Hengfei barely thought about it: "This place was like this before my family moved away from Sandagangzi. If it wasn't so hard to make a living in the city, people would have moved away long ago. Now I heard there are only a few families left."
I didn't respond to Hengfei's question, but looked out the window. There must be something wrong with the feng shui of Sandagangzi, but there was no sign of desolation outside. What was the real problem
While I was puzzled, Ye Jin had already driven off the highway and turned into a ravine. It was almost evening and smoke from cooking fires was rising from the village.
After getting off the car, Hengfei led us to the yard at the edge of the village and called out to the house, "Uncle, uncle, are you home? I'm Xiaofeizi."
"Feizi is back!" The old man who ran out of the house seemed to have just put down his bowl of rice and rubbed the oil on his hands on his body twice, "Feizi, why are you back at this time?"
Heng Fei said: "I am planning to move my grandfather's grave, but I don't know where it is! Look..."
The old man smacked his lips twice and said, "Where is your family grave? Otherwise, you can look for it on Gangliangzi. The people in the village above are on good terms with your grandfather. Who knows, they may know the location."
I looked in the direction the old man pointed, and there were indeed a few houses on the ridge over there, some of which were still emitting smoke.
Hengfei didn't say much, and led us over there. The further up the mountain I went, the more desolate it felt: "Is this place habitable?"
Heng Fei said, "There were people living here before. I don't know what they were thinking at the time, but they had to build houses on the mountain. It is said that they have lived here for several generations. Although they are all from the same village, they don't interact much with the villages below."
Hengfei was afraid that I didn’t understand: “In the past, these were two villages. The one on the mountain was called Shangbao Village, and the one on the mountain was called Xiabao Village. Later, as fewer and fewer people lived on the mountain, they were merged into one village.”
After Hengfei walked into the village, he looked from house to house before he found a family: "Uncle Dong, I'm Feizi, I have something to talk to you about."
The old man sitting at the door rolled his eyes and looked at us: "Come in!"
After the old man lit an oil lamp in the house, he called out to the inner room: "Ya Dan, go to the village to buy a few pounds of meat, and come back to make some dumplings for your uncle. Your uncle and I will have a drink."
Only then did I see that there was a person squatting in his house. The child was probably only about 10 years old and not very tall. But even if the light in the house was dim, I couldn't help but see that there was a living person squatting in the corner, right
However, until the girl stood up, I didn't feel any human presence in the room; but it didn't seem like the girl was a ghost, because there was no negative energy around her, and Guazi, who was following me, didn't react at all.
Could it be that the light in the room was too dim and I was seeing things
While I was frowning, Hengfei was already being polite to the old man: "Don't be busy, don't be busy... Uncle Dong, why are you being so polite?"
Heng Fei said a few polite words, and seeing that the old man was not very happy, he agreed: "Uncle Dong, I came back this time just to move my grandfather's grave. Do you know where my grandfather is buried?"
Old Uncle Dong chuckled, "Your family didn't even hold a funeral back then, so who knows where he buried himself? If it weren't for the fact that your grandfather was capable, someone might have reported you to the police, accusing you of burying old man Heng alive."
"How can you talk like that?" Hengfei suddenly became unhappy.
Uncle Dong stiffened his neck and said, "Why can't I tell you? Your grandfather has been gone for so many years. Have you ever gone up the mountain to burn paper?"
Heng Fei suppressed his anger and said with a smile: "Uncle Dong, I am back now, right? You have been wandering in the mountains for many years, so you must know. I will..."
Uncle Dong smiled and said, "There is an old wolf grave on the mountain. If you want to dig the old wolf out and bury it at home, just go up the mountain."
I couldn't help but ask, "What does Old Wolf's Tomb mean?"
Uncle Dong laughed and said, "A long time ago, there was an old wolf in this place that had become a spirit. It would come down to eat people every now and then. Hunters in the mountains tried to kill it several times, but they didn't get any wolf hair. Instead, they lost several lives."
"Later, someone invited a deity, who said that only by building a temple and offering sacrifices to the old wolf could the area be safe. At that time, the village was extremely poor, so how could they have the money to do that? However, if the temple was not built, someone would die. The villagers gritted their teeth and started collecting things from door to door and selling them at the market, preparing to raise money to build a temple for the old wolf."
"When the villagers were about to sell everything they had, they met a gentleman at the market. The gentleman said that since he had seen this, he could not just ignore it. After collecting five dou of millet from the villagers, he went up the mountain alone."
"That gentleman went up the mountain and there was no news for seven days. The villagers thought they had met a swindler and were blaming each other when the gentleman came back covered in blood. The first thing he said was that he had killed the old wolf and asked the villagers to hurry up to the mountain to burn the old wolf's body."
