Three hundred and seventieth chapters taboo of the corpse carry
Feng Yu and Zhang Xiuxian went down to Yanshan and first went to Zhang Xiuxian's house in the capital to find Lu Guangcheng. Very few people came to this yard.
Lu Guangcheng said that he would bring Zhang Xiuxian's wife, his sister, to Beijing to live a good life for two days, but Zhang Xiuxian felt that it was inappropriate. It was a mess outside now, so it was better to stay at home and feel at ease.
After staying here all night and having nothing to do at night, Feng Yu accidentally read the newspaper to kill time and saw a shocking news in the newspaper.
The newspaper was from a few days ago, and the latest extra headline read, Northeast Mutiny, Japanese Army shelled Peking University Camp on September 18th.
This was news three days ago. Just like Zhang Xiuxian said, a war in Northeast China is inevitable. The Japanese have been planning for a long time and took action on September 18th.
Feng Yu was a peasant who came from a family of thieves. When it came to sharing money, exploring caves, and buying and selling antiques, he was good at it, but when it came to fighting, he was a layman. When the Northeast started fighting, the biggest concern for him was Zhang Manyue.
Is it safe?
Two days later, Lu Guangcheng arranged a ride. They first took the car all the way to Xi'an. After resting here, they then headed to the Sichuan and Hunan regions. After arriving in Hunan, they entered the Xiangxi region at the junction with Guizhou.
Further west is the depth of western Hunan, with Shizi Ridge within the depth.
This is Feng Yu's first time to a place like this. Compared with Heishui Mountain in Sichuan, the dense forest here is beyond imagination. Shizi Ridge is still on the westernmost side. If you want to go there, you have to walk through the forest.
Lu Guangcheng's arrangements were in place. There were local guides to guide him, and the supplies and equipment had been prepared long ago. It seemed that he had already informed people to wait here.
I rested there for about two days. It is close to October, which is the best time to enter. Moreover, the rainy season in Shiziling will be the last time this year in mid-October.
Lu Guangcheng asked the guide to lead the way and take them to Shiziling. This time he wanted to go there himself. There were only four people traveling into the jungle, Feng Yu, Zhang Xiuxian, Lu Guangcheng and the local guide he hired.
The guide was a Hunanese who spoke Hunan dialect and his name was Lao Zheng. He said that he had lived in this area of western Hunan for fifty-three years and had never left this area in his life. It could be said that he knew western Hunan well.
Shizi Ling is deep and inaccessible. Except for the group of Xie Ling who have been hiding in it for many years, the only ones left are poisonous snakes and insects for company.
Lao Zheng explained the local customs to a few people. This place is still in the stage of barter circulation, and the productivity is relatively backward. Most of them are candles, hams, snake wine ointments, etc. Money is of little use here.
Following Lao Zheng all the way, Feng Yu heard a lot of things. From Lao Zheng, Feng Yu remembered a man named Shan Laohan, who lived in Xing'an Mountains.
At that time, the old man called Shanshan was such a person. He had guarded Mangus for most of his life, and he must have faith in his heart.
In the dense forests of western Hunan, there is a trade that has been passed down from ancient times, which is the corpse-carrying craftsman. Blind Li was once a corpse-carrying craftsman. To do this business, there are three necessary conditions: first, be bold, second, be ugly, and third, be bold.
It means never marrying a wife for the rest of your life.
When Lao Zheng talked about the corpse-carrying people in western Hunan, he spoke clearly and logically. It seems that this is the biggest mystery in western Hunan.
The idea of carrying corpses has been passed down since ancient times. This is the origin of carrying corpses. Because the mountains in western Hunan are rugged and there are no roads at all, the way to do business here is robbed by bandits, or injured by poisonous insects, and the acclimatization is not suitable.
People who get sick often die on the way.
So the merchants paid for it and built an uprising on the mountain to give the deceased a temporary place to stay. Afterwards, the corpses were returned to their roots by corpse-carriers.
The corpse-carrying technique that Lao Zheng talked about was something Feng Yu had never heard of before. It was so miraculous that it made people's faces turn pale and fear them like a tiger.
In some places in western Hunan, corpse-carriers only go once every six months, waiting for more dead people to be transported together.
If a person dies for a long time, he or she will decay. In ancient times, cremation was frowned upon, and the emphasis was placed on the idea that the body should be given to parents and the soul should return to its hometown. Therefore, in such a situation, the only choice was to make the corpse stiff first.
