The Witch's Taste

The so-called settling down actually has another meaning: obtaining information from the locals.

After all, in everyone's original perception, Lingyi Town is a deserted town.But since there are still townspeople active now, it is of course more important to collect information first than to rush to the underground mine rashly.

Under the strong recommendation of Tian Xiaoyun and Zetian Caixia, everyone went to the hot spring hotel recommended by the blogger.

The proprietress of the hotel is a middle-aged woman who still has charm, and quickly opened rooms for everyone.

Regarding the fact that Chen Ziang and Yuegong Lingnai did not live together, the two passers-by girls showed obvious interest, and began to whisper and gossip again.

Chen Ziang winked at Yuegong Lingnai, and went upstairs first in the name of helping the girls with their luggage.

Tsukimiya Suzuna took advantage of her affinity and got close to the proprietress:

"Mrs. Dongyue, are you running this hotel alone?"

"That's right." Mrs. Dongyue said with a smile on her face, "My husband passed away very early, and my children are also working in Zhongnan City, so I can only come to see the store."

"Hey, that's really hard work." Tsukimiya Suzuna sighed, "The business is so good, it would be very hard to run it alone, right?"

"It's not very good, it's just that there have been more tourists recently." Mrs. Dongyue explained, "It seems that someone recommended the hot springs in our town on the Internet."

"So, can the hot springs here really beautify the skin?" Tsukimiya Suzuna asked curiously.

"Well, let me tell you..." Mrs. Dongyue motioned for Yuegong Suzuna to come over.

Chen Ziang sent everyone's luggage upstairs, then returned to his room, and began to look out the window.

He found that almost every household outside closed the windows and drew the curtains, as if they were guarding against something... This reminded him of the ancient city of Enrank in the dream world.

Tsukimiya Suzuna came in from the outside and said:

"The proprietress said that almost all the people in the town are over 60 years old with handicapped legs and feet, so people hardly come out and walk around."

"The town was originally in a semi-abandoned state, but recently a blogger on the Internet recommended the hot springs in the town, which attracted some tourists, so everyone came out to operate and open shops."

"So what do you think?" Chen Ziang asked after thinking.

"I think the proprietress must be hiding something." Tsukimiya Suzuna said seriously, "From a semi-abandoned desolate state to a business model that can receive tourists, it will inevitably require a lot of manpower and material resources. If nothing else, that's it. For a big hot spring hotel, who will do the sanitation? Where will the food be supplied? Where will the toiletries come from?"

"And the proprietress said that almost all the townspeople are over 60 years old, and their legs and feet are inconvenient, so they can't go out and walk. The two are obviously contradictory."

"You didn't ask about the mortuary, did you?" Chen Ziang asked for confirmation.

"No, I'm afraid of scaring the snake away." Tsukimiya Suzuna replied obediently.

"Hmm." Chen Ziang pondered.

Since the next step is to act together and face the huge danger, even if it is for better tactical coordination, I should at least explain my special ability to my partner Suzuna Tsukimiya in advance.

"Next, we will conduct a full investigation of this town." Chen Ziang said in a deep voice, "Yue Gong, do you know what the 'collective subconscious' is?"

Chapter 36

Consciousness, preconsciousness, subconsciousness and collective subconsciousness are collectively referred to as the "dream world".

If everyone's spiritual world is compared to an iceberg, then consciousness is the part of the iceberg above the sea;

The preconscious is the part that is submerged in seawater but can be observed through the seawater; the part of the iceberg that cannot be observed belongs to the category of the subconscious.

As for the collective subconscious layer, it refers to the undercurrents surging under the icebergs, which will run from the bottom of one iceberg to the bottom of another iceberg.

"Hey, in this way, I seem to understand a little bit." Tsukimiya Suzuna clapped her hands and said, "Senior, listen to me, when I was still in high school, I once felt wrong when I walked into the classroom. I didn't speak, but there was a sad atmosphere in the class."

"After asking, I found out that everyone's favorite Akita-sensei is leaving! So this ability to read the air is actually the category of the collective subconscious, right?"

"I think it's just because you are good at observing words and expressions." Chen Zi'ang said with his hands on his forehead, "The real collective subconsciousness should be the kind... For example, after a natural disaster ravages a town, you will feel a sense of sadness and coldness inexplicably." , Many people think that this is a ghost, but in fact it may just be affected by the hidden collective subconscious."

"Let's get down to business, the power I'm going to launch next is called [Dream Walk], which can transform our body into a spiritual form, so that we can freely shuttle between the preconscious, subconscious and collective subconscious."

