As soon as he heard the old class master say that the oil paint that painted the face of the actor was mixed with cinnabar, Yang Congxun was stunned for a moment: "Why is there cinnabar here?" ”

No wonder Yang Congxun can ask this question, it is really because of the cinnabar of the Qing Dynasty...... It's just too expensive!

Cinnabar, a vermilion powdered mineral, is produced in Chenzhou, Hunan (now Yuanling, Hunan) as the highest grade, so it is also known as cinnabar.

Cinnabar is mainly used as a traditional Chinese medicine or pigment, and when used in medicine, it has the effect of calming the nerves, calming evils, clearing poison and treating sores; If used as a pigment, it is common to have the emperor's imperial pen and vermilion on the medals at all levels and the cinnabar seal on the silver ticket.

There is a clear season, which is produced from the best cinnabar in Chenzhou, Hunan, one or two to say less must be bought at a price of four or five taels of silver.

(Today, the cinnabar in the Chinese medicine shop also costs 6-7 yuan a gram, and the sterling silver only costs 3 yuan and 51 grams, not to mention that today's mineral processing and smelting technology is incomparable to the Qing Dynasty.)

Today, you still have to 'two taels of silver and one tael of sand', which shows how expensive cinnabar was in the Qing Dynasty. ）

How could a small team like Xu Jiaban, who had fallen so far as to have to come to a small mountain village like Yantou to sing ghost shows, would be willing to use such expensive cinnabar to make oil paint?

Listening to Yang Congxun's question, Class Master Xu smiled bitterly.

"Don't you know, Daoist, if it is an ordinary season, you are reluctant to use this expensive cinnabar in the oil paint used to paint the faces of the horns in the troupe, but today is a special day!

These oil paints in the hands of the villain were actually left over when Emperor Guan and Master Zu were consecrated in the evening. ”

The so-called consecration is to dip a brush in cinnabar and put a little on the face of the statue of Emperor Guan enshrined in the shrine of the troupe, and put on a new makeup for Emperor Guan.

In addition, the troupe also used cinnabar oil paint to repaint the big red tablet of Li Longji, the patriarch of Liyuan, Tang Xuanzong.

(Emperor Tang Ming first set up the Liyuan Pavilion for musicians to tune and sing in it, so it was regarded as the ancestor by the opera troupe of later generations)

Together, these two elements are the consecration ceremony in which the troupe prays for the blessings of the gods.

Since it is a ghost show, most of the people come to the front of the stage to join in the fun, except for the cheeky and bold ones like Yang Congxun and Hu San.

Therefore, once this troupe starts performing ghost shows, they can't sell tickets, so they can only find big families in the village to go out of the market

And in order to get a few more money out of it, the troupe sometimes finds some decent excuses from it.

For example, under the pretext of midnight, the hungry ghosts and ghosts released from the ghost gate gathered in front of the stage to listen to the play.

If you don't use cinnabar to wipe your face and open your face in advance, and ask him to show his authority and subdue at that time, most of them will cause a group of ghosts to stir up trouble and harm the neighborhood.

Therefore, the cinnabar used to open the light for the grandfather, you have to pay the bill together, otherwise if there is any trouble at that time, it will all be your stingy pot.

The villain's move was nothing more than to ask for an extra one or two dollars of silver, so that he could get some stick noodles for the old and young masters in the team to deal with, so he reported the amount of three more coins of cinnabar on the account.

Who knew that Li Dahu in this village was a careful person, although he promised to give four coins of cinnabar, but he must let Steward Li watch the villain put all the four coins of cinnabar into the oil paint.

So the villain was ruthless, and added all the four coins of cinnabar into the oil paint, ready to bring out some more oil paint for the next time he opened the light to the grandfather. ”

"That's the case, no wonder."

After listening to Master Xu's explanation, Yang Congxun nodded slightly.

"Please ask Class Master Xu to quickly arrange for someone to fetch some water to wash off the oil paint on this person's face, and Xiaodao should hurry up and summon the soul for this person!"

