??

  Wei Damao is how a scene all the way down the mountain vomiting I roughly still remember, along the pipe, he almost rolled and crawled at the same time, it is said that after returning home, he began to have a high fever, for a whole week should be locked in the house without going out. After this incident, he left Hongcun Village, some people say he went south to work, others say he got neurosis and ran away, anyway such a strange person disappeared like this.

  That was indeed an urn containing ashes, and the rotten paper torn off by Wei Damao was identified by Zha Wenbin as a talisman. However, the drawing method of this talisman has been quite different from that of modern talismans.

  In general, the structure of a talisman is divided into upper and lower parts, with the upper part being the seat of the talisman and the lower part being the foot of the talisman. There is also another type of structure which is left-right, with the left side being the seat and the right side being the foot. The foot of the talisman is also called "the vanguard". Chen Wenbin said: "The foot of the talisman is the most difficult to draw, this is also the last step, what is meant by the power of a talisman depends on its strength or weakness, it all depends on the final stroke. Therefore, one must concentrate their spirit and make a decisive move in one breath, without any hesitation or delay. However, from this remaining talisman, the foot seems to be separated."

  I said: "Could it be that someone who doesn't understand is imitating others blindly?"

  "No," said Cha Wenbin, shaking his head. "The person who drew this talisman is definitely an expert. The strokes seem to be drawn according to the structure of the human body, and it looks like a book I've read called 'Fa Hai's Lost Pearl'. In that book, it mentioned 'use the sword to draw the talisman on the mouth of the Dipper, store lightning, imagine a golden light in the dan Tian, from the center of the eyebrows, shoot straight out, make an angry sound and inhale this character, use the sword to lead into the talisman'. It seems to be saying that one can pierce their own spiritual energy through their five organs and six viscera, and engrave it onto the talisman. Even without a brush, one can use the energy of the sword to draw the talisman, and the drawn talisman will reveal the heart of the hand, foot, and navel, turning the intangible into the tangible within the talisman."

  "With such a high level of painting skills, wouldn't this symbol be the spitting image of that person? My goodness gracious, what an incredibly formidable person they must be!"

  Cha Wenbin said, "There are many exaggerated sayings in the book. Fahai's lost pearl mentioned the high-level realm where eyes, mouth, and even heart can draw talismans at any time and place. However, looking at this talisman is indeed like that, because the top half of the talisman has been damaged, I couldn't see it clearly, I can only guess roughly. But it's really unexpected that this jar rolled here."

  "There's even more unexpected news, you see." Number Two spoke up again, and for some reason, every time he opens his mouth, I get chills all over my body. It's as if he never says anything that makes you feel happy.

  I turned my head and saw that a group of people in the pool were chattering about something, some had already covered their noses and run far away, while the remaining ones were using bamboo sticks to poke inside, but their expressions didn't look very good either. The front end of the bamboo is easy to split, and when you poke it in with a split bamboo, it will bring out a little bit of something. What is it? A bunch of hair was stuck on the bamboo, and that piece of hair still had some skin on it. To be precise, it was human scalp that was pulled off together.

  "Whoosh!" Suddenly, the dozen or so of us burst out laughing. This was just too much! There was someone in the pipe! In those days, there was no running water, and every household had to fetch water from the river. And this reservoir upstream would occasionally release some water... Who do you think looked pretty silly? No need to guess, really...

  A corpse was stuck, whose corpse was it? Why was it here? At that time, we were all still young and had big guts. Except for sending one person down the mountain to report, the rest of us stayed behind to discuss how to get the body out. In the end, we thought of a method, using ropes to make a loop on a bamboo pole to go in and retrieve it, with the same principle as lassoing horses on the grasslands. And so, we actually managed to pull out a corpse.

  At that time, I vomited, not just me, many people vomited, I don't know how to describe it. Although I had seen some disgusting things with Cha Wenbin and Pangzi before, when the corpse appeared in front of me, my ending was almost the same as Wei Damao's.

  This pipe has been clogged for over a dozen days, and it's probably because of this thing that caused the trouble. After a long time of water bubbles and water flow impact, the corpse has started to decay highly, with skin swelling up, and there is a layer of white oil on the corpse. The oil looks like the wax that forms on soap when you leave it in the water for several days and then pick it up again. The entire surface of the corpse is covered with this stuff, and also those small black insects from the water, densely crawling all over the corpse, some stuck to the wax and unable to move, only constantly rolling their bodies...

