"I've been harassing you for half the night and I didn't say anything. If I pat you on the shoulder, you're going to kick me to death?" The old man turned around and walked back.
"Wait a minute," Wu Dongfang quickly followed the old man, "Was that a ghost just now?"
"If you know, ask anyway." The old man said casually.
"I didn't expect such a thing to exist." Wu Dongfang was still frightened.
"There are a lot of them here." The old man stepped through the door.
"That's a lot?!" Wu Dongfang hurriedly followed in. He originally wanted to go out to relieve himself, but he didn't want to pee after he was covered in cold sweat.
"Too many people died, there will always be ghosts." The old man said.
Wu Dongfang was in shock. He raised his hand and touched his arms. When he touched it, he remembered that he had stuffed the wine bottle into a bundle of herbs in the corner. He walked over to find it and sat on the ground to drink to calm down his shock.
"Have you ever encountered something similar?" Wu Dongfang asked the old man who was lying back on the bed. The old man just took out a wooden sign, indicating that he knew what the female ghost was here for.
"Often, the sensible ones will come directly to the house." The old man said casually.
Wu Dongfang was already in shock. When he heard the old man's words, he immediately felt his scalp going crazy and his back getting cold. "Can they harm people?"
"Some can, some can't," the old man said.
"What will they do if they harm people?" Wu Dongfang wiped his sweat.
"Strangle your neck, bite your face, tempt you to hang yourself, and even turn ugly to scare you," the old man said.
"How to deal with them?" Wu Dongfang asked eagerly.
"Pee in them, or shave your hair. Hair attracts ghosts. If you shave your hair, ghosts can't see you." The old man said.
"Fuck you." Wu Dongfang finally realized that the old man was teasing him.
"Hahahaha," the old man was very proud of having successfully teased Wu Dongfang, "Don't worry, these are just newly dead ghosts. They are confused and cannot harm anyone."
Wu Dongfang was angry, but he couldn't help but want to ask, "What will it do next after it gets the wooden sign?"
"I'll take it back to where I live," the old man said.
"Then what?" Wu Dongfang asked again.
"Then you will realize that you are dead, and then you will send the sick card back." The old man said.
Wu Dongfang saw that the old man was scaring him again, so he turned over and lay down and ignored him.
No matter how good of a person he is, he can't stand being frightened so badly. Wu Dongfang was lying on the ground feeling cold all over. Fortunately, he had wine. He drank the rest of the wine, and then he felt warm all over his body.
Soon it was daybreak and someone knocked on the door. Wu Dongfang got up and opened the door. He saw a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman standing outside the door.
Before Wu Dongfang could speak, the man handed over a wooden sign.
"Where did it come from?" Wu Dongfang stared at the wooden sign without reaching out. This wooden sign was naturally the one that was taken away by the ghost last night.
"She picked it up at the door. She is very ill," the man said.
"Did someone die in your room last night?" Wu Dongfang looked at the woman.
The woman nodded.
"Today is yours." Wu Dongfang waved his hand.
They thanked each other happily and left with the wooden sign.
"The slave who wants the sick card is here. You go and divide it. I don't care." Wu Dongfang shouted to the old man.
"I don't care, let them stand outside." The old man stretched.
Seeing that the old man refused to go, Wu Dongfang could only take the wooden signs and go out. At this time, there were only three wooden signs left. He didn't listen to the old man's advice and gave them to the most seriously injured person. Between what he wanted to do, he chose what he wanted to do the most.
After getting up, Wu Dongfang continued to cut and grind herbs. After grinding one kind, he grinded another. This was used to treat typhoid fever. Since the jars storing the medicinal powder were all the same, he was worried that he would remember it incorrectly, so he used charcoal to write trauma and typhoid respectively on the jars.
"What is this?" The old man became interested in these words.
"Words." Wu Dongfang replied casually.
"What are words?" the old man asked curiously.
"A kind of mark." Wu Dongfang said.
"What do these two words mean?" the old man asked.
"Trauma." Wu Dongfang walked to the brazier and sat down to warm himself up.
"Where are these two?" the old man asked again.
Wu Dongfang looked back and said, "Fenghan."
"Can this be marked with words?" The old man pointed to the table.
