As Ye Jin drove the bus slowly towards Beigou Village, I saw someone coming up from the ravine and waving at us from a distance. When I signaled Ye Jin to stop, the man had already run out of the cab window: "You are the masters invited by Xiao Yuanzi, right? Why are there so many people? Where is Xiao Yuanzi?"
From the other party's few short sentences, I already heard a message: they must be asking someone to perform a ritual or exorcise ghosts.
I gave Ye Jin a wink and looked out the car window in the direction of Beigou Village. There was a house with white flowers on its gate. It seemed that the family was looking for someone to perform a Taoist ritual.
At this time, Ye Jin had already started a conversation with the man, and in a few words, he fooled the other party. When the man led us to the village, I said from behind him: "Brother, your village is built on the waterway, aren't you afraid that the house will be flooded when it rains?"
The man said, "That's not true. The feng shui of our village is very good! When it rains, the water doesn't dare to flow into the village."
Ye Jin and I looked at each other and saw the shock in each other's eyes. There are only two possibilities for the rainwater not to flow into the waterway...
One possibility is that there is something in the village that can control the mountains and water, so that the rainwater has to bypass it. That possibility is very small. Something that can change the geographical advantages must be a treasure of the magic way. Any magician passing by can easily covet it.
Another possibility is that the village is hollow, and more than 90% of the rainwater flows away from the hollow area, so it does not flow into the village. If that's the case, there is either a fault in the earth veins under the village, or an ancient tomb of astonishing size.
Is this possible
This is the Northeast. Thousands of years ago, this was still an area outside the Great Wall where the imperial court had weak jurisdiction. The burial culture was not prominent, let alone mobilizing tens of thousands of laborers to open mountains to build tombs.
If it is a Qing Dynasty tomb, it is even more impossible. Apart from the emperors, who else in the Qing Dynasty deserves to have a tomb built on a mountain? However, no emperor of the Qing Dynasty was buried outside the imperial mausoleum.
I deliberately laughed and said, "Brother, are you kidding me? What treasures are there in your village that you dare not even let rainwater flow into the village?"
The man was quite talkative: "Of course not! I heard from the elders that our village is actually the Dragon Road, which is where the Dragon King descends from the mountain. In the past, there were floods every year. Not to mention the village, there was no place to stay even at the foot of the mountain. Later, a wandering Taoist priest came and erected a dragon-praising stele in the village. On it were all good words praising the Dragon King. After seeing this, the Dragon King was not only embarrassed to leave here, but also deliberately stopped the rain from flowing here."
This person must be wrong!
Let's talk about the Dragon Road first. Legend has it that every year, a dragon would go down the river to the sea to pay respect to the Dragon King at a fixed time. When a dragon comes out of the water, it will definitely cause wind and rain. In order not to bring natural disasters to the world, the dragon would choose a fixed time and a fixed place to enter the river. The place where the dragon went at that time was called the Dragon Road.
I believe that there are dragons lurking in the rivers, but how can there be dragons on the top of mountains
Let's talk about the Dragon Monument. According to legend, the Dragon Monument is a stone tablet specially built to flatter the dragon and praise its merits. With the Dragon Monument, the dragon can bless the area with good weather and good harvests. But in reality, this is not the case.
If you want to worship the dragon and praise its merits, you can just build a Dragon King Temple. Isn't it much better to have incense and offerings than a stone tablet
The true meaning of the Dragon Praise Stele is not to praise, but to record the merits of the dragon. To be clear, where there is a Dragon Praise Stele, there must be a Dragon Slaying Formation, which is where the great masters of magic suppress evil dragons. The so-called Dragon Praise Stele is nothing more than a record of the dragon's atonement. Once the merits are collected, the Dragon Praise Stele will automatically break, and the suppressed dragon will be freed.
Will there be a dragon-praising stele in this place
As we walked, I said, "Brother, your words are becoming more and more mysterious. There is not even a big river here, so where can you find a dragon?"
The man was unhappy: "Who said there can't be dragons on the top of the mountain? The old people said it clearly, it's the Dragon King who doesn't want to come down from the mountain!"
I cupped my hands and said, "Okay, okay, you're right, I'm ignorant."
The man then snorted: "You don't look like a capable person, what do you do?"
I replied without hesitation: "Following the car."
"I think so too!" The man snorted and walked forward.
When he led us to the door of the house, my face darkened slightly: "This family's funeral has been going on for a few days, right? Why did you think of asking the master to perform the ritual now?"
The man was unhappy and said, "Why do you care so much? It's not your place of business."
The man opened the door and walked toward the yard. I reached out and stopped Shi Heshang and Ye Jin behind me: "Brother, if you don't make your point clear today, none of us can go into that yard."
The man immediately turned around and asked, "What do you want me to say?"
I pointed to the ground and asked, "What's going on?"
