"Damn, is this a ghost fire or an oil lamp?" The black bull already had the paratrooper knife in his hand as he spoke.

I had the courage to take a closer look, and the door of the hall was opened silently, and through the door I could clearly see that there were two oil lamps on the table in front of me, which were blown by the wind, and the light flickered and flickered.

I said, "It's an oil lamp, go and have a look." ”

The three of them came to the hall house, the room was spacious, but there were no tables and chairs, and the door was made of loess to form an offering platform, on which two oil lamps were burned, and behind the offering platform was a clay statue, although there were oil lamps, but the upper end was still not clear.

I shone it with a flashlight, and I only felt that the clay statue had a strange expression, and I couldn't tell whether it was anger or anger, and other than that, there seemed to be something wrong, but I couldn't say it for a while.

This is more of a Buddhist hall than a hall. It's just that it is not a Buddha statue that is enshrined, but a general crouching in armor.

Seeing that the two oil lamps were really placed, Hei Niu felt relieved, put the paratrooper knife back into his waist, looked at the general's clay statue and said, "Damn, this guy is still a big-headed doll." ”

After his reminder, I also saw the otherness of this clay statue: the head is indeed surprisingly large, twice the proportion of a normal person's head.

Gu Yixin frowned and said, "I think this statue is too weird, as if his body and head were not originally one, well, or they were spliced together." Let's get out of here. ”

The black bull threw the two backpacks to the ground and glanced around again with his flashlight, and there was nothing but the altar and the clay statue. He sat down on the ground and said, "There's nothing here, what are you afraid of?" What can a clay embryo do with us? ”

Although the light from the two oil lamps is not as strong as the flashlight, the room is almost illuminated, which makes people feel much more at ease.

I also sat down and said, "Let's go out of the village now, I'm afraid that the wild boar will find us again, although the name of this village is infiltrating, but there should be people living here, it is safe, the hunchbacked old man may have come in and lit the oil lamp and went out again, we just looked at the stone tablet, and didn't pay attention." ”

Gu Yixin may have been tired, or he may have been afraid of being chased by wild boars again, so he stopped talking and sat down beside me.

For a rare moment of relaxation, we turned off our flashlights. The black bull belongs to the ADHD patient, and after sitting for less than two minutes, he raised his butt and stood up, and went to the altar to look through it. After a while, he stood on tiptoe, stretched out his arms and took out a box of bamboo sticks from behind the two empty clay offering plates, puffed up his cheeks and blew the ash on them, and brought them to us.

The black bull handed me the bamboo sticks and said, "It seems that the people here also like to ask God for the signs. ”

I took it and counted them, and there were 64 in them. For a while, his hand was extremely cheap, and he involuntarily picked it up and shook it, and a bamboo stick fell to the ground.

I picked it up and took a look, it's really a dog, the twenty-ninth hexagram: Kan hexagram.

Hei Niu hurriedly asked, "Old Su, what does this mean?" ”

I explained: "The hanging elephant said: A bright moon shines on the water, only a shadow is missing, and the fool goes down to take the wealth, and touches it for nothing. ”

The black bull was a little anxious when he heard this, and said, "Damn! Can you make it easier to understand? ”

I took the hexagram and explained: "This hexagram is a lower hill and a higher hurdle, and it is stacked on top of each other. The hurdles are water and dangers, and the two hurdles are overlapping, and the dangers are more and more dangerous, and the dangers are heavy. The two waters overlap, the water is dangerous, the solid risk is the risk, and the retreat is also dangerous. Anyway, it's, the meaning of a dilemma. ”

"Touching and feeling empty? This hexagram says that we can't touch the Ming weapon when we go into the mountains this time? No, it should be that you can't touch the Ming weapon when you go into the mountain, so you can't represent us. After Hei Niu finished speaking, he put the hexagram back, and was just about to shake it by himself, but after thinking about it, he didn't know the bottom in his heart, and handed it to Gu Yixin again.

Gu Yixin shook a few times, and a hexagram fell to the ground.

I picked it up and looked at it, and said, "It's the 63rd hanging, the kan is hanging, the hexagram is the kan, and the kan is water; The next hexagram is separation, separation is fire, water and fire are frying, this hexagram is like yin and yang, it is a sign of fate and mutual restraint, and the big murderer is also! ”

The black bull looked at me puzzled and asked, "Big breasts?" Why, can you still see the cup from the hexagram? Lao Su, you are really a god! ”

I glared at him and criticized him seriously: "Your thoughts are too impure, you are simply vulgar to the home, I am talking about good luck and bad luck!" ”

Hei Niu laughed, I didn't bother to pay attention to him, cleared my throat, and continued seriously: "The hexagram drawn by Gu Yixin, looking at it, the layout is messy and uneven, and there are no birds, but it can be concluded that this is a rare disaster, and it has the evil consequences of extinction." ”

Gu Yixin was so frightened by my words that his face turned pale, his brows were furrowed, and he didn't speak. I thought about saying something to enlighten her, but the hexagram was there, and I didn't know what to say.

"Look at you two smelling home!" The black bull took the lottery holder and shook it to himself, shaking it, and reading in his mouth: "Heaven and earth spirit, good sign, sign and show the spirit quickly", and shook it vigorously, maybe it was too strong, and all the hanging signs were scattered on the ground at once.

Hei Niu looked at the hexagrams all over the ground, turned his head and asked me with a puzzled face: "Old Su, is this ...... What does this mean? ”

I couldn't help but laugh out loud and said, "This shows that God doesn't want to play with you......"

Before the words fell, there were two coughs from behind the clay statue of the general.

The three of them were startled, only to see the hunchbacked old man walk out from behind the clay statue unhurriedly. There's a back door in the relationship, and we didn't take a closer look in the house just now, so we were really careless.

The old man smiled and said, "Fortune-telling is a half-truth, and it can't be true." ”

He sat down in front of us, and I looked closely, and he was about eighty years old, with a protruding forehead like a sarcoma, and the black dog was lying next to him, sticking out his long tongue, and his eyes were red and oozing, and he didn't bark when he saw us.

It turned out that the hunchbacked old man did not leave after lighting the lamp just now, but entered the apse.

I asked him curiously: "Dare to ask the old man, why is this village called a mortuary village?" ”

The old man took out his cigarette pouch, filled a pot of tobacco, and smoked it with a flint. For a while, the smoke was thick all around. However, the smoke is not choking at all, but it has a very comfortable feeling when you smell it, and I don't know what kind of smoke it is.

