Dream Guide

Aoki walked in and sat down at the bar counter of the bar. He said unceremoniously: "Two glasses of beer, cold, and put them on the account."

Bi Shenghua said: "Your bills are enough to wipe your butt for a year, when will you pay them back?"

Aoki drank beer and said: "Talk about money hurts feelings."

"Not talking about money will hurt feelings more!" Bishenghua slammed the beer glass on the bar, causing a bunch of foam to splash out.

Hu Xing giggled, and Aoki also chuckled.

Bi Shenghua shook his head and sighed, and said: "Drink quickly, there is a stick upstairs waiting for a long time."

"What stick?"

"The person who came to you for consultation, what else could he be if he didn't have a stick?"

Aoki's eyes widened: "You let a stranger go upstairs before I came back?"

"Do you have anything valuable upstairs? Are you afraid that someone will steal your coal boss? Damn!" Bishenghua said disdainfully, "They spent three hundred yuan at my place anyway."

Aoki shrugged at Hu Xing, expressing his helplessness, and then led Hu Xing toward the back door.

Bishenghua threw a bag of things through the air and said, "Give it to the coal boss."

Aoki took it in his hand and put it into his pocket without asking.

Hu Xing wondered who the coal boss was, but was too embarrassed to ask. Is there something going on upstairs? Even the coal boss works here?

The aisle on the second floor was filled with miscellaneous things, and there was a row of old chairs by the window, just like the ones used in hospitals.

Sitting on the chair was a middle-aged man in his thirties.

"Master Aoki is back, right!" The middle-aged man stood up and bowed, "Hey, why are there still police comrades?"

Hu Xing noticed that this man's eyes flickered when he looked at her. Based on his intuition as a detective, there must be something wrong with this man.

"What? Can't the police come?" Hu Xing asked back.

"I can come, I can come." The middle-aged man's back bowed even more, "I came at the wrong time."

"Are you looking for me?" Aoki asked.

"Ah, my name is Ma Fuqing, and I'm looking for Master Aoki." The middle-aged man probably found that Aoki was younger and didn't look like the master at all, so he was a little undecided.

"Come in and sit down." Aoki didn't show any enthusiasm. He just said hello lazily. He put his hands in his trouser pockets and moved forward a few steps with his feet, and stopped in front of a door.

The sign "Shenwu Studio" hangs above the door, with couplets on both sides:

Only green wood,

Can live in Shenwu.

Hu Xing silently recited these eight words, feeling that there should be deep meaning in them.

Aoki opened the door and turned to signal them to come in.

Hu Xing didn't see him take out the key and judged that the door was probably unlocked in the first place.

The studio room is small and boxy, and the shelves against the wall are filled with all kinds of books. There is a desk in the middle, and a sofa and coffee table on the left. Magazines, newspapers and cigarette butts were scattered all over the floor, a bit like the scene when the criminal police team worked overtime in the conference room to handle a major case.

Aoki pointed to the sofa and said, "Sit."

Hu Xing sat down generously. Ma Fuqing waited for Wu Xing to sit down, then carefully sat down on the edge of the other sofa.

Aoki did not greet them at this time, but shouted loudly into the air: "Boss Coal, Boss Coal!"

No reply.

Hu Xing saw a small door in the room and guessed that the coal boss Qingmu called should be sleeping inside.

Aoki took out the bag of things given to him by the landlady downstairs, pretending to throw it away, and shouted: "Boss Coal, if you don't come out, the delicious food Ruhua made for you will be gone!"

There was a crashing sound, and a black shadow flew out of nowhere, flashed twice in the room, and landed on the coffee table in front of Aoki.

Only then did Hu Xing see clearly that the black figure was a crow.

The crow cawed, raised its neck, opened its mouth wide and faced the green wood, and made a cooing sound in its throat like a young swallow waiting to be fed.

Aoki picked out a fingernail-sized piece from the food wrapped in a plastic bag and threw it into the crow's mouth.

