Today's past is also what happened when I was a child.

It was the end of summer, and my mother took me to visit relatives, I don't remember what relatives were, but I remember that I walked a long way, and my father used the bicycle to go out to do small business, so my mother and I walked forward. It was as if we had climbed a slope full of weeds and garbage, through the woods, past a few wheat fields, before we arrived at the relative's house.

The relative was an old woman, and she lived in a mud house with a small square yard, and a few date trees were planted in the yard, and the shade of the trees was sprinkled all over the yard. The old woman has a granddaughter, and I can't remember her name clearly, Xiaoqiuzi or Xiaoyingzi? Let's call her Xiao Qiuzi for the time being. On that day, she was playing with me, and we hopscotch, kicked shuttlecock, and had a lot of fun.

However, it wasn't Akiko who impressed me the most, but Aunt Akiko, who was a madman who wandered around the village like a ghost.

When I met her, I was playing in the yard with Akiko. When the shuttlecock was kicked in his teens, a woman walked in through the fence gate, combing two braids, the braids were long enough to put on her chest, wearing a gray floral blouse and a black skirt. She was dressed very normally, but her words and deeds were very strange, I saw her holding a handful of flowers in her hand, I don't know what kind of flower it was, or I learned from her mouth that it was a leek flower, she stared intently at the flower in her hand, and said to herself: "Look at it, this leek flower has five petals." ”

"Who is she?" I asked Akiko.

"My aunt." Xiao Qiuzi said a little embarrassed.

Akiko's aunt heard our conversation and looked up from the leek flower, she smiled at me and turned her gaze back.

Although I was young at the time, I could see that she was an abnormal person.

"It's still early to eat." Xiao Qiuzi said to her aunt.

Her aunt didn't answer, but walked around the yard and walked out of the fence gate.

At this time, a few children about my age passed by the door, and they saw my aunt who was going out.

"Look, madman, this is the madman's home." One of the children looked at his aunt and then glanced into the courtyard.

"Get out!" Xiao Qiuzi heard someone call her aunt crazy, and scolded angrily.

The group of children laughed and ran, shouting as they ran, "Crazy! Lunatic! ”

Due to the long distance, I stayed with my mother at night. There are three rooms in the old woman's house, my mother and her live in the west room, and Xiao Qiuzi and I live in the east room.

"Where does my aunt sleep?" I asked Akiko.

Xiao Qiuzi said: "My aunt doesn't like to sleep in the house, she sleeps in the grass hut. ”

I nodded, thinking to myself, crazy people seem to like to sleep outside.

The countrymen went to bed early, and the doors were basically closed at 9 o'clock. In the dark, my eyes were closed, but my mind was clear, and my ears echoed the slight snoring of Xiaoqiuzi, the "click" of the old wall clock on the wall, and the cries of crickets outside also came into my ears. I still have the habit of getting up at night, I am very timid, every time my mother accompanies me to the toilet, but this time my mother is not around, I want to go by myself.

I groped my way down the kang, put on my shoes, opened the door, and the humid air outside fell on my face, cold, and the moonlight was very bright, illuminating the yard like a layer of frost. I suddenly found that it was very quiet outside, very quiet, the crickets did not know when they crowed, there was no trace of wind, and the trees and flowers were standing quietly. I walked into the yard, through the yard, towards the toilet in the southeast corner, where the straw hut where my aunt slept was right next to the toilet, and I would pass by when I went to the toilet. I didn't know if she was asleep, but I was curious and decided to take a look at her as I passed by the hut. There is no door in the straw hut, and there are some dry wheat straw inside, so it must be very comfortable to sleep on the wheat straw, right? I think.

I stood at the entrance of the hut and looked inside, the moonlight cast in, it was clearly visible, I wanted to move on, but I stopped, and my eyes widened by the incredible scene inside - Xiao Qiuzi's aunt was sleeping on wheat straw, but next to her sat a man with long hair and clothes that were white in the moonlight, maybe white. The man was combing his hair, slowly, one at a time. A moment of surprise was followed by fear, and I thought she might be a ghost, so I was too scared to move. The person seemed to sense my presence, turned his head, and looked at me, I couldn't see her appearance clearly, only to see her raise the comb in her hand, and said to me: "Give-me-comb-hair~" The voice was cold and dark. I screamed and ran towards the house.

My mother and grandmother were awakened by my screams, turned on the light, came out in their clothes, and asked me what was the matter. I told them what had just happened, and they were taken aback, and hurried to the hut to check, and I waited in the house, and when I calmed down, I felt my pants wet and cold wrapped around my legs, and I didn't need to look to know that I was peeing my pants. When the mother and the old woman returned, they said that they had not seen anyone combing their hair, and that only my aunt was in the hut, and she had already fallen asleep. My mother told the old woman that I was cowardly, and I must have been frightened. There was an apology in his tone, after all, it didn't take a big deal to make trouble in someone's house in the middle of the night. I didn't argue, but I was confident that I wasn't scared, and I heard the man's voice.

The next day, I was clamoring to go home. After breakfast, my mother led me home. The old woman, Xiao Qiuzi, and the crazy aunt stood in front of the fence gate and watched us go away.

I never saw any of these relatives again. Mom doesn't seem to have been a guest again, maybe it's because of a distant relative, or maybe the old woman died soon after.

A long memory is like a dream.

Today, I am an adult and have settled far away from my hometown. At the moment, I am writing this story under the lamp.

"Stop playing. Rest early. Mom came over and said. Mom always thought I was playing with the computer.

"Talk to me." I say. So, Mom sat down.

"I suddenly remembered something, when I was a child. You remember when I was a child, you took me to a relative, there was a madman in that relative's house, and I saw someone combing her hair in the hut where she slept. ”

Mom pondered, for a long time, nodded, seemed to remember, and said, "That's a distant relative of ours, our juniors have long stopped interacting, and when it comes to your generation, I don't know each other at all." ”

"What kind of relative is that?" I asked.

"That's one of my uncles and aunts, you have to call it Grandma."

"How's Akiko?"

"What's the little Akiko, that's Sakurako, my aunt's granddaughter." Mom said.

"Oh. Is that madman your cousin? I asked again.

"Cousin." Mom smiled.

"How did she go crazy?"

Mom's expression darkened, and she sighed and said, "This is a strange thing. The year my uncle died, my cousin was so sad that she went to the grave and sat and cried. One day she came back from the graveyard late in the morning, and the next day it was like that. They all said that she was possessed by something unclean. My aunt asked God for help, but she was not cured. Come to think of it, that thing is very powerful. ”

"Isn't it the one who combed his hair?" I say.

"I can't say exactly. My aunt and I didn't see that you were a child, with clear eyes and could see something. ”

Immediately I had a scene in my mind—my mother and her aunt standing at the entrance of the hut in the moonlight, looking at the poor madwoman who was sleeping, but beside me there was a man they could not see, combing his hair with a comb, and the man stopped combing his hair, and was smiling silently at them triumphantly, showing his teeth.

"And how is your cousin doing?" I asked.

"It's long since I died. When encountering such a strange thing, sooner or later he will be tortured to death. Mom said.

"Where's Sakura-chan?"

"Okay, married to a neighboring village, and lived a peaceful life. Okay, it's getting late, go and rest, you have to go to work tomorrow! Mom got up and went back to her bedroom.

I elbowed on the table, my cheeks in contemplation, and in the dim lamp, I seemed to see her again, wearing a floral cloth shirt, a black skirt, and a handful of leek flowers in my hand, walking towards me.