The strange sound lasted for about two hours, but ended as if someone pressed the stop button.
The restlessness in the village finally calmed down, but what happened next was even weirder.
The white clouds above the village seemed to be filled with ink, turning black in an instant. Something seemed to be stirring in the clouds, and the black clouds spread like waves.
About twenty minutes later, the sky above the entire village was shrouded in black clouds. The sky and the earth were gray, there was no thunder or rain, and there was no wind at all.
The villagers stood outside and felt very depressed in their chests, as if the air pressure and oxygen content in the air were very low. However, the depressed feeling disappeared when they returned indoors.
In the village, domestic animals of all sizes lie down in their nests and sleep peacefully, and the pigs don't even snore. Even the flies and mosquitoes seemed to be sleeping, and even the smelliest hut didn't have any of them.
So quiet! Everyone felt this way, and the whole village was deathly silent.
It was like this all day long. Even at noon, the sky didn't get any brighter, and even the light and shadow of the sun couldn't be seen.
Although the villagers are fearful, most of them believe that as long as they close their doors and stay at home, even if the mountain spirits cause trouble, it has nothing to do with them, and they can live in peace when the weather clears up.
Only the township chief felt guilty. Everything that happened now had shaken his belief that he did not believe in ghosts and gods. He believed that the two-hour strange noise was the painful wail of Huangpizi after he was poisoned.
If Huangpizi hadn't become a spirit, how could his screams have spread throughout the village, scaring the mice away from their nests, and how could the sky have become so terrifying?
That night, the mayor drank a lot of wine and fell down on the kang, sleeping like a dead pig.
Early the next morning, the mayor's wife woke him up in a panic and asked him to look at something.
The mayor drowsily walked to the place where his wife mentioned, and when he saw it clearly, he was so frightened that his hangover disappeared. I saw two pairs of yellow paw prints on the door panel of my house and on the edge of the window sill outside the house!
There were two pairs of black claw marks on the door panel, as if they had been branded with a soldering iron, and the wooden board had been burned through. The mayor poked it gently, and the paw print-shaped black wood fell to the ground and broke into several pieces. There were hollow claw marks left on the door panel, and the edges were as smooth as if they had been polished. When the mayor saw the paw prints and the claw tips, he was even more convinced that the paw prints were not made by humans.
First of all, the paw prints must have been formed by high temperatures, no different than charred wood.
Secondly, no matter what shape of soldering iron is used, the burnt surface will spread in a circular shape, and the other side of the door panel will not be in the shape of the soldering iron, but can only be circular. How could it be possible to carve out a complete and non-spreading claw mark inside and out, down to the tip of the claw? !
Not to mention that there is no such skill in the world, even a blacksmith who can produce a soldering iron in the shape of a claw mark doesn't know where to find it.
The mayor imagined that if these claws pressed against his body, he suddenly trembled in fear.
Looking at the paw prints on the window sill, the shape is just a rough outline. At first glance, it looks like it was stepped on by paws covered in black mud and formed after drying.
But if you look closely, there is no dirt. The window edge is burned black! Reflecting the bright yellow light of the candle, two pairs of paw prints were black and purple, and they were clean. However, there was an indescribable smell of burnt sourness that made the mayor feel nauseous.
Thinking about it, Huang Pizi climbed through the door and window of his house in the middle of last night, fearing that he was seeking revenge!
The sky was still covered with dark clouds, and now even the mayor who did not believe in ghosts and gods was scared.
Although he didn't know why Huang Pizi didn't enter the house last night, the paw prints were scary enough, so the mayor decided to leave the village for a while.
Now he packed his bags and took his old novel with him to watch a play in the city, but he couldn't get out of the woods outside the village. No matter which way he went, he would always come back.
Now the head of the countryside knew that a disaster was coming and immediately ran to the sixth wife's house.
Liu Po's grandma is a dancing master, a type of shaman evolved among the people. It is a ritual that uses specific dances, musical instruments and spells to convey wishes to the gods and obtain instructions.
The Six Poses are better than blue. She only needs to sit cross-legged, burn incense and meditate silently for a while, then she can ask gods for divination, or she can invite the dead to possess her and communicate with her. Because she is very efficacious, she is known as the "goddess" in the village.
But she has a weird temper and doesn't help others easily. If she helped someone, she would either get nothing for her or make a big deal out of her, so the villagers would never ask her for help unless there was a big event.
It is said that before the mayor saw the roof of the sixth wife's house, he saw her sitting on the roadside stone shelling beans from a distance.
The township head hurriedly ran forward to say hello first. Unexpectedly, the sixth wife stood up, pointed at the head's nose from a distance and cursed, "You damn cabbage clapper, red-haired sperm that cannot be extracted for hundreds of years. Let's go." You are in trouble. The rind of your semen is not enough for you to lick, isn't it!? You have to offend the master there! You quickly go to the old poplar tree at the entrance of the village to die, so as not to shorten the lives of the children, it's your fault. The ancestors have accumulated good deeds, and they will slap you twice when you are buried..."
