Ten hours?!
Doesn't that mean that after the police took the body away, they came back right after?
What on earth were my parents doing? Why did they come back again? The situation was already critical, but they were still wandering in the mountains. If they had found an opportunity, they should have escaped without a trace!
I was full of doubts. In excitement, I grabbed Lao Bai's wrist and asked, "Can you find them?"
"This..."
Lao Bai thought about it and sighed, "I'll try my best, but the hope is not great. Their smell is very weak, and they should have been specially treated. Your father is very cautious. Now only I can find some traces. If it were someone else, even a specially trained dog would not work."
After he finished speaking, he looked around to identify the direction and waved for us to follow him.
In fact, I saw that the direction he was going was directly into the mountains.
Guancen Mountain is not like other places. The scenery here is nice, but it is remote. They have been clamoring to build a tourist attraction for many years, but there is no movement until now. This is really a wild mountain with wolves, tigers and leopards.
At this time, the sky was getting dark. We didn't walk far before we saw some strange big birds flying over the treetops, spreading their wings. They looked like they were going to eat people, which was extremely scary.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any preparations for this trip. In order to illuminate, Brother Yaozi could only break off a branch as thick as his arm, pull a piece of clothes to wrap it around one end, and smear pine resin on the pine tree to light it as a torch. All that came out was black smoke, and the smell was very bad.
Brother Yaozi said that the grass in the forest was too high, and it was buried up to the calf. Who knows what is in the grass? He heard that there is a poisonous snake in Guancen Mountain called the black witch snake by the locals. It can kill people with one bite. If it is caught in the grass and hits people, it is hard to guard against. The gas emitted by the burning pine resin is slightly toxic. It will not kill people, but it can drive away snakes. It is a pity that Lao Bai is frightened by the smoke and his eyes are tearful.
Unfortunately, the light of a torch is not very effective. It can barely illuminate the way ahead. After walking for a while, Zhang Xinya suddenly screamed and said that there was a ghost face on the tree. She almost bumped into it. In the dark, we couldn't see what it was. We could only see a black mass hanging on the branch. Brother Yaozi took the torch and approached it to see that it was an owl hanging upside down on the tree and sleeping. This thing hanging there at night can really scare people to death.
The real deep mountains and old forests have not only magnificent primitive landscapes, but also ubiquitous crises. In the early years, how many people went to Guandong and lost their lives in the mountains? The deep mountains and old forests in northwest Shanxi are not much gentler than the white mountains and black waters in the northeast. Although I grew up drinking Fenhe water and blowing Guancen wind, this is actually the first time I have entered the deep mountains. My mother reminded me since I was a child that except for the old mountain people who rely on the mountains for their livelihood, normal people can't get out of the mountains. Now I have not walked far, and I have roughly experienced the difficulties. I just don't know how my parents survived in these deep mountains.
Lao Bai walked shoulder to shoulder with me. Maybe he saw my worries, so he smiled and said that I was worrying too much.
He had never met my dad. He had heard me talk about him before. My dad was always an honest man. Now this was the first time he had dealt with my dad remotely. He felt that what I said was wrong. My dad was obviously a veteran. He found out through scent tracking that my dad had a strong anti-reconnaissance awareness. Such people are all experienced people who are like fish in water in this deep mountain forest. Even if I die a hundred times, he may not fall down, so I don't have to worry.
We trekked for six or seven hours on the rugged mountain, and our waists and legs were sore. In the end, we got lost in front of a big water bubble.
To be precise, the smell of my parents dissipated after reaching here, leaving no trace.
Brother Yaozi stared at the big bubble, picked up a stone and threw it in. There was only a "gulp" sound, and there was not even a splash. He immediately said: "There can't be anything underwater, the water is too deep."
"They are not in this place."
Lao Bai thought for a while and sighed: "After all, he is an old man, unfathomable. I think we should be very close to them. In all likelihood, they may have noticed that someone is tracking them, so they used tricks and didn't leave any smell."
I thought about it and felt that there was something weird about this matter.
The smell of the corpse hiding place was left ten hours ago. Unless my dad stayed in one place, we could catch up.
Moreover, this is a surprise inspection. My dad doesn't have clairvoyance and sharp ears. How can he detect that someone is tracking them? This is unreasonable!
"Is there really nothing we can do?"
I asked, "If my dad really noticed something, he might have mistaken us for Xing Wei's gang. Is there any way to tell him our identities?"
"Do you really think I'm a god?"
Lao Bai rolled his eyes, then thought for a moment and said, "The smell can conceal confusion, but the vitality can't be hidden. I'll try again."
