I found something to eat downstairs at the hotel, there is a school nearby, and many students on their way to school buy breakfast nearby. Hu called his employer, and he told us to find a place in town to wait for her. Hu Zongren looked at the nearby reference objects and said a place, then hung up the phone, and Hu Zongren and I ate together while waiting for the employer to come.

After waiting for about half an hour, a middle-aged woman dressed in jujube red rushed over, and it seemed that their home was really far away. After meeting us, we got in the car together and drove in the direction of her house. The accent of the people of Pengnan is relatively unique, somewhat close to Hu Zongren's accent but not exactly the same. Hu Zongren is a native of Yilong, and the jurisdiction of Yilong belongs to Nanchong, Sichuan, while Pengnan belongs to the jurisdiction of Suining. Nanchong and Suining were originally adjacent, but Pengnan's accent was more Nanchong. For example, when they say "go back", the pronunciation is "fat", and for example, "speak", the pronunciation is "say fat", as I personally, I have a great impression of this authentic local sound.

Their family was really not close, walking along a narrow mountain road, the road was so narrow that they could only pass a tricycle and a car in parallel, fortunately it was still relatively early, there were no cars on the road, after passing a mountain temple, we arrived at their house. This is a typical rural household in eastern Sichuan, and it seems that it is a good family in such an environment as the countryside. A two-story brick house, with several small side rooms arranged at right angles on one side of the house and the house, the kitchen and the toilet. In front of the house was a large square yard, surrounded by waist-high bricks, and a few chickens scattered in the yard. Facing the house is a large open farmland, because the house is located in a higher position, so the field of vision is very wide, in the words of Hu Zongren, this is called the left green dragon, the right white tiger, backed by the green mountains, is "backed by the mountain", the feng shui position is excellent.

The middle-aged woman took out two stools from the hall and gave one to Hu Zongren and me, and then took out cigarettes from the house and distributed them to me and Hu Zongren, but she did not smoke them. I suspect that she must not be a smoker, and that the pack of cigarettes belonged either to the head of the family or to be bought for our arrival, the latter being more likely, because she didn't even tear off the wrapper in the cigarette case. Then she sat down on herself and introduced herself.

She said her surname was Deng, Deng Xiaoping's Deng. She particularly emphasized this point. Hu Zongren said to Aunt Deng that since he didn't make it clear on the phone before, we can only guess on the road in many situations, so I hope we can explain the problem in person at this time. Aunt Deng said she was a widow herself and that the man had died five years ago. I have two children in my family, the eldest is a daughter, I just got married a while ago, my son-in-law is from Suining City, and my son is three years younger than my daughter, and he is currently attending college in other places. She said that she was the only woman in the family, and she couldn't plant the land herself, so she sublet it to nearby villagers, and they symbolically gave some rent money. I mainly take care of the cherry orchard in the middle of the mountain contracted by my husband before his death, and the cherry seasonality is relatively strong, so I won't be particularly tired, except for the hard work when killing insects and fertilizing, I only need to go to see it often on weekdays, fire prevention and theft. And this time it was mainly his daughter who had an accident.

After speaking, Aunt Deng pointed to the second floor of the building behind her, and then said, My daughter is in the room now, and her aunt knows that the two of you are coming today, especially to help me take care of her. I said to Aunt Deng, what are the specific symptoms, when did they start, and did anything special happen before and after you found out? I asked a little more directly, because I was really worried that what I met this time was a mourner, and it had nothing to do with whether or not I stepped on someone's grave, it was all because of bad luck.

Aunt Deng said that the main symptoms are hot on the body but cold palms, sweat on the forehead, sweat on the forehead, sweat is also cold but the skin is very hot. She said that her daughter's own physique is relatively easy to sweat, so she tossed like this for many days in a row, worried that the child would not be able to stand it, and she and her daughter's aunt often wiped her daughter's body, physically cooled down, and even forcibly fed water, afraid that she would be dehydrated. Aunt Deng told us that it was strange to say that she was sweating so much, but her lips were always chapped, and they had cracked into the flesh several times. At most, the eyes can only be half-opened, and the circle under the eyelids has turned purple, and they are talking nonsense, just like when a child first started talking to Miao, and no one can understand what is being said. Sometimes I have to have convulsions, and when I have convulsions, I have to roll my eyes, my hands and feet are straight, and my fingers are curled like chicken feet. The feces and urine are all solved in bed, and we have to turn her over often, for fear of getting bedsores or something.

Aunt Deng went on to say that the start time was about two weeks ago, and her daughter just said that she was dizzy and uncomfortable, thinking that she had a cold, and she didn't take it seriously after taking some medicine, but when she got up the next morning, she was very weak, and even I, an old woman, could see that something was wrong with the child, so she quickly let her lie down on the bed to rest, and as a result, this lie down became what it is now. I asked Aunt Deng, I heard Master Hu say, your daughter just got married, right, did these situations happen after getting married? She said yes. I said, did you do it at home, or did you do it in a restaurant in town? Aunt Deng said that we are far down the mountain here, and our relatives and friends are in the nearby villages, and it is not the practice of our rural people to go so far to do a big operation, so we hired a one-stop cook, and then set up more than a dozen tables of flowing water mats in the area where we are at the intersection of the yard.

