doll city

Chapter 25 Lion Dance (4)

"Let's take a look at what happened."

"First, a group of two people entered the house for the night. Although the people who entered the house were locked up, nothing happened. The people outside the house were caught and possessed by a semi-finished lion doll."

"The possessed person danced a lion and jumped a plum blossom pile. After failing, he fell off and was hacked to death by the statue of Guan Gong. The lion's head was recovered."

Everyone looked at Tianshuitang. After 12:[-] last night, Guan Gong's statue turned into a living puppet. Judging from the intensity of the slashing, everyone present, including Yuan Shu and Yan Ge, who own the Seiko-level live puppet "Senjia", were also shocked. It means that even if it is not controlled, it is unlikely that it will be able to take a knife from the statue of Guan Gong.

Nana, the survivor from last night, was distracted at this moment, no matter how much Cao Zhi interrogated her, she was only trembling with fear.

Uncle Yuan said: "I can't ask anything for now, maybe I was stunned by the spiritual radiation of the doll last night, at least I have to rest for a long time before I can come back."

"Then what do you say now?"

"We can burn the lion head and Guan Gong statue while everyone is here," Cao Zhi suggested.

"It's not feasible. If this is a normal hunting ground, it will be destroyed by brute force. The crow did not take the corpse away. This is not a good sign. It means that we are still in this strange time circle. Even if the courtyard is burned down, you How can we guarantee that we will be able to get out of here?" Yan Ge said.

Cao Zhi glared at Yan Ge who denied him, and sneered, "Then what's your opinion?"

Yan Ge didn't speak, and looked down at the two corpses on the ground.The corpse was cut horizontally from the left rib to the right waist, and the knife was so sharp that the cut surface of the bone was like a mirror. Even the owner of the corpse did not have any painful expression on his face, which shows that death was an instant thing at that time.

"...Wearing lion leg flannelette...huh?" Yan Ge observed something strange, grabbed the wrist of the deceased and held it up to his eyes.

"Look, there's some black ink on his fingers."

Yan Ge recalled that one of the eyes of the lion head was gradually dimming when he was controlling people in the video, and said, "I have a guess—people who don't stay in the house at night will be lured to the Tianshui Hall , using paint to try to add eyes to the lion's head. And the lion's head that got the eyes got the ability to act temporarily, and then controlled the two people."

"Where's the evidence?" Cao Zhi asked.

"I have to go into the Tianshui Hall to have a look. If the statue of Guan Gong and the lion's head inside are still the same as yesterday, and there are scattered paints nearby, it may be verified."

Xiao Yi's eyes lit up: "It makes sense. But... what if Guan Gong seems to be violent and chops people?"

"There is always a price to pay for survival," Yan Ge said.

In fact, Cao Zhi has always been displeased with Yan Ge, out of concern for Li's good or bad, he didn't show anything. Now that there is someone in his team, and the girl he likes seems to trust Yan Ge very much, so there is a feeling in his heart. A fire that cannot be extinguished.

"It's a shameless thing to say. If you go in and anger the puppet, rush out and kill us all, how many lives do you have to pay?"

Yan Ge glanced at him and said, "I didn't stop you from expressing your opinion, the premise is that it has value."

"You!" The corner of Cao Zhi's mouth twitched, he turned around and said, "Uncle Yuan, let's try to leave this courtyard and see if the time outside is normal."

The people in Jungle No. 1, of course, listened to Cao Zhi's words, and went to the front yard one after another.

Dai Chengze hesitated for a moment, and persuaded: "Everyone... it's better not to quarrel."

Yan Ge slowed down his tone, and said, "I almost forgot, you are a professional, what do you think about yesterday's portrait of Guan Gong?"

"Ah?" It was the first time Dai Chengze had seen the killing scene intuitively like this, and he had just vomited just because of it. At this time, his face was pale and weak like a leaf after autumn, "You, what aspect are you referring to?" ?”

"You can think about it from the perspective of Guan Gong's statue. What standpoint or reason does it have to kill people?"

From the corner of Yan Ge's corner of the eye, he caught a glimpse of Li Yibai and nodded slightly. Obviously, he thought of going together with him—since they are divided into red-eyed dolls and blue-eyed dolls, it means that dolls also have different positions. Only then can we figure out how to deal with the next changes.

