Hearing what the senior brother said, although I didn't understand it very well, I still nodded, didn't speak, and followed the master towards the back mountain of the village, then Wei Dezhen said that she had something to do, so she didn't go with us.

What puzzled me was that my brother seemed to be very familiar with this village, and led me through a few paths before appearing in the back mountain.

The mountain is not high, that is, the appearance of a hillside, but the trees on the mountain are very dense, but because of the autumn, the yellow fallen leaves on the ground are stepping on it.

"Senior brother, what tree are we looking for?" As soon as I arrived at the back mountain, I asked my senior brother.

He glanced at me and said softly, "Pine." ”

I was stunned, and stayed by my brother's side for a while, I know this pine tree, the wood is moderately soft and hard, delicate, has a slight aroma, strong resistance to rot, and is generally used to build furniture, take pine trees to build coffins, but it rarely appears, first, the hardness of pine trees is not enough, and secondly, the tree is said to be evergreen for a hundred years, and it is not auspicious to use it to beat the coffin. After all, when the deceased sleeps in it, he has to follow the laws of nature to survive, and let the corpse decay slowly, if the corpse remains stiff but does not decay, it is not good for future generations.

At that moment, I told my brother this idea.

He glanced up at me, didn't speak, walked forward, I was in a hurry, hurriedly chased after me, and asked again.

But he didn't speak, but looked around as if he had noticed something, and moved faster to the left, and I immediately followed.

Senior brother stopped at the edge of a pine tree, smiled slightly, turned his head to glance at me, and slowly spoke: "Ordinary coffins naturally can't use pine trees as raw materials, which will affect the aura of the coffin itself, and it will also make the deceased uncomfortable to fall into the coffin, but the kind of coffin that Wei Dezhen asked for, this pine tree is the most suitable." ”

I was slightly stunned and hurriedly asked, "What kind of coffin is that kind of coffin?" ”

He smiled, shook his head silently, handed me the axe in his hand, and he gestured at the pine tree, muttering a few words in his mouth, the process was about a minute, and after he finished this, the senior brother looked at me, and slowly said, "Chuanzi, today the senior brother will teach you the first step, logging." ”

Hearing this, I immediately understood that he was going to teach me some craft, so I hummed.

The senior brother said: "Ordinary carpenters cut wood, they don't pay any attention to it, they all do it as they like, but we ghost craftsmen are different, we ghost craftsmen have to pay attention to the time, direction and avoid some evil spirits. ”

As soon as I heard that there was so much attention to logging, I asked him why, and he said: "The hour only needs to be avoided, the year of the child is in the afternoon, the ugly year is in the future, and the year of Yin is in the Shen, these three hours are the taboo of logging, once the logging is in these hours, it will rush to the Tai Sui, and it will be a great murder, and the wood that is cut down, no matter what it is used for, will be a murderous thing." ”

Speaking of this, the senior brother paused, and told me that the number of general logging, with 13579 and other yang numbers as auspicious, 2468 and other yin numbers as the evil, and then there is the direction of the stacking of felled wood, to avoid committing the Yellow Evil, the Emperor's Eight Evils, and the Nine Heavens Great Evil, once the logging commits this evil, it will make the wood soft, and the things created are not durable, and if the situation is serious, it will even attract the attention of ghosts and gods.

I hummed and kept what my senior brother said in mind, and found that my senior brother pointed to the pine tree and slowly spoke: "Chuanzi, you remember clearly, if you are looking for wood, you must remember not to look for trees that are more than a hundred years old, most of those trees have spirituality, and if they are cut down, it will be our ghost craftsmen who will be retributed in the end, so we must find wood that is less than a hundred years old." ”

As he spoke, he took the axe from my hand, raised the axe and slashed down at the pine tree, and when the axe went down, the whole pine tree shook violently a few times, and the senior brother said, "To observe the age of the tree, you don't need to check it with annual rings, you only need to look at the unevenness of the bark, and you can know the age of the tree." ”

After saying this, the senior brother stretched out his hand and touched the tree pole, and said lightly: "This pine tree is concave and convex, and its concave and convex degree is arc-shaped, indicating that the age of this pine tree is twenty-two years. ”

I didn't believe it, as a first-year high school student, I knew very well that the age of the tree depends on the annual rings, but the senior brother didn't pay attention to my doubtful eyes, a few axes down, the pine tree was cut to a crumbling ground, the senior brother was not in a hurry, took a deep breath, and continued: "Remember, the last time of logging, you must use all your strength, only in this way can you completely cut off the relationship between the tree and the ground, otherwise, it is easy to let the yin qi from the ground drill into the heart of the tree, which will cause the tree to be wet all year round, and the things that come out are easy to resurge." ”

I thought about it, and before I could speak, I heard a clang, and the pine tree fell to the ground, and I immediately ran over, squatted down and checked, and found that the growth rings of the pine tree were exactly twenty-two turns, which was exactly the same as the age of the tree that my brother said was twenty-two years.

This made me look at my brother with some changes, I always thought that my brother was just an ordinary coffin guy, and I also thought that the coffin was just a matter of putting together a few pieces of wood, but I didn't expect him to know so much.

However, what I didn't expect was that this was only the most basic thing, because the next sentence of the senior brother made me completely admired, he first handed me the axe in his hand, and said lightly: "According to the method I taught you, go to the southeast Jiazi position to cut wood, there is a pine tree over there." ”

I was slightly stunned, and asked with doubts, "Senior brother, how do you know that there is a pine tree in that direction?" ”

He glanced at me, sat down on the tree pole, and said with a smile: "In this world, both people and plants have their own characteristics, from every mountain to every shrub and grass, they are all born according to the environment, and we only need to be prepared to name some plants near them according to their growth characteristics and distance." ”

As he spoke, he paused and continued: "Look at this pine tree, the branches and leaves of the pine tree are luxuriant, but there is no smell of shrubs and grass on the side of the pine tree, which means that there is a group of stones nearby, according to the growth characteristics of the pine tree, there must be a pine tree near the Dafan stone group, and finally, if you look at the angle of the pine tree and the direction of the leaves, it is not difficult to judge that there is a pine tree in the southeast Jiazi position. ”

After that, he stood up, raised his hand and patted me on the shoulder, and said lightly: "Chuanzi, if you want to be a good ghost craftsman, first of all, you have to integrate into nature, feel every move of nature, and attribute all the phenomena presented by nature to your own use. ”

Hearing this, I'm a little confused, the ghost craftsman still has this ability? Can you still feel nature?

Seeing that I was stunned, the senior brother frowned and said, "What are you doing in a daze, go quickly!" ”

I came back to my senses, nodded hurriedly, and didn't dare to hesitate any longer, and immediately ran towards the southeast Jiazi position, the fact is just as the senior brother guessed, there is a pine tree in this position, which is a bigger number than the previous pine tree, I learned from the senior brother's appearance, first towards the pine tree, and then raised the axe to split, according to the concave and convex degree that the senior brother taught before, roughly checked the age of the tree, about 30 years, but the specific age of the tree is not sure.

After estimating the age of the tree, I did not hesitate, tired of my sleeves, raised my axe and slashed down on the pine tree.

At the moment when I just cut down the pine tree, a voice suddenly came from behind me, which startled me, and when I looked back, it was my brother, he looked at me with a smile on his face, and he didn't speak, and I don't know why, I suddenly felt that my brother's smile was a little weird.