Gu Xinran put them aside first, and then went to the tent near the mourning hall, chatted with the blind dates over there, and then took a hundred yuan of money. In fact, Gu Xinran has no relatives here, but the couple will come to live for a month or two every year, and they get along well with the neighbors in the village.

After finishing the money, Gu Xinran took a few people to continue to wander around the village, and when they came across some old houses, they would introduce them with great interest.

Most of the houses in the village are made of stone, with white walls and black tiles, which resemble the most popular ancient towns now, but they are slightly dilapidated. The center of the village is square, and the place near the water is mostly stilted buildings, wooden doors and windows, and the craftsmanship is very exquisite.

"Now most of the young people in the village have gone out to work!" Gu Xinran said, "There are still many people who have bought houses and settled down outside, and only some old people are still guarding their ancestral properties and fields." In fact, this is completely unnecessary, now the tourism industry is becoming more and more prosperous, and in a few years, the government will fund the renovation, and this may be able to be developed into a tourist area! ”

"Sister Ran, that's why you bought that house and land!" Crayfish smiled and asked, "You guys are very business-minded, I should ask my dad to come and buy a set!" ”

"Hehe, sort of!" Gu Xinran said with a smile, "I don't understand this, but my husband is engaged in investment, and it's not all for money to buy here, take advantage of the cheap house now to buy it first, otherwise it will be popular here in the future, and it won't be so easy to live here!" ”

"Sister Ran, do you know anything about this deceased old man?" Makihara asked.

"I don't know very well, I don't come here much every year, and I seem to have seen two sides in a blur! It is an old lady of the Zhao family, who is over eighty years old, and it can be regarded as a happy funeral! ”

"Then when is the funeral?"

"Tomorrow!" Gu Xinran said, "What you are curious about is the funeral ceremony, this old lady is one of them, it seems that the ancestor is ranked third, according to the ancestral system, it is a tree burial!" ”

In the gossip of the Nine Palaces, the third is the exchange of hexagrams, which corresponds to Ze, and is a place where plants and trees grow, so this old lady uses a tree burial.

"Tree burial? What's that? Xia Xue asked curiously, "Is it buried under a tree?" ”

"Now the state's advocate of tree burial is like this, first cremate the body, and then bury it under the tree!" Makihara explained, "But the tree burial here should be similar to the Tibetan custom, and after the body is buried, hang the coffin in the canopy or in the hollow of the tree." ”

"Little brother, you know a lot, you can just listen to it, especially girls, don't go to see it tomorrow when the funeral comes, sister, I am also bold, but I was still scared when I saw it for the first time!" Gu Xinran said, "There are also strict regulations on tree burials here, and when minors die, they are only wrapped in cloth bags and tied to tree branches; Adults are placed in coffins and placed horizontally on the branches of trees, or exposed under the trees; Only the elderly die and are buried in the hollow of the tree! ”

"Just a naked burial? Don't you need to bury it with earth or rock? Zheng Bu asked in surprise.

"No!" Gu Xinran shook her head, and then said with a smile, "It's not appropriate to deal with it, because we are all Han people, and we have been influenced by the concept of 'entering the soil for peace' since ancient times, but in ancient times, tree burial was a very common custom, and it was a manifestation of tree dwelling culture, which was recorded in ancient books!" ”

In ancient times, especially when the concept of the soul did not exist, or when the worship of the soul was not yet developed, when people died, they abandoned their corpses in the wild, just as animals treat their own group of corpses. "Zhou Yi • Biography of the Dictionaries" cloud: "The ancient burial of the rich clothes to pay, buried in the wilderness, not sealed and not trees, the mourning period is innumerable......" Among them, the tree burial style has a lot of records in Chinese literature, such as "Wei Shu • Lost Wei Biography" cloud: "Lost Wei country,...... When the parents died, the men and women wept together for three years, and the corpses were placed on the trees. "The Book of Zhou: On the Exotic Land" says that the burial custom of the Mo Xi people is: "The deceased is wrapped in reeds and hung on a tree." ”

It's just that Makihara knows that the tree burial here is by no means as simple as recorded in ancient books, and it should have gone beyond the scope of customs.

A dozen or so people walked from east to west, and when they reached the west end of the village, Makihara and the others wanted to turn back or choose another street to continue their visit, but at this moment, a group of people wearing filial piety clothes came from the opposite side. Mu Yuan roughly counted the number of people in the procession, most of whom were fifty or sixty years old, and there were five or six people dressed as Taoist priests, holding magic weapons, babbling and chanting in their mouths.

"Son!" Zheng Bu gently tugged at the corner of Mu Yuan's clothes.

Before Mu Yuan could react, he found that Xia Xue grabbed his arm, and the crayfish also pasted over, and both of their bodies trembled slightly, and then he was dragged aside by the two women. The pastor was a little strange, and when he glanced at the two women, he found that they were both frightened.

"Master, the old lady's face ......"

"What old lady?"

"The dead, the face of the dead!" Xia Xue reminded, but she lowered her head and didn't dare to look up.

Several Taoist priests in Muyuan looked behind them, and their bodies couldn't help but stiffen.

Walking behind the Taoist priest is an old man about sixty years old, judging from his filial piety, it should be the son of the deceased, he is an authentic peasant, there is nothing surprising, but the portrait he holds in his hand is a little scary. Gray on a white background, the photo is a half-length photo, the old lady in the photo combs a parted hair, gray hair, and the bun should be tied behind her head, making her face extraordinarily clear.

That face, with wrinkles on the forehead, deep crow's feet at the corners of the eyes, prominent bags under the eyes, long cheeks, and a prominent chin, looks like a cat's face.

"Cat-faced old lady", these four words suddenly jumped out of Mu Yuan's mind.

The word is a buzzword, and even represents a series of rumors and paranormal events, the most famous of which is a corpse fraud incident that occurred in the Northeast. Legend has it that in the nineties of the last century, an old lady somewhere in the Northeast died on the road when she came home from grocery shopping, but it happened that a cat walked by, and the old lady who was confirmed to be dead miraculously came to life, which is what the locals called the corpse, her body did not change but half of her face became a cat's face. After the old lady was resurrected, she was rumored to have a penchant for cannibalism.

This rumor has even been used to support a folk custom that livestock should not be allowed to approach the dead, as it is easy for the corpse to use the animal's anger to deceive the corpse into resurrection.

"Sister Ran, you said before that you had seen this old man, so was she like this before?" Makihara asked.

Gu Xinran was obviously frightened, and she stayed for a long time before shaking her head and saying, "No, I vaguely remember that she used to look very kind!" ”

"Oh! That might be the problem with photography! Mu Yuan nodded, and glanced at Ling Xing, "It seems that this is also the case in paintings, light and shadow can affect a person's body shape, Ling Xing, isn't it?" ”

"Yes!" Ling Xing nodded, "It's not just light and shadow, sometimes the color of the clothes and the hairstyle will produce different visual effects!" ”

"Hehe, I forgot!" Gu Xinran laughed, "That's right, when color photos are processed into black and white photos, if the color is overcorrected, it will make people's faces bigger." It's the same with clothes, white looks fat, black looks thin. Even zebra-striped clothes are different, and the vertical ones look slimmer than the horizontal ones! ”

Seeing that he had successfully changed the topic and relieved Gu Xinran, Mu Yuan chose a path to avoid the funeral crowd, but he made a decision in his heart that he would not only watch tomorrow's burial ceremony, but also secretly explore the tree burial cemetery later.