zero o'clock

【Wanqing Pawnshop】

Later, Qi Jingyu asked Lagrange some more detailed questions.

This French mouse is not small, but he is indeed a mouse with courage. He was quite frightened when he watched his colleague disappear. In addition, his Chinese is only at an ordinary level of communication, so many things can only be answered roughly.

At the end of the talk, Ari lay on the back of the sofa and began to snore.

Li Huan was also a little sleepy, but he couldn't help it. There was a night owl in the WeChat group who kept throwing red envelopes. In the middle of the night, all the monsters were asleep, and only the red envelopes were silently swiping the screen. The local tyrant is still awake, and has always maintained a strange state of throwing and grabbing.

Seeing that he could no longer ask why, Qi Jingyu said to Lagrange: "I will dispatch hunters to investigate this matter. If it is confirmed that it is the work of a demon, I will deal with it as soon as possible. You should be more careful when you go back. If you are really worried Just try to minimize your activities in the area where the incident occurred." After speaking, he tightened his fox-fur cloak and stood up, politely extending his hand towards the other party.

Lagrange got up and shook Qi Jingyu's palm, the two shook hands, and then separated.

Lagrange sniffed, and said with a sad face: "Impossible, the project is in a hurry to go online, our Spring Festival holiday is postponed, and we have to wait until the fifth day to rest. I won't go home later, and go directly to the company to work."

"Anyway, we still have to pay attention to safety," Qi Jingyu paused, "I'll let Xiaohuan see you off." After speaking, he winked at the little apprentice.

Li Huan drowsily grabbed the red envelope, locked the phone and put it on the coffee table, and then returned to the bedroom alone to change clothes.

A few seconds later, there was a vibrating sound, the screen of the mobile phone lit up, and a WeChat push message prompted "There is a new red envelope".The night was deep, and there was indeed no third demon online in the dating group. The last red envelope was still at the bottom of the chat window. After a long time, it was finally clicked by the person who threw it. At the same time, there was an extra line of words in the red envelope comment area——

The man said: [Good night. 】

At five o'clock in the morning, the Shichahai area was completely empty.

There was a half-person-high snowman at the entrance of the Bi'an Tea House. The naughty human child used firecrackers to make an ugly nose for it, and used coal balls and red firecracker crumbs to trace the shape of the eyes and mouth. Li Huan looked at the snowman. He was so ugly that he couldn't help laughing, and when he looked up again, he found that Lagrange was staring at him.

Putting away his smile, Li Huan looked back with a straight face and said, "What's the matter?"

"I felt strange at the train station that day," Lagrange leaned over, sniffing around like a dog, and finally asked, "You don't have a monster, is it because your cultivation level is too high? What? Variety?"

Li Huan pushed away that unflattering mouse face expressionlessly, turned around and walked towards Bar Street: "I don't know."

Lagrange hurriedly followed, tilted his head to look at Li Huan's side face, tried to exude male hormones, and said with a smile: "It's so indifferent, can't we make friends?"

The difference in height between the two was half a head, and Li Huan was thinner. When he stood next to him, his whole body looked smaller. In addition, in the middle of the night, the alley was dark and there were no other living things around. It is reminiscent of pornographic dramas in which a giant X macho obscenely looks at the same sex and so on.

It's a pity that this hunk has guts, and Li Huan immediately froze when he pinched his knuckles.

Lagrange moved two steps to the side calmly, reached into his trouser pocket to touch his phone, and said weakly: "Then... let's add a WeChat friend first." He took out his phone, pressed the Home button, and just now The machine, soaked in the water from the fish pond, immediately made a thud, and the green smoke drifted away, and it was scrapped.

Lagrange: "..."

Li Huan raised his eyebrows and smiled, "How do you plan to go?"

Lagrange put away his mobile phone depressedly, and said, "There is a subway over there at Nanluo, and you can go directly to the company."

Li Huan gave a faint "um" and stopped talking. The two walked across the Yinding Bridge side by side, and walked along Yandai Xiejie towards Nanluo Ancient Lane.

