The thread-shaped rice array I laid out before, with the addition of incense candles, is like a bait in the eyes of ghosts, and they will naturally come closer. However, the purpose of the formation itself is to confuse and control the enemy so that they are under my control. The candle goes out, the bell falls to the ground, and the sparks brighten. If these three situations occur alone, they may be caused by other external forces, but if they occur at the same time, they must be affected by ghosts.
However, when I say I caught it, that is not necessarily true. It can still move freely, but I have caught its traces. From now on, I will be able to find where it goes. After all, I still have some unanswered questions. One is who the little boy is, and the other is why they appear at the end of the road outside the door.
I know that although I can't see it at this moment, in Tian Xiaofang's eyes, the ghosts of the landlord and the little boy are now standing outside the window. So I reached out and took out a small bronze mirror from my bag. Different from the ordinary Bagua mirror, this mirror was not concave, but a flat mirror. Except that the material is copper, it is no different from ordinary mirrors. I placed the mirror facing the outdoors and placed it on the edge of the window.
This mirror has similar functions to the "demon mirror" popular among the people. In many places in rural areas, people habitually hang a small mirror on the door or window of their home to prevent passing ghosts from entering the house. Because the existence of ghosts is a kind of tragedy. They are afraid of death, but they are already dead, so what they absolutely do not want to see is what they will look like after death. The function of the mirror is to let them see what they look like at the moment and scare them away.
The purpose of my doing this is the same. In addition, my bronze mirror was originally given to me by my master and has undergone some special treatment. In this way, the shock to ghosts will be stronger. But just when I thought that this move would be enough to scare away the two ghosts so that I could follow their tracks, I suddenly felt a strong sense of suffocation. This feeling is as if you have just washed your face and before the water on your face is dry, a strong strong wind comes towards you. Not only does it dry the moisture on your face instantly, but it also causes a kind of damage to your skin. Sudden tightness. At that moment, I couldn't even breathe.
I knew something was wrong, it seemed that instead of scaring away the ghost, I angered it. In desperation, I quickly squatted down and recited the Golden Light Mantra silently in my heart. But before I finished reciting the part, a force came towards me, and since I was squatting, I was immediately struck by this force. The force pushed him to the ground.
When I fell to the ground, I felt someone strangled my neck. I instinctively reached out to touch my neck, but I didn't touch anything. The force gradually strengthened, and my throat became particularly uncomfortable, and I could see in my eyes. The light that arrived gradually became a little dark and blurry, as if someone had stuck my neck. I couldn't breathe and caused a lack of oxygen in my brain, which caused the congestion of my eyes and affected my vision. I was very scared at the time, but I couldn't concentrate because of the panic. In addition to the frightened scream of the Tian family's little daughter, there was also a "ka ka ka" sound in my ears.
This sound sounded like it came from the mouth, just like the sound a dog makes when it is angry, growling and clenching its teeth. I know that if I don't escape, my life may be with the world. Saying goodbye, I took a breath, closed my eyes, and quickly finished reciting the Golden Light Mantra.
After the first recitation, the pressure was much reduced, so I recited it twice in a row. The pressure on my body suddenly disappeared. I felt as if a gust of wind left my body and headed towards the window. When I passed by the window, the bronze mirror I stood on the window sill fell down.
As the stress subsided, my vision and hearing began to return to normal. But because it was so thrilling before, even though the Tian family’s little daughter was still screaming in terror next to me, I could still clearly feel my strong and fast heartbeat. At this time, Tian Deping and his wife also rushed into the house. His wife hugged her little daughter, and Tian Deping reached out to help me who was lying on the ground.
All of this happened in about ten seconds from beginning to end. It was so fast that I was still in a trance. The youngest daughter of the Tian family probably saw me falling to the ground, so she was so frightened that she screamed. Tian Xiaofang, who was on the bed, had fallen into a deep sleep during this period, not affected by my movements at all, just like an opium addict who fell asleep contentedly.
After Tian Deping helped me up, he anxiously asked me what happened when I fell to the ground. I said that I encountered resistance, but it was nothing serious, just that I fell. As soon as I finished speaking, I realized that my voice was hoarse. It must have been caused by the feeling of suffocation just now. I thought that the landlord hanged himself, so the feeling of my neck being stuck just now should be the same as the feeling when he hanged himself.
