Hailing barren city

Except for the two danjiao who were still taking off their make-up behind the stage, everyone else walked into the courtyard, all men, greeting Ling Li in high and low voices, only the young man behind Ling Li didn't say a word from the beginning to the end.

Ling Li also saw Tao Rujiu.

"Reporter Tao, what do you think after visiting Hailing City?"

"It's very big." Tao Rujiu replied truthfully, "I've only been watching the flowers along the way, and there are three or four districts that I haven't seen."

He nodded fiercely and said to the crowd:

"This is reporter Tao, who will stay here with you for a while, Master Lu, I will trouble you."

An old man in his sixties came out of the crowd, his hair was half gray, his back was tall and straight, and his spirit was also excellent.Tao Rujiu thought this was the class leader.

"Hello, Teacher Lu."

"Good boy."

The old man was very kind. At this time, the other two female protagonists who had removed their make-up also walked into the courtyard, and they were also men.

In ancient times, although men were all performing quyi, the gender composition of Liyuan disciples has undergone a qualitative overturn since modern times.Now Tao Rujiu felt unaccustomed to seeing all these men.

Master Lu asked everyone to give a brief introduction. This troupe has been here almost since the park was completed. The people were recruited from all over the province of F, and none of them had much money.

"This is the erhu in the team. His surname is Qin and his name is Huakai. We usually call him Huakai."

Master Lu was talking about that handsome young man.

"Hua Kai is the youngest here. In 98, his throat got sick and he couldn't speak."

It turned out to be a mute, Tao Rujiu thought with some regret, at the same time smiled at the young man, and stretched out his hand to make some gestures.

"When flowers bloom, you can't speak, but you can hear them."

Sharply and coldly interjected.At the same time, the boy gave Tao Rujiu a smile back.

Tao Rujiu blushed.

"Then it's settled."

Ling Li looked at his watch and proposed to go back to the city.The expansion project of Xiyao Bay must be negotiated at the end of the month, and all field investigation work must be completed before the first typhoon hits this year, which is not optimistic.

The people in the team took him to the back door, where there was already a car waiting.

"If you repent now, I can send you back to the city."

Before leaving, Lingli gave Tao Rujiu one last chance.

"Thank you, Mr. Ling, I think there is indeed something worth reporting in Hailing City."

The long journey at noon had given Tao Rujiu a new inspiration, and the sharp and almost contemptuous tone made him secretly determined that he could not fulfill the other party's wish.

"It's up to you, I will come back in five days, and I hope to see you again then."

Ling Li got into the car, and the rest of the troupe stopped at the back door to see him off, but Qin Huakai followed Ling Li and got into the battery car.According to what Master Lu said, the boy was very grateful to Mr. Ling for taking care of him as a disabled person, and would send him to the square every time before returning.

Cuiying Pavilion was originally a big house with three entrances. It was connected to electricity but no water pipes were buried.The troupe used the well water from the second entrance.Although the sea ridge looks like an island, the land veins are still connected to the land. It is said that the location of the well has been a freshwater pool since ancient times.

Master Lu arranged Tao Rujiu's house on the east side of the third entrance, with the garden and Xueyin behind it.According to Master Lu's words, this is the most suitable "feng shui treasure land" for newcomers to live in.

The inside of the room also looks like an antique. It looks like a wing room, with tables and chairs, a four-sided bed and futon mosquito net, a bogus shelf against the wall, light bulbs hanging on the roof, and a table fan on the table.There was a smell of wax oil in the air, and there were still a few cloudy white wax marks on the shelf and the table. It seemed that the props for display had just been put away for Tao Rujiu's arrival.

Tao Rujiu opened the luggage, put out what should be laid out, and find a place to hide what should be hidden. The door of the house is equipped with an antique wide lock.Tao Rujiu didn't expect it to hold anything for him at all.He found a hidden socket under the bed. He charged the laptop and checked the signal of the phone at the same time.

When it was in the Thousand Buddhas District, it was still full, but now it doesn't even have the shortest one.

