At this time, one of the crickets in my hand jumped to the ground, I lowered my head to catch it, the cricket jumped to the mother-in-law's side, I pounced on the ground and pinched it, then I found that this mother-in-law was different from the shoes we were wearing, it was the kind of small, pointy, about the size of my palm at that time, I thought it was very strange, so I wanted to touch it, but when my hand touched the shoes that seemed to be tangible and qualitative, it was empty, and nothing was pinched.

I looked up in disbelief and saw that my mother-in-law was gone, and when I turned my head again, she appeared on the grave bag, still there holding her chin and looking at me. Although I am still young, I also know that the grave bag is a burial of the dead, and I have a feeling in my heart inexplicably, will she be the "ghost" that adults often say!

But I wasn't scared at all, I was still playing with my cricket, and after playing for a while I got bored and wanted to go back. At this time, I found that there was my long shadow on the ground, when I was a child, I was very naughty, I liked to walk behind the adults and step on their shadows, my grandmother always scolded me and said that the shadow could not be stepped on, but the more adults did not let me do, the more I wanted to do it.

So I began to chase my own shadow, and my mother-in-law looked at me all over the place, and began to laugh again, and then I wanted to step on her shadow, and I don't know where the courage came from, or I didn't know that I was afraid, so I ran to the grave.

But no matter how I looked, I couldn't find the shadow of this grandmother, so I asked, "Where is your shadow?" ”

Grandma said softly, "Then I'll take you to my shadow, okay?" ”

"Good!" I nodded.

Then Grandma got up and tried to take my hand, and I held out my left hand because I felt that my right hand had been playing with crickets, which must be very dirty, and that would be very rude.

Grandma grabbed my left hand and squeezed it, "Ah! There was a loud scream, and then my hand was released, and with a "ding" sound, the copper coin fell to the ground, I hurried to find it, and when I picked it up again, Grandma was gone, but Cha Wenbin didn't know when he was already standing beside me.

He picked me up and said, "Okay, it's late, let's go back." ”

"But that grandma, she said she was going to take me to find the shadow, why is it gone?" I muttered.

Cha Wenbin pointed to the grave bag and said, "She has already gone back, and we will go back too." Then he carried me home, and under my mother's nervous eyes, I slept soundly.

The next day, Abba went and called a lot of people, saying that he was going to dig up the old grave. That tomb has been standing there for many years, my grandfather's father, that is, my great-grandfather's generation, has been there since he migrated here, and some people have become accustomed to its existence, but because my family wants to build a bridge, no one wants to have a big tomb on top of the bridge, which is quite understandable.

On the day of digging the grave, I was locked up in my house by the adults, and later I heard that they dug up an old coffin under the old grave, and inside the coffin was a rotten white bone, and the person in charge of picking the bones said that it should be an old lady who was bound in her feet, because the bones of her toes were completely deformed, and there was also a very divine saying that there was an extra copper coin on the palm of the white bone, which was burned black.

Later, those white bones and coffins were transported outside and burned to the ground, and the original old graves were planted with bamboo according to Cha Wenbin's instructions, and now there is a small bamboo forest, and the bridge passes through the bamboo forest, which has a unique taste.

The next day, Cha Wenbin asked me to return the copper coin, and then put it on with a red rope and hung it around my neck. Later, when some children saw the freshness, they also followed my example and went back to get a copper coin to hang.

When the bridge was built, I was already in the summer vacation of kindergarten, and that summer, I was taken to Cha Wenbin's house, I don't know if it was Abba's arrangement or Cha Wenbin's arrangement, I was taken away by him like this.

Cha Wenbin's house is not far from my grandmother's house, and there are many children in that village, his family is very large, and there are many people, among whom there is a big man who often throws me around his neck and lets me ride a horse, I only remember his name as "Uncle Dashan". There was also an uncle who always played tricks on me, and when I was angry, he would give me snacks or toys like a trick, and I saw him at my grandmother's house very early on, when he was still collecting "rags" in a nephew. Another uncle, I call him Uncle Table, he rarely laughs, but he also takes me out to play, every morning he will practice in the yard, I admire him, sometimes he will have a red dragon on his chest, but sometimes he can't see it.

