"Your master also asked about this?" Hearing this, Tang Qianlin asked rhetorically, "When did you ask?" ”

Ni Xiaowan replied: "A few days before Master's death, after he came back from a trip, he asked me about it in a hurry. ”

Tang Qianlin asked again: "Did he say that he went to meet someone?" ”

Ni Xiaowan shook her head: "After I followed Master to Harbin, except for Guan Xinyue, he didn't take me to see anyone else, even if it was Guan Xinyue, I only met once, basically I waited for him in Guan Xinyue's shop, and I didn't go into the back room." ”

Since Chu Lekang rescued Ni Xiaowan in Zhengjia Village six years ago, he has always taken Ni Xiaowan with him. Fortunately for the first two years, Chu Lekang taught Ni Xiaowan to read and write all day long, and then he became uncertain, often preparing dry food and drinking water for Ni Xiaowan at home in advance, and then went out for several days.

Ni Xiaowan said: "When the master left home, I studied and practiced calligraphy at home, as for what he went out to do and what he was investigating, I didn't know anything, and he didn't tell me, but I knew that it had something to do with shamanism and shaman spirit palace." ”

Tang Qianlin asked, "What about your master's fixed ruler and fixed wind ruler?" ”

Ni Xiaowan shook her head: "I don't know, maybe it's in a home." ”

"Somewhere?" Tang Qianlin was puzzled, "What do you mean?" ”

Ni Xiaowan said: "We have a lot of homes, we live here today, we live there tomorrow, Master said this is for safety, I also want to go out with Master, but Master said that the rivers and lakes are sinister, and it is not yet time for me to break through." ”

Tang Qianlin said: "Okay, let's talk about these things after we go out, you tell me first, what is going on about the large-scale disappearance of people in Zhengjia Village in history." ”

"When I was a child, I once heard my grandfather tell this story, because this story is related to the origin of Zhengjia Village." Ni Xiaowan recalled, "My grandfather said that at that time, there was no Zhengjia Village, and the whole terrain was different from now, there were more people than now, and they didn't farm, basically living by grazing. ”

Tang Qianlin asked: "Listening to you say this, none of the people in Zhengjia Village are Han Chinese?" ”

"No, it's basically Han people, but it wasn't called Zhengjia Village before, and as for what it was called, my grandfather didn't know, and the people who lived here at that time were indeed not Han people." Ni Xiaowan looked at Tang Qianlin and said, "It was after that series of missing persons that Zhengjia Village was born." ”

Tang Qianlin felt strange when he heard this: "You mean, after the nomadic tribes here disappeared mysteriously, there were Han people who migrated here?" ”

Ni Xiaowan shook her head: "It's not a migration, according to my grandfather, the ancestors of Zhengjia Village came by order from the emperor." ”

"Imperial Order?" Tang Qianlin was stunned when he heard this, "I think about it, during the Hongwu period, the Ming Dynasty built a city here, and it was not until the Ming Dynasty that Zhu Di named this place Fushun, and you said that you received the emperor's order, could it be that the ancestors of Zhengjia Village were military households?" ”

Ni Xiaowan asked, "Uncle Shi, what is a military household?" ”

Tang Qianlin explained: "The Ming Dynasty combined the experience of the previous dynasty's garrison in Tuntian, and implemented a military system that combined soldiers with agriculture and garrison. In addition, a hereditary system of military households has been implemented, in which the military has a military registration and the people have a civilian registration, and the military members are not subject to the control of the local administrative organs, and the military members are hereditary, and if one person joins the army, the family will forever become a military household......"

The origin of military households includes the earliest conscription who followed Zhu Yuanzhang, the Guishun soldiers who were divided into forces during the Yuan Dynasty, and the "Enjun", that is, the soldiers who committed crimes and filled the army.

Ni Xiaowan suddenly said: "Yes, Enjun, I remember, my grandfather said at the time that the ancestors of Zhengjia Village were Enjun." ”

Tang Qianlin nodded: "That's right, you go on, what happened?" We also continued to walk forward to see what else was in the depths of the cave. ”

Ni Xiaowan followed behind Tang Qianlin, and said as she walked: "Those en'en troops came here, one is to survey the terrain, and the other is to receive the news that there are rogues here. ”

Tang Qianlin turned his head and said, "Liukou? ”

Ni Xiaowan said: "Yes, the Liukou, that is, when the news of the Liukou came out, there was a large-scale disappearance of the population here. ”

At that time, it was very common for the government to deal with the situation, and if it could be discovered, it would be tracked and killed, and if it could not be discovered, the case would be closed if the harassed people were appeased.

