sunk in yesterday

The puppet looks weird, but Xia Zhuo didn't have much conflict.

He found the pot he grabbed just now, and pushed the soil around the pot outward, and he saw a black clay pot similar to Lailai's.

Xia Zhuo didn't reach out rashly, took a branch from the side, and smashed all the contents out of the jar.

When the siblings came up to see his injuries, all they saw were a few pieces of moldy, water-soaked, colorful steamed buns and a small plastic bottle of unsealed, hairy pickled cucumbers.

Baby Fat with a sensitive nose: "...um."

Xia Zhuo, who was already uncomfortable: "...vomit."

Guan Yuzhou frowned, reached out and handed out a white tablet the size of a fingernail and a bottle of water: "Eat it."

Xia Zhuo refused: "I can still save it, there is no need for euthanasia."

Guan Yuzhou tugged at the corner of his mouth: "Painkillers."

"No, the medicine has side effects. I'm afraid I'll fall asleep after taking it."

"You can sleep in the afternoon."

Anyway, Guan Yuzhou wanted him to take this medicine.Seeing that the pill was about to be drenched by the rain, Xia Zhuo didn't bother to say anything, took it and put it in his mouth, intending to swallow it with water.But the pill melted as soon as he took it in, and at the same time, all the pain in his back and legs disappeared.

Tsk, is this the so-called strongest medicine that can cure diseases?

He stood up from the ground, looked at his clothes with some distaste, and then washed his face and hands with the remaining water in a very prodigal manner.

The rag doll falling out of the jar looks wrong, and the words behind it can fully explain this.

Guan Yuzhou wanted to know what was in the jar that Dai Shu and the others wanted, but now it seems that the contents are probably the same, a poor-quality doll and some edible things.

"Hey, that's what was drawn on the paper I took from those people." After shielding the pain, Xia Zhuo went to take out Guan Yuzhou's pocket as if nothing happened.

But Guan Yuzhou interrupted him: "Xia Zhuo, look at your feet."

Xia Zhuo didn't know why, so he lifted his foot and glanced down, but was surprised to find the corner of a black pot exposed beside his feet.

Just now when he rolled all the way down, he brought out all the things buried in the soil, and there must be more than one jar buried under his feet.

Everyone aware of this looked around at the same time, the rain did not diminish, but some inconspicuous things became noticeable in the deliberate gaze.

The black pots buried on the hillside have only one pot mouth left, which is stuck in the soil in an unsteady way, but the threads that should be bound on the pots are all broken, and all the cloth used for sealing is buried in the pots. middle.

The baby shrinks his neck: "This is it, and some of the pots are buried in the whole field. But there are still differences in these pots. Some of the things inside are rotten, and some should be fine. eat……"

Xia Zhuo looked at her in disbelief: "...you don't want to go to the soil to pick up things, wash and eat them, do you?"

Baby Fat was almost vomited by this sentence: "No! Isn't it obvious that the jars were not buried at the same time, the time must be in order, otherwise some of them would rot into water and some hadn't started yet. long spots."

People die at different times, so of course the time to bury the jars is also different.

Guan Yuzhou glanced at his younger brother who kept pushing his glasses aside: "Is there anything here?"

The younger brother answered subconsciously: "No." After speaking, he was stunned for a moment, and his expression became a little stiff.

Guan Yuzhou didn't care about his reaction, just nodded, and dug out the pot under Xia Zhuo's feet with a thick wooden stick.After washing away the bottom circle of mud, he found a shallow nick in the lower left corner—a "positive" and a "T".

He thought for a moment, then dug out Xia Zhuo's empty jar, and found the same mark on the back.

According to the orthographic counting method, this is clearly seven.And the pot they found at home only had "positive" and "one" on it, so the reason why the black pot of Lai Lai's house is placed in the room is not yet time?

Xia Zhuo blinked: "Ah, so the jar given to that female star shouldn't be something interesting?"

Guan Yuzhou hummed: "There are actually many theories about the function of dolls, one of which is that they can send souls. Didn't it mean that there is no place to bury the remains? If jars are used as coffins, dolls are used to replace dead people, carved If the mark on the coffin just represents seven days, it is equivalent to putting the coffin in the coffin for seven days before being buried."

When Xia Zhuo heard this, he immediately wiped his palm on the clothes on his waist, and said, "I just grabbed a doll, is it equivalent to grabbing a corpse?"

Baby Fat also understood: "The food in that jar... are all funeral objects?!"

Guan Yuzhou said: "These people had nothing to eat before their lives, and the village couldn't afford to give them valuable funeral objects, so they put some food in the jars used as coffins, which were regarded as sacrificial objects for them to take with them when they went on the road. "

Baby Fat rubbed his arm: "Stop talking, I shook the coffin last night, and walked so far this morning with the coffin in my arms... The person who sent the soul in the jar won't be woken up by me shaking it and then Come to see me!"

