This chicken feather shop, also known as the "Yin Man Shop", was built at the foot of a hill away from the crowds, and was specially prepared for the corpse chaser team and the poor lonely ghosts. In order to better protect the corpse, the corpse chaser must stay in the chicken feather shop when the chicken crows. The chicken feather shop has five houses 8 feet wide and 12 feet long, and the doors are marked with their names, morgue, guest room one, guest room two, yin room, shop room, morgue is the place where the corpse is placed, and the yin room is more special, there are two white lamps burning on the table for offering fruit inside, there are traces of burning paper money in the brazier, and the lonely souls and wild ghosts will take refuge here when the door of the netherworld is open, to prevent the ghosts of the underworld from bullying the poor lonely souls, and the store itself is also a profound onmyoji, Therefore, the shopkeepers who usually come to stay in the corpse will not collect their money, and the main income of the shopkeepers is to do things for others during the day. And the shopkeeper will not easily overdo the lonely ghosts who have taken refuge, because everything is fixed, and if you force them to overdo it, it will cause unnecessary disasters.

The corpse that had been driven all night was almost there, and in the crack of the door, the moonlight faintly saw that Miao Buling's ugly face became even more terrifying, and the moon in the sky was even brighter at this time. I didn't feel sleepy at all, and I didn't come out to wander around, Xiangxi in winter was cold and biting, and I drove more than 50 miles at once, and this speed can't be said to be not fast. I sat on the stone bench outside the chicken feather shop, remembered my Taojia Village, remembered my grandfather, and remembered the proud face of the Jiuli demon witch who killed the villagers, the villagers in order to protect me, this feeling made me deeply remember, as a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, I have no Taoism at all, when will I be able to eliminate harm for the people, avenge Taojia Village, I hate my own incompetence, and not only question myself: What can I change if I go to Yunnan, if I hurt the people of Wang Fengshan again, do I still have the face to live in this world.

My hand touched the jade pendant and the letter that my grandfather handed me before he died, I took out the jade pendant and put it in my hand to study it carefully under the moonlight, why did this black tanuki suddenly transform last time, could it be that my inner energy activated it? However, when and under what circumstances can my energy be activated, if I follow the normal cultivation speed, it will be impossible to take revenge in that life. I suddenly saw that the horns of this cat were incomplete, half of them seemed to have been cut flat by something, could it be that this jade pendant really has two pieces, and the horns are the place where the two jade pendants are connected, if so, then where is the other jade pendant.

At this time, a coughing sound pulled my thoughts back, and it turned out to be Miao Buling, so I quickly put away the jade pendant. Miao Buling said: "Why hasn't Yuan Kui slept yet?"

I said, "I can't sleep and come out and sit for a while."

Miao Buling also sat down and said, "Judging from my experience, you shouldn't be from Yunnan, what do you have to hide, why do you have to say that you are from Yunnan?"

I didn't panic because I knew I couldn't hide it from him, I was an eighteen-year-old boy who was not deeply involved in the world, he could see through me at a glance, and the reason why I was willing to drive the corpse with him was also very far-fetched, and I didn't expose me at the time, I must have known that I had a hidden secret, because chasing the corpse is a very unfortunate business, no one wants to touch it, unless someone who looks very ugly and bold will go to chase the corpse, and it is the first time he has encountered it when I take the initiative to drive the corpse with him.

I said, "It seems that you can't hide anything from the mage,"

Miao Buling said: "Do you know what conditions are required to be a corpse chaser?"

I said, "I'd like to hear about it."

Miao Buling said: "First, he is very bold, second, he must be in good health, and third, he must be a safflower boy who has not yet married a wife and had children."

To enter this industry, you must first worship a master with advanced Taoist skills, and follow him all his life, called "Duzhi". Throughout the ages, except for Apu Laosi, who "drove out corpses" for the first time, I have not heard of who is a self-taught corpse chaser. Releasing Gu is only practiced by women, but driving out corpses is a man's business. Real men don't just come to learn how to chase corpses, and real corpse chasers never take apprentices indiscriminately.

Because you can't get close to a woman after learning to drive out corpses, you can't have children before you don't teach your apprentices. Such harsh conditions are unacceptable to ordinary men. If you learn to chase away corpses, you will naturally lose some friends, and even some relatives will cut off contact. However, a skilled corpse chaser can be paid a relatively considerable amount at intervals, and it is said that according to the distance and the difficulty of the journey, 300 silver is charged for a single rush. Although the cost of the journey was quite large, the surplus was also not small. This kind of income is naturally very attractive to the local poor people who have no worries about food and clothing. Men who want to learn how to exorcise corpses usually have several brothers, and their parents may agree.

