Hu Zhouzhou's challenge was like a boulder entering the water, causing a lot of ripples.

Many people came to the Heavenly Dao Hall to find the Taoist who hunted the cat demon. The next business we took was arguably one of the most memorable commissions for me.

The client is in his early forties, dressed in Tang costumes, thin and small, and looks a bit like Ma Yun. After drinking tea with me, he spoke: "The contemptible surname is Ke." The third oldest in the family. Friends call the face three less. ”

Ke San said he was the owner of a private botanical garden. His botanical garden is a bit special, selling not ordinary ornamental flowers, but alchemy medicinal herbs. There are usually many alchemists who frequent.

Boss Ke said that the botanical garden has a limited number of places, and will only stock some goods for each variety. They have a cultivation base elsewhere that specializes in cultivating medicinal herbs. But not so long ago, a whole bunch of strange things appeared in that place. Those things don't look like ghosts, and demons don't look like demons, and they make a mess of the planting base. A lot of herbs were killed.

He wanted me to get rid of the mess there.

Ke San asked one of his employees named Lao Liu to send us to the planting base.

We walked through the countryside and towns, and after more than three hours, we finally came to a place called Lingfeng Valley.

At the intersection of Lingfeng Valley, there is a huge outdoor billboard, and the big characters of "Lin Fei Medicinal Material Planting Base" are printed on the photos of green plants and trees.

Lao Liu is very proud of his company, and proudly said that the "Lin Phong Medicinal Material Planting Base" covers a total area of more than 20,000 acres. This planting base was founded by Ke San's father and has a history of thirty or forty years. There are a total of seven planting sub-farms. There are more than 100 permanent employees alone. There are even more seasonal workers.

I said, "That's too big, isn't it?" Is your botanical garden doing so well? ”

The sixth said: "You don't know about this." Almost all first-tier cities have one of our botanical gardens. It can be said that the medicinal materials needed by alchemists across the country are all provided by our planting base. ”

After turning the corner and driving for more than 20 minutes, we entered the base. I originally thought that I would see patches of "medicinal forests" and green "medicinal seas...... What appeared in front of me was a large area of cracked land! The land opens up countless openings, and lives like thousands of thirsty fish.

The withered plants and trees drooped their heads and fell to the field.

The sixth child was even more surprised than me, and exclaimed, "What's going on? The last time I visited, there were just a few herbs withered! He made a phone call, and not long after, two identical-looking men rushed out from a distance.

These two are twin brothers. One is called Zhao Nan and the other is Zhao Bei. is the head of the base.

Both had unkempt hair and sallow and rough skin. He is not very old, but he has a lot of wrinkles on his face.

The sixth pointed to the dry land and said, "What's going on? The base was cut off from water? ”

Zhao Nan said: "If only it were so simple! ”

Zhao Bei said: "Yes! We irrigate every day as usual, but the water shortage of medicinal herbs is getting worse day by day. ”

Zhao Nan said: "After the herbs almost died, even the land began to dry up!" ”

Zhao Bei said: "That's right! During this time, the sun is not too poisonous, the air humidity is not too low, and the most important thing is that we irrigate every day as usual, I really don't know what is going on! ”

The two brothers spoke as if they were talking to the same person, and they understood each other perfectly. Very interesting.

"Is it a drought?" That was my first reaction.

There are clouds in ancient books: there are people in the south, two or three feet long, with a naked body, and the eyes are on the top, walking like the wind, the name is Lu, the country that he sees is a great drought, thousands of miles of red land, and a drought mother. Drought rays are drought-causing monsters. The drought was born, and all the land within a radius of 100 miles was left with no water.

But I soon overturned my idea. There are many farmlands and groves next to this planting base, and the plants and trees are thriving there. If it was really a drought, how could other nearby places not be affected?

Previously, Ke San described: "A large number of strange things appeared in that place. Those things are not like ghosts, and demons are not like demons", so it can be seen that some of them must have met with the evil things.

Sure enough, Zhao Nan and Zhao Bei said at the same time: "It won't be a drought." We had an employee who had seen those things, and they were only thirty or forty centimeters tall. ”

I thought to myself that it would be great if there was an eyewitness, as long as he described what he saw clearly, I could find out the names of the ghosts and how to deal with them in combination with the content of the "Heavenly Dao Atlas".

I asked to meet the employee, but Zhao Nan and Zhao Bei exchanged a look, and said hesitantly: "I'm afraid this is ......" The sixth interface said: "Master Zhong, that's the case, that employee was too frightened after seeing those things, and he couldn't come to his senses." Screaming day and night. The group really had no choice, so after discussing with his family, they sent him to a psychiatric sanatorium in the city. ”

Zhao Nan and Zhao Bei said that the employee's name was Wang Wu. Wang Wu occasionally had a little sober up, and they asked for several days before they learned the general course of the matter. One night a few weeks ago, when Wang Wu woke up at night, he heard a strange squirming sound, and he thought there was a thief, so he went out to check. As soon as he went out, he saw a hairy face with red fangs!