Hanged ghosts were called "hanged ghosts" in ancient China, and their death was hideous and horrific. It's just that when I fell to the ground, I didn't see this ghost in my eyes. Otherwise, I might not be able to survive the visual shock and physical oppression. Although it can be suppressed by my three-stage golden light spell, according to the ability of this ghost, it should be easy to kill a weak woman like Tian Xiaofang. But why has it only been scaring Tian Xiaofang for so long? , instead of taking her life? Could it be that because its hatred is too deep, it cannot let Tian Xiaofang die immediately, but wants to slowly destroy and torture her to death?
I reached out and touched my neck, feeling as if I had swallowed something foreign but not swallowed it. So I walked outside the house, picked up the bell that had been knocked over on the ground, and pulled up the three incense sticks. Almost half of them had burned. I stuck these three incense sticks in the corner outside Tian Xiaofang's room and started to invite troops.
This time, the soldiers and horses were divided into two groups and stayed in the room to protect Tian Xiaofang. Although I don't know whether my soldiers and horses are capable of dealing with this landlord's ghost. The other way took me to look for traces of the ghost of the landlord at this moment.
I originally thought it would stay nearby, but who knew, it took me a long time to pursue the smoke, and I even changed three incense sticks in the middle of the journey. Tian Deping has always been with me. As the commune director of the village, being by my side can save me a lot of trouble. After all, if people in this mountain village suddenly see a strange young man walking on the road with three sticks of incense, they will definitely spread the word. If nothing else is done, I will be arrested again as a ghost and a snake god. It's not worth it.
As the road went further and further, Tian Deping told me that it seemed that this road was the way to the landlord's old house. I asked him if the old house is still there? He said that it was demolished after liberation and that the surrounding area is now farmland. He is not very impressed with the specific location of the old house. After all, it has been twenty years. I was a little confused, why did this hanged man return to his old house for revenge, but at the moment I couldn't think of any more results, so I could only follow along.
Finally, the smoke from the troops leading the way stopped. I looked around and found several large and small tombs nearby. Tian Deping told me that he was definitely right this time. He had also been to the landlord's old house when he was young. On the hillside behind the house was their family's cemetery. It is said that it has been passed down for several generations to the patriarch of the family. If he and his descendants died, they would be buried here with their ancestors. Tian Deping pointed to the direction we were going up the mountain and said, that place is the old house of the landlord. That house was very grand back then.
I looked in the direction he pointed and found that it was ordinary farmland. After more than ten years, if the landowner really buried something here, it would have been taken away by the people who originally cultivated the land. Then why is the ghost of the landlord lingering here? Is it because he is also a descendant of the family, and although he died in a pig pen, he still hopes to be able to return here and be buried?
I began to observe these tombs carefully. The construction method of the tombs was still very different from the ordinary tombs of other common people I saw along the way. These tombs had carved tomb doors, which were relatively exquisite in workmanship and relatively large in size, similar to those of ordinary people. It's still different to just build a bumpkin. Judging from the growth of weeds around the tomb, no one has come to worship here for many years.
Tian Deping said that this place used to be fine. After the landlord left, the people here thought he was still nice. Knowing that it would be inconvenient for him to come back, the villagers who farmed nearby volunteered to help sweep the tomb every year. Accurate, after all, no one would burn incense for the ancestors of the landlord's family for no reason. At most, they just saw the weeds growing tall and blocking the tombstone, so they helped clean it up. This is a custom in rural areas. They believe that the door of a tomb is the door of the dead person's room. The tomb is also called a "haunted house" in metaphysics. If the door is blocked by weeds, the ghost will not be able to find his way home. Wandering will harm others.
However, among the seven or eight tombs, large and small, I found a small tomb in the corner. There was no tombstone, no tomb door, and even no carvings on the side of the tomb. If it weren't for the same stone as the other tombs, it wouldn't be possible. When I reached the top of the tomb, it was really hard for me to realize that it was a tomb. Generally speaking, the tombs of large families in the old society are basically concentrated. Just like these tombs in front of you, the largest ones are the patriarchs, the older ones are the elders or men in the family, and the smaller ones are the aunts, wives, etc., but the size of this tomb is It was much smaller than the others, and seemed not to be a woman's grave, but a child's.
Could it be the child held by the landlord? I pushed aside the weeds and got a little closer, and suddenly found that there were small sticks with burnt incense candles inserted in front of the tomb, and there were some paper money on the ground that had been exposed to wind and rain and had long rotted.
