The lively three aunts and six wives in the village never let go of any opportunity to spread gossip, and soon what happened during the day spread to every household in Duanjia Village. Lin Yan picked up the car that was left on the way, and packed a few clothes for a while. Clothes, before the dinner, the village head arranged for a temporary rest in a family with the best economic conditions in the village, taking a bath, taking medicine and changing clothes.
The enthusiastic barefoot doctor rushed over with a large bag of unknown herbs, fried them into a large black pot, and pasted them on gauze to make a plaster. Lin Yan and Yin Zhou couldn't escape, and they were pressed on the table and covered with all over.
The plaster for bruises, which claims to be an ancestral formula, is really effective. After a short rest, the bruises on his body have receded, and it doesn’t hurt when he presses hard with his hands. Yin Zhou was still angry at the beating, hugging his master If you can't stop eating the fruit plate, you have the right to take revenge.
This remote village still retains its primitive customs. Although the old stone houses and simple pigsty and sheep pens are as backward as Liumu Town, there are many villagers, and they are all simple and enthusiastic. feel bored.
The family arranged by the village chief to treat guests has more than a dozen people including adults and children. Only the hostess witnessed the whole process of the funeral with four people and one fox in the afternoon. The children love these anecdotes of ghosts and ghosts. , came and shouted to listen to the story. The little Taoist was introverted, Xiao Yu said little, the fox was sleepy and slept in Xiao Yu's arms, and it made Lin Yan and Yin Zhou suffer. He talked over and over again until the children were still not satisfied. They bit their fingers and asked what the female ghost was like, dead What kind, how can a fox talk? Seeing that the children are difficult to deal with, the adults took off their shoes and made a gesture to beat them. Who knew that they were fascinated when they heard it. The kang, chairs, and benches were all used, and tick-tock sat in the room. people.
An old man in his nineties in the family, with his mouth trembling, was aroused by the stories of Lin Yan and the others. While smoking an old cigarette, he told about encountering ghosts in the wild when he was young, which made the children hold their hands. The face shrank into a ball, but the ears stretched out.
The grand village feast gave a few people who were accustomed to living in the city a great taste of the hospitality of the mountain people. The sky quickly darkened, the wreaths and the altar were removed, the smell of food wafted from the entrance of the village, and the power lines were temporarily pulled Well, the light bulbs illuminate the large open space at the head of the village as if it were a festival. The men are busy moving the tables and chairs while the men are busy moving the tables and chairs, while the women are busy by the stove according to the division of labor. Laughing, dogs barking, and cats making noises.
People in the village don’t like to drink beer, saying it smells like horse urine. The wine is home-brewed rice wine and Fenjiu. The fire was simmered slowly, served in a large porcelain bowl, covered with a layer of fragrant butter, the cabbage was crisp and sweet, and when it was slipped with vinegar, it was so fragrant that Ah Che, who had never been a vegetarian, could smell it a few more times.
The villagers were simple-minded, and when they heard that the children and adults were saved, they came to toast one after another. Lin Yan didn't drink very well at first, but he was dizzy after a while, and followed the example of the villagers, taking off his shirt and shirtless with Yin Zhou, the man They were even more happy to see that the two of them were forthright. The meal was full of wine, and the host and guest had a good time.
In summer nights, insects sound and dogs bark, the air in the mountains is good, the clouds come out of the mountains, one day the broken stars seem to fall into the soup bowl, the old man sitting next to Xiao Yu who stopped their car during the day is actually a well-known literati in the village, and he has written a good book Xingkai. Seeing that Xiao Yu's long hair was not pleasing to the eye, he drank two more glasses of wine, while scolding the young people nowadays for their ignorance, and at the same time babbling about his grandfather who was a Jinshi in the late Qing Dynasty. .
Lin Yan was drunk, and slapped the table to challenge the old man, saying that you really might not be as good as him. The old man was so angry that he blew his beard and stared, and immediately put away his pen and ink, Lin Yan pushed Xiao Yu out, and Xiao Yu let him mess around. Immediately, he really wrote "Chujiang Nostalgia" written by Ma Dai, a deputy Tang Dynasty, "If you don't see me in the cloud, I will be sad at night." I saw him quietly go around the desk and steal the words pressed with a paperweight back. Later, Mr. Xiao was not idle all night, and was forced by every family to write couplets for Chinese New Year posts.
It was bustling here, the village chief changed his clothes, brought his son, daughter-in-law and grandson over to toast, it turned out that the village rules, when the funeral procession is carrying the coffin in the village and weeping, the relatives of the deceased must guard the long light in the mourning hall, so in the afternoon Lin Yan The few people didn't see the village chief's son when they were messing around.
