My name is Yuan Zhoucheng, I was born in an ordinary rural family in the north, three generations of my family are carpenters, from childhood to adulthood, I thought I would inherit this craft and become a small carpenter, but my family did not think so.

They said that when I was born, the old monk in the big temple outside the village came to take a look, and finally patted me on the back and said, "This child, although he is not a hero, is also a good man." ”

That's how my name came about, and my family has had high hopes for me since then because of the old monk's words, although they, like me, still don't know what the two words Zhou Cheng mean.

In fact, since I was a child, I have a very weak physique, many problems, often fainting, timid, and always crying inexplicably.

Later, I heard that I had debts from my previous life, and I had to recite the scriptures often to be good, so my family donated some incense money in the big temple and asked me to learn to recite the scriptures with the monks in the temple.

The big temple outside the village, it is said that it has a history of more than 100 years, the name is very elegant, it is called Longkong Zen Temple, the incense has been fine, but after the liberation, the four old ones are broken, and there are natural natural disasters, the common people are not full, and the monk is naturally hungry, so he runs away one after another, and later, there is only this one monk left.

This monk, the one who named me, everyone calls him Monk Zhenjian, and I don't know if this is the Dharma name, or what everyone means to ridicule him, because he is a monk who is a little different.

Not only did he keep his head on the board, pause on a big bowl of soju meat, set up a stall in the temple to sell groceries, but also babbled to show people palmistry, and "pinched his fingers" at every turn.

In fact, he has always been very good to me, at that time we had a total of three children in the temple, every weekend or school holiday, we would go to the temple to recite the scriptures, after a long time we all called him master, he was okay and liked to play with a few of our children, and gave us delicious food, but I always felt that he was very cheesy, and greedy for money, not to mention the incense money, but also cheated to eat and drink.

We have a custom there, on the fifteenth day of the first month of each year, to put the Yellow River array, also called the Yellow River lantern, according to legend, it is left by Jiang Ziya, take the meaning of the twists and turns of the Yellow River, set up the colorful flag lantern array in the open space, row down the god case to offer the table, worship the gods of all parties, use the wooden pole and straw to block into nine loop fences, and there are many forks in the middle, just like a colorful dress, the maze of bright lights.

When the lantern is held, the whole village beats the gongs and drums, twists the Yangge, sets off fireworks, mighty, twists and turns, winds and turns from the Yellow River formation, it is said that whoever can turn the nine songs along the lì will be healthy and safe this year, and it will be auspicious.

The master is the person in charge of the Jiuqu Yellow River Array, and many sacrificial items are naturally bought from him, and all kinds of rituals are also done by the master, so this time of year is a good time for the master to make a fortune.

Naturally, incense and candle ingots should be used for sacrifices, and the master sold those bundles of incense and candles, gold ingots, and offerings very expensively, and he sold the Buddha seal for five yuan a dime. He also told people that the sacrificial things should be placed in the temple first, so some people bought a lot of roast chickens and pig heads and sent them, but in fact, many of them were eaten by the master.

Every year, the Yellow River Formation is held in the open space in front of the big temple, and later I heard people say that our big temple used to be a mass grave in the early years, and it was very evil, and this big temple was built to suppress evil spirits, and some people told me that under the floating tower in the square of this big temple, there were many demons and monsters.

It is also said that the Yellow River lantern array held in the village every year is to worship the gods on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also to appease the undead and evil spirits under this big temple, so that they will not run up and make trouble.

We were very surprised, so we went to ask the master, and the master refused to say anything at first, but only told us that those people were talking nonsense, but then we couldn't be pestered, so we told us that this big temple was not a mass grave in the past, but an old river ditch.

He said that although we are not located along the Yellow River, we are not very far away, and the old ditch, which is said to be a tributary of the Yellow River, is a small lake formed by alluvial flow in our place, and the locals also call it Laohe.

More than 100 years ago, an unbelievable thing happened in this old ditch, which led to the disappearance of the old ditch, and only then did it have today's big temple.

At that time, the annual Yellow River array was placed on the bank of the old river ditch, the purpose was to worship the river god and bless the five grains with abundant harvests.

On the fifteenth day of the first month of that year, the village set up the Yellow River array on the bank of the river, did a lantern show, put up lanterns, set off firecrackers, beat gongs and drums, and when it was lively and lively, suddenly there was a booming explosion in the old river ditch, as if a thunder was put in the flat ground, and everyone was in chaos all of a sudden, and the Yellow River array did not care, and they ran to the river with their feet.

Before he could reach the river, he saw a huge whirlpool suddenly rise in the dark and dreary water, and the river kept stirring and churning, as if something terrible was about to appear in the old ditch.

Everyone was stunned by this scene, and they all knelt down and worshipped, some shouted that the river god had appeared, and some shouted that the king of the Yellow River had appeared, and they made a mess.

The old ditch was noisy all night, and the next morning, when everyone came to the riverbank, they found that the water in the old ditch had dried up.

