After entering the house, Luo Hongzhen, who was slowly getting used to the dim light in the house, found that a belly pocket was spread out on the wooden square table in the room at the moment.

He remembered that it was the same one that the woman had sewn and mended in his hand a few days ago, and that it was now lying quietly on the square table, with a new patch on top of the place where it had been sewn.

If you look closely, this new patch is on top of the old patch, and there are older patches under the old patch, so this is actually a belly pocket stacked with patches.

"It seems to be an extremely important belly pocket for her," Luo Hongzhen thought, "maybe her son wore it when he was a child." ”

Seeing Luo Hongzhen staring at the belly pocket, the middle-aged woman picked up the belly pocket and held it in her hand, and showed the corner of the embroidered text to the other party: "This is my son's belly pocket." ”

"Oh? It's really worth cherishing," Luo Hongzhen looked at the word "Mingda" on his belly pocket and said, "I just don't know where the eldest sister Linglang is now?" Did you get fame or find a good place to make a living? ”

The woman sighed, clutched her belly pocket tightly in her hand, and said, "The little woman is surnamed Guo with her husband, and the little woman's dog Mingda has been missing for more than fifteen years......"

"Ah......?" Luo Hongzhen was taken aback when he heard this, "Sister-in-law Guo, how did Ling Lang disappear?" ”

The woman looked at the word "Mingda", and her eyes rippled—

Fifteen years ago, because the trade route had not yet been opened, so now the endless stream of business caravans is invisible, at that time the south was located in the northwest corner of Lanzhou, not well-known, but also happy and comfortable.

At that time, the Nanshe system was only half of the current city outline, and the population was less than 10,000.

Although there is no current crowd, there is no today's mixed fish, it is really a family of men and women weaving, and they can even do it at night.

"I'm not afraid of young jokes," Sister Guo said about Nanshe's past, her face was slightly happy, "Nanshe's really comfortable in the past." I remember that the biggest case in the whole south at that time was the stolen cat from the squire's house.

The county government sent two tolerances to find it for a while, and finally found it in an abandoned house at the foot of Yueping Mountain, which was five miles west of the south.

"Because it's just a little pet in the family, so everyone didn't take it seriously, and it didn't take long for everyone to forget about it, and the squire Wang also bought a new more expensive cat, and I don't know where the cat came from, the color of the two eyes is different, it is the left eye cyan, the right eye orange.

"The hair of this cat's whole body is snow-white, I have stolen it a few times, and it feels like the brocade of Yongzhou, so ah, this good cat is a good cat, and it is ......"

Luo Hongzhen interrupted Sister-in-law Guo, who was talking about a cat vividly, with a light cough, and the latter smiled awkwardly: "This person, as soon as he gets older, his head will think about some messy things, which is obviously talking about the incident fifteen years ago, but when he said that the cat came." Don't say it, don't say it, let's move on—"

"It is said that fifteen years ago, in that lucky month, all the children in the city between the ages of three and five suddenly all of them suddenly got a strange disease, and my family Mingda was not immune.

"The sick child has neither a fever nor a cry of pain, but his face is uncontrollable, grimacing, and his eyes are not looking at one place, and the two eyeballs can be turned separately!

"In the beginning, because there were few children, the adults in the city thought that the children were naughty and deliberately grimaced, and they didn't care. Later, more and more children made faces like this, and in the end, the three to five-year-old children in the whole city were so ordinary, so the big guys were in a hurry.

"Some people who believe in ghosts and gods say that these children are afraid that they will be harmed by monsters! So he proposed to hire a demon summoner to catch the demon.

Later, the big guy pooled money to invite a demon caller from Lingzhou who was said to be very good at catching demons.

"As soon as the demon caller came to our south, he immediately set up a demon summoning field, and chirped for a long time, and did the law for three whole days, and after three days, he carried a half-human-high Qiu demon, saying that this demon was the demon who was haunted.

"It's strange to say, since he caught that Qiu demon, some of the children have really been fine! Among them is my family's Mingda. ”

"Oh? This demon summoner is so powerful! Then you must be grateful to him, right? Luo Hongzhen listened with relish.

Sister-in-law Guo did not answer, but continued: "At that time, the adults in the family who had recovered from the child's illness were naturally grateful to him, including me, of course. They gave this demon caller eggs and slaughtered chickens and sheep, and they all worshiped him like a god.

"But those adults who don't have good children in the family don't follow it, saying that this demon has been caught, why are their children good first, but our children are not good? So they pestered the demon caller to ask for an explanation.

The demon summoner muttered and explained for a long time, to the effect that there may be more powerful monsters doing evil, but if you want to catch it, you have to add money, because the previous demon hunt consumes too much mana.

The adults who were not well at the time were also anxious, and they didn't think much about the words of the demon summoner, so they patted their heads and added a lot of silver taels, so the demon summoner continued to catch the demon.

After about five days, the demon caller dragged a marmoset more than one person tall with a sack and threw it in front of everyone, saying that the more powerful demon was also caught by him.

"It's a coincidence, since he caught the marmoset, the children who were not well have also recovered!

"So it's really these two monsters who are doing it?" Luo Hongzhen asked.

Sister-in-law Guo replied softly, "I don't know", and continued-

"After the demon summoner left, about half a month passed, and the child who had recovered for the first time disappeared overnight, and my family's Mingda also disappeared at that time. And the strange thing is that the latter group of recovered children are still alive and kicking around at home, like no one.

"The adults of the family where the child disappeared couldn't come up with a reason, so they had to search for it every day with the government's tolerance, including me and my family.

"In those days, I really looked for it early and late, although the big guys dug up the ground for three feet in a radius of ten miles from the south, and there was not even a single child's hair missing.

It wasn't until seven days later that it was said that the bodies of several missing children had been found in a cave at the foot of Yueping Mountain.

"At that time, I rushed to Yueping Mountain like crazy, because I was afraid that among the dead children would be my family Mingda.

Later, when I went to that careful identification, I found that there was no Ming Da among the corpses, so I was a little relieved. After all, it's better to be missing than to die.

"It is said that there is no scar on the body of those corpses, and the expression of these dead children is more like sleeping, as if they will wake up when they open their eyes.

After discovering the corpses of these children, the men, women, and children in the south of the city were stunned, and searched for the entire Yueping Mountain, which was ten miles long.

"The bodies of the missing children have been found in all corners of the mountains, in caves, ravines, and under cliffs. I don't know why the bodies of these children are scattered in so many places.

"Later, the government counted the bodies one by one and found that only one of the missing children had not yet been found."

Luo Hongzhen, who was deeply immersed in the story, asked excitedly: "Who is it?!" ”

"My child Guo Mingda."