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After Wang Shoudao died, my great-grandfather felt that half of the sky had collapsed on his head, and he was even more sad than when his own parents died.

The birth of the child, the death of the master, the death of a life, a sorrow and a joy, a mixture of joy and sorrow, made his whole person messed up, except for crying, he didn't know what to do. At this time, my great-grandmother Cai Qingjun persuaded him to go to a few old people in the village who were good friends with Wang Shoudao and ask them what to do, and it was best to discuss the funeral of Wang Shoudao first.

There are a few old people in the village who are friends with Wang Shoudao, although the age is almost the same generation, they have also received Wang Shoudao's favor before, and the last few old people discussed, and the funeral will no longer worry about my great-grandfather, because my grandfather has just been born, and my grandfather and great-grandmother still have to be taken care of.

Six days after Wang Shoudao's death, that is, on February 13, Wang Shoudao went out of the funeral, that is, he was buried.

Unexpectedly that day, a lot of people came, and to put it mildly, it was almost crowded. Among those who came to mourn, most of them my great-grandfather didn't know at all, and some even came from thousands of miles away, even Dong Youcai came with his son, and asked his son to wear linen and filial piety to Wang Shoudao.

The only thing that makes people sigh is that Wang Shoudao has no immediate family, and no one knows where his family is. Dong Youcai is just a distant cousin of his family, who only met by chance, and he doesn't know about his family situation, their cousin is still from Wang Shoudao's sister's side, but Wang Shoudao's sister has passed away for fifty or sixty years, and even his sister's children have passed away, and those juniors below have no contact with Wang Shoudao, and no one knows Wang Shoudao's family and origin.

This also led to the fact that in terms of filial piety, only my great-grandfather was alone, my great-grandfather was too lonely, afraid that his master would not be able to get over his face before leaving, so he called his two younger brothers and a younger sister over, and my great-grandfather's two younger brothers and sisters' children can add up to more than a dozen, the oldest of them are married, and everyone gives Wang Shoudao linen and filial piety, just like when their parents died. In this way, it looks spectacular in terms of the number of filial sons and grandchildren, at least this makes my great-grandfather feel very relieved, and I believe that Wang Shoudao will also feel very relieved in the spirit of heaven.

When my grandmother talked about this, I asked my grandmother, what is the origin of Wang Shoudao? My grandmother said that it may be the descendant of Guiguzi Wang Chan during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Guiguzi Wang Chan, that is, the master of Sun Bin Pang Juan and Su Qin Zhang Yi. As for whether Wang Shoudao is a descendant of Wang Chan, this is no longer verifiable.

After Wang Shoudao passed away, the only thing that made my great-grandfather haunted was that he failed to let the master see his apprentice and grandson before closing his eyes, which was Wang Shoudao's regret and my great-grandfather's regret......

In order to comfort my great-grandfather and commemorate Wang Shoudao, my great-grandmother named my grandfather Liu Niandao.

The days passed day by day, and although there was one less old man in the family, there was one more child, and it did not seem lonely.

My great-grandfather still worked every night, resting before and helping to take care of the children in the evening.

Three years later, that is, in 1870, the ninth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the year of Gengwu. My great-grandfather was forty-three, my great-grandmother was twenty-five, and my grandfather was three.

This year was very evil, and there were more than 1,000 cases of missing children all over the country, most of whom were between the ages of three and under 10 years.

The case of missing children was particularly prominent in Tianjin, where foreign churches opened "nursery halls" similar to those of today's children's welfare homes, which took in and adopted orphans.

At the beginning of June of the same year, the weather was hot and the epidemic was epidemic, and 30 to 40 orphans in the church's "Foundling Hall" died of illness.

Therefore, the people of Tianjin suspected that the case of the disappearance of the children was related to the foreign church, and suspected that the foreign nuns used the "Nursery Hall" as a dangling, but in fact abducted and killed the children for medicinal purposes. As a result, the people were indignant, the gentry rallied, the academy was suspended, and anti-foreign sentiment was rising.

In late June, thousands of people in Tianjin surrounded the church and had a verbal altercation with the church personnel, and then clashed, with angry people killing and injuring dozens of people, including French consulate staff, and burning several Christian and Catholic churches, including the French consul.

At this time, there were more than a dozen cases of missing children on both sides of the Yellow River, and three children disappeared in Sanwangzhuang alone.

My great-grandmother was afraid that my grandfather would have an accident, so after discussing with my great-grandfather, she took my grandfather back to her parents' house. At that time, Caifu was still rich and powerful, and it was in full swing, not only did there be many families in the family, but also invited a few martial artists to protect the courtyard, and a large group of people patrolled day and night, which was a hundred times safer than here in Sanwangzhuang.

