The uncle took out some money on his body and handed it to the Taoist priest, but the Taoist priest waved his hand and did not accept it, he told his uncle, if this matter is resolved after today, you can bring a basket of eggs and a chicken to thank me, I will not accept money. So my uncle could only thank me again and again, and then rushed back to the teahouse with me.

After my uncle and I arranged everything according to the priest's instructions before the sun went down, I glued the charm with the grains of rice, and then my uncle cooked noodles and ate them with me, and then we both closed the doors and windows and hid in the room.

By about half past eleven o'clock in the evening, I was dozing off a little, when a rapid bell rang.

When I heard the sound of the bell, I suddenly came to my senses and sat up straight, and my uncle also looked nervous. The sound of the bell lasted for about twenty or thirty seconds, as the Taoist priest said, and then suddenly there was a soft "click", and there was no more movement.

But my uncle and I still don't dare to go out rashly, what if the soldier miscalculates this layer? What if we open the door and see that ghost standing in our doorway?

So my uncle and I didn't dare to go out that night, but we couldn't fall asleep, just squinted intermittently for a while, the lobby was quiet, but the wind in the night from time to time blew the roof tiles, any little wind and grass, made my uncle and I feel frightened.

This is probably the first time I have encountered such a thing up close, from the initial disbelief, to the gradual doubt of my own cognition, and then to the deep belief in this strange everything, in fact, only a short day, I don't know why I can easily accept all this, fear is one thing, and there is also an indescribable excitement in my heart, this excitement seems to tell me that you know too little, there are too many things in this world that you need to know.

So that night, my uncle and I were so intermittent that we didn't dare to go out until dawn.

I poked my head into the lobby to see, and it was basically the same as what we had seen the first night, so I walked over to the stool with the bell bolted, and found that everything was intact and the same as last night, except for the little wooden man standing on the chopsticks, but he fell into the water bowl, and not only that, but there was a trace of red liquid floating in the water, which did not faint in the water, as if it were the blood of the wooden man.

At this time, my uncle called me and asked me to go over and look at the charm pasted on the door, I leaned over to take a look, and found that the charm that had been written down the day before was now showing some signs of fading, and the edge of the charm was slightly curled, I reached out and touched it, and it seemed that after being baked at high temperature, the original soft and thin rune paper became much harder and brittle.

The night was peaceful, and there was nothing unusual at the scene except for these slight changes. Although we can't be sure that this ghost was actually caught, at least these signs indicate that all this done by the Taoist priest has some effect.

So I said to my uncle, should we visit that Taoist priest again? Uncle nodded and said of course he would go. So he took me out, bought a basket of eggs and a chicken while he was in the morning market, and then walked towards the Taoist priest's house.

The Taoist priest accepted the things, and then asked me to explain the situation carefully, and the Taoist priest smiled and said, Now don't worry, that ghost will not appear in your house again. You don't need to take off the charm on your door for the time being, and you can take it down and burn it on the seventh day of the seventh day, which is the night of the seventh day of the dead soul, but you can find time to bring it to me except for the water bowl.

My uncle thanked me again and again, and then he was going to take me away, but when I reached the door, my curiosity was unbearable, so I turned to the Taoist priest and said, "What is going on here, how do you know that the ghost has been destroyed?"

The Taoist priest looked at me for a moment, and then said to me, first of all, the ghost was not destroyed, but was taken away, and it was collected on the little wooden man. It also needs to do a series of excessive rituals to make it no longer troublesome.

The little wooden man is a kind of handicraft of helping the beggar, the reason why it is carved into the appearance of a human being, in fact, is specially used to give those dead souls possessed or forced to be imprisoned in the wooden man.

Soldiers? What is a soldier and a horse? I couldn't help but ask. It had probably been a long time since the Taoist priest had asked him this so carefully, and he looked a little happy. Probably the vast majority of people who find him have encountered some troubles that they can't solve on their own, or even beyond their cognition, but when things are resolved, they usually leave after giving a certain amount of remuneration like my uncle.

Judging from the Taoist priest's expression, although it was impolite for me to ask such a rash question, he was very happy to accept my impoliteness.

