I suddenly tensed and creeped, and my eyes were fixed on the pigsty.

I saw a tall black shadow standing quietly in the dark shadow under the eaves of the pigsty, the outline of the black shadow was not clear, and I didn't know if it was a person or something. The stifled wheezing sound in the darkness sounded like some kind of beast.

Cold sweat ran from my back, and at this moment, not only was the dark shadow under the eaves of the pigsty very strange, but I also felt as if someone was standing behind me. But this feeling is not so creepy, on the contrary, it is as if your dearest person is standing behind you and accompanying you, so that you are not afraid of any danger.

This feeling has actually been with me since I was a child, especially when I encounter danger, this feeling of standing behind me becomes clearer. I don't know what it is, I just thought that the strange things that happened to me growing up might have something to do with it.

The feeling of dependence behind me made my heart settle down a lot for a while, and after swallowing a mouthful of saliva, I shouted under the eaves of the pigsty: "Who is there?" ”

When I was a child, my second uncle told me that if you encounter something unclean at night, you must not be afraid. There is yang fire on the living person, which can ward off ghosts and evil spirits, and the stronger the courage, the more vigorous the yang fire. So as long as the living are bold, there is no need to be afraid of those unclean things.

At this time, I remembered what my second uncle said.

After my shouting, there was silence for a moment, as if time had stopped flowing.

The atmosphere seemed extremely depressing and suffocating for a while.

In the next moment, a man's cough sounded in the shadows under the eaves of the pigsty, breaking the suffocating atmosphere in the courtyard. Immediately, a familiar figure slowly walked out of the shadows under the eaves, looked at me quietly, and said, "Xiao Yu, it's me." ”

"Second uncle?" I was startled and screamed.

That figure was the second uncle, he didn't completely step out of the shadow under the eaves, half of his body was hidden in the shadows, half of his body was exposed in the moonlight, and he stared at me quietly.

"Second uncle, why are you there?" I came back to my senses and asked quickly.

The second uncle coughed lightly and said lightly: "It's convenient for the second uncle to get up, by the way, Xiao Yu, are you also so noisy that you can't sleep because of the barking of the dog?" ”

Listening to the voice of the second uncle, I finally breathed a sigh of relief in my heart, and hurriedly replied: "Well, the dog barking is too noisy......" I didn't finish speaking, and suddenly my heart sank, because I found that the dog barking had stopped, and I didn't know when it stopped.

At this time, the second uncle came out completely from under the eaves of the pigsty, sighed lightly and said, "The dogs in the village don't bark for no reason." As he spoke, he looked up at the moon in the west, his expression serious, and his brow twitched slightly.

I heard the second uncle's words with an implication, and hurriedly asked, "Second uncle, why do the dogs in the village bark?" ”

The second uncle listened to it for a moment, but quickly reacted and said lightly: "I'm afraid there is something unclean that has entered the village." With a sigh, he looked at me and said, "Xiao Yu, go to sleep, the dog won't bark." ”

I nodded, and when I turned around, I was suddenly shocked: why did the second uncle's tone just now sound so sure, as if he knew very well when the dog would bark and when it wouldn't.

This......

I hurriedly turned around to look at the second uncle, and was suddenly taken aback, only to see that the courtyard was empty under the moonlight, where was the second uncle?

What's going on? I felt a cool breath from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.

At this moment, suddenly a voice sounded behind me, and said quietly: "Xiao Yu, what are you looking for?" ”

"Second Uncle......" I was startled, and quickly turned my head to find that it was the second uncle standing behind me.

When did he quietly stand behind me?

Without waiting for me to think about it, the second uncle gently patted my shoulder with his hand and said, "Silly boy, why are you stunned, okay, go to sleep." ”

I nodded mechanically and went back to my bedroom, feeling restless.

"What the hell just happened?" I thought to myself, I really can't understand why the second uncle appeared behind me quietly, and he is not a ghost? Or did I just be stunned and didn't notice it?

I carefully recalled the demeanor of the second uncle's speech, and found that there was nothing abnormal, and I was shocked.

After sitting in bed for a while, I finally couldn't decide what was going on. On the bright side, I quickly began to believe that the second uncle did get up in the middle of the night to relieve himself and happened to meet me.

In the middle of the night, the dogs in the village did not bark again, and I slept soundly until dawn.

When I got up and saw the rising sun in the milky white mist, my heart was full of goodness, and I no longer doubted the events of last night in the middle of the night. The second uncle got up very early as usual, saw me, and asked me if I slept well last night. This sentence undoubtedly implied that he had seen me in the middle of the night last night, and the doubts in my heart were completely dispelled, and I completely settled down and smiled.

At this time, Erniang suddenly came out and said, "The dog barking last night was really noisy." As she spoke, she subconsciously glanced at her second uncle, who looked away for some reason as if dodging and looked away.

I didn't notice the abnormality of the second uncle, but looked at Erniang and said, "Erniang, were you woken up by the sound of a dog barking last night?" ”

Erniang yawned, and said with a gentle smile on her face: "I was woken up in the first half of the night, but I slept peacefully in the second half of the night." ”

"Erniang shouldn't know about me and my second uncle meeting in the yard in the middle of the night." I thought to myself.

This morning, during dinner, the second uncle announced to us that from today onwards, he will become a vegetarian.

