I reached out and grabbed Zhao Xiaosheng by the collar, threw him two or three meters away, squatted down and asked towards the hole: "Is this your sister-in-law? I am Xi Feng."
“Ah, Junior Brother Xifeng is here, you… I…” She is really Zhao Chengshi’s wife. She still spoke to me in a very affectionate tone, but she choked up at the end.
I touched my nose and thought, Zhao Chengshi did something bad that he couldn't bear to see in public, and he probably didn't dare to let his wife know, and my sister-in-law thought that we had a good relationship. If I say this woman has a good heart, I can tell from her words and deeds after meeting her twice.
I was about to speak when Zhao Xiaosheng rushed back like a wild beast, screaming loudly, but was grabbed by Shen Bing and pressed to the ground.
I frowned and asked, "Sister-in-law, what happened? Has Xiaosheng always had this temper since he was a child?"
The eldest sister-in-law cried and said, "This child has been stubborn since he was young. He has been bullied these past two days, so he may be a little rebellious. Please don't mind it. Xiaosheng, this is your uncle and you don't even recognize him. Stop going crazy, ah."
Zhao Xiaosheng was still struggling, but after hearing what my mother said, he gave in and stopped moving. But the look in his eyes when he looked at us was still full of hostility, and he still refused to call us "Uncle Master".
I didn't bother with a child, and asked my sister-in-law, "Who sealed you alive in the mound?"
“Oh, it’s hard to put it into words.” My sister-in-law started crying again. You can’t tell how sad she was. She sobbed and told me, “Ever since Old Zhao died (I forgot about this, Zhao Chengshi once faked his death and even his wife might not know), my mother and I have had a very hard time. Who knew that two days ago, a Feng Shui master came to the village. He told us that Old Zhao was not dead, but had done all kinds of bad things. He buried the ashes of a girl in his grave. This girl is from this village, her name is Gong Cuiruo, and she had been dead for more than a year. We didn’t believe it, so the Gong family forced us to dig up Old Zhao’s grave. We found that there was no body in the coffin, but an urn. Woo woo… We don’t know how it turned out like this…” She burst into tears when she said this, and it made me feel very sad.
I thought to myself that this Feng Shui master was probably the one the old lady had asked. If he retrieved the ashes, it was only natural. Zhao Chengshi had done something evil, so he was not to blame. But I couldn't tell her that. She probably didn't know her husband was a wicked man who was worse than an animal.
"Senior brother's body is missing, and sister-in-law, you can't bury yourself here," I said.
The eldest sister-in-law calmed down and said, "You don't know that when Lao Zhao died, everyone in the village knew about it, but now the body is missing for unknown reasons, and there is an urn in the coffin, which makes the villagers think that our family is evil. The person who nailed the coffin lid for Lao Zhao said that the nails had not been moved, and the body disappeared without a trace.
"The gentleman said that Old Zhao had turned into a demon and had run away to hide the girl's urn in his own coffin. This was a vicious sorcery of 'imprisoning a corpse in a coffin', which had ruined the feng shui of the Gong family and the entire village. When the village chief and the Gong family heard this, they were very angry and asked the gentleman how to break the spell. The gentleman said that it was impossible to find where Old Zhao had run off to, and that the corpse imprisoned in the coffin was a female corpse. If the spell was to be broken, the woman in his family would have to pay the price and be sealed in a mound for 49 days. After she came out, she would wear mourning clothes and visit the grave of the Gong family's daughter, and then the sorcery would be broken."
Oh, so that's how it is. No wonder Zhao Xiaosheng was chased and beaten by a group of children. They thought he was a demon. But what do children know? It was all instigated by adults. If the rural people were easily fooled by the Yin-Yang masters, if Zhao Chengshi's family were really demons, they would have killed the whole village long ago. It's your turn to bury his mother alive in the mound and be chased and beaten by children every day.