A common tavern that connects all fantasy worlds

Ikab thought so too, temporarily put down the things in his hands, and went downstairs with the nine uncles, blending into the weird joyful atmosphere.

The reception lasted until very late, during which many curious people came to talk to the three Chinese, and Uncle Jiu, who was the only one who could communicate normally, politely prevaricated them one by one.Wencai and Qiusheng, who wanted to come down and feel the American enthusiasm, never had a chance to leave his sight. Even if they wanted to communicate with others, they could only make gestures, let alone think about anything else.

After a long while, the two young men were also discouraged, and sat on the chairs by the window, resting while eating.

"Are you saying that this American doesn't have to work? He's so happy after playing so late, how can he get up tomorrow." Said Qiu Sheng, who was bored and stuffed his stomach with bread and cheese.

Wencai, who was next to him, was vigorously pointing at the knife and fork, replied: "No, that's not the case in the town we passed on the way. Maybe the people here are richer. This town is quite big, much bigger than Renjia Town. It’s not uncommon for there to be one or two hundred rich families.”

"...How can there be so many? And there is a field outside this house. I saw haystacks and scarecrows just now. They look like big landlords."

Qiu Sheng said, turning his head and pointing out the window, he saw a man and a woman hurriedly emerge from the shadows outside the window with their heads lowered.The two Americans didn't pay attention to him, but hurriedly finished arranging their clothes as they walked. The woman made a dignified appearance and went to the front door first, while the man stood by the window, lit a pipe, and stared at each other. The light of the fire is particularly conspicuous in the night.

He and Wen Cai, who followed the direction he pointed, looked at each other, and quickly turned their heads to pretend that they didn't see the window, and they both blushed.This... definitely isn't an exotic custom, otherwise why would it be afraid of people finding out.

Just when a lot of inappropriate thoughts and pictures ran into the heads of the two young people, they had to drink two sips of beer to cover up their embarrassment.

After a while, when the two finally calmed down, Uncle Jiu, Ikab and a lady walked towards them together.

"Those two are my apprentices. They went out to sea with me this time to see the world, but they haven't learned to speak American, so they can only stay with me forever."

Uncle Jiu said to the hostess of this big house.

This lady was wearing a long skirt with a strange pattern, showing a large area of ​​her shoulders and neck and half of her chest. Uncle Jiu could only keep his eyes on it. It was not as natural as the Ikab on the side.

The lady looked very hospitable, let go of Ikab's arm, and stretched out to Qiusheng and Wencai: "What an outstanding young man."

Ichab took half a step back, twisting his hands into a hand-kissing gesture.

It was Qiu Sheng who reacted quickly, recovering from the sluggishness first, bowed slightly according to Ichab's movements, and touched the back of the other's finger with his lips lightly, which made the lady more satisfied, and said to everyone with a smile: "My poor man I'm getting older and can't stay up late, so I went to rest first. Enjoy the food and drinks at the reception, and if you have any special needs, you can come to me and I will ask the maid to arrange. Then, I have to greet other people, Forgive me for the time being."

"Thank you ma'am, goodbye."

Uncle Jiu said and nodded.

After the swaying figure walked away, Qiu Sheng hurriedly approached Master and said in a low voice, "Master, we just... just saw that lady..."

"What's wrong with her? Do not look at evil, you won't be staring where you shouldn't be, are you?" Uncle Jiu turned his head and asked.

Wen Cai also leaned over, and immediately rushed to say: "You shouldn't watch it, but we didn't do it on purpose, that lady just... was talking to someone... that person outside the window."

Ikab opened his eyes wide and lowered his volume involuntarily: "No way...that's Mrs. Fantaso, the owner of the house and the wife of the most powerful Master Fantaso. I saw Fantaso just now. Master Tasso was helped up the stairs, so... who is the man you see?"

"How could we know each other?" The two apprentices shook their heads hastily.

Although this kind of matter is relatively personal and should not be intervened or spoken out, Ikab intuitively feels that there is something else behind it.Normally speaking, even if Mrs. Fantasso had an affair, she wouldn't have to make trouble at the door of her husband's house, would she?I haven't heard that this family has French ancestry?