"Eh? It's amazing!" Tsukimiya Suzuna exclaimed.

It's not a feigned surprise, but a real surprise—because [Dream Walk] is a very rare, very rare special power. As far as she knows, there are no more than three gods who have this power, and it is the only one that humans can touch. He is the Lord of the Great Deep Sea.

So, have seniors seen the Lord of the Great Deep Sea?

"Also, you have to remember." Chen Ziang urged, "Whether it's the public security department or the detective agency, people like us who walk on the mysterious side, the powers they possess or the sealed items they own are almost all personal top-secret information. — don't tell it."

"Understood, I won't say it." Tsukimiya Suzuna said seriously.

"Yeah." Chen Ziang continued, "You may feel a little dizzy at first, but it's okay when you get used to it. Let's go."

He grabbed Tsukimiya Suzuna's arm and activated the power of dream walking.

As if falling suddenly, when Tsukimiya Suzuna came back to her senses, she found that the two were still in the room of the hot spring hotel, but there seemed to be something different around them.

It was not daytime outside the window, but darkness where she could not see anything at all, and Tsukimiya Suzuna could clearly sense that there was something peeping at her in the darkness.

"This is my pre-conscious space." Chen Ziang explained, "The darkness means that I feel strange and unfamiliar with Lingyi Town, and the sense of peeping comes from my own vigilance and anxiety."

He activated the power of dream walking again, and the consciousness of the two continued to fall, falling into the subconscious level.

In the subconscious world, the hotel room turned into an ancient island-style decoration, with tatami floors and paper sliding doors.

"Hey——" Tsukimiya Suzuna said with a smile, "Senior, do you think that hot spring hotels should look like this?"

"Maybe." Chen Ziang waved his hand, "The subconscious mind is uncontrollable and unexplainable. I personally suggest not to delve into it."

As soon as the words fell, Tsukimiya Suzuna saw her phantom.

The phantom knelt down in the middle of the tatami, covered her cheeks tightly with her hands, and tears flowed down from the gap between her fingers.

Tsukimiya Suzuna stared blankly at her weeping phantom, her expression seemed a little overwhelmed and cramped.

"Uh, that's how people's subconscious is. Anything can appear." Chen Ziang said awkwardly, "Actually..."

"It's too bad, senior." Tsukimiya Suzuna said softly, "Is the miserable appearance of me crying really impressing you so much?"

"...Sorry." Chen Ziang could only admit his mistake.

After a moment of silence, Tsukimiya Suzuna said again:

"Then will Senior make me cry next time?"

"No, no more." Chen Ziang subconsciously reassured, but quickly realized, and asked in confusion, "Wait, I didn't seem to cause you to cry last time, did you?"

Tsukimiya Suzuna smiled and changed the subject:

"Let's not talk about this, how to get to the collective subconscious layer?"

"The collective subconscious layer is the collection of all individual subconscious minds." Chen Ziang replied, "For example, if all the residents of a village live next to a river, and everyone has a deep impression of this river, then in everyone's collective subconscious Among them, there is a high probability that this river will appear."

"The more things impress many people, the higher the probability of appearing in the collective subconscious layer. What we have to do now is to search the collective subconscious layer of 'Lingyi Town' to investigate the hidden dangers behind this town. the mysterious truth."

"And the townspeople will be completely kept in the dark." Tsukimiya Suzuna showed a suddenly realized expression, "Because they can't perceive the subconscious level."

"If you can feel it, then it's not called 'subconscious mind'." Chen Ziang said with a smile, "Let's go."

Chen Zi'ang was quite proficient at launching the dream walk for the third time, and quickly visualized "Lingyi Town" in his mind.

Soon, they appeared in a town.

The surroundings seem to be Lingyi Town, but it is obviously much more lively than the real Lingyi Town.Although it was night, the lights were on in every house, and the cries of babies, the barking of dogs, and the scolding of adults could be heard from time to time.

Suddenly, all sounds stopped abruptly.

From the end of the street in the distance, the houses on both sides turned off the lights in all rooms at the same time, whether it was the living room or the bedroom, whether it was the first floor or the second floor.

The lights-off effect was like a domino, and soon spread to the neighbors next door, one after another... Along with the orderly lights-off, the darkness also hit Chen Ziang like a tide.

A certain sense of vigilance arose spontaneously from the bottom of his heart, and Chen Ziang quickly opened his inspiration, confirming that there was a great danger in the dark depths.

He immediately grabbed Yue Gong Suzuna's hand and rushed towards the nearest residential house.

The front door of the residence is locked, and the courtyard wall is more than 2 meters high, making it almost impossible to climb over with bare hands.