It is a tourist attraction as famous as the Bar Street in the entire Shichahai area. It is famous all over the world for the old Beijing hutongs, but in fact it has almost been invaded by foreign cultures, but there are a lot of history mixed in all kinds of strange modern shops. An old shop left over.

Most of these old stores are no longer in operation, but the doors and windows of the Cultural Bureau have been sealed, and the introduction signs have been set up as a special display for tourists from all over the world to look at the exterior walls, and the interior is forbidden to visit.

Although Nanluoguxiang is only ten minutes away from the alley where the Bi'an Tea House is located, Li Huan has had only a handful of opportunities to go there in the nearly 20 years since he was a child. Passed by, never went in to see seriously.

In Qi Jingyu's words, everything in this world that has been passed down for hundreds of thousands of years has aura to some extent. Even if it is a dead thing such as a house and utensils, can you know where the ghost lives in it?

So - it's better not to mess with it.

Beijing's morning subway started running at [-]:[-]. When the two walked to the subway, there were already a few sporadic passengers going down. Lagrange's mobile phone was scrapped and he couldn't remember the number. Li Huan had to save his number in his mobile phone spare.

The mouse monster worked overtime all night and was frightened several times. His clothes were still wet, and his face looked particularly haggard.

Li Huan patted him on the shoulder sympathetically out of the slight sympathy between the same kind, and persuaded: "It's still early, go home and change clothes before going to work when you have time, and be careful of catching a cold."

When Lagrange thought that the pedestrian street where the accident happened was just across from the company, the whole monster was in a bad mood. He reluctantly nodded, and then looked at Li Huan worriedly: "You guys have to hurry up."

"It's today if nothing happens, I'll contact you then." Li Huan said, "Let's go back early."

Lagrange went up the escalator and sank slowly into the subway entrance.

The LED prompt board showed that the time was not yet six o'clock. Li Huan turned around and put his cold hands in his pockets. Several human passengers passed by him. The New Year is coming, Vientiane will be renewed, and when the sun rises, Everything that belongs to the world will come back to life.He suddenly felt a little lonely. Sunrise and sunset were nothing but eternal scenes in the eyes of monsters. Could it be that he spent a hundred years in cultivating monster transformation just to be exiled by time in the end and bear the sin of immortality?

Li Huan couldn't imagine what he would look like in 200 years, so he shook his head to drive these messy thoughts out of his brain.

He was standing under the dim streetlight, and the Nanluoguxiang that Qi Jingyu forbids to enter was behind him, like a huge dark mouth with no bottom. He knew that he should return to the tea house along the original road as soon as possible, but in his consciousness There is always a thread of thought that is just around the corner, reminding him to look back and see the place that has never been explored before.

At this moment, there was a rustling sound from the green belt, and a three-flowered civet cat poked its head out, and the yellow eyes of the cat in the darkness emitted a faint light. It tilted its head and stared at the stranger who was staring at it. "Meow", then quickly withdrew his body and disappeared into the alley.

Li Huan was stunned, feeling that the civet cat looked familiar, he subconsciously walked a few steps quickly to get a better look, and when he came back to his senses, he found that he had followed the civet cat into the Nanluogu road that was shrouded in night and mist. alley, but the cat was nowhere to be seen.

The old trees are towering, with withered branches stretching out into the night sky, the doors and windows of the shops on both sides of the alley are closed, and many of them have posted Spring Festival holiday notices, making it very deserted.

I don't know why, but there is no artificial lighting in the whole street, and the light is dim. If it wasn't for Yaosheng's superior night vision, Li Huan wouldn't even be able to tell where he was.It was too dark here, and Li Huan didn't dare to go forward rashly. He turned his head to look at the road, only to find that there was also an endless shopping street, and the highway and subway station seemed to have disappeared out of thin air.

suddenly--

"Meow~"

A faint cat call came from behind him, Li Huan turned around cautiously, his heart was so tense that it almost reached his throat, but the civet cat did not appear.He opened his eyes slightly, and his pure black pupils reflected a warm red light—not far away, two vermilion lanterns were lit up at some point in the alley that was originally invisible. A layer of red gauze, two clusters of eternal karmic fire are shaking in the distance.

