My name is Bai Yueqing and I am an orphan. For generations, the family has been studying Qimen Dunjia and gossip charms.

After I was born, my family found that I had too many spiritual roots in my mind, and if I didn't intervene, I would definitely follow the path of my ancestors in the future.

And my grandmother didn't want this craft to continue because of the five disadvantages and three missing lives, so she sealed the door for me with cow blood, so that the family's inherited talent for gossip was completely sealed, hoping that I would grow up like an ordinary child, get married, and have children.

But I don't know if it was because I was too resentful when I died in my previous life, or because I didn't drink it all when I drank Meng Po soup, or because there was a problem with the ox blood sealed when I was born.

After I was about five years old, I noticed that there were many fragments of memories in my mind that did not belong to me.

I vaguely understand my situation in my heart, but it is always difficult to clearly put together the pieces in my mind.

This state is like an amnesiac patient, who has the cognition of an adult, but his memory is blank, and his mind is always repeating certain scenes and certain images.

Because of this, I often dream of many familiar scenes, people and things at night, but I can't remember it clearly when I wake up.

In a few years of dreams, it was as if I had experienced someone's life, so that at a young age, I had a maturity and insight that was different from ordinary people.

There is a scene where I am standing on a stilted building with carved beams and paintings, which is not much different from the ancient house in the TV. A man in a light-colored shirt with a hard view passed downstairs.

The same picture, dreaming many times over and over again, every time I wake up, there is an inexplicable nameless fire in my chest. According to my grandmother, I am called getting up?

I haven't seen my parents since I was born. It was my grandfather, grandmother, and grandmother (grandmother's mother) who took care of me all the year round.

My grandparents have always been in good health and quite tough. My ancestor is also in good health, but the hunchback is very serious, and I often rub the lump on her back to relieve the pain.

Regardless of spring, summer, autumn or winter, the ancestor is always wrapped in a light brown turban. Hiding her silver hair under a thick turban, it was only when I helped her rub her back in the shower that I really felt that the sun was setting over this rickety old man.

At that time, there were often strangers at home, who didn't know each other, stayed for a few days and left, and some came with fruits and sugar in their hands. So when I was a child, my family never lacked food, and I was happy to satisfy my hunger.

As for what those strangers were doing and doing, my grandmother didn't allow me to ask, and sometimes she would break me away and do something unseemly together.

I remember more clearly that when I was ten years old, at noon in August, a woman suddenly came to the house, the height was about the same as my grandmother, wearing a dark coat and trousers on a hot day, the collar of the dress stood very high, the neck was covered tightly, and the head was wrapped in a blue hairband.

When the woman came, she knelt at the door with a thud and did not speak. At that time, the second brother Yu next door happened to have lunch together at my house.

Seeing this, my grandmother asked my grandfather to go to the cabinet in the inner room, grab a handful of fruit candy for me and the second brother next door, and let us go to the pond at the door to pick lotus flowers.

It is said to be a pond, but in fact, it is a paddy field dug out by my grandfather with a hoe and a hoe, and the water is very shallow, so I am not afraid of children to play.

The second brother Yu is very happy, he wants to pick the lotus pod in the pond in front of our house for a long time, because his grandmother raised a big cat is very human, as soon as he sees him alone near the pond, he will meow.

I followed behind Second Brother Yu's ass absentmindedly, thinking about the woman who had just entered the house, and I was upset for a while. Seeing that I didn't squeak, Second Brother Yu turned his head and asked me, "Girl, what do you want, you look unhappy?" As he spoke, he stood on tiptoe, stretched out his hand, and stretched out his body to pluck the lotus pods by the pond.

I asked Second Brother Yu, "Did you see the man's hand just now?" Second Brother Yu picked the lotus pod, broke it hard, and was thinking about how to get the lotus seeds, and asked me absentmindedly: "What's wrong?" I just got sick of bacon! But on such a hot day, she didn't seem to be afraid of the heat, and she wore so much. ”

I didn't answer Second Brother Yu's words, thinking that there was a black birthmark on the woman's wrist just now, black and swarthy as if it had been burned by fire? It's scary to think about, and I can't help but feel a chill in my back when I stand in the August sun.

After a period of play, Yu's second brother and his mother also stood under the big cypress tree at the entrance of the village and shouted that he was going home for dinner.

The second brother Yu, holding a lotus canopy, happily disappeared behind the house, and I felt a little restless all afternoon, after the woman came, my grandmother closed the door, and then there was no movement. This made me feel a little panicked, as if this woman was not the same as the people who had come before. I can't say exactly what is different.

Knock on the door, no one answers. I stood on a low bench outside the window, lying by the window to see what was going on inside, but there was no one in the hall, it was quiet. When he was looking around, he suddenly had his feet hanging in the air, and he was picked up from behind, and when he looked back, he saw that it was his grandfather.

I was surprised and asked, "Grandpa, aren't you in the house?" ”

Grandpa replied with a tired face: "At noon, your grandmother and I and the ancestor left through the back door with the man, and your grandmother and the ancestor will not come back tonight." Girl, are you hungry, grandpa will get you food. ”

I was so hungry that my belly burned like a fire, and I replied, "Hungry." ”

Grandpa took out the key to open the door, and said: "Girl, I haven't been to the cemetery to play recently, but don't go, this time is not very peaceful, your baby is young, the flame is low, and it is not good to collide with unclean things." Grandpa turned around and grimaced as he spoke, and yelled.

