Speaking a thousand words and ten thousand, such a teaching can only be regarded as an expectation for future generations at best.

Teaching by word and deed, most people, including Master, can only do what they say, and as for teaching by example, it is too difficult.

Due to the pressure of schoolwork during that time, I had little energy to pay attention to other things, so much so that when I look back on that time, except for the test papers and textbooks that always fill my desk, I only have a fragment of memory left in my mind.

I remember more clearly that in the second half of the third semester of junior high school, the school had to draw 200 people from all classes to form two art classes.

When I was assigned to a class, Master suggested that I study art, not because of how sentimental Master was, but because as the only descendant of the upright lineage, I had to be able to draw the Black Water Coffin clearly and meticulously, so that when I accepted my disciples in the future, I could have the Black Water Coffin completely tattooed on my disciple's back.

Although I was a little tired of studying at the time, after a few years of torture by Master, I actually fell in love with subjects such as mathematics and physics, and occasionally on a whim, I would find some difficult topics to abuse myself. Yes, I hated math when I was younger, but when I was in junior high school, I somehow liked the process of solving problems, which is also an incredible thing.

But if I were to replace scratch paper with drawing paper, and triangle board for drawing pencils and erasers, I would have a headache just thinking about that image.

In the end, the master failed to do my job, and Liang Houzai, who was better at learning than me, signed up for the art class instead of me, so that if I wanted to accept apprentices in the future, Liang Houzai had to be present, and the black water corpse coffin would also be passed on to the next generation of disciples in Jisoulzhuang through his hands.

For this, I am more grateful to Liang Houzai in addition to friendship. But Liang Houzai said that he didn't study art for me, just because of his interest, but I have been with him for so many years, and I have never seen him paint.

Around the time of a mock exam in the second month of the third year of junior high school, my master went to Daochang Chen and asked him about the situation in the Mass Grave Mountain.

Chen Daochang said at the time that he had gone to the catacombs to take a look, and that some people had indeed entered and forcibly collected blood. However, since he guarded the Mass Grave Mountain, there has been no more trouble.

That time, Chen Daochang took some things from my master's hands, and it was too long, and I forgot what my master had taken away from him, it seemed to be tobacco leaves, and it seemed to be a few pieces of special toffee, alas, I really can't remember.

In addition to these, the one that impressed me the most in those days should be Wang Dapeng, since Wang Qian had that incident, their sister and brother both dropped out of school. Wang Qian was an adult when she dropped out of school, and she has been doing odd jobs in the city ever since, and for a while she worked for a few days at the restaurant where my mother worked.

As for Wang Dapeng, this guy is active-minded, and after dropping out of No. 1 Middle School, he partnered with his second uncle to resell second-hand mobile phones.

At that time, mobile phones were still very rare on campus, and I remember when I was in my third year of junior high school, people in the entire grade had mobile phones and could count them on ten fingers.

And Wang Dapeng's main customers are students in the school.

At that time, the mobile phone was no longer the analog machine of the early years, the performance has been greatly improved, and the volume has become similar to the current mobile phone, or even smaller, but even so, the mobile phone at that time and the current smart phone are still incomparable. At most, it's a phone call and a text message with a few puzzle games like Snake and Sokoko.

At that time, the vast majority of students who bought mobile phones were not really for the convenience of communication, or for show. The family conditions are good, the parents have the ability to sell them a new machine for thousands of yuan, and the family is not good or the family does not buy it, but it seems to be obvious, so they buy a second-hand mobile phone from Wang Dapeng.

I heard Wang Dapeng say that his second-hand phones can be sold for a thousand dollars in new condition, and two or three hundred for the old ones. At that time, there were many schools on Wenhua Road, and almost every school had his customers, and in those years or two, Wang Dapeng seemed to have really made a lot of money.

That is, during that time, there were a lot of borrowed money in the school and did not pay it back, think about it, a few hundred yuan was a lot of money for us at that time, and asked the family to ask for it, the parents did not necessarily give, so they had to save part of the food expenses, and in the end it was not enough, so they could only borrow.

At that time, there seemed to be a lot of people who broke up because of the debt, there was a pair of small hair in our class, that is, one of them bought a mobile phone and did not pay it back, the two of them were usually very quiet, and they had a big fight in the corridor that day, and they never talked to each other until graduation.

For such an impractical mobile phone, even a friend was lost, whether this kind of thing is worth it or not, the benevolent will see the benevolent.

Wang Dapeng has been doing this business for about five or six years, but only the first two years made money, and later many people saw that Wang Dapeng made money, and felt that there were not many second-hand mobile phone markets, and they all joined in.

When I was in the third year of junior high school, Wang Dapeng often went to our school, and every time he came to the school, he would come to my class to see me and talk to me.

It was also at that time that I found out that although Wang Dapeng is the same as Liu Shangang, he has no door, loves to brag, and has a more impulsive personality, but when it comes to character, Wang Dapeng is not bad in nature.

