Chapter 40
"Are there still ghosts here?" Xie asked curiously. He thought there would be no ghosts after Chen Shan came.
"It's hard to say. It would be difficult for Chen Shan to exorcise ghosts while disguising himself among them. There would be people watching him no matter what he did." Since that group of people were interested in supernatural stories, they might have had some experience in exorcism. He probably came here just to take a look at the situation here last time. Exorcising ghosts without authorization would expose himself instead.
"Be careful." No one had been passing by the river for years, and the grass had grown nearly as high as a man's calf. Jing Xiebai had trampled a path, and had Xie follow in his footsteps.
The river wasn't very big, just three or four meters wide, with a few bamboo sticks placed on the surface to allow people to cross. The ancient village must be in the dry season, so the water level was very low and the riverbed could be clearly seen.
"Do you know how to attract ghosts?" Jing Xiebai put down his luggage and glanced at Xie Que, with a bit of a show-off attitude.
"No." Xie shook his head and said frankly: "If you want me to summon the Pen Fairy, I do know how to do it a little bit."
Jing Xiebai was amused by him: "What's shown in the movies is all fake. If you use that method to attract ghosts, at most you will attract some lonely ghosts. If you are a bit aggressive, they will be scared away."
"Then how do we do that?"
"Just watch." Jing Xiebai took out a jar of wine from his bag and took a sip. He placed the wine by the river and drew a formation on the side with cinnabar.
They heard from the owner of the guesthouse that the people in this area depended on the river for their livelihood. In order to prevent encountering water ghosts, he specially bought a jar of wine from the owner to ward off ghosts. Unexpectedly, it really came in handy.
"What should we do next? Wait for the ghost to take the bait?" Xie looked at the wine jar with a puzzled look on his face, and said in disbelief: "Other people are fishing? Ghost exorcists are fishing for ghosts? Do we want ghosts to take the bait?"
"It's almost the same, but fishing uses bait and hunting ghosts uses wine." In order to hurt people, water ghosts will specially put a jar of wine by the river, and when someone puts their hand in, they will take the opportunity to drag the person into the water.
"Let me do it. If a water ghost really appears, you can catch it." Xie felt relieved with Jing Xie Bai beside him.
"Let me do it." Jing Xiebai took a few pieces of talisman paper and told him not to be distracted, otherwise he would become the water ghost's lunch.
Xie Que looked at Jing Xiebai with a questioning look on his face, hesitantly saying, "I saw online that first-time fishermen have a novice protection period. This is my first time fishing for ghosts, so it stands to reason that there should be a protection period as well, right?" What if they fish here for a whole morning and no one bites? It would be better to let a novice fisherman do it, right?
Jing Xiebai smiled helplessly after hearing this: "What are you thinking? It's not like you're really fishing. Besides, how can I let you catch ghosts? I'm not even a ghost exorcist anymore."
Before Xie Que could retort, Jing Xiebai reached into the wine jar and said, "Just wait. In ten minutes at most, someone will take the bait."
Seeing this, Xie Que didn't say much and concentrated on paying attention to the changes in the river surface.
The midsummer sun was too strong, and Xie Que was sweating profusely after just a few minutes. He looked at the still river surface with a bit of frustration: "Why don't I do it? I can't wait all day."
Jing Xiebai took his hands out and washed them with water, his face also filled with disbelief: "There are no water ghosts in this river? Impossible? Did Chen Shan really exorcise the ghost? He's so dedicated?"
"What should we do now?" Xie wiped the sweat from his face. He has a physique that sweats easily and basically does not go out in summer.
"Let's go and take a look at the cemetery." Jing Xiebai put away the wine jar and destroyed the formation. When he turned around and wanted to go back, he found something wrong.
"Hiss, we've been here for less than half an hour, how come the grass has grown back again?"
On the way here, Jing Xiebai was afraid that the grass would stand up again and scratch his legs if he stepped on it, so he stepped on it a few more times. But now there is no sign of being stepped on on the grass at all.
Xie bent down to take a look, his expression changed: "Is this place so evil?"
"No, we have to hurry and leave this village before dark." Jing Xiebai put on his bag and motioned Xie Que to follow him.
The cemetery was some distance away from the village, and graves gradually appeared when Xie Que and his friends climbed halfway up the mountain.
"There are so many mountains here, why do the villagers bury their coffins here?" There is a grave every three or four meters, it seems that this village was very prosperous in the past.
"Look at the tombstone in front of the grave and see if this is their ancestral grave?" Jing Xiebai stopped and drank some water. The mountain road here was difficult to walk on, and he had a scratch on his face from a branch.
"No." Xie ran to the front to take a closer look, and was even more certain, "The original surname of this village is Zeng, and there are also several people with other surnames buried here."
The placement of coffins in ancestral tombs is very particular and the generations cannot be messed up. It is obvious that here each family just found a place to bury the coffin at random.
"Do you want to treat your wound?" Xie Quecai saw that there was blood on Jing Xiebai's face. He had been following Jing Xiebai and didn't notice that he was injured.
"No need." Jing Xiebai casually wiped the blood off his face. The wound had stopped bleeding. He didn't take this minor injury seriously.
"Keep walking and see."
For the convenience of the villagers, it is impossible to bury the coffins higher up, so they just turn around a few times before going down.
But after only a few minutes, they encountered something strange. A coffin had fallen in the middle of the road, its lid to the side, showing signs of burns. Not far away, a large pit had been dug so long ago that it was overgrown with grass.