"...This town is really abnormal."

he said to himself.

Chapter 22 Pine Forest

The next morning, Ikab and Jiu Shubing split into two groups and formally launched an investigation into the case.

Uncle Jiu took two apprentices, and after reporting to the magistrate, he borrowed three horses from the town and went to the mountain to investigate together.

The woods here are also very strange. Among the normal pine trees, maple trees, oak trees, and fir trees, there are occasional dry trees that don't know which species are like dead fingers; On the fallen leaves, there was no sound of hoofs being knocked down, but it often slipped because of moisture.

Looking up, continuous dark clouds spread from east to west, and the large shadows cast by the trees shrouded the entire valley in a depressing atmosphere.

Uncle Nine was wearing a high-necked wool coat, breeches, and boots. He poked his lightning-like eyes out from under his plain three-cornered hat, and took the rein casually, looking at the surroundings.

The person who led the way said that this place has exceeded the distance that people who gather firewood and cut trees will go deep. Even hunters who bring hounds up the mountain to hunt will not go so far. There is no way at all; The legend of the mercenary knight happened here, and he was so frightened that he refused to follow the three of them to death, and just stayed at the outskirts of the dense forest to wait for Uncle Jiu and the others.

Even though he knew it was useless, Uncle Jiu still carried a leather bag and packed the compass, cinnabar and other foodies, just in case he really met that knight who chopped off people's heads... there is always something to try.

If it is really a ghost and evil spirit, the most effective way to subdue him is to lay hands on his dead body.

It is a pity that when the knight died in the woods, his identity was "the enemy of the United States", and the American soldiers who killed him obviously had no intention of letting his soul return to his hometown, but just planed a hastily in the woods. The pit buried him without even marking it, and now no one knows where the body is.

After walking for a while, Qiu Sheng and Wen Cai lightly kicked the horse's belly to catch up, and said next to Uncle Jiu, "Master, this forest is so big, where can I find that guy? Besides, is it a ghost or a ghost?"

Uncle Jiu nodded: "I wasn't sure before I came here, but after seeing this forest, I'm [-]% sure. Didn't you find anything wrong along the way?"

Wen Cai and Qiu Sheng raised their heads to look around, but found nothing, so they looked at Uncle Jiu and shook their heads.

After all, no one is born with knowledge and has to be taught slowly, and no matter how stupid these two are, they are still his apprentices. Uncle Jiu didn't scold them, but just pointedly said: "Even if the woods are inaccessible, there should be birds and beasts, but The deeper we go here, the more we can't hear any movement. There are no birds in the treetops, no paths made by animals on the ground, and you can't even hear the sound of the wind...everything is abnormal, there must be a demon."

Wen Cai felt his heart tremble when he heard this, and hurriedly steered his horse to lean against the other two, and asked, "Master, is it similar to the old man Ren's situation, that 'mercenary' turned into a zombie in the corpse farm, birds and beasts?" Dispelled by the corpse?"

"That's not like... Although this is a valley, the terrain is gentle, the air is smooth, and the vegetation is lush. It's not a place for corpses. Moreover, the mercenaries in the legend cut off people's heads on horseback. When have you ever seen limbs and feet hardened?" Zombies riding horses and wielding swords?"

As Uncle Jiu was speaking, he suddenly waved his hand and asked the two apprentices to stop their horses.

In this originally silent woodland, it seemed that suddenly there was the sound of horseshoes rattling, rattling.

Several Chinese people looked at the fallen leaves under their feet, looked at each other again, and raised the reins in unison, causing the restless horses to turn their heads and go back in the same direction they had come and gone.

Even Uncle Jiu didn't insist on staying here. Now that he has no mana and spells are useless, if he really encounters a powerful ghost, he will definitely be unable to resist, and he may even lose his and his apprentice's lives. When should we wait?

However, before the horses started to run, the strange sound of hooves was getting closer and closer, as if an invisible knight was chasing after him, and his sword tip was pointing at the necks of several people to emit a cold light. .

