In the yard of Lao Zhao's house next door, my dad was squatting on the jujube tree, holding a rope in his hand. A large pot lid was tied to the other end of the rope, tightly covering the big vat.
There was a weak fire burning on the wood under the large vat, and several carp had been stewed for an hour.
My grandfather was standing on the right side of the courtyard gate. The two of them were also wearing clothes with symbols painted with rooster blood. My father even took a pill to keep him awake, otherwise he would have fainted with so much blood.
When Lao Zhaotou approached the door here, my dad, at Grandpa's signal, picked up the rope in his hand, opened the lid of the pot, and the smell of stewed fish suddenly came out.
Old Zhao stopped and turned his head to stare at the Zhao family's courtyard door. Grandpa and my dad clenched their fists. Old Zhao looked at the courtyard gate and paused briefly, then turned around and continued walking forward.
My dad was anxious and lifted the tank lid as high as he could, and the fish smell came out even more intensely.
This time Lao Zhaotou stopped, licked his upper lip with his tongue, and followed the scent to the door of the courtyard. The paper man a few meters away was still following him, and two shadows were printed on the ground.
I don't know when, the two candles in the courtyard gate have been lit, and the candlelight makes the courtyard door look very misty.
Old Zhaotou stood at the entrance of the courtyard for a moment, stretched out his hand to wipe the saliva from the corner of his mouth, and looked back at the paper man. The paper man turned around and took a few steps diagonally to lean against the wall without moving.
Old Zhao turned around and entered the courtyard alone. The strange fishy smell became stronger, accompanied by a cold feeling. The father on the tree couldn't help but shudder.
He felt a blur in front of his eyes. The candlelight and the fire in the pit distorted the light in the courtyard.
The lower two rows of chopsticks stuck on the ground seemed to have turned into tall pillars, with a passage in the middle leading directly to the large fish stew tank. There were not bricks in front, but three steps.
My father suspected that he was hallucinating, but he didn't dare to move at the moment, biting his lips and trying to stay awake.
Lao Zhao was walking in the passage. He stepped up the steps step by step, put his hands on the edge of the tank, and looked inside.
The fish soup in the large tank was bubbling, and the white fish meat was as delicate as tofu. Old Zhaotou sniffed the smell, and fished out a piece of fish meat with a flick of his hand. This was unimaginably fast, almost done in an instant.
Lao Zhaotou grabbed the fish, regardless of whether it had thorns or not, put it in his mouth and swallowed it. The deliciousness of the fish stimulated him even more.
He simply jumped on the edge of the tank, squatted and reached out to catch the fish.
At this moment, Grandpa rushed over from behind the door, and with the sound of footsteps, Old Zhao turned his head sharply, his two yellow pupils emitting a strange light, staring closely into Grandpa's eyes.
Grandpa just rushed to the big tank, less than a foot away from Lao Zhao's head, but his movements stopped and he stood there motionless, his eyes were hollow, and the expression on his face seemed to be struggling.
Old Zhaotou's eyes became brighter and brighter. He opened his mouth to reveal two rows of sharp teeth, stretched out his neck and bit his grandfather's throat. His father was scared out of his wits on the tree.
Suddenly, Lao Zhaotou's body tilted, and he let out a strange scream, covering his stomach with both hands.
At the same time, Grandpa swallowed the pill in his mouth. It turned out that the sluggishness just now was an illusion, just to confuse Old Zhao.
The fish mixed with medicine was seen to have an effect.
"Go to hell!" Grandpa rushed forward and hit Lao Zhao's head into the vat.
Then grab the wooden lid and buckle it, lift your legs and climb up to sit on the lid.
My dad immediately jumped down from the tree, grabbed the wood next to him, stuffed it into the stove, and then fanned it like crazy.
Whoosh, the fire was getting bigger and bigger. If the wooden lid hadn't been specially processed, grandpa wouldn't have been able to sit still.
"Dad, are you okay?" My father was a little worried because the temperature was too high.
"It's okay, don't stop, keep adding firewood, and you come up too." Grandpa said, sweating profusely.
Everything!
Someone was struggling desperately inside.
My dad gritted his teeth and climbed up.
Ouch... Ouch... Ouch!
Two...five,
There were a total of five strange screams in the big tank, and then there was no sound. After a while, there was no movement at all.
"Sure enough, it's five, no, it's six..." Grandpa breathed a sigh of relief and whispered.
My dad wiped the sweat from his face: "Is everything okay this time? Is the paper man still in the corner?"
"Drag it over and put it in the furnace," Grandpa said.