Is it a demon? !

Li Huan's heart sank in vain, there was no way out behind him now, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and walk over to check.

It was a building made of blue brick and glazed tiles. The outer wall was very old, and there were many traces of modern repairs. The storefront was tall and spacious, and the traditional Chinese character "Wanqing" was engraved in the middle. It must have been in Nanluoguxiang in those days. A treasure trove of wealth.When Li Huan approached, he found a low stele built on the stone road next to the main entrance. The stele was engraved in official script with an introduction to the relics. He took a cursory glance and knew that this facade used to be a pawnshop called "Wanqing Pawnshop". .

This place should have been sealed off by the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Protection, so how could it still be in business?

Li Huan stared at the black lacquered door that opened in front of him, not knowing for a while whether he should enter or not.

Just as he was hesitating, he heard chirping birds from the crack of the door, and then, a slightly frivolous male voice said with a smile: "Wanqing Pawnshop is open after zero o'clock. It's good for demons and not for people." , you can pawn everything in the world, if you are interested, sir, you might as well come and take a look at it at dawn."

At this time, Li Huan was the only living creature in the entire Nanluoguxiang, so it was naturally impossible to say this to the second monster.He took a deep breath, and stepped forward to push open the door panel. In the cold winter months, a sweet fragrance of flowers rushed to his face unexpectedly.

The courtyards behind the courtyard gate are exquisitely scattered. Although the lights are not lit, it seems that there is a lot of light powder, and every scene and everything is like a layer of white moonlight.When Li Huan stepped through the threshold, he saw a man standing under the peach blossom tree facing the gate, presumably it was the man who was talking to him.

The other party was tall and tall, with wide shoulders and narrow hips. He wore a black shirt with silver-gray handmade trousers, which complemented his figure very well, but seemed a bit out of place in this classical courtyard.He held a small enamel bowl in his left hand, and held a bamboo stick in his right hand to pick up the soaked millet in the bowl and feed it to a bird in the cage—Li Huan frowned, why was there a sparrow in the cage?

"Are you the shopkeeper of Wanqing's pawn shop?" Li Huan said.

The man whistled to tease the bird, and answered absent-mindedly, "Exactly."

Li Huan walked over and stood in front of him, without going around in circles, and said straight to the point: "What do you want me to do?"

Hearing this, the man raised his eyebrows, as if he heard something interesting, he put the enamel porcelain bowl and bamboo sticks together on the stone table, turned his face, and looked at him with a smile: "This How should I put it, the customers who come to the door should ask for something in their hearts, after all, Wanqing Pawnshop only does business with predestined people."

The man had a handsome face, and every line of the facial features seemed to have been carefully sculpted, but the most eye-catching thing was the pair of crimson demon eyes that looked like they had been bathed in blood. Li Huan had never seen it on anyone before. With such coquettish eyes, even the most common smile can be infected with 12 points of evil to the extreme.

A profiteer, the young master told himself silently in his heart that he couldn't believe anything this guy said.

As if he had seen through his mind, the man raised the corners of his mouth meaningfully, showing a sly smile that was both good and evil, and reminded lightly: "Little devil, you showed your disgust too clearly, didn't Nine Tails teach you , What do you mean by restraining your emotions and deceiving people's hearts?"

"It also depends on who it is for," Li Huan sneered: "It's not the first time you and I have met, is there still a need to pretend to test each other? Do you think so, Mr. Yan?"

The young man's gentle voice was stained with a smile, the corners of his mouth curled up, his extremely charming peach blossom eyes lightly lifted his feathers, and a slippery and sly light suddenly appeared in the depths of the dark pupils.

- To Be Continued