Mine Chief Dai shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Bureau Cao, the workers in our mine have a low level of education, and they have been underground for a long time, so they all believe in ghosts and gods. ”

Team Cao waved his hand, "It's okay, there are some things that can't be explained by science in the well, and there is a sustenance in my heart, which is normal, keep talking, keep talking." ”

"More than a month ago, the statue of Guan Gong in Well No. 17 fell and shattered. After that, the coal essence will come out, and the people in the mine will be punished by the karmic fire after they get out of the mine. ”

"What is the coal essence?" "Plants and trees cultivate immortals, and beasts become essences, these are all easy to understand, can this coal block also become essence? This is really an unheard of thing, I couldn't hold back the curiosity in my heart, and asked.

Maybe Xiao Zhong didn't know how to answer, and subconsciously looked at Lao Li.

"Coal essence is a saying handed down by generations of miners in our Chengjialing mine, coal has been buried in the ground for a long time, after tens of millions of years, there is spirituality, but people move its cultivation place, disturb its cultivation, it will be attached to the body, once it returns to the ground, its body is too heavy of the rotten gas, it will attract karmic fire, and people and coal essence will be burned to ashes. Lao Li spoke very slowly, but his tone was firm, and it didn't sound like he was made up casually.

"Lao Li, what does this coal spirit look like, have you seen it with your own eyes?" Team Cao obviously didn't believe the coal spirit's statement.

"Miners who have seen coal spirits, when they go up to the ground, will be burned to death by karmic fire within a month, and no one can hide. I have lived to this day, naturally I have never seen it, but some people have seen it in my ancestors, and the miners from the No. 17 shaft have also seen it. ”

"This coal spirit is colorless and formless, and you won't even notice it at first. But the coal spirit will imitate the people it sees, very similarly, except that it has no color and is completely transparent. The miner is often doing his work, and when he stops to take a breath, he feels that someone is staring at him, and goosebumps will rise all over his body, and when he looks back, he will see a transparent person, staring directly at him, and he still looks like himself. ”

"Just when the miners are stunned, the coal spirit will drill into the seven orifices of the person, and slowly control the human mind, and the person who is possessed by the coal spirit will be like being evil, and his temperament will change greatly, he will not want to see the light, he will not like to talk, and he will lock himself in the house. As short as seven days or as long as half a month, the coal spirit will attract karmic fire and turn people into ashes. ”

"What is the karmic fire? How did it burn? Uncle Li, tell me more carefully. Xiao Lei's reaction was obviously different from Team Cao's, he seemed very interested, and asked busily.

It is said that this fire is a heavenly fire, which is different from the fire we usually see, only ignites at midnight, and can illuminate the night as if it were day, but it comes and goes quickly, it is a fireball two feet wide, and the place where the fireball sweeps will turn into ash, but everything outside the fireball will be fine. This karmic fire fell from heaven, and only after the coal spirit went up the well, it was split in the place where the coal spirit possessed. Actually, I haven't seen it in all my years in the mine. Lao Li struggled to answer Xiao Lei's question, and coughed violently again.

The karmic fire that Lao Li said reminded me of the weasel that burned to death in the ball of light last night, is that the karmic fire that Lao Li said? Team Cao obviously thought of the same question and looked at me suspiciously.

"Lao Li, that is to say, the karmic fire does not only burn the miners who go down the mine?" I didn't have time to think about it, so I continued to ask him.

"It should be, but what kind of living creatures are there in the mine? Except for people, they are nothing more than snakes and rats, so on the barren mountains around the Chengjialing mine, there are often some black charred circles, which are left after the karmic fire burns. But no one saw how the karmic fire was ignited and how it was extinguished. ”

Xiao Lei asked some questions about the No. 17 mine, such as the excavation time, the safety measures inside, whether there was water penetration or gas leakage, and so on. Team Cao whispered to me on the side: "Old Chang, that karmic fire can't be what we saw last night, right?"

I smiled at Team Cao: "It's probably that the luck of the two of us is not to say, but I don't know if it's good luck or bad luck." ”

After seeing off Lao Li and Xiao Zhong, we sat down at the table again, and Team Cao brought back Mine Chief Dai, who also wanted to say goodbye and leave, and asked him to help introduce the matter of Mine No. 17.

Mine Chief Dai took two sips of the thermos cup and said: "Cao Ju, now the Chengjialing Mine uses the old mine of the Republic of China, when I was not to the mine, the original old mine manager Comrade Xiao Chenggui told me that the No. 9 mine was originally there, but half a year before the Japanese surrendered, it may be that they were afraid that the equipment underground would fall into our hands and blow up all the nine mines. After the liberation, some comrades from the geological department came to investigate, and it turned out that they wanted to dig the mine again, after all, there are old roadways, which can save a lot of excavation work. But for some reason, the Japanese used hundreds of tons of explosives, and about a few hundred meters of mine tunnels collapsed, which was no less than digging a new mine, so we had no idea of digging the old mine again. ”

"Wells 10 to 18 were dug after '87, with Nos. 10 to 16 on the south side of the old mine and 17 and 18 on the north side. The wells on the south side are now not producing a lot of coal, so the No. 17 and No. 18 wells have only been dug in the past two years. As he spoke, he unfolded a section of the mine on the table and pointed it out to us.

