When Uncle Ge saw that I was breaking through, he couldn't help but be excited and said, "Then do you know how to deal with that thing in the well?" Alas, Old Man Jiang is too miserable. ”

Although I am not a local, my grandfather fled here with a statement, and I spent my childhood here, this place is not my hometown, it is better than my hometown, and I can leave it alone. After thinking about it, I could only put down the matter in the cellar for the time being, and said to Uncle Ge that I had to meet Master Jiang before I could make plans.

At this time, we ate our bellies, drank tea and chatted for so long, made up our minds, without saying a word, Aunt Ge packed up some food, and I took the tofu to the mountain temple in the back mountain. The black dog who grabbed chicken wings with Tofu wagged his tail and led the way in front, looking very humane, Tofu scolded the dog and asked me: "Lao Chen, when will you catch ghosts again?" Could it be true that you want to deal with the water ghost? ”

I said, "I don't know how to deal with the rest of the ghosts, because they are formless and insubstantial, and they have to be professional." But I heard my grandfather say that the water ghost, also known as the water zongzi, is a kind of corpse transformation, tangible and qualitative, I can't deal with ghosts, are we still afraid of dealing with zongzi? ”

There are two kinds of water ghosts in folklore, one is that the ghost is trapped in the water after death, and the other is that the body is transformed into a water ghost after death. I can't deal with the former, but in the process of Uncle Ge telling me, he described a detail, that is, when someone looked down from the side of the well, he saw a fluffy black shadow in the depths of the well water.

It is said that the water ghost formed by the corpse is a fluffy round ball, with long arms and a large mouth, and when someone passes by the well, he will drag the person into the water with his hands, and after the person is drowned, he will use his big mouth to suck out the soul of the person, so that the soul of that person will become a new water ghost, and the previous water ghost can die.

I don't know if there is any reason for these water ghosts to find stand-ins, but I am still sure of dealing with tangible and qualitative zongzi, even if it is water zongzi.

However, before that, I have to visit Mr. Jiang first.

The mountain temple in our place, built after the Cultural Revolution, is the only feudal superstition place in the village, but whenever something unusual happens in the village, or there is any wish, it is to come to the mountain temple.

The temple is a wooden structure dedicated to the god and his spirits, and as there are fewer and fewer people in the village, there are not many people coming to the temple. When Tofu and I entered, half of the temple gate was gone, and the remaining half was wide, and on top of the door, there was a huge spider web, on which a colorful green-headed spider crawled.

Under the altar table, as we arrived, several frightened rats swooped away.

Tofu was dumbfounded and said, "Uncle Ge said that Master Jiang lives here?" Mom, can this place be inhabited? "When I was a child, I played in this mountain temple, when China's economy was not developed, and people from the countryside did not flock to the city, and our village was still very lively.

Speaking of the mountain gods, I am reminded of a strange thing.

Since I was a child, I have not been afraid of heaven and earth, and I have been running around the mountains and fields, and the children in the village have me as the leader. Once when we ran to this mountain temple, Jiang Fatzi was anxious to urinate, pointed to the shrine and said, "Let's pee and see whose finch pees farther." ”

"Good, good, good......" A bunch of broken children were naturally happy, so a few girls stomped their feet and covered their faces and ran back, saying, "We want to sue Lord Sù for saying that you are hooligans." With that, he ran back.

I said in my heart: I am the boss, and naturally I pee farthest. At that time, the vanity of children was especially strange, and at this competition everyone took it very seriously. We stood in a row, with a stern expression, and took off our pants with a brush, revealing a row of bare cheeks of different colors, counting one, two, three, pinching the little brother and starting to pee, wetting the entire shrine.

I won first place that time...... I was very proud, but when I got home, I had a high fever that night, and I dreamed that a man covered with a red cloth floated on the ground, lifted me up, pinched my feet, and threw me like a windmill. Shake and shake, I was dizzy, my stomach was churning, my eyes were open, and my head was tilted and I vomited.

Grandpa was in a hurry, and he was muttering something about Du Miao at the time, but I didn't know it at the time, but now that I think about it, grandpa may be reciting a curse, and he thinks that I want to let the curse take his life. Later, I fainted, talking nonsense, and burned for several days, and when I woke up, I heard that my grandfather knew about our competition to pee on the god case, and went to burn incense for the mountain god in the middle of the night, and also made a new god case overnight to replace it, and my illness was cured.

At this moment, looking at the dilapidated mountain temple in front of me, I thought of my grandfather again, and my heart was heavy, and then I lowered my body, avoided the cobwebs above my head, and entered the mountain temple with tofu.

Tofu shouted: "Old man Jiang, we came to see you, brought you food, are you there?" ”

I looked around, but I saw the statue of the mountain god, still the same clay statue at the beginning, half of the body cracked, strangely enough, this place is dirty everywhere, only this statue is still clean. I thought to myself, could it be that Old Man Jiang is cleaning? Yes, his family died at the hands of water ghosts, and normal people will definitely pin their hopes on the gods when they encounter such a thing.

