Chapter 7 Old Lady

At twelve o'clock at night, Zhang Jigang, who had moved out of the school dormitory and moved into a new house, took out his textbook and recited ancient poems as usual.

He muttered in his mouth: "The road back to the road is long and long... Oh my God!"

In the center of the magic weapon where the power of the underworld is gathered, in the space invisible to others, Cui Yu was struck by the misrecited ancient sentence. The poetry disturbed me, and I opened my eyes.

"If you don't know how to memorize, you can't memorize it blindly. You

're not paying attention." Zhang Jigang was so frightened that his heart skipped a beat and he was not in the mood to endorse it.

It didn't matter when I looked up, I saw a piece of white bone hanging from the pink chandelier on the bedroom roof.

The black mist filled the air, and a stooped white-haired old lady gradually emerged, holding a black dog with a shriveled belly and a skinny body in her arms.

She blinked, and then grinned at Zhang Jigang. There were no teeth in her mouth, leaving only half of her scarlet tongue, which looked like a ulcer.

The age of eighteen that Cui Yu thinks of is like a mechanism that opens the door to another world. In short, after his birthday, he can always see some unclean things.

The ghost could not be captured by the camera, so he raised his eyes, took another look, and tapped the pocket watch in his hand.

"Thirteen, how do you fix this thing?"

Just as he was talking to the pocket watch, the old lady came to him at some point and handed the dog to him.

When he took a look, he saw that the dog's eyeballs were only connected by a dark nerve, swaying in front of his eyes.

Blood and saliva mixed together and dripped onto his face.

At that moment, he was so frightened that he felt his blood flow back to his heart, which was beating wildly.

"...Cui...Cui Yu, this skeleton also has a dead dog..."

The pocket watch shook twice, and a faint blue fire appeared, but no one could be seen.

"...I think...it smells so good...I want to eat it..." Half of the old lady's face was ulcerated and she leaned over with a crazy expression.

She grabbed Zhang Jigang's wrist suddenly, and moved her half-bloody, half-bone face towards him, sniffing greedily.

Zhang Jigang's bladder tightened, he swallowed his saliva, and stammered: "...Ten...Thirteen! College tyrant! Handsome guy! Good brother...help me..."

"Isn't this what happened earlier?"

Trying continuously After giving a few commands to awaken the true form of the magical weapon, Zhang Jigang thought silently in his heart, Cui Yu, just wait for me! If I hadn't asked for something, could I bow to you?

The dark fire rose into the sky, and a tall man with red hair and red eyes descended from the mist. He grabbed the old lady with one hand and held her by the throat. The fire spread from his palm to the whole body of the ghost.

The old lady's gray eyes flashed with fear, and she struggled desperately, whimpering from her mouth.

Zhang Jigang couldn't help but frown, watching as Cui Yu was about to strangle the opponent's neck.

"... Wait, according to the order, you must first judge the evil before you can decide whether to kill or transfer the soul."

Cui Yu: "Aren't you afraid? The soul transfer lasts for ten days, and it only takes one second to kill directly."

"Then . You can't just kill him to save trouble! Let... let go!" Zhang Jigang pushed Cui Yu's hand away and took out the book "The Law of Judgment of Evil" which took three days to be translated into vernacular and quickly turned the pages.

"What are you looking for?"

Zhang Jigang didn't look up: "I'm looking for your instruction manual..."

Cui Yu: "..."

"I'm right here, just ask me."

"...That's right . "

The academic master's description was concise and precise, describing the three innate abilities of a ghost exorcist: judging evil, transferring souls, and killing.

The judgment of evil begins with seeing strange ghosts for the first time. They are judged and distinguished based on the degree of black mist they carry. Those ghosts with strong resentment, murderous intent and extreme aggression are judged as evil ghosts, while those who still have goodwill and conscience are called souls.

Soul crossing is to send the souls wandering in the world to the underworld, where the person in charge will number them and send them to reincarnation one by one; the objects to be killed are evil ghosts, usually by a highly capable ghost exorcist with the accompanying magic weapon , obliterate it.

On the list of ghost exorcists that has been circulated in the world, there is only one gifted person who possesses these three abilities at the same time. He is the ancestor mentioned by Zhang Jigang's grandfather, and he is also a famous sinner in the family. .

Cui Yu wanted to persuade Zhang Jigang to use his disinfecting ability, but Cui Yu had some selfish motives.

He wanted to see if this person could awaken memories in a familiar field, but then he thought about it, how could a young man's body be compared with the "ghost-seeing sorrow" of the past? He was still too impatient.

"Then you try to judge evil first, and then make a decision."

Listening to the man's leisurely tone, Zhang Jigang felt angry welling up from his chest. He threw down the textbook and said, "I'm just asking you, how to judge evil! How can I Use you..."

Cui Yu touched his lower lip and winked at him: "You can use it no matter what, I've already prepared it."

Zhang Jigang raised his foot and kicked it, hitting the wall of air and then touching the table leg with his toe. An intimate collision.

"Hiss..." It's really torture if you can't catch the bad guy in his true form!