My dad ran over again, but the paper figure in the corner didn't move. I didn't think anything of it normally, but after what happened just now, looking at the moon was even more terrifying.
With a pale face and a drop of blood on its forehead, it always felt like it would speak at any moment. The father didn't care about his fear now, he dragged the paper man back with him and stuffed it directly into the furnace under the big vat.
But it didn't turn into ashes as imagined. No matter how the flames jumped up and down, the paper man was as unburnable as a stone.
Grandpa snorted coldly: "It's true, don't worry about it. Go and call Xiao Du over, it's just the last step."
"Okay, I'll go right away." The father turned around and hurried out.
The movement this time was not as big as expected, and it basically did not alarm the neighbors. The surrounding area was completely dark.
There were no lights on in Uncle Du's room next door, but neither of them slept. Aunt Du was fanning her son Du Jun, who was sleeping, while Uncle Du was dressed and waiting anxiously.
"Xiao Du, come here quickly." My dad called softly from the wall.
Uncle Du picked up the prepared tools and pushed open the door.
"Brother, hurry up and go to Uncle Zhao's courtyard. Your uncle is waiting there! I'll go see Binbin first." My dad pointed to the back.
Uncle Du ran to Lao Zhaotou's yard. Grandpa was still sitting on it pressing the cylinder head.
Uncle Du was so frightened that he stretched out his hand to help: "Uncle Zhou, come on, let me help you down. It's so hot up there. Tell me, why didn't you call me earlier for such a big thing? Aren't you treating me like an outsider?"
"Hey, if I treat you as an outsider, I won't look for you now." Grandpa waved his hand.
"As far as possible, those who are related to Binbin should participate in those things, otherwise it will bring you trouble. Let's not get too busy now. It's still a bit long-winded.
"Waiting for your third brother to come back later, you two will dig out the roots of the jujube tree. You have to work quickly."
My dad was not idle in the house either. He found a washbasin, stirred the wine, glutinous rice, and realgar together, and poured some rooster blood into it. Then he turned me over and lay on the kang, with my head sticking out. Facing the basin below.
He took out a small bag from the clothes I was wearing and ran back.
Grandpa first asked my dad to nail a black iron nail with a talisman in the bag to the jujube tree, and then posted a talisman on the big vat, and then he jumped down and said, "The old thing in this vat is pretty good." The evil nature still has a life left. If his vitality is not severely damaged and his foundation is broken, these talismans may not be effective.
"Hurry up and dig up the tree."
My dad was furious now, and it had rained several times in the past two days. The soil was very soft. The two of us moved very fast. As the soil peeled off, tree roots as thick as wrists were exposed.
A monster appeared on the front two tree roots. It looked like a newborn baby weighing seven or eight pounds. It was neither mummy nor decomposed.
The head is round, the hands and feet are very thick, and there are no ears. The facial features cannot be seen clearly, they are all holes, the hands and feet have sharp claws, and the body is pierced by two tree roots.
Standing at the edge of the pit and looking down, those tree roots seemed to be growing out of the monster.
The color of the tree roots is completely different from the surrounding ones. It is not earthy yellow, but blood red. The veins on the surface are like human blood vessels, looking indescribably evil and weird.
Uncle Du and my dad both took two steps back.
"What is this? Is it a dead child? It doesn't look like it has claws? Where did Uncle Zhao get this thing? Why is it buried here?"
"Don't worry about it for now. You two will start cutting along the marks I made with my knife."
Grandpa looked at the monster corpse and shook his head. He used the pig-killing knife to draw a character on the trunk of the tree. This knife was passed down from my uncle's family. Their family has been killing pigs for generations. They have been using it for I don't know how many years, not even a hundred years. almost.
The blade is shiny and extremely sharp. I heard from my uncle that his ancestor was an executioner in the Qing Dynasty. After changing his career, he became a butcher. He went to the blacksmith to smelt the murderous Ghost Head Knife into several pig-killing knives. Now this is the only one that has been preserved. A handful.
But no matter how sharp the knife is, it cannot compare to an ax or a saw. Cutting down trees still takes a lot of work. My dad and Uncle Du took turns to do it for a while.
Finally, click! The jujube tree fell down.
Grandpa took the butcher's knife, cut off the branches with several strokes, and dragged the trunk aside. There was now a big pit on the ground, and inside except for the tree roots was the weird corpse.
"Okay, pour strong wine in it and add some wood. Xiao Du, you can light a fire here and make sure the fire doesn't go out.
"Third brother, go to the big vat. The paper man should be able to be burned this time."
Grandpa returned to the vat and pressed the wooden lid with his hand.
"ignition,"
"boom!"