As soon as he heard Yang Congxun mention the word conjuring, Hu San slapped his head violently.

"I can't care that after this possessed ghost left, the owner didn't wake up immediately, it turned out that his soul was lost, so it all makes sense!"

Normally, the possession of an unjust ghost is a ghost who casts a spell to cut off the connection between the soul of the person and the fire on his body; Then the dove occupies the magpie's nest, occupies the fire of the person's life, and finally controls his body.

The soul of this master will be trapped somewhere above his body by a spell cast by a possessed demon.

Once the possessed ghost leaves the body of the owner, the soul of the owner will automatically return to its place and reconnect with the fire of life, so that it will quickly wake up.

However, under very special circumstances, the soul of the master will leave the body under the action of some 'external force', which is the so-called "lost soul".

Once the "soul loss" occurs, even if the possessed ghost is driven away, the possessed person will not wake up by himself, because the soul of the owner has been lost!

Now it seems that the unjust ghost who possessed the body and sued is definitely not a good thing.

He must have discovered that this Zheng Erxiao, who was possessed by him, had lost his soul, so he deliberately used the excuse of pretending to be Guan Gong's wish, and asked Xu Banzhu to wipe Zheng Erxiao's body with oil paint mixed with cinnabar.

The intention is to use the yang cinnabar in the oil paint to scare away the soul of the owner who has left the body to a place farther away from the body, so as to completely cut off the possibility of the owner's independent return to the soul.

If the body is not governed by the soul, it will lie motionless like a senseless log.

If there is no knowledgeable person who summons the soul of the master in time, and continues to let his ignorance feel that he lies down for two or three days, this Zheng Erxiao, who has lost his soul, will be starved to death of thirst.

"The unjust ghost who possessed Zheng Erxiao was originally a miscellaneous subject of singing ugly deeds in the opera troupe, and he must have known the rules for the opera troupe to adjust cinnabar oil paint to conlight the ancestor before singing ghost plays, so he came up with a way to paint his face and kill people.

It may even be that he was killed by someone before by painting his face with cinnabar after losing his soul, so he came to take revenge. ”

"So that's it? So what do we do now? ”

Seeing the little fox asking, Yang Congxun smiled "hehe".

"There is a saying that 'those who are difficult will not, and those who will will not be difficult'. If you find a Taoist priest like us for this soul-losing thing, then you are looking for the right person.

As long as the cinnabar is washed off the person's face, and another spiritualism is performed, so that the soul of the owner can return to the body, and it will be over. ”

With that, Yang Congxun reached into his arms, took out a small cloth bag, took out five gold needles from it, and first pricked a needle between the fingernails of the index finger of his right hand.

Then Yang started from the tiger's mouth on Zheng Erxiao's right hand, and on his palm and right arm, he successively stabbed the four acupuncture points of Hegu, Xia Lian, Quchi, and Jugu.

I saw that Yang Congxun's needles were lined up in a 'one' line from the fingertips to the upper arm behind the elbow, and the length of the pieces exposed outside the skin and flesh was different, but at least it pierced into the skin and flesh half an inch deep.

After Xu Banzhu took water to wash off the cinnabar oil paint on Zheng Erxiao's face, Yang Congxun pinched his left hand on his chest to ask for a spiritual decision, closed his eyes and recited a soul mantra

"Wandering lonely souls, where to stay, golden needles, return early...... The three souls return first, and the seven spirits return again...... Over Shangyang, Jinghe Valley, into Qu Chi! ”

After the conjuring spell was recited, Yang Congxun's eyes widened, raised his right hand, pressed the needle pierced on the Quchi acupoint on Zheng Erxiao's left arm, and stabbed it down.

Everyone present was attracted by the scene of Yang Cong's method of summoning spirits, and they didn't even dare to gasp loudly, and dozens of eyes were all staring at the lying Zheng Erxiao for a moment.

However, after half a bag of cigarettes, Zheng Erxiao was still lying motionless on the ground, without the slightest appearance of coming to his senses......