We burned a lot of incense candles and paper money for Lan, I don't know the price level below, and I don't even know if it is useful to burn paper money, but according to the Taoist priest, it should be of some use.

Lan never told me her full name, I only knew her name as Lan, so I only engraved one word on the whole marble tombstone: Lan.

The Taoist priest rubbed his waist and watched me burn yellow paper in the iron pot full of paper ashes, and he scolded and scolded: "Immeasurable Tianzun of your grandmother's legs, dog's day, you soak your sister, and ask Lao Tzu to do coolies for you, do you fucking know how heavy these graves are?" From childhood to adulthood, except for the old immortal, no one has such a big face to call the Taoist master, do you bastard have to compensate the Taoist master for something. ”

I glared at the Taoist priest and scolded: "Don't talk nonsense on dog days, the dead are great, even if you want to answer me, don't make such jokes about the deceased." ”

The Taoist priest looked unimpressed, "Cut, you know a fart, what deceased?" Your kid is just the shell of the girl before she detached, she is stronger than you, how many Xuanmen bigwigs have spent their lives pursuing the realm, she has reached it so easily by chance, alas, even the Taoist is envious! ”

I didn't understand what he meant, so I asked him what he meant. The Taoist priest glanced at me, shook his head, looked at me with the same eyes as a hillbilly and said, "Hey, it's a shame that your grandma is so powerful, how can there be such a stunned grandson as you." Dao Ye heard that you are going to hold a mountain ghost festival here, right? ”

The Taoist priest complained about me with disdain one second, but the next second he suddenly asked about the mountain ghost sacrifice, I felt a little strange, nodded and asked him what was wrong.

"Since there is a mountain ghost festival, there must be a legend of mountain ghosts in this vicinity?"

I nodded, "That's right, what does this have to do with Lan, she's just a dead soul who died tragically in a hundred thousand mountains." ”

"Hey, let's call you ignorant, you still don't admit it, do you know what the real mountain ghost is?" The Taoist priest looked at me with disdain and said. I said in my heart that mountain ghosts are not mountain ghosts, how can there be so many things?

The legend of the mountain ghost has a long history, the earliest written record can be found in the "Chu Ci Nine Songs", there are many Chinese folk legends about the mountain ghost, and the identity of its appearance is changeable: the goddess, the spirit, the mountain god and so on are its incarnation in the legend. Among the three legends of my hometown, I prefer her to be a kind and beautiful spirit born of the mountains, or a goddess.

But after encountering Lan and learning about the fate of another poor girl, Qiao'er, I began to suspect that the legendary mountain ghost in my hometown might just be a filth that was impregnated by the evil spirit of Yeling. And the reason why there are two completely different legends is very likely because of the existence of Lan, Qiao'er harms people, and Lan saves people, and people who meet Lan regard Lan as a mountain ghost, and the mountain ghost becomes a kind and beautiful elf and goddess, and when he meets Qiao'er, the mountain ghost becomes a demon who is bewitching and likes to kill.

I expressed my opinion, and the Taoist priest rarely continued to taunt me, "You understand well, but it's not all right, in fact, the real sense of the mountain ghost is indeed the spirit bred by the mountain with the meaning of Lingxiu, you can understand it as an elf." This is a spirit close to nature, born and raised, kind and innocent by nature, untainted by earthly filth. ”

"This unsullied spirit of nature is pure and short, but it is also very susceptible to the influence of external objects. If it remains innocent and grows to a certain extent, it will be a god-like existence, but if it is contaminated by evil in the process of growth, its nature will deteriorate and it will become a monster. The little sister you happened to meet is more special, she was innocent in her life, she is a rare pure person, and her soul remains innocent and not reincarnated after death, because of some reasons we don't know, her pure soul and the spirit of nature brewed in the nearby mountains fused together to form a tangible spirit. The soul of a person, the essence of the mountain, this is equivalent to her becoming a real concept of the mountain ghost! ”

Speaking of this, the Taoist priest sighed again and again, and I finally understood the meaning of what he just said, and I was stunned. If this is really what he said, wouldn't Nalan be a blessing in disguise, as long as he keeps growing up with the mountains here, he can become a god?

As if seeing my thoughts, the Taoist priest shook his head with a pity and said: "It's a pity, in order to save you, she used her spirit body to carry the evil qi generated by the curse of Doom, although the Taoist sealed her, but after a long time, maybe she will also be eroded by the evil qi!" ”

"What then? Tell me, how can you help her? "Lan became like this entirely to save me, and I really don't want to see her polluted by evil energy.

The Taoist priest had no choice but to give me hope, saying that when he was free, he would take me to see his master, and his master might have a way, so I calmed down a little.

It was completely dark, so I bowed to the grave again, and turned away with the Taoist priest.

There is now a new grave under the poplar forest on the east side of Dingyan Village, and the leaves have fallen back to their roots, and my promise to Lan has been fulfilled. Speaking of commitment, I am reminded of another thing: the wooden dragonfly, the childhood playmate separated from heaven and man in the sinkhole. A feeling of sadness welled up in my heart, and to this day, I still can't remember which of those people had died.

When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my grandmother had returned, and although she looked a little tired, she did come back unharmed. I was happy, and so was my grandmother, touching my head and grinning with half of the yellow teeth that had been lost.

The third uncle wanted to entertain with the leaders of the various units who had entered the village to help deal with the chaos in the past two days, so he didn't go home, so our family of three, including the Taoist priest, his self-proclaimed future brother-in-law, had a reunion dinner happily.