With the profile, I have an intuitive understanding of the Chengjialing mine.

Judging from the drawings, the distance between the No. 17 mine and the old mine in the Republic of China is seven or eight hundred meters away, while the No. 10 to No. 16 shafts on the other side are much closer to the old mine, less than 300 meters. But in reality, the situation is quite the opposite. Because of the direction of the ridge and the distribution of coal seams, after the excavation of No. 10 to No. 16 shafts, they extended to the southwest, but they were further and further away from the old mines. Although the No. 17 and No. 18 shafts were also dug to the southwest, it seems that the depth of the tunnel is deeper, and it is getting closer and closer to the old mine.

"Mine Chief Dai, according to the annotation on the drawing, the No. 17 mine will coincide with the old mine in terms of direction, has it already been dug through?" Xiao Lei stroked on the drawing with a pencil, obviously aware of the problem.

"Probably not, when the old mine was excavated, it was more than 60 years ago, and the technical equipment was limited, so it did not dig too deep in the vertical direction, and it was dug diagonally down at an angle of about 10 degrees. Because I had never been into the old mine, I don't know how much I dug into it at that time. But at that time in the Republic of China, the coal in the coal kiln was transported by the miners on their shoulders, and it was generally only six or seven hundred meters long. Now we have large mechanical excavation and transportation equipment, and we will first drill a 100-meter shaft and then dig forward, and the No. 17 shaft is already close to a thousand meters, and I estimate that it will intersect with the old mine, but it is a few dozen meters directly below the old mine. Dai Mine Chief was afraid that Xiao Lei would not understand, so he drew a sketch on white paper and handed it to him.

"Mine Chief Dai, there has never been a fire in the No. 10 to 16 mines that killed miners?" Team Cao's gaze left the engineering drawings.

"No, Officer Lei also asked this question, and for this I specially transferred all the archives after eight or seven years, and carefully checked it to make sure that it did not happen. ”

As Chief Dai was talking, the door of the conference room was pushed open, Xiao Du took a few young police officers, carried a large book of materials into the house, saw Team Cao, hurriedly put down his things, saluted, and said with a smile: "Team Cao, and Uncle Chang, I can look forward to you." Team Cao smiled at a few of them, "It's just right to come, let's hold a case analysis meeting first, and arrange the next step." Lao Dai, you will have to participate, and there are many things in the mine that require your cooperation. ”

Coming in with Xiao Du, there were also two police officers from the Provincial Criminal Police Brigade, one was in his early thirties, surnamed Wang, shrewd and capable, and the other was only in his twenties, surnamed Hu, tall, with thick eyebrows and big eyes. The criminal police brigade arranged more than a dozen police officers to investigate the scene in the mine, and these two were in charge. Shaking hands with them, Xiao Lei couldn't wait to start his debriefing.

Xiao Lei and the four of them arrived at the Chengjialing mine five days ago, and when they arrived, comrades from the provincial criminal police brigade and the county public security bureau had already cordoned off the accident site and the mine. According to the previous investigation plan, Xiao Lei divided the personnel into three groups, which were responsible for investigating the scene, extracting evidence, investigating the social relations and living conditions of the deceased before death, and investigating the historical archives on the mine.

After a few days of sorting, Xiao Lei has sorted out a general context.

In the 25 days from July 14 to August 8, there were 13 fire deaths in Chengjialing Township, and 13 people died, all men, from 23 to 37 years old. All twelve fires occurred indoors, and only one occurred on a hillside near the mine.

The deceased were all miners, and all of them were workers in Mine 17. There was only one exception, a worker surnamed Qiu from Mine No. 18, but he had worked for his fellow villagers in Mine No. 17 for two days a week before his death.

The strangest thing is that all the fires broke out between nine in the evening and four in the morning, and there were no eyewitnesses. Five of the dead were married, but at the time of the fire, either their wives had returned to their parents' homes or were not in the same room. There was also one who died in the public bathroom, and the doorkeeper saw that everyone was gone, but he never came out, and when he went in, he found that something had happened.

(The husband carries me in shape, labors me to live, I grow old, and rests me to die.) Therefore those who are good to me live, so good to me to die. The husband hides the boat in the gully, and the mountain is in the river, which is said to be solid! However, in the middle of the night, those who are powerful take it and leave, and those who are ignorant do not know it. It is appropriate to hide small and big, and there is still something to follow. If the husband hides the world in the world and cannot follow it, it is the great love of eternal things. - Tao Te Ching)