After speaking, the old firewood head lit the stove, put an iron pot on the stove, poured a spoonful of oil into it, waited for a while, grabbed a handful of green onions and sprinkled them into the pot, and listened to the sound of "snort", and a burst of green onion fragrance immediately floated in the small earthen house.

I was dizzy with hunger since just now, and when I smelled the fragrance, I immediately became excited, and I forgot the terrible old firewood, so I came to him, looked at the green onions in the pot and asked him, "What are you going to do?" ”

Lao Chai Tou first replied to me very briefly: "Soup." After a while, he turned to me again and asked, "Have you eaten the sugar?" ”

I shook my head, and the old firewood pointed to the cabinet next to the earthen kang and told me, "Go, get a piece of candy to eat." Eat sugar before you can drink soup. ”

I wanted to ask him "why", but at this time, my eyes happened to match his, and his eyes were still like that, straight and straight, which made people panic in the bottom of their hearts when they saw it. I didn't dare say a word, I went to the bedside table and took a piece of candy, peeled off the candy wrapper and stuffed it into my mouth.

During this period, Lao Chai Tou kept staring at me intently, and when I stuffed the sugar into my mouth, he also said, "Don't spit it out!" ”

Just as he said this, I was really ready to vomit the sugar in my mouth, because the sugar was actually bitter, more bitter than the coptis water I drank when I was a child, and chewing and chewing, there was another fishy smell in the bitterness, this kind of thing in the mouth, it made people nauseous.

But I was so afraid of the old firewood that I swallowed it hard, and swallowed the whole piece of candy, and then the bitter and fishy smell rolled in my stomach, and I accidentally burped, and the smell that came out of my mouth almost disgusted me to death.

"Bear with it when you want to burp. The candy you eat is to replenish yang energy, so that when you burp like this, all the yang energy that you just replenished will be released. As he spoke, Lao Chai Tou took out an old bag from under the pot.

The burden was placed on the cutting board for chopping vegetables, and the old firewood carefully opened it, and I saw a fist-sized lump of meat wrapped in it, and under the light of the light, the lump of flesh showed a very soft yellowish-white, and it seemed to be translucent, and from a distance, it looked like a warm and soft topaz.

Lao Chai Tou stared at the meat ball on the table for a while, then looked at me again, and then as if he had made up his mind, he picked up a kitchen knife at a fast speed and divided the meat ball into two. Half of it was re-wrapped and placed under the pot; The other half was diced by the old firewood and poured into the pot.

Soon, the water in the iron pot boiled, and a strong smell mixed with water vapor wafted in the room, the smell was difficult to describe, as if the smell of meat mixed with the fragrance of bamboo shoots, and it seemed to be the fragrance of fish, or the fragrance of milk, in short, it was fragrant, as for how to incense, but I can't say.

The smell of this fragrance makes my saliva linger. Lao Chai took out a large enamel jar from the cupboard, poured all the sugar in the pot into the jar, and then placed the jar on the small stool beside me.

"Hot, wait until it's cool before drinking." As he spoke, Lao Chai Tou lit a dry cigarette, sat on the kang and smoked.

By this time, the bitter taste in my mouth had dissipated, and the aroma that kept wafting out of the jar called out to the worms in my stomach, and I looked at the milky yellow soup in the jar, and my stomach gurgled.

Lao Chai Tou probably couldn't see my impatient look, so he gave me a spoon and told me to drink slowly, careful not to burn.

I spooned the soup into my mouth one by one, and with each sip, I felt an indescribable satisfaction, and the yellow-white "diced meat" was so fragrant that I almost swallowed my tongue.

Lao Chai Tou sat on the kang, smoking dry cigarettes, and chatting with me with or without a match.

He first asked me what I belonged to, I said I belonged to the rabbit, and then asked me what day it was my birthday, I said it was September 9th, I was young at that time, and I didn't know the difference between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar, only that my mother said that my birthday was the ninth day of September.

However, Lao Chai Tou didn't ask much, just nodded, and asked me again: "Were you born during the day or at night?" ”

I drank the soup and drank happily, and without thinking about it, I said, "I don't know, it's not night anyway, my mother said, the sun was quite big that day, and when I was born, the sun shone right on the bed." With that, I poured another big mouthful of soup.

Lao Chai Tou raised his right hand, pinched his fingers and counted for a while, and then smiled like a flower and said to himself: "This birthday, what would it be if it wasn't the reincarnation of Yang Lingzi?" ”

But after a while, Lao Chai Tou's face became a little gloomy again, but he was still muttering to himself: "But the second master said that my master-apprentice relationship is fateful, and it is useless to force it." Alas, there is no fate. ”

Old Chai Tou kept staring at me when he said this, and I finally understood why he always looked at people directly—because he never blinked. This time, though, his eyes weren't as bright as they were last time. That's fine, at least this old firewood doesn't look so scary.