But the knowledge of how to break a deadlock is so vast that it is impossible for a layman to know the secret.
If you want to prevent a person from decaying after death, you can pour mercury into the corpse. This method was used by ancient emperors to preserve the corpse, but it is relatively expensive and cannot be used by ordinary people.
In folk secrets, there is another method. When you have a premonition that your time is running out, you can take a small amount of arsenic, which will solidify the meridians in the body. The dosage must be strictly controlled, and antiseptic herbs must be used to prevent the disease from happening while you are still alive.
, and began to make corpses.
In this way, once a person dies, his qi and blood will solidify, making him stiff but not rotten. Medicine is used to make the corpse. After the corpse is zombified, it can be moved into a coffin and wait for the person who carries it to return to its roots.
This method is extremely mysterious, and it is basically impossible for outsiders to know it. The outside world calls it "water driving technique", and the code word is "water sending".
Of course, in the process of delivering the corpse, the person carrying the corpse leads the corpse one behind the other with a bowl of water. One person walks in front holding a soul flag, and the other walks behind the corpse holding a bowl of water.
The person holding the water plays a very important role. Every time he walks for a period of time, he will add a blessing spell to the water. This is to gather water for burning the talisman, awakening the corpse and raising the soul. Three souls and seven souls. Three souls are on the left, and seven souls are on the right. To restore consciousness.
Go back and wait for God's orders.
Talismans need to be added to the water continuously. This talisman must be soaked in Xiangxi water for 49 days. If there is any mistake, it will be completely useless.
During the process of delivering water,
A dead corpse is no different from a living person, except that it cannot speak, and its walking posture is basically the same as that of a living person. The soul-inducing flag leads the way, and the dead people behind follow it. When the soul-inducing flag stops, the dead person stops.
One of the proverbs circulating in western Hunan goes like this: "Three people stay in a hotel, and two people eat."
This refers to the person who carries the corpse. The one among the three who cannot eat is the dead person.
When the corpse-carrier is about to arrive at the destination, the deceased will give his family a dream in advance, and the family will prepare a coffin for burial. As soon as the corpse arrives home, it will be immediately put into the coffin. After the bowl of water he is holding is poured, the corpse will be poured into the coffin.
In the coffin, at this time, the deceased needs to be buried immediately, otherwise the body will change.
This strange technique of using a bowl of water has been passed down for a long time in the western Hunan area. Whether it was used to deliver corpses at that time cannot be traced back.
By the time of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, this method was almost lost. The reasons for the loss are simply two reasons. One is that the requirements for transmitting the method are too high, and the other is that it is too mysterious. Neither the corpse-carrying person like Li Xiazi nor his two apprentices know it.
Those who died outside were not in vain, leaving very few people to carry the corpses.
During the Guangxu period, when Blind Li was carrying corpses, the opium business in southwestern Guizhou was booming. Corpse-carriers in Xiangxi carried corpses to deliver water, and used the fear of the people as a cover to sell entrained opium.
The profit is much greater than sending a corpse. In all likelihood, Blind Li became rich because of this. Therefore, Blind Li has a special affection for corpses. This is his profession, and it is his life, food and clothing.
It's a pity that the luck is bad. If we say that all people are destined to die, Blind Li's fate is really panic-stricken. Is this considered retribution? God is watching what you do!
Later, the cigarette business in western Hunan was taken over by warlords, who sold illegal goods and resold arms, supporting an unknown number of people in western Hunan.
When Lao Zheng talks about Xiangxi, he is really eloquent. Without him, nothing can be said. Lao Zheng is fifty-three years old. When it comes to carrying corpses in Xiangxi, he knows as much as the people who carry corpses.
Lao Zheng himself said that when he was young, his five brothers at home were so poor that they could not even open the pot, and even eating was a problem.
With no other option, Lao Zheng's mother sent all five children to the corpse-carryers, hoping to pick a few and follow them to carry the corpses so that they could have something to eat. In those days, it was lucky not to die of hunger.
Corpse-carriers are extremely picky. When the five children of Lao Zheng's family were placed in front of the corpse-carriers, none of them could be chosen. Either they were not talented enough or their fate was too short.
The mother-in-law looks really worried. If this continues, all five children may starve to death.
Lao Zheng's mother almost knelt down in front of the body-carryer. In the end, the person who carried the body chose the youngest person in the family. Lao Zheng was the fourth eldest child at the time, and his only brother became the body-carrier. He felt very sad.