"Yes." Wu Dongfang picked up the charcoal and wrote the word "table" on the ground.
"Where's this?" The old man pointed to the stool again.
Wu Dongfang nodded and wrote "stool."
"Can everything be marked with words?" The old man came over.
"Not only can you mark things, but you can also mark things." Wu Dongfang nodded.
"How did you think of it?" the old man asked.
Wu Dongfang borrowed the old man's words, "You won't understand even if I tell you."
"Can you teach me this kind of writing?" the old man discussed.
The success aroused the old man's curiosity, and Wu Dongfang began to take revenge, "Why should I teach you?"
The old man thought for a while and said, "How about this, you teach me markings and I teach you medical skills?"
"Okay, okay, but only I understand this kind of mark. It's useless if you learn it." Wu Dongfang said.
"It's very useful. It can be used to mark things without worrying about confusion." The old man said.
"Okay." Wu Dongfang nodded in agreement.
The old man moved a dozen kinds of things to the ground, asked Wu Dongfang to write them down in words, then covered up the words, pushed Wu Dongfang to the opposite side, shuffled the order of the dozen or so things, and asked Wu Dongfang to write them down again in words. , finally pushed Wu Dongfang into a corner, and used a thread to connect the words on both sides to make sure that they could all match up. Only then did he feel completely at ease with Wu Dongfang.
Now the two of them had something to do. The old man pointed to the sky and the ground, pointing east and west. Wu Dongfang wrote them down one by one, and then the old man memorized them by rote. Wu Dongfang saw that he had difficulty in memorizing, so he gave him an idea. "You're doing this too slowly, and it's easy to get confused. If you say a certain number of words, I'll mark them down for you. It will be easier for you to remember the words by comparing them with that paragraph."
The old man memorized a prescription, and Wu Dongfang wrote it on the table for him. The old man felt like he had found a treasure and stared at the table for a whole day.
It was the same thing again in the evening. After sending the patient away, the old man started staring at the table again. Although this guy was old, his thinking was careful. In order to avoid making a lot of mistakes, he picked out a few words from the middle, compared the pronunciation, and asked Wu Dongfang Make sure there are no errors in the text to ensure that the words he remembers correspond to sounds and things.
In order to express his gratitude to Wu Dongfang, the old man went out in the evening and brought him a broken quilt. Wu Dongfang smelled it and confirmed that it was not obtained from slaves, and then accepted it with peace of mind.
When he woke up, Wu Dongfang found that the old man had not slept all night, and the whole ground was covered with his crooked words.
In the early morning, the mute girl came, holding in her hand the wooden sign that Wu Dongfang gave her the night before.
"Let her take it for a few more days." Wu Dongfang said.
The girl shook her head and handed the wooden sign to Wu Dongfang.
"What happened?" Wu Dongfang noticed that the girl's expression was wrong and her eyes were swollen.
When Wu Dongfang asked, the girl started to cry. Her tongue was gone and her cries were muddy, but it could be heard that she was very sad.
"She is dead?" Wu Dongfang asked.
The girl nodded, thrust the wooden sign into Wu Dongfang's hand, bowed to him, turned around and ran away.
"You did a good job and used it well!" Wu Dongfang threw the wooden sign towards the old man who was lying on the ground writing.
"It has nothing to do with me. It was you who killed her." The old man pushed the wooden sign aside with a charcoal stick.
"What do you mean?" Wu Dongfang asked with a frown.
"You shouldn't let her hold the sick card all the time, otherwise other slaves will be jealous of her." The old man did not raise his head.
"You mean she was killed by other slaves?" Wu Dongfang asked.
"Do you still pity them now?" The old man nodded.
"Damn it." Wu Dongfang turned around and walked out.
"You have already killed one person, and you still want to kill the mute?" the old man said in the room.
Wu Dongfang stopped.
"Divide the disease cards." The old man said.
Wu Dongfang took a deep breath to calm down, then returned to the house, took out the wooden signs and distributed them to everyone. When distributing the wooden signs, he was no longer as hesitant as he was the previous two days, because he knew that the wooden signs could not save lives, so he had to rest for a day. To no avail. If the rest period is long, other slaves will kill those patients before they recover.