The Taoist priest began to explain to me that the so-called soldiers and horses are divided into upper and lower altars, and the difference between Taoist priests and wizards is also in the upper and lower altars.

This time the person who was shot to death in your family first died violently, that is to say, before he died, he didn't think he would die at the moment, so this kind of death has a strong anger, no, the first seven days should be the last chance to return to the soul and stay in the world, he did not go to his parents' house or go back to his own home, but returned to the place where he died, and he also showed his appearance, this resentful soul, once subdued, is also rampant.

In fact, I heard what he said so well that I didn't know what he was talking about, and I didn't even understand how to write those words. The Taoist priest then told me that generally speaking, a place where there are frequent spirits or dead people belongs to the bad or too good earth. Divided into two extremes, it is easy to collect rampant soldiers and horses in such a place.

The wooden figure is a tool to lure its upper body, because the dead soul has no body, and if no one takes the initiative to dedicate itself to possess it at this time, any humanoid thing, it may be eager to get in. The charm attached to the door and the gossip pressed on the bottom of the bowl are actually deterrent and harmful to the soul, but the meaning of the spell is indeed confusing the soul of the soul, so that it can't see the gossip, otherwise it will definitely not drill into it by itself.

Rice mixed with incense ashes, because the incense ashes are accumulated when I worship soldiers and horses every day, which is equivalent to the leftovers of the dead souls, these things can be the first to be detected by the dead souls, soaking such rice in clear water, taking the meaning of the five elements in one, confusing the dead souls to forget the danger of being caught, so as to be more daring. The bolder it is, the more likely it is to go wrong.

The more the Taoist priest spoke, the more energetic he became, although nine times out of ten I didn't understand, I didn't know why, although I didn't understand, but I felt very powerful.

He continued, and the chopsticks on the bowl are even simpler, after the traps one after another in front, the dead soul will definitely possess the wooden man, but when it is just possessed, the wooden man will fall because of unsteady stepping, and the place where it falls is exactly the water bowl.

Water has the effect of imprisoning the soul, if the dead soul is in the water, there is no way to do it, don't really want to escape easily, this is why the drowned ghost will never appear alone in a place without water, and can only harm people in a place where there is water.

When the wooden man falls, the incense ash and rice in the water will cause damage to the soul, at this time it will want to struggle, but it can't escape from this small water bowl, when the ghost struggles, it triggers the bell because of the size of the energy, and makes a sound, so we know that when the bell rings, this ghost is basically caught nine out of nine if it is not powerful or profound.

I asked again, what about the bloody wooden man? There's not even anything red in that bowl. The Taoist priest laughed and said, "Young man, it's not blood, it's the ghost who wants to escape but can't do it, so he changes out something that makes us look like blood, because at this time the ghost is already very clear about his own state of death, I want to ask you, when the big soldier shot him that day, was the position of the shot the same as the position where you saw the wooden man bleeding?"

I thought about it, and it seemed like it was true, so I nodded. The Taoist priest said, maybe the bell you heard at that time was only for a short time, that was for us living people, but for the dead souls, that time was very long, water is a relatively isolated environment, separated by the earthly world and the underworld. The wooden man eventually bleeds, which means that it has never been able to struggle, and finally resigned itself to its fate. The resignation here shows that it clearly recalls what it was like when it died.

I was stunned for a long time, the Taoist priest's words seemed profound, but after confirming them one by one, I found that everything was indeed in his expectations, and I couldn't help but have some admiration. Maybe it was because of my serious expression, the Taoist priest said triumphantly, I am also an older generation of Taoist priests in these ten miles and eight towns, if you don't have some real skills, how can you find me, know that I can help you.

At this time, my uncle scolded me and said, stinky boy, don't always ask this and that, you don't understand, don't annoy the master! So I waved goodbye to the Taoist priest and walked towards my uncle. When I walked to the door, I asked, "Can I come to you more often in the future?"

To this day, I still don't understand what motivated me to say this, and for many years after that, I didn't think about whether I would regret it.

The Taoist priest hesitated for a moment and said to me, whether you are here to play or not, you are welcome to come.