Chapter 7 Zimu Flute

Xie Liang pretended not to understand, propped up the door with one hand, and then asked, "By the way, why are there villagers guarding the ancestral hall in your village at night? What's placed inside the inner hall?"

"I don't know. I'm just responsible for delivering meals." The village woman said in a serious tone.

"Wow wow wow~"

Suddenly, a baby's cry was heard from inside the house. The woman's face instantly turned panicked, and she was about to close the door.

Xu He, standing by, put a hand on the other door to prevent the woman from closing it. Xie Liang continued, "Your child is crying. I can't believe you're over fifty, and you still have such a small child."

After saying that, Xie Liang ran to the inner room and picked up the crying baby while the woman was not paying attention.

The woman rushed in, her face full of panic: "What are you doing! Give my child back to me!"

"Don't panic. I just wanted to ask if you know anything about the ancestral hall so we can repair it and leave here as soon as possible."

"Whatever you want to ask, I've already said I don't know."

It was obvious that although the woman was very panicked, she still had some reservations and was unwilling to speak.

Xie Liang's white and slender fingers suddenly touched the baby's face.

"Anggu~, what a cute little face... It makes me want to pinch it." Xie Liang pretended to stretch his hand towards the baby's neck and said to the woman softly.

"I..." The woman couldn't help but feel scared, "I don't know much..." the woman said in a low voice.

"Tell me as much as you know." Xie Liang said as he touched the baby's slightly yellow face.

The village woman glanced at Xu He who was standing guard with a sword in his arms, then glanced at the baby in Xie Liang's arms. Finally, as if she had made up her mind, she lowered her head and began to tell the story in a low voice.

"I heard that three years ago, the daughter of the Lin Meng family fell in love with Lin Wenliang, the son of the village chief. They belong to the same branch of the family tree. Our village doesn't allow marriage within the clan, but the two refused to separate. Lin Lan even got pregnant. The village is so small, the news spread quickly. The village chief tied up his son Lin Wenliang and locked him in a room, forbidding them from seeing each other."

"What does this have to do with the ancestral hall?" Xie Liang asked in confusion.

"Isn't this still not finished?" The village woman rolled her eyes at Xie Liang and continued:

"At this time, a high monk named Huiyuan arrived in the village and said that an evil spirit was about to be born in the village. If it wasn't stopped in time, the entire village would suffer a severe drought. Our village has always believed in spiritual practitioners, and the villagers believed the monk's words without a doubt. The village chief followed his advice and gathered all the pregnant women in the village. The monk counted among the pregnant women with his fingers and finally determined that Lin Lan was pregnant with an evil spirit. The monk asked that she be separated so that he could chant scriptures to exorcise the evil spirit."

"Later, Lin Lan was confined to her own home, with a high-ranking monk taking over to perform rituals to exorcise the evil spirit. Later, it was heard that Lin Lan's mother, unable to bear the villagers' gossip, hanged herself. Lin Meng also died suddenly in his own yard for no apparent reason, leaving only the pregnant Lin Lan in his family of three. It's unknown what the high-ranking monk did afterwards, but not long after, Lin Lan vanished from her home, never to be seen again."

"I only heard that it disappeared because it was purified by a high monk."

"You are so superstitious. If the village has been purified, why is there still a severe drought? No, that's not right! Purification? A living person is gone just like that?" Xie Liang asked in confusion.

"That's what everyone says, how would I know!" said the village woman impatiently.

"It hasn't rained in the village since then. More than a month ago, the village chief suddenly said that he would hold a prayer ceremony in the ancestral hall. A few days ago, he said he was going out to ask the eminent monk from that year to pray for rain, and he hasn't come back yet. That's all I know!" After the village woman finished speaking, she stretched out her hand to Xie Liang, indicating that Xie Liang should return the child to her.

"Where is Lin Lan's home?" Xu He asked.

The village woman looked at Xu He with some fear and replied in a low voice: "It's... it's the courtyard where you live..."

"Who is guarding the ancestral hall at night?" Xie Liang asked.

"It seems to be the village chief's nephew, named Lin Tian." The village woman said, looking at Xie Liang with pleading eyes, "I really don't know anything, please give the child back to me."

Seeing that he couldn't get anything out of the question, Xie Liang carefully put the baby back on the bed and walked out of the village woman's house with Xu He.

The two walked towards the ancestral hall, ready to ask the village chief's cousin who was keeping watch there.

Soon they arrived at the ancestral hall. After greeting Xiao Ha and the other two who were laying tiles on the roof, they went straight to the room where the Buddhist shrine was placed.

"This guy is still sleeping. If I hadn't heard his snoring, I would have thought he had fainted," said Xie Liang.

Xu He kicked the chair where Lin Tian was sleeping, and the chair fell to the ground. Lin Tian also fell to the ground and woke up immediately.

"Who are you two? What do you want to do?" Lin Tian got up from the ground and asked unhappily.

"We are disciples of the eminent monk Huiyuan. My name is Wudao and his is Wuqing. May I know your Buddhist name?" Xie Liang asked, looking at his shiny scalp.

"What kind of Buddhist name is that? I'm born bald!" Lin Tian said as he touched his bald scalp.

"The master asked us to come here first to deal with the matters here. He left in a hurry without telling us in detail. He only asked us to find someone named Lin Tian." Xie Liang said while performing a Buddhist salute.

"Really? Then why aren't you two bald?" Lin Tian asked suspiciously.

"You don't know that we are outer disciples and we practice with our hair uncut. Because your village chief said that this matter must be kept confidential, we came here in plain clothes." Xie Liang explained seriously.

