Chapter Thirteen. [Case Three] Above the Dragon Head
Mountain snail is a name in our area. Sichuan people generally do not distinguish clearly between snails and snails. The so-called mountain snail is actually the most common round-shell snail. This kind of animal originally lived in the cracks of rocks or plants.
In terms of roots, if we follow the general understanding, old graves are usually built with stones, so it is not a strange thing to have snails in the cracks of the stones.
But if there are a lot of them and they all crawl out of the grave, that's not a good thing.
So it must be explained that snails are molluscs themselves, and they are also mentally retarded. They are different from slugs. Although the two have similar living habits, slugs have no shells and therefore lose their protection. Snails are
When encountering danger, they will retract into their shells to protect themselves, so whether a snail retracts has almost become a criterion for judging whether it is dangerous or not. Some snails will grow in old graves in rural areas, but if snails
If you don't feel safe even retreating into your own shell, then you must have been affected by the ghost's anger and forced to escape. Not to mention there are so many of them.
Teacher Zhao then told me that he was also surprised when he saw the snails all over the ground. There are many old sayings in the countryside, including many about graves. For example, the tomb bag is cracked, there are toads in the grave, or
It was flooded graves, etc. These are all bad signs in the eyes of country people. But it was the first time to see such a large number of snails crawling out of the graves. Teacher Zhao said that he found them in their village that day.
A goddess sang and danced in front of the grave for a long time, and burned a lot of incense, candles, and paper money. The goddess also swore that the ancestors knew that the grave was to be moved, so they came out to scare people because they were unhappy.
Once this ritual was completed, everything would be fine. At that moment, Teacher Zhao and his brother gave the goddess a few hundred dollars and asked her to take away a chicken and a basket of eggs. They thought that the matter would be over.
But that night, something strange happened again.
Teacher Zhao said that it was his wife who met him that night. After working hard all day, he went to bed early when he was tired. Teacher Zhao’s wife had cleaned up the house inside and out and salted it a lot.
Baicai planned to eat it as a vegetable the next day. After finishing her work, it was already past 11 o'clock at night. After going to bed, she closed the mosquito net and slept. It was quite cool at night in the countryside. Before she could fall asleep that night, she suddenly felt
She was awakened by a cold soak, so she opened her eyes in a daze. Gradually, her eyes got used to the darkness of the night, and because she could slowly see things, she found a human-shaped thing standing straight outside her mosquito net.
So she slowly sat up and planned to take a closer look. Through the curtain of the mosquito net, she clearly saw a skinny old man wearing a landlord's hat, his face pressed against the mosquito net and looking at her with a grin.
This frightened her so much that she screamed loudly. Her screams not only woke up Teacher Zhao, but also attracted her younger brother and sister-in-law who lived in the next room. So the whole family did not dare to sleep that night.
, Minato played poker all night on Teacher Zhao’s bed.
When he said this, I couldn't help but laugh. I said that your family is really open-minded. If it were me, I would have run away. Teacher Zhao smiled bitterly and said, run, where can you run?
In the middle of the night, as you can see, the road up the mountain is not easy to walk at all. We planned to wait until dawn to go to the goddess to comment. But the next day, when the family went to argue with the goddess aggressively, they found that the goddess was not there.
At home, my neighbor said that after returning from the religious ceremony that day, he happily went to the city and didn’t know what he was doing. So the family had no choice but to go back home again, not knowing what to do. They had stayed up all night. What would happen that night?
Even though I was afraid, I had to continue sleeping. This night, it was my sister-in-law's turn again.
At this time, Teacher Zhao's younger brother took over and said that because of fear, the couple stayed close to each other that night, and they were back to back. This was so that no matter which direction they found the ghost old man, they could remind each other. Teacher Zhao's younger brother said,
The child went to high school in the city. That night, my wife used her mobile phone to send a message to her son to show her concern. We all know that when the lights are turned off, the light of the mobile phone will appear particularly bright. As she was sending the message,
, suddenly my wrist was grabbed by something cold, and then it was pulled upwards. As the mobile phone in my hand moved, I saw the old man again very close to me through the light of the mobile phone. His expression was the same as that of my sister-in-law the night before.
The expression mentioned was similar, and he was also grinning with his teeth bared. Teacher Zhao's brother told me that his wife also said that the old man had no teeth when he opened his mouth.
This is a very important piece of information. If you don’t have teeth, you are already very old. So I asked Teacher Zhao, who is buried in the ancestral grave of your family? Teacher Zhao and the two brothers answered in unison that it was our grandfather.
I asked again how old your grandfather was when he passed away? Both brothers said that the old man died before they were born, and neither brother had ever seen him. Because they were from a dragon-dancing family, they never met him when they were young.
My father told me that my grandfather was the best dragon dancer in the local area and was the one who held the dragon head. Hu Zongren asked what holding the dragon head meant, and Teacher Zhao told him that it means that the stick in his hand holds the dragon head. Starting from the dragon ball
At the end of the dragon's tail, the most critical thing in the middle is the dragon's head. The trend of the dragon's head directly determines whether the dragon dances well or not.
