Hit the yin and yang road

There are countless customs of burying corpses after death, and it is not surprising that burial is the most common.However, there are many strange and weird burial methods in a few areas, such as sky burial and hanging coffin burial, which were spread later and became familiar.Water burial is less known, and it is bloody and violent due to the influence of primitive religion.

Water burial and sky burial have the same meaning, the latter feeds the eagle and the former feeds the fish, both the eagle and the fish are the incarnations of gods.In the eyes of people in areas where water burial is practiced, throwing the corpse into the river and burying it in the belly of a fish is the way to reincarnation and purification of the soul.This is a customary belief in some areas.

There are different methods of water burial in different regions, and there are two most common ones.One is to throw the whole body into the river, and the other is to throw it into the river after being cremated.The other is to use a knife to chop off the body at the waist, fold it and throw it into the river. The last one is more bloody. It needs to be cut and dismembered inch by inch with extremely sharp wooden knives and stone axes, and then thrown into the river.This process is called dismemberment.

When water burial, it is necessary to choose the time and water area, like the last method of dismemberment water burial, which needs to be carried out at night and choose the water area surrounded by sea threads to throw the corpse.

Chen Yang: "The sea thread waters... We didn't check the well in the ancestral hall carefully. The well water may be connected to the river. The side we came in didn't see the river, so it should be on the other side of the uninhabited village. What you said Water burials, this village used to be water burials, and the fish in the rivers grew up eating corpses. Those fish swam into the water of the ancestral hall through the underground undercurrent, and they were salvaged and eaten... I still don’t understand why eating fish will produce seawater. Thread pattern."

The fish that grew up eating corpses are certainly sinister, and the sea threads on Yi Wuchang's arms must have something to do with the fish in the well of the ancestral hall.But how do the two come into contact, and what does it have to do with killing hungry ghosts and vultures?

"Fish has a special status in Taoism. The carp passes through the Dragon Gate, and the carp is the son of the dragon. The seven stars on the head of the black fish worship the Big Dipper... so there are lonely ghosts who love to attach themselves to the body of the fish. If the fish in the well of the ancestral hall really grew up eating corpses, Then it’s normal for ghosts to possess the body of a fish.” Du Shuo put his arms around Chen Yang’s shoulders, and whispered, “Let’s rest first, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Chen Yang nodded: "En."

Du Shuo found a cleaner position and let Chen Yang lean on him to sleep.The big hand stroked Chen Yang's back repeatedly, and Chen Yang soon fell asleep.Before going to sleep, he glanced at the nine ordinary people, they gathered in the corner to form two distinct teams.A team of three young people, and a team of six other people coming out of the bus.

The team that came out of the bus was hostile to the three young people. If they didn't listen to the advice and cook fish soup, how could they be trapped in the uninhabited village?As for the three young men who sneered, they were extremely disdainful of the six people who were bitches and still set up a memorial archway.

The four celestial masters set up another place, and the injured Zhong celestial master was taken care of by another celestial master.Yi Wuchang was discussing things with Liu Quanning in whispers, and the doll lay in her pocket, drowsy.As for Fatty, he was still lying on the window sill looking at the moon, not knowing what he was thinking.

If it is not located in an uninhabited village, the picture is still quiet and harmonious at this time.Chen Yang thought so when he fell asleep.

The next day Chen Yang was woken up, opened his eyes and found that Du Shuo covered his ears with his hands to block the sound.It's just that the quarrel was too loud, and Chen Yang was still woken up.He sat up and subconsciously rubbed the palm of Du Shuo's hand, then asked hoarsely, "What's going on?"

Du Shuo paused with his retracted hand, put it back on Chen Yang's head and ran along his soft hair: "Guard yourself and steal."

Chen Yang: "What happened in detail, don't give me the answer all at once. Talking to you, I will lose the joy of solving the problem."

Du Shuo quietly looked at Chen Yang with lowered eyes, the latter acted innocently.Reluctantly, Du Shuo told him in detail: "The woman holding the child accused the young man of wanting to steal her child, but the young man denied it. People in the women's team did not believe in the young man, and condemned and doubted him one after another. The young man was angry and said frankly that the child is a burden. It is better to take it away." Go out to explore the way, and the two sides will quarrel."

Chen Yang understood, got up and walked over.The two celestial masters Yi Wuchang and Liu Quanning stood aside without any intention of stepping forward to reconcile. Seeing Chen Yang, they beckoned him over.Yi Wuchang said: "Don't worry about it, they are making trouble with them."

