Chapter 63 Mass Grave "Have you unearthed a battlefield?"...
By the time the farce ended and they came out of Zhangjia Kiln, the sun had already set. Three or five villagers even lit lanterns for light and followed closely behind the crowd, afraid of falling behind.
A dozen or so of Huang's relatives and friends sandwiched the Zhang couple between them, shoving them from time to time to urge them to hurry up and not dawdle, just like officials escorting exiled prisoners on their way.
"Little Dinggua?!" A familiar voice sounded from behind. "And what are you two doing here too?"
The three people traveling together turned around and saw the peasant woman who had provided them with food and lodging the night before walking over with a limp, leaning on a stick.
Little Dinggua called out, "Aunt Wang."
There were many people and a lot of noise in the Zhang family's courtyard just now, so none of them saw each other. Now that they came out, and the crowd dispersed, she noticed the three of them: "Have you found your grandfather and that older brother?"
Xiao Dinggua's face immediately fell, and she said dejectedly, "Not yet."
"That's strange, where could this person go?"
Little Dinggua didn't know either. Seeing that the other woman was limping and struggling, he asked, "Aunt Wang, with your leg like this, are you still going to come up the mountain with them?"
"I wanted to go and see too, but who knew this would happen?" Aunt Wang said, pointing to her legs and feet. "Unfortunately, my ankle is sprained and swollen, and it hurts terribly. I can't keep up, so I definitely can't go. I'll have to go home and rest when I get there. Do you want to come along?"
Little Dinggua nodded: "Mm."
Aunt Wang turned to Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren and asked, "Are the young lady and gentleman staying at my house tonight?"
Zhou Yaren said, "I'll probably come and bother you again."
"No problem, no problem. I'll leave the door open for you two tonight."
"Thank you very much."
"No need to be so polite." Her house was just around the corner, so Aunt Wang decided to stop and turn to her, saying, "Little Dinggua, if it gets too late at night, don't walk home alone. It's not safe. Come stay at my house with you two, okay?"
"knew."
Some elderly villagers, who are usually out of breath after just a few steps, were unable to go with them. They also kept an eye on a few teenagers, preventing the children from going to places like mass graves.
A few naughty and stubborn children insisted on going to watch the excitement, but their parents chased them away with their fists.
As darkness fell and the surroundings grew increasingly desolate, the group gradually realized they were heading to a mass grave in the dead of night. Normally, they wouldn't even venture into a cemetery at night, let alone a mass grave filled with mounds of corpses—a place considered extremely taboo. A sense of unease crept into their hearts, and they began to whisper amongst themselves.
The result of whispering was that there were many people, and almost all the men in the village came. They were full of yang energy and were not afraid of that.
But a timid doubt remained: "Our yang energy is strong, but the mass grave has buried so many dead people, tens of thousands more, that the yin energy is even stronger. I'm afraid we men can't suppress it."
Upon hearing this, some people started to back out: "Maybe we shouldn't go."
It wasn't just one person who wavered: "I think so too. What if I encounter something evil there? I don't even have a life-saving charm on me..."
"Don't talk nonsense. What evil spirit could you possibly encounter? You'll be fine."
"Never mind, you guys go, I'm not going."
"Then... I guess I won't go either. I'll go home and take care of the kids."
As a result, some timid villagers turned back halfway.
Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren mingled in the crowd and walked forward with the remaining villagers. Before they knew it, they arrived at the place where the Zhang couple had set up the altar for their ghost marriage ceremony.
Unaware of the situation, the Huang family members noticed and asked in bewilderment, "Who set up an altar here?"
The moment Old Zhang looked up and saw it, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and shuddered violently.
Huang Dashan shoved him hard from behind, his tone unfriendly: "What are you doing stopping? Get going."
Old Zhang, instead of moving forward, retreated, his eyes filled with fear: "No, I'm not going, I can't go."
As I stepped back, I accidentally stepped on the toes of the person behind me.
Huang Dashan felt a sharp pain in his foot and became extremely angry. He raised his foot and kicked the man, saying, "Stop trying to play tricks. We're almost there. I'm afraid your lies are about to be exposed."
Old Zhang was kicked hard in the waist and stumbled forward, landing right on the pedestal table, knocking over the incense burner and wine pot.
Old Zhang completely panicked: "No...no..."
The previously delirious Tiezhu's mother suddenly widened her eyes, as if she had seen a ghost, and let out a scream.
Everyone was startled by the sudden scream, not knowing what had happened ahead.
Then Tiezhu's mother went berserk, brandishing her claws and scratching wildly at Huang Dasao's face, who was about to teach her a lesson, leaving three bloody finger marks.
"Ah!" Sister-in-law Huang did not expect her to suddenly go crazy. She got angry and covered her cheeks to slap Tiezhu's mother.
