There are four major ghost festivals among the people, that is, March 3, Qingming Festival, July and a half and the first day of October, which can be directly called the Ghost Festival only in July and a half.

Legend has it that every year from the first day of July, the king of Hades ordered the gates of hell to be opened, so that those who suffered and imprisoned in hell all year round came out of hell, got a short-term wandering, and enjoyed the blood and food of the world, so people called July the ghost month, this month is considered to be an unlucky month, neither marrying nor moving.

In Buddhism, it is known as the Olan Festival, and the Buddhist understanding is that on this day, the king of Yama will open the gate of hell "Onimon Seki", allowing the imprisoned ghosts to move freely and return to the underworld until the end of July. Therefore, during this time, the folk are popular to worship and summon the souls of their deceased relatives, burn the ingots of the dead money, paper clothes and candles, put river lanterns, and perform rituals to pray for the blessing of the ancestors, eliminate disasters and increase blessings, or overkill the souls of the dead, and resolve grievances.

Farmers in the Central Plains of Henan Province call this day the Livestock Festival, and there are many activities to worship the cattle on this day. In Linxian County, northern Henan and other places, on the 15th day of July, every family has to steam lamb-shaped white flour buns, which are steamed at noon and enshrined on the desk, and then set off firecrackers to celebrate the prosperity of the trough. All the peasant families with large animals should stop serving for one day on this day, and give the lamb buns after the offering to the big animals to eat, and some of them should feed the animals with concentrated feed such as beans, so as to show that the festival of animals is different from usual. In the evening, they also make a pot of rice soup for the animals to drink. Therefore, there is a folk song that says: "Beat a thousand, scold a thousand, and drink a small meal of rice on the fifteenth day of the seventh month." ”

In the old years when the grave team worked, the local people's superstitious thoughts were still very heavy, and those old customs must be done every time they come to traditional festivals, such as the village sacrifice to the heavens and burn high incense, and the heads of pigs, cows, and sheep on the table, the meat of chickens, ducks, and geese, and some melons and fruits as sacrifices. But back then, no one had enough to eat, how could there be money to buy those meaty melons and fruits, at this time, there were skillful people who would pinch clay people, so they used mud to pinch out the heads of some pigs, cattle and sheep to fill the number, and the noisy and noisy looked like that from a distance.

The family also has to set up an offering table, the village is to worship the sky, and the family is to worship the ancestors, so you can't use big fish and meat, you have to use white flour buns and this rice to set the table.

This is very interesting, at that time the Korean War was still hot, all the grain was supported to the front, some coarse grains were eaten all year round, rice and flour had to be used during the New Year, at that time there were smart people to make a special bowl with a thickened bottom of the bowl, this kind of bowl from the appearance of the bowl does not look much different from the ordinary bowl, but from the mouth of the bowl, you will find that the bottom of the bowl is almost the same as the mouth of the bowl, and very little rice can be held in the bowl. The same principle is true for steamed buns, the inside is a multigrain outer bread with white flour, so it looks like that, and the living can't eat it, so they can only fool their ancestors.

Of course, the four Halloween paper burning is also a necessary tradition, the Chinese regard paper burning as an act of spiritual communication with the deceased, and when burning paper, they still have to chant a set of stumbling in their mouths, that is, to seek good health, to prosper the family, to produce more grain in the field, etc., is an act of seeking protection and blessing from the deceased.

There are many mountains in the local area, and many families bury their ancestral graves directly on the hillside, sorted from top to bottom, like the ancestral hall worship ranking. Every time there is a burning anniversary or a Qingming Halloween Festival, you have to go to the mountains to burn paper and set off firecrackers, which is especially easy to cause mountain fires.

Therefore, the county paid special attention to the funeral customs in this area, and had repeatedly negotiated to move the ancestral graves of the villagers on the hillside to other places, or to worship, but not to burn paper and set off firecrackers. But the folk tradition of burning paper has long been deep-rooted, and now they are suddenly not allowed to burn them and do not listen, every year is still to burn paper and set firecrackers, and the workers of the forest farm have to patrol everywhere, for fear of setting the forest on fire.

But on July 15 of this year, there was a family that went to the mountain on the grave slope to worship their ancestors and burn paper, and as a result, a large area of pine forest was set on fire, and the pine pine will secrete a kind of pine resin, which will not ignite, but the gas it produces when it volatilizes is very flammable, and once the forest is on fire somewhere, it will have a catastrophic chain reaction.

The black smoke that the third child saw in the grave slope may be the smoke from the fire in the pine forest, which can be seen for several kilometers around.

It was a terrible sign for the people of the nearby villages, the dense forests in the mountains were unimaginable, and if there was a fire in one part of the mountain, it would not only be very difficult to extinguish but would spread to other places in a short time. Most of the villagers' fields and houses are built along the mountain, and once the wildfire spreads to the village, it will cause huge losses to people and animal property, and the loss of the entire thick forest will be even greater.

The locals knew all these consequences, and the brothers of the grave team also knew about it, and the third child shouted at that time, "It's broken, the forest is on fire." ”

Hu Dabo was still lying at the entrance of the cave, when he heard the shout of the third child, he looked up, and sure enough, there was a lot of smoke in the forest above, which seemed to be on fire, so he hurriedly shouted: "It's really a mother, let's hurry up and let Xiao Qi and Lao Wu run out, the fire will burn after a while." ”

Lao Wu stared at the smoking position on the mountain, and then he said: "Oh no, the place where the fire is on fire seems to be the Houtang Temple." ”

It was really reminded by him that the third child fainted after drinking water at the time, and he didn't know where the Houtang Temple was, but the fifth and sixth went to the neighborhood, although they didn't see the Houtang Temple with their own eyes, but they knew the location.