"How...how should I put it?" Dai Chengze scratched his hair and said, "Guan Gong, also known as Guandi Shengjun, is the most positive type of god in folklore. As the god of wealth and martial arts, he is not only in the Asian cultural circle. , in the spread of the world, there is no negative image of Guan Gong, and this one is no exception. The appearance of this statue of Guan Gong in Tianshui Hall is resolute, majestic and upright. It can be seen that the maker fired it with respect. After remembering what happened last night, I really want to go to pray to exorcise evil spirits..."

indeed.

Yan Ge always felt that there was some indescribable sense of disobedience, and when Dai Chengze said this, the sense of disharmony became even stronger.

At this time, Li Haobai asked for Xiao Yi's mobile phone again, and repeatedly watched the video from last night.

"there is a question."

Several people looked over curiously, Li Haobai showed the video and said.

"Because of the shooting angle, we only took a rough look in the video, but we didn't actually see the front of Guan Gong's portrait. So, I was wondering if...it's not a red-eyed puppet at all."

Xiao Yi said in astonishment: "No, it chopped people up with a single knife, isn't it only red-eyed dolls who can kill people?"

Li Haobai pointed to the corpse on the ground, and then nodded to Nana who was shivering in the corner: "Last night, the state of him and her, is it 'human'?"

"It's exorcism!"

At this moment, Yan Ge finally identified the source of the inexplicable sense of disobedience in his heart, "Guan Gong has a positive image of suppressing ghosts and exorcising evil spirits. In his view, the lion possessed by spirits, including those two people, are all part of the 'evil spirit'. , That's why he took the lion's head directly after beheading the man, instead of continuing to kill another person."

"The problem is the lion's head!"

At this time, Uncle Yuan in the front yard uttered a cry of pain, as if he had fallen from a height, and then Cao Zhi hurriedly helped Uncle Yuan, who was clutching his arm bleeding profusely, and fled back to the inner courtyard.

"what happened?"

Everyone looked over, Uncle Yuan's face was still in shock, a large piece of muscle had been neatly gnawed away from the bicep of his right arm, and the arteries couldn't stop, bleeding out continuously.

"Let me do it." Xiao Yi rolled up her sleeves, took the initiative to go over, and used the "artisan's flesh and blood to build the city wall".

After 3 minutes of treatment, Xiao Yi wiped the fine sweat that oozed from her forehead: "There is nothing to do with the bleeding. What's going on outside?"

It was probably because Xiao Yi did not hesitate to do things. Cao Zhi sized her up for a long time and liked her even more, so he replied directly: "We just tried to climb over the wall, but we didn't expect that as soon as we climbed on the top of the wall, a small ceramic lion jumped from the bottom of the wall." I got up and took a bite of Uncle Yuan... Alas, I was careless, and I was anxious to find a way for everyone to survive."

Xiao Yi gave him a quiet look, moved away from him, and told the result of Yan Ge's discussion just now.

"...Since there are three manual-grade live dolls guarding outside, going out is a dead end. Now that the problem lies with the lion's head, I already have some ideas. Why don't we all go into Tianshui Hall together."

Cao Zhi shook his head: "Let's watch the wind outside. In case of emergency, we can save people."

Fine.

Yan Ge didn't want to bring these troublemakers with him, and with the military assassins in hand, together with Li Haobai and Xiao Yi, he dragged the reluctant Dai Chengze into Tianshui Hall.

The Tianshui Hall was no different from last night, it was still dark, Li Haobai seemed to have forgotten the fact that he claimed to be afraid of Chinese ghost movies, and walked briskly like a middle school student on a spring outing, leaning on the door frame of the cubicle Probe directly into the side to see.

For a moment, Yan Ge always felt that his head would be chopped off by Guan Gong.

But in fact, there is no plot of a ghost movie, and Li hooked up his hands to let them in.

The statue of Guan Gong in the cubicle is the same as yesterday, and the lion head on the beam is exactly the same as where it was hung before.

Under Dai Chengze's low exclamation, Li Haobai went up and took off the whole lion's head from the beam, and put it directly on his own head.

"..."

It has to be said that this behavior was a bit desperate. After thinking about it, Yan Ge still felt obliged to cherish life for him, and was about to go over to help him pick it off, when suddenly he kicked something by his foot.