After that, Lao Chai Tou did not speak again, and I drank a whole vat of thick soup, and burped two full times with satisfaction, and then the mud house fell into complete silence.

Lao Chai Tou looked at me with a depressed face, but he didn't speak, and I was embarrassed to speak with the enamel jar for soup in my arms. The two of them were silent like this, until Lao Chai Tou finished smoking a pot of cigarettes, silently refilled another pot, and then began to stare at me in a daze.

I was a little furious in my heart when I was staring at him like this, so I cleared my throat and used words to divert his attention: "Who is Yang Lingzi?" ”

Lao Chai Tou was obviously awakened by my words, he was stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "Yang Lingzi is not a person, but a general term for a class of people. This kind of person, the heavenly and earthly branches of his life were originally yin and yang decline, but he was the purest yang in decades, and even his life was mixed with a pure yang energy. People like this don't have numerology that doesn't fit the four pillars, and their lives don't fit into the five elements, but most of them live long and can withstand strong winds and waves. But those who are too rigid are easy to break, so such people often have a bumpy life. ”

Lao Chai Tou's words were half-literate and half-white, I was too young to understand at all, but I still made a sudden look and nodded vigorously.

Unexpectedly, Lao Chai Tou recognized me at once, he glanced at me and said, "I don't know how to pretend to understand, people are big ghosts!" Have you eaten enough? ”

I touched my round belly: "It's full." ”

The old firewood extinguished the smoke pot, and felt a very thin red thread from under the pillow, and told me to stand still, and then he leaned down and tied a knot with the red thread on my ankle. His fingers are thick and his joints have a thick layer of calluses, which look bulky and rough, but he is extremely flexible to move.

The red thread with the thickness of the hair reached Lao Chai Tou's hand, as if he was alive, and the two threads drilled along Lao Chai Tou's fingers, and soon made a very complicated lock knot.

The old firewood cut off the extra red thread, then straightened up and shouted to the outside of the earthen house: "Come in!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, my dad pushed the door and came in, and my uncle and my mom followed behind my dad. When he entered the house, the uncle shrugged his nose and said, "What does this smell like?" It's so fragrant. ”

Lao Chai Tou crossed Erlang's legs, held a dry tobacco, and said indifferently: "It's not a great thing, it's just an ordinary pot of broth to replenish the child's vitality." ”

Although these words sounded casual, I found that the corners of Lao Chai Tou's mouth twitched twice when he spoke, and then I thought of his hesitant look when he cut meat just now, that piece of meat and not meat must be very precious to him.

My mother was still worried about me, and asked Lao Chai Tou with an eager face: "Uncle Chai, what happened to my family Yangyang?" ”

Lao Chai Tou took a puff of cigarette and said slowly, "What else can happen?" It's evil. But don't worry too much, I've already put a lock on him. This yang lock will be carried for three days, and after three days, you will find a man with heavy yang energy to remove the lock. ”

Uncle has always been very interested in those things that the gods are chattering, and when he saw that I was fine, he breathed a sigh of relief and asked Lao Chai Tou curiously: "What is Yang Lock?" ”

"Isn't that it?" Lao Chai Tou pointed to the red rope on my foot and neck with a cigarette stick, and said, "This child, it's not a matter of a day or two to be targeted by evil spirits, and the yang qi is badly damaged." Although I have managed to replenish his yang energy, but his body is too weak, even if it is replenished, it is easy to disperse, this yang lock, as the name suggests, is to lock his yang energy from leaking. However, people, what they pay attention to is a yin and yang coordination, the yang lock can lock his yang energy, and it will also make the outside yin energy unable to enter his body, and after a long time, it will still lead to an imbalance of yin and yang. So you can only take it for three days, and after three days, you have to take it off. Well, it's five o'clock, remember this time, before six o'clock in the morning the day after tomorrow, you must remove the yang lock. ”

My mom came to me and tried my forehead with her hand, and then she breathed a sigh of relief: "Alas, the fever has finally subsided." Then he turned to the old firewood head and wanted to thank him.

But before my mother could speak, Lao Chai Tou waved his hand at my mother: "If you want to thank me." I still have some dirty clothes in the cupboard, so you can take them and wash them for me. In this way, we can be regarded as each taking what we need, and no one owes anyone. ”

My mom and dad were stunned at the same time, and they looked at each other, both with inexplicable expressions on their faces. I'm afraid no one thought that Lao Chai Tou would suddenly make such a request.

But after all, Lao Chai Tou cured my illness, although his tone of voice was not polite, but his request was indeed not excessive. After being stunned for a while, my mother didn't hesitate any longer, opened the cabinet, and took out a dozen dirty clothes inside.