"Strange Dreams"

[Chapter 1: The Meeting]

The man sitting in front of me had been silent for about fifteen minutes.

But he wasn't just silent, for fifteen minutes he kept looking at everything around him, including me—with a neurotic, obsessive-compulsive look, over and over again, over and over again.

I can roughly guess his state of mind, whether it is his untidy clothes, messy hair, pale face, bloodshot eyes, or other details, all of which clearly reflect the tension, fear, and panic in his heart.

Every ten seconds, he would suddenly turn his head to look at a corner of the room. I noticed that his expression was so alert and panicked, and after seeing that there was nothing unusual in the corner, he relaxed for a moment—as if he had escaped, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, he had the time to reach out and wipe the fine beads of sweat from his forehead.

Since this client wasn't ready to speak, I had to wait.

It doesn't matter, my patience is okay, especially when I have a copy of the Jinguancheng Express that I just received in the morning on my desk.

In fact, the news is not very interesting, the only thing that can be called eye-catching is that last night two sanitation workers found a large bag of terrible "garbage" on a remote street on the outskirts of the city: the bag of "garbage" was wrapped in a thick black plastic bag, but I don't know if it was the smell of blood, which attracted a few wild dogs and wild cats, and after the two sanitation workers drove away the wild dogs and wild cats, they felt that the contents of the plastic bag seemed to have a suspicious shape, and when they opened the bag and saw the contents clearly, they were almost frightened and fainted on the spot-

The black plastic bag was covered in blood and contained two white human legs.

I nodded silently: another big case.

I took a notebook on the table and wrote down that on a certain day in a certain month, in a certain place, abandoned body pieces (legs, the gender of the deceased is not yet known) were found, which was suspected to be a murder case.

Cheat sheets are part of my news habits, because of my work, and these bits and pieces, seemingly unrelated information, may be useful in one of the commissions I have taken.

After scanning the two pages of the newspaper, I felt that enough time had been given to him, and just as he was looking at the corner of my room again, I moved the newspaper aside to speak.

"Is there something wrong over there? Mr. Luo. I followed his gaze and looked at the corner of the room, where there was a rattan chaise longue, and behind the rattan chair was a row of bookcases, which was my favorite reading corner.

For someone who is nervous and a little nervous, you have to find a topic from where he is concerned, otherwise his attention may never be focused on you.

"No, nothing." His gaze finally moved to mine, with a hint of embarrassment, and he quickly lowered his head, but I noticed that even as he looked down, he couldn't help but glance at my reading corner again—even though it had been carefully observed by him several times.

I suddenly became interested: about the strange things that happened to him.

Oh, sorry for forgetting to introduce yourself. My surname is Ji Mingguang, male, 28 years old, from Yuedu in the south, and now lives in Jinguancheng, in a remote alley in this ancient and modern city, there is a grocery store called "Ji Ji".

However, the owner of the grocery store is only my superficial identity, in fact, my job is similar to that of a private detective, the difference is that I deal with some extremely unusual and even weird things, in the words of the industry, "spirit detective".

It may sound like a bluff, but in fact, the so-called strange things that the people who came to me told me, 99.99 percent, were all nonsense, and to put it mildly, it was nonsense.

Maybe it's the person's own imagination, maybe it's the illusion or hallucination of mental overtension, or maybe it's the misinterpretation caused by some inconspicuous small probability coincidence being wrongly linked, and even the mentally ill and religious fanatics often come to me, hoping that I can help them confirm that the absurd or idealized world in their minds is real.

But in any case, whether it is rhapsodies or hysteria, it is in the way of their normal life, and my job is to put everything back on track and get them back on the normal trajectory of life.

I'll turn down commissions that are too boring (for the psychopaths and rhapnoids who come to my door, I usually give them off, and if they don't, I'll call the psychiatric hospital or call the police, after all, my social status is just a grocery store owner), but once I accept the commission and collect the money, I have to do things, no matter how ridiculous things are - this is the rule of our industry, and it is also my personal credibility.

As for the remaining 0.01 percent of the real weird things, as long as I encounter them, even if I don't get a penny in the end, I will serve to the end, because that is my interest, and those bizarre experiences are the best reward for me.

- Then again, it's best to be able to give money, because I really don't need it.

Okay, let's get back to the story.

The man in front of me who was in a state of extreme mental tension, named Luo Xing, was beside him, and a series of strange events were happening.

I've gotten some rough information beforehand, and I'm puzzled after reading it, but it doesn't arouse my curiosity too much, because I've experienced a lot of such cases, which sound mysterious and mysterious, but in fact can't stand up to scrutiny.

The person who entrusted this to me, Lao Dao, understood this bad habit of mine, and he had long been accustomed to my lazy attitude of not being strange, and his response was to bring Luo Xing to me.

However, it wasn't until I actually met Luo Xing that I had some anticipation for the head-to-head conversation that was about to start now—I didn't like second-hand things, whether it was cigarettes, women, or information.

And just now, I had a stronger and stronger premonition in my heart: what Luo Xing was going to tell me would have a high chance, the 0.01 percent I liked, and that would be a real strange thing.

- By the way, my hunch has always been accurate.

"Mr. Luo, you can rest assured, this Mr. Ji is very experienced in dealing with similar abnormal events, you don't have to worry." Sitting on the sectional sofa on the other side of the room, about five meters away from us, Lao Dao lit a cigarette and moved the glass ashtray on the coffee table closer.

Luo Xing nodded after a while, "Yes, you have already introduced me to it." ”

As he spoke, he looked up at me, and I smiled back.

Perhaps feeling the kindness and encouragement in my smile, although the hesitation in Luo Xing's expression was still the same, he finally began to tell me the right topic.

"I'm sure you've already read some of the materials......" Roshing seemed to be searching for words.

I nodded.

"You won't believe it—"

"I will."

I interrupted Roshing, and he looked up, his gaze meeting mine.

My gaze was calm, "I will." Again, I emphasise that I use a tone that is as calm as my gaze.

Luo Xing stared at me steadily, as if trying to find a hole in my eyes, and after a while, he shrugged.

"At first, everybody told me that." He said, "'You tell me what happened, I'm going to believe you,' everybody says that, all my family, friends, oh, and fucking cops...... In the beginning, they all had the same look in their eyes as you trying to reassure me. ”

Luo Xing suddenly smiled, with a self-deprecating smile.

"Eventually, they recommended that I see a doctor." Luo Xing grinned, and the nasolabial folds on his emaciated cheeks became more obvious, "And my doctor swore at the beginning that he would believe everything I said." He said.

I suddenly sensed something, and immediately turned my eyes to the old knife.

The old knife dropped the ash bomb in the glass ashtray, and then continued to smoke, he even stretched out for a long time, spit out a smoke ring, and then raised an eyebrow at me, and his tone was almost scoundrel: "That's right, he was fished out of the psychiatric hospital by me." ”