common landscaping tree species. Therefore, it can only be artificially planted...... Decades of work is not easy. ”

The streets in the town are still bluestone roads, although they are extremely solid, but because the years are too long, the stone roads have long been uneven, but fortunately we are two off-road vehicles with strong performance, and the general car is afraid that it will not be able to enter the town at all.

The streets were a little narrow and empty, and there were occasionally a few tricycles and agricultural four-wheelers passing by, and they were supposed to go to the fields outside the town to harvest crops as soon as possible, but neither the townspeople who drove nor the few pedestrians on the streets did not squint at us, as if they did not see us.

Lao Dao jumped out of the car and stopped a townsman before asking us where we were going.

Along the small river that runs east and west across the town, our car stopped in front of an old European-style building that used to be a Catholic church and now the police department of Blackwater.

The gates of the police station are closed.

There are indeed not too many townspeople living in this town, and we only saw a dozen townspeople along the way, and now, next to the police station, there are actually a row of houses all without roofs, and there are no pedestrians.

What's even more annoying is that our phones still don't receive a single signal.

Cheng Cheng decided to wait.

We stood at the entrance of the Catholic church-turned-police station, waiting for the officers to go to work.

Fortunately, we only waited for more than half an hour before we arrived at the main master.

There are only two officers in the Blackwater Police Department, and they are all locals of Blackwater.

The first to appear was a chubby middle-aged police officer, Cai Zhiheng, 46 years old this year, who is currently the temporary director of the Blackwater Town Police Bureau.

Cai Zhiheng was not surprised to see us: "It said that you will arrive around noon yesterday, and Xiao He and I have been waiting until midnight at the entrance of the town, so we got up late today......

After the simple procedure (in fact, it was to check the documents of several people in Cheng Cheng), Cai Zhiheng immediately unlocked the door and warmly welcomed us into the police station.

As soon as we entered, we found that it was completely Catholic church furnishings - the prayer hall was lined with rows of seats that could accommodate about 100 people, and the walls on both sides of the hall were covered with crucifixes, and the atmosphere was very religious.

We stood in the middle aisle of two rows of seats, with a small altar in front of it, and a confessional room and kneeling chairs on the side.

Cheng Cheng looked at it for a while, his brows became more and more wrinkled, and finally he couldn't help but turn around and say to Cai Zhiheng: "Director Cai, apart from hanging a signboard of the police bureau here, what is the difference between it and the church?" Do you come here to go to work, to ring the bell, and then to do Mass? ”

Li Yi beside me snorted and covered his mouth, so that he didn't laugh out loud on the spot.

Cai Zhiheng smiled bitterly: "In the remote mountainous area, the conditions are limited, and we used to work in an empty classroom in the town's primary school...... Three years ago, the priest of this Catholic church died, and there were actually no religious people in the town, so ...... The church was assigned to us as a temporary office. We also wanted to renovate it, and it's really not like a police office, right? But the county government didn't let us, saying that it was a cultural preservation unit and wouldn't allow us to demolish the church...... Some time ago, I came to a cultural preservation group, took some photos and went back, saying that I wanted to select a county-level cultural preservation unit for this church in our town. ”

As soon as Cai Zhiheng explained this, Cheng Cheng's face softened, and he apologized to Cai Zhiheng, who waved his hand again and again, saying that he didn't care.

We walked straight through the lobby of the church to a small two-story building behind the main building.

Cai Zhiheng introduced: "In fact, this is the office space that really belongs to our Heishui Town Police Bureau, there are three rooms available on two floors, an office on the first floor, a detention room, and a house upstairs as an archive room, and the others are the living rooms of the dead priest or something, all of which are preserved as they are." ”

We are speechless, this broken town is really weird.

Entering the "office", Cai Zhiheng beckoned us to sit, but there was only a desk, three chairs and a wooden sofa in the room, Cheng Cheng and Lao Dao sat on two chairs, and the remaining four of us were standing and embarrassed, so we had to squeeze four big men into the three-seater wooden sofa.

"By the way, don't call me Director Cai, I'm temporary. In fact, my job title is a first-class police officer, and they are the same as Xiao Liu Xiaozhou, just call me Lao Cai! ”

Cai Zhiheng explained that the reason why he was a "temporary director" was because Heishui Town was carrying out the overall relocation work, which lasted for several years, and the police bureau was "temporary" for a few years.