He said slowly: "This used to be a cottage of soldiers, a general with his army set up camp here, and was ordered to strangle the barbarians in the south. Later, when the army was building a plank road in the mountains, a large tomb was dug up, and there were countless treasures in the tomb, in order to prevent his subordinates from stealing, the leading general decided to personally go into the tomb to register the number of treasures, and wanted to pay tribute to the imperial court, so as to ask for a reward or something. However, after the general entered, the tomb suddenly collapsed, killing many people, and the general escaped death and crawled out of the tomb covered in blood. When he returned to the village, his temperament changed drastically, and he avoided everyone, and everyone only thought that he was frightened, and did not pay much attention to him. One night, while everyone was asleep, the general brutally killed his seventeen family members with his sword. Not long after, the general also died. The person who died said that the day after the general's death, his head turned out to be huge and strange, and there was a bloody mark on his neck, as if the whole head had been quietly replaced. The people in the village originally thought that the matter was over, but on the night of the first seven days of the general, a torrential rain suddenly fell in the village, and all the people in the village died violently and inexplicably, and the death was very miserable. The imperial court sympathized with the military exploits of these people, so it sent people to bury all the corpses into coffins, carry them into stone buildings, and rebuilt the original general's mansion into this tribute temple to worship the general. The whole village was renamed and called the morgue. ”

The black bull asked, "You mean that there are coffins in all the stone buildings here?" It's also so intoxicating. By the way, old man, why is there a child's coffin in the stone building we just entered? Don't tell me it's a Boy Scout. ”

The old man waved his hand and replied slowly, "There are no boy scouts, they are the children of the soldiers stationed there." The soldiers who stayed behind took the captured barbarian girl as their daughter-in-law, and then drove away or killed the barbarian woman after giving birth, and almost every building had two coffins, a father and a son. ”

Gu Yixin clasped her knees with her hands, sat next to me and listened very carefully, she thought about it and asked the old man: "When did the old man say?" Are you guarding this morgue? ”

The hunchbacked old man knocked the cigarette pot on his feet, and the spark at the bottom of the cigarette pot fell to the ground, and it was extinguished after a while, and he said faintly: "It's been a long time, probably at the end of the Ming Dynasty, as for me, I am a stele carver, I have to carve a stele for each of them, there is a way: the soldier is once life and death, the three souls and seven spirits have nowhere to rest, the reincarnation of the Netherworld, and the six ways of good and evil follow Yama." I have to speak to Yama on behalf of the spirits of the dead in this stockade. ”

As far as I know, being a stele engraver is extremely particular, and it must be a person of pure yin life. The so-called life of pure yin is the eight characters of pure yin, that is, the attributes of the heavenly and earthly branches in the eight characters of human beings are all negative. For example, the heavenly stem: A, B, C, D, ...... A is yang wood, B is yin wood, C is yang fire, and D is yin fire; And so on, and so on. The book of life says that "pure yin does not give birth, and pure yang does not grow"? The combination of yin and yang gives birth to all things, and pure yang and pure yin are out of balance, all of which are pathological. Unexpectedly, this hunchbacked old man turned out to be a rare pure yin life.

My brain was spinning rapidly, thinking about what the old man had just said, and I felt that there seemed to be some loopholes, I stared at him and asked, "Since these corpses are all from the Ming Dynasty, and some of them have rotted into slag, why are they only engraved now?" Shouldn't it be carved after the burial? Or rather, how old are you? ”

Without waiting for the old man to reply, the flame of the oil lamp flickered in the wind, and the shadows of the three of us flickered a few times.

I immediately sensed something was wrong: Damn, there were only three shadows on the ground! There is no shadow of the hunchbacked old man! Then the fuck shouldn't be human!

The black bull also sensed the strangeness, and without waiting for me to say hello, he subconsciously smashed the stick holder in his hand towards the hunchbacked old man. The sticks passed through the old man's body as if they were passing through the air, and then slammed into the mud wall of the altar, scattering the shelves with a thud, causing the sticks to spill all over the ground. The mud wall of the altar was also smashed into a pit, and the mud crackled and smashed onto the hanging stick, kicking up a puff of dust, and the choked Gu Yixin covered his mouth and nose and coughed.

At the same time, the black dog lying on his stomach suddenly sprang up and pounced on me. I quickly kicked with my legs, and the beast gritted its teeth and bit down on my ankle. I secretly screamed in my heart that it was not good, I was afraid that I was going to lose a piece of meat now, but it was strange to say, it didn't hurt at all.

The black bull got up with his bag and slammed it down on the black dog's head, this guy may have been in a fucking hurry for a while, and he forgot that this was a ghost dog, and he couldn't kill it if he smashed it, and he couldn't hit it.

The black bull was obviously full of strength this time, I only felt that my leg bones were numb, and the tears of pain almost fell. Thankfully, though, the bag contained some food and ropes, and if I had replaced it with the backpack that contained the equipment, half of my leg would have been in the hands of my dear comrades.

The hunchbacked old man laughed loudly, the laughter was indescribably weird, and then disappeared with the black dog.

The two oil lamps on the altar were also extinguished with a pop.

The black bull hurriedly stood up, scanned the surroundings with a wolf-eyed flashlight, and scolded: "His grandmother's, it's going to be again!" ”

Gu Yixin also hurriedly turned on the wolf-eye flashlight. I rolled up my trouser leg in shock, and looked at the place where I was bitten by the black dog just now, and the leg was black and bruised, and there was no bleeding, just like the "ghost twisting green" that often occurs when rural people sleep at night.

I suddenly remembered the note Professor Kang had left for us, which clearly stated: Don't believe what you see. Did he want to warn us that we saw the lights in the village from the mountains were fake, so we should not blindly take refuge?

In this way, Professor Kang may have seen this ghostly cottage as well, but the old fox did not come in.

Alas, why didn't the old man write specifically? If it had been written, we probably wouldn't have been in this damn morgue. I was so unhappy that I scolded this stinky intellectual several times.

While the black bull was still angry, he took out his sapper shovel and pounded it around on the floor and the altar, cursing at the hunchbacked old man.