The people of the village were very frightened and did not know what was going on, so a few brave people in the village took the lead and ran down to the bottom of the river beach to check.

It didn't matter what they looked like, those people actually found that in the silt at the bottom of the river, there were many scattered bones, both human and animal, densely packed, almost all over the bottom of the river.

What was even more surprising was that in the middle of the river, they found a black hole as thick as a large water tank, and there was a black wooden coffin half-buried in the mud next to the black hole.

This coffin is very weird, the middle of the coffin lid is slightly raised, as if it has been squeezed by something, and the whole coffin presents a twisted posture, looking like a corpse struggling.

It is not uncommon for strange things to be dug up in the Yellow River, and it is not uncommon for coffins to be dug up, but this kind of twisted coffin has never been heard of in the village.

At that time, no one dared to move, and they all knew that the coffin must have a strange origin, so they put the coffin out of the bottom of the river, and sent someone to guard the coffin, and at the same time immediately went to ask Mr. Feng Shui.

Who knew that just before the arrival of Mr. Feng Shui, something big happened.

At that time, there were two people guarding the coffin, a middle-aged man and a descendant, who took turns to be on duty on the bank of the river at night, and because they were afraid of accidents, they also built a shed on top of the coffin, and many lamps and candles were placed around it, and the two people who guarded the coffin sat in the shed.

Said to be on duty in turns, in fact, no one could sleep, the two of them stared at the coffin with big eyes, so late at night, it was the sixteenth day of the first month, under the bright moonlight, this mysterious coffin from the bottom of the Yellow River beach, exuding a misty black light, a strange atmosphere was quietly spreading.

Suddenly, Huo Ran, the descendant called the bolt, stood up, got up and walked to the coffin, the other man didn't hold him, shouted twice and didn't see the bolt respond, so he chased after him, trying to drag the bolt back.

But just after he caught up, he saw that the plug's eyes became demented, looking at the coffin motionless, he subconsciously looked down, and saw that although there was a shed on the coffin, there was a ray of moonlight shining through the coffin.

At this moment, the bolt suddenly trembled, roared, and rushed towards the coffin.

He was in a hurry, and he rushed up to pull the bolt, but at this time, the strength of the bolt became like a strong bull, and his expression was wrong, and he was pulled aside with a slap, and his head hit the ground, and he fainted.

The next day, after dawn, the villagers and the invited feng shui master hurried to arrive, but saw that half of the shed had collapsed, and the man was sitting on the ground, his fists clenched, his eyes were demented, as if he was stupid, staring at the coffin in front of him, no matter what everyone asked, he only remembered what happened before he fainted last night.

And the posterior embolus is gone.

When everyone saw this scene, they were immediately frightened, and the feng shui gentleman's face was also like earth, he turned around on the bank of the river, and said that this coffin is an extremely rare hunchback coffin, with extremely heavy yin qi, and it is one of the most untouchable evil things in the world.

The villagers asked him what a hunchback coffin was, and Mr. Feng Shui said that the so-called hunchback coffin is actually that the yin energy in the coffin is too strong, and the coffin becomes yin wood, which will continue to grow, squeeze and deform, so there will be this kind of hunchback coffin, also known as the back mountain coffin, which shows that the coffin is either from the place of the yin, or it is filled with the corpse of the yin.

Speaking of this, Mr. Feng Shui asked the villagers to take advantage of noon to quickly carry the coffin back to the bottom of the river beach, throw it into the black hole, and seal the hole with large stone mud, and gather all the villagers to transport soil to fill the pit, and seal the old ditch that has dried up, so as not to cause any more problems.

It took the villagers more than a month to completely fill in the old ditch, and then held a big sacrifice on the original river bank.

On the day of the big sacrifice, the village invited dozens of monks and Taoists, and the scene was really grand, but after all the ceremonies were over, the only remaining coffin keeper who had become a little crazy suddenly took out a thing from his arms, ate and said with a smile: "This ...... Didn't take it with me...... I'm going to give ...... Send ......"

Everyone was frightened and hurriedly went to rob, but he didn't fight or hide, seeing everyone coming to rob, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed a few times for some reason, and then he leaned back, and he died in such a rage.

Everyone was frightened, and no one dared to touch him, and then an old monk opened the man's clothes and saw that his skin was already covered with dark green mold.

At that time, the old monk only sighed and said nothing.

A few months later, a large temple was erected on the site of the old river ditch.

But after that, there was a strange drought in the local area for three years, and people said that they were only afraid that they would anger the river god, so they did not give rain.

Others say that under the ancient road of the Yellow River, there is a big tomb, and those bones and coffins were washed in by the water of the Yellow River after the tomb collapsed.

And some old people believe that it is the legendary Yellow River ghost coffin, and those corpses are the people killed by it.

……

After listening to the master's story, I asked curiously, where did the man go, what did the man take out at that time, and what was in the mysterious hunchback coffin, and where did it come from?

The master only smiled and did not speak.

At the time, I thought it was just a story.