Then, Cai Zhiheng complained about the government affairs system again, and said that this overall relocation project is a face-saving project in the county, which is simply an idea that he came up with with a slap of his head.

Cheng Cheng was also an anxious child, and finally waited for Cai Zhiheng to finish his ramblings, and then talked about formal work.

"Section Chief Cheng, after receiving the notice, Xiao He and I have already conducted an in-depth investigation and secret visit to the entire town, but we really did not find the suspect named 'Qiao Zhenbang'...... You have also come all the way in, and you should have seen it, the only way into the town is the long boulevard, if there is really a luxury off-road vehicle into the town, we can't not hear the wind...... Of course, I'm not shirking my work, I'm just explaining the situation of the field investigation by our local police department, and it is also possible that the suspect Qiao Zhenbang did not enter the town directly, but hid somewhere around the town......"

"So, what's next for us? Do you have any suggestions? Cheng Cheng was already a little impatient.

"In this way, it's better to settle everyone in the town first-everyone has to work in the town, and there can't be no place to live, right, and there are only three rooms in the bureau, and the conditions are limited, and it can't be arranged, right? I've already said hello to the guest house over there, and Section Chief Cheng can just go over directly. At noon, I will ask Xiao He to come to you and cooperate with your work......"

Cheng Cheng was even more unhappy when he heard Cai Zhiheng say this: "Oh, I don't know what other cases Director Cai has in his hands to be busy?" ”

"There is indeed a difficult case, and I may have to ask you for help at that time - Section Chief Cheng is a well-known master of solving cases in Jinguan City, and I have also heard that there are two very powerful private detectives accompanying him this time...... Anyway, when the time comes, you may need to ask for your help, and sometimes it will be time to disturb everyone. Cai Zhiheng's hand was slapped and beaten, and his speech was soft and hard, obviously touting us, and secretly expressing some dissatisfaction, after speaking, he swallowed his saliva, paused, and asked us again: "By the way, I haven't asked yet, I said that I arrived around noon yesterday, why are you only in town now?" Broken down on the road? ”

Cheng Cheng hesitated for a moment, and when he saw my eyes, he didn't tell the real experience and inventory along the way, only said that the car did break down on the road, and then planned to take the bus to the town, but encountered a landslide, and finally had to spend the night and wait for the road to open before leaving.

Cai Zhiheng asked us with a strange look, did you really get on the bus?

After asking several times and getting the same answer, Cai Zhiheng looked suspicious and said, "Everyone has also seen a little bit of the situation in the town, right?" Young people have gone out to work, and there are some old people and children left in the town, and there are not many people at all, and there are no scenic spots here, not a tourist area, so there are not many people outside the town. So, in the early years, we didn't have a bus here, how could you get a bus? ”

We didn't expect that.

Cheng Cheng was a little embarrassed, so he had to tell the real situation.

Cai Zhiheng gasped: "Listening to the appearance of the bus you described, it should be No. 188, which is actually privately operated, just one car." Six years ago, there was a very tragic car accident on our side, 188 Road collided with a tanker truck, and all the people in the car died, I went to the scene, really...... It's really exactly the same as you say, it's miserable! ”

He rubbed his hands: "There are ghost stories about ghost cars in the town, and I always think of them as nonsense...... Sizzle - Section Chief Cheng, you are a noble person, if you were someone else, I am afraid that you will be hooked by that ghost car. ”

A few of us also felt a little cold in our vests, and that bus actually existed! And the car accident is exactly the same!

Cheng Cheng heard Cai Zhiheng say this, swallowed back the words behind, said a few polite words, and asked where the town's guest house was, and we got up to say goodbye.

Cai Zhiheng sent out of the door of the church and told us to have a good rest, and in the afternoon another police officer named He Jun will come to assist us in our work.

At this time, the sky seemed a little brighter, but the thick dark clouds in the sky still did not disperse, and it seemed that the whole day was going to be cloudy.

There are also some more people on the street, but these people are generally a little depressed, most of them walk with their heads down, and when our car passes by them, they only look up slightly, and then they walk on their own, looking unenergetic.

The guest house is actually on the edge of the small square at the entrance of the town, it is a small three-story Western-style house in European architectural style, and on the wall of the second floor is written in red paint with five inconspicuous words: "Guest House Supermarket".

On the white wall, you can see a large piece of the wall falling off everywhere, revealing a light brown cement surface, and the five words "guest house supermarket" can also be seen to be rewritten many times.