And this kind of case of chasing the rogues is generally handed over to the Enjun to do, because they are all guilty.

When the army arrived in the area, they found that the herdsmen of that tribe were preparing to move away, not only because they had disappeared every two days, but also because they had reappeared every few days.

Tang Qianlin stopped and stopped: "Disappeared and reappeared?" And tell others that you're going to die? ”

Ni Xiaowan said: "Yes, it's strange, right? The strangest thing is that they also chose their own burial grounds, knowing that at that time, the nomads of that generation would not adopt the method of burial, most of them were cremation or sky burial, and the missing people told others that if they did not bury themselves after death, the tribe would suffer. ”

Of course, the people of the tribe did not believe in the missing person, thinking that he must have been evil, but they did not expect that the missing person died violently that night, and the people of the tribe cremated him according to custom. Who knew that when they woke up the next morning, not only were several people missing from the tribe, but also a large number of their cattle and sheep had died by the river, and no cause of death could be found.

When Ni Xiaowan said this, Tang Qianlin interrupted her: "Let me guess, did the herdsmen go to invite shamans at this time?" ”

Ni Xiaowan said: "Uncle Shi, you guessed right, the herdsmen are indeed looking for shamans. ”

Tang Qianlin said again: "And this shaman they met halfway through, not the one they originally went to find, right?" ”

Ni Xiaowan was very surprised: "Uncle Shi, how did you guess it?" ”

Tang Qianlin said: "If Evil Sa and Quilt Thousand Corpses join forces, they will set up a bureau, and in addition to the herdsmen, there will definitely be no other so-called outsiders in this bureau, this is all arranged by them." ”

Ni Xiaowan continued: "The shaman they found told them that they had to do what the missing person said, and that they had to be buried so that the spirits of the dead could be appeased. ”

Soon, the second group of missing people returned unharmed, and like the first, they all said with a sluggish expression that they were dying and needed a burial, and they needed a coffin.

But where to find the coffin? The nearest coffin shop is also in Fushun City, which is hundreds of miles away, and the herdsmen have no choice but to drive a carriage to Fushun City to buy coffins.

The coffin was bought, the grave was dug up, and the dead who died violently were buried, thinking that the matter was over, but who knew that there were more and more people missing in the tribe, and more and more people died, and there were more and more things to buy coffins in Fushun City.

For the first time, the Fushun government noticed that something was wrong, and it was also because the herdsmen bought coffins, firstly, the herdsmen's burial methods did not need coffins, and secondly, even if they did, it was impossible to buy so much repeatedly.

The enwarns came to the tribe and inquired about what had happened, but the tribe had decided that the land was cursed and decided to move away and never return.

Ni Xiaowan said: "Among the Enjun, there is a general banner called Uncle Ghost, who used to be a person from the Maoshan Iron Clothes Gate. ”

Tang Qianlin was stunned again: "Maoshan Iron Clothes Gate? Sunan Maoshan Mountain? ”

Ni Xiaowan shook her head: "I don't know about this, it's just that my grandfather said that." Uncle Shi, I know the Maoshan faction, and the master has also told me, but what kind of sect is the Maoshan Iron Cloak Sect? ”

"There are several branches under the Maoshan faction, and the Tieyimen is just one of them, and the reason why there are branches is also because each faction has different ways of acting, which is different from the Xuanzi faction and the Yuanzi faction that we capture. There are different kinds of art in the rivers and lakes, which are usually considered to be different and different from other rivers and lakes, and we also have good and evil in different ways, and the Iron Cloak Gate is regarded as both good and evil in the eyes of fellow artists. Tang Qianlin explained in detail, "The reason why they say this is because their methods are too vicious, and they will never show mercy to the so-called evil sects, crooked ways, demons and monsters, and even often destroy people." ”

Ni Xiaowan listened again and again: "So vicious? ”

Tang Qianlin said: "You go on, what happened? ”

The enchant army sent out by Fushun City has a total of 100 people, led by a hundred households, and there are two general banners under his command, and Uncle Ghost is one of them.

When Uncle Ghost heard about this, he thought it was very strange, because he had encountered such a similar thing many years ago, so after camping that night, Uncle Ghost took a small flag under his command and led 10 soldiers directly to the cemetery where the tribe buried the missing to find out.

Ni Xiaowan paused when she said this: "Uncle Shi, my grandfather said that the cemetery was in the location of today's Zhengjia Village. ”

Tang Qianlin didn't ask any questions, but said, "You go on." ”

After Uncle Ghost led the soldiers to the cemetery, he saw that the cemetery was buried in a mess, which was even more chaotic than the mass grave, but soon Uncle Ghost found out the problem, there were a total of 21 graves, although they seemed to be messy, but they were actually divided into three groups, each group of seven, and the position of the graves was also very similar to the location of the Eastern Seven Houses.

