False evidence

Chapter 370 Seems like an old friend
Erpang looked around and said, "That kid's not very nice. Who gives away cigarette butts like that?"

Gao asked in confusion, "I've been watching from behind the whole time, where is anyone?"

The monkey also said, "I was wondering who you two were talking to just now."

Although monkeys usually like to joke around, they would never play a prank at this time.

"Nobody's here, could it be a ghost?"

Erpang's expression was rather unpleasant, because he couldn't see the boy anywhere around him.

I thought to myself, "You guessed right this time; that guy really isn't human."

Erpang wanted to throw away the cigarette butt, but I stopped him and took it from him to examine it.

It didn't look like it had been smoked recently; it looked like it had been lying on the ground for a long time, and the filter tip was even a bit faded.

"Pegasus?" I asked Gao He, "Do they still sell this brand of cigarettes?"

Gao He said, "These cigarettes used to be a staple for migrant workers. They cost two yuan a pack, but that was at least ten years ago. You can't find them on the market anymore."

"A cigarette butt from ten years ago..."

Erpang's voice trembled slightly as he said, "Could it really be a ghost?"

"Stop talking nonsense and get off the bus right now!"

I know very well that there are some things I really can't say in front of Gao He.

Since Erpang was new here, we can't really blame him. But he shouldn't have been so impulsive.

Let alone the fact that there are specific rules between Yin and Yang, if you use your brain, would you just accept something from a stranger late at night in the middle of nowhere?
I opened the ashtray, put the cigarette butt in it, and urged Erpang to get out of the car.

Erpang wanted to back out and said he would stay in the car to provide backup.

I know he's afraid of dead people, but Monkey and I are accompanying him on this "house call." The real culprit is huddled in the car; what are Monkey and I doing here?
I threatened Erpang, saying, "You can stay if you want, but when that young man comes back later, you can take him to the bus stop!"

Erpang shivered and immediately got off the bus.

Gao and I each took a flashlight. Just in case, Monkey found a tire wrench and gave Erpang a large screwdriver.

Just like Lao Lu said, the factory has been abandoned for a long time, and the weeds in the yard are overgrown and tangled, with the tallest ones not even reaching above knee height.

Inside the factory, the main production equipment had long been moved out, but some old and dilapidated machinery that could not be dismantled remained.

Gao and others told us to avoid touching anything here so as not to destroy the clues.

I said, "Do you really believe that corpses can walk?"

"Of course I don't believe it, but it's precisely because someone is playing tricks that preserving the scene is even more important."

As Gao He spoke, he turned on his flashlight and walked to the side.

I gestured for the monkey to follow, while Erpang and I searched the other side.

Upon hearing that someone was behind it, Erpang's courage immediately grew, and he said as he walked:
"No matter who it is, using dead people to cause trouble is just despicable. By the way, Sanqi, I just remembered, if we really find Jiang Yazhen, how am I going to treat her? You know, I'm not afraid of anything else, but I'm afraid of dead people."

I was both amused and exasperated: "Didn't your husband teach you what to do?"

"No! It was only after our family suffered this disaster that Master Yao said he would take me on as his apprentice. These past few days I've only been running errands for him. Apart from telling me some of the rules of the Drywood Hall, he hasn't taught me anything else!"

Hearing him say that, I secretly shook my head. Grandpa wasn't a bad person, but he wasn't exactly a saint either. Erpang, on the other hand, was a genuinely simple-minded fool. Grandpa's offer to take him on as an apprentice seemed like a last-minute conscription, a way to take advantage of an honest man.

At that moment, I suddenly felt as if someone was following me.

Turning around, all I could see were Gao and the monkey in the distance; there was no one else around.

"Ouch!" I heard Erpang yell and quickly turned around to see him fall flat on his face.

"Hey, can't you be more careful!"

I tried to pull him up, but my foot slipped on something slippery and I stumbled. Luckily, I managed to regain my balance in time, or I would have fallen on him.

Erpang got up on his own, then helped me up, holding a screwdriver in front of him as he whispered, "Someone's here!"

I tensed up and shone my flashlight in the direction his gaze was pointing.

Between the two concrete platforms, an eye was clearly visible!
"Brother Gao!"

I shouted and climbed over the nearly one-meter-high concrete platform. Looking down from there, I saw a person lying on the ground behind me.

Judging from her figure, it wasn't a woman, but rather looked like a ragged, rambling beggar.

I jumped off the concrete platform, squatted down next to the man, and reached out to feel his pulse in his neck.

Before the fingers even touched his skin, he suddenly turned his face sharply, his eyes wide, and screamed in a hoarse, shrill voice:
"Get them out! Get them out of here quickly!"

His face was greenish-blue, his skin wrinkled like a shriveled orange peel, and when he opened his mouth, there were only two yellow teeth that were crookedly aligned.

I was so startled by this sudden scene that I jumped up and fell to the ground with a thud.

Gao and the monkey arrived.

Gao He glanced at me, then squatted down and lifted the old beggar's upper body.

Seeing that the beggar was convulsing violently, the monkey pried open his eyelids to examine him, then patted his chin and abdomen a couple of times, and said:

"He's probably been poisoned; we need to get him to the hospital right away!"

Gao picked up the old beggar and hurriedly walked out.

The monkey said, "I'll go with them so I can do some first aid along the way."

Erpang helped see the old beggar out, and when he came back, I was still standing there in a daze, holding a flashlight.

"What's wrong with you?" Erpang asked me.

I paused for a moment, then exhaled and said:
"It's nothing, it's just that I suddenly feel like life... is like a dream."

"Hey, I remember the last time you couldn't speak properly was back in junior high when you read Qiong Yao's books."

I chuckled dryly and shook my head.

Having been through so much, I wouldn't say I've lost all my courage, but I'm certainly not this scared.

The reason I lost my composure was because I discovered that the old beggar I had met by chance in this abandoned factory was not only someone I had met once before, but also... one of the factors that changed my fate.

The Sichuan restaurant was a debt of gratitude to Yang Wudao for the meal he had eaten there.
After that, by an incredible coincidence, 352.6 yuan was deposited in…

By some strange twist of fate, I ended up in Elephant Trunk Alley and inexplicably paid Yang Wudao's rent.

I used the money that my fat landlady returned with a "change of heart" to buy steamed buns. On my way back, I ran into an old beggar at the entrance of the alley.

I gave him all the few dollars I had left, and he gave me a bicycle spoke!
Since that day, my life has taken a completely different turn from what I had expected.

Afterwards, the police said that there had never been an old beggar with two teeth in the vicinity of Elephant Trunk Alley.

This makes me feel like it was all a dream even now when I look back on it.

But to my utter surprise, in such a desolate factory, I actually saw the old beggar again!
(End of this chapter)