Before getting started, the parents must first make a written note, and then the corpse chaser himself will check whether he has the talent to do this business. Must be at least 16 years old and must be a child. You must be about seven feet tall, willing to endure hardships and have the strength. At the same time, there is also a very special condition, that is, the uglier the appearance, the better. Once the conditions are met, several special tests follow. The corpse chaser will make the qualified apprentice look at the sun in the sky, and then make it rotate in place, and then suddenly stop, and ask him to immediately distinguish between east and west, north and south, if he can't distinguish between east and west, north and south, if he can't distinguish between east and west, north and south, it means that he can't distinguish the direction at night, and he can't drive the corpse on the road in the dark. Then the apprentices were asked to carry rocks and burdens, and their physical strength was tested, and their physical fitness was required to be stronger than ordinary people.

Then there was another test: the corpse chaser placed an object, sometimes a woman's embroidered shoe, sometimes a dead man's clothes, sometimes an ordinary leaf, on a grave deep in the mountains, and asked the apprentice to retrieve it alone in the dark. As you can imagine, it was a very difficult chore to go to that eerie place alone in the dark of night, without lighting the lamp and light. However, only in this way can it be shown that he has the courage to be a corpse chaser. Only after successfully passing these levels can you officially start the apprenticeship. ”

I said, "So you can be a corpse chaser?"

Miao Buling said: "This is not enough, and then the master will tailor and sew a black robe for the student, which is the kind worn by which of my addresses, and then the apprentice will be officially accepted to work under the corpse chaser." The apprentice learned to drive away corpses, and after the master introduced him to the door, he gradually taught him the basic skills of chasing corpses. The first is to learn to drive dogs, which is called "dumb dog gong". In remote areas, there are many dogs fed by village farmers, and some single-family households often have more than one dog. Moreover, the more remote the place, the more powerful the dog is fed at home, and it is already deeply affected by it before it is heard. The corpse has no power to fight back, so it is naturally very afraid of the dog, if the dog bites the corpse's clothes and pulls it, the corpse has to fall

A dog is also easy to deal with, and if a large group comes, if the person who chases the corpse can't cope with it, the dog will bite the corpse's clothes and flesh into a mess. If even the corpse chaser is bitten, the matter is serious. Therefore, the corpse chaser first learned a spell and fiddled with two gestures, and the dog did not dare to make a sound, and avoided it from a distance.

Also, learn how to beat dogs with sticks. Using a stick to open the bow from side to side can make even the most powerful dog get close. Then. It is to learn "standing meritorious service", that is, first to make the dead body able to stand up. Subsequently, there are also "walking skills", "turning skills", "downhill skills", "bridge crossing skills", and "wading water skills...... It is said that there are as many as 36 kinds of exercises to drive away corpses. The second is "inverted sun", according to the current parlance, that is, adjusting for jet lag and disrupting the biological clock. Because the expulsion of corpses is carried out at night, the chasers must learn to sleep during the day and travel at night, living a life like a "night owl". It is not difficult for a person with a strong physique, through a period of adaptation, to turn the time upside down, or stay up for several nights in a row. At the same time, the corpse chaser must also be trained through the blindfold to distinguish objects, listen to sounds in the air, etc., and its night vision function and night hearing function will also be practiced very well, and the action in the moonlight is the same as in broad daylight. Even in those dark nights, you can refer to the shadows of the mountain-shaped trees on the side of the road, and grope your way forward. In some places in Xiangxi, if someone is particularly able to sleep during the day, but has no sleepiness at night, people will inevitably joke: "Look at you like a corpse chaser!"

Next, practice hand and foot strength. In the mountains, not only are the roads narrow, but there are also many ravines, and many times the corpses cannot move forward. At this time, the corpse chasers had to carry them one by one, or carry them one by one, and they could not do it without sufficient hand and foot strength, and they could not do it for a long time without extraordinary physical endurance. Then there is the hurry, the mourner generally hopes that the deceased will return home as soon as possible, and the corpse chaser also hopes to spend as little time as possible, so the only way to speed up the pace on the road is to hurry up as much as possible. The method of practice is, of course, not the equipment training we see in professional sports teams today, but in conjunction with the agricultural work in the countryside. Of course, sometimes there are also "intensive training," some of which involve pouring sand into the trouser legs, while others tie iron plates to the calves, and then travel at night and walk long distances, similar to the practice of martial arts.

