My family once had a copper drum, the drum body engraved with 'Hu Huang Bai Qing Gray, Wu Long Wolf Dog Black Python' twelve immortals, the bottom of the drum is engraved with twenty-four clear winds, the breeze is a ghost, and the drum surface is engraved with a human-faced strange sheep eating grass pattern, it is said that this drum is the Guanwai shamanic sacrifice 'stammering fairy' used in the sacrificial vessel, called 'Zhen Wan Xian', and the original holder of the drum is my grandfather.

……

My grandfather's name was Ma Sanshan, and he was a muddy man.

I heard the old man in the village say that he liked to steal dogs when he was young, no matter whose dog he had, he would be dragged home to eat meat, and everyone dared to be angry and dare not speak, just because he was muddy, and when he went out, he would have two kitchen knives in his waist, and he would not die in a fight, and others would hide when they saw him.

In the impression of others, he never seemed to be afraid of anyone or anything, swaggering through the market with a kitchen knife every day, not going to work and not farming, no one knew what he was doing when he went out day by day, and no one dared to ask, only that he was very punctual every day when he went out early and returned late, but suddenly one day, he went out in the morning and didn't come back all night.

This pregnant grandmother was in a hurry, and it was inconvenient to drag her body by herself, so she mobilized the family to go out to look for it, but she couldn't find it, and then it was not until the next night that the grandfather staggered back home by himself, and when he entered the door, his face was dark, and he didn't say anything when he asked him, and he broke into the back room and climbed up the kang. At that time, the kang in his hometown was very high, and he climbed on the kang and began to stand on the edge of the kang and jump down in a daze, falling himself, and he couldn't stop until he fell all over his face with blood and was about to faint.

Grandmother later recalled that when my grandfather entered the door that day, the clothes on his body were very dirty, mud and grass, as if he had rolled in the field, and there were two pieces of paper money burned for the dead in his trouser legs, which should have been to the cemetery outside the village, and my grandfather did not come back empty-handed, when he entered the door, he was carrying something in his arms, and when he climbed on the kang, he stuffed it into the quilt stack on the kang, and the next day his grandmother took it out and saw that it was the copper drum.

Why did my grandfather go to the cemetery in a good way? Where did that drum come from? Grandfather never mentioned it, so it has always been a mystery.

Three months later, my grandfather's first child was born, my father's first sister.

But a few days after the child was born, one night when the family was eating on the kang, the rice bowl in the grandfather's hand fell out without holding it, and it was just covered on the child's head impartially.

Later, my grandmother became ill because of this incident, and even after so many years, I still cried when I thought about it, crying so much that my eyes couldn't see clearly, and my grandfather's temperament changed greatly after that, becoming more muddy and more fearless.

At that time, my old house lived in a relatively remote area, next to a large garbage heap and an abandoned factory, often there were snakes along the crack in the gate into the yard, grandfather as long as he saw it, he used a shovel to cut the snake into several pieces, and then shoveled out and threw it away, and then one time, out of nowhere in the yard a big yellow wolf, that thing drilled fast, grandfather knew that he couldn't catch it, so he stared at it, wanted to scare it away, but when grandfather stared at it, it not only did not run, but also stared at grandfather, and stood up like a person.

Grandfather didn't think so much when he was drunk, as soon as he came up and picked up the shovel and slapped it, the yellow wolf still didn't move, he still stood there staring at his grandfather, and his grandfather slapped it again, and slapped the yellow wolf's head more than ten times in a row, until he was shot to death, until the head was smashed, and the yellow wolf was stunned and didn't move.

Grandfather was still angry, so he peeled off the skin of the dead yellow wolf and dried it on the clothesline in the courtyard, and then the grandmother came back from outside and pushed the door, and was so frightened that she sat on the ground, crying and began to scold the street, first scolding the grandfather for causing a big disaster and offending the fairy family, and then suddenly began to laugh wildly again, laughing so much that she couldn't stop laughing, and she still had words in her mouth, saying a series of words that no one could understand.