Unexpectedly, the skinny Iron Pillar's mother suddenly unleashed astonishing power, slamming her head hard into Huang Dasao's forehead like a bull, leaving the usually fierce woman dizzy and seeing stars. She slumped into the arms of someone nearby.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Tie Zhu's mother rushed out of the crowd and dashed into the dark forest, repeatedly shouting, "Don't come looking for me, don't come looking for me..."
"Grab her!" Sister-in-law Huang shouted. "She's trying to run! Don't let her get away!"
Two or three people immediately chased after Tiezhu's mother and disappeared into the dark forest.
At this moment, Old Zhang seemed to have been greatly stimulated. He scrambled to his feet and tried to run away, but was firmly captured by Huang Dashan and two strong men.
Huang Dashan was furious and punched Old Zhang hard in the stomach: "I'll teach you to run! I knew you and your wife couldn't be honest, daring to lie to me!"
Old Zhang was beaten, but he neither cried out in pain nor argued. He looked terrified and muttered incoherently, "No, no, damn it, damn it, go away, no."
Huang Dashan spat in the other man's face and said in a loud voice, "Take him away! You two go and grab that bitch. If she tries to run, break her legs and drag her over. If she tries anything again, I'll bury you two in a mass grave today!"
After saying that, Huang Dashan and the others did not wait long. They almost tied Lao Zhang up and dragged him to the mass grave, throwing him in front of a mound of yellow earth.
The mound was low and short, only reaching knee height.
The villagers who followed said, "We've arrived!"
"Is this the place where the Huang family girl was buried?"
"Yes, this is it."
Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren joined the crowd and crowded around, squeezing into the front row.
Huang Dashan carried a lantern to his daughter's grave, bent down, and examined it closely.
Because Zhou Yaren was blind and could not see the situation, Bai Yuan spoke up: "There is no sign that the soil has been turned over, and the roots of the weeds are still firmly attached to the grave mound."
Two years have passed since Huang Xiaoyun was buried. Her grave was overgrown with weeds, but these weeds are now firmly rooted in the soil, indicating that the grave has indeed not been dug up.
Although her voice wasn't loud, those around her could still hear it. Huang Dashan glanced back at her, clearly realizing this as well.
Xiao Dinggua said, "That's right, this grave looks perfectly fine and hasn't been dug up at all."
Grandpa Sheng hunched over and squinted as he examined the remains closely: "So it seems that Old Zhang really didn't come to retrieve Xiaoyun's bones."
"I told you I didn't..." Old Zhang lay on the ground, desperately protesting.
"How could there not be? The marriage contract was already written." Huang Dashan didn't believe it. He went to the grave, dug around in the soil, and picked up a handful of weeds to confirm whether it was a fake arrangement by someone else.
Old Zhang said angrily, "No means no. The facts are right in front of you. Don't try to frame me."
"Go to hell, who knows what tricks you're up to."
"If you don't believe me, then go dig up your daughter's grave and take a look. The truth will be revealed then!"
"Of course we have to see!" Huang Dashan was impatient and couldn't stand being provoked. He immediately threw down the rake, grabbed the shovel from a relative next to him, and pried open the first handful of soil without hesitation. "What are you all standing there for? Come and help!"
Several young men hesitated for a moment, then, seeing the intact grave, decided it wasn't necessary to disturb the deceased's rest. They initially wanted to offer some words of advice, but seeing Huang Dashan's determined and enthusiastic digging, they didn't say much and each took a hoe and shovel to help.
Soon the three of them dug up the grave mound. As they dug deeper with their hoes, they suddenly hit something hard iron and made a clanging sound.
"What is this?" The young man holding the hoe bent down, reached into the soil, and threw out a rusty square piece of iron.
Huang Dashan took a look at it, then casually threw it away: "Just a piece of scrap metal."
The scrap metal was thrown at Zhou Yaren's feet. Bai Yuan bent down and picked it up by the edge. The piece of iron was two fingers long and three fingers wide. It seemed to have some writing on it, but it was completely covered by rust, making the writing difficult to read. There was only a dent in the middle where the hoe had just dug, and it was impossible to tell what it was.
The three continued digging at the grave. Huang Dashan shoveled down and suddenly, with a clang, he hit something hard again.
"Hiss, where did this thing come from?" he muttered, as he pulled an arrowhead from the graveyard. "This..."
The young man next to him asked in confusion, "How come there's an arrowhead in Huang Yatou's grave?"
Huang Dashan glared at Lao Zhang, seriously suspecting that Lao Zhang was behind it, and said irritably, "Who knows what happened?"
Then he casually tossed the arrow aside and continued digging. The three of them worked together to dig a deep pit.
Bai Yuan was examining the arrowhead, her thumb gently rubbing away the surface mud, revealing brownish bloodstains on it. She glanced at Huang Xiaoyun's grave; something seemed off in the dim light. Bai Yuan took a few steps forward, her shoe scraping through the mud Huang Dashan had shoveled up. It was blackish, sticky soil with a foul, fishy odor: "The soil underneath is black?"
"ah?"