While galloping his horse, Uncle Jiu reached into his bag and squeezed a handful of cinnabar out, ready to give him a face when the sound of horseshoes approached; although he had no magic power, the cinnabar itself was entangled with yang energy, and it was still strong against ghosts. It has a certain effect, not to mention how much damage it can cause, as long as it can block the mercenary knight and let his master and apprentice escape from Shengtian.

It's just that the sound of the horse's hooves became more and more wrong the more I heard it. It didn't go away or slow down with the acceleration of the few people, and it was not affected by the sound of the air passing by the ears. It seemed to ring directly in the ears of the few people. It is still clearly audible from hundreds of feet away.

"No!" Uncle Jiu's thoughts turned like lightning, and he looked around, and suddenly found a white shadow flashing behind an astonishingly thick pine tree.

He immediately reined in the reins, turned around and rushed towards that end regardless, throwing the cinnabar in his hand behind the tree.

The strange sound of horseshoes stopped suddenly, replaced by a thin cough: "Ahem...cough cough..."

"Who is pretending to be a ghost!" Uncle Jiu couldn't stop his horse for a while, he simply stood up with his feet on the stirrups, stretched out his hand to grab a thick branch above his head, used his strength to turn over and hopped, turned two somersaults in the air and landed lightly Landing on the ground, he took a step towards the coughing sound, reaching out to grab someone.

At this time, his disciples had already followed on horseback, seeing this scene, they hurriedly shouted: "Master, come down!"

It turned out that the white shadow squatted down quickly against the trunk of the pine tree in the fallen leaves, and was about to escape around the tree; but at this moment, Uncle Jiu had also stood still, and pressed down with his free hand, clasping its shoulder, With just one lift and one shake, the humanoid object was thrown into the pile of fallen leaves.

He stepped forward, grabbed the thing's arm, and asked sharply: "Who are you, why are you pretending to be a ghost to scare us?"

Only then did he see clearly that the white figure was slender, the grasped wrist was so thin that the skin covered the bone, and it was covered with a veil and wearing a skirt, as if it was a woman.

"Go quickly, don't stay in Sleepy Hollow!" the woman cried out in pain, and when she saw Qiu Sheng and Wen Cai approaching with their horses, she turned around and struggled violently.

It's just that Uncle Jiu's hands are like iron tongs, holding her forearm tightly, and he has no intention of relaxing at all.She struggled for a while, but seeing that it didn't work, she muttered a series of incomprehensible words in her mouth again.

Uncle Jiu raised his head and asked his disciples to untie the rope from the horse. When he turned his head, he saw a few snakes crawling out of the woman's sleeves onto his arm. He was startled and couldn't help letting go, sat back, and turned his hand back. To throw the snake off.

As soon as the woman was released, she turned around abruptly and rolled to the other side of the pine tree. When Qiu Sheng and Wen Cai stepped forward to look for it, she was gone.Look at the arms and the ground again, how can there be half a snake?

Seeing that the two apprentices were still looking for fallen leaves, Uncle Jiu leaned against another tree and sighed wearily, "Don't worry about it...it's 'illusion' and 'escape', people should run away early." gone."

"Master, do Americans still know these things?"

"Even if it wasn't for these things, it's pretty much the same. This person must be a folk witch or divination with no background or sect." Uncle Jiu wondered if I had no mana, so how could I be deceived by this simple illusion?But then another thing came to mind, and he turned to Qiusheng and asked, "...Didn't you say that you met a 'female ghost' in the last town? Do you think this person looks like it?"

Qiu Sheng thought about it carefully, then shook his head and replied: "The clothes look similar, but the person doesn't look like him. That female ghost is much taller than this one, a bit taller than me; moreover, that female ghost's hair is black and coiled. With her hair in a bun, the size of her palm doesn't match either."

After saying this, he hurried forward together with Wen Cai, helped the master up, and asked again: "Master, is this person plotting ghosts and murders behind his back?"

"...If it was her, why didn't you kill us just now, why did you pretend to be a ghost?" Uncle Jiu asked back, and saw his horse appearing in the shadow of the trees under the hillside, he stood up straight and whistled.

The docile mare seemed to be able to understand people's wishes. After glancing at her side, she neighed and slowly walked closer.

