Everyone has a fighting personality, some take the lead, and naturally others follow. Suddenly someone let out a cry of "Ah yo!" and then shouted: "My stomach hurts, I must have eaten something bad last night! Ah yo, it's unbearable."

  "Ouch, I'm in pain too. It must be that beef dish from tonight. I knew it, they're so stingy and must have served us leftover food from the funeral a few days ago."

  This is great, everyone started to have stomachaches, without waiting for a response, one by one they retreated like defeated soldiers, abandoning their armor and fleeing in all directions. In the blink of an eye, only I and Cha Wenbin were left, he looked at me, I looked at him, and we both remained silent for a long time.

  Finally, I couldn't hold it in and spoke up: "Dad, if you ask me, this whole thing has nothing to do with us. Look at how the people in that family have washed their hands of it already. What's the point of our getting involved?" I stood up and pulled him along, "Come on, let's go back home. Let them do whatever they want. Tomorrow, I'll just go burn down that broken house."

  Cha Wenbin doesn't care about anything, then he's not Cha Wenbin anymore. He actually likes to interfere in other people's business quite a bit. If I can persuade him, then I'm the boss, not just following him around.

  "Come on, stop nagging. If you're not going, I'll go alone." He said and was about to leave. How could I let him go alone? I quickly followed up: "I'm afraid of you. After this matter is settled, I plan to stay in Guangzhou for a while. Can't always be at home doing nothing. Zhu Zihao's side said it's possible to do some business together."

  "That's your business, I don't care." His response was always on his mind, and I knew that before Fatso fell, Zhang Wenbin's heart would not be at peace.

  "Actually, I also wanted to find him, but...". This topic is very sensitive, I don't dare say more. Actually, these past few days we were planning to go out and have some fun. Yuan Xiaobai even made an international call a few days ago, saying he was going to finish his studies abroad and return home, wanting to invite us out for a walk.

  All the way, the two of us walked one in front and one behind, he in front and I behind. Walking with him at night made me feel much more comfortable, and I never had a feeling of fear. I believe that people have an aura, and those with good energy are indeed reassuring to look at, like him.

  When I arrived at the temple, that damn water fir tree appeared again. I reminded him: "There's an owl on this tree, it found me several times tonight and almost tore my scalp off. Do you think this bird is also unclean?"

  "Xiao Yi, in my opinion, this charitable house in Hong Village is not as simple as it seems. I thought it was strange that day, who would plant such a large cypress tree at the entrance of a charitable house? Isn't it intentional to block the sunlight and make the yin energy inside the house even heavier? Although the charitable house is for the dead, it's designed according to the principles of yang dwellings. No one wants the corpses inside to have any unexpected changes. I'll have to ask someone about the origin of this house."

  "I said, 'Don't ask anymore, our ancestors were all picking up ready-made things. When we came here, there wasn't even half a person's shadow. The days in Hongcun are long, who knows which dynasty or generation built this thing.'"

  "It's not that simple, this matter is settled, you'll have to spend a few days with me wandering around the village, best if we take a trip up the high mountain, I need to see the layout of this village. However, about that bird you mentioned, I've heard a saying that in ancient times, people actually considered owls as guardian deities, they were often depicted on the doors of some tomb chambers, warding off evil spirits, so it was seen as a symbol of death, but its original intention was good. This bird repeatedly blocking your way, I think it's not because it has any evil intentions, but because it wants to prevent people from entering this charity house, it is the guardian here."

  Cha Wenbin's idea struck me as unexpected, in my mind birds are just birds, do they have any consciousness and can think? Moreover, in this desolate wilderness, who would train and take care of the bird?

  "You're thinking too much, this is just a wild bird, no one feeds it and it listens?"

  "It's not necessarily true, but in ancient times there were many secret methods for training beasts. I've heard that in the southwestern region of Ba-Shu, there was a type of snake called the 'gui' snake that was specifically raised to guard tombs. A few years ago, when they were planning to repair the Three Gorges, a group of people went to investigate and encountered something strange. On a cliffside, there was a tomb, and among the people who went there was someone from Beijing with some connections. As soon as he went down, he was bitten to death by a snake. Later on, it was Dragon Master who stepped in to handle the situation, but I didn't get to go. Crazy Wind told me that at the time, many people died, and those snakes seemed to be under someone's command, even using tactics like ambushes and sneak attacks. In the end, they fought their way through, killing over a hundred snakes before opening up the tomb passage. Guess what? On both sides of the tomb passage, they found wall paintings that were all snake-shaped patterns, twisted and turned. At the time, there was someone who understood ancient texts who said this might be an ancient script from the lost Qiang tribe, and even made a rubbing to bring back for study. Later on, someone deciphered a few of the characters and discovered it seemed to be a spell, roughly controlling snakes."

  I have two things that I fear the most, one is snakes and the other is toads. As soon as either of these two things appears, my whole body becomes numb. Being reminded by Wen Bin, thinking back to that scene, suddenly felt dizzy, quickly changed the subject: "We're here, are we going in or just hanging out at the door?"

  "Is your token still with you?" He suddenly asked me this way. I patted the pocket of my clothes, damn it, strangely, it's gone!

  I searched high and low, turned everything upside down, but still couldn't find it. Where did it go? Suddenly I remembered: "Oh no, when you left, I went back to grab something, probably accidentally picked up yours and threw it in my dad's room."

  Zha Wenbin sighed and said: "No wonder you'd find him, I've given you two Heavenly Master Talismans, there's no reason why anyone would dare to put their hand on your shoulder."