The black ox picked up the iron bowl of oil lamp on the altar with a sapper shovel and threw it to the ground, but there was not even a drop of oil in the oil lamp, only half a bowl of thick dust, which looked like it had just been burned.

I got up and moved my legs a few times, and said to the black bull: "We were careless when we just opened, and we didn't take a closer look when we came in, and we didn't even know if there was oil in the oil lamp." Damn, I have to check on him at this time, what kind of demons and monsters? Who dares to come out and play tricks on Lao Tzu again? made Lao Tzu anxious, and Lao Tzu burned down their nest with a fire! ”

After that, I thought about it again, the old man didn't seem to do anything to us just now, not to mention that this is a stone house, and the beams are a few pieces of wood, and I can't burn it if I want to.

Gu Yixin followed me tightly with his backpack in his arms, urging us to leave quickly. The stubborn temper of the black bull also came up, perhaps, he felt that he was put together by a ghost, not only did he not distinguish it, but he also chatted with it decently. This kind of thing, this is a bit of a loss for him as a person. If it reaches the ears of Panjiayuan's gang, the small prestige that Black Bull has accumulated with great difficulty in the past few years will be ruined.

The black bull insisted on taking a look inside the house, and sure enough, there was a low round-arched doorway on the side of the altar, and behind it was a stone apse that was one and a half high. It was a little depressing to go into the apse, and it felt like you were buried in stone.

There is a huge coffin covered with green cloth on the ground of the apse, the black bull ripped off the green cloth, only to see that the coffin was carved with some bird and beast reliefs around it, and the outside of the coffin was all brushed with tung oil, the whole was well preserved, and even the light of the flashlight could be reflected.

I stepped forward and took a closer look, and the coffin lid was tightly nailed around with iron nails, and the nail holes were very dense, as if I was afraid that the contents would crawl out.

The black bull circled around the coffin, patted it with his hand, turned his head and asked me, "Old Su, do you say there is any valuable treasure in here?" Why don't we open it up and take a look? Anyway, it's all here, at least I have to say hello to the master inside, right? Or how rude do we seem? ”

"You really want money and don't want to die, there must be that big-headed doll general lying here, if you open it, the general will look at it, shout, Niu Yuanchao's classmates are so polite, come on, don't be polite, come in and accompany me! Pull you in and back on your back, and you won't be able to get out when you think about it. ”

Gu Yixin saw that the more I talked with Hei Niu, the more she was afraid, the nervousness eased a little, and beckoned us to see the stone tablet in front of the coffin.

It is a cyan stele that has not been carved completely, only half a person is so high, there is a camel stele under the stele of the stele, on the one hand, it has practical value, it is used to make the stele base, commonly known as "the turtle camel stele". On the other hand, it has very important cultural significance, and the ancients often used it to symbolize "longevity and auspiciousness", in addition, it has the meaning of status level, totem worship, witchcraft worship, etc.

Looking at the specifications of this coffin and stone stele, it must be that the general who died suddenly was lying in this coffin.

Looking closely, we found that the words on the stele were not engraved, only written: Hangman General Li ...... Five words.

It seems that the old man who carved the stele also died suddenly, and he didn't even engrave the general's name, and I guess he may also have died in the accident of the general's first seven.

When I saw that there was nothing else in the apse, I beckoned them both to go out together. The black bull took out the large piece of green cloth covering the coffin, nested it in a ball, and lit it with a lighter in the hall.

This real bonfire gives us a touch of warmth, and this temperature comes from the earth.

The village is full of ghosts, and we can't stay longer. The three of them immediately decided to quit the village the same way, as for the vengeful boar, if we can't meet it, even if we are lucky, if we are really unlucky, we have a paratrooper knife and a mountain climber, and the odds of victory are still a few percent.

I'm a road idiot, I have a very poor sense of direction, and I couldn't distinguish between the southeast and the northwest in the four years I went to school in Beijing. This time into the mountain, first chased by the wild boar for a while, into this village has long been blindfolded, where can you still remember the route, especially in this dark light blind night, there is not even a reference, the whole mountain village is like a coal mountain that has been sleeping for hundreds of years.

The three of them stood at the door of the General's Mansion, and I looked at the black cow with expectant eyes, and the black cow sneered and said, "Old Su, don't tell me that you don't remember the way, so where are we going?" ”

While speaking, Gu Yixin had already taken steps towards an alley and said, "Come with me, I may remember." ”

I was overjoyed, I have seen Gu Yixin's memory, and she memorized all the materials in the archaeological research institute for three years in three days, not to mention a few roads, it should not be a problem.

We went down one alley after another, turning a wide street and into a small alley. Walking two buildings forward, Gu Yixin pointed at the window on the second floor with the pillar of light of the wolf's eye flashlight, and the lattice of that window was supported by wooden sticks, and it turned into a shooting port.

Hei Niu said happily: "By the way, this is the building we visited, and it should not be far from the entrance of the village." Xiao Gu is still okay. ”

"Don't be too happy!" I took a flashlight and shone it on the door, and said, "It seems that something is wrong, look at this iron door, when we entered the building, the black bull was kicked open, but now it is intact!" ”

Gu Yixin looked at me puzzled and asked, "I calculated according to the number of steps and direction, this should be the stone building we went into, but how could this be?" Could it be ......" she thought for a moment and continued, "Could it be the prank of that child's ghost?" ”

"If you want to restore the real thing, I don't think any heterogeneity can do it. Well, there is only one explanation left. With that, I raised my flashlight and scanned the other stone buildings.

The black bull opened his mouth in surprise and said, "Damn, how can this be!" ”

I saw several other stone buildings in the same row, and the window lattices on the second floor were all supported by wooden sticks, and the original windows had all become black holes. Under the cover of night, it was as if soldiers were crouching behind the entrance of the cave with bows and arrows, ready to shoot down at any time. And our heads are under the enemy's arrows.

This kind of darkness and unknown gives people a heavier and more intense psychological pressure than the ghost.

In order to test my suspicion, we ran out of the alley, and regardless of whether it cost electricity or not, we turned on the three wolf-eye flashlights and shone them around.

The pillars of light swayed back and forth on the stone wall, and we found that the windows of the stone building facing the street were also open.

Mao Yue hid behind the dark clouds and disappeared completely, the yin wind was blowing from all around, and we had to admit: I don't know when, in the entire morgue, the windows of the stone building were all opened.

