Old-time musicians

"Vaznay Town!?"

Joan stood on tiptoe, trying to get closer to the blurred font above the gate.

Fanning and Hiran couldn't believe what they saw.

"What's wrong with this place name?" Roy asked puzzled.

"A former residence that she went home for vacation every summer vacation in her memory, but it doesn't actually exist." Fanning explained briefly, then turned around and scanned the small town with lights in the dark, "What's going on? I drove for more than two days and couldn't find it, but I came here unexpectedly on a trip to Santaran Castle."

Coincidence? Inevitability after unknown conditions are met? Or is someone secretly manipulating it?

The last batch of residents who came later and had not yet entered the venue were still walking in twos and threes, passing by Fanning one by one.

Hiran stood side by side with Fanning, watching the sleepy people below bypass the 8-shaped roundabout of the large dry fountain, and suddenly some past scenes flashed in his mind.

She touched Fanning with her arm: "Carlon, this place, why do I feel a bit like the roundabout you see, isn't it-"

"The police station?" Fanning immediately followed her words.

He turned around and looked at the black building again, and the clumsy and weird music was still coming out from inside.

"Is this so-called concert hall the police station building in the center of Gogol that we visited? Or at least there is a similar mapping in the spatial location?"

He remembered the scene of himself driving around the roundabout with two girls. The only difference was that the terrain was flat that day, while there was a little height difference here.

"Although I don't know how we got in, if there are indeed some connections between this small town of Vatseni and the real town of Gogol, maybe we can get out from the area where the two are connected."

Hearing this, Xilan had an idea: "Joan, where is your manor?"

"I remember it was in the north of the city." Joan replied, "It's farther away from us now. It might be closer when we just entered. But there is a problem. The streetscape of this strange town is different from what I remember. I may not be able to find it, or my ancestral home may not exist here."

Fanning thinks this is indeed an idea. Since the name of this place is Vatseni Town, following special clues may find the exit.

Of course, special clues also mean special risks.

He pondered for a moment and asked, "Roy, is it feasible to do divination for propositions such as 'exit from here'?"

"In theory, it is possible, for example, to write down the sentence 'there is an exit somewhere', but there is a problem here, that is, the way to write 'somewhere'. First of all, it must be a place that you know clearly, otherwise you will get a meaningless conclusion; secondly, the scope of the place needs to be considered. If it is too large, it is easy to get a positive conclusion, but it is not instructive. If it is too small, if the conclusion is denied, it still requires a lot of attempts."

"So you need to have some confidence in advance." Fanning nodded to show his understanding.

The proposition "there is an exit in the town of Vatnai" is useless even if it is correct, and "there is an exit in the house at the door" is likely to be wrong, wasting inspiration in vain. If you can clearly find the ancestral home in Joan's memory, this range is generally appropriate.

Roy suggested: "Why don't we do as the young man just said and go to the South City Inn to visit his employer, Mr. Godfrey. From the current situation, these natives are not monsters, but most of them are indifferent to outsiders. We might as well take advantage of the potential communication opportunities first, which will help us learn more."

This plan was unanimously agreed by everyone - just as Roy said in the car before, "whether there is an exit" and "whether there is danger" are not related, and the most important thing at the moment is to avoid risks.

Everyone left this neurotic concert and groped their way south along the dim street. They saw four or five double-story townhouses next to the suburban gate where the gravel road was about to disappear. The repair here was barely visible. There was a spacious but withered stepped flower bed in front of the door, and the dim gas lamp illuminated the mixed sign of "Godfrey Grocery Inn".

The wooden door at the entrance was ajar. Several wooden sticks on the wall next to it were tilted upwards, propping up the long board of the sales window. In the dim light, one could see the cigarettes, alcohol, food and daily groceries displayed in the glass cabinet.

The salesperson with a gloomy face and depressed demeanor was calmly looking at his group.

During the brief eye contact, Fanning felt a little weird, but he still gently pushed open the door, and a musty smell from under the wooden floor penetrated everyone's nostrils.

The salesperson's eyes did not move with the few people, but continued to stare straight outside the room. Instead, another muffled old voice came from inside: "Outsiders? Hey, five at a time is not common."

