Tianjin people will never lose SAN

Chapter 592: Clues Brought by the Rain (4k+)

"Ricky, I found out some information that I need to talk to you two about."

Lin Brown pushed open the crude wooden door and threw aside the wooden stick he was using as a cane. With the help of the torches on the walls of the house, he could vaguely see two figures eating in front of the dining table.

Ricky and Shani? They don't look like them. Their heights are wrong, and their hairstyles are vaguely unfamiliar. Why does one of them have braids?

A dagger slipped silently from his sleeve, and Lin Brown slowly approached the dining table with his left hand clasped behind his back.

"Rinse the quilt. I'm back. I just heated up the bath water. How about you take a bath too?"

At this moment, the bathroom door opened, and Liu Yonglu came out wiping his hair with a towel:
"Eat slowly. Do you want me to pour you two a glass of water? Don't choke."

Liu Yonglu poured two cups of water from a clay pot and put them in bowls and pushed them to the two children who were eating.

Only then did Lin Bulang see clearly that it was Xiaohu and Ling'er who were sitting at the dining table and eating voraciously. Lin Bulang didn't say anything, but gestured to Liu Yonglu, meaning for him to go inside and talk.

"Is it really Xiaohu and his sister?"

After entering the bedroom, Lin Brown closed the door and asked.

"No, I haven't asked about the specific situation yet. The child hasn't eaten for two days and his eyes are green with hunger. I'll let them eat a few bites first, and then I'll ask them after they have something to eat."

Liu Yonglu threw a cigarette to Lin Bei, and the two talked while smoking.

Liu Yonglu briefly explained what happened when he went out to bring the child back, as well as his own guess. Lin Bulang raised his head and blew out a smoke ring and nodded:
"It's similar to what we first guessed. What kind of status do Xiaohu and Ling'er have? How can ordinary people control them?

But if you just take him home like this, aren't you afraid that this is a trap that someone has prepared?"

“I’m scared, but I have to accept it. I can’t ask questions on the street with so many people watching.

And even if they weren't Xiaohu and Ling'er, the two kids were still quite pitiful. Look at how eager they were to eat. They could have eaten up half of the bowl if they were not stopped.

What about you? Did you find out anything useful?"

Lin Brown pondered for a few seconds and sorted out his thoughts:

"We did manage to gather a lot of intelligence. First of all, we were lucky. There were usually people patrolling the village, but we just didn't encounter them.

This group of patrolmen go around the village twice a day. Most of them are young and strong men in the village. Do you know why these patrolmen have never reached the shore?"

"do not know."

Liu Yonglu shook his head. He was also puzzled. That area was connected to the outside waters. Even if an ordinary village did not assign someone to guard it, it should at least go there occasionally to take a look.

But judging from the situation in the past two days, the people of Shi Weitian never saw any villagers coming.

"This involves another key piece of information. The villagers told me that there is something in that area of ​​water."

"There's something. What does that mean? There's another sea monster in the sea monster's stomach? Where's this nesting doll?"

Lindbergh took out a notebook from his pocket and drew on it as he spoke:

"According to the villagers, two weeks ago, someone saw an unidentified creature in the water. It was huge and had some features of a human female, but most of its body was still a monster, like some kind of jellyfish-like mollusk.

However, there were only two villagers who witnessed the incident at the time, and it did not cause much discussion.

Since then, few people in the village dared to go to the shore. "

“There shouldn’t have been many villagers at that time, right?”

Liu Yonglu counted the number of villagers on his fingers. Even if seven or eight new people came out from behind the bronze gate to join the village every day, ten days ago, there would be less than two hundred people in the village at most.

Considering the size of the village, the entire village should have been in a very loose state at that time.

"Yes, then comes the question that concerns us most, where do those fables about gods, demons, and the promised land come from.

A few days after the monster sighting, some people began to promote the concept of gods and demons as the opposite of gods.

This trend started very quickly, but I can understand it. Living in the dark inside the belly of a beast, many things can't be done. It's perfect to use these simple principles with a strong religious atmosphere to explain everything."

Lin Brown put down the pencil in his hand and there was a simple sketch on the notebook.

Liu Yonglu carefully looked at the monster sketch in the notebook. It was similar to the description given by Lin Bei and looked quite creepy. Considering the mental state of these villagers, it didn't seem to be made up out of thin air.

