The old woman's daughter-in-law nodded and said, "Several people came to my house the day before yesterday, but if you ask who wants my milk, she is the only one." ”

"Her surname is Wu?" Daddy asked.

The villages in this area are all inhabited by surnames, and each village shares a surname, except for the daughter-in-law who is not the surname of the village. Grandpa knows that the village surname of the old woman is Wu, and the other old women should be called Granny Li, Granny Wang, Granny Qian, etc. The old woman's daughter-in-law said that the old woman's name was Granny Wu, which was naturally a little strange.

The old woman's daughter-in-law knew what her father meant by her inquiry, and replied, "Yes, the old woman in the village is surnamed Wu." She was born here, so her surname is Wu. ”

Grandpa asked, "So, she hasn't been married?" ”

The old woman's daughter-in-law had only been married to this village for a short time, so the old woman who had lived in this village for decades came out to answer her father's question. The old woman said: "It's not that she hasn't been married, I heard that she married a big family when she was young. But then for some reason, she came back suddenly, never went back to her in-law's house, and never looked for a new home. ”

Grandpa nodded and said, "The person who picked your daughter-in-law's milk is Granny Wu." ”

"Pick my daughter-in-law's milk?" The old woman couldn't understand what her father said.

Grandpa explained: "This is a kind of milk harvesting that few people know about. Some people pick yin, some people pick yang, and some people pick milk. I just looked at the situation in your house, and I can guess the situation of Granny Wu collecting milk the day before yesterday. She saw that your daughter-in-law often milked the milk into the cup, and she probably wanted to deliberately get the milk out of the cup, get it to the ground, and then step on it with her feet. However, that day, she may have found that deliberately knocking over the cup could easily arouse your suspicions, so she changed her mind on the pretext that her hand was bitten by a centipede, and asked your daughter-in-law to milk some milk to wipe her hands. When your daughter-in-law kindly milked her some milk, she deliberately sprinkled a little milk on the ground and stepped on it with her feet. ”

The old woman's daughter-in-law immediately lit up her eyes and said excitedly: "Yes! Yes! When I was milking, she shook her hand and threw her on the ground, then said sorry to me apologetically, and rubbed the on the ground with her foot. I thought she was afraid of getting dirty on the floor, so I didn't care. ”

"Therefore I tell you not to leave the milk outside, but to pour it into the latrine in time, so that it may not be taken away." If a lactating woman is stepped on by someone else, she will suddenly run out of milk. Other people who don't have milk will have plenty of milk after stepping on it. Daddy said.

Luo Buzhai interrupted: "Granny Wu is an old man, right?" What else does she have to do with milk? Does she still have to feed the children? ”

The old woman asked the same question and said, "Yes." Granny Wu is about the same age as me, she has no children or grandchildren, she is alone, what is she doing with my daughter-in-law's milk? ”

Daddy said: "People who don't have milk collect other people's milk to feed their children, which is the most common purpose of milk harvesting. But this magic has another effect on women who do not feed their children. ”

Several other people in the room looked at Daddy.

"It's about staying young. The Empress Dowager Cixi is already old, but she maintains the habit of drinking human milk and bathing in human milk, and she knows how to maintain her youth. It's a pity that she doesn't know that there is a better evil art among the people, which is this milk picking. To take away people's milk is to take away the essence of other people's lives and replenish oneself. I think, this Granny Wu should have a good skin now, right? Looks much younger than you should be? ”

The old woman slapped her face vigorously and said, "Ma Xiucai, you are really an unpredictable prophet!" This Granny Wu in our village is notoriously young! She used to be much more beautiful than other women when she was younger, and as she grew older, she still looked much younger than other women. We all said in private that she used to marry a big family, and she saved a lot of money to buy ginseng to eat every day. In this way, did she take someone else's milk to maintain her appearance and youth? ”

Grandpa waved his hand and said, "Although it is basically certain that it is her, we still don't jump to conclusions." You take me to meet her for a while, and I'll see her with my own eyes before I make plans. ”

The old woman said, "Yes, yes, yes." It's hard to build a reputation, but it's easy to destroy. You can't just ruin someone's reputation∵ I'll take you to meet her. ”

So, the old woman led the three of them to Granny Wu's house again. The village is built on a hill, with houses lined up from top to bottom, and the lower you go. Granny Wu's home is in the last row of the village. When he arrived at Granny Wu's house, his father saw that Granny Wu was not simple. The green bricks of her house were as high as the windows, and above the windows were mud bricks. Many families with solid families also only use green fire bricks in the grounded three-layer bricks, which are moisture-proof and waterproof, so as not to erode the mud bricks at the bottom by moisture and make the house unstable.

At that time, green bricks were only used when making graves, and this kind of green bricks were much narrower and thinner than the green bricks used to make houses, and it was easy to burn through when burning bricks, and the cost was low. Therefore, at that time, except for the very wealthy families, other families only used green fire bricks to build houses on the lowest three floors, and they couldn't afford to use more.