The stairwell creaked, and a skinny old man with thick hair slowly walked down and sat down at the round wooden table. The flame burning in the candlestick listlessly shone on the old man's red cheeks.

...Five at a time? It was clearly five hundred at a time. Fan Ning couldn't help but complain in his heart, but his alert spiritual sense had already scanned the whole body of this person.

This old man was a knowledgeable person, and he did not hide his inquiry into Fan Ning, but his rank should not be as good as Fan Ning's, and he did not study "candle", so Fan Ning saw part of his details, but he did not see anything about himself.

Fan Ning motioned the others to stand and wait, and he took a step forward, sat down opposite the old man, and politely explained his purpose: "Old sir, we must have met your hostel staff at the entrance of the concert hall before, so we found this place."

"Swish--" The old man unscrewed a bottle of wine of unknown brand, poured it into the glass and drank half of it, exhaled a long breath, and smacked his lips: "You want to ask questions, right? Generally speaking, people who come to this ghost place for the first time always have a lot of questions in their stomachs."

"Where is the exit? Or how to get out?" Fan Ning did not comment, and got straight to the point.

"You have a big appetite for questions." The old man looked up to the sky again and drank the remaining liquid. The air was filled with the smell of cheap alcohol and essence.

His pretentious attitude made Fanning frown, but out of fear and vigilance of the mysterious side, he calmly responded with patience: "If you can't answer this question, you can also talk about other things."

"I need inspiration, the inspiration of you, the young gentleman, and the ladies behind you. You know, precious knowledge always requires some price in exchange." The old man's eyes were eager.

"Oh?" Fanning looked at him with interest, "How do you want it?"

Two strands of velvety red strips quickly but silently wrapped around Fanning's wrists, followed by more strips extending to the people behind him.

"You will be a little tired later, but it doesn't matter. You can recover after a few days of rest. I will tell you some basic things right away-"

The gas lamp in the room flickered, and candles were extinguished everywhere. The red velvet turned black and broke in an instant, emitting a foul smell of burnt meat.

The sound of "click" of loading the gun rang out. The old man felt his thoughts stagnant and his eyes blurred. A tall girl in a goose yellow dress stepped directly behind him and pressed the cold metal against the back of his head.

Roy, whose inspiration had recovered a little, said coldly at this moment: "If you can't answer, say something else, not do something else."

Hiran behind Fanning had also raised his arms, and two black gun barrels were facing him one after another.

... So many knowledgeable people! ? It seems that the person sitting opposite him alone is stronger than himself. The skinny old man suddenly found that he had hit a wall today. He huddled up in his position, his eyes rolling around: "Young gentlemen and ladies, please speak slowly if you have something to say."

Julius seemed to be in the same team with Fanning on the surface. At this time, she also dared not breathe. She was glad that she had not made any small movements all the way today, whether she got on the car or after the accident, whether she was in front of or behind several people.

Fanning took out a small dark glass tube with a volume of less than five milliliters from his body.

"I don't advocate action unless it is necessary." He put it on the table without much care, "especially when the actual benefits of action are extremely limited... I hope it can change your attitude of sharing from being forced to being willing to serve."

The old man was stunned for a moment, and saw that the young man in front of him had already leaned back on the chair with a relaxed figure, so he tried to reach out and take the glass tube and pull out the rubber stopper at the mouth of the tube.

When he saw the incandescent light and flames gushing out, the small eyes under the messy hair showed ecstasy, and poured himself another glass of inferior wine, carefully added a few drops of Yaozhi spirit liquid, and even more carefully put the glass tube away.

A large cup of glowing liquid was drunk by him, and then there was a satisfied exhalation.

Fanning couldn't help but look up and looked at Roy, who was holding a gun opposite, strangely. Both of them seemed to be saying in their hearts, can this thing be eaten?

"I tried it, it can be eaten, but it's useless and tasteless." Qiong's soft voice came to Fanning's ears.

Next, this weird old man Godfrey answered some questions under the dual stimulation of threat and gratitude.

In a sense, this guy is a complete unlucky guy. When he was young, he peeked into the taboos about the "Pool" because of his own research on mysticism, but he didn't even have the experience of being a knowledgeable person in the normal world for a day - when he turned back from the migration for the first time, there might be something wrong with the path. When he opened his eyes, he found that he didn't know how to get to this ghost place.