I looked down at my luminous watch, and it was already two o'clock in the middle of the night.

Since we can't stay here longer, we have to estimate and move forward, and this time, even Gu Yixin is completely lost.

I remember when I came in, from crossing the stone bridge to entering the general's courtyard, but it only took more than half an hour, and now I have walked for almost fifty minutes, and I haven't walked out yet.

The more I walked, the more uncertain I became.

Turning a small alley, the black bull stopped in front of us and shouted at us, "Hey, it's time for us to be familiar again." ”

I thought he had seen the stone archway at the entrance of the village, but I rushed over to take a look, and was disappointed: a half-hidden gate, behind which was a stone path leading to the hall......

Unexpectedly, we went around for a long time, and we returned to the courtyard where the general's coffin was kept.

"It seems that the direction was wrong last time, let's try in the opposite direction this time." The black bull said, using a pickaxe to mark the ground with a line.

I was a little frustrated and told him, "It shouldn't just be a matter of direction, the size of the cottage is limited, we can walk in any direction, and we should be able to get out in an hour." Even if you can't get to the entrance of the village when you came in, you can at least walk out of this cottage from other directions. This time, we're going to try to keep a straight line and move in one direction, maybe we can get out. ”

We worked hard and went in one direction. In order to kill the boredom, he told Gu Yixin about the strange things he encountered when he went to Xiangxi with his second uncle to collect antiques in the past. I've heard about the old sesame seeds and rotten grains hundreds of times.

The first time Gu Yixin heard it, when the black bull spoke, he even blew and made up, and added a lot of details to describe it in a colorful way, and in addition, we were in the morgue again, surrounded by stone buildings with coffins, Gu Yixin was frightened, and begged me again and again to stop the black bull.

The black bull felt bored, so he walked and hummed a fire in winter.

The black bull sang and sang, suddenly stopped, and said, "Damn, it's turned back again." ”

As soon as I saw it, the worst thing had happened, and we were back in the courtyard where the general's coffin was parked.

"Familiar place, familiar taste, what's the matter, shall we go in this time?" Black Bull asked me.

I don't think there's any other choice now, and it's just a waste of energy to continue wandering around.

The three of them pushed open the door again and walked into the courtyard, resting while sorting out their thoughts, what is the reason why we can't get out of the village?

As it turns out, we're already trapped.

The black bull sat down on the backpack, was stunned by the equipment inside, quickly moved his buttocks, sat down on the protruding old tree roots again, and said, "I think we may encounter a 'ghost hitting the wall'." When I was young, I once went to my grandmother's house, and I was greedy for fun on the road, and it was dark before I got to her house. After dark, I climbed up and down in a dry ditch, crawling dozens of back and forth, and I couldn't get out. Moment of truth. I remembered that the comic book said that the boy's urine could ward off evil spirits, so I quickly held it out and soaked it, but it didn't work. Later, fortunately, I was clever enough to set fire to the weeds on the edge of the ditch, and as soon as the road ahead was bright, I came out. I heard the old man say that it is 'ghosts hitting the wall', why don't we make a torch and try it again? ”

I rejected this suggestion of the black bull, if there is really a "ghost hitting the wall", our wolf's eye flashlight has a range of nearly 100 meters, the light penetration is extremely strong, and the simple method of blinding the eyes is not its opponent at all.

Gu Yixin pondered for a while and said: "By the way, Master, the predecessor of this morgue was a military fortress, his original purpose was to fight, in addition to blocking the enemy, it should also have a function, that is, to trap the enemy. ”

Speaking of this, I and the black bull suddenly realized, and invariably thought of the Bagua Array, the scientific name of the Bagua Array is the Nine Palaces Bagua Array, I remember that the Book of Changes wrote: One life is two, two is three, and three is everything. There is also the so-called Tai Chi gives birth to two instruments, two instruments give birth to four phases, four phases give birth to gossip, gossip and change sixty-four lines, from then on and over again, the changes are endless.

The Bagua Array is a very awesome formation, and it is said that it is a battle formation arranged by Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period in accordance with the principle of the Nine Palaces' Bagua Orientation and the Five Elements Shengke. Back then, Zhuge Liang used this formation to easily trap the enemy's thousands of troops.

If the arrangement of the stone buildings in this morgue is really a gossip array, then no matter how the three of us go, we will not be able to get out.

Hei Niu asked me expectantly: "Lao Su, haven't you studied the Book of Changes?" Surely you can break this formation, right? ”

I smiled wryly and shook my head: "You are too exalted to me, although I know a little bit of the Book of Changes, but it is also a fortune telling, and the divination is okay." If we really want to deal with such a professional formation, we really have more than enough heart and strength, and I think we can only think of other ways. ”

The black bull complained that I was not good at school, and seeing that I could not count on it, he stood up and prepared to climb the tree in order to condescendingly find a way out in the tree.

Although the ancient locust tree in the yard has a thick trunk and a canopy like an umbrella, its height is about the same as that of those trees that are only more than ten years old.

I advised the black cow: "Can you not be so anxious, this tree is about the same height as those two-story stone buildings, if you climb up, you can see the roofs of those stone tube buildings at most, don't even think about it from a distance." Also, this formation, where you stand on a high place and look at it, and walk in it, are completely two different concepts. ”

The black bull took advantage of the situation and kicked the old locust tree in both feet, muttering, "What the fuck should I do?" Why don't you wait until dawn? However, it is estimated that we will not be able to recruit when it is dawn. ”

"Don't worry, let me think." After I finished speaking, all three of them were silent.

Tonight, we experienced a lot of unbelievable things one after another, and my mind became blank after this leisure, and I couldn't concentrate on thinking about it at all.

After a short while, I faintly heard the sound of running water under the tree, although the sound was small, but in this extremely quiet village, it still seemed very clear.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed through my blank mind, and perhaps, there was a relatively simple path leading to the outside of the cottage, and this path should not be too dangerous.