He cursed for twenty minutes without stopping at all, making the mayor want to crawl into a mouse hole.
After the sixth wife finished scolding her, her anger subsided, and then she sat down and continued peeling beans, but she didn't say a word.
The township head guessed that Sixth Po didn't want to care about this matter, so he quickly surrounded her and said good things to her. At the end of the fight, she knelt on her knees and begged with runny noses and tears, and then the sixth wife agreed to help.
The sixth wife said that she did not have the ability to control the red-haired spirit and had to go outside and ask for an expert. But if you go to invite someone now, you will definitely not come back at night. If the red-haired spirit sees that the mayor is not at home, he will go crazy and bite people, so tonight the mayor will have to sleep at home.
The sixth wife asked the mayor's family to sleep in someone else's house to avoid losing their lives for fear of doing something they shouldn't do.
Then the sixth woman smeared a layer of mud on the edge of the Kang in the township chief's house, made of pot ash and rice washing water, and told the township chief not to get out of bed no matter what happened or if he heard any sound. It is said that this mud can help the mayor block the evil spirits, so as not to damage his body and cause problems with his legs and feet the next day.
Two more hemp ropes were tied to the door and the window, and they were said to have been soaked in sesame oil. If the red-haired spirit smells it for a long time, its nose will become dull, and it will be much easier for the head of the township to leave the village.
The sixth wife also said that the red-haired spirit had just died and could not harm anyone in his unformed form, so she could only keep an eye on the mayor to prevent him from escaping. Every night he would come to the village head's house to attack his body with evil spirits, making him weaker and weaker, and then come back to take his life after seven days. So nothing will happen tonight, just sleep.
However, the township chief was so scared that he could not sleep. He squeezed himself into the corner of the bed with a quilt and chanted Amitabha randomly until midnight.
Instead, he was talking about the benefits of countless sheep, and the mayor gradually closed his eyes.
In the second half of the night, the mayor was awakened by a slight noise and smelled the smell of roasted tree bark.
The only place with bark around the township chief's house was the fence. When the township chief knew who was coming, he immediately became energetic and quickly pulled up the quilt to cover himself tightly.
As soon as I covered my head, I heard two bangs on the door. The red-haired demon came to climb through the door again!
The mayor huddled up in the quilt and was so nervous that he broke into a cold sweat. He listened for a long time, but he didn't hear any sound. He couldn't help but have the idea of peeping.
He slowly turned around in the quilt and lay on the kang, opening a gap to peek.
It didn't matter, it almost scared him away. There were actually two pairs of green-lighting eyes outside the window, which could be seen clearly even through the rough curtains.
The mayor was frightened but also confused. The one he poisoned was obviously one, so why did two appear?
At the same time, the mayor noticed that a steam-like white smoke came out of the plaster of the pot on the edge of the kang, rising straight up like a wall standing on the edge of the kang, which was exactly what Liu Po said to block evil spirits.
Only then did the mayor remember the sixth wife's instructions - if you find a red-haired spirit while you can't sleep, don't move or look into its eyes. Just lie on the bed and pretend to be asleep, otherwise you won't hear the rooster crow.
The two hours of waiting tortured the mayor so much that it felt like decades had passed since he came out of the house early in the morning. He was a good middle-aged farmer, but now his hair is half white and his face is full of wrinkles, making him look like a dry seventy-year-old man.
Although the mayor felt tired, he had more important things to do.
Holding a basket of beans peeled by Liu Po, he started on the road and started to scatter a bean in front of himself. He stepped on it with one foot and then threw a bean in front of him. He stepped on it with the other foot and then threw a bean in front of him. Throw a bean, step on one bean and walk towards the outside of the village.
The sixth wife said that this is called Douban'er spirit to lead the way, so that the red-haired spirit will not be blinded and turn the road.
According to the instructions of the Sixth Po, the township chief took a boat across the river after leaving the village, and went to Gengwuguan to find a Taoist named Ma, and asked him to slay the demons.
The journey was not short. It was already dark when the mayor brought Ma Laodao back, so he had to stay at home all night.
However, the mayor slept peacefully that night, feeling that he could sleep peacefully after finding his savior. Anyway, the red-haired demon was just staring at him outside the house and would not come in to bite him to death. He simply drank and found it difficult not to sleep.
What's more, Ma Laodao made a small dummy and placed it on the township head's bed, saying it was to ward off evil spirits for him and so as to reassure him. In fact, it is intended to absorb the township chief's aura, which can later be used to deceive the red-haired spirit.
The next morning, Ma Laodao took the mayor alone to slay the demon.
It took Ma Laodao and the mayor two days to break through the illusion several times before they found the bodies of two red-haired spirits in a tree hole in the forest.