  Even now, when I think back to that scene, my throat still feels itchy. The five senses had long since lost all distinction, the eyeballs were completely bulging out, and the facial muscles were swollen to cover two-thirds of the area. At the time, even Zhang Wenbin looked away, who could bear such a strong stimulation?

  At that time, the villagers heard about this matter and were in an uproar. People from all over the village, whether they were working in the fields or resting at home, old people, children, women, all came rushing over. I really admire these onlookers, I don't know how they could eat their next meal after seeing that, anyway, for three days straight, I could only drink plain porridge, and our whole family, except for Dazi and Ye Qiu, that heartless couple, all lost weight for three whole days.

  At that time, the police station also came, this is a homicide case, several young men who came to investigate put the body in a bag with an expression as if they had fallen into a toilet pit during the New Year's Eve, but the case was solved the next day and the body was almost transported back the next day.

  Who is this person? This person is the daughter of a copper family in our neighboring village. The surname of this household is Tie, which is a rare surname. They escaped from famine and settled down here five years ago. The master of the house has some skills and is a coppersmith, often going out to make a living. It's unknown where he brought back a woman who seems a bit crazy, or in modern terms, intellectually disabled. However, the coppersmith treats this woman quite well. After several years, the woman gave birth to two daughters named Tie Xiao and Tie Fei. It is said that their names are derived from "A Knight-Errant's Journey for Love" - no one knows where the lychee comes from.

  The Ban family's daughters were different from their mother, they were born to be elegant and intelligent. The older one was the same age as me, named Ban Xiao, and the younger one was three years younger, named Ban Fei. I still remember the Ban sisters, when we were in elementary school, they were particularly popular among the children in our neighboring village. When we got to middle school, Ban Xiao was even in the class next door.

  The wife of the old copper craftsman was a madwoman, so she couldn't take care of household chores. The old man had to go out to make a living and support his family, so the two sisters had been very obedient since childhood, and they basically took charge of all the household chores. Especially Biao Xiao, I remember when I was in middle school, she would skip class, and later the school even went to look for her, only to find out that during the busy farming season, she had to go down to the fields to transplant seedlings and harvest crops, and at harvest time, she had to thresh two mu of rice by herself. She was busy from dawn till dusk, doing all sorts of chores in the house and in the backyard. In the morning, she had to cook for her sister and mother, feed the chickens and pigs, and in the evening, she had to wash a day's worth of clothes and do household chores. It can be said that Biao Xiao was a very unfortunate child, and it was precisely because of this environment that she dropped out of school in her second year of junior high.

  After returning home, Bao Xiao went everywhere to earn work points to support her family. In the mountainous areas of western Zhejiang, there were many medicinal herbs. When others had free time, Bao Xiao would go into the mountains to dig up medicinal herbs and sell them to the supply and marketing cooperative in exchange for household necessities. She didn't rest from dawn till dusk. She often came to our village, so when we heard that the corpse was hers, many people, including me, thought she might have fallen into the water ditch while picking herbs in the mountains.

  At that time, the police station also came to a similar conclusion, saying it was an accident. The next day, Yuan's family cried and took their daughter's body back. According to the customs at that time, Yuan Xiao had not yet married, and she was still young, so it was not good for her to have such a funeral. If you say you want to hold a grand funeral, she has parents above and no children below, who will wear mourning clothes for her? If you say don't hold one, this sensible daughter was hastily buried, Old Yuan the copper craftsman couldn't bear it, feeling guilty.

  Her sister, who had just graduated from school and was about to participate in the job assignment, burst into tears upon hearing that her sister was gone. This woman is a character, she immediately made an agreement with her family members to hold a grand funeral for her sister, who had suffered all her life, so that she could have a glorious farewell.

  In those days, there were no luxury cars or black-clad funeral teams. In rural areas, the more people you invited to a funeral, the louder they cried, and the more glorious it was considered. Another thing was that you had to invite a Taoist priest or Buddhist monk to perform some rituals. At that time, inviting a team of Taoist priests to put on a show wasn't cheap - you had to cover their food, drink, and travel expenses, and after they finished, you still had to give them a big red envelope with money inside. The daughter of the Pi family went around asking people where she could find a Taoist priest, and it just so happened that at that time, the most popular Taoist priest was Cha Wenbin, so the girl came to his door dressed in mourning clothes...

  ...