After tidying things up and resting for about an hour, Xiao Li, who sang Tie Dan, knocked on the door and said that it was Master Lu who wanted to explain his work and rest.Tao Rujiu immediately took a pen and paper and followed.

The daily work and rest of the theater troupe are rigorous, and they do not slack off because they are on an island that is almost isolated from the world.Wake up at 07:30 am to practice singing, breakfast at [-]:[-], performance at [-]:[-] am, lunch at [-]:[-] noon, and second performance at [-]:[-] pm.Dinner at [-]:[-] p.m. In summer, there was originally a program starting at [-]:[-] p.m., but the park later stopped the night tour, and the evening show was also cancelled.

At five o'clock, the music of the tour bus came from the back door. Xiao Chen, who had just sent Tao Rujiu off, and another tour guide drove to pick up the troupe for dinner.The restaurant is located in the southeast corner of the Huangcheng District. The original courtyard of a side hall has been modified into a canteen that can accommodate all employees of the garden.Tao Rujiu and the theater troupe were sitting under the east window. The ceiling fan on the high beams could not provide any coolness, but the draft passing by the door could only absorb some sweat.

Tao Rujiu and Xiao Li had gotten to know each other quite well, and when everyone was seated, Huakai finally came in from the outside.Xiao Li had already prepared meals for him, so he invited him to come and sit down.

The boy got his portion of the meal, sat beside Xiao Li, and nodded to Tao Rujiu at the same time.

Dinner was big pot rice, steamed egg with fish meat pie and winter melon soup. Tao Rujiu looked around while eating.

The whole hall can accommodate 300 people or [-] people, only about [-] people are seated, and some of them left after ordering food with their lunch boxes.Xiao Li told Tao Rujiu that there was no night tour in the park, and most of the employees took the shuttle bus back to the city after dinner.

Because it is summer, the night comes late, and there is still a fire in the west after dinner.As people who stick to the park, the opera troupe has a custom in the summer dusk. Every day, two people take turns to send two people to the melon garden in the northwest corner of the park to pick four watermelons. eat.

Today happened to be Xiao Li and Huakai's turn to pick melons, Tao Rujiu thought about it and recommended himself to follow them to inspect the melon fields.

"Are you sure you're sure you're sure..."

Xiao Li repeated it three times in one mouthful. It seems that singing Tie Dan for a long time does have some influence on his personality.It wasn't until Si Qinglong's Brother Zheng pinched his neck that he stopped.

"It seems that our reporter Tao didn't visit the underground palace area during the day."

Master Lu's words won the unanimous approval of all the staff.

"But I think I know what kind of place it is."

Tao Ru defended himself like this.

The route taken in the morning is indeed in the opposite direction of the underground palace, but from the expressions of the tourists and children, we can still guess some of the scenes inside.

It's nothing more than a bluffing haunted house.

He still insisted on going together.After all, Xiao Li was about the same age as him, Huakai was even younger, neither of them was afraid, and he had no reason to be intimidated.

Seeing that Tao Rujiu persisted, everyone stopped dissuading him, but there was another Zheng Qinglong who said he wanted to go with him.So he said goodbye to Master Lu and the others at the foot of the imperial city, and walked towards the underground palace area.

In the evening, there was a cool breeze blowing in the empty scenic area, and everyone stepped on the fine sand blown by the wind in their slippers, as if they were coming out to enjoy the cool air, which was very pleasant.

When the group arrived at the gate of the underground palace, there was still a sunset in the sky.Different from several other open parks, the underground palace is surrounded by walls.The entrance is built in the shape of an ordinary mountain gate, and the metal fence of the ticket gate is tied with iron chains.A small pavilion was built behind the mountain gate, with a starlight in it, and an old gatekeeper lived there.

Xiao Li took the lead, babbling a libretto into the booth as a greeting, and then took the lead across the ticket gate.Followed by Tao Rujiuhuakai, Big Brother Zheng.The old man's house was quiet, as if he had gotten used to the inevitable summer night visits of this group of young people.

