Generally, few people go out when it gets dark in the countryside, and the temperature at night is much more comfortable than during the day, the little girl Yali wants to go home to get her own things, saying that she is going back to get things, but in fact, Xiao Yali has no clothes to take at all, nothing more than to take back the relics of her parents when they were dying,

Walking on the country road, the small breeze blows on the body of the person is much more comfortable, Yali's uncle's house is not far away, over a mountain in front of it, and then walk a little bit, the little girl is very happy and smiling all the way, I wanted to find a topic to talk about with the little girl, but Li Bing said a few jokes, the little girl just smiled and looked at Li Bing very curiously,

It seems that the child doesn't understand this kind of joke at all, so he simply doesn't squeak and walks down the path, and after walking for a while, it is already dark, and there are no street lights in the countryside, and the black lights are blind and he can't see anything clearly, so he hurriedly turns on the prepared flashlight and continues to walk forward,

I didn't go far, and suddenly I saw a flame rising in the distance, and it was very strange to jump around uneasily in the night.

When Yali saw it, she subconsciously leaned over to me, I looked at Yali and told her that this was burning paper money for the deceased, and there was nothing to be afraid of.

When Yali heard me say this, she looked up and smiled at me, bit her lip, and didn't say anything.

"Brother Bing, after a while, Yali looked up at me and said: Is burning paper to send money to the underworld, is there really a underworld?"

I smiled, I really didn't want to say these things to such a young girl, or let her accept the educational ideas of the new era, these things still didn't come out, so I sent her a few words away,

As he spoke, he got closer and closer to the fire, estimated to be about thirty meters, and suddenly, Yali stood still, grabbed my arm with both hands, her face was pale, and there was no normal person's blood at all, and she stammered and pointed to the fire in front of me and said,

"Bing······ Brother Bing, you see, the fire in front of you······ Something was next to the fire, it looked like something was floating there······ Floating. ”

Yali's voice was not loud, but it was very quiet at night, and I could hear it clearly in my ears, I was also startled, and quickly looked ahead for a long time, except for the person who burned paper next to the fire, there was nothing abnormal, Li Bing turned his head to look at Yali suspiciously,

Yali's face was nervous, her eyes were closed tightly for a long time before she slowly opened, and she looked at the fire tremblingly, left and right, and then let go of the hand that was holding me tightly, rubbed her eyes and looked at me with a surprised look full of doubts,

Li Bing asked again: What did you see just now, did you have a dazzle, Yali was very embarrassed to tell me, she seemed to see a masked person just now, dancing around the fire, but now she can't see anything, it doesn't look like she was dazzled, there was indeed a person just now,

I looked up at the fire and the person who burned the paper money, stared at it for a long time, let go of Yali's hand and walked over, Yali was also very obedient and walked behind me,

Walking to the side of the fire, I saw that the person who burned the paper turned out to be a middle-aged man in his forties, very ordinary dry and thin left hand with a stick to play with the fire, the flames beat happily with the breeze, and the whole face was also lit by the flames.

According to a book that Li Bing once read, if you burn paper for a boy, first draw a cross on the ground: burn paper for a woman, first draw a circle on the ground, and then put the burden in the middle of the cross or circle to ignite, the cross drawn should be east, south, west, north, and the north is horizontal and vertical.

The circle drawn leaves a gap, facing the southwest direction, which is taken from the meaning of the "Nine Shades" only said,

The so-called "nine shades" is to say that the center of the earth and the eight directions, there are nine dark places underground, is the world of ghosts in the underworld, generally when burning paper, will chant a few words, such as sending money to someone, buy something in the underground, bless the family peace, wealth and happiness, etc.,

And the rural burning paper seems to be somewhat different from the traditional Taoism and Buddhism, generally at night when it is dark, find a crossroads to draw a circle, leave a gap, and then put the paper money in the middle to start burning, it is said that the crossroads are the places where ghosts come and go, because the underworld also needs to come up to do things.

In the middle of the night, they will come out to collect the ghosts that died during the day, and generally at night, as long as they see burning paper on the side of the road, everyone will walk away, Li Bing stopped at a distance of six or seven meters, and quietly watched this middle-aged man burn paper,

The paper used to burn paper is generally made of straw and wheat straw and other things, and the processing is relatively coarse, and the fibers are large and very flammable, but I don't know why, the paper money in front of the old man is not burning vigorously and will be extinguished at any time, as if it is damp, and the flames will turn blue-green after a while.

Fortunately, the old man kept fiddling with the paper money with the wooden stick in his hand, and the flames flew outward, and the blue-green fire disappeared in an instant.

Although the fire was not very strong, but looking at the paper ashes on the ground, he knew that a lot of paper money had been burned, and seeing that the fire paper in front of him was almost burned, the old man looked up at Li Bing, frowned, and didn't understand why Li Bing saw himself burning paper.

