I rubbed my throbbing temples and followed Liu Sandao out the door.
"Look, the whole village is waiting."
Liu Sandao raised his finger and pointed ahead.
As I turned the corner of the corridor, the sight beside the millstone made me suddenly stop in my tracks.
Ah Xiu was chained to the old locust tree, a faded red paper flower pinned in her hair, and she was facing me with a forced smile.
The whip marks on her wrists were still oozing blood, exactly like the fresh wounds I saw in my dream.
Even more bizarrely, a girl in a red coat was tied to a locust tree not far away. Half a lotus flower was embroidered on her clothes, and even the white foam on her lips matched the scene in my dream.
What are you spacing out for?
Liu Sandao gave me a push: "It's time to choose a wife."
Under the corridor of the ancestral hall, seven blindfolded girls were tied in a row with red ropes.
The youngest one was biting his lower lip and trembling, the soul-suppressing rope on his ankle engraved with the same talisman as in my dream.
Chen Dashan handed over a lantern covered with red gauze, grinned, and revealed the same unnatural flattery as in his dream: "Groom, pick one that catches your eye."
When the lantern light swept over the third girl, she suddenly trembled violently, and tears seeped from under the red blindfold.
I rubbed my head, feeling like it was about to explode.
Liu Sandao leaned closer and asked in a low voice, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell? Did you drink too much last night?"
I glanced around quickly, then lowered my voice and replied in a tone only the two of us could hear, "I feel like I've experienced this before, right before you woke me up!"
Liu Sandao also looked surprised: "What did you dream about?"
"You let me choose the third girl."
I stared at him: "And Ah Xiu's strips of cloth, the datura petals, the talismans on the soul-suppressing rope... everything is exactly the same as it is now!"
Liu Sandao's pupils suddenly contracted.
He pulled me into the shadow of the pillars: "This is a 'spirit borrowing a dream' trap."
He took out a copper coin from his inner pocket, with the words "Kaiyuan Tongbao" engraved on the edge.
"Taoism says, 'When the soul enters the underworld in a dream, there must be a reason.' If you can dream about things that haven't happened, it's either because your birth chart is extremely weak, or..."
"Or is he already halfway to the underworld?"
I took the copper coin he handed me and found a gray-white hair stuck in the hole.
Chen Dashan's footsteps suddenly drew closer, a worried smile plastered on his face, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Liu Sandao: "What's wrong? What went wrong? Don't miss the auspicious time!"
Suddenly, Liu Sandao slapped the copper coin onto Chen Dashan's palm and quickly drew the character "止" (stop) on the back of his hand with his fingertips.
"Cousin, go and get three raw eggs, seven fresh mugwort leaves, and half a liter of rootless water—I need dew collected before noon!"
His tone carried an undeniable authority: "There must be something fishy about a ghost using a dream. We must first break this 'premonition and possession' trap!"
Chen Dashan's eyelids twitched suddenly.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Liu Sandao glared at him and shut him up.
Watching his hurried departure, my heart pounded.
I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen.
"See that?"
Liu Sandao took out his compass, and the needle pointed to the north at noon.
"That thing is afraid of discovering the truth, but it's okay, we'll just crack it and be done with it."
The water droplets in the compass pool suddenly condensed into blood droplets, drawing eerie smiling faces in the directions of "Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao".
As they were talking, Chen Dashan ran back carrying some things.
The raw eggs still had bits of grass stuck to them from the chicken coop, and the rootless water was contained in a carved copper basin.
Liu Sandao spread mugwort on the ground and arranged it in the shape of the Big Dipper. He then placed raw eggs in the "Tian Shu" position and used copper coins to draw the character "醒" (wake up) on each egg.
"Look closely, this is the 'Seven Stars Awakening Array'."
He bit his fingertip, and a drop of blood dripped onto the thickly patinated compass.
The dark red liquid slowly seeped in along the lines of the "午" position.
The mercury in the compass pool suddenly boiled, and the pointer seemed to be manipulated by an invisible hand.
It rotates wildly between the positions of "Qian", "Xun", and "Gen".
Finally, with a "click," it got stuck in the "dui" position.
That was the yin position in the due west direction, directly opposite the third girl tied to the locust tree.
What happens after you choose her in your dream?
Liu Sandao asked in a deep voice, "Did you see her take off her veil?"
I scratched my head: "When you woke me up, I didn't see anything."
Liu Sandao's pupils contracted sharply, and he slammed the copper coin into the "Tianquan" position.
Sparks flew as the brass coin collided with the blue brick.
Seven fresh mugwort leaves suddenly moved without wind, arranging themselves on the ground in the shape of the Big Dipper. Fine blood droplets seeped from the edges of the leaves, gathering into a small pool of blood at the "Tianji" position.
"broken."
Liu Sandao's voice trembled unusually as he pulled out a boxwood plaque engraved with the Tao Te Ching from his inner pocket.
"This is a 'Seven Star Life-Sustaining Lamp' setup. The girl's birth date and time were already engraved on the beams and pillars of the ancestral hall, specifically for her to die in place of someone else."
I followed his gaze and saw that half of a beam and pillar were indeed visible under the eaves of the ancestral hall, with faint carvings visible under the newly painted red paint.
Liu Sandao took out the ox bone carving knife he always carried and carved the nine characters "Lin Bing Dou Zhe Jie Zhen Lie Zai Qian" in the center of the mugwort array.
As the last stroke was completed, the mugwort suddenly burst into flames, and the ashes gathered in the wind to form a blurred human face.
Liu Sandao stared at the human face formed from ashes, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed.
My fingertips traced the "Dui" position on the compass, where a fresh knife mark had appeared sometime earlier.
He kept sighing, "This is troublesome!"
"Then we..."
Before I could finish speaking, I heard Chen Dashan's footsteps in the distance.
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