Grandpa said that the old house of the Ma family where my grandfather used to live, all the green fire bricks used, there was not a single mud brick, there were four pairs of pillars more than three meters high in front of the gate, and there were four square stone piers under the pillars, the stone piers were flat up and down, and the surrounding patterns were carved, the two sides of the pattern were flat flowers, and the two sides were reliefs, and the characters and trees on the reliefs were the same as real people.

When my grandfather was nineteen years old and my grandfather was in his sixties, my grandfather's family moved out of the Ma family's old house and lived in a mud brick house. The original grain official's green brick mansion was confiscated and turned into a public office. During the Cultural Revolution, the old house of the Ma family was regarded as a symbol of oppression of the poor people, and was smashed, burned, and looted by people outside the village, and all of them were destroyed. My grandfather was already poor and white at that time, and he was a poor middle peasant, so he snatched two stone piers from the Ma family's old house and came back from the old house, and still placed them on both sides of the gate of the mud brick house.

I asked my grandfather, if you snatch these things back, won't you be criticized by others?

Grandpa smiled and said, criticize me? Do they dare?

I asked, dare to burn down your father's old house, but don't you dare to criticize you?

Grandpa still smiled, of course they didn't dare, do you think they really want to burn down our old house? No, they want to snatch all the good things and move them to their own homes. You go to the village and ask, which family has any good things that were not snatched back from the Ma family's old house? They didn't dare, because they robbed it too. If they can't take it, they will burn it.

I looked at my grandfather's smile and felt that there was a bit of crying in the laughter.

Grandpa's mentality is much better than that of grandpa. Every time my mother or uncle mentioned the events of that year, my father would say, "Hey, you can't use up those things, and you can't spend the flowers." There are thousands of acres of fertile land, and the eclipse is no more than three meals; There are thousands of mansions, and you can't sleep more than three feet at night. It's a good thing that they're divided into different uses.

Although Grandpa said so, when he moved out of the Ma family's old house, he still kept an eye on himself, and brought out a blood-colored jade bracelet without reporting it for registration. The blood-fired jade bracelet later became a family heirloom, first to my grandmother and then to my aunt. It's a pity that when my uncle and aunt quarreled later, I accidentally dropped it on the ground and broke it into several pieces.

The two carved stone piers were not so easily broken, but there were many small chips around them. When I was a child, I didn't know how to cherish it, so I used to pick up small stones and throw them on it. There were people who wanted to buy it at a high price, but even in the most difficult times, my grandfather was not swayed by the high price. I know that it was a nostalgia for my grandfather's old days, and no amount of money could buy it. The man who made the high price was in the business of buying antiquities, and in Thrush Village, he bought everything he wanted except for this pair of carved stone piers. The other families put all the things they had stolen from the Ma family's old house in front of the shrewd businessman, and as long as the price was right, there was nothing that would not be sold.

Only my grandfather refused.

Grandpa saw Granny Wu, and Granny Wu's skin was as delicate as a girl. But the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and the deep sunken eye sockets make her delicate skin look a little scary. This is a deeply unnatural asymmetry. Her hair was jet black and shiny, but noticeably sparse. This adds a bit of horror.

She was brightly dressed and showy. The dress itself is delicate and beautiful, but wearing it on her is like wearing a shroud.

She's not completely out of nowhere, though. Her chest was still firm and tall, holding the dress up. At her age, this is an incredible thing.

After Luo Buzhai saw Granny Wu, he came to Xie Xiaomi's ear and said something, Xie Xiaomi's face turned red and he spat at him.

When Granny Wu saw that the old woman had come to her house with three people, a trace of horror flashed on her face, but she immediately changed her smile and invited a few of them into the house to drink tea, and said with a smile: "Oh, why does Granny Ren have time to come to my house today?" What did you do with these face-to-face people? Her voice was like that of a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl, and it sounded as if she was pinching her throat, and at first glance it gave me goosebumps.

It turned out that the old woman's surname was Ren.

Granny Ren was just about to answer, but Grandma was afraid that she would leak her mouth, so she hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Oh, I am from Thrush Village, I used to be out and about, and I rarely came out and walked around, so I met Miansheng." In fact, it is not a living person. I learned a little bit of Xuanhuang art outside, and I heard that Granny Wu also understands these things, so I entrusted Granny Ren to take me to meet you and learn from you. ”

Granny Wu was very alert, looked at her grandfather, and said with a smile: "When you say this, I can see that you are the youngest son of the grain officer, right?" Your facial features and figure are like a grain officer. But where did you hear that I was going to do that? That's nonsense. I'm an old woman, and I don't know anything but eat, drink, and die. I'm afraid you're going to have to run empty. Come, have tea. ”