If you are occasionally seen by others, you will lie that you are practicing martial arts to strengthen your body. In the countryside where martial arts are admired, this can easily be perfunctory. Once the apprentice had certain basic skills, the master began to teach him how to use the magic weapon to drive away corpses. A professional corpse chaser has at least these few master magic weapons: a conch engraved with the mantra of the Heavenly Master, a yellow mounted paper talisman written in red cinnabar or rooster blood, a black robe, a relatively accurate compass, and a copper soul gong. The black robe is used to ward off evil spirits, which can prevent the corpse from doing strange things, and it is also convenient for walking in the dark;

The conch is blown to the corpses by the corpse chaser on the road, and different rhythms indicate different commands, that is, to tell the deceased: "It's time to tell the way, we are going home, don't do any more tricks!" In Xiangxi, not all corpse chasers use conch, some use horns, and some use copper whistles. And the Dao Talisman that is attached to the door of the zombie's brain is the "Chenzhou Talisman". This charm is on yellow mounted paper, with cinnabar or some symbols on the rooster blood, like words and paintings, it must be dried before it can be used. In addition to being used to stick on the head of the deceased to control the actions of the undead, another function of the Dao Talisman is to prevent demons and monsters from invading the deceased.

Of course. The spells drawn on this are different from one corpse chaper to another, and from one corpse to another, and this kind of charm needs to be prepared when you go out in large stacks, and sometimes you need to draw them improvised along the road. The compass is not only a magic weapon that guides oneself and guides the souls of the deceased, so as to ensure that the corpses can safely follow behind the corpse chaser and prevent them from getting lost, but it is also the most spiritual and highest magic weapon for the corpse chaser.

Usually, corpse chasers rarely use the compass, when walking to the big rivers, mountains and streams, there are dragons and snakes in and out or the evil spirit of the ghosts and ghosts come and go, the corpse chaser craftsmen will take the compass out to suppress the evil spirits. Or in the case of ghosts invading the corpse and defrauding the corpse, the corpse chaser will also urgently take out the compass and use the gossip diagram in the compass to illuminate the corpse, drive away the ghosts, and relieve the danger. Legend has it that the gong of the corpse chaser was used to send emergency evacuation notices to people nearby, and it could also convey information to the spirits of the deceased about the direction they were traveling, where they were going, and how far they were from their hometown.

There are also paper money scattered while walking, lanterns lit at night, and charms like walking sticks. Scattering paper money (dark money) is also exquisite, generally narrow roads, steep slopes, ditches and other dangerous road sections, as well as built bridges, stone steps, and most importantly, some temples, land shrines, with the meaning of passing through the checkpoints, buying roads and accommodating, never omission and negligence.

After learning the above methods, one must also recite the mantra of expelling corpses. What we usually call "charms" is actually two contents, "charms" and "spells" are separate things, "charms" are the kind of notes with various symbols, and "charms" are words that are recited at the same time when drawing, pasting or using rune paper. When encountering rituals, only the "charm" and "mantra" are used at the same time, and then combined with the corresponding gestures, can they have the desired effect.

The spells used when driving away corpses are not the same, such as heaven and earth have righteousness, and miscellaneous manifolds. The lower part is the river mountain, and the upper part is the sun star. In the days of the people, the sky is full of gloom. The royal road is clear, containing and Tuming Court. When the poor festival is to see, one by one to hang Danqing, this is a common mantra used by our Xiangxi generation. I told you so much not to accept you as an apprentice, but to tell you that being a corpse chaser is very harsh, and you should be from Xiangxi, knowing these will also help you understand our Xiangxi corpse culture. So now you can tell me who you are, right? ”

This Miao Buling is really a talkative person, but it can be seen that he is a strict and good person, otherwise he wouldn't have talked to me so much, and I don't hide it at the moment.

He said, "Actually, I don't want to know about driving corpses. Because this itself is a kind of witchcraft, and it is also passed down by Chiyou, I have a blood feud with the descendants of Chiyou, so I vow to get rid of the witches of the Jiuli tribe, eliminate the corpse swallowing box, avenge my parents, avenge my grandfather, seek justice for the villagers, and remove the scourge for the common people in the world. ”

I have always wanted to find someone to say this, but I have not been able to say it, and finally opened my heart and said it under Miao Buling's questioning, and my heart is much more comfortable. Miao's body trembled, and the muscles on his face could be clearly seen in the moonlight.

He was shocked and said, "Swallow the corpse?"

I said, "Yes, it's the corpse swallower that has disappeared for a thousand years."

Miao Buling said: "Could it be that the essence of Chi You is said to exist, so who are?"

I said, "Don't hide it, Master, I'm the only living person in Taojia Village."