I asked Aunt Deng again, the people who came to the wedding at that time were all acquaintances in your woman's family, right? She said yes, her son-in-law is from Suining, and only his parents came with him, and all the others were villagers in our village. I asked her, did you see anyone you didn't know at the scene, or someone who was dressed strangely? Aunt Deng looked at me with a serious expression, and knew that I was asking a key question, she thought about it carefully and said, there are some, most of them know, a few are not familiar but have seen it, and you know that the rural banquet has always been a family, which I don't think is strange. I asked Aunt Deng, at the wedding scene, you didn't see anyone in mourning clothes?

Aunt Deng seemed to be a little unhappy when she heard me ask, she muttered, how is that possible, they are all from the villagers, come to congratulate you, how can anyone wear mourning clothes, besides, can that mourning clothes be worn by living people. Hearing Aunt Deng's answer, I suddenly felt a little dazed, and turned my head to look at Hu Zongren, who also looked sad. Analyzed the situation of their family, since it was the situation that only appeared after the daughter got married, if it was my previous guess, then it is very likely to be the happy ghost among the mourning ghosts, who like to wear mourning clothes to attend other people's wedding banquets, but I really can't think of any possibility that Aunt Deng wants to hide from me, it stands to reason that when everyone is happily attending the wedding banquet, there is such a person wearing mourning clothes, it is indeed more eye-catching, Aunt Deng marries her daughter herself, this should not be discovered.

So if it's not a mourner, then what should it be? So I asked Aunt Deng, Master Hu told me on the way to come, probably because it is related to your custom of marrying people here, can you tell me more about what kind of custom? Aunt Deng said that they are all customs handed down by the ancestors, because this village itself did not have a village hundreds of years ago, and the first person to live here was actually a salt dealer who sold salt from Guizhou to Sichuan, and then slowly developed into a village. So I immediately thought of the mountain temple I met on the way just now, the salt gang worships three gods I know the way, one is Guan Gong, because they often meet the green forest heroes, need to resist and rob, so worship Guan Gong. The other is Mazu, which is more present in the coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian, the salt gang members, afraid that they will not be able to find a place to dock after going to sea, so they worship Mazu, and the other is to worship the mountain god.

In Chinese legends, where there is a mountain, there is a mountain god of the town, whether the mountain is big or small, the level of the mountain god is the same, in the early years of Sichuan and Chongqing, the main source of salt is Guizhou, and the Shu road is difficult to go to the blue sky, Guizhou into Sichuan is supposed to climb over a lot of mountains, and the mountains of Sichuan are not a few. So what Aunt Deng meant was that many of the people in their village were descendants of the Salt Gang. Aunt Deng went on to say that our marriage custom here is that once a man and a woman decide to get married, the man must walk up the mountain with the bride price to kowtow to the mother-in-law, which is called "worshipping the mountain", and no matter how the man and woman were like glue before, before the mother-in-law recognized her son-in-law, the daughter must always hide in the boudoir, not open the window, and not see people. Until the mother-in-law accepted the bride price, the young couple could not meet. After the wedding ceremony, the man and the man's relatives need to leave in advance, return home to prepare the wedding room, and use a feather duster to clean all the dust in the house, which means to remove filth, and when the bride comes, it will be a completely new life. The bride needs to give her husband's family enough time to prepare, usually 7 days to half a month, and then the bride will be sent all the way to her husband's house by her mother's family, this time, before the first day of the first month of the next year, she is not allowed to return to her mother's house, otherwise it will be considered unlucky, and she will be driven out by her in-law's family, and the consequence is that the woman will be regarded as a woman who will not give birth to children, so she can not stay in her husband's house.

Although it is some feudal customs, but after all, it is also an integral part of our culture, and most people nowadays do their weddings according to the rules and regulations, and they look like a thing, as for those deep things, I am afraid that not many people want to study deeply. But from Aunt Deng's description of the local customs, I couldn't think of any steps that might hit the ghost, if this is not a mourning ghost, and the custom is correct, how did this girl get tricked?

At this time, Hu Zongren interjected and asked Aunt Deng, the people from the husband's family are gone, what have the people of the mother's family done in the past 7 days? Aunt Deng said that her mother's family has to prepare a dowry, as well as quilts and mattresses, local chickens, ducks, and fish, as well as eggs, ducks, eggs and so on, anyway, most of them are some agricultural and sideline products. During this period, the bride will go to the family to give her closest relatives such as grandparents, uncles and aunts, and personally come to thank her, which means that our children are married, and Xie Lu thanks the blessings of the elders. If the elders in the family pass away, whether it is during the Qingming period or not, they must go to the grave to bow down and comfort the ancestors.

Bow down at the grave? There's a problem here!