"I wonder why there has been a severe drought here for three years?" Xie Liang asked seriously.

"This... didn't your cousin tell you?" Lin Tian looked at the two of them doubtfully, unable to decide whether he should tell them or not.

"Just tell us to come to you to handle the matter so as not to miss the prayers the day after tomorrow." Xie Liang said.

"My cousin didn't tell me what exactly happened. He just asked me to take care of this Buddhist shrine and wait for him to come back!" Lin Tian looked confused.

"Well, if you tell us what happened three years ago, we'll know what to do."

Under Xie Liang's guidance, Lin Tian finally told another version of the truth.

It turned out that three years ago, Lin Wenliang and Lin Lan's love was strongly opposed by their parents.

After the news of their love and Lin Lan's pregnancy was revealed, Lin Wenliang's father, the village chief, imprisoned him to make his son give up. Unexpectedly, Lin Wenliang was very stubborn and insisted on marrying Lin Lan.

In order to make his son give up his thoughts, the village chief Lin Hai lied to him and said that Lin Lan accidentally fell into the river and died.

In order to convince Lin Wenliang, the village chief specially arranged for someone to kidnap Lin Lan's family and hide them in a dilapidated temple, and then released his son. When Lin Wenliang arrived at Lin Lan's house, he found no one there. He asked the people living nearby, and the people arranged by the village chief said that the two elders of the Lin family could not bear the blow of Lin Lan's death and had left the village long ago.

Lin Wenliang still couldn't believe that Lin Lan was gone like that, and he kept shouting that he wanted to go find Lin Lan in a daze all day long.

What's even more outrageous is that the village chief went to great lengths to build a tomb for the living Lin Lan and even engraved her name on the tombstone.

It was not until the village chief sent someone to take Lin Wenliang to Lin Lan's empty grave that Lin Wenliang believed that Lin Lan was dead. He returned home in a daze.

After returning home, Lin Wenliang refused to eat or drink. At first, the village chief didn't take it seriously, but after a few days, something bad happened.

One day, Lin Wenliang ran away when his family was not paying attention. He did not return until dark and was finally found in front of Lin Lan's empty grave. He committed suicide and left a suicide note stating that he wanted to be buried with Lin Lan after his death.

The village chief was clever enough to kill his only son, and he took out all his hatred on Lin Lan's family.

The village chief's family was powerful and first bribed the public, claiming that Lin Lan had seduced Lin Wenliang. After Lin Wenliang's death, they found someone claiming to be a high monk and said that Lin Lan was pregnant with an evil spirit. In fact, they wanted to take the child as their own and raise it as a continuation of the family line.

Lin Tian had no idea what happened next. He only heard that while the monk was staying at Lin Lan's house to "exorcise evil spirits" and break the drought prophecy, the Lin Lan family disappeared without a trace.

After listening to Lin Tian's story, Xie Liang and Xu He felt that they could not ask any more questions, so they decided to go back to the courtyard where they lived to look for clues.

"What do you think this monk did to Lin Lan's family that three of them could disappear at the same time?" Xie Liang asked as they walked.

Xu He shook his head and said, "I don't know."

They quickly returned to the yard and carefully checked every room, but found nothing suspicious. They had no choice but to sit down on the stone pillar in the yard to rest.

The more Xie Liang looked at the tree in the yard, the more confused he became. All the trees in the village were withered and yellow, but this one was still green.

"I think this tree is the most suspicious. How can it grow so well in such a dry place? Let's dig it up and try it?" Xie Liang looked at Xu He and asked.

"Yeah," Xu He replied in a low voice.

Xie Liang ran to the villager's house where he had borrowed a shovel last time and borrowed two more. The two began digging under the tree. Not long after digging, they encountered something hard.

The two looked at each other and found that there was something buried under the tree. They sped up their speed and soon everything under the tree was exposed.

"Four heads? One of them looks like a baby!" Xie Liang gasped as he looked at the white bones in front of him. "It seems that the Lin Lan family was murdered at home."

After Xu He carefully looked at the corpses, he began to dig deeper.

"Is there something underneath?" Xie Liang poked the soil hard with a shovel, and then the sound of a mirror shattering came from the soil.

"Mirror? Why is there a mirror here?" Xie Liang muttered to himself.

Then, Xie Liang took out the two flutes from the shrine and examined them carefully.

The flute body is polished smoothly, with copper sheets wrapped at both ends and intricate patterns carved on it. Red dzi beads and agate are inlaid between the patterns as decoration.

Xie Liang stroked the flute and suddenly seemed to remember something.

“This is…this is…”

After careful observation, Xie Liang couldn't help but exclaimed: "Could this be a flute made of human bones? It looks like it's made of leg bones. Is it this..." He looked at the small skeleton in the mud pit in disbelief, squatted down and carefully dug it up.

"Sure enough, the number of thigh bones in the corpses doesn't match. What's going on?" Xie Liang asked in shock, looking at the flute in his hand.

"This is a mother-and-child flute." Xu He's tone sounded like he knew what this thing was.

"Brother He, tell me quickly." Xie Liang said anxiously.

"The mother-and-child flute is made by removing the mother's leg bones while she is giving birth. When the baby is born, the baby's leg bones are removed again while the baby is still alive. These bones are then tempered with fire. It is usually made within three days of being taken from the living body. During the refining of the mother-and-child flute, the mother and baby must not die during the process." Xu He frowned slightly as he spoke.

"Oh my God! How cruel..., just taking out the bones would make people die of pain! And they have to suffer for three days in a pain worse than death! If this is not a cult, what is it? That evil monk is worse than a beast!" Xie Liang cursed.