At that time, I was already fifteen or sixteen years old, and I was also at the scene, and I was so frightened that I cried when I saw my grandmother's appearance, and I didn't know what to do, but it happened that there were several Manchu families living in the village, and some people said that listening to the tone of the old lady's mouth was very similar to Manchu, but even the Manchus couldn't understand what she meant.

Later, my grandmother's symptoms lasted for about an hour, and then she stopped, and was so tired that she lay on the ground for a long time and couldn't stand up, and the villagers said that if you don't go to the 'incense watcher' to check on the matter, don't really bump into anything, but the grandfather completely ignored the stubble, and went back to the house to drink a little wine.

How do you know that not long after this incident, my grandfather suddenly began to have a sore throat, sometimes it hurt so much that he couldn't even speak, coughed up blood, and never left the cigarette pouch and pot on weekdays and didn't dare to touch it.

The family knew that even if they were hospitalized, it would be useless, so they took my grandfather straight home, but a few days after my grandfather was taken home, my grandmother suddenly called my home and told us that my grandfather said that he felt that he was almost at the end of his life, and that he wanted us to hurry over.

When we arrived at the old house, as soon as we entered the yard, my grandmother ran out and stopped us tremblingly and said that my grandfather had told her that he had seen someone in the yard come to pick him up, it was an old man and an old lady, the old man was on crutches, and the two of them kept looking into the house and laughing, but my grandmother didn't see anything at that time.

My dad was so frightened that his face turned white after hearing this, so he quickly bought incense and bowed around the yard, and then went into the house to comfort my grandfather and said that it was okay and asked him not to think about it, but my grandfather still had a look of disdain to life and death, and he was surprisingly calm.

But this calm only lasted for a few minutes, and he suddenly grabbed the scissors of the kang head without warning, and slashed it on his wrist, and the blood instantly overflowed, frightening all of us, but my grandfather didn't blink his eyes, and stared at us people and only said one sentence - "You all care!" ”

The family didn't care where they could, and my grandmother cried and blocked it, trying to hold down the wound with a rag, but my grandfather still stared at him with an expression of not being afraid, and tore off the rag and threw it out, and then tossed for a few minutes, he began to convulse, and his face became whiter and paler, and then he ......

I remember that on the day of the funeral, it was pouring rain, and my family was busy greeting relatives and friends, and I went out to buy cigarettes in a filial piety suit, and when I came back, I saw an old man who looked very kind, dressed in white, standing in front of me with a crutch in the heavy rain, staring at me and laughing slightly.

But I had never seen him at all, and I didn't even feel that I had ever seen such a person in a few nearby villages, and I had no impression at all, and somehow I suddenly became afraid, and I hurried home without paying attention to him, and when I passed by him, I clearly heard the old man laugh and say, "You can't run, you are next." ”

The old man laughed and spoke in a very small voice, but it made my scalp tingle, and I was terrified like never before, but fortunately everything went as usual in the next few days, and gradually I forgot about it, until the first seven days, strange things happened again......

According to the old etiquette, our family had to go back to our hometown to live that day, and my father and I slept on the big kang where my grandfather walked, and I remember that he used to sleep with his head facing north when he was alive, and I liked to sleep with my head facing south, so I pulled the pillow to the south to sleep.

There was no movement that night, after all, I slept relatively deeply, but when I woke up in the morning, I found that the pillow I was sleeping on had run to the north of the kang by itself, which happened to be placed in the position that my grandfather liked to sleep in before his death, and before going to bed, I obviously put the shoes neatly arranged under the edge of the kang, and now the east and west are thrown at random, as if I was kicked at night, but at that time only I and my father were there, and he woke up later than me, and he never went out at night.

And I had a strange dream that night, I couldn't see anyone in the dream, but I could hear my grandfather's voice, and the voice asked me, "Little Liuzi, I got in the car and left, will you go with me?" ”