Liu Quanning told him: "Mr. Yi's doll said them." He pointed to the two parties in the quarrel: "Guardian and self-stealing. We don't bother to care about it, and it's not time to be an aunt of the neighborhood committee."

"Well, I don't want to take care of it." After hearing Du Shuo's answer, Chen Yang didn't want to take care of it. The two parties in the quarrel were probably waiting for the celestial master to take care of it.Only when the Heavenly Master takes care of them can their drama continue to be sung.The celestial master didn't care, and soon died down.

Sure enough, they stopped arguing after a while, the three young men smiled mockingly, and the woman holding the child ran over to Chen Yang and the others crying, "They want to steal my child and throw it to those hungry ghosts. They are not human!"

"Obviously knowing that the uninhabited village is weird, I even saw my companion die in front of me. The celestial masters told me not to eat the food in the uninhabited village, but they deliberately cooked fish soup. Didn't they have eaten it secretly before? The things in the uninhabited village can't get out, so you want to drag everyone to die together? This kind of selfish person will secretly kill us if we don't drive them out now!"

"That's right! The more I think about it, the more I think it's wrong. In such a weird place, the celestial master specifically told me that no matter how playful and rebellious, it is impossible to play with everyone's life. Unless they have already met us before they met us." Trapped in an uninhabited village, they want to drag everyone to die together."

"Now you don't even let the baby go, will you let us go in the future? Celestial Masters, even if you are kind and compassionate, you shouldn't let the wolves get along with us."

Chen Yang knew the reason for this self-directed and self-acted self-stealing. It turned out that they talked about the fish in the well of the ancestral hall last night and were taken seriously by caring people.And guessed that the young man who cooked the fish soup might have been trapped in the uninhabited village long ago, and wanted to drag others to die together.

The three young men shouted after hearing the words: "It's as if we are forcing you to drink fish soup, you!" The young man pointed to the middle-aged uncle among the six people: "At first, you came to buy fish soup with me with money, You are so innocent now. All of you, could it be that I pressed your necks to force you to drink the fish soup we cooked? Make it clear, you are the ones who come here to ask me for fish soup with shame!"

"What? If you listen to the celestial master and don't touch the fish in the well in the ancestral hall, and don't cook fish soup in front of us, will we drink it? We were all hungry at that time, and you deliberately seduced us. You just dragged us on purpose Die together! Heavenly masters, this group of rebellious boys will kill us, it's not worth saving!"

The three youths rushed forward to explain: "Don't listen to their nonsense, we did not think too much about it for fun. We didn't force them, but they came to us with a shy face. Now, this is what they bought. The money for the fish soup." The young man took out a few red notes from his pocket, showed them to Chen Yang and the others as evidence, and threw them back to the middle-aged uncle after reading them: "Return it to you, we are not in arrears or in arrears now. Damn it Blood spurting!"

"Who stole your child? I haven't even touched it. Look at your child yourself. You don't cry except when you hold him. When you put him down, he cries like being strangled. If I take him away, he will He burst into tears right away. Let me ask you, have you ever heard this child cry?"

Shirk responsibility to each other.Chen Yang thought so.

The six people who came out of the bus guessed that the three youths deliberately dragged them to die together, and wanted to drive them away in advance just in case.The three youths exposed their deception and shirked responsibility.The two sides quarreled again.

Chief Yi Wu had a bad temper, smashed a stool on the spot and said coldly: "Is it noisy enough? Not enough to go out, and attract all the hungry ghosts. Argue in front of them."

Both parties were upset and tried to defend themselves.It seems that after paying for his life, he has the confidence to speak.Someone said: "Master Yi, hungry ghosts will be turned into sewage when they come out in the blue sky and daytime. We also want to settle the matter during the day, so as not to see ghosts at night and have to guard against ghosts during the day."

Yi Wuchang: "Since it's the total account, let's do it together. We told you not to eat food from uninhabited villages. You said it was for fun, but you said it was being tempted. What about us? Who deliberately mixed fish soup into the kettle It's them." She pointed to the three young people, and then said to the other six people who had nothing to do with the matter: "Who of you didn't see it? If you saw it, don't stop or remind, or just call 'If something happens, at least And the idea of ​​the celestial master following in trouble?"

All nine people showed embarrassing expressions, unable to speak to refute.They are all selfish, but feel that they are forced to, after all, no one wants to die.

Yi Wuchang said: "If you make small moves again, get out!"

The nine people wanted to say something, but they were all indifferent and displeased when they saw the celestial master, and those who still wanted to live on the celestial master dared not speak any more.Both sides complained and stared at each other, then found a place to sit down and rest.