Among them, the female red-haired demon has a wound on her belly, which looks like it was bitten by some kind of wild beast, but the male one is intact.
Only then did the township chief understand that the red-haired spirit had stolen the chicken for his injured spouse, so how could he have planned to poison her and become a pair of desperate mandarin ducks.
At this time, the entire paws and tail of the female red-haired spirit are black, with hair and flesh, as if she was born that way. The male is different, the entire legs and a quarter of the body are black.
Ma Laodao said that when their whole bodies turn black, they can be refined into wood demons (mei means ghosts, and wood demons are ghosts in the mountains and forests. The red-haired spirits who hide their bodies in tree trunks also fall into this category).
The weasel has a strong desire for revenge, which becomes the key to refining the wood charm. You must eat the enemy's soul and eliminate your obsession before you can become a spirit monster.
However, depending on the situation, the female red-haired spirit was injured first, which damaged her vitality. She was already dying before eating the poisoned chicken, and had no consciousness of being harmed. This death damaged her Taoism.
The male died with strong resentment. Not only did he not become weaker, but he became stronger, so he darkened faster.
It stands to reason that killing the township chief can only alleviate the public's resentment. Ma Laodao guessed that the red-haired spirit wanted to be refined into a wooden charm because it was a last resort decision made when he was on the verge of death.
For beasts, it is better to be a spirit than an animal spirit.
The male must want to become a spirit himself first, and then refine the female. That is to say, when the township chief dies, the whole village suffers. Because the mother's behavior is several times different from that of the male, if she wants to become a spirit, she will kill many lives.
Finally, Ma Laodao was so powerful that he subdued and suppressed the pair of red-haired men.
However, the mayor didn't know where it was sealed. He only knew that Ma Laodao carried the red-haired spirit's body alone, carrying a small wine jar, saying that the essence of the red-haired spirit was sealed in it, and buried it in the mountains. .
Decades later, the only person in the village who knew about this incident was Grandma Sun.
After such a long time, she almost forgot about it until one year there was a strange noise in the mountains. It was like a crow but ten times worse. It startled all the birds in the mountain to take to the sky. At the same time, the livestock in the village became frizzy, similar to the situation a few decades ago, and they were desperately looking for a place to hide. Only then did she remember the incident.
But what was a little different was that the dogs in the village were not afraid. Instead, they barked in that direction as a demonstration. So Grandma Sun thought it was two things. There might be something evil in the mountains, but it wasn't serious.
Another ten years passed before the first double death occurred in the village. Grandma Sun didn't pay attention to its rationality, so she became suspicious only after the fourth time. It wasn't until the baby died in the eighth year that Grandma Sun concluded that the strange phenomena that appeared that year revealed that the pair of red-haired spirits had broken away from the seal and that they were causing trouble all these years.
Grandma Sun guessed that when the red-haired spirits were subjugated by Ma Laodao, they all lost their vitality and were imprisoned for decades. After all, their cultivation was not as good as before.
In order to improve their cultivation, they had no choice but to focus on those who were about to die.
It seems that only this kind of people have the weakest ability to resist, and can commit crimes without being noticed. So once someone is about to die, the pair of red-haired spirits will go out and suck the last breath out of the person.
Although it's a little less, every extra point is one point, which is better than nothing.
Don't forget that there are two red-haired spirits, and one breath is only enough for one. So when you take advantage of the time when you inhale Yang Qi and increase your strength for a short period of time to harm another person, the unguarded old man around you will naturally become a target, so the phenomenon of double death occurs.
And this pair of red-haired spirits should not only do more than attract people, they will do anything that can increase their cultivation. Therefore, in just a few years, their cultivation has reached a level where they can absorb young people with stronger yang energy.
When someone in the village gets a strange disease for no reason, it is estimated that they will return to their previous level, and they will have to find someone like Ma Laodao to stop them.
Grandma Sun only talked about these things with her great-grandson, because only her great-grandson could understand her vague old words, and it was already very good for others to understand her.
And this great-grandson stuttered when he was a child, and it was difficult to explain it to others. When he grew up, his stuttering got much better, but he didn't believe in ghosts and gods and regarded it as a legend, only telling it to his classmates for entertainment.
This year he went to college and saw netizens discussing folklore while attending a forum, so he posted the legend of Weiyang Nancun and the bizarre double death incident on the forum.
The newspaper's information staff discovered this post, and the editor-in-chief submitted it to Qin Zhenyang as a candidate topic.
Qin Zhenyang began to feel that the authenticity of this matter was not high. Even if it was true, there were many doubts and it would be difficult to investigate. Besides, only two people die in a year, so even if we investigate, we may not be able to catch up.
But having said that, Qin Zhenyang saw the heated discussion among netizens and believed that even if there was no result, as long as he stated the details and bizarre points of each double death incident, it would still attract the attention of readers.
So Jiang Jinjiu was going to Shaanxi.
