OBS Chapter 755: The mystery of the fishing village is revealed, and the time loop is hidden
Chapter 755: The mystery of the fishing village is revealed, and the time loop is hidden
Old man Chen's footsteps stopped at the door.
Lin Qiye didn't move, but his fingers wrinkled the talisman paper around his waist.
He stared at the mottled red paint on the door panel and heard An Qingyu say softly, "The door is not locked."
With a "creak", old man Chen squeezed in with a hunched back. The Red Pagoda Mountain in his hand glowed dark red like old newspaper in the morning light.
His cloudy eyes swept over the people in the room, and he suddenly smiled with his toothless mouth: "Qi Ye, didn't you say yesterday that you would bring me a pack of cigarettes?
It was delivered today?"
Lin Qiye's Adam's apple moved.
Three days ago, he did pick up a bag of Red Pagoda Mountain on the temple beam.
But that bag had already been put into the evidence bag by An Qingyu - at this moment, the bag in Old Man Chen's hand,
The creases on the package are exactly the same as the one his grandson handed over in the photo three years ago.
"Grandpa Chen, what's your grandson's name?"
Wu Hen suddenly interrupted, squatting on the threshold and swinging his legs.
"I thought you said he was an electrician in town?"
“What kind of electrician is this!”
Old man Chen put the cigarette box on the table, and the smell of tobacco mixed with the sea breeze came in.
“My grandson died two years ago!”
His cloudy eyes suddenly lit up.
"But he came to me in a dream last night and said he wanted to send some cigarettes to Grandpa!"
The room was so quiet that you could hear the ticking of the old clock on the wall.
Shen Qingzhu’s fingers dug a white mark on the edge of the table: “Two years ago?
So... where did you get this pack of cigarettes?"
"It's the store at the entrance of the village!"
Old man Chen clapped his thigh and laughed.
"Grandma Wang said that no one wanted these cigarettes for three years, but yesterday a young man in a black coat suddenly came to buy them—"
He suddenly pointed at Lin Qiye,
“Looks just like you!”
Lin Qiye's back teeth hurt from biting them.
He remembered that when he first entered the village three days ago, Grandma Wang had said the same thing: "The young man in the black coat stayed at the hotel yesterday."
An Qingyu bent down and picked up the cigarette box that Old Man Chen had dropped. He poked his fingertips through the gap in the packaging and pulled out a yellowed receipt.
"We received the goods on March 17th, and the expiration date is May of last year."
He handed the receipt to Lin Qiye,
"The mineral water on the shelves in the convenience store all had production dates from three years ago."
“So the supplies didn’t just appear out of thin air?”
Cao Yuan gripped the hilt of the knife, and the copper rings on the scabbard jingled.
“Is someone putting expired items out there again and again?”
“What’s even more sinister is time.”
An Qingyu took out a small notebook from his pocket. The edges of the pages were stained with salt from the sea.
"I've memorized the sunrise times for three days—"
He opened the book,
"The first day was five seventeen, the second day was five seventeen, and the third day was still five seventeen."
Wu Hen leaned over to take a look and whistled: "Is the sun in this village like it's set to an alarm clock?"
“More than the sun.”
Shen Qingzhu suddenly spoke, his voice trembling.
"I saw Grandma Wang's chickens in the backyard yesterday."
She clutched her cuffs.
"That pheasant has a scar on its leg. I saw it when I came here two years ago to collect folk songs. But the amount of hair on it now is exactly the same as in the photo three years ago."
Lin Qiye's temples were throbbing.
He remembered the numbers of the fishing boats on the beach during his patrol last night:
The location where the paint peeled off on "Haiwang No. 1" was exactly the same as in the photo taken three days ago.
“This is no ordinary time mess.”
An Qingyu put the cigarette box on the table.
“It’s a closed loop.”
He looked up at the crowd.
"In these disconnected times, in these closed areas, with supplies being repeatedly restocked—doesn't it seem like someone is using this village as a fish tank?"
“Fish tank?”
Baili Pangpang had just put the talisman paper into the cloth bag when he looked up after hearing the words.
"Deputy Captain, you mean... the human circle?"
As soon as the word "circle of people" came out, the temperature in the room dropped another two degrees.
