After that, my daily life was like this.
During the day, he learned various Taoist techniques from his master. When eating, use the method of holding hands to strengthen your body.
Occasionally when I have a break, or before going to bed at night, I take the time to preview the junior high school textbook knowledge.
When the summer vacation is over, I will go to Liangjiang Town to attend junior high school.
Although our Wujia Village is located in the mountains, it actually takes almost two hours to go to the town by land.
My parents are worried that I am under a lot of pressure to study. I have to spend four hours traveling back and forth every day, which is really tiring. I was asked to go home only on weekends and live on campus from Monday to Friday as a boarding student.
The master also agreed, but said that he would learn from her for two days when he went home that weekend. School homework can only be learned on a daily basis.
This makes me a little stressed. After all, I don’t have time to review my homework, but I still have to take the first place in the grade!
Master also said that there is no need to live in a school dormitory, which is expensive and noisy.
She said that someone she knew was doing business in the town and asked me to stay at his house. Food and accommodation are provided, and you just need to help him with some chores in the store...
When I heard this, I thought, Master’s friend! That must be an expert, and he readily agreed.
I asked for the address and went there excitedly early in the morning when school started.
When I saw it, I was stunned.
It's actually a... coffin shop! ! !
And it's still in the easternmost part of Lianghe Town, and it's about to leave the town.
The friend the master was talking about turned out to be a coffin shop owner?
Fortunately, I have been brave since I was a child, and now I am practicing with Master. I can barely get a foot in the door, right? It doesn't seem like much to go live in the coffin shop and help out with odd jobs.
If you were an ordinary person, you would probably be very scared!
At the door of the coffin shop, an old man wearing black cloth shoes and coarse clothes sat smoking a dry cigarette. White smoke rose from the long cigarette rod.
When he saw me standing here, he grinned, his mouth full of yellow teeth.
"Little kid, what are you doing here at my coffin shop? There's nothing good to see, so hurry up and leave. If you stand here for a long time, be careful of having nightmares at night."
This old man has dry skin and looks very ugly.
Moreover, there are five black scab wounds on the left side of the face, extending from the corner of the mouth to the corner of the eye, looking very hideous and terrifying.
I answered politely: "Hello, old man, my name is Wu Zhong and I am from Wujia Village. My master's surname is Qin. She asked me to come to the coffin shop in the east of this town to find Brother Cao. Excuse me..."
Before he finished speaking, he was interrupted by the old man.
He stood up from his stool and looked at me.
"So you are Wu Zhongwu, brother? You look very talented. I didn't expect that Qin Xiangu would accept a disciple. Yu Ziming and Qi Sha Ge are indeed extraordinary."
Well……
It turns out that this old man is the owner of the coffin shop that Master asked me to find?
Judging from his age, he must be in his sixties. It’s time to catch up with my father! Why do I have the nerve to call him big brother?
So he quickly shook his head: "Uncle Cao..."
"Oh, Fairy Lady is the elder I look up to. How can her apprentice call me that? You can just call me Brother Cao or Lao Cao."
I scratched my head, a little helpless.
In the end, I could only think of a compromise: "Let's do this. Anyway, I haven't been a disciple for a long time and I haven't learned much. Since I'm here to help, I'll call you Master Cao."
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
I guess he felt a little uncomfortable being called brothers to a twelve- or thirteen-year-old like me.
It's just that this makes me even more curious about Master's true age!
But I had just met him, so it seemed too presumptuous to ask him directly. I just wanted to wait for a while and get a little more familiar with it, and then find an opportunity to ask.
"Master Cao, this is a letter from my master to you."
I took out a wooden box and a letter from my backpack and handed them to him.
Master Cao opened the letter in front of me and read it carefully. Then he hugged the wooden box tightly with an ecstatic expression on his face.
"Xiao Wu, you will be here to help in the next three years. Since Qin Xiangu thinks that the two skills of coffin carrying and yin paper are the most important in the miscellaneous sect, she also thinks highly of me, Lao Cao. Then I will definitely do it I’ll leave all my skills to you as much as possible!”
He patted his chest with a serious look on his face.
It seems that the master praised him a few words in the letter, and he was so happy that he gave him all the gifts?
This is too unbelievable!
Or maybe the mystery is what's in the wooden box, and the master gave him a good reward? But the master doesn’t have any money either.
After studying with Master for two months, I already have a general understanding of some things in Taoism. The inheritance and conferment of this kind of dharma lineage are very formal and serious matters.
I definitely can't worship Master Cao anymore. Why would he decide to leave all his skills to me?
I couldn't help it, so I asked this question.
Master Cao grinned mysteriously, showing his teeth that were yellowed by smoke: "Don't worry about it. Anyway, Qin Xiangu has given me enough face and benefits."
He led me into the coffin shop.
I have to say that this coffin shop is indeed different.
As soon as I stepped over the one-foot-high threshold, I immediately felt a cold feeling coming towards me.
It was clearly early September, and the temperature in the Southwest Sichuan and Chongqing areas was still hot, but this high threshold seemed to separate two worlds.
I couldn't help but tremble. Of course, it wasn't because of fear, but it was a normal human reaction when the temperature suddenly dropped.
Lao Cao smiled and said, "How about it? My shop is very comfortable. It doesn't even need air conditioning. In our place where it's so hot in the summer, we can save a lot of money in a year!"
I nodded and praised: "This should be Master Cao's method, right?"
"Xiao Wu has great vision! Indeed, this is the snow mountain formation I made with coffins."
He pointed at the coffins placed in the store. They seemed chaotic, but in fact they contained some special rules.
Of course, I have only studied for two months and barely know anything about it. It's good if you can understand it in a confused way, but how can you possibly see it?
The most I know is that Master Cao is very capable! He is definitely not the kind old man he seems on the surface.
In the past two months, I have naturally listened to Master speak in detail about many miscellaneous sects.
The so-called coffin bearer refers to the coffin bearer. Yin paper refers to the Yin paper master.
A coffin bearer, as the name suggests, is a person who carries the coffin to the funeral. The Chinese attach great importance to funeral culture, and they also pay attention to returning fallen leaves to their roots and laying them to rest.
Therefore, carrying a coffin into a burial has been a major event since ancient times. There are a lot of particularities in it, and there are also a lot of evil things. The person responsible for this is the coffin bearer.
In fact, when my master sent the water evil spirit transformed from Wang Fei's corpse into the Hundred Bones Tower and rowed on the water, he used a lot of coffin bearer's methods!
Yin paper refers to paper money that can be sent to ancestors in the underworld, as well as various paper figures, paper horses, paper houses, etc.
Because they are all for the dead, the related methods are collectively called the Yin Paper Technique!
A person who is proficient in this technique is a Yin Paper Master.
Generally speaking, it is quite difficult to master coffin-carrying or Yin-paper techniques. But Master Cao is able to master two skills at the same time, and he has the dual identity of coffin bearer and paper maker, which is really remarkable!