The flashlight looked down, and it was a wooden paint box, with some brushes stained with paint scattered beside it.

"Is this... a tool for painting lions?"

Li Haobai, who was wearing the lion head, turned around and tugged at the mechanism inside the lion head. The lion eye that was waiting to be finished blinked, and his voice came from inside.

"You guessed it pretty well. After midnight last night, those two people were brought here by the living puppet to put its eyes on it. It came alive and possessed those two people."

"I still don't feel right, I seem to have missed something..."

While thinking about it, Yan Ge drew a pen on the side of the lion's blank eye sockets, and there was a strange attraction that attracted him, as if he was looking forward to pointing the pen on it.

"Sing on the stage and listen to the stage,

Red and white weddings must pick green.

Where are the gongs and drums back then?

Derelict buildings and grass waiting for the finishing touch..."

Yan Ge slowly read the ballad from the invitation, and suddenly longed to travel back to that old era and see the real "Lion Awakening" with his own eyes.

But at this moment, his right foot moved uncontrollably, as if he suddenly wanted to kick something, and suddenly pulled him out of the state that seemed to be in a hallucination.

Oh, I almost forgot, no matter how strong the spiritual radiation of this lion is, it is only handmade at best, and I still have a "desire dance shoe" belonging to an orphan.

One mountain cannot accommodate two tigers, not to mention that Desire Dancing Shoes is very overbearing, and it simply cannot tolerate other live puppets meddling with their prey.

"Then it seems that your conjectures are all correct." As a newcomer, Dai Chengze has experienced the mechanism of the hunting ground to some extent at this moment, and he has to feel lucky. Completely, "Last night was caused by them being outside. As long as we are all in the room tonight, no one will die."

"Ah, it better be like this."

"Then what about the lion's head?"

"I still lack some information." Li Haobai took off the lion head, "Mr. Flag, what's your opinion?"

Why do you keep asking me for a newcomer's opinion...

Dai Chengze was under great pressure, and in the end he could only make a suggestion. Since the lion's head cannot be destroyed directly, it should be packed in a large wooden box to prevent it from coming out to cause trouble at night.

Li Haobai neither agreed nor objected, even though Dai Chengze found a cabinet to put the lion's head in, and blocked the cabinet door with a chair in a deceptive way.

"I don't think it's that simple." Yan Ge whispered.

Li Hao smiled badly: "Of course, a complete story always has its own twists and turns, doesn't it?"

……

The four of them dealt with the lion's head in Tianshui Hall, and came out to tell the people in Jungle No. 1 their guess.

"Then it's easy, we'll be fine if we all enter the house tonight." Cao Zhi relaxed a lot, and then looked at Xiao Yi with a smile, "You can live with me tonight, don't be afraid, I will protect you. "

Xiao Yi showed a puzzled expression behind the big glasses, she was really greasy, and changed the subject with a dry laugh: "It's not an option to let this body hang out like this, why don't we collect it for him first?"

In this city where puppets are rampant, deaths happen every day. Human beings have never been able to clean up the corpses. The crows are always rushing to do it as soon as the hour arrives. Embalming is a new thing.

Yan Ge was the first to roll up his sleeves to carry the body of the deceased: "Let's put it in the East Wing. Anyway, there is a mourning hall there. By the way, we can also see if there are any special clues in Mrs. Zhao's room."

Everyone was reluctant to go, but after thinking about it, they agreed.

Everyone carefully carried the two corpses of the deceased to the door of the East Wing. Yan Ge also knocked on the door cautiously, and said "no intention of disturbing" in a low voice before pushing the door open.

Mrs. Zhao was still wearing her loose Tang suit, lying quietly on the table covered with white cloth.

They carried the body carefully around Old Mrs. Zhao's mourning platform, put together two tables to put the dead down, took a sheet to cover it, and then turned to look at Mrs. Zhao again.

"It's a bit strange to say, if this old lady is a living doll, why did she remind us to take the lamp?" Xiao Yi asked in a low voice.

"Maybe she has too many lights...huh?"

Suddenly, the surrounding atmosphere became tense, Xiao Yi followed everyone's gaze suspiciously, and saw only three kerosene lamps left on the altar where the kerosene lamps were placed yesterday.

One person died last night, and there are seven remaining.

The room can only accommodate two people, seven people and three lamps, and there is one more person, how to divide it?