We asked him why he was like this, and the second uncle said very solemnly that he had a dream last night, dreaming of the king of Jizo, asking him to eat a vegetarian diet to eliminate the sins accumulated in the first half of his life, otherwise a great disaster would come and his family would be affected.

Listening to what he said seriously and conclusively, we didn't know what to say.

Erniang was silent for a while, and suddenly scolded with a smile: "You bastard, just eat vegetarian, the meat at home will belong to our mother, don't be greedy when you watch us eat meat in the future." ”

Listening to Erniang's words, it seemed that she didn't care about the second uncle's decision, but I still saw her at the moment when she bowed her head, and a trace of sadness and worry inadvertently flashed in her eyes. I felt a faint pain in my heart, the reason why Erniang agreed with the second uncle's decision so generously was just that she didn't want to argue with the second uncle, so as not to worry me and my little sister.

The little sister didn't notice anything abnormal, she only felt that the second uncle's words were joking, and said with a smile: "Dad, I don't believe that you can stick to a vegetarian diet, and when we eat meat in the future, you don't have to be greedy." ”

The second uncle showed an embarrassed smile and said repeatedly: "No, no." ”

During the meal, the second uncle did not eat meat again. He uses cold tea to make rice, and vegetarian dishes must be washed with tea before eating, without a little oil star. This strict and strange vegetarian diet surprised us, but also made us feel a little uncomfortable. The little sister deliberately dangled in front of the second uncle with the meat to lure him to eat meat. But the second uncle was indifferent to this at all, which made the little sister feel very frustrated and helpless.

The second uncle said first, and now he uses cold tea to make rice, not staining a little oily, but to fulfill his promise, we can't persuade him at all.

Watching my second uncle eat chazuke and rice smoothly, I suddenly remembered an incident when I was a child. In our place, on the morning of the first day of the new year, we have to boil tea and water to honor our ancestors. On that occasion, when I was eating, I felt that the rice was dry, and when I saw that there was clean tea on the table in the hall, I poured some tea and soaked it in a bowl to eat. When the second uncle learned about it, he was so frightened that he knocked out my bowl and scolded me angrily.

I was young at the time, and I didn't know why my second uncle was like this, so I was stunned. Later, when Erniang comforted me, she told me that the pure tea on the table was for the ancestors, in other words, it was drunk by ghosts, and it was stained with yin qi, and there would be problems with living people drinking it, and warned me that I should never use pure tea to make rice again in the future.

Because of this incident, no one in our family has ever used tea to make rice, not because tea and rice cannot be eaten, but because in our subconscious view, tea and rice, especially cold tea, are more like for the dead.

Thinking about this, and watching the second uncle eat tea and make rice, I felt a pimple in my heart, and I stopped talking.

But on the other hand, the second uncle used cold tea to make rice and ate several bowls, which made us feel a lot more comforted than before when he could barely eat a bowl of rice because of the oily stains. In our opinion, as long as a person can eat a few bowls of rice, his health will not be bad.

As long as it is for the good of the second uncle, we are willing to get used to everything.

Erniang was the first to make a change, and when she was cooking dinner, she specially prepared vegetarian rice for her second uncle, which was not a little oily at all. The second uncle expressed his gratitude, and during the meal, the uncle suddenly came to our house, saw the second uncle eating cold tea and rice, and hurriedly asked what was going on. The second uncle told the uncle about his dream, and the uncle did not doubt the second uncle's dream, but pointed out that the second uncle should not use cold tea to make rice, so as not to let outsiders see the misunderstanding.

The second uncle naturally understood what the uncle's words meant, and when he ate the next day, he no longer used cold tea to make rice, but used cold water to make rice. Erniang was worried that he would have a bad stomach, and said that she would cook a pot of gruel at night. After the second uncle started drinking water and gruel, he finally became much more normal. He has a good appetite and can drink several bowls per meal, which makes us feel a lot more at ease.

Since the last time my second uncle and I came back, it has been several days, and in the middle of the night, the dogs in the entire Yunlong Dam have been barking non-stop. This matter made everyone begin to pay attention to it, and the villagers discussed whether there was something unclean in the village, and asked the old village chief to decide.

After thinking about it, the old village chief came to our house and asked the second uncle to boil talisman water for the village to drive away evil spirits. The second uncle nodded in agreement, and immediately took me to the village to sprinkle talisman water everywhere. I originally thought that the second uncle would do something with his own peachwood sword, but he didn't. When I asked him why, he just said no.

After splashing the talisman water, the village did stop for a few days, and the villagers admired the second uncle's methods more and more, and praised them when chatting in private. This made me and my little sister feel light on their faces when they walked in the village, and they were proud of their second uncle.

However, three days later, an incident occurred that caused a sensation in the entire Yunlong Dam.

The afternoon before this incident, Erniang and Xiaomei went to see their grandmother, leaving only me and my second uncle at home. In the evening, when I came back from mowing pigweed, I saw my second uncle tearing the evil charm on the wall of the house.

"Second uncle, what are you doing here?" I asked, surprised.

The second uncle replied casually: "These charms look too dazzling at night. ”

"Shaking your eyes?" I felt creepy and looked at him with wide eyes.

"No," the second uncle hurriedly coughed lightly and changed his words, "I mean these charms are useless, and they don't look good on the wall." ”

Those charms were put up by the second uncle himself, saying that they could ward off ghosts and exorcise evil spirits and bless our family with peace. Now how could he say that it was useless, I was puzzled and asked.