In 1907, it was the chaotic times of the late Qing Dynasty.
The people are living in dire straits and are in dire straits.
Evil spirits are rampant and evil spirits are everywhere.
In the cold season of spring.
In eastern Sichuan, Cao Yunfeng, a coffin bearer in Lianghe Town, received a letter from western Hunan.
This letter was originally sent to his master, but just two months ago, Cao Yunfeng's master passed away. So the letter fell into his hands.
The letter was sent by a friend of Cao Yunfeng's master.
The man's name was Liu Er, a corpse driver from Xiangxi. I have known his master for many years and often cooperate with him. Cao Yunfeng has also met several times before.
This time, Liu Er said it was a big order! Lots of money.
To be honest, many people mistakenly believe that in troubled times, coffin bearers will earn more.
But in fact, it's just the opposite. In peaceful times, coffin bearers earn more!
After all, in troubled times, human lives are like nothing.
Many people died and it was difficult to even find a place to bury them. Roadside and mass graves... were the final resting places of these bodies. The better ones were probably rolled up in straw mats and buried directly in the soil.
Where can I use such a laborious coffin?
Moreover, coffin bearers are needed to carry the funeral according to various rules...Only those who have not experienced war-torn areas or families with a small fortune can use coffin bearers.
Therefore, no matter ancient or modern times, only in peaceful times will coffin bearers have a lot of work to do.
Cao Yunfeng saw the letter from Liu Er and described the situation in great detail.
It turns out that in a large mountain in Guzhangpingting, western Hunan, a wealthy family buried a relative here more than ten years ago.
At that time, the large family moved from Hunan to Guizhou to avoid war and military disasters. When passing by Guzhangping Hall in Xiangxi, a relative at home passed away. I had no choice but to find a place to bury him temporarily.
Then record the surrounding terrain, leave a mark, and continue walking west.
The Guzhangping Hall is an important place in the Miao territory. Together with the Phoenix Hall, Qianzhou Hall, and Yongsui Hall, it is collectively known as the "Four Halls of the Miao Border" - the [hall] here is actually a regional administrative unit in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, such as A province is smaller than a city.
It's a bit like the current ethnic minority autonomous regions.
More than ten years have passed, and the wealthy family has regained a foothold in Guiyang, and they want to find someone to bring the bodies of their relatives back from the barren mountains and ridges for burial...
Thanks to connections, I finally found Liu Er, the corpse exorcist.
He actually gave him a reward of three hundred taels of silver!
This is a sky-high price.
So Liu Er took his apprentice with him at first and went over happily.
Unexpectedly, I followed the map and description given by the wealthy family and went to the place to see it on the spot.
Good guy!
It was actually buried directly in a [corpse raising ground].
Originally, the corpse raising ground had a rare and fierce Feng Shui pattern, which was difficult to encounter.
The big family were all ordinary people, so they happened to pass by by accident and buried their dead relatives in it. Liu Er didn't know whether to say this was bad luck or something...
He and his apprentice bravely walked towards the place where the corpse was buried, but their noses already smelled a strong smell of corpse even though they were still far away!
The surrounding vegetation became sparser and sparse, and grew in strange shapes... Near the tomb, there was no grass growing at all.
Liu Er stood three feet away and took a closer look. The tomb was filled with black gas.
He knew that this thing must have turned into a zombie!
As for zombies...
Liu Er felt that he should be more careful. With his own cultivation level, he could leave in a hurry.
Many ordinary people have heard the legend of the zombie exorcist and think that they are all zombies - including those shown in some Hong Kong movies.
Actually that's not true.
Most corpse exorcists are actually chasing the weakest zombies...
Zombies are rare after all!
But Liu Er knew that the trouble was at the moment of "opening the coffin and lifting up the corpse", the zombies might wake up. This requires a coffin bearer to use special means to lift the coffin from the grave without disturbing the zombies.
Then the coffin is opened and the body is erected.
This set of rules is the secret of the coffin bearers!
After all, they can carry the coffin for burial, and naturally they can also open the coffin and erect the body.
Liu Er thought of his coffin bearer friend in eastern Sichuan...
So, this letter fell into Cao Yunfeng's hands.
After reading the letter, he estimated his current strength. If he could control and seal a zombie without waking up, it shouldn't be a big problem.
His master has passed away, and at the request of his master's friend, of course he, the apprentice, will be next.
What's more, Uncle Liu also said in the letter that he could be rewarded with one hundred taels of silver!
For Cao Yunfeng, it was a "huge sum of money" that he could not even imagine.
It's just that it's more than a thousand miles from Lianghe Town in eastern Sichuan to Guzhangping Hall in western Hunan. It's a long way.
In these days of war and chaos, normal people would definitely not travel far.
But this kind of troubled times is the stage for the people of Xuanmen Jianghu!
All kinds of capable people and all kinds of courageous people are running around on the land of China. Either to save the nation or to save others, or for oneself...
In the past eighteen years of Cao Yunfeng's life, the farthest he has ever been was when he followed his master to the core of eastern Sichuan at that time - that is, Chongqing.
This time, he is leaving Sichuan and Chongqing and heading to Guzhangping Hall in western Hunan. This is the farthest trip so far, and it is also the first time I have traveled alone in the world!
So, with the courage of a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers and the longing for a broader world, Cao Yunfeng hit the road.
In this way, he went all the way to Guzhangping Hall in Xiangxi...
One night.
Cao Yunfeng slept rough in a ruined temple in a mountain.
At that time, transportation was backward, the number of cities was small, and the population was not large. If you rush to other places, you will often encounter the situation of seeking accommodation or sleeping in ruined temples or Taoist temples.
So sleeping rough in the ruined temple with him were two families who were also on their way.
The other parties were two brothers, with their respective wives and children. Altogether, there must be seven or eight people.
Because it was late when we arrived at the ruined temple, we didn’t talk much to each other. They each occupied a corner in the ruined temple to rest.
But in the middle of the night, Cao Yunfeng discovered that two seven or eight-year-old children in this family suddenly woke up and said they needed to pee. Just go to the courtyard at the entrance of this temple...
After a while, they started to play and fight. Chase around the yard.
Cao Yunfeng didn't take it seriously at first, but he saw two children laughing and running towards a dry well in the corner of the yard!
As the saying goes: Don’t go near a well when it’s dark. What’s more, it’s still the middle of the night!
Although it was dark at night, as a coffin bearer, Cao Yunfeng's eyesight was very sharp. Through the dim moonlight in the sky, he suddenly discovered that the feet of the two children were actually off the ground!
About an inch above the ground, it was like running on air.
It's just that because of the height of just one inch, ordinary people can't see clearly in dim light, let alone in the courtyard of a ruined temple in the middle of the night in the wilderness?
He immediately understood that this was what was often said in his hometown, "being attacked by a ghost" - in fact, it was a ghost. It means being dragged to death by ghosts!
Cao Yunfeng is extremely talented and at a young age, he is already considered a powerful coffin bearer. Before the master passed away, he was already well-known in Fubei County.
Dealing with some lonely ghosts is certainly not a big problem.
It's just that these ghosts who specialize in "fighting" people to death at night are very good at hiding, so he didn't notice it for a while.
"Stop!"
Cao Yunfeng stepped out of the ruined threshold of the temple, stood on the stone steps in front of the door and shouted.
