"Mr. Song, why are you in such a hurry to find me? Why did you ask someone to send you a message?"
"Here you go, have you had dinner?"
"No, I'm not hungry. Let's eat when we go back."
After not seeing him for a day or two, I saw that the only ring of hair on his head was missing. I guess he lost his hair due to too much mental stress.
"Come over here"
At the entrance of Nai Li's funeral hall, Mr. Song pulled me aside worriedly and took out a cigarette for me to smoke.
I had just taken the cigarette when another person walked into the mourning hall. He was a man in his thirties or forties, with messy hair and beard, but bright eyes.
"Let me introduce, this is my junior brother Lao Cha. He used to specialize in funerals, but now he helps wealthy people in the city read fortunes."
"Oh, Hello."
I didn't know what it was for, but I said hello out of politeness.
"People from the Cultural Affairs Bureau came yesterday afternoon and wanted to drag the old man to be cremated. I tried hard to persuade him and managed to get another day and a half. I invited my junior brother here and everything will be dealt with tonight."
After finishing speaking, Mr. Song took out a wrapped white paper from his arms. He opened the paper and found that it was full of white ants. There were hundreds of white ants in a large group. Some were still alive and hugging each other. There were countless white ants.
The ant legs look disgusting.
"Did you see it? These were all caught under Li Nai's coffin."
His junior brother's surname is Cha, and the nickname given to him by others in the city is Cha Hukou, which means that this person's fortune telling is as accurate as checking someone's household registration book. He looked at the white ants and his chin was full of beards.
The man said: "The coffin is bleeding and the ants are huddled together. It must be burned today."
I said you can just burn it, what are you doing with me? I’m not a Feng Shui practitioner who just eats nothing.
Mr. Song's face was serious and he said: "Immediate relatives of Nai Li's family have to avoid suspicion. I asked about it two days ago. You were not an immediate relative, but you were at the scene at the time and went down the mountain to help carry the coffin. This is tainted with the cause and effect. Of course I
I want to call you."
I looked back at the mourning hall and felt that it was eerie and cold there. My face fell and I said, "Then what do you want me to do?"
Mr. Song glanced at his junior brother named Cha, and then the junior brother looked at me and said two words.
"Carrying a corpse".
"goodbye."
I turned around and left.
"Hey, young man, don't run away ," Mr. Song took two steps forward and grabbed me and said, "My junior brother and I are Mr. Baishier. If you help Li Nai carry the coffin, you are Li Nai's junior. Only the junior can do this."
I put out the cigarette butt, shook his hand away and said, "Er Pengju is also a junior! Ye Zi is also a junior! Why are you looking for them and me?"
"It's too late. My junior brother has calculated it for you. It's most suitable for you to be alone."
I turned around and looked.
His unshaven junior brother patted me on the shoulder and said seriously: "Young man, my parents are not here anymore."
"Do you know what I see when I look at your face?"
I shook my head.
The man's eyes were bright and watery, much like those of a child. He said, "The water is deep and the pond is shallow. There are many tortoises in the shallow pool. You are the most conspicuous tortoise in the pool. Sooner or later, you will show up."
I was stunned. I always felt that this sentence was inexplicably familiar and seemed familiar.
He continued: "My senior brother eats the food of the dead, unlike me who sometimes eats the food of the living. Today you have done me a favor, and I can tell you a fortune and predict your future in life."
I suddenly remembered that on the arch bridge in Shunde, the fortune teller who smoked Honghe cigarettes also said similar things. At that time, I asked him what he saw in me, but he laughed and refused to tell me.
The two people said almost the same thing, could this be a coincidence?
Even if you look at me wandering around with a playful smile all day long, in fact, I have always been afraid of something deep down in my heart. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have believed what the old chicken-footed woman said in the first place.
Believe me, what some capable fortune tellers say is really, really, really accurate.
"What do you mean by carrying a corpse?" I asked him.
Mr. Song interjected: "It's like this. When I chose that place for burial, my original intention was to make it a "coffin on top of the coffin."
It’s said to be a very good Feng Shui bureau.”
"Now that the Feng Shui bureau is broken, if the Cultural Bureau directly burns Li Nai, it will be a disaster, and all future generations of their family will become beggars."
"Then you don't
Are you going to burn it too? It’s all burning anyway,” I said.
