Chapter 1 Young Crosstalk Performers "Sister, give me two eggs and two fruits, less chili and more sauce." Liu Yonglu, who was riding the shared bicycle, skillfully placed the eggs on the food cart, took out a bag of soy milk from the foam plastic box next to it, and took out his mobile phone to scan the QR code. "The money has been swept." "Yonglu, are you going to work in the troupe? When can we see you on stage?" asked the big sister selling pancakes with a grin. "It's today, it's today." Liu Yonglu imitated the voice of the crazy beggar in "Huo Yuanjia". "Hey, if I'm not busy tonight, I'll go listen to your crosstalk. Yonglu has been smart since he was young, but the crosstalk he told... is incurable." Liu Yonglu is a young crosstalk artist of the Quyi Troupe. He has loved listening to crosstalk since he was a child. He joined a crosstalk club when he went to university and worked in sales for a few years after graduation. But after thinking about it, he still liked Quyi, so he asked for help from his acquaintances and also because he said he had a talent for singing and entertaining people, so he joined the Quyi Troupe. "Yonglu, Grandma Li upstairs from us sings every night. Her hoarse voice keeps me awake at night." The person who was speaking was a bald man whom Liu Yonglu knew. He was a taxi driver. Liu Yonglu's mother worked in this community. Whenever there were conflicts between neighbors, they would go to his mother to resolve them. "Grandma Li has nothing to do because her children are not around. Big brother, let me give you a suggestion. Take this poster of the Senior Citizens University and find a chance to whisper to Grandma Li.
She said that the senior citizen university had an event recently, where singing lessons were free and eggs were given away. She loved to take advantage of small bargains, so she went there to sing by herself. Liu Yonglu casually took a small advertisement off a telephone pole and stuffed it over. "Is this okay? What if the eggs are not tender?" "If they don't give it to you, why don't you buy six from RT-Mart and give them to her? Just say you got them for her. It's worth spending two dollars to get a good night's sleep." "Hey, big brother, I listen to you. Otherwise, I would say you have been so smart since you were a child." Picking up the pancake, Liu Yonglu rode unsteadily to work, singing as he rode: "Let me tell you about my happy life. I have done all kinds of work to make money..." As I was riding and turning a corner, I saw a lot of people crowded on the road ahead. It seemed that there had been a traffic accident. Liu Yonglu has a big hobby, which is to join in the fun. When he sees something exciting going on ahead, he immediately becomes excited, parks his car on the sidewalk, and squeezes in with a pancake in his hand. "Let me see, let me see." "Why are you pushing? You got up so early, don't push." "I know him, he's my neighbor!" "Then get out of the way and let him in." Liu Yonglu squeezed through the crowd and saw a homeless man in his thirties lying there. There was a car parked next to him, and the ground was covered with red and green things. It seemed that he had really been in an accident and had been hit hard. Liu Yonglu was a very brave man. He became even more excited when he saw something was wrong. He walked forward while shouting: "Don't just look at it, give me a hand, and put some paper on it first. "Brother, stop filming with your phone, call the police and an ambulance, people's lives are at stake and you are still filming TikTok." As he said this, he bent down to look at the injured person, but it would not have mattered if he didn't look at him. As he lowered his head, he met the homeless man's suddenly opened eyes. An ancient, indescribable symbol suddenly emerged and rushed into Liu Yonglu's mind. He wanted to say a few witty remarks to ease the atmosphere, but no sound came out. Strangely, he wiped his mouth with his hand, and it was sealed. His teeth and lips were gone, only a piece of flesh was connected there, as if he had never grown a mouth. Shit, what happened? Did he know that I said something bad about the group leader yesterday? It's still early to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, why did he start to be a mean person to me? As I thought about it, my vision darkened, as if someone had suddenly turned off the lights.
