The housekeeper paused and said, "At that time, in addition to delivering food to the young master every day, I also followed the master's instructions to persuade the young master to change his mind."
"During that time, every time I went to see the young master, he would always be sleeping. When he woke up, he would say a few words to me. Before he woke up, I would put down the food. By the way, I would also ask the young master what he needed."
When I heard this, I interrupted him and said, "Where is Master Mu being held?"
"Lock him up in the ancestral hall." The steward said, "I originally wanted to lock him up in a Taoist temple or temple, so that if the fox fairy comes to visit, he can save his life. However, those monks and Taoist priests, no one can He refused to take the young master in. Later, the wife said, how about letting the young master live in the ancestral hall! With the protection of the ancestors, those fairies and foxes did not dare to do anything to the young master? The master thought it was reasonable, so he locked up the young master. It’s in the ancestral hall.”
"Ancestral hall... ancestral hall..." I muttered these two words and frowned: "Aren't the ancestors of the Mu family from the Northeast?"
Ye Sanqi told me when he was chatting with me about the customs and customs: Although ancestors are worshiped here in the Northeast, few people build ancestral halls. Because, before the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Northeast was the territory of the Manchus. The Manchus worshiped their ancestors in the West House. The Western Kang in the West House was the place where ancestors were worshipped. No one was allowed to sit on them. The North and South Kangs were the places where people slept.
Before the Manchus entered the customs, many dignitaries worshiped their ancestors in this way, so ancestral halls were rarely seen in the Northeast.
The butler shook his head and said, "I don't know. The master has never told anything about the ancestors of the Mu family, and he doesn't let us servants read the family tree."
This is wrong: Master Mu obviously built the ancestral hall in accordance with southern customs. It is reasonable not to let his subordinates read the genealogy, but not telling others about his ancestors is obviously inconsistent with building the ancestral hall.
The clans of southerners are very strong, and the descendants of the clans not only unite by blood, but also attach great importance to the honor of the clan. Someone asked: Who are the famous people from the ancestors of the clan? The descendants must remember them all.
Why didn't Mr. Mu say anything? Is he deliberately hiding something, or does he not know what his ancestors have done?
I was silent for a moment and said, "Isn't the ancestral hall in the courtyard?"
"No!" the housekeeper said, "The ancestral hall is somewhat far away from the Mu family compound! The young master has been locked up in the ancestral hall since before the Mu family's accident."
It turns out that this is the case. This coincides with the fact that Master Mu has been locked out since Shiqing arrived at Mu's house.
I nodded and said, "Go on, what happened next?"
The housekeeper said: "Later, the people from Yanghuagou saw that the Mu family was still not coming to pick up the bride, so they sent Miss Shiqing to the Mu family..."
"The master gave us a hush-hush order: no one is allowed to tell the young master that Miss Shiqing is here."
"However, the young master seems to know that Shi Qing has passed away. Every time I go to deliver food to him, I can see the young master looking in the direction of the Mu family. I see that the young master is pitiful, so I want to comfort him. The young master occasionally comes to follow me. Say a few words. At that time, I felt that something was wrong with the young master, but I couldn't tell what was wrong with the young master. It wasn't until one day when I bumped into the young master setting up a formation at home that I realized that he was already a warlock. "
"That morning, the master asked me to give him the young master's winter clothes when I had time. I was busy with other things during the day and forgot about it. I didn't think of it until night. I just thought about finding the clothes while I was awake. The second time Send it to him early in the morning. Who knows, as soon as I entered the young master's yard, I saw the young master standing in the yard."
"At that time, the young master's face turned pale. He was hanging a mirror on the wall and vomiting blood. When the young master saw me entering the yard, he just said "Don't make a sound" and ignored me. I stood in the yard and looked at the young master. Dip your hands in the blood you spit out and draw a talisman on the mirror."
"The blood beads fell on the mirror, just like falling on paper. After a while, they seeped into the mirror, and the mirror became cold and shining, frighteningly bright."
"I was frightened at the time. How dare I ask him: Master, why are you back?"
"As a result, as soon as the young master waved his hand, two bloody human hands stretched out from the ground and grabbed my feet. I was so frightened that I peed. I knelt on the ground and kowtowed to the young master, begging him to spare my life."
"The young master said that as long as I listen to him in the future, he will not kill me. If I dare to tell a word about what happened tonight, he will let me die without a burial place. After that, I will follow his instructions He kept bringing things home as he was told, and when I got them back, he would come back quietly at night and set up an array in the yard."
"Later, he didn't let me enter the yard. He just asked me to carry bricks back to him during the day and fill the cellar in the dry well."
I interrupted the housekeeper when I heard this: "You mean, there was originally a cellar in the dry well?"
"Yes!" the steward said, "I don't know how many years that dry well has been there. I heard that it used to be a place where Grandpa Ancestor hid his money. I built a yard to surround the ancient well because it was the money of the Mu family. Later, the old man felt that the place was not safe, so he changed the place to build the money cellar, and that place was no longer needed."
"At that time, I also asked him that if he wanted to lay bricks in the cellar, couldn't I just ask someone to bring back some bricks? The young master said no, I had to use the bricks he gave me."
"I didn't know that the bricks the young master gave me were made by someone! I carry bricks back every day, sometimes three or four, sometimes five or six. Every time I carry bricks back, I feel like I was so cold that I had to sit down and drink wine for a long time before I could feel better. It wasn't until one day that I accidentally broke a brick and saw a finger hidden inside. I didn't know that the young master was holding it. People make bricks!”
"When I went to look for the young master again, I didn't dare to look at him. As a result, the young master said to me: Don't worry, I didn't kill anyone. Those are the corpses I dug up from nearby. You can just send them back. If anything happens, just push it on me."
I turned to look at the female ghost and said, "Master Mu, didn't I kill you?"
The female ghost gritted her teeth and said, "So what if he didn't kill us? He dug us out of the grave and chopped us into pieces. Doesn't that mean we shouldn't die?"
What the female ghost said was correct. Master Mu was from the former Qing Dynasty. According to the laws at that time, digging graves was enough for him to be sentenced to death. If he also mutilated the corpse, he would at least be executed by execution.
I asked this just because I wanted to determine what Master Mu's purpose was in making the blood bricks.
In the evil secret arts, using living people and using dead people are definitely two different concepts. Looking at it this way, the hanged man's suspicion that "Master Mu killed Shiqing and planned to use her to refine blood bricks" should be disproven.
However, I feel more and more that Shiqing's death is inseparable from Master Mu.
