Chapter 15
We got off the bus at Dazhou Station. Dazhou is located in the northeast of Sichuan and is full of mountains. The most famous of them is Daba Mountain.
The Daba Mountains are immense, with rain and fog lingering year-round around their sides, cloaking the entire mountain range in a blanket of white. This isn't limited to the Daba Mountains; many of Sichuan's high mountains share this pattern. The roads are rugged, foggy, and slippery, making them incredibly difficult to navigate. Liu Danchen and I braved a drizzling rain as we entered Kaijiang County, and the car ride nearly made me vomit. I already suffer from motion sickness, and the winding, stop-and-go route was truly excruciating.
At 2 p.m., we finally arrived at our destination, a mountain village in Kaijiang. Villages here are quite scattered, with two or three households here and two or three households there. The village we arrived at was relatively concentrated, called Yulai Village, with a total of twelve households.
Master Zhang's old friend is now over 90 years old and extremely thin, yet he can still walk with a cane, which is quite rare. Liu Danchen calls him Grandpa Zhong. According to Grandpa Zhong, the two have known each other for 70 years. It was when Master Zhang was traveling in the human world and reached the Daba Mountains, which were then infested with zombies. It was during this time that Master Zhang met Grandpa Zhong.
"Zombies?" I asked curiously.
I've seen zombies before, even corpse immortals. While the zombies have thick skin and flesh, they seem to be naturally restrained by my Thunder Fire Pearl. I wonder how the zombies in Daba Mountain differ from those I've encountered.
Grandpa Zhong was about to continue telling us a story when his granddaughter came back.
Her granddaughter's name is Zhong Xi, and she looks to be about forty years old this year.
"Grandpa, you are talking about those zombies again. Those things are fake. I have told you many times, but you just don't believe it." She said with a smile.
Then she said apologetically, "My grandfather is old, so things might not be working well here. I'm sorry to bother you two to come here."
Zhong Xi pointed to his head.
"Hey, grandpa has told you many times that grandpa is not confused. I was the only one who died when that incident happened. No one will believe anything I say now." Grandpa Zhong said helplessly.
"Don't worry, Grandpa Zhong. We are here to see if that thing really exists. If it does, we will not stand idly by." Liu Danchen said.
"Grandpa Zhong, what is that zombie you're talking about?" I asked.
"Well, I've heard this story since I was a child. It's actually just to scare us," said Zhong Xi.
"Sister Zhong, please tell me about it," I said.
"You haven't eaten yet, right? So, I'll go cook first. I'll tell you about it after you two have eaten your fill." After saying this, Zhong Xi went to prepare the meal.
Grandpa Zhong seemed genuinely confused at this point, mumbling something I couldn't understand, a mixture of fear and laughter. Seeing him like this, I tugged at Liu Danchen's sleeve and said, "Could this really be a mistake?"
"I only found out about this after receiving a call from my master. It shouldn't be possible." Liu Danchen said uncertainly.
It would be a joke if the trip was in vain.
After Zhong Xi brought the dishes, she helped Grandpa Zhong sit at the table, and we ate while listening to her talk about zombies.
According to her, she has heard this story since she was a child.
When Grandpa Zhong was young, there were more than 50 households in their village. In their village, there was a man named Yang Ming. Yang Ming and Grandpa Zhong were about the same age. The two grew up together fishing and had a very good relationship.
Yang Ming's grandfather is called Yang Baoku. He is usually superstitious. He believes in neither Buddhism nor Taoism. The villagers don't know what god he believes in.
One summer, Yang Baoku went to work in the mountains. He accidentally stepped on empty air and rolled down the mountain.
The mountains here are very high. When he rolled to the bottom, he was already dead by the time he was found.
Medical conditions were relatively poor at that time, and the old man was in such a state, so we could only ask the village doctor to see him. The village doctor shook his head, meaning that there was no other way.
Yang Baoku died after lying in bed for less than half a day.
The Yang family began to arrange the funeral for Yang Baoku. Yang Baoku was a good person, so many villagers came.
After Yang Baoku was buried, no one took it seriously, but strange things began to happen from then on.
First of all, there is the place where he is buried.
Speaking of Sichuan, it has beautiful mountains and rivers, and there are green plants everywhere, or rather, weeds everywhere.
But there was not a single blade of grass around Yang Baoku's grave, it was completely bare.
It was fine for a month or two, and the grass didn't grow there, but after two years there was still no grass at all.
At this time, the locals remembered an oral legend that once someone dies, if no grass grows in the burial ground for three years, the body will turn into a monster called "Rakshasa". This monster has long red or white hair all over its body, long and sharp black nails, and teeth that protrude like a wolf, which is very similar to a zombie.
Moreover, once this kind of monster breaks out of the ground, it will first eat its own relatives, then hide and practice for 49 days, and then come out again. This time, it will eat people from the same village, and then the neighboring villages, and so on. Expand step by step.
Seeing that it had been more than two years and there was still no grass growing on Yang Baoku's grave, some villagers began to murmur.
As more and more people spread this rumor, it was bound to reach the family members of the person involved.
After hearing this, Yang Baoku's son, Yang Ming's father, shouted loudly in the village all day long, saying that the villagers were heartless and that if his father had not shared the family's food with them, they would have starved to death long ago.
The story goes that during those years, there were frequent disasters, heavy rains, and floods. The villagers could hardly cultivate their land, so they reclaimed the wasteland on the mountainside. The Yang family's land was already high, so the damage was not as serious.
However, due to floods in the past few years, the villagers had little food left, and coupled with the small harvest, the surplus was gradually eaten up.
Yang Baoku saw that some villagers had given birth to babies and couldn't even get enough milk to feed them. Being a kind-hearted man, he couldn't stand such a scene, so he shared his own grain with them.
If someone couldn't afford food, they would go to the Yang family to ask for food, and Yang Baoku would generally not refuse.
After persisting for more than a year, the living environment improved and every household had a good harvest. In order to thank Yang Baoku for his generosity, each villager brought two or three bags of rice to him.
The Yang family had no shortage of rice, so they let the villagers take it back. He said that the village had suffered a disaster in the past two years, and now that the harvest was good, they could exchange the extra rice for some money. The Yang family didn't need this little thing.
All the villagers are grateful to the Yang family.
This is also the reason why Yang Ming's father scolded the villagers. What he meant was that my father had done you favors when he was alive, but after he died, you actually framed my father like this.
The villagers knew they were in the wrong, and eventually all those who spread the story went to the Yang family to apologize.
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