Hu Zongren squatted down, refilled three sticks of incense, bowed, and then walked towards the door with a hammer. Ms. Du and I followed him, and after opening the door, Hu Zongren walked directly to the location of the fire hydrant where Ms. Du had said that she had found the child standing. As he walked up, Hu Zongren picked up his hammer and slammed it into the lock of the door that I had found to have accumulated a thick layer of dust.

The voice-activated light in the corridor lit up again because of Hu Zongren's smashing of the door, and this already small corridor made a big echo. I asked Hu Zongren, what are you doing here? Hu Zongren stopped the hammer in his hand and said to me, this is the home of that little ghost.

I stopped him and said don't smash someone's door even if it's you, what if you can't lock it in the future. Hu Zongren said what do you say, so I turned back to Ms. Du's house, found a small wire, bent it into the shape of a stick figure small fish, put the fish head into the keyhole, made sure that it hooked something, and then tightened both ends, and then suddenly pulled in the direction of unlocking, and the door opened. This door was not originally an anti-theft door, but an old-fashioned solid wood door, and the key to this lock was a car pin type, which could be easily opened.

After entering the house, the scene in front of me made me feel a little uncomfortable, the facilities in the house were very simple, a wooden long sofa threw two tattered cushions, and the coffee table in front of the sofa also had three newspapers and melon seed shells, I reached out and played with the melon seed shells, leaving an obvious mark of melon seeds on the newspaper. I barely dared to breathe hard because the dust was so big. Aside from the black-and-white TV set that was laid on the floor with a few bricks, I could hardly find anyone with the same appliances. The layout of the house is exactly the same as Ms. Du's house, with two bedrooms. In the master bedroom, there is a splicing bed that has fallen apart, and there are some liquor bottles in a corner of the floor, which are crooked. In the other bedroom, there was only one bunk, and there were a lot of mattresses and stuff on it, and I could kick up dust on the floor with every step. On the stove in the kitchen, in addition to a water cup and a few broken bowls, there is an old single-port gas stove, and the floor is similar to the bedroom, and there are many liquor bottles scattered on the floor. In the corner of the living room, near the direction of the television, there were several small stools, the stools were nailed by themselves from the discarded carpentry boards, which were also full of dust, and the balcony windows were so closed that the whole room had an uncomfortable smell.

Judging from the number of wine bottles scattered around, the previous owner of this house must have been a very alcoholic person, the shape of the wine bottle surface is almost all old white dry, Chongqing's old white dry degree is quite high, a person who doesn't even have a few pairs of chopsticks drinks so much, the quality of life is conceivable. Since Hu Zongren said that this is the home of the little ghost, and it is looking for warmth and maternal love in Ms. Du's arms, it means that the owner of this house will definitely not be the mother of this little ghost.

Just then, the door of the house creaked, and someone came in and watched us. It was an old lady with gray hair, and it must have been Hu Zongren's sound of slamming the door just now that alarmed others. Ms. Du greeted the old lady and said, "Mom Zhang, why are you here, it seems that they know each other."

Zhang's mother said, I was taking a nap at home just now, and I was awakened by the sound of a few knocks, so I came over to take a look, I said Xiao Du, why did you come to this house? Ms. Du looked at me and Hu Zongren, so she said to Zhang's mother, it's like this, there is something wrong in my family, and I asked two masters to help take a look. The two masters said that the root of the problem was here, and they couldn't find the residents of this house, and I was also going to live here for a long time, so I opened the door rashly.

Mama Zhang walked into the room and looked at Hu Zongren and me with scrutinizing eyes. I was uncomfortable with Zhang's mother's eyes, although it was Hu Zongren who smashed the door, but I was the one who picked the lock after all. So I scratched my head and asked Zhang's mother, "Auntie, did this place once live with a child?" Mother Zhang looked at me with a surprised look and said, how did you know about the Dao? Did I say we didn't come into the house to investigate this? Zhang's mother asked me, are you policemen? I said we weren't, but we were doing the same type of things as them, just in different directions. Zhang's mother asked Ms. Du again, these two young people were invited by you? Ms. Du nodded in affirmation to her again.

Zhang's mother said that in the early years, there was a child living here, and this child was miserable. Originally, if Mama Zhang hadn't appeared, Ms. Du and I would definitely have asked Hu Zongren to tell the child's life experience. Since Zhang's mother is here, then I will let her say it in passing, so as to save Hu Zongren from looking arrogant. Zhang's mother said, this child is miserable, his mother ran away with others when he was very young, and since then his father has begun to drink and gamble, you look at this family, you don't think that people have moved away, things have been packed up like now, their family was okay, that is, his old man went out to gamble, owed a lot of money, all the valuable things in the family were taken out and sold, and three days two debt collectors came to cut down the door to collect debts, the baby is still so young, and the old man does not have a fixed job, If you win a game of cards, you will eat a meal of meat, and if you lose, the father and son have always been pickled porridge, and many times I have seen the baby make a sin, and from time to time to get a piece of bacon for their family, send some eggs or something.

