Chapter Twenty-Four: Twenty Years Ago

"Twenty years ago, I was in charge of the work of a cremation furnace with another person named Cui Jianguo, and this person named Cui Jianguo was also a family heirloom metaphysical family, but in the turmoil of that decade, his father was beaten to death by a guy who preached feudal superstition, and many things in the family were gone, so although he knew a little bit of magic, he didn't know much, more of some folk methods.

I was working with him in a crematorium, I was in charge of burning, and he was in charge of collecting the ashes. This person usually doesn't like to talk much, and some are a little talkative. But he is very enthusiastic, and many times he will help with everything, he has a daughter, although I have not met, but I can feel from his few words that he likes his daughter very much.

That day, when he and I were working, a few strange people came, and the reason why they were strange was because they didn't have the grief on their faces that loved ones died. And these people are fierce and vicious, and they don't seem to be serious people. The men walked through the crematorium and then went straight into the director's room, where they stayed for a long time before coming out.

I don't know what the factory director talked to them about, but when Xiao Cui and I passed by the factory director's room, we were only stunned when we saw the factory director sitting on the seat. I wanted to go in and ask the factory director what was going on, but Xiao Cui stopped me, so I didn't go in.

A week later, the men came to the crematorium again, but this time the difference was that in addition to the first few people, there was also a young man in the middle. The young man looked yellow-skinned, and dressed completely differently from the people in front of him. Wearing very old clothes, at first glance, he looks like the kind of person with a bad family background.

After these people went in, the factory director called me and Xiao Cui to the office, and directly told us to let the two of us burn one person for a while, don't ask why, just burn it directly, and give us 500 yuan for one person after the work. In the nineties, a month's salary was only how much, and 500 yuan should be considered a large amount!

Xiao Cui and I keenly felt the unusualness, we knew that the person who was going to be burned must not have died a natural death, so we didn't agree at first, but the dean threatened us that if we didn't agree, we would leave here, and losing our jobs at that time would basically be equivalent to losing half our lives. So Xiao Cui and I gritted our teeth and agreed under the measure.

When that person arrived, I found out that this person was the young man I saw earlier, and when we examined the corpse, Xiao Cui and I found that there were no organs in the corpse! In other words, those people should be a gang of reselling organs! So when Xiao Cui and I found out about this, the two of us were a little scared.

But Xiao Cui said that since these people dare to do this, then if we don't listen to them, then it is very likely that we will be killed. So we cremated the young man's body in defiance of conscience. After the incident, Xiao Cui and I bought a lot of paper money and incense candles, hoping that this young man would not come to us, Xiao Cui said, this kind of person who died will have a strong resentment, if you don't get it right, something will happen.

Since then, almost every week someone has been turned into ashes from the two of us, and at that time we are also a little bit of a money obsesser, and we keep comforting ourselves, saying that we didn't kill people, and if we can't find anyone to avenge us after death, we should go to those who killed people.

But what the two of us didn't expect at all was that this crematorium was a naturally occurring trap in the world, and the people who died here were the kind that couldn't be reborn. Two months later, the gang was caught, and the factory director was executed. Since the two of us were just working, we just burned people, and we didn't care how these people died.

After all, the two of us burn a lot of corpses every day, so the police don't know that we also know about it. But because these dead people are trapped in this crematorium, there is finally a day when something happens.

That night, Xiao Cui and I were a little late because the last body was delivered, so after everything was done, it was already past nine o'clock in the evening. Xiao Cui's home is in the city, so there is no way to go back, so he has to spend the night with me. At that time, I didn't have a home, so I lived in the reception room of the crematorium, and I stopped by the gate at night.

In fact, there is nothing to steal at all, and the gate is just to have a place to live. That night, when Xiao Cui and I were drinking, there was a sudden knock on the door, which made me and Xiao Cui jump, because how could such a sound come from inside the crematorium in the middle of the night.

Xiao Cui and I went in and prepared to go out to have a look, but when we opened the door, we found that there was no one outside, and when Xiao Cui and I turned around and went back to the room, eight figures were standing in front of us. The old man's hand holding the bottle trembled as he said this, and the old man suddenly took a big sip of wine and continued.

"Xiao Cui and I recognized that each of these people was the two of us who had burned it, each of them was unclothed and had a big hole in his body. The organs inside are gone. Xiao Cui and I were stupid, the two of us ran outside like crazy, but the door that was still open in front couldn't be opened, Xiao Cui and I looked at the figure behind in despair, and then I felt that it was dark in front of us, and the whole person fainted.

When I woke up, Xiao Cui and I were lying on the ground, and the sun was already shining outside. Xiao Cui and I continued to work in a mixed up, and Xiao Cui told me that these ghosts must have no way to reincarnate, so they came to us, and he wanted to find a way to make these ghosts reincarnate.

So Xiao Cui took a leave of absence and returned to his hometown, ready to find something useful in the little relics left by his father. And I can't leave here because I don't have a place to live, except for this little house around the crematorium. So every night the ghosts would knock on my door, and I would hide under the covers and shiver.

Later, I gradually realized that as long as I didn't open the door, the ghosts wouldn't enter the room. So slowly I got used to it, they didn't kill me, they didn't show up in front of me, they just knocked on the door on time every day, and left at dawn.

From then on, I had to rely on alcohol to sleep almost every night. A few days later, Xiao Cui returned to the crematorium, and when he came back, he still had a book in his hand that I don't know what it was, and then Xiao Cui told me that he wanted to stay in the crematorium at night, and I wanted to persuade him not to stay inside, but Xiao Cui firmly told me that he had found a way to surpass these ghosts.

I didn't hear the ghost knock on the door that night, but the next day Cui was gone, and I didn't see him again for twenty years from that day, and I didn't know if he was still alive. From there, it was calm for about half a month, and after half a month, someone died next to the crematorium.

This person was scared to death, scared to death by something. The people in the factory began to be a little confused, and the police did not find the cause of death after they came, but said that the person died of myocardial infarction and received a huge shock before his death. Two days later, another person died in the same position. There were a lot of rumors in the factory, and some people said that ghosts came to ask for their lives.

Some people also say that it was me and Xiao Cui who were not punished by the law, so that these ghosts could not rest in peace. But in any case, these people are still working in the factory. But after six o'clock in the evening, no one was allowed to be in the factory, except me.

But even so, the situation of dead people in the field did not stop, and some people would disappear during the day, as long as a person appeared in a dark place, and when they were found, they were by the stove of the dead man in front of them.

Eight people died that year, and for every one person who died, there was one less knock on my door. When the eighth person died one after another, the people in the factory finally couldn't hold on, everyone resigned and left, and the night when I wanted to leave, I was plucked out of an eyeball by a ghost.

That's when I knew they wouldn't let me go. The new director decided to close the old factory and build a new crematorium on top of its current location. And the former factory building was completely bulldozed, except for this communication room where I live now.

That's why the communication room where I live is outside the crematorium. Twenty years have passed since then, and I can still hear those knocks every night, until a month ago, when the knocks began to decrease and I knew that people must be dying outside again.

And the place where the man died was next to the same stove twenty years ago. After the old man's words were finished, I looked at the person in front of me, and I didn't know what to say. The old man was alone with a ghost, and he had been alone here for twenty years. I can feel the guilt in the old man's heart, but if it weren't for those things twenty years ago, the old man might not have to live in this kind of place, condemned every night.

"Young man, this one outside should be the eighth, and if there are not enough eight dead, he will still knock on my door every day." After the old man finished speaking, I stood up directly. I don't care who knocks on whom's door, I want to meet this ghost from twenty years ago now!