I was so frightened that I sat on the ground and cried, and said angrily with a crying voice: "Grandpa is not as scary as unclean things, and I will sue my grandmother when she comes home!" ”

My grandfather smiled, squatted down and picked me up and prepared to enter the house, when the sky was already a little dark, and the clouds in the distance were slowly turning into cold colors with gold edges. The room was also a little dim and I couldn't see clearly, so my grandfather casually turned on the light, put me on the bench, and began to figure out how to cook.

I had just been frightened by my grandfather, and I had forgotten about the woman who had come today, and I didn't ask any questions, but just sat behind the stove and clumsily added firewood to the hole.

When my grandfather was cooking, he kept muttering in his mouth, which were the words that the ancestor often recited when he burned eggs: "Knock on the Taishang Laojun and redeem the soul of the five directions for Yu Qingqiu......." ”

I said, "Grandpa, what are you talking about, is the meal ready?" I'm starving! ”

Grandpa said that he was cooking two scoops of cold water in the pot, and he took out half a handful of noodles in the cabinet and poured them into the pot, covered the pot and said to me: Don't you still believe your grandfather? Let's eat mixed noodles tonight! As he spoke, he took out half a bowl of meat foam cowpeas that he hadn't eaten at noon today. Every gesture exudes a sense of confidence.

However, I had a bad premonition......

That night, I ate the first and only time in my life, mixed sauce batter. Because my grandfather was reluctant to waste, he ate three bowls with his neck strained.

At that time, I thought that my grandmother and my ancestor would just go for a day or two, but who knew that it would take half a month to come back. The two of them seemed to be a few years older, especially the ancestor's wrinkled face like a walnut, which was even more wrinkled, and several times I saw the two old men secretly wiping their tears, no matter how they asked, it was one sentence: sand in the eyes. I said, "Why is there so much sand in this house?" Something to hide from me.

In the past half a month, because my grandfather can't cook, I have eaten at the second brother's house, and the second brother's mother was married from the next village. Second Brother Yu's father and my grandfather and grandmother have the same surname, and the two families have an incomprehensible blood relationship.

In the past half a month, Second Brother Yu's mother has been knocking on the side and asking me where my ancestor has gone. To tell you the truth, I don't know. Instead, I listened to the second brother Yu and his mother tell an old story about the past.

It is said that the ancestor was very wealthy when he was young, and he had seven children with his grandfather, and as a result, he kept his grandmother one, and the first six all died young, and after giving birth to my grandmother, the ancestor suddenly humped, and the family was so rich at that time, and I didn't see the ancestor ask the doctor to come and see.

After that, I heard rumors in the village that the ancestor had committed five evils and three shortcomings. But what is going on, the ancestor himself does not say, and no one else knows. In 1947, the Communist Party announced the "Outline of China's Land Law", and the family composition was not good, and all the property was handed over to the state.

After several years of famine, the old grandfather could not survive it, and starved to death in the arms of the old ancestor.

But the ancestor didn't remarry, gritted his teeth and raised his grandmother as an adult. One year, during a severe drought, the springs in the mountains dried up, and the whole village had no water to drink, and there were no springs to be found anywhere.

Unexpectedly, one night, the ancestor dug a spring with his bare hands at the entrance of the village. It is the well that is still in use in the village.

As for how the ancestor knew that there was a spring there, it was unknown, and when others asked, she only said that it was dug up by chance.

Now the older generation of people in the village call the ancestor the old Bodhisattva, I have heard everyone shout like this since I was a child, and I am used to it, and I didn't delve too deeply into the reasons at that time, in fact, even if I asked the ancestor, she would not necessarily tell me.

Ten days later, my grandmother and my ancestor came home and recuperated for a long time.

Lao Zu often took an old book without a name to study, and it seemed that the content on it was very troublesome, and sometimes he added a few words.

My ancestor was the one who read and wrote in the older generation, and she read more than 20 years of old books, taught my grandmother and me to read and write, and taught us a lot of other knowledge.

I often lament the injustice of fate, such a knowledgeable and well-informed person, but because of the land reform, his life has changed.

Because of my ancestors, my grandmother was literate, studied, and studied medicine, but she was a veterinarian. Occasionally, they will practice with me, and if they have a cold, they will give me two injections. So every time I catch a cold, I feel like I'm no different from the little piglets in the pigsty.

Later, when I asked my grandmother about the woman, she was very angry and forbade me to ask about it, otherwise she would prick my hands with needles. I thought to myself, what a grandson I am!

The days passed quietly, the ancestor often read the old book with him, and the grandmother treated the pigs in ten miles and eight villages, and the grandfather still couldn't cook, and I grew up day by day, forgetting the woman's affairs, and I didn't remember the past of the previous life more clearly.

But as I grew older, I gradually learned about some things at home. The reason why my biological parents never showed up was because of the legendary number of lives that were missing, and they went far to the north, ready to save my life, or their own, by keeping out of my old age and dying.

And those who often come to our house are here to solve problems.

I understand what it means, sometimes the ancestor makes a seal, draws a talisman, and recites a few mantras, and the person who is stuck in the throat of the master by the fish bone will suddenly get better.

But it's very vague to see what fate is.

I just heard my ancestor occasionally tell me: "The life of a person is the same whether you look at it or not, because it is destined, and mortals cannot change it." ”

There is infinite depth and philosophy in the words.