Zhou Yu'an ordered people to move the stone away, and there was a straw mat pressed under the stone. The straw mat was only a little larger than the mouth of the well. The straw mat was an old thing, with specks of dark black on it, which looked like splattered blood. Zhou Yu'an scraped a little with a hairpin, put it up to his nose and smelled it. It was indeed blood.
In addition to the blood, there is also soil. The soil does not seem to come with the stone, but like the sealing soil in the tomb. This straw mat was once used to cover the door of a certain tomb.
Full of doubts, Zhou Yu'an lifted the corner of the straw mat and peered into the well. There seemed to be something vaguely in the well.
At this moment, the book boy said: "That's how I looked into the well at that time."
"Same as now?" Zhou Yu'an asked, holding the straw mat.
The book boy nodded, then shook his head: "The stone is not that big, and there is no straw mat under the stone. I looked inside through the cracks in the stone."
"What did you see?"
"Boots, I saw the adult's boots standing on the water." Recalling the situation at that time, the book boy's expression changed.
After death, people will float on the water. Whether they fell into a well accidentally or were pushed into a well after being murdered, they will float because of the well water. Some faces are facing up, and some are facing down. Depending on the depth of the well water, they are either fully or partially exposed. Even if they are tied to heavy objects, they will float after a period of time. But no matter what the situation is, it is impossible to let the boots stand on the water unless the boots fall off.
As soon as these words came out, the book boy immediately shook his head, "It's not that the boots are pointing up, but the soles are pointing up. The adults walk differently from ordinary people, and the places where the boots are worn are also different from ordinary people. I am his book boy, so I can naturally see it."
The soles of the shoes were facing up and they were worn on adults' feet. This generation of county magistrates sank headfirst into the well. This is not normal.
Zhou Yu'an frowned, and Shen Chongming immediately asked the villagers on the side to hold his sword. The villagers looked troubled, as if they were taboo about something. After a long time, one of them stammered.
"This may be strange elsewhere, but in our Xiaoyang Village, it is considered normal in this well."
If you think about it carefully, that was already more than 20 years ago.
There was a man named Yang Kui in Xiaoyang Village. When he was a child, he was ordinary and didn't notice anything. When he grew up, he became a man's tooth, traveling from house to house, specializing in unethical business. People in the village have mixed reviews about him. Some say he is smart and can make money illegitimately, while others say he is wicked and would like to shovel their family's ancestral graves.
That spring, Yang Kui brought back a little girl of fifteen or sixteen years old. That little girl is really pretty, with delicate skin, and she looks like she was raised by a wealthy family. Everyone in the village knew that this little girl must have been kidnapped by Yang Kui from somewhere, but no one wanted to be troublesome or provoke Yang Kui.
Yang Kui's family lived on the edge of the village. Anyone passing by their house could hear Yang Kui's beating and scolding and the little girl's cry. Within a few months, the little girl withered quickly like a withered flower in late autumn. The last time the villagers saw her, she was standing in the yard of Yang Kui's house with a big belly, looking straight at the villagers passing by their door.
I heard people said that one of her ears was deafened by Yang Kui, and she was blind. Even her brain became abnormal and she was acting stupidly.
When we met again, she was already a female corpse in the well, just like the county magistrate, she drowned in the well with her head down and her feet up.
Her eyes were open, there was a circular strangulation mark on her neck, and the child in her belly was missing. Yang Kui didn't care about her, but the villagers pooled their money to bury her.
That night, there was a strong wind in Xiaoyang Village. The wind carried the whimpering sounds of children. The crying disturbed the villagers and they could not sleep peacefully. One or two of them got up from their beds.
They followed the cry to the girl's grave, and found that the grave had been dug up, and a string of small footprints extended from the inside to the outside of the grave. They followed the string of small footprints to Yang Kui's house, and found Yang Kui's parents hanging at home.
The villagers panicked, thinking that evil spirits were causing trouble, and invited Taoist priests from nearby temples to come overnight.
The Taoist priest walked around Yang Kui's house, pointed to the straw mat in the corner and said, "Every injustice has its owner, and every debt has its owner. Their mother and son were beaten to death."
There is blood on the straw mat, and the blood has seeped down, which shows that the Yang family is ruthless.
Following the instructions of the Taoist priests, the villagers buried Yang Kui's parents behind the little girl's feet. According to the Taoist priests, this was stepping on someone's back. They would take revenge in this life and retaliate in the next life. In the next life, Yang Kui's parents would need to pay tribute to the little girl. Girls work as cows and horses. The child was not found, but the villagers found an unburned baby's body in Yang's stove. According to the Taoist priest, the child was beaten out by Yang Kui's family, and it was a dead baby when it landed.
They reburied the little girl and the child, and asked the Taoist priests to perform rituals to transfer them to the afterlife. Unexpectedly, on the second night, the wind was still howling, and the baby was still crying, and the crying was also accompanied by the sound of footsteps.
The coming and going of footsteps lingered in the village, scaring the villagers so much that they huddled in their beds and waited until the rooster crow before they dared to go out.
The village was covered with bloody footprints, running in rows from the ground to the walls, making the villagers tremble with fear. Following the footprints, they walked to the well and saw a foot floating in the well.
The one who died in the well was Yang Kui. Like the little girl, he had his eyes open and there were no tears on his neck, as if he was scared to death.
Since then, someone has died every other year in the village. First it was a neighbor of Yang Kui's house, then it was those who passed by Yang Kui's house, and then it was people who had privately discussed the little girl and said unpleasant things to them. An old man asked them to bury the little girl and the child again, and asked them to block the entrance of the tomb with a straw mat, and then the matter of dead people came to an end.
"Is there any explanation for sealing a door with a straw mat?" Shen Chongming had never heard of this and turned to look at Zhou Yu'an who was talking to him.
"There is no orthodox version, but there are some legends among the people. It is said that evil spirits are afraid of evil people, especially those who bullied them in life. The blood on the straw mat belongs to their mother and son. Seeing the straw mat can remind them of what they experienced during their lives, and they feel sad. Fear. Placing the straw mat at the entrance of the tomb can block the people in the tomb. As for whether this straw mat is really effective, we don’t know. At the moment, it seems to be of little use.”
"From what you can see, this county magistrate was killed by a female ghost? But he is not from Xiaoyang Village, and he should not be involved in the incident twenty years ago."
"People are not killed by ghosts. If there were ghosts in the world, those bad guys would have gone to the Palace of Hell long ago." Zhou Yu'an smiled: "But he may not be uninvolved in the incident twenty years ago. Where is this county magistrate's ancestral home? Why was he sent to Suizhou as the county magistrate? The county magistrate of Suizhou is an extraordinary person. This magistrate must have something special about him."
Shen Chongming thought for a moment, then called the county magistrate's bookboy over with his sword.
The county magistrate was originally from Huzhou. He was young and intelligent, and gained fame through reading. He is an upright person and not good at official communication. He has been an official for many years, but he is still a county magistrate. The reason why he was sent to Suizhou was not because he had extraordinary abilities, but because other county magistrates were unwilling to take on this hot potato.
