"Well, I happened to finish reading Ling Lang's book...... It's wonderful and surprising – sorry, maybe I'm too honest, but I'm sure you know what I mean. org ”

I looked at the man sitting across from the desk, raised an eyebrow, and gently put the book I was holding back on the desk.

The sun shone through the floor-to-ceiling window behind me on the black book cover, on which was the bright red title—

"Black Town".

This is a horror book that has recently become a best-seller, and even caused heated discussions in the city, author, Qiao Yu.

And sitting opposite me at this time, this decently dressed and dignified man is the famous suspense writer Qiao Zhenbang, and Qiao Yu is his only son.

"There are indeed some strange theories in society, even in the literary and artistic circles, there is no shortage of questioning voices......" Qiao Zhenbang didn't even look at the book on the desk, his voice was steady and low, like an ancient clock, "But whether it is the press or the public, everyone just wants a hot topic, so I refused all interviews. ”

Of course I've heard of this, it's a recent hot news in Jinguancheng - Qiao Zhenbang's baby son has always been shown as a gentleman, but now he suddenly became famous, and the people in the city are very interested in this legendary experience, of course, the major media are competing for interviews, but Qiao's father and son refused all interview requests, looking lazy to distinguish them.

When I asked that sentence, I also had a bit of a gossip mentality - after all, the news person is at the moment, and it would be nonsense to say that he is not curious at all.

I looked at Qiao Zhenbang sitting opposite me, dressed in a suit and leather shoes, dressed in navy blue, gold wire glasses, and combing his meticulous big back, looking like those rich tycoons in Hong Kong movies in the nineties of the last century, he is fifty-seven years old, and he is also very well maintained, and he looks like a man in his forties at most, which is the age of prime and ambition.

His back was firmly pressed against the back of the chair, which was psychologically a sign of confidence, but his arms were crossed on the armrests, and his left hand kept slowly turning the beautiful tail ring on his right hand as he talked to me—another sign of inner anxiety.

"Bulgari's B.zero 1 collection? It flatters your temperament. "I wondered what the other party was trying to do.

Qiao Zhenbang has been famous for many years, and it is certain that he is rich, so in front of such "high-quality" customers, I don't want to appear too incompetent, which will affect what price I can finally talk about consulting fees.

That's right, after generously donating the 16 million bonus of the "Million Man Wolf Game", I returned to my true colors of being poor and white.

By the way, the Bulgari tail ring worn by Qiao Zhenbang is indeed very stylish: between the wide spiral shanks, there are three ring-shaped gemstones, namely dark green hard serpentine, deep sea blue lapis lazuli and wet tobacco topaz, these natural gemstones are set off by the rose gold band, showing a harmonious and unique luster, atmospheric and mysterious.

"Thank you. But I'm not—"

Qiao Zhenbang obviously wouldn't be flustered because of my casual flattery, of course he had something else to ask for, but I immediately interrupted him.

"Wait, if you don't mind, I'd like to guess first." I say.

When someone interrupted his speech, no one would be happy, and Qiao Zhenbang was the same, he frowned slightly, but he still raised his hand generously and motioned for me to speak first.

At this time, I was already confident: "Mr. Qiao, although you came to me because of Ling Lang's matter, this is only the cause, and the specific reason should be on yourself." ”

Qiao Zhenbang's face suddenly showed a wonderful expression - shock, surprise, and even a trace of panic as if his heart was seen through, and so on.

In fact, to put it bluntly, it is not too complicated reasoning.

When I talked to Qiao Zhenbang about his son's book, he only said that the society questioned that the book was actually ghostwritten by him, and he didn't even look at the book "Black Town" that I put on the table, which made me suspect that the relationship between Qiao Zhenbang and his son might be very tense.

"Detective Ji's news is really well......-informed," Qiao Zhenbang took a deep breath, his face returned to normal, but his eyes looking at me had changed slightly, and he was no longer as domineering and condescending as he was at the beginning, "There is indeed an accident in my family, although the police bureau has not announced it to the public...... But this time, as you said, this is just an introduction......"

This passage made me wonder.

"Mr. Qiao, I'm sorry, can I ask what's going on in your house?" I had to interrupt Qiao Zhenbang again.

"Why, you don't know?!" The surprise on Qiao Zhenbang's face this time was even worse than before.

I shook my head.

Just kidding, although I do have some relationship with the police department, the police bureau is not my family after all, right? How could I possibly know everything! Besides, I generally care about cases that are extremely bad in nature, or weird and supernatural, and I just want to pay attention to them, and I don't have that time.

Seeing that I was indeed not pretending to be ignorant, Qiao Zhenbang spoke: "About ten hours ago, my current wife was found dead in the lake, and my son was also missing at the same time. ”

It was a bombshell, and now it was my turn to be surprised, but I only made a "please mourn" expression and didn't speak, because I knew there must be more to come.

Sure enough, Qiao Zhenbang said: "Detective Ji, you must be strange, because it seems that I should go to the police more in this case, but as you deduced before, I myself encountered something extremely weird." ”

"What's the matter?"

“……”

Qiao Zhenbang's Adam's apple twitched, his lips opened and closed, and he looked like he wanted to speak and stopped, and under my patient gaze, he finally made up his mind.

He leaned forward slightly, his eyes meeting mine: "My son's book has become a reality." ”

"What?" I didn't understand for a while.

After a lot of explanations, I finally figured it out.

The book "Black Town" written by Qiao Yu has been questioned by many because it was ghostwritten by his father Qiao Zhenbang, and one of the most important reasons is the content of the book "Black Town" itself.

The protagonist of "Black Town" is a horror writer named Jolo, who not only loses his wife but also has amnesia after a car accident, he forgets everything he has written, and also loses the ability to write. After spending some time in the mud, Jolo decides to return to the town where he and his wife met and fell in love and start his life again.

However, after arriving in this mountain town called Taiping, a terrifying event happened: there were terrible monsters killing people in the town, and Qiao Luo was even more shocked to find that these monsters actually existed in the horrors he had written before!

Not only did the monsters that were supposed to exist only in horror appear, but the daylight hours of the town became shorter and shorter, and finally, the dark fog completely engulfed the town, and Jolo and his friends had to struggle to survive in this terrifying town......

The above is the general plot of "Black Town" (because I haven't seen the rest yet), but the monsters and most of the horror scenes in "Black Town" are all from Qiao Zhenbang's previous writings - the public suspects that this book is written by Qiao Zhenbang at all, and the protagonist "Qiao Luo" in "Black Town" is actually Qiao Zhenbang himself.

And Qiao Zhenbang told me that "my son's book has become a reality", which means that the content in "Black Town" has happened to Qiao Zhenbang!

Qiao Zhenbang's wife drove into the lake and drowned, which coincides with the death of the protagonist's wife in "Black Town" due to a car accident.

The more convincing evidence is that Qiao Zhenbang unbuttoned his shirt and showed me his left breast-

In "Black Town", the reason why the protagonist is determined to return to Taiping Town is because he meets a mysterious person who is completely black and does not recognize his face in a dream, and tells him that if he does not return to Taiping Town, he will die of the "big snake". After waking up from the dream, the protagonist Jolo found that a scar on his left chest that stabbed violently at the slightest touch - a large black snake.

And on Qiao Zhenbang's left chest, there is really an old-looking scar - but Qiao Zhenbang showed me another photo in his mobile phone, this one was taken a week ago, in the photo, Qiao Zhenbang is doing bodybuilding movements shirtless, his chest is immaculate skin, and there is no such terrible scar at all.

The scar formed a tattoo-like pattern - it was a large snake hovering, dark, with a mouth wide open and ready to be devoured!