"The villagers carried the gentleman halfway up the mountain, and he was almost frightened to death by what he saw."
"Some people said they saw someone nailing an old wolf to a tree with a coffin; but some people said they saw an old man nailed to death in the tree."
"The gentleman asked several people in succession, and at least half of them said they saw an old man. The gentleman vomited blood at that moment. He said that he didn't expect that after all his efforts, he still couldn't kill the old wolf completely."
"Later, the gentleman had the tree that the old wolf was nailed to was sawed down to the ground, and a deep pit was dug in the ground. Three millstones were used to press the wolf and the old wolf into the pit."
"The gentleman had the filled soil built into a platform, and he sat on the platform himself. He told the villagers that he wanted to fight with the old wolf again. For seven days, no one should touch him, no matter if he was dead or alive."
"After seven days, if he is dead, let the villagers throw him into the river behind the mountain; if he is not dead, he will find a place by himself."
When the old man was talking about this, the girl who had gone out came back with a piece of steaming fresh meat in her hand. It looked like freshly cut meat from somewhere.
When the girl entered the room, the first thing I looked at was Guazier beside me. Although she looked up at the girl, she didn't react at all. I was relieved. It turned out that the girl with strange behavior was not a ghost.
"Hurry up and chop the stuffing so that it can be put into the pot while it's fresh." The old man said a few words to the girl and continued, "At that time, the villagers carried the man to the earthen platform and left. That night, someone heard someone howling on the earthen platform. The noise was exactly the same as that of the wild wolves on the mountain. It made people feel cold!"
"The more the villagers listened, the more they felt uneasy. One brave man went to the earthen platform at night to take a look, but he was scared to death when he came back. He shouted, 'The wolf ate people', and then 'The wolf turned into a human'."
"The villagers were so scared that no one dared to go out. But the less they went out, the more scared they became. Everyone wanted to know what happened on the earthen platform. After finally getting through seven days, the villagers rushed to the mountains early in the morning."
"The gentleman died while sitting on the dirt platform. In his hand he was still tightly clutching a piece of cloth torn from his clothes. On it were three words written in blood: 'It's alright.'"
"The villagers didn't know whether the old wolf was fine or not. But the man died for the villagers, so we couldn't just ignore him! So we did as he said and carried his body to the top of the mountain, intending to throw it into the river behind the mountain."
The old man paused here and said, "None of you have ever carried a coffin, right? People who have carried a coffin know that the coffin becomes heavier as you carry it, because the dead body weighs on it! But the body of that gentleman became lighter as you carried it..."
"When the villagers were halfway up, they didn't dare to carry it any further. Later, an old man said that the master had ascended to heaven. Immortals are different from mortals, and the more they carry, the lighter they become. So the villagers continued to climb the mountain."
"When we got to the river, we did as the gentleman said and dumped his body into the river. Normally, a body should sink when it falls into the water, but who would have thought that after the gentleman's body entered the water, it floated away with the water like a piece of cloth."
"At that time, the villagers thought the gentleman had become an immortal, otherwise how could he walk along the water? They knelt by the river and kowtowed for a long time before walking back. When they got here, the people who had carried the coffin could not go on. Everyone else went down the mountain smoothly, but those people seemed to be possessed by a ghost. They saw a path under their feet, but they would not walk on it. No matter how they walked, they would turn back."
"At first, those people thought they had encountered a ghost wall, and they peed and shouted, and some people even lit torches, but they couldn't move forward. Later, I don't know who said: Is the master trying to keep us to serve him and not let us go downstairs?"
"At that time, several people all believed it, so they stayed in the mountain for a few days in fear. After a few days, there was no problem on the mountain or below, so they simply lived in the mountain, and there were several families on the mountain."
The old man stopped talking here and said, "This is the origin of Laolangfen and Shangbao Village."
I turned my head and looked out the window for a few seconds. "I see there is no land on this mountain. Do you still have to go down the mountain to farm?"
The old man said, "Shangbao Village doesn't farm. It's Xiabao Village that grows the food and sends it up. It's been like this for generations. We watch the mountain, and they grow the food. Later, fewer people believed in the Old Wolf's Tomb, so we started to exchange our things for food with the people down the mountain. In short, the people up the mountain can't come down the mountain."
Heng Fei subconsciously asked, "Why haven't I heard from my family that we have to send food to the mountains?"
The old man chuckled and said, "You are still young, why should I tell you that?"
When I heard this, my heart suddenly skipped a beat.
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Thank you all for your support, and stay tuned for the next episode!
Thank you Doudou for the reward! (To be continued)