Behind the gate is a screen wall with reminders and warnings written on it.Generally speaking, people with coronary heart disease and mental disorders are not allowed to enter.The screen wall is facing the gate, so it can be seen clearly from the outside.As if to emphasize the horror inside, many blood-red handprints were pressed with red paint on the screen wall.

"We're entering the park!"

Xiao Li turned his head and smiled, the slanting sunset hitting his face was a little scary.

Behind the screen wall is a large barren grass slope, separated by two trails on the left and right, with a road sign inserted in the middle.

Left: Netherworld Palace, right: Corpse Soul Town.

Tao Rujiu remembers that in the early 90s, the Hong Kong film industry produced many action-oriented zombie movies, one of which was called "Soul Town".

"That's right, the film was shot here, but we generally don't go this way."

Brother Zheng asked Tao Rujiu to walk to the center of the team, Xiao Li was at the front, and he and Huakai were at the back.

"After Shihun Town, there are Ghost Road, Reincarnation Street, Nine Coffins Forest, and Zanghun Slope, which is a long way. From the garden to Guadai, we usually take the underground palace, which only takes [-] minutes."

While talking, the four of them walked up the road on the left.

Compared with the other districts, the vicinity of the underground palace is more like a wilderness slope.It is full of clumps and shrubs growing in disorder.The gravel path showed a slight downward trend, gradually sinking into the ground, and the land on both sides was raised relatively, forming an earth wall.

Tao Rujiu noticed that the earth walls on the left and right reflected a faint light in the setting sun, and he stretched out his hand to caress them. It turned out that plexiglass was installed as a barrier.He was wondering why it was arranged in this way, when his eyes close to the wall met something in the soil layer.

It's a skeleton.

Inlaid in yellow-brown soil, relief-like skeletons.Stack neatly into the wall starting from the foot.At the eye level of Tao Rujiu, there are two white spherical shells the size of ping-pong balls embedded in the eye sockets of the skull, each with a round hole the size of a penny in the center.The young man stared blankly for a while before realizing that it was a dry eyeball.

I have seen cooked fish eyes do have a hard shell before, but I didn't expect that the same is true for human eyes.

So lifelike, could it be a real human bone?Thinking of this, Tao Rujiu involuntarily shuddered.

"That's the inspiration Mr. Ling got from the Tibetan Skull Wall, and he asked people to imitate it according to the photos."

Zheng Qinglong explained later.

"They are all made of plaster, but I heard that some items from unowned tombs were also used to make up the figures."

Tao Rujiu nodded, looking at the mottled earth wall.Some skulls also purposely use black and vermilion to draw eyebrows and lips, revealing a sense of gloom amidst the absurdity.The four of them walked in a tunnel less than two meters wide, and before they knew it, their heads were also covered by a dome of loess.

Xiao Li and Hua Kai took out their flashlights respectively, the red lacquer gate of the underground palace was open in the light yellow halo, and the ground also changed from stones to blue bricks.Although the outside world is sweltering, but entering the gate of the underground palace, the cold air infiltrated from the soil will hit your face.

The wall on which the light shines is a cross-section of the underground palace. From the above, the underground palace is divided into three floors, which are distinguished by limiting the age of tourists.

The basement floor is an area for all ages. It is decorated with classic scenes of the underworld, such as the Temple of Yama, the Daoshan Huohai Naihe Bridge, etc., with wax dummies dressed in ancient costumes, green and red lights and faint sound effects when open for visits. , It does feel a bit like the underworld.It's just that the garden is closed now, and everything in the underground palace is swallowed by darkness.The black shadows of those wax figures stood in the corner, which was even more ghostly.

However, these are not very scary for adult men.

While picking up some sundries left by tourists and throwing them into the trash can, Xiao Li said, "We're going to walk for a while on this floor, then go down to the second floor and go out through the north working door. Outside is the melon field." .”

Tao Rujiu let out an "oh", and passed the horse-faced wax figure holding a steel fork.

The seldom-circulated air is filled with the smell of wax oil and plastic fibers, and there are large pieces of reinforced glass on the ground, and there are faint eyes peeking up from below.Of course it is also waxy.