The crow swallowed the food, twisted its neck happily, and shouted: "Soy elbow, delicious, soy elbow, delicious."

Hu Xing's jaw almost dropped: "It can talk!"

She has seen talking parrots and mynas, but has never seen a talking crow. The pronunciation is clear and the accent is pure. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would never have thought that it was a bird copying words.

Ma Fuqing even opened his mouth in surprise and kept saying: "Divine bird, divine bird!"

Aoki smiled and said: "Crows are the smartest animals after humans."

Hu Xing didn’t believe it and said, “Are you smarter than an orangutan?”

The crow suddenly turned its head and screamed at her, making a strange sound in its throat, and then said in human language: "Stupid orangutan, stupid orangutan."

"Ha, you are really smart!" Hu Xing said.

Aoki threw another bite of food to the crow and said, "Aren't you going to thank the boss lady?"

The crow swallowed the food, flapped its wings, jumped up, and flew out of the room. It stopped at about the entrance of the corridor and shouted to the stairs:

"Thank you - boss lady. Thank you - boss lady."

After calling a few times, but receiving no response, the bird began to sing with a special vibrating long note:

"Like a flower——, like a flower——..."

I heard the sound of the washbasin hitting the floor downstairs, and then the boss's wife scolded:

"You're going to die! If you keep screaming, I'll pluck all your bird feathers, stew them with tomatoes and potatoes, add three spoons of sugar, and turn your black crow into a white crane!"

There was suddenly silence in the corridor for ten seconds, and then there was a strange cry of crows:

"Afraid—afraid—oh—"

Then there was another sound of metal banging downstairs, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Hu Xing saw the crow flapping its wings and flying back, stopping on the table and shouting to Qingmu:

"Close the door quickly! Ruhua is going crazy! Close the door quickly! The boss lady is going crazy!"

Hu Xing couldn't help it any longer and burst out laughing, making her slim body wrapped in police uniform tremble. Even the reserved Ma Fuqing grinned wildly and couldn't close his mouth.

"Uh oh -" Seeing that people were ignoring him, the crow turned to look at the door. After looking for a long time, he didn't see the life-spanning flower. Then he relaxed and fluffed his feathers, then "chirped" and opened his mouth wide, facing Aoki. Begging for food.

Aoki threw the whole bag of soy pork elbow on the table and said, "Take it and eat it yourself, don't overeat."

The crow grabbed the bag of meat with its claws and flew to the screen wall behind the table. Hu Xingcai saw a bird stand there and a food box on the stand. The crow threw the meat bag into the food box, used its beak and talons to pick at it a few times, and then took out the plastic bag.

"Is this the 'Coal Boss' you're talking about?" Hu Xing was curious, and she was drunk for giving such a weird name to a pet.

"Yes." Qingmu said, "Look at it, it's pitch black, it makes the coal boss look so domineering!"

"You guys are really weird here." Hu Xing chuckled, then picked up a magazine casually, "Okay, I'll read for a while, you can talk about anything if you want, and leave me alone."

Aoki looked at Ma Fuqing and said, "Let's talk about it."

"Um, I..." Ma Fuqing glanced at Hu Xing's eye-catching police uniform and became coy again, "I just... want to ask the master to interpret a dream."

Aoki asked: "What dream?"

Ma Fuqing said: "I have been dreaming about a woman recently."

Aoki said nothing.

This kind of dream is so common that no one would go to great lengths to find someone to interpret it just because of an ordinary dream. Aoki is not a famous person, so Ma Fuqing must have gone through a long journey to find him.

Sure enough, Ma Fuqing continued: "She chased me and threatened to kill me. I couldn't run away, and I would wake up only after being caught by her every time. I would have this dream every now and then, and I couldn't sleep when I did it, and I would get flustered when I woke up. .My mother and my brother have both fallen ill recently and are confused. I just want to ask the master to see if we are haunted by ghosts."

Aoki asked: "Who is that woman?"

Ma Fuqing hesitated and said, "No, I don't know her. That woman...she...has no head."

…