He was a plainly dressed farmer with a dark red face. Because he worked in the fields all year round, he looked older. After the village head introduced Lin Yan and the others one by one, the man choked up and couldn't speak. He took his wife with one hand and his son with the other. I bow down and cry and tell you that you saved our family.
Lin Yan hurriedly stepped forward to help him, the iron-like farmer with red eyes, personally brought a glass of wine for the four of them one by one, and the fox also shared a small cup, the man patted his chest and said: "We don't have anything else, we have enough strength If there is something useful, just open your mouth and say 'no', I, Duan Chengyi, are not men!"
"Duan Chengyi?" Hearing this name, Lin Yan couldn't swallow a sip of wine, and coughed violently, "Cough, you, you are Duan Chengyi?"
Yin Zhou raised a finger and opened his mouth wide: "You are the one who sells ancient paintings!"
"Painting? What painting?" The village chief was holding a wine glass and wanted to toast, but he was taken aback when he heard this.
As soon as the banquet was over, Lin Yan and Xiao Yu followed Duan Chengyi to the village chief's house. The hostess brought out sober tea made from kudzu root and chrysanthemum, and asked Lin Yan to drink it while waiting for the village chief to return. Lin Yan was very dizzy, and half leaned on the farmhouse's kang, waiting for the alcohol to dissipate.
Compared with the resting houses before dinner, the village chief's house was a bit rougher than Lin Yan expected. There were faded carp New Year pictures on the wall, and the tables and chairs were all styles from the 1990s, which had been worn black over time. There are some big white rabbit toffees in the plastic box, and the portrait of the little girl is set in the glass photo frame. Her black eyes are staring straight ahead, which looks a little gloomy under the candlelight.
Duan Chengyi and his daughter-in-law arrived. Not long after, the flowered cloth curtain was thrown open, and the village head walked in with a cane. Lin Yanqiang sat up straight and talked roughly about the ancient paintings. The editorial team who turned a group of people into whitewashed work seriously, accidentally saw the ancient paintings of the Duan family published in "A Detailed Examination of Folk Landscape Figures in the Ming and Qing Dynasties" when preparing for the topic selection, found it here after a lot of trouble, and came here specially Hear old family stories.
The village chief's attention didn't seem to be on him, he kept his head depressed and didn't speak, lit a cigarette for a long time, and smoked it with his scorched fingers.
Lin Yan didn't know what he said wrong, and turned his head to look at Xiao Yu uneasily.
The old man exhaled, glared at Duan Chengyi angrily, and pressed his voice to ask, "You sold the portrait of your ancestor?"
Duan Chengyi didn't dare to offend his father, he lowered his head and muttered: "Xiaoyun has to pay the tuition fee for junior high school, I can't make up enough money..."
"How many were sold?"
"Just one picture." Duan Chengyi muttered.
"Okay, go get the rest!"
Duan Chengyi raised his butt, walked to the door hesitantly, dawdled for a long time, finally stomped his feet, and said with a stiff neck, "There were four more, but they were all sold last time."
"How much did you sell it for?"
"There are more than 20,000 in total, and they have not been touched in the back room."
"You, you're going to piss me off!" The village head blushed like a cockfighting rooster, picked up his crutches and lashed at Duan Chengyi's calf: "You son of a bitch, I told you not to take your ancestors seriously, and to not take your ancestors seriously." thing!"
Duan Chengyi jumped up, and the old father and son ran after the other: "It's just painting. You can't eat it when you're hungry, and you can't cover it when it's cold. Why do you need it..."
This rebuttal doesn't matter, the village head turned purple with anger, and shook his lips: "You are slapping your ancestors in the face, the Duan family has fallen like this, how do you want me to explain to my ancestors, how to explain!" Chasing after him Without strength, he sat down on the bench and rubbed his cheeks with hands like dead bark.
Seeing that his father was in a hurry, Duan Chengyi carefully poured a cup of tea, sighed and said, "Xiaoyun and Niu'er are in poor health, I want to take the brothers and sisters to the provincial capital to see, the fare for the fare is not a small amount, I am I really can't bear it..."
The hand of the village chief holding the teacup trembled slightly, and the water splashed on the ground. Not forgetting the presence of an outsider, he said to the embarrassed Lin Yan: "I'm letting you children see a joke. You can't teach your children well, you can't teach your children well..."