Yi Wuchang: "They are now in an impetuous mood. Before, they were a little afraid to make big moves, but now they keep making small moves."

Chen Yang: "When you don't find that you can't get out of the uninhabited village, you can selfishly eat the food in the uninhabited village without telling you. If you find that you will die in the uninhabited village, and the celestial master can leave alive without saving them .I'm afraid it will spur them to do even more terrible things."

Last night's proposal to pay for their lives was to reassure this group of people that they would not take the opportunity to hold them back.Today, these things happened. Instead of thinking about dealing with the hungry ghosts and leaving the uninhabited village, they rejected their fellow human companions here.

Chen Yang said to Master Yi: "Let's go to the ancestral hall to check the situation first."

Chang Yi nodded: "Pay attention to the watchtower, there are many hungry ghosts hiding inside. Hungry ghosts are afraid of the sun, so the outside of the watchtower is covered with green plants."

Chen Yang stopped: "The hungry ghosts are all hiding in the watchtowers? How about we uproot all the green plants and let the sun burn them to death."

"It's useless." Yi Wuchang vetoed: "We tried, but the green plants stubbornly stuck into the wall of the watchtower. Even if it takes a whole day, it may not be able to shovel the green plants of a watchtower. The building of the watchtower is special. Even if we just shovel the green plants on the windows and gates, it won’t do much. Instead, it will anger the hungry ghosts, let them remember our breath, and chase us all over the mountains and plains. Now we are hiding in this watchtower without green plants. Because sufficient yang energy can temporarily cover our popularity. But it can’t last long.”

"Okay." Chen Yang and Du Shuo left the watchtower and followed the narrow path back to the ancestral hall.The ancestral hall is still gloomy, and the tablets in front of the hall are stacked and silent, as if anyone who breaks into the ancestral hall will be watched by the tablets.

Du Shuo found a blood-stained wooden knife by the mouth of the well, and called Chen Yang over: "I didn't have this wooden knife yesterday."

Chen Yang picked up the wooden knife. The wooden knife was sharpened, no less than a steel knife.The wooden knife was covered with black blood, and there were sporadic blood on the ground.Black lumps condensed into the cracks of the bluestone slabs, probably a lot of blood had flowed there.He looked into the well and saw that the bottom of the well was dark and almost bottomless.

Lying on the mouth of the well, I can clearly hear the echo of my own voice, and the rock wall in the well is covered with wet moss.Chen Yang stretched out his finger to wipe it, and found it was extremely sticky and dirty.He took out his mobile phone and turned on the light to look into the well. The mouth of the well is narrow, the surface of the well is dark and calm, and he feels fear when he stares at it for a long time.

Chen Yang stood up and said, "I can't see the situation below the well clearly. The water in the well is pitch black, and the sunlight can't get in." He glanced at the wooden knife thrown on the ground, and said, "Was someone doing a water burial here last night? The corpses were fed to the river gods and thrown into the well... more like feeding the fish."

Du Shuo said, "Go and see the corpse in the coffin."

Chen Yang was stunned for a moment, and quickly realized that he ran to look at the corpse in the coffin.After opening the coffin lid, it was found that there was indeed a corpse lying inside, but it was no longer the corpse from yesterday.Today's corpse has almost half of its body gnawed off, but the flesh and blood are very fresh and have not rotted.

This is a freshly dead body.

Chen Yang: "Who hid the corpse in the coffin?" He checked the young corpse and found that he was either one of the three youths who broke in, or the one who got out of the bus.He has no conch on his intact arm, and the other arm is missing.

Cut off the rotting carcass and throw it into the well to feed the fish, and replenish the coffin with fresh carcasses.Chen Yang didn't understand this operation, so he looked up at Du Shuo.Du Shuo: "Sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

Shouldn't water burial be used to appease the souls of the ancestors and guide them to reincarnate?How to become a sacrifice?No, in earlier times, water burial was indeed a sacrifice to the river god.What's more, the corpses were not thrown into rivers, but chopped up and thrown into wells.But why throw it alone in the well of the ancestral hall?

Chen Yang stared at the memorial tablet in the ancestral hall for a while, his pupils constricted suddenly.He found something wrong: "If the villagers of the uninhabited village relocate because they are remote and inconvenient to get in and out, they should also remove the ancestral tablets!"

How important the ancestral hall is to some rural clans, it is their root.Even if the ancestral hall is rebuilt next to the original ancestral hall, an auspicious day must be selected to welcome the ancestral tablets into the new ancestral hall.The whole family moved, and the ancestral tablet could never be left in the uninhabited village.