Teacher Zhao’s younger brother said that when his wife saw what happened that night, she also screamed in panic, so the family of four got together to play poker all night. Teacher Zhao went on to say that from that day on, the family members
I asked people around to find more reliable masters, and then I found Master Ma, and then I found Hu Zongren. Hu Zongren asked him, where is your father's grave? Teacher Zhao said that his father's grave is downhill from the ancestral grave.
, there is a custom in rural areas that the graves of descendants cannot be buried higher than the graves of their ancestors. Hu Zongren said again, let's do this. Before we have lunch, you can take us to see your ancestral graves.
So we got up and left. Teacher Zhao took us around to the back of the house and walked along the path on the field for a few minutes. On the way, we pushed aside some weeds and found this ancestral grave in a cut cornfield.
After Hu Zongren saw the ancestral tomb, he then looked out from a distance along the direction of the ancestral tomb and said that the location of your ancestral tomb is not very good. There are mountains but no water in this place, and the mountains are also winding.
, plus after the corn grows up, it blocks the grave head, which is equivalent to gathering all the good and bad things in the grave here. Behind the grave is another small mountain col, with no way forward and backward. The ancestors just came here now.
I have tolerated you for a long time by causing trouble for you.
Hu Zongren is much better at Feng Shui than I am, and this family does not look like a wealthy family, so there is no need to scare them. But I noticed that in the gaps between these stone tombs, there are still people...
A lot of snails crawled out. Hu Zongren said to me, why don't you check it now. So I took out the compass and silently recited a mantra to express respect for the deceased in my heart, because I really didn't want to check it later.
I was attacked when I was young, and I encountered it once in my early years, so I had to be careful when dealing with the old grave. After reciting the mantra, I took the compass and calculated the southeast, northwest, and direction. The so-called directions are to match the flow of the year 2010.
This will determine whether I should walk clockwise or counterclockwise around the tomb. After walking around, I had a supernatural reaction, but it was relatively mild. Normally, after spending too long in such an old tomb,
The dead people buried inside should have gradually disappeared, that is, they are just pure graves. It is just that the ancestral graves care for three generations. If the ancestral graves are buried in the right place, the descendants will enjoy the blessings for three generations. But after seeing the conditions in Teacher Zhao’s family, I really
is doubtful about this.
After walking around, I knew in my mind that all the dead in this grave had not disappeared, or that they had left for a long time, but due to some inducement, they came back to cause trouble. I tentatively thought that the road construction and relocation of the grave were the reason.
The main reason for the return of the ancestors. At the same time, I also discovered a very strange phenomenon, that is, almost every snail crawling out of the grave, most of them crawled a few meters away from the grave and then stopped where they were.
, only a few of them continued to crawl outside. I carefully identified the direction in which the snail door was crawling, and it happened to be the earthen house of Teacher Zhao's house. And not only that, when my compass came close to the snails, there would be supernatural reactions.
, although it is not strong, it is stronger than the supernatural reaction of the tomb itself. This shows that these snails are different from my initial expectations. They did not escape after receiving a danger signal, but because they were controlled by supernatural substances.
and produce such behavior.
When I thought of this, I seemed to suddenly understand something, so I told Hu Zongren my thoughts privately. Hu Zongren also tentatively lit curses and burned talismans around the tomb, and found that the conclusion he reached was similar to my guess.
So Hu Zongren said to me, let’s do this. We won’t go back the way we came. We will follow the snail’s path and look for it. If the destination of the snail’s crawling is Teacher Zhao’s house, then this
There should be answers in the house.
Hu Zongren and I hunkered down and searched along the countless snails. They were all about the same color and size, and they were all crawling in the same direction. This was very time-consuming. After searching for more than ten minutes, we heard
Teacher Zhao’s wife shouted to us from the corner of the room, telling us to go back and eat quickly. Since we didn’t tell Teacher Zhao what we were looking for, he and his brother could only follow behind us. He laughed several times.
Remind Hu Zongren and I, why don’t we go back and eat our food first? We ignored him and kept looking. We looked for the road that could only be walked in a few minutes for more than half an hour, and the final conclusion was as expected.
What I thought was that several of these snails eventually crawled into the house, and they all headed to the same place.
After entering the house, I rubbed my waist. Food and wine glasses were already placed on the table where we were sitting around in the yard. When everyone was about to sit down, Hu Zongren suddenly said, "Let's take this table of food into the house."
Teacher Zhao asked puzzledly, why, it’s much more spacious outside. Hu Zongren said, just listen to me. Since he was asking for something from Hu Zongren, Teacher Zhao could only agree, and a few of us worked together to carry the table in.
Behind the room, Hu Zongren said again, "Let's sit tighter and make this seat free. Auntie, please bring an extra pair of bowls, chopsticks, wine glasses, half a bowl of rice, and some dishes."
So I immediately understood what Hu Zongren was going to do. After placing a pair of dishes and chopsticks that no one was eating, Teacher Zhao finally couldn't help it anymore and asked Hu Zongren what do you mean? Hu Zongren was drinking wine and eating meat.
, while saying casually, please invite your ancestor to dinner. The two brothers looked at each other and then asked fearfully, is the ancestor here now? Hu Zongren said, I don’t know if he is here, but I know he must be watching.
Follow us.
After saying that, he raised his finger and pointed to the dragon head hanging on the wall, and said, "Look, there are snails on the dragon's horns."