Everyone gathered around Bill, and his old friend Peter tried to help him sit down: "I told you before, it's not safe these days. How many people are there?"

"One," Bill said with difficulty: "But it's not what you think..."

"Damn it, Bill, I told you," Peter said angrily, which was the reaction that only a close friend would have: "Ever since you agreed to that businessman, I have been warning you. It's not safe, not to mention you are traveling at night, and one of you is a wealthy merchant." Speaking of excitement, Peter even waved his arms, and Colas hurriedly came up to hold him and calm him down.

"You'd better sit down." Korath said, "We have to help you clean up the blood, treat your wounds, and change your clothes."

Bill shook his head: "I'm fine. Most of the bloodstains belong to Trader Richard. That unlucky guy. We walked out for two miles. Not long after we crossed the river, it pounced on Richard. It didn't cost him anything." It took him a while to tear him apart."

Everyone fell silent when they heard the news. Eminem put his hand on Bill's shoulder, "This is really... too bad. I remember Richard. I have a good impression of him. He is a generous person... "His voice gradually became weak: "Damn it, God of Light, what is going on these days." At the end of the sentence, he squeezed out a few painful moans from his throat and stopped talking.

"I've told you before, even if you only have a blanket, someone will want your life." Peter became angry again and shook off Koras' hand. "Not to mention you and a person with nothing in his pocket. People who know how many gold Pu'er coins are hidden together."

Korath glared at Peter and signaled him to stop talking. The atmosphere became a little tense, and everyone stood there blankly, not knowing what to say.

In the silence, the innkeeper behaved extremely carefully. With his hands full of things, he walked around Korath neatly and began to place items on the nearby table: a basin of hot water, a scalpel, and some clean gauze. , several glass bottles, needles and thread to suture the wound.

After hearing this, Bill just curled his lips. He untied the felt, and the bread inside immediately fell out.

It was a beetle that was much longer than a human being, and its carapace was a conspicuous bright red.

Xiao Qin, the youngest, was shocked and staggered back, but accidentally hit the table and fell to the ground. Peter's face turned gray, his lips trembled, and he was speechless for a long time. Eminem, Taran He and Korath screamed and ran away, covering their faces with their hands, not daring to look any further.

The front end of the beetle is a pair of huge serrated jaws and a pair of strong front claws. Between the jaws is a bloody dead head, which is obviously the unlucky Richard.

The innkeeper frowned and whispered, "These things shouldn't be here."

If it hadn't been for the quietness of the store, it would have been impossible for everyone to hear what he was saying. Now everyone heard it. They moved their eyes away from the unsightly dead head and turned to stare at the red-haired man quietly. innkeeper.

The bold Korath spoke first; "Savos, do you know what this is?"

The hotel owner's eyes looked confused, "Nerbito." He said absently, "I thought these things were still underground..."

"Nerbito!? God of Light, Savos, have you seen this thing?" Korath directly interrupted the innkeeper, and others looked at him with doubts in their eyes.

"What?" The hotel owner suddenly raised his head, as if he had suddenly returned from somewhere, or as if he had just come back from his memories and remembered where he was: "No, no, of course I haven't seen it before. Before I moved here,

, I have a few friends from the church, they told me." Seeing that everyone moved away, and only he was still standing next to the beetle, Savos took a step back cautiously, and said as he backed away: "They said this thing is...

Haunted near Luxi Port.”

Everyone nodded to express their understanding, and then turned to look at the beetles on the table.

"I hate beetles." Xiao Qin, the youngest, said with disgust. He always stood the farthest away from the beetle. "Cover it, please."

"No, Xiao Qin, this is not a beetle." Korath said, pointing to the head of the beetle. "It has no eyes."

"It doesn't have a mouth either." Bill suddenly interrupted, "It only has a pair of big jaws but no mouthparts. How does it eat?"

The innkeeper did not join their discussion. He stretched out a hand and fiddled with the beetle's body, then moved closer and began to observe it carefully. The others saw this and moved away from the beetle.

"These jaws are really sharp," Savos stretched out his hand to brush the beetle's jaws, "like two sharp guillotines." His hand then struck on the beetle's back, his fingers tapping on the bright red

on carapace

, making a dull "dong dong" sound. "This carapace is smooth and hard, like a wall made of hard clay." At this point, he moved his head closer and looked carefully, "There are many cracks on the carapace. Why?

What's going on?"

"That was caused when it attacked Richard." Bill responded: "It jumped out all of a sudden, bit Richard's foot first, and then dragged Richard to the ground hard," he said,

He brought a chair and sat down. "Although Richard was quickly pulled down,

But he still took out the mace from his waist and beat the thing's carapace frantically until it completely cut off his head." As he spoke, his face turned pale again and his chest was shaking slightly. Everyone around him

His face also turned bad, obviously thinking of the dead head.