Du Shuo said with his hands behind his back: "The ancestral hall is not the ancestral hall of the villagers who have been relocated from the uninhabited village. It is normal if the tablets have not been removed."

Chen Yang: "It's possible."

Different places have different ancestral halls.In some places, there is only one ancestral hall for every village, but in some places in the south, there is one ancestral hall for every surname.There are usually several surnames in a village, and each surname will have an ancestral hall.People with different surnames are not allowed to enter other ancestral halls, nor are people with different surnames invited to funerals unless they are related by marriage.

"Therefore, there is still a clan with a certain surname that did not move the ancestral tablet. This situation was either caused by natural disasters and man-made disasters, and it was too late to move the ancestral tablet. Or, the whole family was buried in an uninhabited village." Chen Yang stepped forward, Wipe off the dust on one of the tablets: "Anonymous!"

Chen Yang then wiped off the dust on the other tablets, all of which were anonymous.There are hundreds of tablets enshrined in front of him, and the densely packed tablets are all anonymous.There is no name, no age and cause of death, and no one erects a monument. There is only a tablet with the nameless name enshrined here.Even if it is five offerings of fragrant flowers, the tributes will be snatched away by lonely souls and wild ghosts because they have no names.

"How come there are so many unknown persons? Is it possible that the entire ancestral hall is enshrined with these anonymous tablets? Who enshrined them?"

Du Shuo came over and took out the clean tablet on the farthest side: "There is no dust, just made the tablet."

Chen Yang took it over and looked at it: "Where is the new funeral?" After a pause, he looked sideways at the ancient well standing quietly in the middle of the courtyard, and said: "There was a water burial just last night, and there is a new funeral today. The completed Anonymous tablet. It is indeed a new funeral, so the hundreds of tablets in front of me are all buried in water and erected to be enshrined in the ancestral hall."

Water burial usually involves throwing body parts into rivers, but here they are thrown into wells.Is there anything else in the well besides fish?Why are water burials performed at wellheads?Who held water burials for these anonymous people?After the water burial, the ancestral hall was built, and they were enshrined with tablets.But the enshrinement did not dare to engrave their names, as if to enclose them, offering it as atonement and fearing that they would go to the underworld to sue after they had the tablets.

Chen Yang put the tablet back on the altar, and there were still five offerings of fragrant flowers on the table under the altar, which had rotted and fallen over time.The sesame oil in the sesame oil lamp was filled with flying insect corpses, the incense sticks in the incense burner were messed up, the incense ash was still, and suddenly a piece of incense ash broke off and fell on the table with a 'pop'.

The voice suddenly sounded in the dead ancestral hall, adding a little terror to the atmosphere.

Chen Yang lowered his eyes: "Let's look for other ancestral halls."

Big Fatty jumped out suddenly and played around a few times away from Du Shuo with cards in his mouth.The card read: "There are people in the woods."

There is a whole forest on Ergui Ridge, and the uninhabited village is surrounded by the forest.Chen Yang: "Big Fatty leads the way."

Fatty hesitated for a moment, then looked at Du Shuo.Du Shuo: "Lead the way." As if it had been granted immunity, it quickly jumped out of the window and ran forward.Chen Yang also jumped out of the window and landed easily.When he turned around, he saw Du Shuo standing behind him, looked at each other with a smile, and continued to run after Fatty.

After running down a few alleys, they reached the woods.When entering the woods, Chen Yang suddenly looked back at the watchtower submerged in the greenery behind him.Some skinny and black arms at the window were trying to stretch out the green plants, but they retracted immediately after being burned by the sun.

The hungry ghosts were indeed watching them.Chen Yang withdrew his gaze and ran into the woods. Du Shuo was already waiting for him.This hillside is backlit, and the dense branches and leaves in the forest block the light, making the forest very dark.The forest is quiet, no insects or birds are heard.

Fatty stopped on the tree trunk, waiting for Chen Yang and Du Shuo.Seeing the two of them, he continued to jump vertically, at an extremely fast speed.Almost only a black shadow can be seen flashing past among the forest leaves. It is hard to believe that such a weight has such skill.

The forest is covered with fallen leaves, and under the fallen leaves are rotten fallen leaves mixed with mud. Sometimes the fallen leaves will directly step on the mud when they are lifted up.Chen Yang supported a tree with a crooked neck and observed the environment in the forest.Suddenly a piece of white bone fell in front of his eyes, which startled him.

Chen Yang backed up and looked up, and saw a half-person-high wooden barrel where the trunk of the crooked-neck tree he was supporting just now was branched.There was a hole in the wooden barrel, and the bones fell out of that hole just now.