"What's going on?" There was no body in the coffin. Could it be that the corpse had come back to life?
"Could it be that the coffin was struck by lightning? This village is unbelievable. Such a terrible thing has happened." Jing Xiebai put down his luggage and motioned for Xie Que to help carry the coffin. "There should be a piece of yellow paper underneath with the name of the coffin owner written on it. Tear it off and take a look."
"Okay." Xie moved a big stone to put under the coffin, and then he lay on the ground and tore off the yellow paper.
"What did you write?"
"There's nothing written on it. It's an unnamed coffin." Xie handed the yellow paper to Jing Xiebai. Judging from the growth of the grass in the pit, the coffin must have been here for several years. The yellow paper pressed underneath was surprisingly well preserved.
"And the soil underneath isn't right." The area covered by the coffin was barren, and the soil was a different red than the surrounding area. Xie knelt down and felt it; it was still moist. Logically, the yellow paper shouldn't have been preserved so well.
"It's weird, this is too weird." Jing Xiebai has been exorcising ghosts for so many years, and he has seen many vicious ghosts and many weird things, but this time he is a little confused.
He put the yellow paper aside, squatted down, looked at the bottom of the coffin, then looked at the red soil underneath, and asked, "Do you know the three taboos of burial?"
Xie frowned, not understanding what Jing Xiebai meant.
Jing Xiebai pasted the yellow paper back and patiently explained to Xie Que, "The three no-burials are: no burial if it rains, no burial if it falls to the ground, and no burial if it turns around."
A coffin that falls to the ground will bury the dead; a coffin that turns back will keep the ghosts away. This coffin occupies at least the first two of these categories, which shows how evil it is.
Xie, however, gasped after hearing this. He looked at the fallen coffin door. The coffin was black, showing obvious signs of being burned. The traditional funeral industry was most averse to the idea of a coffin being struck by lightning. The coffin was the abode of the deceased in the afterlife, so one could only imagine how unlucky it was to have one's home struck by lightning.
There was nothing in the coffin, but Xie stared at the coffin lid for a long time, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was wrong.
"Do you feel that this wooden board at the bottom of the coffin is a little different from the other boards?" Xie reached in and pressed it. The board was very damp, as if it had been soaked in water.
Xie touched the surrounding wooden boards again and didn't feel that way.
"Even if there was water in here before, it wouldn't be that only the bottom wooden board is like this, right?" The bottom of the coffin was not in direct contact with the ground, but Xie felt around to make sure that only the bottom wooden board was different.
Seeing this, Jing Xiebai reached out and touched the wooden board, a hint of surprise flashing across his eyes: "Is there a water ghost buried here?"
In the past, cremation was not popular among people. People believed in burying their dead. The bodies fished out of the river were directly placed into coffins for burial, which also explains the strangeness of the coffins.
"You mean the water ghost took over the body and someone fished it out and buried it?" Xie frowned unconsciously and questioned, "Then why is the coffin open?"
After being buried, water ghosts have a home in the underworld. They don’t have to wander around in the world of the living and can be reincarnated soon. Why do they still come out to harm people?
Jing Xiebai also obviously felt something was wrong. He bent down to carefully examine the coffin and soon discovered something was wrong: "This coffin was opened from the outside."
In order to ensure sealing and stability, the lid and body of traditional coffins are tightly connected and nails are used to secure them. If the coffin is opened by the person inside, it will definitely be damaged. However, this coffin has no obvious signs of damage and looks like new. It must have been opened from the outside.
"When the rain hit the coffin and the coffin fell to the ground, instead of looking for someone to perform a ritual, they opened the coffin? These villagers are crazy." Jing Xiebai pasted a few talismans on the coffin and pulled Xie Que back. "No, no, we have to go to the Wang family to find a Feng Shui master for help. This place is too weird."
"Who are you looking for? How about calling Lu Jueqiu now?" Xie had never seen Jing Xiebai so nervous, and he started to get scared too. Exorcists aren't afraid of ghosts, but of the uncanny. The more out of the ordinary something is, the more attention it deserves; the slightest misstep could lead to disaster.
"There's no signal in the mountains. I noticed that when I first entered." Jing Xiebai sighed, "Where did these people find such a damn place? It's lucky they didn't die here."
Jing Xiebai has met many people who played ghost-summoning games out of curiosity and ended up being possessed by evil spirits. In his words, they were so bored that they decided to seek death.
On the way back, Xie discovered that many of the places that were originally cemeteries now had coffins at the exits, exactly the same as the one he had just seen.
"The ghosts here are so sentimental, aren't they? They even come out together to have a party." Jing Xiebai glanced inside the coffin and told a joke.
Ghosts are afraid of evil people. The more afraid you are of them, the stronger they become. It is very important to relieve your emotions appropriately when exorcising ghosts, otherwise the ghost will be scared to death before it even sees you.
"Can you take a look at the bottom of the coffin?" Xie Que pulled Jing Xiebai. He remembered the name of the person buried here and wanted to see if this was still an unnamed coffin.
Jing Xiebai did not refuse. The two of them lifted the coffin together and found that there was still nothing written on the yellow paper.
"What's going on?" Xie put the yellow paper back. He had never seen such a situation before and he became tense.
"I don't know, but this place is haunted, and there are some serious ghosts." Jing Xiebai sighed, knowing that he had gotten into a mess this time, and he couldn't help but feel a little resentful.
"This time when I go back, I will definitely punish Lei Yunfei no matter what."
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