Houtang Temple has always been very evil, there were countless people who were killed by the Zhang family of this Houtang Temple and boiled and eaten, so far the old man of the Zhang family has not been found, many ghost stories and other backgrounds in the village are in the Houtang Temple, whenever I think of the two houses before and after, I get goosebumps all over my body.

Several people still had to pull the rope, the sixth stood on the top of the pit at the end, he stood high and saw clearly, so he said to the people in the pit: "The fifth brother is right, it is really the place in the Houtang Temple that is on fire, and from this point of view, the position is particularly like the place where the fifth brother fell and gnawed mud." ”

Lao Wuyi's face turned red when he heard this, and he scolded angrily: "Don't talk nonsense, this old Wu and Qi'er are still below, and the Houtang Temple is on fire again, what do you say?" ”

Hu Dawei didn't wait for the sixth brother to reply, he preemptively said: "Hey, I said that you don't care if the Houtang Temple is not on fire, even if it is burned, it can be regarded as a tribute to the many unjust souls who died there before, and if you don't get it right, you will release them, then you don't have to suffer all day long to scare people passing by." ”

The third child lay on the edge of the cave and shouted a few more times, but there was still no response, and he hurriedly turned around in a circle with his teeth. Suddenly stopped, turned his head and looked at the black smoke coming out of the pine forest, and then said to Hu Dabao: "Second brother? I said, can you have a snack? The forest is on fire, and it doesn't matter to us? If it burns down, the whole village will have to burn down, and then you will have to take a blanket and find a cowshed to sleep in, and then it will be your dormitory. ”

After the third child finished speaking, he climbed out of the pit with his hands and feet, looked at the black smoke in the distance and said: "I guess the people in the village have also seen it, maybe they are rushing there, we have to go to see the situation first, and then help extinguish the mountain fire." Fourth, you come with me, let's go and come back quickly, and the others hold on to the rope and don't let go, especially the second one, if you untie your body, see how I clean you up when I come back. The fourth child didn't speak, and crawled out of the pit with a muffled voice, and followed the third child to the place where the black smoke was emitting.

Hu Dabian sat in the dirt pit and held his mouth, and only dared to speak when the third child walked away: "You damn thing, it's not big or small, I'm the second brother, just talk to me like this?" He has to come back to clean me up, and the more I say that, the more I have to untie it, and I'll see how he can clean me up when he comes back. After speaking, he really reached out to catch the rope on his body.

The bottom of the cave was very dark, Xiao Qi held the bricks on both sides with both hands and stretched out his feet to probe, but there was no place to settle in there, and the surroundings were empty, because his range of movements was a little large, and he knocked a palm-sized stone on his shoulder. After about half a second, there was a continuous crashing sound below, mixed with the sound of stones hitting metal farther and farther away, before it stopped.

Xiao Qi felt that there seemed to be a big cellar underneath, and this hole happened to be dug from one of the ceilings of the cellar, if it looked like this, it should have been dug from above, but why was the hole buried very well? This Xiao Qi couldn't figure it out, and he didn't bother to think about it, now the main purpose is to find Lao Wu and get him up, he doesn't care what this hole is dug.

His whole person is like hanging in the hole on the parallel bars, and his feet are still shaking, and he keeps stretching out to step on things, but his current position is awkward, digging a hole in the roof of a shed, how can you step on things with your feet stretched out, so you can only temporarily support your body with your hands and think of a way.

Xiao Qi thought of the stone that fell just now, and felt that it shouldn't be too high, and it shouldn't be okay to jump down. However, if he jumped in, it would be impossible to grab the rope, unless he was dragging the rope up to tell his brother, but it was dark in front of him now, and he didn't know where the rope was, and it was impossible to reach out and grab the rope in his current posture, so he could only go in and find Lao Wu thinking of a way. Xiao Qi took a few breaths and then held back, and as soon as his hands were released, the whole person fell down in an instant.

It's really not too high below, it's just more than two meters, Xiao Qi was ready to land, but what he never expected was that the ground below turned out to be a slope, he slipped and fell to the ground the moment he landed, his upper body slammed on the ground, his head was buzzed, and the whole person was blinded, and he rolled down the slope before he could react. At this moment, it was dark at the bottom of the cave with his eyes open and his eyes closed, and as the earth turned upside down, his arms, legs and feet also hurt from hitting him, but he couldn't see anything and couldn't control his body, so he could only let his body roll down.

Xiao Qi screamed in surprise while rolling, and stretched out his hands to scratch indiscriminately. At that moment, he suddenly felt something grab his pants and slam his downward force against the wall next to him. This hit was not light, Xiao Qi's whole body hurt, and he screamed when he breathed in the cold air.

Qi'er couldn't help but make a sound! There's something down there! ”

Lao Wu's voice suddenly sounded so that Xiao Qi instantly forgot the pain in his body, the rolling just now had made him lose his sense of direction, and it took a long time to notice that he was lying down the slope with his head down, and he barely raised his head to look down, and found that there were a few small green lamps in front of him, and a hot fishy wind blowing on his face.

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