"Yes, let me think about how to tell you." I quickly sorted out my thoughts and told Hei Niu and Gu Yixin: "Has it just rained in this mountain?" However, apart from the slippery roads, there was no water accumulation on the roads of the entire village. Why is that? I think that since this village was once used as a military defense area, it must have been very particular about its underground drainage facilities. Otherwise, if such a military zone is built in a mountain col, a heavy rain falls, and if the drainage system is not perfect, it will definitely flood its own base camp first. ”

Hei Niu listened very carefully and said, "It seems to make a lot of sense, but what does this have to do with us going out?" ”

I continued to analyze: "The courtyard we are standing in now was originally the General's Mansion, and it is also the center of the entire stone cottage, and the drainage system here must be more exquisite, let's look around carefully." I guess there must be a drain in this yard, and this drain is probably the largest in the whole cottage. Generally, underground drainage channels are not too complicated. Otherwise, it is not conducive to drainage! ”

Hearing this, Hei Niu completely understood, patted his head, and praised me with a thumbs up: "Hey, I said Lao Su, you are a little phs at a critical moment!" ”

When I was halfway through my thoughts, I guess Gu Yixin had already understood everything, but she still listened to me very carefully and showed a look of admiration to me, which made me feel a little fluttery.

The three of them lit three wolf-eye flashlights, squatted on the ground and knocked on the ground to find the drain.

The girl was careful, Gu Yixin walked a few steps on the ground, and found that there was a big bluestone slab next to the stele that could be moved, and after careful observation, she found that there were still a few fallen leaves of the old locust tree flowing with the trickle of water on the ground, and they drilled under the big stone slab in circles.

Black Bull and I worked together to move the bluestone slab away, and a square black hole appeared under the slate. The black hole is the size of a table of eight immortals, and is surrounded by mountain stones, leaving four depressions at the four corners, and it is from these four depressions that the water on the ground flows into the ground.

Without a doubt, this is the drain we are looking for.

The black bull shone below, the vertical distance of the drain is not very high, and the beam of light can shine on the flowing water below. Due to the rain washed away for many years, the wall of the well is slippery all around, and the mountain stone is very neatly built, and there is no suitable place for us to stay.

The black bull wondered, "How can this go on?" There is also an iron ladder at the mouth of the sewer in our city, and it is convenient for the workers and masters to dredge it back and forth, and the ancients who built this sewer are really fucking short-sighted, haven't they thought about what if the bottom is blocked by silt and dead branches and leaves? ”

Gu Yixin thought for a while, untied a bundle of mountaineering ropes around his waist, bypassed the ancient locust tree and hung the two ends of the mountaineering rope to the drainage outlet, and the bottom end of the mountaineering rope did not enter the water much.

Hei Niu and I looked at it, and secretly admired Gu Yixin's cleverness, and then hung down the mountaineering rope, and the three of them buckled the mountaineering buckle and slid down with the equipment on their backs.

The wall of the well is covered with moss, the foot is slippery when stepped on, and the point of strength cannot be found at all, the black cow has a wolf-eye flashlight in his mouth, just moved a few steps down, his hand is loose, and he fell down several meters before he stabilized, and he couldn't speak, so he had to kick the wall of the well twice with his foot angrily.

Fortunately, Gu Yixin's climbing skills are very good, and he has been professionally trained in climbing, which saves me and Hei Niu a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Every time Gu Yixin descended a section, he stopped and looked up at me, like a nursery aunt, reminding me vigorously, pay attention and be careful, which made me a little nervous, and thought to myself, it seems that a woman has a long-winded stinky problem.

In this way, the three people slid down about twenty meters, and the shaft was connected to a drainage channel that was one and a half meters high.

The drainage channel is in the shape of a round arch, and the two sides are made of mountain rocks, and the top is a mountain wood vault coated with tung oil. This is a practical way to expand the space of the drainage channel and prevent deformation of the drainage channel due to natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The water in the drain was just below our knees, and the water was flowing at a constant speed, so it seemed that there should not be too many twists and turns in the sewer.

The water flow is moving, and one end is open to the outside world, and we don't have to worry about the air quality problem in it.

The black bull put away the climbing rope and opened the way in front of him with water. The light of the wolf's eye flashlight shone on the water, and the water surface fluctuated, and the light was refracted onto the tung oil-coated arch beams, shining brightly. I suddenly thought of the poem "The lake is clear and sunny", which is the best way to describe the scene at this moment, if this is not the underground sewer of the mortuary, this scene can really be regarded as a good place for young couples to fall in love.

As we walked, we admired the rippling waves of the water and the vault.

The black bull suddenly stopped, pointed to a dented dark grid on the arch beam, and asked, "Eh, what do you think is that?" ”

Anyway, before we could answer, he jumped up from the water and grabbed the red clay statue from the beam. He took it in his hand and looked at it repeatedly, and said: "Since this thing is here, it must also be a thing of the Ming Dynasty, classmate Xiao Gu, you can help me estimate the price, how much is this thing worth?" ”

The scarlet clay sculpture was only the size of a palm, and its face was hateful, like a god.

Gu Yixin looked at it and shook his head, and said: "I have never seen this kind of thing, and I don't know its value, I think, since it is in the underground sewer of the cottage, could it be specially used to control water in ancient times to prevent floods?" ”

I took the clay figurine from Gu Yixin's hand, the clay figurine is heavy, it should be solid, its body is covered with red paint, long eyebrows and fangs, very hideous, giving people a very evil feeling.

I told Hei Niu and Gu Yixin: "I don't think this thing is used to suppress water and drive away disasters, on the contrary, this should be a disgusting thing, and the vermilion disgusting thing is generally a death curse." ”

The black bull spit two mouthfuls of saliva on the hand of the clay man who had just taken the god, wiped it on his clothes twice, and said, "Damn, this is too unlucky!" The art of disgust? It sounds mysterious, and the harem ladies in those court dramas seem to like to use this method. ”

I explained: The art of disgust is a form of sorcery used by ancient alchemists, who have been heard to subdue people by means of curses, and that the objects that carry the spell are often small things like copper coins, puppets, clay figurines, or rag dolls. Of course, there are also ordinary objects such as masonry and stone.

The art of disgust is quite weird, there is a story of "brick wearing filial piety" in Yang Mu's "Xishu Miscellaneous" in the Ming Dynasty: because of the carpentry work of building the house, the Gaoqiao Han family has been mourning for more than 40 years, and later, after the wind and rain ruined the beam, only to find a brick wrapped in a filial piety scarf in the wall. This brick wrapped in filial piety cloth is a thing of disgust.