Chen Ziang quickly raised his left hand, and directly summoned the Touch of the Abyss from the ground.

Huge tentacles rose from the ground, sending the two of them across the courtyard wall in an instant, and fell into the courtyard.

Chen Ziang quickly rushed to the balcony door and pulled the doorknob hard.

Sure enough, the door was locked.

He quickly stepped back half a step, raised his left hand, and the touch of the abyss emerged from the floor behind the door. The tip of the tentacle held the lock on the inside and twisted it slightly.

The lock is open.

Pulling Yuegong Lingnai into the room, Chen Ziang quickly closed the door and locked it behind him, and then slowly heaved a sigh of relief.

"That's amazing, senior." Tsukimiya Suzuna exclaimed.

"Shhh." Chen Ziang hurriedly signaled her to be silent.

After a while, about ten seconds, strange voices suddenly sounded from the street outside.

Island dialect?

Chen Ziang was stunned for a moment.

Although more than 90% of the people in Jibei City are island people, the official language is the imperial land language, and it is generally believed in the society that "only rural people can use the island dialect", so everyone usually communicates in the land language. As for Chen Zi'ang, although he has lived in Jibei City since he was a child, he can only understand the four dialect words "Kawaii", "Kouxixi", "Suoga" and "Duesinei".

But soon, Tsukimiya Suzuna approached the phone screen intimately.

Chen Ziang leaned over and saw her fingers flicking on the screen keyboard, translating the voice outside into Lu language for him to read.

"...Is that so, the one who passed away was Mr. Sosuke."

"Hurry up and send his body to the mortuary, I hope he can rest in peace in [other realms]."

Tsukimiya Suzuna deliberately added square brackets to the word "other world", expressing that she didn't know how to translate it accurately.

"Should I hand it over directly to the priests at the charnel house? To be honest, every time I see their faces, it scares me."

"Shut up, can you say this casually? You want to die, don't splash blood on me."

The sound outside was so far away that she couldn't hear it, Yuegong Lingna put away her phone and looked at Chen Ziang seriously.

Chen Ziang was silent for a moment, took out his mobile phone and typed:

"Let's go to the cemetery to have a look."

Chapter 37

The cemetery, located in the depths of the mine in Lingyi Town, is the summoning site where the séance ceremony was once performed.

Helplessly, when the security officers arrived last time, the mine tunnel in Lingyi Town collapsed due to an earthquake and was completely closed off from the outside world. No one could see the inside of the charnel house.

As the voice of the voice faded away, the sense of crisis brought by the inspiration gradually disappeared, and the outside also returned to tranquility.

The lights in the room suddenly turned on, but there was no one around.

Chen Zi'ang thought carefully, and realized that it must be the former Lingyi Town, where the dead were often sent to the remains by the townspeople.

On the way to transport the corpse, the doors and lights of every house will be closed, not because of politeness, but because of some deeper fear.

These fears are so strong that in the collective subconscious of Lingyi Town, the funeral phantom that the two of them just saw was created.

Then, of course, the next step is to find out the truth about the corpse in the collective subconscious level.

Chen Ziang came to the door of the room, gently grasped the doorknob with his right hand, but did not rush to open it, but continued to activate the ability to walk in dreams.

He is looking for memories that may be related to the remains in the subconscious minds of countless townspeople around him.

After a while, Chen Zi'ang opened the door again.

Behind the door is a deep tunnel, only the miner's lamp glows dimly on the ground not far away.

Chen Ziang took Yuegong Lingnai along the tunnel for five or six steps, and found that the road ahead was completely shrouded in darkness, and he couldn't see any road clearly.

"It's only here at most." Chen Ziang said thoughtfully, "Obviously, most of the townspeople have never entered the tunnel, but stood at the entrance of the mine and looked inside."

"The farthest they can see is where we stand. Because no one can see it, it doesn't exist in the collective subconscious."

"But didn't the townspeople say before that there are priests in the coffin?" Suzuna Tsukimiya asked curiously, "Aren't these priests subconscious?"

"I didn't find it..." After she reminded her, Chen Ziang suddenly came to his senses.

Any human being has his own consciousness and subconsciousness, so it should be detected by the dream walking ability.

Of course, if the other party has a similar power to travel through consciousness, and his spiritual vision and mysticism are much higher than Chen Ziang's, then he can indeed hide his subconsciousness from being discovered by dream walking.

That is to say, the "sacrifice of the hidden bones" mentioned by the townspeople is likely to have a very high level of mysticism.

Thinking of this, Chen Ziang became a little irritable.