The days went by like this, and everything was peaceful.

Until one morning, when I rode my bicycle and took Liang Houzai to the school gate, the uncle in the communication room suddenly stopped me and said that there was a letter from me.

At that time, my first reaction was that Liu Shangang wrote a letter to us, so I ran into the communication room with Liang Houzai, but when we got a package, we found that the thing was not sent to us by Liu Shangang, and in the sender's information column on the package, only a landline phone number and a name that was very familiar to Liang Houzai: Li Liang.

It's been four years, and Grandpa Li hasn't heard from us at all, but no one expected that he would take the initiative to send us an email.

And that package was not sent to Liang Houzai, but to me, and in the recipient column, there was only my name.

I realized that this package might be very important to Liang Houzai, so I ran to a corner where no one was and unpacked it with Liang Houzai.

I think that Grandpa Li has been away for four years and suddenly sent me such a thing, maybe there will be some mystery in it.

But when I opened the package, I realized that I was thinking too much.

There were only four things in the package, a letter, a photograph, and two very thick books.

The cover of one of the books is wooden, after opening the cover, there is no paper inside, it is all pieces of leather, it seems to be some kind of animal skin, it feels warm and smooth, the words in the book are all embroidered on the leather with black threads, those words are not Chinese, from the shape of a bit like oracle bones.

The other book is a hand-copied ancient book, with three small seals written on the cover in traditional characters, because of the age, the first word is no longer clear, and only the last three words can be seen as "dictionary". I glanced at the contents, and the book was probably a dictionary for explaining the strange words in the previous book.

I think these two books were probably sent to Liang Houzai by Grandpa Li, so I didn't read much.

As for the photo, it is the full-body photo that Grandpa Li forcibly took for my master last time in Sichuan, when my master was standing in the coffin of the black water coffin, the moment the flash light was turned on, the master's expression was very wooden, and behind him, there was a red and black black water coffin.

I know that this photo was sent to me by Grandpa Li.

I took out the diary from my bag and clipped in the only photo of Master's life, and only after that, I unfolded the letter and read it with Liang Houzai.

As I mentioned before, in the third year of junior high school, I was buried in the sea of test papers every day because of the pressure of schoolwork, and I can't recall many of the things that happened in that year. In fact, I have long forgotten about Grandpa Li's correspondence with me, and even when I saw Master's photo, I only remembered that this photo was taken by Grandpa Li, but I forgot how it got into my hands.

Until a while ago, when I was passing through my hometown and going home to visit my parents, my father brought me a box from the basement, saying that it contained some of the things I had left in my hometown.

The last time I went back to my hometown, I originally wanted to pack up my things and take everything I could and could bring, but I was too lazy to pack up, and I really didn't know what to take and what not to take.

Unexpectedly, after I left my hometown, my father was still not at ease after all, so he went back again, and helped me to pick up some old things that I left at home in the early years, and neatly put them into this wooden box.

One of these old objects was the letter that Grandpa Li left back then, and it wasn't until I saw this letter that I remembered how Master's photo got into my hands.

The letter did not mention any secrets, only some very trivial things.

Here's what the letter says.

Youdao:

I haven't seen you for a few years, but you and Houzai have grown up. You may wonder how I know where you and Hakuzai go to school, and why I don't send the package to your home instead. Hehe, if you think it's weird, it's weird, and I'm not going to explain it anyway.

Is it okay to have a thick load? Presumably follow your master, in life, he will definitely not be able to freeze and starve, but in the matter of practicing, Lao Chai's requirements are too strict, in the first few years, I was really worried that I couldn't carry the heavy load, but I was relieved when I thought about it, anyway, he is now following Lao Chai, I am also beyond the reach of the whip, whether I can bear it, it all depends on his own creation, I am worried that it is useless.

Your Master's picture is also in the package, you keep an eye on it. Put this photo away, your master, alas, is very superstitious, always say anything, every time you take a photo, the three souls and seven spirits will be taken away, and if you take too many photos, people will be addicted to this kind of thing, and at that time, the vitality and the three souls will be damaged, and they will never be made up. Actually, I know him, that's all his excuse, he doesn't want to take pictures because he is ugly.

Anyway, this may be the only photo of your master in his life, so you can keep it.

By the way, there is another thing, that is, I sent Liang Houzai two books, one of which is an ancient book bound in a wooden shell, which records the ancient witchcraft of our Yelang clan, and the other is a commentary on the ancient Yelang script. You must hand over these two books to Houzai, and remember to remember that this matter involves the inheritance of our lineage.

In addition, don't let Houzai see this letter, he will cry when he sees my handwriting.

Tell Houzai that I'm fine now, and ask him not to look for me, and when it's time to meet, our master and apprentice will naturally meet.

Okay, that's all, I've got some troubles to deal with here.

I wish you all the best.

Li Liang

21 March 2001