Wencai hurried down to lead the horse, and he still didn't forget to turn his head and complain: "Master, didn't we find nothing today and drink the northwest wind all day?"

"Is your master so incompetent?"

Uncle Jiu clapped his hands, stretched out two fingers and drew a virtual line in the air: "Look, I noticed just now, are the trees outside this line a bit taller than inside this line? And, The fallen leaves inside are also thicker, as if they have never been blown out by the wind. No matter where the center of this place is, there must be something strange there... Besides, the person just now didn't want to harm us, just told us to 'leave', We must know more. Let’s go back to Ikab now and ask him to mention it to the local lords, and send more people to draw the line along this line and find these two things before we talk about it.”

Of course, the apprentices had no objection to this arrangement. They got back on their horses and did not go any further. Instead, they marked the trees along the way and went back the same way to find the guide who was waiting for them outside the dense forest.

Qiu Sheng took out a small knife and cut a mark on the tree, so he fell a little behind.

Just as he was earnestly marking the end of the road on a tree not far from where the guide was, he heard the rustling of the wind blowing through the pine forest.Accompanied by the sound of the wind, a faint female voice came:

"What you are looking for... is a dead locust tree.

"The dead are weeping...don't go into the pine forest.

"Don't bother her...don't bring her disaster."

It's a pity that from Qiu Sheng's ears, it was just that the man was pretending to be a ghost again, and he couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Wait until we find a few more people to come back, and we haven't found you yet!"

He put away his knife and said so, urging his horse to catch up with Uncle Jiu and Wen Cai in front, and they all went down the mountain together in the gradually darkening sky.

Chapter 23 The Dead Four

"It must have been done by the Headless Horseman... This really fits the legend."

When Uncle Ninth, his master and his apprentice were still wandering around on the mountain, a few powerful local people gathered in the hut and were introducing the case to Mr. Ichab Keruien, and they also told the story of the headless horseman in a serious manner, thinking that Look at the look on the young police officer's face.

But Ichab just gave a calm "hmm" and replied, "It's possible... But we can't confirm it yet. After all, the widow Winship didn't go to the woods on the mountain. By the way, I can check the victim's body." A dead body? Or, did we leave an autopsy note?"

The several masters looked at each other, and in the end, Master Fantaso, who managed to chat with Ichab for a few words, said: "...Sorry, Mr. Corian...but the news I heard from your boss in New York is that you I don’t really believe in ghosts.”

"I didn't believe it before, but then..."

Ichab shook his head, if I tell you what I have seen, wouldn't it scare you to death?

He continued to ask: "One more question, gentlemen, have you, or the townspeople, seen the headless horseman? Is he really headless, or is it more of a 'headless horseman' '?"

The gentlemen fell silent again. In the end, James Hardenbrook, the notary in the town, came forward and answered with a poked head: "Everyone who saw him is dead. But this case is not as simple as beheading. When the body was found, they His head is gone, and he was taken to hell by the headless horseman. The legend also says that he was beheaded by his own sword, so he longed for other people's heads so much; his ghost tried to fill his own eternal lack. That part of the..."

When it comes to heaven and hell, Ichab can no longer sarcasm or say "have you seen it?" In this era of America, doubting the Bible is really dead.

But he had another way, I saw him shrugged and said: "Let's assume that the murderer is not a headless horseman, but a human being who is also capable of killing Fan Garley and his son.

"If I were a human being, I would of course try to cover up my murder scene if I didn't want to be caught by the security department... It just so happened that the legend of the Headless Horseman was still circulating here in Sleepy Hollow, so I had an idea to hide the head and find Burn the place, so that everyone will instinctively think of the knight from Hesse, and will not pay attention to other traces left on the scene, and I will be perfectly exonerated. Isn't this impossible?

"Of course I'm not saying that this has nothing to do with the headless horseman. It's just that if we want to prove that the headless horseman really exists, we must find some evidence from the corpse. Otherwise, I said that there are werewolves in the woods who like to take people's heads Bite it off, no one has seen it like the headless horseman anyway."

Ikab's voice fell, and several people were silent for a while.