The more Xia Zhuo thought about it, the more she felt that something was wrong: "Do you want to remind that female star? If she really opened the jar and there was a ghost inside, wouldn't she let it out?"

Guan Yuzhou didn't think much about it, and seemed to just follow Xia Zhuo's words: "That's fine."

In order to make sure that the idea was correct, several people dug some pots along the road, and made sure that all the pots were engraved with sevens.

When the sixth jar was unearthed, the scalp of the baby fat was completely numb. Not only was the nose choked by the sour smell, but he didn't even want to look at it.

She covered her nose and begged for mercy: "Let's go back, I'll stand here for a second longer, and I'll make up the picture of a hand sticking out of these jars for a second longer..."

Xia Zhuo squatted on the ground with her knees in her arms, and praised her while watching Guan Yuzhou's hands: "It means that your brain cells are active, which is a good thing."

Baby Fatty stepped back a few steps, wanting to cry but without tears: "Moreover, he stretched out a hand holding a stuffed stuffed bun covered with green and green mildew and trying to stuff it into my mouth..."

Guan Yuzhou stood up and patted the mud on his hands, and finally planned to go home.He probably knew what the picture on the parchment meant, and Xia Zhuo barely figured out the ins and outs of it.

Since people pay attention to being buried in the ground, there are no dead bodies in these villages, whether adults or children. Those who want to bury them can only find a way to build a corpse for them and bury it in the soil.

Make dolls out of the clothes they lived in, and write their names on the back of the dolls. After the wandering souls of these people return home on the seventh day, they can smoothly get into the jars, and finally send them to the souls. The doll's jar is buried in the ground.

Regardless of whether there is any intention to pay homage to the adults here, judging from the words on the back of the puppets that were picked up just now, there are many children in the village who are the objects of the sacrifice.

After descending the slope, Xia Zhuo sighed and pinched the clothes on his chest that had been discolored after being soaked in muddy water, and muttered: "I don't know why these people don't leave their bodies after death."

Guan Yuzhou asked him: "Have you heard the legend about why people linger in the world for seven days after death?"

Xia Zhuo thought for a while: "Eat something you haven't eaten before, see something you haven't seen before, go to something you haven't been to before, do something you haven't done before... Only then can you fulfill your wish Walking carelessly and recklessly?"

Guan Yuzhou couldn't help but smile when he heard his incomparably neat parallelism: "'The soul dies and leaves the body, lingers for seven days, resents grievances, retaliates with vengeance.' There is a saying that people who die in accidents and have no grievances will look at it after death. Family members, look at the world, and those who die in unintentional grievances will come back on the seventh day to take revenge and torture and kill those who killed themselves."

Xia Zhuo asked: "According to what you said, the little ghost we saw last night was actually killed by someone before it was alive?"

Baby Fat wondered: "Did you see a ghost last night? We haven't encountered it until now."

Guan Yuzhou nodded slightly: "The pot that was moved out of the house was engraved with six yesterday, and it should be seven today. Judging from the scene we happened to see last night, the pot should indeed be prepared for that kid. If you really want to send it away, you must remind the female star not to touch the jar, and you can save the trouble by burying the jar in the ground tonight at the latest."

"The pot was placed in the house on purpose." Xia Zhuo had a quick brain: "Look, there is only one family left in the whole village with new paint on the front door. Those three people didn't live in last night. They met today. When we arrived, it was as if we had encountered something. So the old lady’s house where we stayed last night should be considered the right place? It happened that you triggered the plot line, which means that people who come here must enter the old lady’s place if they want to trigger the plot. Once inside, they will search the house for clues, and then find the jar. Who, who is not curious, might have opened the jar.”

Guan Yuzhou smiled a little. He looked at Xia Zhuo and said with his mouth: "You really don't seem like someone who fell into a dream for the first time."

Xia Zhuo raised her eyebrows, and said back to him: "Thank you."

At this point in the conversation, the four of them had already walked back to the station, facing the road in the field.There were still three figures standing at the place where the end of the road intersected with the village, and they hadn't left when they went up the mountain.

After seeing this scene, Xia Zhuo was very satisfied: "This will save us the time to find them."

However, halfway through the road, the younger brother who was at the end whispered two words: "No..."

The one who knows him best is Baby Fat.As soon as she heard her younger brother open his mouth, she immediately became nervous: "Xiao Shu, what did you see?"

At the end, Dai Shu was sitting curled up on the ground.She held a clean puppet in her left hand, and kept stroking the puppet's body with her right hand. Her lips kept trembling, as if she was muttering something.

And beside her stood two young men who had just been beaten up by Guan Yuzhou in the morning, each holding half of a pancake in their hands. in the water.

Guan Yuzhou took the lead and stopped, frowning.

The younger brother glanced at the shards of clay pots on the ground, but he hesitated to put them on Dai Shu.He dodged and stared at his toes: "There is something on her back..."