After the tofu was shouted, no one answered, and the main hall was not big, so I looked at it at a glance. I estimated whether the person was not there, so I took the tofu to the side hall, and when I stepped on it, I reached the door, and a black figure pounced on me. Although the figure came suddenly, the movement was not fast, and I immediately dodged it, and when I looked closely, it was an unkempt old man with a wrinkled face, and the clothes he was wearing were covered with black oil, and emitted a foul smell.

Even though it has been many years, I still recognized it, and my heart was sour, and I shouted: "Old man Jiang, I'm Chen Hang, don't you remember?" ”

The old man on the other side, who was worse than a beggar, had cloudy eyes, and muttered in a hoarse voice: "Chen Hang...... Chen Hang...... It's my grandson Chubby's best friend. ”

I endured the pain in my heart and said, "It's me, I've come to see you." ”

The old man on the opposite side seemed to be a little confused, pointed to a broken wooden bed in the corner of the hall, and said, "Chen Hang, why didn't your grandfather come?" Sit...... Grandpa brought you candy, it was bought by your Uncle Jiang in the city, but it was sweet. After saying that, he wandered around the windy and filthy side hall to look for sugar.

Don't talk about me, Tofu is the most soft-hearted, his eyes are red, and he said: "This old man is too miserable, Lao Chen, we have to help him." ”

I saw that Old Man Jiang was skinny, and I was afraid that he hadn't eaten enough, so he hurriedly said: "Take out the food and let him eat first." ”

We brought some dry food for Mr. Jiang, as well as a small half bowl of stewed chicken, and Mr. Jiang smelled the meat, so he forgot to find me candy, staring at my bowl and swallowing his saliva.

Tofu brought the bowl over and said, "Old man, you're welcome, hurry up and eat it while it's hot." ”

Old man Jiang didn't speak, took the bowl and grabbed it directly with his hands, gobbling it up, and I couldn't pull the tofu next to me, so I could only go with him. When he finished eating, he began to 'gossip' with me.

"Kid of the Chen family, why didn't your grandfather come, he hasn't played chess with me for a long time."

Tofu smashed his tongue and said to me in a low voice: "It's over, the old man is completely crazy." ”

I glared at him, motioned for him not to speak, and said, "He's still busy outside, I'll see you when I have a chance." "When Old Man Jiang goes west, Bacheng will be able to meet with my grandfather underground and play chess.

"Oh." He nodded, and said, "In a blink of an eye, you have grown so big, oh, you are here to see Xiaopang, he doesn't know where the wild is, you are here and waiting." In a blink of an eye, he stared at the tofu again, blinked his old eyes, and said, "Ouch, this white-skinned and handsome person is your daughter, right?" ”

When Tofu heard this, he was choked by his own saliva for a moment, and his face was sad and angry.

I said in my heart, it seems that the old man Jiang is not only insane, but also dizzy, so he said: "I want to have such a girl, I will be the first to sell him to human traffickers." Old man, I'm here to ask you for a favor. "Although I have heard what happened from Uncle Ge's mouth, if you want to deal with the water ghost, you must first draw it out.

It's been a fine day, and it's impossible for the water ghost to come up on his own, and it's impossible for me to wait in the village for the rain. The old man's saying that zongzi harms people is based on the taste of blood, that is to say, if you want to harm your relatives first, if you want to lure out the water ghosts, you may have to let Old Man Jiang show his face.

In the past ten years, everyone has avoided the ghost well, and the water ghost in the well must be more ferocious, and it is impossible to catch it in the water, only to lure it out.

But now, looking at Old Man Jiang's situation, I am really a little worried.

"Help?" Old Man Jiang said, "Did you peek at Xiao Juanzi taking a bath again and get caught?" ”

"Ahem." I saw that Tofu was rolling with laughter, so I quickly coughed dryly, changed the subject, and said, "Old man, this happened many years ago, don't take it to heart." After a pause, I asked tentatively, "Do you remember, in front of your house...... The well? This word seemed to have opened some mechanism, Old Man Jiang's pupils dilated instantly, as if he saw something in the void, the loose skin on his face trembled, and after a while, he covered his head, leaving only us on the top of our dirty and unkempt heads.

Tofu stopped laughing, slowly got up, looked at Old Man Jiang's shrugged shoulders, and said, "Old Chen, the old man is crying, let's stop stimulating him." ”

I was silent for a while, and said in my heart that I had an acquaintance with Jiang Fatzi, and I couldn't let his family suffer this kind of pain in vain, and the old man could think of the well, which meant that his mind still had a chance to be sober, and if he wasn't stimulated now, he would probably die of confusion and hatred. Immediately, I shook my head at Tofu, signaled him not to stop him, and said slowly: "Ten years ago, Xiaojiang drowned in the well water, then your daughter-in-law, and finally your son, and then you invited a yin and yang duangong, how did he tell you......

Old Man Jiang trembled more and more, and after a while, he raised his head and said viciously: "Water ghost! ”