According to his own words, this strange town called Vatsnai is "a wrong folded space-time formed by the real world under the action of the "Hidden Light""-this is the hidden knowledge revelation he gradually received during his decades of being trapped in this town.

There are two types of people in the town, outsiders who occasionally stray in, and indigenous people. The so-called indigenous people are actually the offspring of the previous outsiders. The latter have lived here since birth. As time goes by, the outsiders have died here from generation to generation, and the indigenous people now account for the majority.

"I can probably understand evaporation, but what is a hidden disease?" Fanning asked about the two common dangers introduced by Godfrey.

"People who live in this wrong time and space are in a state of neither going down nor going up." The old man dripped a few drops of Yaozhi spiritual liquid into a glass of inferior wine. This time he drank it slowly, "...cannot return to the normal world, and has not yet completely turned into nothingness - turning into nothingness here means evaporation."

"In the wilderness outside the town, if you are out of the observation of others, you will evaporate, and all traces of your existence will be erased, and you will be completely hidden and nothing. In the town, as long as you leave the sight of others for no more than an hour, you will be safe. This may be because the town is a densely populated area, and the factors such as spirits or observing the aura are more concentrated. Therefore, it is relatively easy to do this on the premise of avoiding being alone."

"But there is an exception, that is when going to bed, which can easily be out of sight for more than an hour, so everyone can only sleep separately and take turns keeping vigil."

"What about the second danger?" Fan Ning asked

The old man muttered a name that he didn't hear clearly and kept standing in the shadow of the lamp. After hearing this, the ghost-like salesman came over.

Fan Ning was finally able to take a closer look at the salesperson, and soon he discovered a problem.

The face and skin color of this middle-aged man with a dull expression seemed a little too pale under the light, and his skin was so transparent that there was no trace of blood.

No, it wasn't just the skin. Fan Ning was horrified to see that his entire ears, neck and shoulders were translucent, and the things behind him could be seen directly.

"This is a hidden disease." Old Man Godfrey said, "Basically everyone in the town suffers from it, but the severity varies...perhaps it can be understood as a kind of chronic evaporation. As various parts of the human body become more and more transparent, corresponding The function of the local organs will also be greatly reduced until they gradually die out. This process is more painful than the sudden disappearance, but the ending is the same. The whole person and all traces of existence disappear completely. I can’t remember how to clearly explain it now. I can’t pronounce his name, but I only have a rough pronunciation impression.”

"However, as generations of people explore, they have found a practical way to alleviate hidden diseases, and that is to hold concerts."

The old man burped, looked at the height of one-third of the spiritual liquid in the glass tube, and gave Fan Ning a look that seemed to be bargaining, but the force from the barrel of Roy's gun pressed against the back of his head, Let him give up this unrealistic idea.

"The level of playing in public is not very important, but it does require a certain amount of audience. The best effect is at three o'clock in the middle of the night. At least once per person per month can reduce the speed of disappearing into nothingness. Therefore, everyone has arranged each Yue’s plan - let 20 people go up to play every night, and the other half listen, and everyone takes turns... The residents who don’t want to die so quickly have reluctantly learned an instrument. "

…There seems to be something really wrong with this Source God. Fan Ning frowned when he heard this.

This is already the third person he knows about the source of the artifact witness: "Red Pond" is an evil god, "Fountain in the Painting" is crazy, and "Hidden Lamp" seems to be extremely abnormal - this thing that comes out of his activities You can see the error zone and all kinds of weird rules.

Living in such an atmosphere and routine, it is normal for these residents to become weird.

"Where is the manor in the north of the city?" Fan Ning continued to ask, trying to confirm whether Qiong's memory of the ancestral home actually existed.

"Manor?" The other party's expression was stunned for a moment.

"...Or, a special place in the north of the city." In order to increase the possibility of getting clues, Fan Ning expanded the scope of his expression.

"A special place?" The old man's raised wine glass stopped emptying, and his lips were half-immersed in the liquid. "If we have to exclude those ordinary residential buildings-" He searched hard for memory, and then said:

"There is an art gallery there."