"No, our burning is different from the burning in the crematorium. You will know later."
When I entered the mourning hall at night, the light was very poor. It was only illuminated by two white candles. Grandma Li's red coffin was still supported by bricks. Unlike the previous two days, there was a bowl of white rice turned upside down at one end of the coffin.
The white rice is placed head down with a chopstick stuck in it.
Mr. Song brought me a basin and asked me to wash my hands.
When I looked at the water in the basin, it was a little red, and there were some fine red powders precipitated at the bottom of the water.
I asked what kind of water this was,
Mr. Song said this is cinnabar water. Cinnabar is made from red cinnabar. It is said that one or two cinnabar can be obtained from ten pounds of cinnabar. It is the best material for professional Taoist priests to draw talismans.
I reached into the basin and washed my hands twice. I asked for a cloth to wipe them with, but he didn't let me wipe my hands. Instead, he asked me to pat the coffin hard with wet hands.
It takes six shots in total, try to use as much strength as possible.
I did as I was told and slapped the coffin lid hard six times with my hand.
"Bang bang bang!"
Since the hands were wet, a few more wet fingerprints were clearly visible on the coffin afterwards. Mr. Song said this was "the younger generation calling the coffin".
"Junior brother, are you ready? I'm going to start."
The man took the candle over, held it up and said, "Open it."
In Guizhou, Fujian, many places have shallow burials and no coffin nails. I saw Mr. Song running quickly to the end of the coffin. He pushed the coffin lid with both hands, gritted his teeth, and began to push forward with all his strength.
squeak ya ya
The sound of wood rubbing against wood sounded particularly harsh at night.
The lid of the coffin was slowly pushed open from one end, and his junior brother held up a candle with both hands to shine inside.
I saw
Why did Li Nai become like this?
Swollen.
Her eyes were swollen, her face was swollen, her belly was swollen, her hands were swollen, everything was swollen, as if someone was pumping her up with a pump.
I saw Li Nai lying on the pillow with her hands folded in front of her belly. She was wearing several layers of floral blue cloth shrouds, with the collar directly touching her chin.
Li Nai's whole face is black, her eyes are closed, her mouth is slightly open, and there is some yellow at the corners of her mouth. Pus.
It smells bad.
I am a filial son, and I was given a good coffin made by Liuzhou craftsmen. It has a very good seal without coffin nails. The coffin was just fine when it was covered, but now when I opened it, the smell was very strong, and it went straight into my nose.
I even wondered if there were maggots living under Li Nai’s shroud. It was summer after all.
"Junior brother, look at Li Nai's hands."
"Well, I saw it as soon as I opened it."
"What happened to the hand?"
I endured the stench and looked down. All five fingers on Grandma Li's hand were separated.
Mr. Song took out a sewing needle from his pocket and pricked a hole in Nanny Li's mouth. Immediately, water started flowing out from the small hole.
"Young man, turn around and don't look."
I turned around and heard a rustling sound behind me. Suddenly! I felt my back sink, and I almost fell down. I quickly held it with my hands.
Mr. Song was carrying his little cloth bag and said: "Carry it carefully, don't fall down on the road. Let's go to Tulingou now. I'm ready there to burn Nai Li."
It smelled so bad. Grandma Li put her hands on my chest and put her head against the back of my neck, which was cold and cold.
I turned my head and looked at the old man's black and swollen face.
"vomit!"
He retched and almost vomited.
Tulingou is at least seven miles away from here, and the road is not easy to walk at night. I also carry Nai Li, who is heavy on my back, so I can't walk fast at all.
As soon as I walked out of the village, I was exhausted and sweating profusely.
I shook my head and gasped, "I can't do it anymore. Not only am I tired, but the most important thing is that it stinks so much that it makes me dizzy."
Mr. Song took out the piece of paper from his pocket, opened it and poured out all the ants, then tore it open and rolled it into two cylinders, then stuffed it directly into my nose, blocking my nose.
He looked up at the moon in the sky and asked me: "How is it? It doesn't stink now, does it?"
With two pieces of paper stuffed in my nose, I rolled my eyes and said thank you.
"You're welcome."
"Junior brother, what's wrong?"
At this time, his junior brother sniffed hard, frowned and said, "Why is there such a strong smell of cigarette smoke?"