The first thing Cha Wenbin did when he brought me back was to ask me to kowtow to a tablet in his house, and then he asked me to bow down to the gods hanging on the wall, one of whom was very similar to the old man in the General's Temple, and I couldn't name him at that time.

His son is older than me, it is said that he is studying in the provincial capital, and he rarely comes back even during the summer vacation, I heard that Uncle Wen Bin did not let him come back, once he came back secretly, and was chased away by Uncle Wen Bin who had a big temper.

When I first went, Uncle Wen Bin was very happy, and when someone came to the house, people asked him who this little doll was, and he would tell people that it was his apprentice.

But I never called him a master, and I never gave him a master-apprentice gift, I don't know why every time someone asked me to call him a master, I felt that I couldn't open my mouth, and I would feel embarrassed, maybe it had something to do with my introverted personality when I was a child.

At that time, Cha Wenbin often told me something about Taoist priests, but I couldn't listen to them at all, and always thought that I could go playing in the water or go fishing with them in the afternoon, in short, my interest was not at all in his crooked words. Maybe I really didn't have a relationship with the Tao, or maybe I didn't have a relationship with him, and by the time I realized that he wanted to pass on what he had learned all his life to me, it was too late.

In short, I was very happy that summer vacation, when I went back, Cha Wenbin untied the copper coin hanging on my chest, and it was also from that time that I had an extra birthmark on my body, a prototype black birthmark, very small, but the position was indeed in the position of the previous copper coin.

When Cha Wenbin sent me home, he said to my father, "Maybe I'm too anxious, this child is still young, let's try again in a few years." ”

In the following years, I rarely saw Cha Wenbin again, and there were some white things in the village that needed to be done by inviting someone to do things, and Cha Wenbin was often not at home, and no one knew where he went.

In the winter of the following year, Abba caught a muntjac in the mountains and called a few friends to come to his house to eat game. After eating, they were going to play mahjong, and suddenly it rained lightly that night, but the people who were playing mahjong in the house did not notice it, and when they found that the rain was a little heavy, it was already very late.

At that time, there were not enough umbrellas at home for so many people to borrow, so they discussed making a few more rounds and waiting for the rain to light up before leaving.

The mahjong was played until nearly twelve o'clock, when the rain began to pause, and Abba's friends were about to go home. At that time, all the aluminum flashlights used in the countryside were battery-topped batteries, and the yellow light did not shine very far.

When they were gone, Abba was ready to go to bed, and before the door was closed for a while, someone came knocking.

"Knock, knock, knock" is accompanied by a cry for help that is almost collapsed, Abba quickly got dressed, even I was woken up, opened the door, the three friends who played mahjong just now came back, one of them was still holding a wet woman in his hand, the woman's hand had an umbrella that had been opened, and the other was not open.

"What's going on?" Abba asked.

"We didn't know that before we crossed the bridge, we found Lao Li and his wife lying on the bridge, cold all over."

This woman was the wife of a friend of Abba's, and that night she saw that her man had not returned, and it was raining, so she wanted to bring an umbrella, but she fell on the bridge at some point, and she didn't find out until they went down.

My grandmother changed her dry clothes, and no matter how she screamed or pinched her, the woman didn't respond, as if she had passed out. My Abba knew that Cha Wenbin had said that it was best not to cross this bridge if it was a rainy day, he didn't want to go to the stone lion, at first there was no condition, and then he forgot about it, anyway, he didn't expect that there was really an accident today, so he asked: "Has anyone died in the vicinity in the past two days?" ”

A friend of Abba's said: "I heard that an old lady died in Yantou Village this morning, drinking pesticides. ”

Abba was cold in his heart at that time and knew that eighty percent of him had been bumped into, but he couldn't say it, if he said it, it would be over, the mouth in the countryside was fast, who would dare to come to our house in the future, he was so anxious that he couldn't help it, so he hurriedly sent people to the hospital.

At that time, I was locked in the room by adults, and I was not allowed to come out, but I was always curious, so I climbed up to the writing desk, and through the window, I vaguely saw that the woman's body was covered by a black mass of stuff wrapped around her feet.

Later, when I went to bed, I told my grandma, and at that time, my father also went to the hospital, and there were only two of us left in the house, and my grandma was scared enough, and the light didn't dare to shine, so she held me in her arms and sat at the head of the bed all night.