Lin Yan didn't expect that the village chief didn't know about the sale of paintings, and he rashly said that it would cause family conflicts in others. He didn't want to stay or lost his mind when he left. He tugged at Xiao Yu's cuffs, and hesitantly told Duan Lao : "It's a big deal today...how about we go back first?"
Seeing that the fighting was slowing down, the couple hurried forward to help the village head one by one. The old man was worried that outsiders would not be able to get angry again, so he sat on the chair and sighed: "You are the benefactors of the Duan family. You have come all the way here. In order to hear a story, it stands to reason that I should tell it well, but now you have also seen it, the descendants are not up to date, I have no face to tell you about the Duan family back then, who will believe it? It is not enough to make people laugh that our villagers are daydreaming. "
The old man patted his knees: "It's getting late. I arranged for the two children to sleep in another house. This house has been cleaned. If you two don't dislike it, you can live in this room. It's not easy to come here. Stay for a few more days and have fun. , the village is not as lively as your city, but the food is fresh and the scenery is good."
This is considered to be a refusal. Lin Yan knew that the timing was not good, and at this time, the wine was not full, and he was a little impatient, and he was afraid of delaying time by changing the date. An idea was brewing in his mind, and he hesitated to hold Xiao Yu's hand. finger.
"Speak." Xiao Yu knew what he was thinking, and said softly, "They will believe it."
The village head and Duan Chengyi and his wife were about to leave. Lin Yan took a deep breath and called out to the old man's back, "Wait a minute."
"I, let's be honest, we're not journalists, and we're not just here to hear stories."
The old man stopped opening the door suddenly, and turned to look at him, a little confused.
"The reason why I was able to save Aunt Duan and Xiaoyun today is not because we are so tall, but... I have yin and yang eyes and can see ghosts. I saw the souls of Aunt Duan and Xiaoyun following the coffin in the funeral procession today. I knew they were still saved, and it happened that my friend knew this."
Now the old man and Duan Chengyi both grew their mouths. Lin Yan took a sip of tea and said with a wry smile: "That fox demon can transform into a human form, so naturally he can also speak human language, and there is him." Lin Yan moved Xiao Yu forward a little Tweet: "Don't be afraid, he had a relationship with a young master named Duan Yihan of the Duan family in the Ming Dynasty. I brought him here to find the grave of the head of the Duan family and fulfill his wish."
"Before he was alive?" Duan Chengyi looked at Xiao Yu in disbelief, "What's going on?"
"He...he's dead. You hold his hand and there's no body temperature." Lin Yan whispered, "He lived in the Ming Dynasty for more than 500 years."
Now the old man and Duan Chengyi looked at each other, and couldn't help being dumbfounded. Lin Yan's words made them think that the two of them were out of their minds. The female ghost who had haunted her family for three years was forced to commit suicide in the coffin.
"Are you still drunk, doll?"
Xiao Yu broke away from Lin Yan's hand, and said to Duan Chengyi who was still suspicious: "If you don't believe me, I will prove it to you."
"There are old people here, don't scare them." Lin Yan asked worriedly.
The ghost nodded and closed his eyes slightly.
As if the voltage was unstable, the 100-watt light bulb hanging on the roof began to flicker and flicker. . The shadow of the candle flickered, making the girl's face even more gloomy. On the glass photo frame was a big flower made of black silk, and two streamers trembled. The four candles on the table were extinguished from left to right, and soon the whole room Into darkness and silence.
"Why did the candle go out when there was no wind?" Duan Chengyi's voice trembled a little.
As soon as the voice fell, the two windows opened in unison, and a gust of wind came in. It was not a normal summer night wind. It was so cold that there was no trace of temperature. It seemed to have drained the human body temperature. Full of goosebumps. However, it was not over yet. With the whimper of the wind, the door opened with a bang, and a figure blocked the light outside, standing at the door with a ghostly look.
"Okay, okay, I believe it, I believe it." The village chief trembled and took two steps back tremblingly. Lin Yan was afraid that the old man's heart would not be able to hold on, so he shouted to the door: "Okay, come here first." .”
The light bulb was turned on again, four candles were lit out of thin air one by one, the windows were closed, and in the orange light, Xiao Yu was leaning on the door frame and looking inside.
"He, wasn't he still in the house just now? When did he go out?" Duan Chengyi was so frightened that his calves went limp, he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, fell down on the kang, and shouted, "Mother, what a ghost!"
With the light returning to normal, Duan Chengyi's expression suddenly changed, as if he saw something extremely terrifying, he stared blankly at Lin Yan, raised his index finger and pointed at him tremblingly: "You, you, don't even think about it." Believe me, you are also a ghost!"