Du Shuo walked over and looked at Chen Yang first, and then looked at the barrel between the branches of the tree trunk when he saw that he was fine: "Ghost pupa."

Chen Yang saw a complete skeleton curled up inside the barrel through the broken hole, and said, "Is this a tree burial?"

The so-called tree burial, like water burial, is a funeral ceremony that appears in a few places.Some people think that the tree is a resting place for the soul, and the deceased relatives can come back to visit their relatives by possessing the tree and rest in peace at the same time.That's why the tree burial ceremony appeared, or put the corpse in a wooden barrel and put it on the tree, or wrapped the corpse in a body bag and tied it to the tree trunk, and some even dug a hole in the tree and put the corpse in.

These corpses buried on the tree are called ghost chrysalis.

Chen Yang: "It is impossible to have two different funeral ceremonies in the same village."

There are more and more problems, the matter of the hungry ghost has not been resolved, there are unknown tablets and two different funeral ceremonies that can never coexist in the same village.Different surnames and ancestral halls can coexist in the same village, but two funeral ceremonies rarely coexist.

The special funeral ceremony represents the clan's religious belief in ghosts and gods, and the mountain village will never allow two special religious beliefs to coexist.

Suddenly, screams and calls for help broke out not far from the forest, and then Chen Yang and Du Shuo saw a pair of men and women rushing towards them with extremely frightened expressions on their faces.When they ran to the front, Chen Yang found that the man was carrying an old man with gray hair on his back.

Seeing Chen Yang and Du Shuo, the man and woman stopped panting and said, "Run, run quickly. The forest is full of dead bodies, run quickly." The girl couldn't speak, so she could only nod her head.

Chen Yang pointed to the ghost pupa behind him: "Are you talking about this?"

The couple looked up, screamed again in fright, and even regarded Chen Yang and Du Shuo as ghosts, and begged for mercy: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we just wanted to investigate and didn't want to offend. Young people are ignorant, No wonder."

With a crying sound, the girl put her palms together and kept saying goodbye: "If there is any blame, don't blame it, if there is any blame, don't blame it."

Chen Yang touched his nose, and secretly shrugged at Dushuo, expressing that he didn't mean to be scary."I'm human," he said.

The two people who were terrified did not hear Chen Yang's words at all. Instead, the old man behind the boy knocked him awake with a loud voice: "Nothing! They are human beings, not 'humans' crawling out of ghost pupae."

The boy put down the old man: "Professor, ghosts are very cunning."

The girl also nodded: "That's right. Professor, have you forgotten what we saw just now? That thing hid in the ghost pupa, and lied to us that it was not dead, and wanted us to release it. In the end, a mummy crawled out, He even grabbed me and scared me to death."

Chen Yang asked: "Who are you? What happened to the mummy in the ghost pupae?" He said while looking at the wound on the girl's wrist. It looked hideous, but the girl felt no pain at all.

The old man said: "I am a professor of Z University, and they are my students. I originally wanted to study the reasons for the coexistence of two special funeral methods in uninhabited villages. It happened to be their topic, so I came together. After coming here, I have been wandering in the forest , can’t get out. Just now, my student heard the voice of the ghost pupa calling for help, and thought it was a living person. He went up to untie the ghost pupa, and suddenly a mummy popped out and scratched my student. We ran fast and escaped. Come out, but Zhao Yao can't feel the pain in the wound, I suspect she was poisoned by the corpse."

Chen Yang: "You also know about corpse poison?"

Professor: "I have studied folk culture for many years, and I have seen many things."

Chen Yang nodded, and took out the Dao Spirit Talisman to Zhao Yao, and asked her to stick it on the wound on her wrist: "It can temporarily suppress the corpse poison. You first come to the village with us, and someone will apply some herbal medicine to you."

Zhao Yao's eyes lit up: "Are you a celestial master?"

Chen Yang: "Yes."

Zhao Yao and another boy, Zhao Gang, chatted excitedly around Chen Yang, all curious about the celestial master and others.They have more contact with the beliefs of gods and ghosts, so the reception is very good.When studying folk culture, I also respect it.

Du Shuo was chatting with the professor, and he asked the professor, "How do you know that there are two special funeral ceremonies in No Man's Village?"

The professor said: "One day, I was looking at domestic special funeral ceremonies in the library, and a young man spoke to me. He knew a lot about folk funeral ceremonies. Burial and water burial ceremonies. When I was interested, I came over to check the research."

Du Shuo: "Do you remember the name of that young man?"

The professor said happily: "I remember. His name is Meng Xi."