The innkeeper kept nodding, indicating that he was listening, while continuing to fiddle with the monster, "There is a blood-red mass inside, with no organs and no blood." He poked it with his finger, "It looks like a semi-coagulated cow."

Blood".

"Please, don't touch them again," Xiao Qin covered his face and made a sound like a whimper: "Sometimes you kill these beetles, they can still move, just like cockroaches."

"No, Xiao Qin, this is not a beetle," Peter said seriously: "You know what this is as well as I do. A beetle can't be much bigger than a human, and it doesn't have any organs." He looked around and talked to everyone.

Everyone looked at each other and said, "This is the devil." He said firmly.

"Please! Peter! Haven't you said enough about the devil's tricks!?" Korath was the first to speak: "We all know that the devil..." He stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to add momentum to his words, but

He quickly put it down again and said no more.

But everyone knows what he wants to say. Of course there are demons, angels, gods of light, and Strader in this world, but they are like the legendary hero "Red Dragon" and like countless heroes, they only exist.

In traveling circus performances and minstrel stories. Everyone loves to hear this kind of story, but there is no way your childhood best friend can watch others die with this thing less than two miles from the village.

That's ridiculous.

"There is only one way." The innkeeper Savos said: "Devils are afraid of two things." He turned around and walked quickly back to the bar, taking out a glass bottle and a piece of fine iron from the bottom. "Fine salt and fine iron."

As he spoke, he sprinkled fine salt on the beetle carcass.

"What can it do?" Korath asked, his eyes fixed on the beetle corpse, as did the others.

"Fine salt can kill demons, according to the story." Peter's tone was uncertain: "But this is a corpse, I don't know if it will be effective."

Everyone stared at the corpse intently, and a quarter of an hour passed quickly. During this period, Savos sprinkled fine salt twice more, but nothing happened.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief and looked at each other with wry smiles, just like a group of children who were frightened by ghost stories.

"Try fine iron, Savos." Korath said with a half-joking smile. Savos shrugged his shoulders and pressed the iron piece hard on the beetle's body, only to hear a sharp and crisp breaking sound.

rang out, everyone was shocked, seeing the bright

When the red corpses were still motionless, they all breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at each other again. When the house was filled with the pungent sweet smell of burning corpses and rotting flowers, and the corpses began to rot rapidly, everyone again

I can't laugh anymore.

The owner of the hotel threw the iron piece on the ground. "Well, I think it is indeed a devil. What should we do now?" He said while wiping his hands with his apron, as if he was stained with something.

Same as clean things.

A few hours later, it was already midnight. Savos stood by the gate of "Blood of the Vine" and looked at the starry sky. Today's events reminded him of some stories from the past and some hidden memories deep in his body.

Suddenly awakened, he took a deep breath and looked around, as if waiting for something to happen.

He called himself Savos. In order to break away from his past stories and life, he came here and deliberately used a pseudonym, just to get a stable life of his own. No matter his name or his past, it didn't matter to him.

It's nothing, he has changed his name more than once, sometimes just for trivial things. This is not important to him at all.

Changing his name seemed to have a magical power. In less than a year, he had forgotten who he used to be. Until tonight, he remembered it again.

He raised his head and saw that the night sky was dark. It was a moonless night. Tens of thousands of bright stars dotted on the deep night sky were clearly visible. He looked at them and outlined the shapes of constellations. Each constellation,

He knew every star, he knew them all.

Savos lowered his head and sighed in an imperceptible voice. He turned around and walked into the hotel, bolted the door, and drew the curtains, as if he was deliberately keeping himself away from the stars, their various names, and his former self.

He walked into the utility room, took out the mop, and mopped the floor methodically, leaving no blind spots or gaps in sight. He picked up the wine glasses left by the audience and cleaned them one by one. He took out another clean glass.

Wipe the bar and wine cabinet with a rag over and over again until they look as bright as new.

Then he moved a high stool, sat between the wine barrels, and began to wipe it carefully. He even hummed a minor tune with a beautiful tune and complex rhythm. It was definitely not a song that a country inn owner could hum, but

He didn't seem to notice, or rather, he didn't want to notice.

Finally, he began to wipe various wine bottles. His slender fingers kept turning the empty glass bottles, and his face relaxed with the skillful movements, smoothing out many lines on his face. Now he

He looks younger, not in his mid-twenties, more like in his early twenties.
Chapter completed!