Chapter Ninety-Six: The Divine Tree and the Strange Tree

Everyone looked at each other, thinking it was a hallucination, but everyone heard it, and it was difficult to explain it with a hallucination.

". It's really evil. Hong Dagang scolded, "Don't be afraid, she is a female ghost, she is evil." She was here to confuse everyone. Don't be afraid, everyone. After speaking, he took a mouthful of phlegm in the palm of his hand, rubbed his hands, and looked at Chuanxiang with his eyes in a daze. Others are also eager to take the plunge.

"Kill this female ghost!" A woman who had come with her shouted angrily.

Immediately, the freeze-frame action resumes. The scissors in Chuanxiang's hand were snatched away, and Chuanxiang roared like a lioness.

"Stop!" The cheers rang out again.

Grandpa heard it clearly this time, and the voice came from all directions, outside the door, by the window, and from the roof.

Everyone was stunned again, and Chuanxiang took the opportunity to break free from the men's hands, squatting down and crying.

Hong Dagang was still not afraid, and shouted boldly: "There are so many of us, what are we afraid of? Even if it's a ghost, we can bring it down. After speaking, he walked to the huddled incense again.

"Stop!" The voice shouted angrily.

Hong Dagang immediately stopped, unable to move. He was horrified, "Oh no. Why isn't my body doing what I want? Why can't I walk? ”

Hong Chungeng smiled on the side: "You're not kidding us." It tells you to stop, and you stop. ”

"Shut up!" The voice shouted angrily.

Hong Chungeng looked unimpressed, and said something with his mouth split. But no one could hear what he said. Only then did Hong Chungeng become frightened, patted his mouth with his hand, and his eyes were bigger than a lantern.

"I am a monk of the Cigarette Temple, don't hurt the incense. If there is any problem, come to the cigarette temple tomorrow to find me. There is no Amitabha Buddha in the south. The voice softened. After saying that, Hong Dagang regained his ability to act, and Hong Chungeng was able to speak. Everyone, you look at me, I look at you, and I don't know what to do.

At this time, Zhijun's mother's attitude changed one hundred and eighty degrees. She wants to kick out the others in the house: "My daughter-in-law is not a ghost. Get out of here, and don't let the Bodhisattva get angry. Hurry up and go, even if she is really a ghost, it is not your turn to take care of it. Get out, get out! She opened her arms and drove away the people in the house like a chicken that stole her rice.

Everyone was stunned by the phenomenon just now, and did not dare to make another attempt, so they hurriedly withdrew from the house.

"Why does your old man say that his daughter-in-law is not a ghost?" Grandpa looked down and asked the hunchbacked old man.

"Get out, get out." Zhijun's mother didn't listen, she just tried to push people outside.

A few days later, I took advantage of the weekend to go to my grandfather's house and ask about the incense. Grandpa told me in detail what happened that night. I heard it in a fog.

I asked, "Is Chuanxiang a ghost prostitute?" Why do they say yes one moment, and not the next? If she wasn't a ghost prostitute, then why did the men around her die strangely? Hong Chungeng is still a witness, didn't he personally experience the harm of ghost prostitutes? Didn't Zhijun's mother also admit that Chuanxiang was a female ghost who seduced men? What's the matter with that monk? If she was a ghost prostitute, why did the monk of the Cigarette Temple save her? ”

Grandpa was overwhelmed by my barrage of cannonball-like questions. Grandpa said, "You'll know when I'm done." I can't answer so many of your questions in one sentence. ”

The next day, Grandpa and a few people went to the Cigarette Temple to find the monk who had promised to come. Hong Chungeng and Hong Dagang did not go. Grandpa thinks that even if the two of them are the most active, why don't they come today? Grandpa's doubts flashed and he didn't linger in his heart.

Xiangyan Temple is located on Xiangyan Mountain, which is close to ten miles away from Hongjia Section. I don't know when this temple was built, but my grandfather said that my grandfather's grandfather had this temple at that time.

Speaking of this cigarette temple, there is another source that has to be said. It is also unknown when the year and month of this source began to spread. It is said that when the Cigarette Temple was not yet established, there was only one very thick and lush tree on this Cigarette Mountain, and there was not even a single grass growing in other places on the mountain. Nearby farmers tried to cultivate the mountain, but the cotton withered and the potatoes died. You just water it countless times a day, and it still doesn't harvest like a drought year. This would have been weird enough.

What's even stranger is that the tree smokes all year round, as if it's on fire. But every leaf was verdant, and there was no spark at all.

Therefore, the surrounding residents worship this strange tree as a sacred tree, and go up the mountain to worship it during the New Year's holidays. For a time, the cigarettes on the mountain continued, from which the name was derived.

I don't know how many years have passed, but a raggedly dressed monk passed by here and saw this tree. And he touched the tree, and said unto the people who worshipped it, This is a demon tree, so do not worship it.

People don't believe it.

The monk borrowed an axe and cut the bark of the tree. Instead of sap, the tree flowed red blood. Not only did people not believe that it was a demon tree, but thought it was a fairy apparition, blaming them for hurting the sacred tree. They tied the monk to a chair and locked him in a room with a sealed door.

They killed the pigs and cows in the corrals, put the pigs' heads on the table, and carried them to the sacred tree to worship, praying that the sacred tree would not be blamed. Suddenly, a man with a long beard and a yellow face flew out of the tree, holding a dust-whisking Taoist priest. He was suspended in mid-air.

The people under the tree hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed, praying for forgiveness from the gods.

The man called himself the god of the tree and told them to kill the monk. The tree god said that the monk was the one who was transformed by evil and deliberately came to destroy the sacred tree.

The people immediately descended the mountain, opened the house where the monk was being held, and pulled him out and put him to death immediately. But there was no trace of the monk in the room, and the chair was tied to a piece of wood. When they returned to the sacred tree, they found that the monk was desperately cutting down the tree with an axe. Blood splattered the monk's body. The half-empty tree god was gone.

Everyone hurriedly stepped forward to stop them, and the monk struggled desperately. The monk shouted, "Let me chop two more axes, and you will be able to witness my words."

But they took his axe, and several men picked him up and forced him to leave. The monk struggled, jumped up and kicked towards the tree.

The tree had been cut in half and crumbling. The monk kicked over, and the tree fell down with a creak. Afraid of being pressed by the big tree, everyone hurriedly let go of the monk and ran away.

There was a loud "flutter", and the leafy trees smashed to the ground, raising yellow dust several feet high. Everyone was choking on the dust and coughing, and their eyes could not see what was around them.

It took a while for the dust to settle down. But out of the tree came three young women who were as beautiful as flowers, dying and thinly dressed.