Tomorrow is the weekly test, and Cui Yu still wants to talk a little bit, but Zhang Jigang is very partial to subjects, and he is surprisingly bad in Chinese. If he can't memorize the key points of ancient poems he drew, tomorrow's test will be back to the original state.

"It's better not to waste time. Try setting the second hand to thirteen o'clock."

The blue light flashed past, and the boy disappeared from the front and returned to the pocket watch. Zhang Jigang saw the second hand standing vertically in the center of the dial. Trembling violently.

He reached out and touched the needle wall. It was cold and slippery, as if it had vitality, resonating with his pulse.

It was a good thing that Cui Yu was willing to cooperate, but he was having trouble touching the needle. How to move this extra needle to a time point that shouldn't exist?

From 1 to 12, the division is uniform and there is no difference, and time is passing clockwise.

The top of the pointer was sharp and there was no way to start. He squeezed it tightly with his thumb and index finger and moved it a few times, but the needle didn't move at all.

"Thirteen, your needle is so hard."

The boy's slightly shy voice came out of the pocket watch: "What are you doing, flirting with me."

Zhang Jigang secretly rubbed his cheek with his tiger teeth. To choose between perverted, inhuman and evil things, he would rather endure the time when the top student pretends to be stupid.

"I can't move it, you... can't you just tell me?!"

There were five white bones covering his waist, and the cool touch made Zhang Jigang tighten his thigh flaps. If his mother hadn't been sleeping in the next room, he would have The shouting may be more intense than the cheerleading team at the sports venue.

Cui Yu snorted: "Treat this as a closed-book exam. Fill in the blanks and use ___ method to set the needle to thirteen o'clock."

He hates fill-in-the-blank questions! Can't it be a multiple-choice question?

That way, you can choose the shortest among the three long and one short, and choose A when your eyes are black. This is a trick he found out from several torn test papers. Most people don't tell them, and they often don't look like the answer at first glance. , the option that is easy to skip is the answer.

Unable to find a way, Zhang Jigang was so anxious that he was sweating profusely. He used brute force to break the needle and move it in a clockwise direction. However, even though his fingers were white and sore, it still did not obey the user's wishes.

In desperation, he turned as hard as he could. Unexpectedly, the sharp needle pierced his thumb, and blood beads emerged and dripped on the center of the dial.

"...You smell so good."

Almost at the same time as Cui Yu, the old lady smelled the pure evil spirit floating away, became extremely excited, and bit his thigh.

It hurts daddy so much! ! ! ——Don’t

bark, never bark.

If the mother saw her son endorsing the book alone in the room at night and screaming like he was being bitten, the timid Duan Juanjuan would definitely faint from fear!

If you can’t break it in the opposite direction, try it in the opposite direction! Suddenly, he thought of the name "Reverse Thirteen" mentioned by this man when he introduced himself in the ward. Could it be the answer to the fill-in-the-blank question?

Turning the needle with his bloody fingers, he was surprised to find that the needle left its original position lightly. As he turned, it moved from 12 to 10, 9... and then to 12, making a full circle.

The thigh has become the ham meat that the old man misses so much. Zhang Jigang held back his anger and thought, there is still one more moment left, then turn around!

The pointer turned from 12 to 11 again, and the moment it stopped, the numbers changed. The handwriting written in black paint blurred and disappeared. Instead, a faint blue light engraved a clear "13" bit by bit.

He was taken back in time. One day in the underworld is equivalent to a hundred days on earth. In the thirteenth retrospective, he saw the old lady from three years ago:

at that time, she was kind-hearted and lived alone in the upstairs of his new home. Got a pure black little native dog.

Mrs. Cao suffers from severe heart disease, which was diagnosed when she just retired from the shoe factory.

Both the son and daughter were very cautious. At that time, the caregiver who was on shift knew that she would come to the house to stay with the old lady.

But she had a bad fate. She was widowed when she was young and never married. Last year, her youngest daughter got married to a foreign country 2,000 kilometers away. Only her son is left in Liaocheng.

His son's marriage life was rough and his work was not going well. He gradually delayed the visit from once a month to once every six months. After he and his wife went through the divorce procedures after a big quarrel, he never visited him again.

The man thinks that the old lady has a retirement salary, lives alone in an apartment building and is content, and that her sister can be ruthless enough to marry far away, so he wants to see what she can do.

Just like that, the fireworks in the cold winter suddenly rose into the sky with a bang, frightening the old man who was watching the TV.

He suffered a cardiac arrest and fell to the ground unconscious. He didn't even have time to get powerful heart-stimulating medicine.

The old dog, which had been raised for more than ten years, searched through the trash cans, corners and even the toilet room in the house, but could not find water or food, so it died together with the old lady.

The neighbors didn't know she was dead until the smell of the decomposing body wafted out from the cracks in the window.

The younger daughter took away a hundred thousand yuan gift and spent two thousand yuan on a special air ticket to rush back. At the funeral, she angrily slapped her brother who was in despair and called her brother a waste. She was so angry that her wife couldn't get custody of the child even if she didn't mention it. The old mother entrusted him to He took care of her and died.

