"I don't know, what about you? Are you going to do something or just stay here for two days?"

  That weird guy flicked his bangs, which had been hanging on the tip of his nose, and said to Cha Wenbin with an extremely airy gaze: "Dragon Master wants me to go to Shandong, that Penglai Island or whatever, it's really like a real thing, I have to leave this afternoon."

  I heard that this guy is leaving, and my heart that was hanging in my throat fell again. But then he said something that made me collapse: "I'll talk to Dragon later, it's not good to keep me locked up at home all the time. How about I come to visit you after a while? I found out that the outside world is more fun than our place."

  "Join me?" Zha Wenbin smiled bitterly: "I don't even have a home now, I'm living with friends."

  Then that guy grabbed my shoulder and said, "Your friends are my friends, we're all our own people, so why be polite? That's settled then, come again another day."

  "Oh, by the way, little brother, it's best to get 1982 to deal with the thing in that black umbrella under your bed within these two days. I'm afraid if you wait too long, he'll absorb your yang energy at night."

  I: “……”

  After sending that old man away, Cha Wenbin suddenly remembered that the umbrella was still with me. I flipped over the bed and took a look, fortunately my mom didn't find it, or else it would have been burned to ashes. But thinking about it, what's the relationship between these few people anyway?

  Fatso, with a toothpick in his mouth, analyzed: "They are all from the same family, with relationships of father and son, daughter-in-law and father-in-law. However, according to what Xiaoyi said, this old man is also a honest and simple-minded person. What kind of deep hatred must he have to resort to such extreme measures against them?"

  Zha Wenbin thought for a moment and said: "Take me to your uncle's grave mountain tonight, I'll ask him clearly."

  That mound is probably frozen at night, and it's tiring to climb up. I looked at the umbrella and said, "Why not ask at home? After all, the soul, oh no, is in this umbrella, right?"

  "This is a temporary placement, not a long-term plan. Your uncle is a miserable person, and I reckon his grave has been tampered with by someone, otherwise he wouldn't be wandering outside without returning home."

  "Let's go early then. That place is full of graves and tombs everywhere, it's easy to get lost when it gets dark."

  After dinner, the two of us made up an excuse to go out and play. At that time, my elder cousin's family had a three-wheeled motorcycle, his father was in the government, and their conditions were not bad. I went to borrow the car from him, and the three of us "突突突" (vroom) drove to the neighboring village.

  On a winter night, it was dark early, and at 5:30, the road ahead couldn't be seen more than ten meters away. My feet trudged on the frozen snowy ground with a "creaking" sound. I didn't want to climb that mountain at all, taking three steps forward and sliding one step back. The three of us pulled and dragged each other up to the middle of the mountain, using a full hour and a half.

  However, this place is not bad, standing high and looking far. My cousin's grave is in this circle of tombs, a bit shabby. The wealthy families at that time had already used bricks, cement, and an additional layer of ceramic tiles on the outside, but my poor cousin's grave was still made of yellow mud and stone slabs. There are no tombstones in front, to say something unpleasant, two years from now when their family's old lady also passes away, I estimate that this place will become a ownerless desolate tomb.

  Zha Wenbin patted Hei Wu's umbrella and said in a low voice: "Old master, we're out, we're home."

  I didn't see anything, I just saw Cha Wenbin shaking the umbrella once, and then slowly opening it up to the grave mound. At this time, something strange happened!

  That umbrella was a bit like the long-handled automatic umbrellas of today, but at that time, the umbrella had to be opened and closed by hand, without springs. When closing it, there was a latch on top to hold the umbrella handle in place. Once that kind of umbrella was opened, it was very difficult to close, and at that time, they were all handmade, made entirely of steel, not like the soft iron umbrella frames of today.

  The umbrella was opened by Zhang Wenbin and placed on the grave mound, but it immediately closed automatically, then fell to the ground with a "slap".

  That fatty is talking nonsense again: "Hey, this old man doesn't seem too willing to go back, it seems he's more comfortable sleeping at Xiaoyi's house, alright then, let's bring him home and have him keep Xiaoyi company."

  "Fatty, do you believe that next time I go to Guangzhou, I'll sell you to Lao Hei?" Actually, I'm afraid it's easy to invite the gods but hard to send them away. To be honest, if I really had to bring him back, I'd rather die than do it."

  He looked at Cha Wenbin picking up the umbrella and leaning it against his back, circling around the mound without stopping. After a while, his gaze stayed on the stone slab.

  This style of tomb is more common in northwest Zhejiang, and friends from other places may not have seen it before, so I'll explain it first.

  Find a flat land, dig a pit, the pit is not deep, about half the depth of a coffin, and the style is slightly wider than the size of the coffin. When burying, put the coffin directly into the pit, then use yellow mud or bricks to build walls around the coffin, just like building a house. The height of the wall is about 10 cm higher than the coffin, then set up a beam between the top of the wall and the end of the gun, in the same way as building a house.

  This beam is also called a grave beam, this thing is very particular, according to the rules, the eldest son must personally take a knife to the mountain to chop it down, and then personally carry it on his back to the tomb to set it up, to show his filial piety.

