"What is the golden cicada shelling technique?" Zhou Xiaoliu didn't understand, but she didn't pretend to understand, because her elementary school Chinese teacher once taught "If you don't know how to pretend to understand, you can't ask, if you don't understand."

"The trapped ghosts are the ones who died. White Tiger explained.

"Was he caught by a ghost to be a substitute for the dead ghost?" Among the ghost stories that Zhou Xiaoliu has heard, the most is the story about the water ghost looking for a substitute for the dead ghost.

In the summer evenings, the children of the village love to bathe in the stream, and they line up and jump into the water one by one from the stone steps by the stream, splash the water of the adults washing their clothes next to the stone steps, and then swim freely in the water in the water in a dog planing style.

If you just swim in the stream at the entrance of the village in the evening, then the adults will not object. Because the water in that section of the stream is not deep, the bottom of the stream is flat, and there are many pedestrians, there are basically no accidents.

But there are always disobedient bear children, in order to show that they are different, they want to leave everyone behind and swim under the dam.

The strong erosion of the water for many years has left many strange-shaped potholes at the bottom of the dam.

What if one of the children gets caught in the water and gets stuck? So the adults started telling the children that there were water ghosts under the dam.

Zhou Xiaoliu first heard about this version:

Once upon a time, there was a child who was disobedient – and the stories adults told to their children always began with this sentence.

The disobedient child went to swim under the dam, but was swept into the pit under the dam, stuck and unable to get out, and drowned. Drowning water spirits is very painful, and every seven days they have to repeat the situation of death, over and over again, over and over again, and over again.

If the drowned water ghost wants to avoid this kind of suffering, he must find someone else to replace him, and when he drags others into the water and drowns, he can go to reincarnation.

The drowned child turned into a water ghost and was waiting there at the moment, waiting for another disobedient child to swim over and drag him into the water......

Finally, the storyteller once again warned the children who listened to the story: Don't swim under the dam!

Later, the adults changed the location of the story, added oil and vinegar, and many versions of the story were derived.

Therefore, the three words for the dead ghost are not unfamiliar to the children of Zhoujiawu.

……

"No, he was not captured by demons to die in his place, but by the living, for the dying, and the dying man continued to live in the sun by the number of his lifespans. The white tiger replied.

It was very shocked in its heart, this spell was used by the master when he gave the boy surnamed Ge to renew his life, it is said that only the master can do it, could it be that the master has a successor in the world? But at that time, the master used all the grass and all the trees to die, and borrowed the life of the grass and all the trees, but it never harmed people's lives.

It felt the need for it to go back to the underworld and report the matter to its master. But before that, it had to ask Xu Tianci about the whole story.

It looked at Zhou Xiaoliu, picked up the little rag doll with the eight characters of birth written on it, looked at it carefully, and handed it to Zhou Xiaoliu, and ordered: "Remove the layer of cloth with words written on it!"

Zhou Xiaoliu took it and looked at it, this layer of cloth was only sewn with two stitches, and it was barely hung on the doll's body, why didn't the white tiger remove it by herself, and she had to tell her to uncover it? Although she was puzzled, she still took off the cloth, and then asked, "Then what?"

The white tiger looked at the strip of cloth that she easily removed, and said secretly: Sure enough, it is a god-made thing, even if she is chaotic now, these spells will not have the slightest effect on her.

It then instructed, "Pump out some ash and circle this rag doll." ”

It wants to ask this ghost some questions, but it has eaten too many evil ghosts, and the momentum on its body is too great, and ordinary ghosts will collapse to the ground when they see it, let alone talk back, and they can't even open their mouths. If you want this ghost to reply, you have to let Zhou Xiaoliu use gray qi to weave an enchantment to protect him.

Zhou Xiaoliu was the first time to extract gray qi, and originally thought that gray qi would be very disobedient, but it turned out surprisingly smooth, and the gray qi was allowed to be rubbed round and flattened. She remembered the ball of light after the old man used the enchantment charm, so she kneaded the gray qi into a ball and wrapped the rag doll tightly.

As soon as Zhou Xiaoliu wrapped the ash ball around the rag doll, a miniature ghost floated out of the rag doll tremblingly and fell to her knees.

"Thank you for saving my father!" The ghost was Xu Tianci, the adopted son of Xu Youren, the owner of the sacrificial shop, and thanked Zhou Xiaoliu as soon as he opened his mouth.

The last time Liu Bao'er yelled at her and called her an adult, Zhou Xiaoliu felt very awkward, thinking that she was an ordinary person, at most she had been a small foreman in the factory, and she was suddenly put on an elevated shelf, she couldn't bear it, and she didn't know how to jump if she was careful.

This Xu Tianci is too, thank you, what are you doing kneeling? She turned away and avoided Xu Tianci's front bowing.

The white tiger walked up to him and asked him, "Do you know who harmed you?"

Xu Tianci heard its question, glanced at it boldly, and then decisively turned to the direction where Zhou Xiaoliu was, and replied: "I know, it's the fortune teller outsider!"

Although the white tiger is terrifying, he still vividly remembers the scene when Zhou Xiaoliu went to buy sacrifices, when Zhou Xiaoliu clenched his fist, the white tiger wilted, obviously Zhou Xiaoliu's thighs are thicker, and it was right to hold her.

"How do you know he's a stranger?" asked Zhou Xiaoliu.

"On the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month......" Xu Tianci said.

……

The annual rumor says: "On the twenty-seventh day of the lunar month, slaughter chickens and catch up with the big set." On this day, in addition to slaughtering their own poultry, each family also has to rush to the large market to purchase New Year's goods.

The market day of Xiafeng Town is the "first, fourth, and seventh" of the lunar month, so the streets of Xiafeng Town are particularly lively on this day. Xu Youren's shop is doing a booming business, because there are many people who come to buy firecrackers, Spring Festival couplets, incense candles, and paper money.

Xu Youren was so busy that his feet didn't touch the ground, fortunately, the children of his cousin's family also came to help, otherwise, let alone picking up and packaging for customers, just collecting money, he and his adopted son would not be busy.

The usual market is closed around 11 a.m., but every year on this day, it is delayed until about 2 p.m. At about one o'clock in the afternoon, Xu Tianci had time to buy lunch for everyone, and he didn't have time to make it himself today, so it was more convenient to go to the fried noodle shop to buy a few bowls of ready-made fried noodles.

As soon as Xu Tianci arrived at the fried noodle shop, he said to the shopkeeper: "Uncle Liu, six parts of fried noodles, five parts with shredded meat!"

There are still many customers in the queue, and it is estimated that they will have to wait for a while.

After he finished speaking to Uncle Liu, he sat at a table by the door and waited.

He lowered his head and took out a large handful of change from his pocket, and counted it silently, saving a total of thirty-nine yuan and five cents this year, plus the five cents of shredded pork money that he saved just now, there would be forty yuan. After lunch, he wanted to use the forty yuan to buy a gift for his adoptive father.

"Wow, that's right!" There was a sudden commotion in the store, Xu Tianci turned his head to see that the customers in the store were all gathered around a table, and the exclamations were endless.