The black bull used a wolf-eyed flashlight to shine on the arch beam in front of him, wanting to see if there were any other clay figures, and he said as he took a photo: "Is it really so accurate?" After that, whoever doesn't like it will be put on a table. However, the mud statue is placed in the sewer, who is this going to cast a spell on? ”

I told the Black Bull that the art of disgust is not something that anyone can use if they want to, and once it is recognized, the person who uses it will suffer very bad consequences. It is said that when something disgusting is discovered, it can only be destroyed by throwing it into a fire or frying it in boiling oil.

The position we are in now, which should correspond to the vicinity of the General's Mansion on the ground, is the center of the entire cottage, where the clay sculpture of the red evil god is placed, and the object of the curse may be the occupants of the entire cottage.

But who would have such a deep hatred for the people of the entire military village?

Gu Yixin said: The Ming Dynasty was not friendly to the residents of some barbarian lands in the south, especially at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court often sent troops to strangle, and the war caused many barbarian wives to be separated and their families destroyed. Since ancient times, there are many strangers in the south who can drive witchcraft, and the art of disgust is a relatively low-level one of many witchcraft, and it is estimated that the carpenter who built the arch beam of the drainage channel is Yiren, and secretly cursed the death of the entire village. However, this is only speculation after all, and there is no way to verify it.

When the black bull saw that we said that the evil mud was like an unlucky object, he threw it into the water and left it alone. They are in the antique business, although they are open-minded about money, but they are still relatively superstitious.

The three of them continued to walk, and there was a bucket-thick drain not far from each other on both sides of the drainage channel, and water was constantly flowing into the drainage hole. We walked thousands of meters, the water got deeper and deeper, and the silt at the bottom of the sewer gradually thickened.

I was secretly speculating on the length of the drain when suddenly a foul smell hit me, like rotten eggs and rotting corpses, and it was hard to describe it.

I covered my nose and scolded the black cow: "You don't say hello in advance when you fart, it's really stinky and dead, what are you eating, it smells like this!" ”

The black bull turned his head and defended innocently: "Damn, I really didn't let it go, Lao Tzu broke his farts and made a sound!" This stinks, doesn't look like a fart smell! ”

The beam of the wolf's eye flashlight skimmed over the stone wall, and we found several clear scratches on the stone wall, judging by its depth and density, it should not be left by the water when the branches were sliding.

The black bull took a closer look, touched it with his hand, and found a layer of fishy mucus on the stone wall, and said, "I'm afraid there is a situation in this sewer!" ”

The black bull took out the mountaineering pickaxe and held it in his hand, and used a flashlight to shine the water around and slowly walked forward.

I asked Gu Yixin to walk between me and the black bull, and then I also took out a mountaineering pickaxe and turned on the flashlight, and slowly walked backwards while looking at the back vigilantly.

The terrain of the drainage channel is getting lower and lower, and the water is gradually deepening, and soon it will not reach the waist, and the mountains and rivers will be cold, and if you have to soak here for another two or three hours, people will probably have to waste it.

After walking a short distance, there were three forks in the front of the drainage channel, and the black bull asked me which one to take.

I looked and saw that the three drains were the same width, and the water here was divided into three streams and flowed in three directions, with the one in the middle of the drain flowing more rapidly.

I shone the beam of a wolf's eye flashlight on the drainage channel in the middle and said, "It seems that the drainage system of this village has several outlets, let's take the middle one, this one should be closer to the exit." ”

Suddenly, I seemed to see a dark shadow flashing under the water, and when I looked closely, it was gone. I thought to myself, I guess I had been in this sewer for a long time, and my eyes were dazzled by the waves.

The black bull took the order and continued to take the lead, walking more than 500 meters, an iron fence appeared in the drainage channel, and each gap in the fence was only as thick as a calf, and people could not get out of it anyway.

Each pillar on the fence was as thick as a small rolling pin, and the black bull pried it vigorously with a pickaxe, but it didn't move at all.

Why put a fence in the sewer not far from the drain, and what is the use of this fence?

It would be understandable to put a fence at the entrance to the sewer to filter out dead branches and leaves and prevent the sewer from clogging, but at the end of the sewer, the fence is a bit redundant.

I had a bad feeling that maybe there was such an iron fence at the end of every drain, and if that were the case, we would be completely blocked in this sewer. The only way out is to return to the ground the way we came, but the Bagua Array on the ground can also trap us to death.

Although I thought so in my heart, we turned around and retreated when we encountered difficulties, which is not the usual style of our army, and we have to go to the other two drainage channels to see.

The three of them turned around and walked back, and after walking forty or fifty meters, the black bull suddenly stopped and made a silent gesture to us. Flip the flashlight and shine on the water behind you, the water surface sparkles and the lights flicker.

I knew that the black bull was very aware of danger, so I held my breath and stared at the surface of the water alertly.

A few seconds later, we heard a sudden sound of water not far ahead, a splash on the surface of the water illuminated by a flashlight.

A dark shadow floated up and down against the water, swimming swiftly towards us.

The speed of the black shadow was extremely fast, and in the blink of an eye, it rushed to a distance of about ten meters from us. The black shadow suddenly burst out of the water, stood straight in the middle of the waterway, stared at us with a pair of red eyes, and in an instant, the smell of fishy came to my face, and I was nauseous and retched a few times.

Now we could see clearly, the thing was about as tall as mine, with a disheveled head, short reddish-brown hair, and two arms that were so thin and long that half of them hung down beneath the surface of the water. The monster's face was extremely strange, and although it had facial features, its mouth was like a bird's beak.

Hei Niu clenched the mountaineering pickaxe in his hand and asked me in a low voice, "Old Su, what is this?" ”

I stared at the monster tightly, and whispered: "This is like a legendary water lion ghost, I didn't expect this thing to really exist, no wonder there are not many dead branches and rotten leaves in the sewers for hundreds of years, and I have raised a natural scavenger, and the iron fence just now must be to prevent it from escaping." It is said in ancient books that this thing eats rotting corpses and mud and rotten leaves, and sometimes drinks human blood, so let's go back quickly......"

Before we could finish speaking, the thing grinned and lunged at us, two rows of fangs glowing coldly in the light.

The black bull picked up the mountaineering pickaxe to block it head-on, but the thing was extremely agile, and it turned around in the air to change the direction of the attack, and actually rushed towards Gu Yixin.

Gu Yixin hurriedly dodged to the side, but his feet were not steady, and he fell back into the water with a pop.