Until the neighbor couldn't stand it anymore and pointed at her nose and cursed: "That's the mother who gave birth to you and raised you. No one can take care of you brothers and sisters, so you can't blame others!"

...

"Doudou, this smells good...eat this... You must be hungry, you must be starving!"

The old lady lay on the ground, biting Zhang Jigang's thigh flesh with her dry lips, holding her only loyal companion in her last moments of life.

Zhang Jigang's body was weak. He slumped on the back of the chair and looked at the old lady with an aging and curled body. He asked: "...how to transfer her soul...and it."

The pocket watch bounced a few times in his hand, and the wisp of... The beam took the form of a boy.

Cui Yu inadvertently touched his red nose and said, "Leave the rest to me."

It takes ten days to transfer the soul. During this period, Mrs. Cao's soul will temporarily live in this bedroom. , suspended above the chandelier.

She also smelled that the vacant new house downstairs suddenly had a sinister atmosphere, so she climbed down the window and wanted to chat with someone.

After the judgment of evil was over, the soul showed the character it had when it was still alive and was not dominated by evil spirits. The old man suddenly stopped chewing, his eyes full of apology.

"Old lady, I have to endorse tonight, why don't you... go sit on my bed for a while?"

Cui Yu looked surprised: "I wanted to lie down just now, but you didn't want to..."

Zhang Jigang picked up the textbook and put it against his face, writing Even after taking it down, he wiped his tears and turned around and said: "It is not a gentleman to argue with ghosts. There will be a long road ahead..."

*

Time passed, and on the night before taking the college entrance examination, Zhang Jigang suddenly Difficulty sleeping.

He was so nervous that he couldn't urinate in a perfect parabola even while standing. He shook his head and peed on the edge of the toilet.

Duan Juanjuan yelled at him to go to bed early, and she would be satisfied no matter what the test was.

The more this happened, the more pressure he felt.

He wants his mother to be proud of him.

After drinking half a glass of water, he lay down on the bed again and tried to fall asleep, but a fluffy dog ​​paw stretched out from under the bed, and an old lady in a floral skirt hung from the ceiling.

Cui Yu was very happy when he agreed, but a few days later he told him that there were too many ghosts in the underworld to arrange numbers, so he had to wait a little longer.

The closer the docile soul is to a place with human breath, the more its form will be nourished and become more like what it was in life.

The old man's bones and flesh have regenerated, his cheeks are getting rounder and rounder, and Doudou's coat has grown so long that it covers his eyes, like a ragdoll dog.

He lowered his head and looked more and more like a string.

But luckily she didn't do anything drastic, she just crawled around and finally stopped next to him and fell asleep.

After a while, the black dog also jumped on the bed and curled up between his legs.

Cui Yu is not here tonight, staying at home.

It was learned from his mouth that he had a body reshaped by using the power of the underworld to paint skin and pinch bones, and was reincarnated into the Cui family. Therefore, his parents were ordinary people and did not know that their child had such abilities.

Cui Yu's parents are very affectionate, and they are more accustomed to living in a world of two. They are very relieved of their son, who has always been excellent in character and academics, and will not knock on his son's bedroom door after ten o'clock at night.

So every time Cui Yu comes, it's after ten o'clock.

After accepting the fact that he was a descendant of a ghost exorcist, Zhang Jigang gradually discovered that he could see more and more ghosts.

Not only can it be seen, but it can also attract ghosts.

Not long ago, the ghosts of two homeless people wandering nearby knocked on his window. They looked like they were freezing to death on the street, with bruised skin and frost under their lips. They asked him if he could still live in the house.

He replied, "I live with my mother, so it's not appropriate for you to come in. Besides, I'm busy with trivial matters right now. After the big exam, I can help them transfer their souls."

"Old lady... I have the college entrance examination tomorrow. I will sleep in a nearby hotel at noon and will not come back. If you are lonely, you can bless the iron tree raised by my mother... the iron tree is evergreen... and let her accompany you."

He muttered As I lay there, sleepiness gradually deepened.

His arms were folded on his abdomen, and his consciousness faded away...

The next day, before the alarm clock went off, Zhang Jigang was awakened by the biological clock in his body.

Just the right time.

If a person has something on his mind, he will not stay in bed.

He rushed into the bathroom to wash up quickly, then got dressed and checked his admission ticket and exam equipment.

After scribbling through the love breakfast made by Duan Juanjuan, he took advantage of this period to read through ancient poems and the Chinese question answering guide prepared by Cui Yu.

"Mom, I'm leaving."

"Hey... just wait, I'll take you there."

Zhang Jigang looked back and smiled, showing his white teeth: "You have to walk the road of adulthood alone, Mom. Just cheer for me!"

He waved to Duan Juanjuan, then waved twice, in the direction of the iron tree at home.

The old lady squatted and looked at the iron tree with curiosity.

Although her sternum, which had not yet grown, was deeply dented, it did not affect his bright mood at all.

After her son left, Duan Juanjuan touched the leaves in confusion, wondering why her son laughed while looking at the iron tree and started to believe in Buddhism?

Does the iron tree also have the meaning of being named on the gold list?