  The tomb is built with a good beam, then it's just a matter of nailing the tiles on, the principle is the same as building a house. Finally, nail the tile strips, and then cover them with a thick layer of stone slabs, and then seal them with a mixture of lime and yellow mud.

  The advantage of this tomb is that the structure is simple, the construction volume is small, and it is also convenient to move the grave in the future. The disadvantage is naturally easy to collapse, easy to leak water, generally used by poor families.

  I saw Cha Wenbin stretch out his hand to sweep the snow off that stone slab, and I thought to myself, this guy wouldn't actually want to open the coffin and examine the body, would he? If word of this gets out, it's going to be a real disaster.

  "Wen Bin, is that you?"

  "I'll just take a look." The stone slabs were taken down one by one, and it seemed that there were only two layers. It looked like these unfilial sons were really too lazy, they didn't take their father seriously at all. With such thin tiles on top, they would probably rot through in three years at most.

  "Lend me your flashlight for a moment."

  I handed the flashlight to Cha Wenbin, who had already pried open a large hole in the tomb. He shone the light inside and felt around for a moment. I saw that his expression wasn't quite natural, and just as I was about to ask him what was wrong, he slammed something onto the ground. On the snowy ground, something black and shiny caught my eye - it had landed right next to Pangzi's feet.

  "What's this? A poor old man won't have any valuable treasures. Are you learning from me how to rob tombs?"

  Cha Wenbin then put the stone slabs back one by one and said: "Take a good look at what it is."

  I and the fat kid crouched down to take a look, hey, this thing really recognized it, and I was extremely disgusted by this thing, I've been afraid of it since childhood, actually it's disgusting. It was a dead toad, already dry. There was a red string on the toad's foot, with a copper coin in its mouth, the copper coin had been pierced through the toad's upper and lower lips with a red string, sealing the coin inside its mouth.

  "This is interesting, isn't it? Is this a fortune coming in?"

  Fatso said that, I also remembered that in Guangzhou, this kind of toad-shaped toy with a copper coin in its mouth is quite common, many people put one on their counter when opening a business.

  Zha Wenbin had also finished his work on the other side and re-sealed the tomb. He came over, pointing at the toad and said: "What you're talking about is the three-legged golden toad, that's a auspicious beast, but this isn't one. This thing isn't the common toad you know either, we have those by the small rivers, in the ditches, where there's water. This thing is called the yellow toad, it lives on mountains and can't go down to water."

  "And there are also toads living in the mountains, this is really fresh."

  "Don't underestimate it, this thing is extremely toxic, but it's also a treasure. The copper coin in its mouth is called the Tongtian Mirror. The copper coin is an imitation of the heaven and earth, the toad's big mouth can hold down the heaven and earth. In the past, our Taoist priests used this method to ward off evil spirits. If someone's home was not peaceful, they would hang this thing on their own door beam, and ghosts and gods would all avoid it, even more effective than the Bagua mirror. Hanging such a thing on the tomb beam is equivalent to setting up a roadblock on your cousin's way to the underworld, making it impossible for the spirits of the underworld to pass through, and your cousin can't pass through either, only floating outside."

  "How did you find out?" I asked.

  He pointed to the stone slab on the grave and said, "I saw that the salt deposits under those few stone slabs are relatively new, and their positions have been moved compared to the surrounding ones. I reckon they've been tampered with. Someone who understands this stuff must have studied it before, but their heart is too evil, always up to no good."

  This time he opened the umbrella again and put it up, and indeed the umbrella did not close.

  Cha Wenbin pulled out some weeds nearby, lit a fire with the umbrella, added a stick of incense and a stack of paper, then said to the grave: "Old master, life and death are two paths, since you've left, go well on your way, I won't disturb you either. Tonight, remember to tell me why, explain the cause and effect clearly, after the 15th of next month, I'll come to help you attain Buddhahood, guaranteeing that in the next life you'll be reborn into a good family."

  I don't know where Zhang Wenbin planned to meet that uncle and aunt at night, anyway that evening I slept with Baozi, the doors and windows of the house were carefully checked several times, and a pair of scissors was specially placed under the pillow, people say this can ward off evil spirits...

  However, that night, I didn't sleep very well either. In my dream, I saw my uncle. He was riding a donkey and waving at me while walking away, turning his head to smile at me. The next day when I got up, I felt sore all over and extremely tired. As soon as I walked out of the door, I saw that Cha Wenbin was already running in the yard.

  He has a habit, whether it's cold winter or hot summer, he will go for a run every morning. Even when he was a young intellectual, no matter how late he finished his farm work the night before, he would still go for a run in the morning. It is said that he had poor health as a child and often fell ill, so this habit might have been forced upon him by his master.

  "Did you sleep well?" I asked.

  "It's okay, but this afternoon we still have to go to Zhuangyuan Village."

  "What's wrong?"

  Zha Wenbin wiped his face with a towel and said: "Your uncle told me something last night, I have to go verify it."

  I had just taken a spoonful of porridge in my mouth, and suddenly I was choked so badly that I almost scalded my trachea...