"I'm human, and I'm genuine." Lin Yan couldn't laugh or cry, and blocked his fingers: "Touch and see, if I have a body temperature, I'm alive."
Duan Chengyi's forehead was covered with bead-sized beads of sweat, and he opened his mouth wide, as if stuck in a fishbone, and it took him a long time to choke out a sentence: "... I mean, you look so familiar to me!"
"Why do you look the same as the painting I sold!"
Finally noticing it, Lin Yan held his teacup and said with a wry smile, "I don't know much about it, probably the ancestor of your Duan family reincarnated five hundred years after his death and became me."
"I wanted to secretly take him to visit your family's ancestral grave, but I didn't expect to tell you all about it. I really don't have the life of a thief."
To a certain extent, the villagers who have instinctive worship of nature and have not been poured into concrete heads by one-sided materialism are better able to communicate with the people Lin Yan met before. After a struggle, they accepted the fox fairy. , ghosts, reincarnation, the most direct evidence is that Lin Yan's status has skyrocketed, from being spat on in public to surpassing the village head in one fell swoop, to becoming the... old ancestor whom even all the old people respect him.
Overnight, under the coercion of the village chief and Lin Yan's fierce opposition, everyone unanimously changed their name to Lin Yan: "Duan Zuzong."
This time, even that ghost laughed so hard that it hurt internally.
Duanjia Village did not have a village head before the liberation. After the liberation, the title of the patriarch was changed to the village head after the promotion of the abolition of feudal ideology. In private, the old rules were still practiced. The descendants of prestige inherit the position. As for the so-called elections and village officials that outsiders say, they have nothing to do with Duanjia Village.
Even the village head was in awe of Lin Yan's inexplicable ascension to the throne of his ancestors, so he took the two of them to the ancestral hall that night to read Duan's family tree. According to the village chief, the Duan family started as a salt merchant during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. After two generations of hard work, it reached its peak when the third owner, Duan Yihan, had a bank of millions of silver. Soaked in soy milk, each mural is painted by a famous teacher. The seven-day flowing water banquet is held for worshiping the ancestors during the Qingming Festival. During the New Year, the popular troupe is invited to sing a big show for ten consecutive days. The villagers from all over the world come to watch the excitement. One side of the rich family in the twenty-second county of the state.
The Duan family prospered from the Yongle Year to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and then began to decline steadily for unknown reasons. It seemed that the God of Wealth changed his preferences overnight. , and the caravans who went south to sell tea never returned. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty when opium dens became popular, everyone from the boss, concubine to young master and miss, and even servants and housekeepers smoked opium, to the point of squandering the two hundred thousand taels of silver from the sale of the ancestral house. The Duan family had no place to live in Jinyang. He bought more than a dozen thatched houses in a remote village, and moved his family to the present Duanjia Village.
"The next mountain is Mausoleum Mountain. The ancestors of the Duan family were buried on the mountain for generations. We moved to live in the ancestral tomb because we are ashamed of our ancestors. We can only make amends for guarding the ancestral tomb."
Lin Yan nodded: "No wonder the oldest house in the village looks like it's only a hundred years old. It turns out that the Duan family moved here later."
The ancestral hall was dark, without electricity, and a kerosene lamp was lit. Lin Yan and Xiao Yu sat at the table and flipped through the family tree. The pages of the book became smoky yellow and crisp due to the immersion of time. The beautiful block letters record the names, wives, descendants, and life stories of each ancestor. The densely packed words are crowded together. For a while, I was in a trance, as if the ancient "he" had expected today and waited between the lines. Reach out and hold hands.
Some traditional characters are remote and difficult. Lin Yan is used to reading history books, but he doesn't know many of them. He stops to ask Xiao Yu from time to time.
The village chief filled the teapot with water and put on reading glasses to help search. Hearing that Lin Yan wanted to see the ancestral graves, he told him: "The whole mountain in the back is buried with ancestors. Some of them have been buried for too long. I have always wanted to erect a stele and renovate it properly, but because the village is poor and cannot afford the money, it has been delayed year after year."
"The grave of Duan Yihan you are looking for is very off-centered, and you have to walk for a while to climb over the mountain. Tomorrow, I will call two younger generations to guide you." The old man shook his head, "It is disrespectful to open the coffin to see the corpse, but the ancestors agreed. , we can’t say anything.”