When he saw this, Uncle Ghost was shocked and told Xiaoqi to quickly send a soldier back to ask for help, and told Baihu to come with people and tools.

Xiaoqi was puzzled and asked Uncle Ghost why? There has to be a reason, right?

Uncle Ghost told Xiaoqi that there were demons who fostered the seven-star corpse here.

"Uncle Shi, what is the Seven Star Corpse?" Ni Xiaowan asked curiously, and subconsciously glanced at the empty coffin next to her, "I asked Master, and Master didn't tell me." ”

Tang Qianlin stopped and said, "I probably understand what's going on, you go on, and I'll explain it to you after I finish speaking." ”

Xiao Qi didn't understand what the Seven Star Corpse was, but it sounded extremely infiltrating, so he had to send a soldier back to ask for help from the Lord of the Hundred Households, and at the same time, Uncle Ghost also dug up a grave, directly pried open the coffin, and opened the coffin for inspection to confirm that his speculation was true.

After opening the coffin, Uncle Ghost and the little flag found that although the body in the coffin was decomposed, it was missing an arm.

Uncle Ghost hurriedly called the soldiers again, dug up the second grave, followed by the third, the fourth, and when the fifth was dug, Baihu arrived with a large number of soldiers and asked Uncle Ghost what he was going to do?

Uncle Ghost retold what he told Xiaoqi to Baihu, although Baihu didn't understand, but because Uncle Ghost had followed him for many years and trusted him incomparably, he knew that he would never be okay to find trouble, so he asked him how to deal with it?

When Ni Xiaowan said this, she looked at Tang Qianlin with an embarrassed expression: "This is the end of the story, every time my grandfather talks about this, the next sentence is - later there was Zhengjia Village." ”

Tang Qianlin stopped, looked around and said, "I'll explain to you now what a seven-star corpse is, but before that, I have to tell you from the beginning, about the ancient cognition of corpses......

The Eastern Han Dynasty scholar Ban Gu believes that "the corpse is the loss of words, the loss of spirit, and the body is unique", that is, death takes away the spiritual and ideological abilities of the living and transforms them into a pure material existence.

This purely material existence, which creates awe and disgust and fear for the living, is the process of funeral, and people need to use a social activity to overcome this instinctive physical and psychological reaction, so that the relatives of the deceased no longer avoid a body that will gradually decay, but treat the corpse as a subject that still has the desires and feelings of the living.

At the same time, people are gradually influenced by religion and imagination, and after death, they only change their form into another world, and even change their form in the process.

For example, Yu's father Yu became a big fish after his death, and gradually such legends also formed the belief of "immortality after death", and the concept of "autopsy" also began to spread.

Legend has it that during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the coffin to be opened by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty after his death, but found that the body was missing, and only the clothes he wore when he died were still left in it.

This is one aspect of the beautiful and uplifting, and the other side of the opposite gives rise to the strange idea of "corpse transformation", and zombies are one of them.

When Ni Xiaowan heard this, coupled with the environment she was in, after all, she was a girl, so she couldn't help but shake her whole body and asked, "Uncle Shi, the seven-star corpse is also a kind of zombie, right?" ”

Tang Qianlin said: "That's right, in the vernacular, it is more advanced than zombies, in other words, in the faction of sewing thousands of corpses, it is believed that if the corpse is reasonably preserved, even if it cannot be brought back to life, it can be restored to his former appearance through special means." ”

Ni Xiaowan shook her head after hearing this: "I don't understand." ”

"The resurrection of the dead is the focus of every religion and even in the heretical world, but so far, no one has dared to come forward and say that he has seen someone rise from the dead, except in legends." Tang Qianlin continued to walk forward, shuttling between the coffins, "Some sects study coffins, such as coffin openers, and some study corpses, such as sewing thousands of corpses, to put it bluntly, everyone wants to figure out the secrets of life and death, after all, if you see through life, you will understand that except for life and death, everything else is nothing, if people can see through life and death, then it has reached a realm that ordinary people can never reach." ”

Although Tang Qianlin's explanation was not yet understood, Ni Xiaowan pondered it by herself, stepped forward and said, "Uncle Shi, do you mean that the Seven Star Corpse is also a way to study the resurrection of the dead by sewing a thousand corpses?" ”

Tang Qianlin smiled: "That's right, you are very smart, it is true." ”