  "Then give me two more!"

  "That's two Heavenly Three Pure Talismans, you have to wait until the first day of each month at midnight to draw them before using, and you... " Zhang Wenbin was already speechless towards me.

  "Then I'll go back and get it." "Forget it, since you're already here, just stay."

  The door was open, just as it had been when I came in. I pointed to the room where the coffin was placed and said: "It's from there that something happened. The coffin is good, I saw Gaocity inside."

  He looked at me holding the gun and handed me a small stick, saying: "That thing of yours is useless, this is a ruler, if you have something, use this to hit it."

  I took the stick and looked at it, this thing is square and long, with four sides carved with characters I couldn't understand, feeling like a Taoist spell. It felt heavy in my hand, later I found out that this thing was actually the famous Tianpeng ruler! It's one of the instruments used to suppress evil spirits on the altar during Taoist rituals, can't be used casually, ranked among the top five instruments on the altar. This thing was left behind by Ling Zhengyang, the founder of the Tianzheng sect, passed down from generation to generation. If he knew that Cha Wenbin gave this thing to me for self-defense, I reckon he would be so angry that he'd come out of his grave and scold his mother.

  "Is it useful?" I asked.

  Cha Wenbin gave me a white look and said: "You see, it's four-sided and six-faced, each engraved with the 28 mansions, sun and moon, Ziwei Xing, Tianpeng Xing, Nan Dou Liu Xing, Bei Dou Qi Xing. Nan Dou gives birth, Bei Dou kills, life and death are all measured on this ruler, evil demons and ghosts, just use this ruler to knock a few times, life and death are up to you. Don't mess it up for me, this is passed down from the school door, made of pure Yang peach wood."

  Looking at this thing in my hand, my waist is finally straightened up. If I had this earlier, I would have hammered it on the forehead of Gao Cheng!

  He flashed into the house and took a look. The coffin was still there. Cha Wenbin walked around the coffin, furrowed his brow and said, "Someone has moved it."

  I said: "I saw him touch it with his hand, is everything okay?"

  "I'm saying, the coffin is empty!" As soon as he finished speaking, Cha Wenbin suddenly used his hand to lift the coffin board and flipped it over with force. "Clang" - a loud noise echoed as dust flew up into the air. I lowered my head to take a look, and what I saw was astonishing: inside, there were only tattered fabrics that had been twisted into a ball, along with some ceramic jars and metal objects, probably burial items from when he was alive. The quilt had already been lifted, just like someone who had gotten out of bed after sleeping...

  I really admire Cha Wenbin, how did he know there was no one inside? That's not right, this way it's very likely that there are two of those things in there.

  Zha Wenbin lit a candle and placed it in the northwest corner of the house, but the flickering flame made people feel uncomfortable. He said with some self-reproach: "I was careless, I should have put a heavenly net on this coffin, but it's useless, he's an undead, can't be trapped, if we let him out to harm people, we'll make a big mistake."

  "Why don't we report it to the police? What he said wasn't wrong either."

  Cha Wenbin shook his head and said, "Since ancient times, there have only been three recorded cases of living dead people. This is the fourth one. Regardless of whether it's true or false, do you think they're useful? In those days, Zhu Di was an emperor, what kind of person was Zhang Sanfeng? They couldn't do anything to him, and we can't either. I knew that Gao Cheng would cause trouble, he took Gao Cheng's life just to find someone to open this coffin for him! Xiao Yi, we've been deceived!"

  He took out a few copper coins, I took a look, there were three in total. He threw the copper coins on the ground repeatedly, a total of three times, and I knew he was divining. After a while, he sighed and said to me: "The divination just now wasn't very good."

  "What's up?"

  Cha Wenbin said: "Shan Feng Huo Gua, I remember the hexagram of this Gua is like pushing a millstone. If it's smooth, it's auspicious; if not, it's disastrous. There are many things changing in my mind, and everything will go wrong from being busy. But what is smooth and what is against now? It means that there is still an opportunity to change now, but if we make a mistake, we may lose everything. Now we mustn't be confused."

  "Didn't I tell you to go with the flow? Going with the flow means going with your heart, do whatever you want, in my words, either set fire and burn everything down now, or just forget about it."

  "It can't be." Zhang Wenbin rejected my view, saying: "We say this is a righteous village, but that's because of what you told me at the beginning. Actually, you don't know what kind of place this is either, do you?"

  "Uh, I heard it from old people."

  "But the old people have only been here for a hundred years, and there was no one here a hundred years ago. This house has been around for a long time, which means that nobody knows what this place originally was. We were misled by the old people's legends from the very beginning, thinking that this was a charitable estate. But looking at those trees, it seems more like a yinzhai (a residence for the spirits of the dead). If it really is a yinzhai, then such a large-scale building on the ground would either be for the people guarding the tomb or a temple. You've been calling it 'Dahmiao' all along, which makes sense to some extent."

  "What's next?" I didn't understand what he was thinking.

  "I was thinking, why did I suggest bringing the coffin here at that time? It seemed like there was a voice in my mind telling me to do so. Now that I think about it, it's really strange. I'm not even from Hong Village, why would I suddenly remember this place?"

  "Really?" Being asked by Wen Bin like that, I also remembered: "I think I've never told you about this big temple before, how did you know?"

  As soon as this dialogue came out, our two foreheads were like exploding, "hum" a sound, all chaotic...