"For example, in the summer, it is good to pinch on the wood. In the summer, Muwang. However, if it is a child, it is good, but the old man is not good. "Grandpa's words are a bit contradictory, and I have a hard time understanding them.

"Why are old people bad? What is the preference of children? I asked, frowning.

"The elderly can't be prosperous, but the children must be prosperous." Grandpa replied briefly.

It's a blunt answer, like a math teacher or a physics teacher who suddenly comes up with a formula in a class and says to a crowd of students under the blackboard, "You just follow this formula, don't ask why." "I don't know if my IQ is too poor or the teacher really didn't explain it clearly, anyway, at that time, I used a lot of formulas that I didn't understand to solve a lot of inexplicable problems, but I didn't expect that I also passed the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination smoothly. Now I have learned a little more knowledge, looking back on those things I have learned, it is really easy, sighing how I couldn't understand it at the beginning, so I feel that a stupid person like me can successfully pass the high school entrance examination and the college entrance examination, which is really thrilling and lucky.

I pretended to think for a moment, and then nodded: "The old man can't be prosperous, but the child must be prosperous?" Well, I just remember. ”

"When you pinch the water in autumn, it's good to be a child; There is nothing else, only the soil does not work, and the soil goes down. Grandpa gave another example.

"It's not good to pinch the soil in the fall, right?" Without waiting for my grandfather to answer, I immediately asked, "But why is that?" ”

"Well, of course it's not good for the autumn soil to fall." Grandpa replied with a natural attitude, as if he was just ordinary common sense, as long as my head was still on my neck, I shouldn't ask why, and his tone of voice choked me speechless.

"If it's in the winter, then it's fine; In the fire, that's pretty good, you need fire in winter; In wood, it is not very good, and the wood will wither in winter; In the water, too, is not good, the water is too cold in winter. Grandpa said again.

This time, I learned to be obedient, and no longer asked why, but silently kept these things in my heart.

Grandpa paused for a while, as if he was deliberately waiting for me to ask a question, but after waiting for me to say nothing, he talked about his experience instead: "Our village's old father, he came to me once when his wife was seriously ill, and asked me about when his wife was dying. Because at that time, his wife was already dripping with water, and Nian Dad wanted to know the time to prepare. I pinched him and it ended up on the water, and it was already winter. So I said to him, "If it's not good, I'm afraid your wife won't be able to survive this month." ”

At this point, Grandpa turned his head to look at me, and I nodded hurriedly, indicating that I was listening carefully.

He continued: "Father Nian sighed and asked me again, since it won't last long, then please calculate for me the day of this month." I did the math for him again, and I pinched it in the north. See Yama in the north, you know. This is the same result as pinching water in winter, so as long as it is calculated, it will be the same result no matter how it is calculated. ”

I interrupted, "Can you still pinch out the specific date of death?" ”

Grandpa nodded and said, "If you pinch the north, then you must die in the numbers two, four, and eight." ”

"Two, four, eight?" I asked.

"Well, it was already a month and a half at that time, and I said, Nian Dad, if your wife didn't die at eighteen, she must have passed away at twenty-two, twenty-four, or twenty-eight. Just pay more attention to your wife's movements in these four days, and you will definitely not pass away on the fifth day. After I said this, Nian Dad didn't believe it, he clenched his fists and calculated, saying that his wife would not pass away in even days. I'm not familiar with his fist divination, but I've heard your grandfather mention it before. I shook my head and said, I don't know how you count your fists, but I have confidence in my pinching, if the pinching is in the west and not in the north, it is in the number one, three, and seven. ”

"Pinch in the West is one, three, seven?" I was even more surprised, "Does that mean something happened on the first, third, seventh, eleventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, or twenty-first, twenty-third, twenty-seventh?" ”

"Don't forget that there are thirty-one months left." Grandpa added.

"Is there such a god? Can even the days be counted? "I have both admiration and suspicion.

Grandpa smiled and said, "I'm not much, if your grandfather is alive, you can count the specific day or even the hour." ”

I tilted my head and asked, "Why is there still a gap between you and Grandma in the same way?" Didn't Grandpa teach you everything? I almost went on to ask if it was because Grandpa was dumber than Grandpa, but luckily I kept my mouth shut in time.

"Your grandfather doesn't want me to learn, most of my current studies are secret, so I haven't learned all of them, and I haven't learned deeply." Grandpa was still smiling. If it were me, I would have been angry at my grandfather's decision, how could I still have a smile on my face! Although masters from all walks of life in that era always had the habit of leaving a hand in front of their apprentices, they were afraid that the apprentices would surpass the master and not look at the master in their eyes. But grandpa is his biological son, so he won't be stingy to that extent.

"Why?" I asked.

"Your grandfather said that this is an art that only the blind can learn, and the blind can only listen to other people's shouts after learning. When a blind man pinchs someone or something, they have to pay some money or give a cigarette to indicate that the blind man eats this meal. Like your grandfather," said the grandfather, pointing to himself, "it's okay that the children are sick and want me to help, but the chickens and ducks are lost, and even if they sneeze in the morning, they come to me to pinch them, to see which direction the chickens and ducks are lost, and to see what the signs of the morning sneezing." If it's good, there's not a single cigarette, and if it's bad, I don't dare to say it directly. Grandpa complained.

Thinking that this is indeed the case, maybe there are other reasons, Grandpa just kept it in his heart and didn't say it. For example, my grandfather used his abacus to calculate the things about my grandfather and the female pervert. I suspect that maybe Daddy regretted discovering the secret. If you hadn't found out before, you wouldn't have to worry about it so much, because you didn't know, so you wouldn't have been so worried when you died. But once you find it, it's different, you're afraid of backlash, and you're not willing to intervene.

"Do you know who created it?" Grandpa asked, with a look of certainty that I wouldn't know the answer.

"Who?" I gave in to my grandfather's expression as soon as I could.

"Ghost Valley." Grandpa said mysteriously, as if it were a little-known secret.

"It's Guiguzi, right?" I asked, disapprovingly.

...