Lin Qiye knew this word, it was recorded in the files of the Demon Suppression Division:
Some evil cultivators use the souls of living people to set up formations, trapping an area in time specifically to provide "food".
“Not really.”
An Qingyu shook his head.
“People in a circle of people will slowly go crazy and start biting each other.”
"But the elders in this village play chess, the children sing nursery rhymes, and even Grandma Wang knows how to count the change."
He pointed to the cigarette box that Old Man Chen had just put down.
"What's even stranger is that they remember 'yesterday', but the people in 'yesterday' are us."
Old man Chen suddenly stood up, his hunched back straightened.
"You guys chat about yourselves, I'm going back to the house to smoke."
He grabbed the cigarette box and walked towards the door. When he passed by Lin Qiye,
Suddenly, he lowered his voice and said, "The bells of the dilapidated temple on the temple beam rang again last night."
The door slammed shut.
Lin Qiye stared at the flickering light on the door panel and heard Shen Qingzhu ask softly, "What's the purpose of building this closed loop?
What's the point of surrounding yourself with so many people?
“What’s the point…”
An Qingyu stroked the small notebook and suddenly looked up.
"Qingzhu, you said you came here last year. Were there any night owls in the village then?"
"Yes, I have."
Shen Qingzhu nodded.
"I always hear cats meowing at night, which can wake people up from their dreams."
"But I haven't heard a cat meow in the past three days."
An Qingyu's thumb rubbed across the records in the notebook.
"The day before yesterday, I scattered some 'fish seeds' in the kitchen—a tracking talisman from the Demon Suppression Division, designed to attach to living creatures."
He took out a glass jar from his pocket. At the bottom of the jar lay seven or eight dusty talisman seeds.
"I went to collect them this morning, but I didn't find a single mouse."
“All the rats are dead?”
Wu Hen raised his eyebrows.
"Have all the rats in this village moved away en masse?"
“Not moving.”
An Qingyu turned the glass jar upside down on the table, and the talisman seeds rolled out.
"If the talisman seed is attached to a living thing, it will follow it."
"But all these talisman seeds are stuck at the base of the kitchen wall—"
He pointed to the burn marks on the talisman seed.
"Like it was...burned away by something."
The room was so quiet that you could hear the rustling of window paper in the sea breeze.
Lin Qiye suddenly remembered the school of fish he saw on the beach while patrolling last night:
The white belly was turned upside down and floated on the water, like a layer of silver foil.
"Snapped!"
A muffled sound startled everyone and made them look up.
Baili Pangpang covered his head with his hands and grinned, with a gray bird lying at his feet.
There was blood on the bird's wings, and its claws were still holding half a piece of seaweed, but its eyes were already rolled back.
“Who did I offend…”
Pangpang squatted down to pick up the bird, and just as his fingers touched the bird's claws,
The bird suddenly "puffed" and turned into a handful of ashes, floating out of the window with the sea breeze.
“This bird…”
Shen Qingzhu leaned over to take a look.
"It's a black-tailed gull, commonly seen on the seashore."
"But the color of its feathers..."
She paused.
“It feels like all the life has been drained out.”
Lin Qiye stared out the window in a daze.
The morning mist had dissipated at some point, and I could see the eaves of the dilapidated temple on the temple beams.
The copper bells hanging on the eaves swayed in the wind.
There was a tiny ringing sound - exactly the same as the bell sound that Old Man Chen mentioned "last night".
"Walk."
He suddenly stood up and stuffed the talisman paper into his pocket.
“Go to Miaoliang.”
"Now?"
Cao Yuan clenched his knife tightly.
“That temple looks eerie.”
"The more bizarre, the better."
Lin Qiye tugged at his black coat and glanced at everyone.
"Fatty carries the talisman, Lao Cao protects her, the details of Qingzhuji——"
He looked at An Qingyu,
"Deputy Captain, do you think the gap in this closed loop could be in that temple?"
An Qingyu didn't say anything, but just put the glass jar into his pocket.
He looked towards the temple beam, the morning light shining on his face, casting a shadow.
The sea breeze carried the children's song back in, and this time everyone heard the lyrics clearly:
"Rocking and rocking, I rocked to Grandma's Bridge. There was a temple next to Grandma's Bridge. The bells in the temple rang three times..."
At this moment, the copper bell on the temple beam rang for the third time.