Bai Ze was talking energetically, and Old Man Tao suddenly appeared and made a silent gesture at them.

The ghost ship appeared.

It seemed to be darker than when I first came. The wind was blowing coldly, and there was a salty smell constantly blowing from the surface of the river. A boat, the kind of passenger boat that is very common on the river, leans towards the shore little by little with the wind.

Bai Li looked at it quietly, it moved very slowly, like a walking old man in the twilight years on crutches. Finally, it floated to the shore and ran aground.

Bai Li walked over slowly, and through the shallow light on the river, he could vaguely see the appearance of the boat. As I thought before, it was a very ordinary wooden ship, with two curved ends and a cabin in the middle, which was blocked by a cloth curtain.

"The bully took the red bean girl away, why did you take this boat?" Bai Li pointed to the broken boat in front of him and asked the master and Bai Ze: "He is also a gentleman, even if he doesn't have his own private boat, he can rent that kind of particularly good-looking flower boat, or even the official ship of the official family, I don't understand, why does he want to take this broken boat." ”

"Because there are no other boats on the river." The originally dark cabin lit up, and through the curtain a sitting girl could be seen. That shadow, Bai Li had seen before when he was in the Gao family, was the shadow of the red bean girl through the window.

"Red Bean Girl?"

"If the girl is not afraid, she can go to the boat and talk about it."

The curtain was blown open by the wind, revealing the appearance of a red bean girl. She smiled, looked at Bai Li, who was standing at the bow of the boat, and reached out to make a gesture of please.

"I'm afraid, but I'm not afraid, I just think it's strange, the red bean girl in the middle of the night is not staying in the new house, why does she appear on this ghost ship?"

"I didn't stay in the new house because I knew that Ziping wouldn't go back to the new house. The new house is for two people, and I feel uncomfortable staying there alone. The reason why I am on this ghost boat is because this boat is my home and my shelter. I just wanted to go, but I couldn't. ”

"I understood the first half of the sentence, but I didn't understand the second half of the sentence very well."

"Don't worry, Hongdou knows that he is not the opponent of the two, and he will never be unfavorable to the white girl." Hongdou first got up, saluted Old Man Tao and Bai Ze, and then looked at Bai Li and said, "If the girl wants to know, you can go to the boat." ”

"My master said that this is a ghost boat, and just now the white liar also said that this is a ghost boat, and you appeared on the ghost boat again, red bean girl, you shouldn't be a water ghost in this river, right?"

"If Hongdou nods and says yes, are you afraid, white girl?"

"Fear?" Bai Li raised his feet and got on the boat: "Seriously, if this was before, let alone seeing a ghost boat, I would be a little weak when I stopped by this river in the middle of the night." I used to be quite timid, and I loved to listen to ghost stories, but I was very afraid of seeing ghosts. But later, after experiencing some things, I felt that this ghost was nothing to be afraid of. ”

"The white girl is really different from others, if others hear what Hongdou said just now, they will either scream and run away, or take out something to beat Hongdou. Although Red Bean is an underwater ghost, he has never wanted to hurt anyone, especially you, girl. ”

"You're really a water ghost?"

"Yes, red beans are."

"So water ghosts can be so beautiful?" Bai Li didn't enter the cabin, but randomly found a place to sit down at the bow of the boat: "Speaking of which, you are not the first ghost I have seen. The first one I saw was Hanazu, and she was also very good-looking, but her appearance after becoming a ghost was a little scary. I've heard of water ghosts before, and I imagine them to be drenched, with all their hair sticking to their bodies like seaweed, and maybe a sticky feeling, with a particularly unpleasant underwater smell on their bodies. It could also be the smell of aquatic weeds, or it could be the smell of underwater silt. But you don't look like a water ghost at all. ”

"Should red beans be happy?" Azuki said, of course laughing.

"Of course you should be happy to be praised for being beautiful." Bai Li held his chin: "When I was a child, I looked very dark, and my facial features were not unremarkable, and the most like a compliment I heard from childhood to adulthood was, ah, your girl doesn't seem to be as dark as it used to be, and it's not so ugly." ”

"What a pretty girl that person has ever seen, why does she think you are ugly?" Hongdou stared at Bai Li: "You are clearly good-looking, if you grow up, your appearance will be above me." ”

Bai Li shrugged his shoulders slightly and said, "That's because Sister Hongdou, you haven't seen me before." Forget it, it's all in the past, and it's boring to talk about it, just know that you don't look ugly now. By the way, what's the matter with the ship you just talked about? ”

"The bully did want to borrow the official ship of the official family at first, but the official ship caught fire for no reason, and although it was extinguished in time, it was burned in a mess and could not be used at all. He took me on a flower boat, but as soon as the boat left the shore, it began to fill with water, and after checking around, he found that there was a leak at the bottom of the cabin. No other boat on this river can be used, only this one, which is good. ”

"So weird?"

"I thought it was strange at the time, but how could such a coincidence happen in this world. Later, when I saw Ziping, I realized that he did all this. The official ship was burned by him. The flower boat was chiseled by him, including the dried corpse floating in the river that we met later. The bully once designed him, and the romance took turns, and it was he who designed the bully. ”

"I really didn't expect that our Gao Gongzi is still such a wise person."

Ziping is indeed smart, but these things were things he didn't bother to do in the past. He hated the bully and he hated me, so he planned to make it happen that we all died on the river. His plan was successful, and the boat we were in capsized and the bully and I fell into the river. ”

"I know the bully is dead, but didn't you come ashore alive, Red Bean Girl?"

"Before tonight, I thought I was ashore alive, until in the new room I saw my wounds bubbling outward, and I remembered that I was dead, too." Hongdou looked down at the place on his body that was injured by Gao Ziping with a sword before: "I actually died a long time ago, and I sank at the bottom of this river with the bullies." Before the bully fell into the water, he dragged me into the water with me, and I struggled, but he hugged me desperately, and even tried to float to the surface through me. Originally, he could live, but when he was underwater, we saw Ziping and Ziping's face. He can't live, and I can't let him live, because if he lives, Ziping will die, and everything I did before will be done in vain. ”