"In order not to arouse the suspicion of the villagers, I didn't draw it on the spot, but I think this is roughly the case."

"Then, continue."

"Then one night, the monster came out of the water and attacked the village."

"Raided the village?"

Liu Yonglu frowned in doubt. This development was really unexpected. The key point was that no one had ever mentioned such a big thing.

"Yes, because it was late at night and most of the villagers were asleep, the monster caused a lot of casualties."

"No, there's something wrong here."

Liu Yonglu exhaled a puff of smoke and shook his head. Such a huge monster had injured so many people. Logically speaking, based on the village’s population and productivity, it would be impossible to repair the houses in a short time.

Unless the monster tiptoed into the village carefully, a large number of houses would definitely collapse.

"I thought of that, but you know the people who live in the village."

Lin Brown poked his head, meaning that these people had some problems with their brains:
“Anyway, after the monsters wreaked havoc, the doctrine of gods that had been popular in the village before became more and more popular among the villagers.

The most basic explanation of this rhetoric is that the villagers are noble beings chosen by the gods in times of disaster, and the monster in the water is a lurking demon.

Charlie and the men in black robes are nominally servants of God, responsible for taking care of God's people and guarding against the temptation of the devil."

Liu Yonglu took out a biscuit from his pocket and handed it to Lin Bei. The two brothers ate while continuing to discuss.

"If you put it that way, I understand."

Liu Yonglu was a little puzzled before. Why were these villagers so well-behaved and willing to find a few parents to take care of them? This was unreasonable.

It turns out that there is such a relationship. If a group of people are not threatened by external enemies, it is easy for them to have disagreements and each do their own thing. But once there is an external enemy, it will be particularly easy for them to unite.

Liu Yonglu didn't believe that some villager had come up with this excuse on his own. He thought that those preachers on earth must be manipulating all this.

"Lin Bei, after all this talk, who was the first to spread the God's rhetoric? Charlie? Or those people in black robes?"

"Neither. I asked about this in detail."

Lin Brown unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip of liquor to smooth out the dry biscuit crumbs in his throat:
"Among them was a little boy who lived with his parents and two sisters. I secretly gave him a piece of candy, and he told me that his neighbor, Mr. Baltasar, was the first person to spread the words of God."

"That's a confusing name. What about this Baal?"

"died."

"died?"

Liu Yonglu scratched the back of his head.

"Well, remember what I said a few days ago that monsters attacked the village and killed more than a dozen villagers? Among them was this Baltasar.

The house where he used to live is now empty.”

"Is the clue gone?"

"The interesting part is yet to come. There is a cemetery in the northwest of the village, near the bronze gate. I went to the cemetery and found more than a dozen simple wooden tombstones. I wrote down the names of these people in my notebook. Take a look."

Liu Yonglu took the notebook and found that some of the dozen or so names on it had check marks and some had circles next to them.

"What does this mean?"

"I found various reasons to go to the village and ask the villagers based on these dozen names. I found six of them and confirmed that they had promoted the belief in gods."

The village has a small population, and this advantage is evident; when something happens, everyone is left with a deep impression.

"Hey hey hey."

Liu Yonglu patted the wet shoulder with a wicked smile. The meaning of this information was self-evident. There was a high probability that there was something fishy going on between the god's theory and the monster in the water.

Otherwise it wouldn't be possible that, oh, the monster came, and other people in the village survived, only these few pillars died.

"Ricky, what's next?
According to the plan, I have secretly hidden a letter to Millie Tang and the others. What I mean is that for the time being, only the three of us will act, and the others will not enter the village. If so many people come in together, they will be too conspicuous. "

"Yeah, just as I thought."

All of Shi Weitian’s people have come in. As long as one of them reveals his true identity, the others will have to be rescued. It is better to split the forces into two groups.

"Let me tell you, there are three things we can do now.

The first thing is to take a look after entering the house, but I personally don’t recommend it. Since you have sneaked into the village, you should try your best to understand everything. "

"Ah."

"Second, we use the fake Xiaohu and Ling'er as bait. Since the other party has set a trap, they may have a trick up their sleeve. Let's see if anyone comes to cause trouble for us."