I quickly held my breath and crouched down to pull her, while the water lion ghost skipped past my back and stood firmly in the water across from me, baring its teeth for a new attack.

Gu Yixin drank a few sips of water and coughed again and again.

The black bull rushed towards the water lion ghost with a pickaxe, he was preparing to strike first. However, the water lion ghost reacted quickly, and just as the pickaxe was about to hit its head, it grabbed the handle and pulled it hard, dragging the black bull up. Then, the water lion ghost bared his teeth and shook it hard, slamming the black bull on the stone wall of the drainage channel.

Fortunately, the black bull was carrying a large backpack containing equipment, although the fall was extremely strong, but the black bull and the stone wall were separated by a backpack and cushioned, which was not enough to be fatal.

The black bull snorted, struggled to get up from the water, and spat out a mouthful of blood, and the pickaxe hadn't even taken off yet.

When did the black bull suffer such a loss, he was immediately enraged, and he was murderous, gritting his teeth and scolding at the water lion ghost to cut it down.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the water lion ghost did not force himself to come, but roared angrily and turned his head to attack me,

I was stunned for a moment, cursed in my heart, and quickly turned around to dodge, but it was still half a step too late, and the beast grabbed my backpack at once, and actually lifted me up in the air, and bit my neck with its teeth.

The foul smell from its mouth seemed to come from hell, and it was calling me to death at this moment.

I shouted in fear, and found that the black bull was still some distance away from us, and I would definitely hang up when he rushed over.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the black bull did not wait to get closer, so he rounded his arm and threw the pickaxe at the back of the water lion ghost, which directly decided my life and death, and he used his strength to eat. The sharp head of the pickaxe pierced through the thick fur of the water lion ghost, half embedded in its back.

The water lion ghost was in pain, and turned his head to look at it with a wail, just as the beast hesitated, a flash of inspiration flashed in my mind, and I pushed my two arms back hard, and the golden cicada broke off its shell, successfully got rid of the shackles of the backpack, and lay face down into the water.

After a scuffle just now, the water in the drain has long been turbid, I took advantage of the muddy water, holding my breath, the cat desperately jumped forward a few steps under the water before poking its upper body out of the water. Although the distance was not long, I still choked on the mud and sand and coughed.

The monster didn't know how many years it had been locked up in this sewer, and it usually ate some dead branches and leaves, mud, sand and stones, but this time it finally met the three of us big living people, and it seemed that he was determined to catch us and open the meat.

Seeing that the prey with its mouth had fled, the water lion ghost roared angrily and threw his backpack into the water, and the water surface was instantly stirred up with a large splash.

The black bull had lost his weapon in his hand, and he did not dare to approach the beast without permission, so he had to slap the water vigorously, shouting and cursing to attract its attention.

The water lion ghost pounced on the black bull again.

I saw that the situation was not good, and I thought to myself that if I tossed around like this for a few more rounds, I am afraid that the three of us will all have to fold here. So while asking Gu Yixin to quickly run back, he stepped forward to support the black bull with a mountaineering pickaxe.

Gu Yixin was a little overwhelmed by the fright, and I called her twice before she reacted.

Like a monkey, the water lion ghost flexibly climbed the stone wall, and with a bounce, landed in the water opposite the black bull.

The black bull hurriedly picked up his backpack and circled with it, and at this moment, the beast was being attracted by the black bull to attract all the attention. Seeing that I had the opportunity to strike, I quietly approached behind it, and slashed at the shoulder of the water lion ghost with a pickaxe, although I felt that I had used a lot of strength, but I didn't expect that the water lion ghost's fur was extremely thick, and only a shallow bloody wound was cut.

Seeing this, Hei Niu scolded angrily: "Lao Su, are you chopping and playing?" Throw the pickaxe to Lao Tzu! After Lao Tzu is broken, you run quickly! ”

I was about to open my mouth to declare my determination to fight him to the end, but before I could say anything, the water lion ghost turned to me with his arms bared and fangs bared.

One of its claws landed on the stone wall, leaving a deep mark, and the other grabbed the clothes on my shoulders impartially, and some of them dug into my flesh, piercing the pain in my heart.

Seeing this, the black bull slammed into the water lion ghost with a Tarzan top, and at the same time stretched out his hand to take the opportunity to pull out the pickaxe on the back of the water lion ghost, but the beast's skin was thick and tight, and the pickaxe was as if it was embedded in the rock, and it was difficult to pull it out for a while.

However, after the black bull's collision, the three of us rolled into the water together, and we were separated in an instant, and the black bull took the opportunity to pull me forward and escape.

I just ran ten or so steps, and when I saw Gu Yixin stop in front of me and didn't move, the black bull stopped suddenly, I spit out a mouthful of muddy water, and asked puzzledly, "Why don't you run?" ”

"Damn, it's not a one-way street!" The Black Bull threw his backpack to the ground, snatched the pickaxe from my hand, and put on a posture ready to fight.

I followed Gu Yixin's trembling flashlight pillar and looked, and in the waterway in front of me stood a taller and stronger water lion ghost, its eyes were red, and its fangs were ready to attack us.

Without a weapon in my hand, I began to feel weak unconsciously, so I quickly pulled out the paratrooper knife at my waist, but this paratrooper knife was too short, and it didn't necessarily work for close defense.

At this time, a violent sound of water sounded behind us, and the water lion ghost who was fighting just now also chased after us, roared, and formed a situation of outflanking us together with the huge one in front of us.

The air smelled fishy, and the three of us stood back to back, waiting for what was about to happen.

It's been enough for us to deal with a water lion ghost, and now there's a bigger one, and I thought to myself, maybe it's only a matter of time before we're eaten, and the god of death has begun the countdown.

Suddenly, with a pop, a pickaxe shot out of the water lion ghost's body and fell into the muddy water not far from us!

At the same time, the water lion ghost who was fighting with us just now suddenly planted straight into the water, and the big water lion ghost in front of him saw this, wailed, turned around and dived into the water and escaped.

We stood there for more than ten seconds.

"Damn, what happened just now?" Black Bull muttered to himself with wide eyes in surprise.

The water lion ghost floating on the water was motionless, and eighty percent of them were dead.

We slowly approached with water, and the black bull returned my pickaxe to me, took the wolf-eye flashlight in Gu Yixin's hand and shone it on the water, bent down and touched the mountaineering pickaxe that sank under the water, and there was still sticky black blood on the pickaxe, which was the one he used to cut the water lion ghost just now.