The three people digging the grave looked up, somewhat puzzled.
The other person handed down the lantern, shone it into the pit, and was immediately surprised.
"What's going on? This soil? Why is the soil black?"
Bai Yuan rubbed a little mud and ash between his fingertips; to be precise, it was a dark brown, fishy-smelling soil.
The wet mud stuck to the shovels, hoes, and soles of their shoes, and only then did the three people in the grave belatedly smell the stench.
"What smells so awful?"
Bai Yuan said, "Blood."
"What?!" The three of them were all startled, their eyes widening as if they were at a loss for what to do.
Bai Yuan calmly said, "The soil in the grave is soaked with blood, it has seeped in."
The three were terrified and retreated hastily.
"Where did the blood come from?" Huang Dashan couldn't help but ask. "How could blood be seeping from the soil of this grave?"
Bai Yuan, a newcomer, was asked in return, "Didn't you bury the person? Didn't you pay attention when you sealed the soil?"
"This wasn't the case when we sealed the grave! It was all yellow earth!" Huang Dashan suddenly realized something. "Wait a minute, we only temporarily buried Xiaoyun here back then, planning to prepare a bone lining for her later when a suitable place became available, so we didn't bury her very deep, but..."
However, the depth they are digging now is significantly greater than when Huang Xiaoyun's remains were buried, yet they have not found Huang Xiaoyun's thin-skinned coffin.
Huang Dashan flew into a rage at this point, raising his shovel to strike Old Zhang: "You son of a bitch! You dare say you didn't dig up my daughter's grave! It's now an empty grave. Where did you hide my daughter's remains?!"
"Impossible." Old Zhang was shocked and incredulous at first, and he frantically dodged the shovel that Huang Dashan swung at him. "I didn't dig up your daughter's grave. You, you stop accusing me. If you dig any deeper, she'll definitely be buried in the ground. Don't try to frame me."
"You old bastard, you're denying everything! Where's Zhang Tiezhu's grave? When did you secretly bury it? You probably already buried my daughter with your son. If you don't give me an explanation today, I'll dig up your family's ancestral grave."
Seeing the two arguing by the graveyard, some nosy villagers intervened to break them up.
Grandpa Sheng called out from the side, "Hey, don't start digging yet! Since we're already this far, let's dig a little deeper. If we still can't find it, Old Zhang can't deny it, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, we might just dig something up."
So Huang Dashan had no choice but to give up and continue digging angrily with his shovel, each shovelful yielding blood-soaked, dark brown clay.
Zhou Yaren smelled the familiar scent and walked to Bai Yuan's side, whispering, "This is the Impure Soil, isn't it?"
Bai Yuan hummed in agreement: "But it's not a big problem."
"Huang Xiaoyun's remains were actually buried in filth."
“Who says otherwise?” This reminded her of the female corpses buried in the filthy soil of the Beiqu River Tomb, who were pregnant with the eggs of the Gu-attracting snake. Bai Yuan raised her eyebrows. “I wonder if it’s just a coincidence.”
Zhou Yaren frowned slightly, seemingly thinking the same thing as Bai Yuan.
When the grave was dug to a depth of about two meters, the hoes and shovels struck a hard object. Everyone thought they had found a coffin, but instead they dug out a long spear.
Another person shoveled out half a skeleton, and his hand trembled in fright. He immediately retreated to the pit wall and stuck it to the wall, saying, "Bones, bones."
The man next to him spoke in a somewhat unsteady voice: "Uncle, something's not right."
Huang Dashan knew something was wrong. His daughter, Huang Xiaoyun, was buried in a thin coffin. How could they have dug out bones without even digging up half a coffin board, and also unearthed a bunch of iron arrowheads and spears?
"Uncle, did we dig up the wrong grave? Could this not be my little sister's grave?" After all, there was no tombstone in front of the grave, and it was in a mass grave full of burial mounds.
The other person was stunned: "Ah, no, really?"
The villagers who had been watching began to question and discuss: "Dashan, are you sure this is Xiaoyun's grave?"
"What we dug up were knives and arrows, this one is clearly not."
"There are so many graves in the mass burial grounds that you can't count them all. Don't get it wrong."
"That shouldn't be the case." The chattering of the crowd made Huang Dashan unsure, especially since it was late at night and he couldn't really tell which way was which. Could he have really mistaken the grave?
Just as Huang Dashan was about to climb out of the grave to check, he heard a crisp creak under his feet, and then he pried out a tattered iron helmet.
Bai Yuan surveyed the desolate graveyard, then stared down at the iron helmet pulled from the ground: "Did you perhaps dig up a battlefield?"
Zhou Yaren and she said in unison, "Could it be that we've dug up the grave of some soldier?"
After saying this, he suddenly realized that Bai Yuan's suspicion seemed more reasonable, and pondered, "The yellow mud underground must have been soaked to such an extent that it must have gone through a large-scale bloodshed and death, which gradually nurtured the filthy soil."
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