Opening a book while talking, the old man frowned: "Huh? Is this it?" As he spoke, he pushed the book to Lin Yan. Lin Yan searched back and forth twice but couldn't find it. Xiao Yu was still quick-eyed and pointed at A line of words indicated to Lin Yan that Yihan was not a real name. Duan Yihan's real name was Duan Ze, and because of the lack of water in the five elements, he was named "Ze" and the word Yihan.
"Born in June of the year of Gengyin in Chenghua, died in the twenty-fifth year of Jiajing." Lin Yan made a quick calculation in his mind and said hesitantly, "To die at the age of seventy-seven is considered a long life."
"Crack." The two signature pens that were ready to take notes were knocked to the ground by Xiao Yu. Under the dim light, the ghost's expression was very bad, his lower lip was pursed, and his fingers were tightly gripping the edge of the table.
Looking at the genealogy, compared with the great achievements of the previous two generations, Duan Ze's records are not many. His life seems to be very peaceful, with no achievements or faults. The description of him can be summed up as that he was born in the royal family. His father got a son in his old age and loved him so much that Duan Ze was unruly and unruly when he was young. He inherited the family business at the age of seventeen and gradually understood human affairs. His wife, Yuan Shi, husband and wife respect each other as guests, raise their eyebrows in the same way, have three concubines and concubines, three sons and two daughters under their knees, father is kind and son is filial. Believed in Buddhism in old age and did good deeds, donated herbal tea to escape the summer heat during the dog days, and often gave porridge to the poor people on Sanjiu. He was known as a bodhisattva in all directions. He died on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month in the Bingwu year of Jiajing.
In just one page, a person's life is written, and there is no record about Xiao Yu, or even about the owner's habit of cutting sleeves.
Lin Yan turned his head to look at Xiao Yu, the ghost was quietly looking out the window, behind him was the deep and ancient ancestral hall, the night reflected his eyes slightly blue, with a faint glint of water.
"Is it him?" Lin Yan asked softly.
Xiao Yu was silent, and said calmly for a long while: "Husband and wife and sons and daughters wrapped around their knees, they really enjoyed the glory and splendor of the whole life, there was no surprise in the courtyard, and the years were peaceful."
"I am five years older than him, and he was twenty-three when he left." Xiao Yu held a teacup in his hand, and squeezed it tighter and tighter. The cup cracked with a bang, and hot water poured all over him. Lin Yan hurriedly grabbed him. , Xiao Yu shook his head, with a sad smile, "...from the time I left to the time he died, fifty-four years ago, he never came to see him."
"Do you think that what Xiao Yu pursued all his life is a joke?"
The ghost leaned back on the back of the chair, with his slender hands resting on his forehead hair, looking pale and tired. There was a small brown mole on his right ear, like a very thin nail, nailing his whole body against the dark background middle.
Lin Yan didn't know how to comfort him, and gently closed the scroll in his hand: "Maybe he lost his memory, maybe he has to worry about his family's face, maybe..."
"Would you believe it?"
Lin Yan was silent for a while, then asked him softly, "Shall we go?"
Xiao Yu pushed the table, and the flames on the table trembled, and his eyes appeared gloomy and resentful in the flickering firelight: "What are you going to? To see the coffin where he and his wife were buried together, to see their love and affection?"
The ghost stood up, the knuckles of the fingers holding the back of the chair trembled slightly, his whole body exuded the hostility of the first meeting, he turned his head uncontrollably and looked at Lin Yan: "Why do you want to live, why don't you die with me?" ?”
Lin Yan was startled by his eyes and staggered back two steps. The revived life-seeking ghost, how much resentment and murderous intent he had accumulated in the hundred years of being forgotten and betrayed, Lin Yan almost suspected that he was the enemy of this ghost, and first told him cruelly. His lover passed away for many years, and the reincarnation will not remember him, and then smash his last thoughts... The love like Liang Zhu, the ending is so bad, the person he is waiting for will marry a wife and have children two years after he left, and die in peace.
A Yan has long warned to stay away from Xiao Yu, one day the anger of the evil ghost will be vented, he is not a human being, he is a life-threatening ghost, who cares about the moral cultivation of a ghost
The village chief didn't understand the cause and effect, and thought that the two were not speaking well. After thinking about it for a while, he suddenly realized: "Joint burial? Not a joint burial. A name is engraved on the stele, and only a piece of paper money is burned for the sacrifice."
"Except for some unweds who died young, that was the only tomb that was buried alone. When I was a child, I visited it a few times during the Qingming Festival. The stele was still there at that time. Later, I saw that the mountain road was too far away, and no one was willing to make a special trip to worship the ancestors. It has been deserted for many years.”