As he said that, he took out a small bottle from his pocket. After opening it, there was a sparkling light inside, which seemed to be some white powder.
Zhang Xinya was curious and subconsciously wanted to go over to take a look, but was stopped by Brother Yaozi with an outstretched arm.
"It's best not to touch this thing."
Brother Yaozi looked at Lao Bai deeply and said, "In the future, don't touch his things. This guy is getting more and more evil. He even carries this thing with him. It's all bugs, but because they are too small, the human eye can't see them clearly. When they are piled together, they look like lime powder at first glance. Don't touch them at all!"
When she heard that they were bugs, Zhang Xinya shuddered immediately, rubbed her arms fiercely, and a layer of goose bumps appeared on her skin. She exclaimed, "Gu?"
"It's not a Gu. This thing is called 'Xing Gu Zi', and it's a special skill in Wuhua Ba Men."
Brother Yaozi pulled Zhang Xinya and me to stand a little further away, as if he was extremely afraid of this Xing Gu Zi.
He said that this is a common thing used by the Hanging Gate in the Eight Gates among the Five-Variety Gates, and it is a thing that specifically harms people!
The so-called "Guamen" refers to the people who practiced tricks to sell their skills in the market and temple fairs in the old society. People in the underworld jokingly called them "Guazixing". There are many types of Guazixing, including Zhi, La, Chuo, Dian, Jian, etc.
This fishy Guazi is cultivated by people in the Guamen.
As the saying goes, it is better to offend a gentleman than a villain. In the Guazixing, Zhi, La, Chuo, Dian, etc. can be regarded as vegetarians. Even if they are performing on the streets, they are bound by a professional ethics. It is important to pay money if you have money and pay for yourself if you don't have money. But only people in the underworld are the most difficult to offend, and they have no taboos.
To put it bluntly, once the stalls of the people in the fishy way are set up and you watch the performance, you have to pay. If you don't pay, then the feud will be established. They will take the initiative to ask you for money. They call it "losing face", which probably means to tear the face off. If you still don't give it, they will resort to trickery and release "fishy hooks" to entangle with you.
If this little bug has no other abilities, it has one characteristic, which is to swallow people's vitality.
A tree lives on its skin, and a person lives on his breath. In fact, vitality is the root of a person. People in the fishy way control fishy hooks and swallow other people's vitality, which is equivalent to the root of the bad person's body. It can be said to be very vicious. At the least, it will cause the root of the disease, and at the worst, it will kill you, or even suck you dry, which is very painful. As for the extent to which the people in the fishy way will do it, it all depends on how bad you say after losing face.
Brother Yaozi probably didn't expect that Lao Bai would have such a thing. He looked disgusted and said that the most taboo thing for the underworld is to be with people who are involved in the underworld. These people broke the rules of the industry and were the rats that everyone wanted to kill. If Lao Bai dared to take out the underworld thing in front of others, it would be more serious than his cheating the Black Miao chieftain. He would be condemned by thousands of people.
"I didn't use it to harm anyone, so I'm not afraid of it!"
Lao Bai cursed, clamped the small porcelain bottle in the center of his palm and rubbed it back and forth. After a while, he blew gently at the mouth of the bottle, raised his hand and sprinkled all the powder in the bottle!
This is indeed a bug.
The white powder was sprinkled out and immediately dispersed, like a large piece of white mist, floating and sinking in the air, still moving back and forth.
Suddenly, the white mist gathered and rushed to a location, condensing on the ground, where a footprint appeared.
After a moment, the footprints disappeared, the white mist floated forward, and one footprint after another appeared on the ground!
"This direction!"
Lao Bai pointed to the direction of the footprints and said in a low voice: "They left here for no more than an hour. Wherever the living pass, the vitality will be temporarily condensed on the ground through their feet. I use the fishy hook to track these vitality. The vitality will dissipate in an hour at most. They will definitely not go far!"
After saying that, he took the lead and chased after them.
The speed of the white mist was getting faster and faster. We were panting and chasing like headless flies in the deep mountains and old forests, completely losing our sense of direction.
The wound on my body was torn and painful, and my chest was warm and hot, and blood had already seeped out faintly.
Just when we were about to give up, we entered a valley. Behind a vine clinging to the rock, there was a dark cave. Those fishy creatures rushed into it like crazy, and the vines withered wherever they passed!
"It's in that cave!"
Lao Bai wiped the sweat off his face and smiled: "We should have found it this time. The blood is so strong, your parents must be in there!"