We walked up to the floating corpse of the water lion ghost, and the black bull flicked it with a pickaxe, only to see a palm-sized black hole appear on the back of the beast's corpse, and there was a mountain rock in the black hole. It seems that it was the strength of the impact of this mountain rock just now, forcing the pickaxe to fall out through the body of the water lion ghost, this kind of strength is difficult for ordinary people to achieve.

Hei Niu asked me suspiciously: "Old Su, have we encountered a ghost again?" ”

I looked at him from afar and told him that the ghost alien is actually just a biomagnetic field left over after a person dies, and this kind of biomagnetic field can interfere with the vision and feeling of a living person to a certain extent, and can also emit some small abnormal movements, but it is absolutely impossible to emit such a large concrete and real force.

The black bull was skeptical of my explanation, folded his hands, and bowed a few times to the surroundings.

Suddenly, I noticed a black figure in the waterway near the iron fence.

I hurriedly beckoned Hei Niu and Gu Yixin to chase after him, and the black figure stopped, ran into the depths of the darkness at a very fast speed, and disappeared.

We chased to the place where the black figure was standing just now, and shone it with a flashlight, and found that on the stone wall of the drainage channel, there was a palm-sized mutilation, and there were several shallow finger prints around the gap, and it seemed that a small mountain rock had been pulled out of this place.

However, this stone wall has a history of hundreds of years, and the gaps between the rocks are filled with clay mixed with glutinous rice, and over the years, the entire stone wall has almost merged into one.

The black bull was surprised again and again, and said: "That black shadow has just run in the direction of the iron fence, it is estimated that he doesn't know that there is a fence in that place, let's go over now, just block him, and see if it is a person or a ghost, whether it is a friend or foe." ”

I hesitated, that is, I wanted to find out, but I was afraid that if I really met the other party and accidentally got into a fight, we would be killed in a few minutes.

Suddenly, the water splashed in the drainway, and the huge water lion ghost rushed towards us again.

We had no choice but to flee in the direction of the iron fence.

We ran desperately to the iron fence and had to prepare for a desperate fight again. Suddenly, Gu Yixin found that the two iron pillars on the fence had been bent in two directions, and this width was enough for a person to pass sideways.

Gu Yixin and I came out, the black bull was a little fat, and as soon as he squeezed out his upper body, the big water lion ghost had already rushed to the fence.

The black bull kicked again and again, desperately trying to escape for his life.

The big water lion ghost grabbed the black bull's ankle and pulled him back.

In a hurry, I threw the thing in my hand into the beast's face, and when I got out of my hand, I realized that it was broken, it was a wolf's eye flashlight!

Our side was suddenly plunged into darkness, and the water lion ghost was shaken by the strong light, and the claws that were holding the black bull's ankle were unexpectedly loosened, and I took the opportunity to pull the black bull out.

When the beast saw that the black bull had escaped, he was immediately furious, and tried to get out of the gap in the enlarged fence.

However, its body was so fat that it poked out only one head and roared and grinned at us.

The beast seemed to be unwilling, and with two claws like human hands, he grabbed the two crooked iron pillars and broke them hard. However, the iron pillar did not change in the slightest.

We lifted the threat for the time being, and felt a little relieved, but at the same time we secretly wondered in our hearts: what was that dark shadow just now? How could there be such a great force to bend such a thick iron pillar alive?

In a scuffle just now, the black bull's ankle was poked four small holes by the hook at the end of the water lion ghost's claws. Fortunately, the black bull's leg was fat, and the four holes were not very deep, and the bleeding stopped on its own after only a while.

Although the water lion ghost couldn't come out for a while, it was not suitable to stay here for a long time, so the three of us continued to move forward, and there was a sound of water falling in front of us.

After walking more than 200 meters, I really arrived at the drainage outlet, and the waves splashed everywhere, and the water was like a pump.

Below the drainage outlet is the moat river, there is a drop of more than five meters between the two, the water flow in the river is turbulent, I picked up the drainage outlet and looked up, here is also five or six meters high from the ground, although it is not high, but the rock wall is vertical and slippery, it is impossible for people to climb up from here.

At a loss, Gu Yixin found an arm-thick hemp rope from the other side of the drain, and the black bull pulled it hard, and found that it was very firm, and the upper end of the hemp rope should be tethered. Could it be that the dark shadow just left behind?

I used the wolf's eye flashlight, the black bull took the lead in climbing up, Gu Yixin also climbed up dexterously, I put the flashlight in my mouth, looked at the turbulent water under my feet, and said secretly: God bless, grab the hemp rope and climb up.

The hemp rope was too thick, and the rock wall was steep and slippery, but fortunately I grabbed the rocks protruding from the drainage outlet, so I didn't fall into the river.

The black bull hung a climbing rope again, and I tied one end to my waist and climbed up again. Hei Niu and Gu Yixin pulled and dragged on it, and finally dragged me to the ground together.

The stone bridge we had walked across as we entered the village was not far away, and the three of them quickened their pace to escape from the damn morgue.

In order to avoid encountering the vengeful boar, we did not return to the forest, but walked along the moat for some distance and climbed a small mountain.

At this time, the east is white, the road can be seen faintly in the mountains and forests, the birds are singing gradually, and occasionally the roar of the fighting between the beasts in the mountains and forests can be heard.

For us, these sounds from nature are so wonderful.

There is a small three-story tower at the top of the mountain, which is more like a temple than a tower.

The upper two floors of the building are decorated, and the lower floor of the hall houses a painted clay statue flanked by two serving boys and girls.

We looked outside the temple and did not rush in.

At this time, the sky has been bright, the morning sun has risen, the upper part of the mountain peak is illuminated by the sun, we look up, and find that there are three peaks of the same height around the mortuary, and a three-story pagoda is erected on the top of each peak, the three towers echo, and the yellow glazed tiles shine in the sunlight.

And the morgue in the col was still hazy, shrouded in pre-dawn darkness.

The three towers complement each other, forming a suppressive trend on the bewitching and weird stone building in the mountain col, and this contrast between light and dark is the use of the principle of yin and yang.

I thought of the sentence in the Tao Te Ching, "All things are negative yin and embrace yang", and I suddenly realized: these three pagodas must be the formation of which master in order to restrain the yin and evil qi in the mountain col.