The old man was fascinated by words. He lay on the ground writing and drawing all day long. He was very smart and discovered that words are composed of fixed strokes, so he began to try to decompose memory.
There were very few injured slaves today. The two of them finished their work early. The old man continued to practice calligraphy. Wu Dongfang carried two jars to the area where the slaves lived to deliver medicine to them. He wanted to take a look at what the slaves were doing after work. Also, he has been thinking about the girl without a tongue.
The place where this group of slaves lived was divided into two areas, the north and the south. The south area had more houses and was occupied by men. The north area had fewer houses and was occupied by women. Wu Dongfang went to the south area first and found that most of the slaves were there. Inside the house, there were only a few people hanging out.
These wanderers all held wooden sticks in their hands and looked like prison guards, but they were not soldiers, but slaves.
Seeing Wu Dongfang's arrival, these people gathered around to say hello to him. Wu Dongfang ignored them and went from house to house asking if anyone was injured or sick, and then gave him different medicines. In addition, according to the slaves' accounts, I have written down several other common diseases and will prepare some medicines and send them over tomorrow.
Outside a house in the middle of the South District, he saw what the old man called Litou. Compared with other thin slaves, this slave was very strong, more than two meters tall and weighing more than 180 kilograms. His The nose was a bit deformed, probably the result of being bitten by the girl, but the old man was wrong. Although the girl bit the man's nose, she didn't bite it off completely.
This guy was holding a young female slave in his arms. When he saw Wu Dongfang, he did not say hello to him like other slaves, but looked at him arrogantly. Wu Dongfang thought about it and felt that there was no reasonable excuse to do anything, so he did not touch him. .
Before it got completely dark, Wu Dongfang came to the house where the tongueless girl lived. Seven or eight female slaves lived in this house. The girl came out last. When Wu Dongfang gave her the medicine, he whispered, "Midnight Go to the woods behind the cabin and I’ll give you something to eat.”
Although the girl looked confused, she still nodded.
Wu Dongfang returned to the wooden house after distributing the medicine. The old man studied for a day and a night, and finally couldn't hold on any longer and fell asleep.
At about eleven o'clock in the evening, under the faint moonlight, Wu Dongfang saw the girl coming out. She lived in the North District, very close to the woods.
Wu Dongfang carried the cooked rice porridge to the woods and handed the rice porridge to her.
The girl bowed gratefully to him, took the jar and devoured it.
"Beef." Wu Dongfang took out a piece of beef from his clothes and handed it to her.
The girl took it in surprise and looked at it repeatedly. She was reluctant to eat it and wanted to put it in her arms.
"No, no, it will be bad if others see it." Wu Dongfang stopped him hastily.
The girl nodded repeatedly and began to chew the beef.
The more Wu Dongfang looked at it, the more sad he became. The girl had no tongue and had difficulty chewing and swallowing.
"How old are you?" Wu Dongfang asked.
The girl stopped and looked at him.
Wu Dongfang then remembered that there were no words or numbers at this time, and he couldn't even make gestures without numbers.
"Fifteen?" Wu Dongfang asked.
The girl shook her head.
"sixteen?"
The girl still shook her head.
"Seventeen?"
The girl still shook her head.
At this time Wu Dongfang knew that he had guessed too much, "Fourteen?"
The girl nodded repeatedly.
After a smooth communication, Wu Dongfang smiled and nodded, and the girl also laughed.
The girl ate a can of rice porridge and a piece of beef. It was obvious that she was full, even a little too much.
Pass the jar to Wu Dongfang. The expression on the girl's face was unnatural, hesitant and contradictory.
Wu Dongfang guessed what the girl was thinking and said hurriedly, "Can you accept me as your brother?"
Upon hearing this, the girl lost all hesitation and nodded happily.
"Go back quickly, remember to come here every three days from now on." Wu Dongfang said.
The girl nodded in agreement and went happily.
Wu Dongfang watched the girl go away, then turned and returned to the wooden house.
In the middle of the night, Wu Dongfang was woken up. When he opened his eyes, he found that the old man was writing and drawing again.
This move of the old man made him very confused. This guy had learned writing to the point where he forgot to eat and sleep. If he was learning writing just to mark something, he would never work so hard...