A few days after my grandmother took my grandfather away, news came from the village again that the child was missing, and the father of the little boy had a good relationship with my grandfather, and the two of us often chatted and drank together. I don't remember what this person's name is, because my grandfather has made too many friends, and I sometimes confuse my great-grandfather's friends with my grandfather's friends, anyway, there is such a person in Sanwangzhuang, who may be surnamed Wang, and my great-grandfather is very good, and my great-grandfather seems to be one or two years younger than my great-grandfather, let's give him a righteous name Wang Liang, that little boy, let's call him Wang Xiaohao.

Wang Xiaoliang is nine years old, Wang Liang's only youngest son, and he has three sisters above him, because he is such a son, he is spoiled by Wang Liang and his wife like a baby. According to Wang Liang and his wife, the child was not seen when they woke up in the morning, and the doors of the house and the courtyard were open, but they obviously put all the doors and windows against before going to bed at night, unless the door was opened from the house, if the door was opened from the outside, it could only be forcibly broken, and the broken door would not only damage the door, but also alarm the two of them, and because the recent loss of the child was serious, the husband and wife deliberately let the child sleep in the same room with them, if someone really entered the house at that time and kidnapped the child, They can't possibly not perceive it.

Summing up the above points, there is only one possibility, that is, the child opened the door by himself and walked out, but the door was blocked by a thick wooden board, and Wang Xiaoliang's age could not be opened at all, and the child was naturally timid, and he had to be accompanied by someone to pee in the middle of the night, and it was impossible for him to run out by himself in the middle of the night.

After discovering that the child was missing, Wang Liang and his wife searched for a day and a night outside the village as if they were crazy, but they never found the child.

When it was almost dawn, the couple came to look for a barren slope overgrown with wild grasses three miles away in the southeast of the village, because the terrain here is similar to the hills, high and low, not only can not grow crops on the ground, but it is also very difficult to walk up. In the words of my great-grandfather, there was a lot of yin in that place, and it was better not to go there if it was fine.

Wang Liang and his wife are also looking for children crazy, all other places have been searched, only here is left, at this time to see that the sky is about to dawn, the chicken has also crowed a few times, the couple will not have anything to do, so they rely on the courage to come here to find the child.

However, before they could step on the grass nest that was one foot deep and one foot shallow, something came out of thin air in the grass nest more than ten meters away from them, and the couple saw it at the same time, and their scalps were numb with fright. According to Wang Liang's later description, it was a black-dressed, red-haired, blue-faced and fanged thing, three parts like a human and seven parts like a ghost, and after jumping out of the grass nest, he got up and jumped up without pause, and jumped up and down towards them, chasing them.

What the hell is this? The couple had never seen each other, and they were only scared at that time, trembling like chaff, and they didn't dare to look for their son again, so they supported each other and stumbled and reluctantly fled home.

After Wang Liang ran home and calmed down, he immediately thought of my great-grandfather, that thing was definitely not a person, maybe it was that thing that took his son away, and after thinking about it, he brought his daughter-in-law to find my great-grandfather.

When Wang Liang finished telling my great-grandfather what had happened, my great-grandfather frowned tightly, because according to the image of the strange man described by Wang Liang and his wife, it was very similar to the "mind eater" that his master told him.

The mind eater, as the name suggests, is a ghost that specializes in eating people's hearts, and likes to dig out children's hearts to eat, and the more it eats, the greater its ability. This kind of ghost is very similar to a zombie, in today's words, it may be a close relative of a zombie, but this kind of ghost is rare, and my great-grandfather also heard Wang Shoudao mention it. Wang Shoudao, he has never seen it after living for more than a hundred years, and it is also hearsay, no one knows whether there is such a ghost in the world. There are records in the literature, only the "painted skin" in "Strange Tales from Liaozhai", which is a genuine "heart eater", but it is artificially made up, and the credibility is not high.

Then my great-grandfather thought about it, took out a few chicken blood strips, a few peach wedges with cinnabar ink, and a few grave willows dipped in rootless water from the back room, and handed these things to Wang Liang and his wife, and explained to them that it was best to go out less in the near future, and it was best not to go out if they could, because if the living see a ghost, the ghost will generally entangle you, which is very troublesome, especially at night, before going to bed, you must seal the doors and windows with chicken blood strips, if there is really an emergency at night and you have to go out, bring the peach wedge and willow branches, If you see something suspicious from afar, you smash it with a peachwood wedge, and if you get it close, you whip it with a willow branch