The moonlight seemed to inject flesh and blood into the evil ghosts outlined in the lines, as if they were about to jump out of the book. Li Changan felt cold in his heart. He turned the pages of the book, and two words of ink reappeared on the text that had faded on the first page.
.
"Tongyou?"
Li Changan murmured, literally speaking, he could communicate with the underworld and communicate with gods and ghosts. But what does this mean? Li Changan's thoughts were confused and he could not understand the current situation.
He is not a person who sits around and thinks about things.
He stood up and walked to the door of the broken house.
The door looked like it hadn't been touched for a long time, it was covered with dust and cobwebs.
Li Changan took a deep breath.
"Stab it."
With the sound of door shafts rubbing, the wooden door slowly opened.
A burst of hustle and bustle from the market suddenly flooded into my ears.
Li Changan raised his head in shock.
Compared to the dilapidated and miserable interior of the house, there is another world outside.
This is a long street of compacted loess, lined with ancient Chinese-style buildings. Although it is already late at night and the Jade Rabbit is in the sky, white lanterns are hung on both sides of the long street, and the lights are bright against the moonlight.
The long street is even more crowded with people, but the pedestrians are wearing clothes, either wide sleeves or linen shorts. Even the goods sold by street vendors are hairpins, candied haws and the like. There is no trace of modern society at all.
It's like diving into a costume drama.
There is some light mist hanging on the street, and although the lights are still bright, they become a bit hazy when you are farther away.
Therefore, pedestrians seem to be walking from nothingness and then entering nothingness again.
Li Changan walked through the crowd in despair.
"Tanghulu is on sale!" an old man shouted on the street carrying a straw pole.
"Newly picked mountain flowers today." A little girl in a Su Luo skirt passed by Li Chang'an carrying a basket.
Then there were all kinds of pedestrians in ancient costumes walking past Li Changan, and a huge sense of absurdity filled his heart.
What is this place? Why am I here?
…………………………
"guest."
A middle-aged man with a white cloth on his shoulders suddenly stopped him.
"Want some noodles?"
When Li Changan came back to his senses, he realized that he had arrived at a noodle stall unknowingly.
He was about to shake his head and refuse. He had just had dinner at the banquet for his grandfather's funeral, but the aroma of the boiling noodle pot was stirred up by the night wind, and a fragrance that he had never smelled before rushed into his nose, and the food in his stomach disappeared.
It was as if everything was digested all at once.
Inadvertently, I sat in the empty seat of the noodle stall.
"Guest, here comes your face."
The store owner shouted, and a steaming bowl of plain noodles was placed in front of Li Changan.
I don’t know what kind of material the noodles are made of, but they are actually black. There are chopped green onions sprinkled on top. When washed by the hot noodle soup, the heat mixed with the aroma will hit your face.
Li Changan took a deep breath of the aroma and felt the aroma rush from his nose straight to his forehead. He quickly took out the chopsticks and couldn't wait to eat them, but in the blink of an eye, he thought, does the boss recognize the RMB he is wearing?
Thinking of this, the center of his brow suddenly felt painful. He closed his eyes and rubbed it for a long time.
As soon as I recovered, I heard a hoarse voice coming from the seat next to me.
"Staff, your noodle soup is too weak."
Li Changan followed the sound and looked over. A stooped old man was holding a noodle bowl and moved to the big pot for cooking noodles.
"Okay, the guests are waiting, I'll spice it up right now."
Let's say, the noodle stall owner held his head with both hands, and with a twist, his head was actually twisted off by himself. Then he groped for the noodle pot and threw his head into the boiling noodle soup.
Li Changan managed to avoid screaming in fright.
He took a closer look and realized that the flames under the noodle pot were not red but green, and what was burning inside was not wood, but human bones.
In such a horrifying scene, Li Changan didn't notice any signs of surprise among the diners around him.
His heart skipped a beat and he looked towards the street.
"Your flowers."
The little girl in a plain skirt took out a dead hand from the basket with a smile and handed it to a pair of pale-faced men and women.
"Candied haws, you've got it."
The old man took out a bamboo stick, and what was stuck on it were not candy balls, but red eyeballs.
He knelt down and handed the string of eyeballs to a child with braided hair.
The child took the string of eyeballs and opened his mouth wide. The mouth opened wider and wider, and the corners of his mouth seemed to be cracked to the base of his ears. Even one of his own eyeballs was squeezed out, but he caught the eyeball nonchalantly and continued with it.
The eyeball strings were stuffed into the mouth together.
"Click."
Juice splashes everywhere.
Li Changan shuddered and did not dare to look again.
Looking back, the face in front of me is no face.
The black noodles were clearly a ball of hair soaked in water, but the green onions on top were maggots that had been chopped with a knife.
This is not a night market, it is clearly a ghost market!
………………………………
Li Changan twisted his thigh hard, using the pain to calm down some of the fear in his heart.
He looked at his surroundings carefully, and when he arrived at the noodle stall, the white lanterns along the street gradually became rarer, and the number of pedestrians, or ghosts, on the road was also only in twos and threes.
We should be almost at the end of the ghost market.
Li Changan glanced at the direction of the noodle pot again. The old man stood blankly holding the noodle bowl, while the headless boss was stirring the pot with a long-handled spoon, making the head soup cooked with his own head.
The aroma of the soup entered his nose again, and Li Changan couldn't help but feel nauseous.
He gently put down his chopsticks and quietly left the noodle stall.
He didn't even look at the dead faces on the roadside, he kept his head down and walked quickly forward.
"Guest, I haven't given you your face money yet."
Suddenly, the noodle stall owner's voice sounded faintly behind him.
In an instant, the street suddenly became quiet. The ghosts who were doing their own thing stopped what they were doing, looked at Li Changan in unison, and slowly gathered around.
The way forward is blocked.
Li Changan broke out in cold sweat and slowly turned his head.
The noodle shop owner was standing behind him, holding his head on his waist with one hand. His head was covered with water stains and steaming.
"Guest." The head opened his mouth to speak, "You don't have money, do you?"
Li Changan swallowed hard. After being frightened one after another, the fear in his heart actually subsided a lot.
"That doesn't matter."
The head said with a smile. As he spoke, he pushed his head back to his neck and wiped the soup on his face with a rag. Maybe it was overcooked. Wherever the rag wiped, the skin and flesh were torn, revealing the white bones.
"Guests can use other things to offset the bill."
"Debit?"
Li Changan murmured softly, this word seemed to have an inexplicable chill in this situation.
"That's right!" the noodle stall owner said quietly, "Heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, everything can be healed?"