For the wealthy people in Sleepy Hollow, scientific spirit is beyond their comprehension, but Mr. Corin's rigorous logic is so convincing that even they who firmly believe in the legend of the Headless Horseman doubt their own judgment a bit.

"They've been buried in the cemetery at the bottom of the hill." After a while, the plump sheriff Samuel Phillips said, who happened to be the friendliest to Iqab among the gentlemen. Maybe it's because the two are colleagues in the law enforcement system... When he was ordered to become the sheriff of Sleepy Hollow, he also swore to uphold the laws of the United States, protect the order of the town, and be irreconcilable with crime.

Iqab thanked him politely, and immediately offered to exhume the coffin for an autopsy.

Master Fantasuo was forced to have no choice but to agree, "Then I'll prepare the manpower."

As the largest local gentry, rich man, landlord, serf owner, businessman, legal adviser, and banker, it is of course most appropriate for him to come forward to organize the staff.

When Uncle Jiu came down from the mountain, he encountered a group of people digging up corpses in the cemetery.

"It seems that this foreigner doesn't have the saying of 'entering the soil for peace'..." Uncle Jiu thought, handing the horse to the guide for him to take back to the stable, while he brought his apprentice to find him and directed everyone to drive away. Ikab, who was digging, wanted to tell him what he and others found in the forest.

Just as he was about to speak, the fat sheriff sneaked over again. Seeing that no one was paying attention, he whispered to Ichab, "Officer Corian... there is something I think you should know. This case There were not three, but four dead... three graves, four corpses."

After saying this, he saw another gentleman looking at him, he patted Ikab on the shoulder, and walked away with difficulty shaking his fat body.

Ichab feels that this gentleman can serve as the sheriff of a town with such a huge weight, which must show that he is still relatively keen in solving crimes... He can't ride a horse, catch up with a thief, swing a sword, or even You may not be able to lift a gun, so what else can you do besides analyze the case?

The sheriff's message must be taken seriously.But what is the meaning of three graves and four corpses?

At this time, Uncle Jiu who was next to him had already figured it out, and whispered in his ear: "One of the deceased is a woman, so one dead body and two lives!"

Ichab was shocked, and asked back in a low voice: "You mean the widow Winship was pregnant when she died?"

"Try it and you will know that you are the best at it."

Uncle Jiu nodded, turned around and walked away.He knew that an autopsy was the only way to be sure that this inference was correct, but traditionally it was disrespectful to the body of the deceased... Fortunately, this was America, and he didn't need to be involved.

A few hours later, Ikab got out of the mortuary with his hands covered in blood. He took off his gloves and threw them aside. He tried not to spit it out. He walked over and found Jiu, who was facing the forest and smoking a cigarette. uncle.

"You guessed it right, Uncle Ninth. In addition to the severed neck, there was another wound on the widow Winship's stomach. The fetus in her belly was also beheaded... the head also disappeared inexplicably. Even if I I don't want to admit it, but now things are clear...this is far beyond the capabilities of any human being."

He said.

Uncle Jiu sat on the stone at the entrance of the cemetery and told him about the strange tree line in the forest and the strange people he met there.

[31. No. 31]

All kinds of clues are intertwined, as if they are pushing the direction of the whole case to the only explanation: the Hessian knight has really been resurrected and is killing a lot.

"It's just... there are still many doubts in this case, which cannot be explained by 'The Headless Horseman Kills'."

As Ichab said, his intuition reminded him again that this town itself hides too many secrets, especially the "pregnant widow", which can arouse people's desire to explore.

"I also happened to look through the genealogy of the most important family in this town today. It seems that Fan Garley, the family of the first two deceased, and Fan Taso, the largest family that held the dance last night, are from the same line. They are also descendants of dilapidated aristocrats from the Netherlands. The Fantasso family did not thrive here a generation ago, and the population has withered... So I boldly infer that they came here to join relatives because they were too poor to survive Uncle Jiu, what do you think?"

Faced with Ikab's question, Uncle Nine also waved his hand: "Your reasoning is fine in my opinion, but I'm not very educated, and half my life has been devoted to Taoism. Except for the part involving ghosts, I really don't dare to talk too much. .”