"Taoist Master! Wait a moment. It's me!"

As soon as the man was caught, he started shouting, which startled Li Changan.

The Taoist priest lowered his head and saw that he was less than five feet tall and had an ugly face with thick hair.

"You recognize me?"

The man was anxious, fearing that his fist would be in vain, so he hurriedly tore his clothes apart.

There is little skin and flesh under the clothes, and most of them are thick, fluffy yellow hairs.

Li Changan felt familiar. He thought about it carefully and finally realized it.

We meet each other everywhere in life. I didn’t expect to meet an acquaintance here in Yuhang. No, I should say an acquaintance!

He is the yellow-haired ghost who once caused trouble in the Shexing Teahouse.

"All yamen in the world don't want to get involved in anything. The Taoist priest in front of me sent me to the government office, and the yamen in the back threw me in a mass grave. It rained that night and soaked the yellow talisman at the entrance of the altar, so I

See the light of day again soon!"

Li Changan wondered: "It's rare to see the light of day, why do you dare to show up in front of Pindao?"

"Is this one time and that time?"

The yellow-haired ghost was smiling and talking, when suddenly, a low evening bell rang outside the alley.

He looked up at the sky, and the setting sun shone on the alley, dyeing his yellow hair golden. At first glance, he looked like Sun Wukong from a storybook. But if you look closely, that furry face doesn't look like a monkey, but more like a dog.

"Alas, the sun has set again. This is not the place to talk."

He asked the priest:

"May I ask where the chief is staying?"

“Nowhere to stay.”

The yellow-haired ghost suddenly showed a hint of joy.

"If the Taoist priest doesn't mind the shabby situation, can you stay overnight at the kid's temporary residence?"

When you are alive, it is normal to stay in a deserted grave. How can you be picky when you are dead?

Li Changan does everything he can.

…………

Where should ghosts live?

Wild grave? Ruined temple? Abandoned house?

Huang Wei, also known as the yellow-haired ghost, did not go anywhere. He led Li Changan to a bustling cattle and horse market in the city.

Of course, the commotion was during the day, and now the sun was setting. All shops were closing before the market closed, and there were few pedestrians on the streets. Mist came from the Qiantang River, making it hazy and deserted. Some living people had retreated.

It means habitable for the dead.

Huang Wei found a regular chicken shop and instead of going through the front entrance, he took a detour through the back entrance and entered the courtyard.

The yard is quite large, with a large thatched shed set up on the left side and a row of bamboo cages standing under the shed. There are swarms of flies and a strong stench of chicken feces.

There is also a thatched shed on the right, but it is surrounded by an earthen wall. Looking in through the small window, there are no chickens or ducks inside, only a shed with people resting on chicken feathers.

Li Changan then understood.

This is not only a chicken shop, but also a chicken feather shop.

Huang Wei spent twenty bucks to beg two baskets of chicken feathers from the shop owner, gave Li Changan half, and continued walking inside.

"I thought I was dazzled when I saw the Taoist priest at the leftover ghost."

"What? You don't believe that I am also in Yuhang?"

"That's not true, it's just that I never expected that the Taoist priest would also become a ghost."

"It's not unusual to be a ghost. All humans are mortal. But it's very strange for us two ghosts to not meet each other in the underworld, but to meet again in the human world."

"So, what's more strange?"

Huang Wei gave up and walked to a large thatched shed at the end of the yard.

Open the curtain and go in.

The shed was at least twenty paces deep from beginning to end, and was filled with people walking in two rows, foot to foot. There were no beds or chairs, only chicken feathers on the floor, but the windows were few and small, the light was dim, and the air was turbid and muggy.

Flies and mosquitoes buzzed with snoring, and the stench of feet and sweat mixed with the smell of chicken feces.

The Taoist priest suddenly dreamed back to the time when he was catching a train during the Spring Festival. The floor of the carriage was filled with people like a puzzle. If you jump up, there will be no place to stay when you fall down.

Huang Tail skillfully stood on tiptoes and jumped in. When he got to the end of the hay shed, he stepped on everyone here and woke them up one by one.

