Zeng Wanchun's book is written in a very similar way to Ji Xiaolan's "Notes on Reading Wei Caotang", which mainly records some strange stories circulated among the people of Guangling, each story is of different length, but the idea and style cannot be compared with Ji Xiaolan at all.

Before the record of the closure of the mine during the Daoguang period, Zeng Wanchun wrote a small story he heard from others. It is about a resentful soul on Chengjialing since ancient times. More than 2,000 years ago, in the Spring and Autumn Period, a military general of Daiguo led troops to resist the invasion of Zhao, and the capital of Daiguo was today's Guangling. In order to find them and cut down the grass and eradicate the roots, Zhao Guobing tortured the captive, and even peeled off his face whole. But this Daiguo general still didn't say anything, just scolded Zhao Ren. Zhao killed him in a fit of rage, cut off his skinless head, and hung it on a big tree in Chengjialing.

Later, some generations of Chinese secretly took off their heads and buried them in a stone cave in Chengjialing.

Since then, the ghost of this Daiguo general has been floating in Chengjialing. Because he has no face, the farmers around Chengjialing often run into a faceless demon in the middle of the night.

In the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, a wealthy merchant funded the reconstruction of the Chengjialing coal mine in the Yuan Dynasty that was destroyed in the war, because the coal here can be transported directly from Guangling to Jingshi, so it is said that this coal mine is actually the business of a high-ranking official of the dynasty, in short, there are four or five new pits dug in Chengjialing for that while, and there are thousands of workers who come to dig coal from the surrounding areas.

But later, the miners bumped into the faceless demon in the mine, and the evil ghost would eat the miner, transform into the miner, and stay in the mine.

After a few days, perhaps the evil spirit had forgotten the original appearance of the miner, and the skin began to blur, so it ate another one, and transformed again, making the face clear again, so that dozens of miners died in the mine for some reason.

The Faceling's story spread, and the miners scared off quite a bit. The rich merchant had no choice, so he invited a Taoist priest from Longhu Mountain to do it, and the Taoist priest burned the skin of the evil ghost with the method of karmic fire of the Three Realms, but instead of killing the evil ghost, he let the evil ghost possess him and escaped from the mine. But because the Taoist priest's spell is still there, the karmic fire will still burn the body possessed by the evil spirit, so before the corpse rots and stinks, the evil ghost will find a new body to attach to. In this way, two people were possessed in the town for three days, and they were cremated to ashes by karma.

The rich merchant had no choice but to invite the master of the dead Taoist priest. The old Taoist priest lured the evil ghost with his own body, entered the mine, let the miner seal the exit, and used the karmic fire array in the underground to die with the evil ghost. The fire under the mine burned for a month, and the wealthy businessman feared that the mine was connected to other mines, so he simply sealed all the mines.

After reading this strange story, I fell into deep thought. If it weren't for the spontaneous combustion of the human body in the Chengjialing mine now, I wouldn't believe the truth of this story at all, but think that it was just an accidental coal mine fire accident in the Ming Dynasty, which caused the spread of ground fires, and there was no means to extinguish the fire at that time, just like the coal mine in modern India that has been burning for decades, so it had to be left to fend for itself. And the person responsible for the accident has to make up a lie that is beyond his reach, and the mine owner also needs a reason that has nothing to do with him to deal with the relatives of the dead miners, so there is this story of the evil ghost of the country.

But the problem is that on the banks of history, although I know that it is impossible to cross the same river, there must be a reason for the reincarnation that we still don't know.

Seeing that I didn't speak thoughtfully, Director Qi handed me a cup of tea. Before I could thank him, he put a few more photos in my hand.

The photos are all black and white, and it looks like they were taken for twenty or thirty years, and the corners of the photos are a little yellowed. And it seems that the shooting was in a hurry, and several of the focal lengths were not aligned, and it was very blurry. The shooting time should be in the evening, the light is not too good, and the photographer did not bring a flash, so many details in the dark areas cannot be distinguished.

Although the quality of the photo was poor, I could vaguely see that it was taken of a dilapidated temple. The previous one is a tall statue in the center of the main hall, which should be a statue of Emperor Zhenwu from the perspective of clothing and posture, so this should be in a Taoist temple.

The latter one is very unclear, but I can still tell from the before and after comparison, it is a partial close-up of the statue in front of it, the part of the left leg. The statue's left leg is raised, and something is under its feet. I looked closely at the photograph and couldn't help but be amazed, it was a scrawny little ghost, trampled by giant feet, unable to move, and seemed to be struggling, this statue is very realistic and expressive, it can be described as vivid.

But that's not the point, the point is that the little ghost's face is facing outward, towards the lens of the camera, and even today, I can't describe in words the shock of my heart at that time, it was a faceless face. But it is not completely flat, as if the face is covered with a white cloth, like a dead body in a morgue, but the dead body is lying flat after all, and the cloth covering it will show the outline of the face. But if the statue is standing, it must not be a face covered with cloth.