Li Bing said the matter aside, it turns out that this is the case, you should take the girl over quickly, and as he spoke, he flicked the fire paper on the ground to the side and made way for a path.

Li Bing smiled and took Yali's hand and walked over the fire, walked over and looked back to see that the middle-aged man was still smiling at him, waving his hand to himself, Li Bing also nodded his head at the middle-aged man,

After walking forward for about ten minutes, Li Bing and Yali came to a deserted grave, overgrown with weeds in front of them, Chu Chu exuded a desolation, the middle of the terrain was very high and slightly low around, like a super big steamed bun was flattened by someone.

No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like a grave pile, walked to the barren gang word, took a handful of artemisia with her hand and looked at the weeds cleaned up a little bit, looking at this grave pile, no one has come to clean it up for a long time, Yali's eyes were red and teardrops the size of beans rolled down from her eye sockets,

This grave looks like the grave of Yali's parents, there is a stone platform in front of it, take out the candles and fruit paper money from the bag and put it on it, after placing it neatly, Yali burned the paper money in front of the grave, chattered for a while, kowtowed a few times with red eyes, and stood up,

It just so happened that Li Bing also cleaned up the weeds around him, and at this moment, the starry night was suddenly covered by a dark cloud, and bursts of thunder sounded from his head, Yali hurriedly dug a pit in front of the grave, and took out a small wooden box from it and held it in his arms,

was frightened by the thunder in the sky, and hurriedly ran to Li Bing's side and said: I have taken the things, let's get out of here quickly, the feeling of this barren mountain and wild ridge is indeed a little hairy, turn on the flashlight Li Bing took Yali's little hand and walked back, and after walking for about ten minutes, the sky was in a heavy rain,

We have to find a place to shelter from the rain, so that we will definitely catch a cold when we go back, so we will take a flashlight everywhere to find out if there is a place to shelter from the rain in this place, not to mention that there is a small adobe house not far in front, Li Bing ran over with Yali,

The adobe house is very simple, no one has lived in it for a long time, the roof and the wall are overgrown with weeds, there is a stone pillar at the door, it is estimated that it is the horse tether stone used to tie the horse before, there is no light in the house Li Bing stretched out his hand and pushed the wooden door, and the sound of the creaking wooden door came from afar,

It is estimated that this house is a small house used to watch the tomb or the Zhuang family, and when Li Bing and the others just wanted to push the door in, a hoarse and low voice suddenly came from behind them, "Who are you, what is the matter here?" ”

In the wilderness, the night was silent, lightning and thunder, all the attention was on this dilapidated house, no one expected that someone would come here Yali dragged Li Bing to death, stuck her head in Li Bing's arms and didn't dare to look back, Li Bing slowly turned around and was also startled,

Isn't this old man the old man who burned paper when he passed by just now, how did he come to this place, is it also when he went back after burning paper money, and came to take shelter from the rain when it rained?

The old man still had a slight smile on his face, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't tell that the old man's expression was smiling, and he could see a miserable white face like a paper man so closely, and a smile was extremely weird and terrifying.

Li Bing opened his mouth and said: It turned out to be you, uncle, scared us, you also came to shelter from the rain, you look at how coincidentally we just met, and we met in this place, it's about to rain, let's hurry up and go in, Li Bing just wanted to step in and was pulled back by a middle-aged man,

The old man looked at me and looked at the girl in my arms, and said to us very calmly: This is my house, you come here more, I put a clip here, if you rush in, you will be hurt, after speaking, the middle-aged man walked into the door, and there was a snap and then said you come in,

As we just walked into the adobe house, there was another thunderclap in the sky outside, and the downpour immediately began, and when Yali and I walked into the house, a candle had already lit up in the room, but the middle-aged man was nowhere to be seen.

Since there is a candle in hand, I turned off the flashlight in my hand, and by the dim candlelight, I walked into the inner room, and the room was very simple, with only a wooden box at the head of the kang and the bed, which was more than two meters long and about half a meter high, and at this time there was only one thing in the room that could be called furniture.

There was a shabby mat on the kang, a small table with two dishes on the table, one was fried peanuts and a plate of pickles, and a bottle of liquor was placed on the table, the middle-aged man pointed to Yali and then to the iron pot, probably this meant that he wanted her to cook something to eat,

Pointing at me casually, he said: You come up and have a few drinks with me, Li Bing was very well-behaved and went to the kang and the man ate peanuts, rice and pickles, and drank a little wine The more he chatted, the more speculative he became, as if he was a friend who had been separated for many years, Li Bing listened to the middle-aged man tell about his life experience,

Outside, there was lightning and thunder and the wind was blowing, but only in this small adobe room was very warm, two men were sitting on the kang drinking and a girl was cooking for them, no one could see that this was the first half an hour and they didn't know each other.