Lin Brown did not comment and waited for Liu Yonglu to continue.

"The third thing is to investigate the village cemetery and determine the identities of the dozen or so dead villagers. At the same time, observe the monster in the water. This is a factor that I cannot figure out for the time being."

"Then let's stay at home tonight. If no one comes to look for us in the middle of the night, we can go to the cemetery."

"Heroes see the same thing."

……

At the same time, in Charlie's room, a farmer named Juan was reporting the movements of Liu Yonglu and the other two:

“Mr. Charlie, there are two children who were previously convicted of criminals and were taken back to their residence by the tax collector this morning.

I didn't see the quarrel between the two sides with my own eyes, but according to the neighbors, the tax officer seemed to be speaking a dialect from some place, and his tone and words sounded quite intense.

There won't be any problem, right?"

These villagers don’t care about the lives of the elderly and children at all, but they care about the legitimacy of lynching. If the tax officer dares to execute two children privately today, he might dare to do the same to himself tomorrow.

This made them very uneasy.

"Um……"

Charlie lowered his eyes and played with a metal statue in his hand. This statue was given to him by a sacrificed villager. Charlie always felt that this small metal object contained some value or power.

"Wait a day, go check it out tomorrow, and bring more people with you then."

Seeing Juan's puzzled look, Charlie patiently explained:
“These two kids are worthless.

Go tomorrow and ask him for the person. If he is still there, we will suppress the arrogance of the tax official.

If something happens to them, well, that's even better, we can then legitimately try these three tax collectors.

The village will be more orderly from now on, understand?"

"I see.

Also, my wife baked some bread today with sweet apricot jam in it, and I left it at the door for you."

Charlie nodded slightly and waved his hand, meaning for Juan to go out.

"Charlie, I think it would be best if we went to the tax collector tonight."

After Juan left, a cold voice came from the darkness behind Charlie, saying that a certain person in charge had actually been sitting on a chair in the corner of the room since just now.

It's just that Charlie's living room was too big and there was only a torch at the door, so Juan didn't notice that there was someone else in the house.

"Is it really necessary to mobilize so many troops? Isn't the method I just mentioned good enough?"

Charlie responded with his back turned, and the person in charge hiding in the shadow behind him did not see the contemptuous expression on Charlie's face.

Three minutes later, the voice slowly responded again:

“Those sinners are bewitched by the devil and might cause some trouble.

Moreover, just now, I heard the call of the gods behind the bronze gate, and the gods became suspicious of these three tax collectors.

They might be the devil's minions, sneaking into the village to hide some conspiracy."

The voice of the person in charge suddenly became erratic, with a strange magnetism in it.

"Another group of minions of the devil? This is the sixth batch of minions, right?"

Unexpectedly, Charlie didn't buy it at all. He opened the door, took the bread left by Juan from the bucket at the door, tore off a piece, put it in his mouth and ate it happily.

"This time is different."

“You say something different every time.”

Charlie shook his head. God, devil, promised land, these nonsense, most of the villagers probably believed them.

But to Charlie, these were all tricks to fool children, they were all fake, only the bread in his mouth was real.

"Oh, Charlie, I thought we could get along more equally, provided you could listen to my advice."

Charlie, holding the bread, couldn't understand what the person in charge in the dark was saying.

He licked the apricot jam on his lips with disdain.

Footsteps were heard from the darkness, and a figure walked backwards from the darkness to Charlie.

A large piece of dough was stuffed into Charlie's mouth, but he forgot to chew it, because in the dim light, Charlie could clearly see a palm-sized face appearing in front of him.

The face also had human features, but these features were completely covered by the layer of skin on the neck.

Whether turning the head or opening the mouth, the skin and flesh will stretch exaggeratedly, as if something is about to come out.

"Charlie, what I can do now is still very limited, but please rest assured, in a few days, when the will of the Mother Goddess is fully awakened, I will let more and more people become your companions."

The flesh covering the neck and face suddenly split open, and a thin scarlet tube stretched out from it and inserted directly into Charlie's throat.

The tube was wrapped by the dough in the mouth and slid down the throat into the stomach pouch.

After more than ten seconds, Charlie slowly turned around and asked:
"Should we go find those tax collectors now?"

"Wait till late at night, my friend."

(End of this chapter)