I asked Zhang's mother, how did the child die later? Zhang's mother sighed and said, in the final analysis, this matter is still to blame his mother, originally this house belonged to the old man, and his mother married in. In the first few years, the neighborhood relationship was still very good, often visited, not long after getting married, his mother was pregnant with him, during pregnancy, our neighbors were also carefully cared for, his mother is still very talkative, and he is young, but he is a little undown-to-earth, and likes to pursue some very impractical things. I asked Zhang's mother what is called impractical? Zhang's mother said that our generation has endured hardships, so it is not easy to know that a stable life is not easy to come by. Some traditional ideas are also deep-rooted, marry a chicken and marry a dog with a dog, although as the old saying goes, if young people feel that the current conditions are poor, they will work hard, and there will always be a day to come. The mother of this child is just too dissatisfied with her current life.

Zhang's mother said that the child's father was originally a worker in the factory, working in the workshop, with little culture, although he didn't earn much money, he was still very down-to-earth. The child's mother said that her husband was useless and couldn't make money, and that she was blind and followed him and so on. These words are said to our neighbors, you say good jokes! Zhang's mother went on to say that we all thought that she had a big reaction during pregnancy, so we didn't say anything, and we didn't tell the baby's father these words, so why bother to make other people's husbands and wives discordant. But after the child was born, the child was weaned before he was a year old, and then suddenly one day we heard the baby and the baby's father crying in the house, everyone was very concerned so they went to ask what was wrong, only to know that the mother of the baby had already gone to mix with a man when she was pregnant, and when the child was weaned, she immediately ran away with the man, and as for where she went, no one knew the way, including her own parents. It's just that the old Wang on the ground floor saw that the baby's mother got into a good black car that day, and no one has seen her since.

Zhang's mother continued, think about it, the baby is still so young, not a year old, this man is working in the workshop, how can he take care of it, so at the beginning, the grandmother who called the baby came here to live for a period of time to help take care of the child, and when the child was three years old, the grandmother also died. In this way, the family is basically completely collapsed, the man to take care of the baby can only quit the job, may feel that life is not satisfactory, the man began to drink, gambling, and so on to the baby 5 years old, the man began to become very manic, relatives do not come to deal, the temper is also very big, see the baby is like seeing his mother, often beat the baby, sometimes we go to persuade, he picked up a kitchen knife to scare us and said, no one cares about their family affairs. Several times when I came home from grocery shopping, I saw him tie his baby's hands to the fire hydrant and pipe at the door.

Then I suddenly remembered that I had found a supernatural reaction similar to a hand grasping a pipe on the fire hydrant pipe before, and it turned out that this was the reason. Although I felt very angry after listening to Zhang's mother's story, I didn't know who I should be angry with, whether it was the child's father or the child's mother, if the child's mother hadn't run away with other men during this period, maybe the family would have just lived a little poorer, and it would never be separated from the wife. Zhang's mother went on to say that there was a time when the child was sick, because of the relationship between long-term malnutrition and beating, the child was already very weak, and I and my old man sent it to the hospital, and I couldn't find the baby's old man when I called, but the baby died in the hospital for a long time, and the family needed to be notified when they came back to do the funeral, so they found someone to pry the door open, and found that the baby's father had been at home, drunk and unconscious. When he finally woke up, the neighbors helped finish the funeral.

Zhang's mother said that she didn't know if he regretted and blamed himself, but in short, he moved away quietly not long after that. After Hu Zongren listened, he stretched out his hand and said to me, do you remember the reaction you found at the staircase? Didn't go upstairs or downstairs. I said that I remembered, Hu Zongren said that the child wanted to run, but he didn't dare. I'm also afraid that I don't have a mother in the first place, and I won't even have my father if I run away, that's what he told me.

I suddenly felt sour, and turned my head to look at Ms. Du, who was also quietly wiping her tears. We didn't move anything in the house, we just found an excuse to get Zhang's mother away, and there was no need for her to know what we were doing. I gave the kid a ride in the house. Ms. Du asked Hu Zongren the name of the child, and said that she would provide him with a tablet at home, although she and he are not related to each other, since he wants to find love with me, then I will give what I can.

After taking the money and leaving Ms. Du's house, I was still not in a good mood, and it had nothing to do with Hu Zongren, it was entirely because of that child. Hu Zongren probably saw it, so he said to me, let's not continue to quarrel, I know that you are in a bad mood now, and now you understand why I was suddenly depressed that day, right?

He sighed and said, I thought I had long looked down on life and death, who knew that Lu Dao was full of emotional things, my heart seemed to be pressed by a stone, getting heavier and heavier, I was living a simple and happy life, but I had to keep going to other people's lives, to bear these things that should not have been borne by me or even I should not know Lu Dao, how can it not be heavy? I told Hu Zongren, you are right, this is not anyone's responsibility, but we can't escape it, so what else, can we go back?

Hu Zongren didn't speak, but went to the commissary to buy two bottles of canned beer, one for each of us, and toasted silently.