Wang Wu was so frightened that his face was like earth, and he fell to the ground with his buttocks. He shuddered and struggled to get up, and before he could stand still, he saw that the ground was full of those furry monsters! They resemble apes, with red fur hanging down from the ground and sharp fangs glowing blue in the moonlight. They were all concentrating on breathing among the grass and trees, but when they heard the movement, they suddenly turned around together, grinning at Wang Wu.

Wang Wuda rushed back to the room with a scream, waking up all the people living in the base. He hysterically shouted that there were youkai outside. The other employees immediately rushed out of the door, but saw that the moonlight outside the house was bright, the stars were like a sprinkle, the night was quiet, and the grass was green, which was peaceful. What the hell is there?

They thought it was just Wang Wu's hallucination. But from that day on, the medicinal herbs at the base began to die inexplicably. Later, the situation got worse and worse, and now even the land has dried up. Now they have to believe that Wang Wu met with ghosts. If it's not a ghost, how do you explain what's going on here?

The sixth told them that I was a ghost hunter specially invited by their boss.

When the two brothers Zhao Nan and Zhao Bei heard this, they came around with teary eyes like the people in the old area seeing the Red Army: "This little brother, ah, no, Master is a master, we are all counting on you." ”

"But little master, don't put too much pressure on yourself. In the past few weeks, more than 100 people in our base have been worried about their jobs every day, and if you succeed, the base will be saved, and our work will be saved. So don't put too much pressure on yourself. ”

……

I, I, I'll go! I really didn't have any pressure...... These old foxes......

Zhao Nan and Zhao Bei asked people to clean up two single rooms, so that Hu Zhouzhou and I could rest first. The houses in the base are simple gray brick houses. Most of the employees are local farmers and generally live at home. Only a handful of out-of-town employees like Wang Wu live in the base.

The room was very simple, with only one bed, one table and one chair. "Thirty or forty centimeters tall", "bare-faced fangs", "looks a bit like an ape", "red hair hangs down", I hope that with these clues I can get away with finding ghosts with matching characteristics.

I methodically recalled the contents of the Heavenly Dao Atlas. Suddenly, I remembered a chapter - the mandrill ghost chapter.

The face of the monster in the accompanying picture is ape-like, and its whole body is covered with long green hair. The eyes are as large as copper bells, and the pupils are purple-red. A mouthful of sharp fangs fell to the ground. The five claws are sharp. Born with a bad look.

The annotation reads: The mandrill ghost, with a face like an old melon peel, and a sparkling eye. The huge mouth is like a basin, and the teeth are sparse and sparse about three inches long.

Mandrill ghosts are used to haunting in groups. It's easy to make people.

Rumor has it that mandrill ghosts know the names of people and can kill. It has been proven that this claim is baseless and not true.

Mandrill ghosts are infested in groups, brave and belligerent, and must not fall into the encirclement of the opponent when fighting. You should first try to force the other party to leave the order, and then use the spirit official trick to break them one by one.

Lingguan Fingering: 1. Straighten the middle finger of the left hand, and pinch the tip of the index finger on the back of the first horizontal stripe of the middle finger. 2. Pinch the inside of the tip of the thumb on the first horizontal stripe of the middle finger. 3. The tip of the thumb is opposite the tip of the index finger, and the ring finger and little finger are bent in the palm of the palm.

I'm no stranger to mandrill ghosts. I believe that many people have also heard rumors about mandrill ghosts at some or less. For example, they will take children to the mountains, stuff earthworms with dirt in people's mouths, and throw them on the side of the road; Will eat all the food that the farmer has set aside, and replace it with things like stone weeds.

What impressed me the most was a story my grandmother told me when I was a child. Grandma grew up in a small mountain village. When she was six or seven years old, she went into the mountains one day to play with her three older brothers. They went up to the trees to dig out birds' eggs, went down to the pond to catch loaches, and had a lot of fun. As night fell, when they were jumping and running towards the house, the grandmother suddenly felt footsteps behind her, and turned around to see a little green-haired orangutan behind her.

The baby orangutan was only 20 centimeters tall, dressed in tattered clothes, but wearing a brand new beanie on its head. Grandma and her brothers were amused and gathered around to tease the orangutan. It wasn't until it was dark that they reluctantly said goodbye to the little orangutan.

When she got home, her grandmother talked about the green-haired gorilla with great interest. Their parents were taken aback and grabbed them for careful questioning. Their parents said there was no such thing as an orangutan in this world! They must have met a mandrill! Thankfully, it was just a mandrill, otherwise God knows what would have happened.

After all, my grandmother was young at the time, and she didn't think much of her parents' words, but she only thought that the "green-haired little orangutan" was really cute. Later, when she and her brothers went into the mountains to look for it, they never saw the little mandrill ghost again.