At first glance, the place I pointed to looked like there was nothing there, but when I rubbed it lightly with my foot, I could see two coffin nails nailed into the ground.
Nailing the coffin door is a spell, but it is not a spell. The principle is the same as using peach wood nails to nail the grave door. The purpose is to prevent the ghosts inside from coming out.
Here, a house where all the family members have died is called a "house without a family". Such a house is most likely to be haunted, and the ghosts in it who are starving and lacking food are likely to come out to harass the neighbors. After all, the villagers are not sorcerers, and they can't perform magic tricks. When they can't send the ghosts away temporarily, they use coffin nails to nail up the yard on all sides at noon to prevent the ghosts from escaping for a while, and then they try to find a way to ask a fortune teller or a great celestial being for help.
There are coffin nails at the door of this house, but it is not as simple as performing a ritual to liberate the souls of the dead.
The man looked at me, stunned, and said, "I say, as a driver, why do you care about so many trivial matters? Masters, please come this way!"
I deliberately took a step back, and the monk Zhihui behind me cooperated very well and said, "We only perform rituals, not exorcise demons. This Mr. Wu is the real Mr. Northeast, you should go find him."
The man looked at me for a long time, then rubbed his hands and said, "How can you say that... I don't know the real talent! Sir, my name is Wang Fugui, and I'm the village chief. After the old man died, the family has been in turmoil, and we had no choice but to collect money and hire a master."
I said calmly, "What's going on with this family?"
The village chief pointed to the spirit shed in the yard and said, "Old Liu is actually a fairy. In the past, the village would go to him for help when there was something wrong. Who knew that he would become a demon after a while. He was the one who suggested the idea of nailing the coffin nails to the door. We just tried it out of ignorance. But Old Liu also said before that using coffin nails to seal the door can only work on the first day of the month, but not on the fifteenth day. That's why we are worried."
I couldn't help but frown after hearing this: "What kind of fairy is Old Liu?"
In Northeast China, the word "Xian'er" actually has different meanings. Some people call the disciples who lead the great immortals "Xian'er", while others call those who can tell fortunes "Xian'er". However, the disciples who go out to tell fortunes are accumulating merits for the great immortals during their lifetime, so it is unlikely that they will be haunted after death. As for fortune tellers, it is hard to say.
Wang Fugui said: "We don't know what kind of fairy he brought with him, but many people have seen him summon a fairy to possess him."
I nodded and said, "What did Old Liu do after he came back?"
Wang Fugui said, "After he came back, he knocked on every door, one by one. After knocking on every door, he would stand outside the door without saying anything. If someone in the house looked outside, he would look inside as well. It was so scary. When he was at his worst, he knocked on seven doors in one night! Sir, do you think that's true..."
I waved my hand and said, "Don't worry about Old Liu's matter for now. Didn't you say there is a dragon-song monument in the village? Take me there to have a look."
Wang Fugui said, "Sir, please get that old Liu away first. I will show you whatever you want to see. You can even tear down the house if you want."
"You are confused!" I said with a straight face, "Think about it yourself. Before Old Liu, was there any ghost in your village? Why is there a ghost after his death? There was no ghost before, because the Songlong Monument was shaking and the ghosts could not make trouble. Now, it is possible that something has happened to the Songlong Monument and it can no longer suppress the ghosts!"
Wang Fugui slapped his thigh immediately and said, "Why didn't I think of that? You know what, before Old Liu died, he went to the Songlong Monument every day, sometimes several times a day. Who knows, there might be something wrong. Come with me!"
Wang Fugui took us through the village and walked to the top of the village, where there was a large courtyard that almost blocked the entire village.
The bluestone wall outside the yard was more than two meters high, but there was no decent gate. The only thing left at the gate was a wooden frame for keeping animals out.
In the center of the courtyard stood a towering tree, with its dense crown covering half of the courtyard. Two branches branched out from the middle of the tree, like a baby in its arms, hanging down from top to bottom, protecting a stone tablet standing in the middle of the branches. In front of the stone tablet, there was nothing else except a simple altar.
After we walked into the yard, Ye Jin looked at the stone tablet carefully for a long time before saying, "I can't tell what era it is from."
After I wiped off the dust on the stone tablet with my sleeve, a strange symbol appeared on it. At first glance, it looked like some kind of text, but I couldn't recognize what was written on it.
From the strange symbol down, there are traditional Chinese characters, which roughly mean that the Dragon King did something good. The content recorded on it is very simple, but the age is extremely long. The text engraved on the stone tablet extends to about three inches from the ground before it ends, and it probably stopped because there was no more space on the stone tablet.
I turned to Wang Fugui and asked, "Have you ever seen anyone carve words on a stone tablet?"
Wang Fugui shook his head and said, "I heard from the elders that the village chief had carved words on it in the past, but they disappeared later. However, this stone tablet cannot be touched easily. Whoever touches it will be unlucky."
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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)