"Everyone, get up and look, who have I brought here?!"

The people who were disturbed were cursing at first, but when they saw Li Changan...

"Taoist priest? Taoist priest Li?"

"Scared! It's really Li Shenxian."

"Aye, Auntie, the Taoist uncle is here to catch us again."

Li Changan was surprised to find that this noisy group of men, women, and children were actually the ghosts in the tea shed. The country men working together, the scholars traveling together, the two salesmen, and the fleeing family of four were all here.

.

…………

Huang Wei asked the Taoist priest and the ghosts to wait for a while, then left the hut, and after a while, he came back with wine and food, followed by a little old man.

There was no table, so the food and wine had to be placed on the spot.

The wine was turbid wine mixed with water, and it looked like a thin mud soup in the bowl; the food was better, a large plate full of minced chicken and duck, which had been scalded with boiling water and had blood oozing out.

Li Changan has no appetite and is full of questions.

Just now he was chatting with the ghosts and learned that when the monk saved them, he felt a warm white light melting into him, and his consciousness gradually fell into chaos. But when he woke up in the blink of an eye, he found that he had arrived outside Yuhang City, and spent a while in the lonely soul wilderness.

Ghosts, Huangwei found them one by one.

The Dharma is strict and the Dharma is profound, so there should be no such flaw, so Li Changan's first reaction was:

"Is it possible that something evil is causing trouble locally, blocking the yin and yang?"

The little old man's surname was Qiao, and he claimed to be an old acquaintance of Huang Wei. After hearing Li Changan's words, he laughed so hard that his beard trembled.

"This Taoist master is very funny in his speech. Evil thing? I, a local old ghost, have never heard of it, but the isolation between yin and yang started hundreds of years ago. The dead ghosts who fall in the local area will not be able to descend into the yin cao."

"Hundreds of years?" The Taoist priest didn't believe it. "Without the yin and yang, wouldn't ghosts and demons become rampant?"

The little old man smiled and picked up a piece of chicken neck to chew on. Huang Wei next to him took over the words:

"Can Taoist Priest listen to a sentence?"

"What?"

Huangwei didn't rush to answer.

He pushed open the small window on the wall.

Outside the window, Yuhang City rang the last evening bell, and the last trace of light fell from the sky.

The day is over.

The half-gnawed chicken paw in Li Changan's hand suddenly fell to the ground through his palm and was stained with chicken feathers. Lighting was not allowed in the store, but the Taoist priest had a strange feeling that his shadow was disappearing and it was slowly retracting into itself.

On the body.

The position at the door belonged to a woman, old and shriveled, but her snoring was the loudest in the whole yard. But at this time, there were other notes in her snoring. She turned her head to take a closer look. As the snoring rose and fell, she kept opening her mouth.

Swallowing a three-foot-long tongue.

The man's arms and legs under the east wall were too long, and he had to curl up in a ball before, lying suffocatingly. Now he took off his head and put it on his belly button, freeing up space and finally able to stretch his legs.

The resident lying on the west side has a round belly, which is especially popular with flies. There are swarms of flies around him, making the surroundings very annoying. Now, the sky has fallen, showing a serious appearance. There is a big gap between the chest and abdomen, and the liver, intestines, spleen and stomach are faintly visible.

.He then plugged the gap tightly with chicken feathers, so that the flies could not find the rotten intestines and liver, and gradually dispersed.

Even Old Man Qiao's skinny body swelled suddenly, and his clothes were almost torn. He untied his belt, and his rotten white flesh, which was swollen and shiny, bulged out.

It turns out that the people living in the thatched hut of this chicken feather shop are all ghosts.

Huangwei's voice sounded faintly:

"The city of Yuhang is 70% human and 30% ghost."

…………

Li Changan picked up the chicken feet, twisted off the chicken feathers, and stuffed them back into his mouth.

Frowning, he chewed for a while.

"I heard that there are 100,000 households in Yuhang City. If you count five people per household, there are 500,000 people. Add in the hermits, refugees, servants, and monks, and there are about 700,000 people. According to your statement,

Aren’t there 300,000 ghosts in Yuhang City?!”
To be continued...