Liu Yonglu wiped his eyes and said, "Oh, how come someone sewed my eyelids shut with thread?" But the sewing was really good, much better than my mother's. My mother couldn't even sew my school uniform pants properly. As I touched it, I felt something was wrong. Why was my finger shorter? My hand suddenly turned into a candle. Water began to drip down, and in the blink of an eye, all the fingers were gone. Now, I have turned into Doraemon. Liu Yonglu felt his whole body begin to melt, first his hands, then his shoulders, and finally his waist collapsed, and his upper body fell straight back. Damn it, I can't eat this set of pancakes today! I should have added an egg earlier. This was Liu Yonglu’s last thought before he fainted. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on the bed, covered with an old gray-brown sheet that gave off a moldy smell. Which hospital did they take me to? The Second Affiliated Hospital? The General Hospital? Which hospital has such dirty bed covers? Liu Yonglu tried to turn over and get out of bed. He felt his whole body and found that everything was fine, with no parts missing. I looked around and saw that the room was not big, with only a few basic pieces of furniture and an old chandelier above my head. The tables and chairs were all made of wood, and they were obviously old items with missing parts. There were a few copper picture frames hanging on the wall, some of which showed three-masted fishing boats and some of which showed seabirds on the mountaintop. When I raised my nose, the room was filled with the rotten smell of rotten wood. A small single bed was placed next to the window, where I had been lying just now. Looking out the window, I could see the gray sky and the long coastline. There were steep rocky cliffs on the coast, and the gray-black sea water beat against the rocks, stirring up white foamy waves. Are you bringing me to the seaside, Dagang? At this moment, a white light flashed through his mind, and countless memories flooded into Liu Yonglu's mind. The owner of this body was named Ricky Baldwin, who was born in a noble family in the Kingdom of Mosesad. After his parents died, Ricky became addicted to alcohol and gambling. In a few years, he squandered all his family's wealth. In the end, he was so poor that he had to join the Special Incident Handling Department and is now an investigator in the department. I traveled through time? Liu Yonglu quickly found a copper basin in the house. There was clear water in the basin. Through the reflection of the water, Liu Yonglu saw his current face. Messy gray-brown hair, a thin face with a few freckles on the cheeks, light blue eyes, and thin, bloodless lips. Wow! The boy is quite handsome, although his face is not as good as mine before. After making clear the fact that he had traveled through time, he began to study his current situation. What a pity it was that he was a prodigal son. If he had traveled through time a few years earlier, his family fortune would not have been squandered and at least he would not have to worry about food and drink. But it's not bad now, the Special Event Management Department, the name sounds like a public institution, I am now a staff member. I just don't know how much salary an investigator can get in a month. Just as Liu Yonglu was thinking about it, there was a knock on the door. "Mr. Rich, there's a call for you." When Liu Yonglu opened the door, he saw an old man with gray hair and a hunched back standing at the door. From his memory he knew that this man was old Frenson, a waiter at the Anchor Hotel. "Where's the phone? I'll answer it." Liu Yonglu followed Frenson down to the first floor and found an old rotary phone. He picked up the black receiver and a female voice came from the phone. "Agent Richie, are you ready? You will go to the Hog's Head Bar this afternoon to meet with Isaac Jefferson to deal with that special incident." The woman's voice was young and cold. Liu Yonglu felt a little scared when he heard that he had to work in the afternoon. He was not the real Richie, and he was afraid that he would be fired if he went to work because he was not familiar with the business. "Well, tell Isaac. How about we do it another day? I have diarrhea today. I guess it's because I didn't cover myself properly with the quilt when I slept yesterday and caught a cold." There was silence on the other end of the phone. After a moment, the woman spoke again. "Investigator Rich, you signed a relevant agreement before entering the Special Investigations Department. You are not allowed to influence the investigation of the incident for any personal reasons. I hope you still remember it." Seeing that he couldn't refuse, Liu Yonglu sucked his teeth and continued:
"Okay, okay, there's no humanity at all. I'll go see him this afternoon and deal with it in detail. Can you tell me more about it?" "According to Isaac, his mother has been acting very abnormal recently. This may be related to the strange rumors in Pormouth Town over the past decade. We don't know the details, so you need to investigate it yourself." "Oh, I do have some experience with the matter between my son and my mother. Okay, I'll ask this kid first this afternoon." "Okay, Investigator Ricky, do you have any other questions?" "Yes, I want to ask, how much can I get as an investigator per month?" The other end of the phone fell silent again, and after a while she replied: "This is a matter for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I don't know anything about it. I'll have someone from the Ministry of Internal Affairs call you again tomorrow." "Oh, okay, thank you, sister." On the other end of the line, in a room covered with red velvet wallpaper, a blonde female operator frowned and hung up the phone. "How's it going, Oliver? Is Investigator Richie in good spirits?" An old man with a walking stick and wearing a monocle asked behind the woman. "From the perspective of language expression, it's very strange. The spirit must have been polluted to a certain extent." Oliver took out Ricky's file from the table next to him, glanced at it, frowned and said: "He's a prodigal son with a history of alcoholism and gambling. His previous investigations were not well evaluated. Commander, why would our Special Events Management Department hire such a person?" "Oliver, you are still too young, like a flower that has just bloomed in the morning. You don't know what is watching us from those criss-crossing corners in the long river of time." The old man walked to the table, picked up a vase, and spoke while admiring it. The rose buds in the vase were blooming, and they were gorgeous. "Those things are too difficult for you and me, and for all ordinary people... to understand." "So we need some people to take risks, to try, to listen to the most dangerous sounds in the dusty cracks. I'm afraid it's not quite accurate to say dangerous, but it's also hard for me to describe what it is in words." "Anyway, no matter what Agent Richie did in the past, we should all wish him good luck now." The old man took the folder from Oliver and flipped through a few pages. It contained the files of investigators related to the Pormouth incident. There were seven people in total, the first three had "missing" in their status column, and the other four had "crazy" in their status column. Everyone is welcome to leave more comments. Standalone games are quite boring. I have a lot of manuscripts saved, so feel free to read them. (End of this chapter)