Thinking of all this, Old Sun, the coffin bearer, stopped talking nonsense and took out a small black coffin, about ten centimeters long, and slowly placed it on the ground in front of him.
Upon seeing this, the new soul panicked and immediately turned and ran.
He ran while screaming, "Brother Sun, please, for the sake of our years of being neighbors, don't take me in!"
"Just let me stay for another half a month... ten days, until my youngest granddaughter turns 100, then I'll leave, okay?!"
There's a saying, "a string of ghost stories," which means you should never believe what ghosts say.
Otherwise, at best, they might be bewitched and do many crazy things in a daze;
In severe cases, they may be directly captured and used as stand-ins.
As an "insider," Old Sun naturally knew these things, so he ignored the new soul.
He simply opened the lid of the small coffin and softly chanted a prayer.
"The coffin maker carries the coffin between life and death, toiling his whole life for whom? Everything is predestined, and in the end, it all comes down to a bowl of soup from Meng Po."
After reciting the inscription, a lock of hair, specially obtained from the new soul's closest relative, was placed in the small coffin and set on fire.
The ashes from the hair instantly transformed into a faint rope, which with a whoosh wrapped around the ghost and pulled him into the small coffin.
Seeing this, Old Sun quickly closed the coffin lid and carefully put the small coffin into his arms.
He then spoke to the sorcerer.
"You're from out of town, this old man has to hurry and go."
"We're rushing to take this old neighbor to his grave. If we're late, the grave won't accept him."
The sorcerer already had a lot of troubles of his own, so naturally he didn't want to cause any more trouble and offend Old Sun, his "fellow practitioner".
Therefore, he tried to squeeze out a trace of kindness on his fierce and ugly face.
"Please make yourself at home."
......
After the two parted ways, Old Sun first rode his donkey to the cemetery outside the town.
Only after safely "delivering" the new soul did he ride his donkey back to his shop.
As soon as I entered, I saw the silver-haired old woman sitting under the lamp, asking questions.
Asking the spirits is a practice where a shaman brings the spirits of the underworld to the mortal realm, where they possess the shaman and communicate with the people of the mortal world.
Because a bowl of white rice is placed beside the object during this ritual, it is called "asking the rice".
The "fortune teller" grandma's surname is Liu, and she is already eighty years old this year.
If you look closely, he's more than a "round" older than Old Sun.
However, he remains in good health, with sharp hearing and eyesight, though his body is slightly hunched.
When Old Sun saw Granny Asking for Rice, he quickly took three steps at a time and went to get closer.
"Sister, have things happening outside disturbed you?"
Grandma Liu shook her head slowly with a wry smile: "No, that's not true. How could an old woman like me have such profound knowledge to predict the future?"
"But our old neighbor was filled with malevolent energy when he died, and today happens to be the seventh day after his death. So I thought I'd get up and check on him, just in case something bad happened."
"I just happened to see you chasing after it, so I'm watching the shop for you while I wait for news."
Hearing what Granny Liu said, Old Sun smiled and chimed in.
"You have such a kind heart! Don't worry, nothing will happen!"
"It's getting late, shall I help you back to rest?"
Hearing that nothing unexpected had happened, Grandma Mi finally felt relieved.
He got up with a smile and said as he walked towards his shop.
"It's good that you're alright, it's good that you're alright. I'm relieved that you're alright."
“We’re not senile, there’s no need to see you off on such a short trip.”
"You should get some rest too, don't overwork yourself, time waits for no one."
......
On the other side, the sorcerer, now alone, had no more worries and headed straight for the bat.
After walking through several streets, we arrived at the center of a "distorted" intersection.
It's considered deformed because the intersection isn't straight; it's shaped like a swastika.
In the center of the swastika is a sizable open space, where a shop sits all alone.
The bat was hanging upside down on the shop's signboard.
Looking up, a black plaque bears a line of gilded characters: "See you off on your journey."
"This is not only the 'White Tiger Opens Its Mouth' position, but also the 'Evil Tiger Contains Evil' position?!"
“A hundred ghosts scurry about in the middle of the intersection, and the whole family wailes as they pass through the halls and houses.”
"Surrounded by mountains on both sides, facing south, it resembles a sick tiger with wind pouring into its mouth; its head hangs down, drooling, and smoke rises from its tail, signifying the demise of wealth and the death of its entire family!"
"Opening a shop in a place like this, are they afraid their whole family won't be clean enough?! Have the people living in there already turned into evil spirits?!"
As they talked, the sorcerer suddenly laughed.
"What does it matter to me whether he turns into a fiend or not!"
"Wouldn't 'a vicious tiger harboring malevolent energy' be even better? This is one of the best places to raise corpses, it's a good deal for those three guys!"
The sorcerer sighed as he walked to the shop entrance, wanting to get a closer look at the scene inside.
But just as he pressed his eye to the crack in the door, the paper figure inside suddenly moved.
With flushed cheeks, they all turned their heads and stared intently at the doorway.
The mechanical, stiff, and extremely fast speed made one worry that the paper figure's head might suddenly snap off with a crack!
As mentioned at the beginning of the story: According to the rules of the paper-making profession, paper figures cannot have eyes drawn on them.
This is a taboo, the biggest taboo ever!
But for some reason, the paper figures the old Taoist priest left for Zhao Youliang all had eyes drawn on them.
It's still that blood red color...
The sorcerer outside the door was unaware of the strange occurrences inside the house, and even less aware that the paper figures had all come to life.
He continued to peer through the crack in the door, trying to get a clear view.
Unfortunately, his efforts were destined to be in vain: a paper figure with no expression was already walking mechanically to the door.
And she stretched out her pale hand to cover the sorcerer's eyes.
No matter how he moves up and down...
To clarify, a paper-making shop is an old-fashioned type of shop with double wooden doors and a bolt in the middle.
The sorcerer, being a skilled practitioner, sensed something was amiss after a moment: the atmosphere emanating from the shop was far too cold.
It was as cold as a hospital morgue!
"Such a heavy yin energy... Could it be that the people living inside have truly turned into 'fierce evil spirits'?!"
The sorcerer muttered to himself as he slowly retreated, stopping only after he had gone more than a meter.
"That's not right either. If it has already become a malevolent spirit, why wouldn't it come out to harm people?"
"There are probably no living creatures left within several miles, unless..."
At this point, the sorcerer suddenly stopped and subconsciously looked in the direction of the prison.
For some reason, he had a vague feeling in his heart:
The grand scheme of the prison, "White Tiger Breaking Evil," wasn't meant to suppress the malevolent energy within, but rather to suppress this inconspicuous paper-making shop...
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