The author of this statue should be included in the ranks of the world's master sculptures. The statue has no eyes, but you can feel its eyes, and they are staring straight at you, there is no mouth, but you can feel that its mouth is exaggeratedly open, taking up most of the cheeks, as if it can swallow everything in front of it, there is no nose, but you can clearly feel that there are two small holes in the middle of the face, but there is no bridge of the nose, as if the cold air in the small holes is slowly spewing out, and the white cloth that does not exist in front of the face is about to be blown open.

"Lao Qi, where was this photo taken, and who took it?" I asked, holding down the shock in my heart.

"I filmed it. Director Qi said very calmly, as if he intended to calm me down, and did not answer immediately, but took a sip of the teacup.

"It was the winter of '65, before the four olds. I knew that most of the temples in the county were not spared, so I secretly went to take a lot of photos, at least to leave some historical information. These photos were taken in Dongyang Village. There is a Taoist temple in the south of Dongyang Village, it is said that it was repaired during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, and it is enshrined the Emperor Zhenwu, and the folk all say that this Taoist temple has a faceless ghost in the town, and the sculpture inside is very exquisite, so I ran to shoot it. ”

"To be honest, the faceless ghost in the photo scared me so much that my hands were shaking all the time, and I took at least a dozen photos at the time, and this one is quite clear. There are hundreds of temples and Taoist temples I have been to, but this faceless ghost has never appeared in other places, only here, so I am very impressed. Soon after I took these pictures, the statues were destroyed and the temple was demolished, and now all that remains is broken masonry. Today, when you come to find the records of the closure of the Chengjialing Mine in the past, and turn to Zeng Xiucai's book, I remembered these photos and brought them to show you. ”

"Lao Qi, do you know what happened in the Chengjialing mine?" I looked at him in surprise and asked, in my impression, the news of the death of the thirteen miners should have been blocked by the Criminal Investigation Corps.

"You can probably guess that it's a mining disaster again, right? Curator Qi's expression was unwavering.

I continued to turn backwards, and a few pages later, there was another blue note inserted there, and I turned directly to the page, and the note was a small word "Qing".

Later, the story recounted by Zeng Wanchun took place in Guangling County. There was a wealthy merchant who moved to Guangling in the early Qing Dynasty to find a suitable yin house for his dead father, and Mr. Feng Shui recommended to him a piece of land at the foot of Chengjialing Mountain, saying that it was a Tibetan wind and qi, and it was good luck for future generations.

The rich merchant bought the land and began to build it. Who knows, from the first day of construction, accidents continue to happen, first rolling down a boulder on the mountain, smashing a worker, and then someone was bitten to death by a bear from nowhere in the mountain, so that the rich merchant was very uneasy, so he invited a feng shui master from the capital to come over to help fix the acupoint.

After seeing this, the master from the capital was silent. The rich merchant was very worried, and hurriedly asked him if there was something wrong with the cemetery. The master pondered for a while and asked him, "Do you want the wealth of one lifetime, or the happiness and peace of three generations?"

If you want to be rich and boundless for a lifetime, you will be buried in this cave, and after seven days of being buried in the ground, you will have ten years of wealth and fortune. If you want three generations to be peaceful, then you have to choose another place.

At this time, the rich businessman's calculating nature prevailed, on the one hand, ten years of wealth and fortune are attractive enough, and those who do business will not be too big to buy and sell, as for why there is only one life of wealth, the rich businessman does not have to think about it, anyway, he is rich and boundless, and his descendants will follow it. On the other hand, this land was bought with real money, and if you don't use it, you have to pay extra money to buy the land, which is a loss-making transaction inside and out. The rich merchant made up his mind, and the master said no more, and set up a piece of bluestone more than one person high next to the foundation of the cemetery, pasted some charms on it, and left a letter for the rich merchant, telling him that if he encountered something that he could not decide, he would open it again. After saying that, he drifted away.

With the guidance of the master, the wealthy businessman had confidence in his heart and urged the workers to continue digging pits and repairing tombs. But it is also strange to say, since the master erected the bluestone slab and pasted the cinnabar charm, the strange things on the construction site have not happened again, and the progress of the project has obviously accelerated.

After digging for another day, the tomb has been dug more than one person deep, the worker suddenly dug something hard at the bottom of the pit, shoveled away the floating soil and then looked, it turned out to be a piece of green bricks, the worker suddenly understood, this is not digging the ancient tomb?

(Explain the Tao and let the wise be in danger, and abandon the number and use the talent to be trapped, so keep the points and follow the reason, do not worry about the loss, and do not like the gain.) Those who become are not what they do, those who get are not what they want, those who enter have to receive but do not take, those who come out have to give but have nothing to do, they are born because of spring, they are killed because of autumn, they are not virtuous, and they are not complaining about what they kill. --"Tongxuan Zhenjing")