Chapter 17 Chapter 17 Tomb No. 209

Folks say that the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is the Ghost Festival, Taoists call it the Ghost Festival, and Buddhism calls it the "Menglan Basin Festival". There is no such thing as the Yulan Basin in the world. This word comes from Buddhism. The Ullambana Basin was originally intended to save Daoxuan and relieve the suffering of the hungry ghosts in hell. On the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, believers open the Taoist temple and release river lanterns to worship monks from the ten directions. In modern times, the main contents of the Ghost Festival are burning paper and releasing river lanterns. Burning paper is for the ancestors to burn, and at the same time, prepare some paper money to burn for lonely ghosts, and releasing river lanterns is mainly to rescue those lonely ghosts. It is a good deed that can accumulate yin and virtue. The lotus lantern is made of origami, the bottom is waxed and waterproof, and the candle is held on the top. On the fifteenth night of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the candle is lit and the river lantern floats along the water. It is said that all dead souls can follow the river The lamp is saved and escaped from the boundless sea of ​​suffering. However, the river lamps made by ourselves are useless. They are sold by the monks in the temple. Devoted men and women spend money to buy river lamps, but they cannot be said to be bought. They must be called donations. How much money should be exchanged for paper lanterns, and the monks will put river lanterns on his behalf. Those who have money donate more, and those who have no money donate less. Anyway, a river lantern saves a hungry ghost. No matter how many lights there are, it is also a deed of charity. This is why there is a saying in the folks that "the rich have ten thousand lights, and the poor have one light". In the past, every ghost festival, where there is water in the city, the lights are lit up, and it looks like thousands of stars. The steamed buns were placed on the flame mouth, and a solitary platform was set up, and the soul-calling flags were hung, and the water and land ceremony was held in the whole hall. It was very lively. In places without water, only the flame mouth was used to burn paper money. Hei will close the door and never go out of the house again. After all, the gate of hell is wide open on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. For ordinary people, there is no very important matter, and no one dares to go out in the middle of the night.

In the past, every year on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the river patrol team would go to the bridges to burn paper. After 1949, the customs changed, and the old tradition of burning paper and releasing the river was once regarded as an old feudal superstition. Let firecrackers be set off, saying that it is to prevent reactionaries from using the cover of firecrackers to take advantage of the opportunity to cause damage. On the night of New Year's Eve that year, the night was quiet and there was no sense of the New Year. At twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, I don't know which family took the lead. Suddenly, firecrackers were set off, and his family dared to set them off. The rest of the family set off firecrackers and followed suit, and then the whole city released them, and the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year immediately recovered. In the new year, the ban on setting off firecrackers became a dead letter, but superstitious activities such as burning paper and releasing river lanterns to open dojos, etc. The city was really invisible in the 1950s and 1960s.

Burning paper is not allowed in the city, but few people take care of it in the countryside and the outskirts of the city. Burials are still carried out in the countryside. There are still so many people who go to the grave to burn paper during the Qingming and Winter Solstice. Residents in the city also go to the suburbs to burn paper. Let’s still talk about the lunar calendar in 1958. On July 15th, there was a young man named Wang Kuwa at that time. He was twenty-seven or eight years old. He was born in a poor family. In Guanzhong, a few years ago, I went to Tianjin to transport coal for a living. At that time, there were many people living in high-rise buildings who burned coal for heating in winter. Carry baskets upstairs, carry them to the door of others, and stack them in the corridor. Earning this hard money is dirty and tiring, and it is not easy. To accumulate virtue and do good deeds, due to the inconvenience of her legs and feet, every year on the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, Wang Kuwa was asked to burn paper for her to save lonely souls and wild ghosts.

Wang Kuwa was very embarrassed. Since liberation, he was not allowed to burn paper. He was almost caught burning paper last year. How dare he go again this year?However, my old lady is a superstitious old lady in the countryside, so she insisted on letting him go, and the paper money was tied up, so he had no choice but to go out to burn the paper at midnight on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and was worried that people would see the report, so he wanted to find a remote place , he also lives near Ningyuan, North Railway Station. There was a flood discharge river north of Ningyuan at that time. It was a large earth ditch dug by manpower in the Qing Dynasty. It was dry and waterless. The river channel was full of wormwood. Ahead is a piece of wasteland, and far away is saline-alkali land and reeds. The terrain is a dead end. During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, there were a few households who planted sorghum here, but they were all moved away. The smoke and grass decayed, and foxes and hedgehogs often haunted it , no one came here even during the day, he was a fool sleeping on a cold kang—he was strong with firepower, and he didn’t know what it meant to be afraid. He is planning to burn paper here. He is from another place. He only heard that people lived here and had houses. Because it is a saline-alkali land, crops cannot be grown. The residents moved to other places during the Guangxu period. He didn't know anything about other things. Fifteenth, the bright moon was in the sky, but he saw a dilapidated temple under the cover of wild grass, half of the gable wall collapsed, and the wormwood growing from the corner of the eaves swayed under the shadow of the moon in the breeze. He could only recognize one of the three large characters on the stone tablet beside the temple. "The word, behind the temple is an earthen pit, and there are coffins all over the place.

There were numbers on the ancient bricks in front of the coffin. Illiteracy was everywhere when it was first liberated. Wang Kuwa could read and write, so it was considered good, because the delivery of coal depended on the house number, and those who did not know how to count could not deliver coal. There are three statues of gods, not the three stars of fortune, wealth, longevity, or Taoism. In the center sits a general with a kind face and the posture of a king, with double swords hanging from his waist. A black-faced general and a red-faced general are separated from each other, with an angry look Frightening, the black-faced general uses the snake spear, and the red-faced general uses the Yanyue knife. Now I know that it is a Sanyi temple, dedicated to Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, the heroes of the three sworn brothers in Taoyuan. The country people may not be able to read. Liu Guanzhang knew everyone. The big pit behind the Sanyi Temple was full of weeds and coffins.

Many graves were dug out of the big earth pit, layered on top of each other. In each grave there were one or two coffins, and there were no good coffins. They were all thin cypress coffins from earthen graves, and the years of burial were different. Most of them are narrow and small, exposed to the wind and rain. Most of the coffin boards are rotten, and some even have holes. Through the moonlight, you can see the dead bones inside. Two wild dogs are wandering in the distance. Wang Kuwa is not afraid, but very I wonder, if there is a cemetery behind the temple, why have the coffins been dug out and thrown here and ignored?What's even more strange is that there is no stele in front of the grave, only blue bricks are erected in front of the coffin, half buried in the soil, and numbers are painted on the top half, as if the coffin was specially numbered. I thought about burning paper money everywhere, so why not burn it to the lonely ghosts in this big grave, burn it quickly while no one is there, and go home to sleep after burning the paper money.

Wang Kuwa doesn't know why there are so many coffins in this big grave, we have to explain it clearly, and then we have to say before liberation, there were two rich and powerful people named Li in Tianjin Wei in the old days, and both of them were named Li. The personal surname is the same, and there is no other relationship. After all, there are many people with the surname Li. Zhang Wang, Li Zhao, and Liu are everywhere. Li is the most common surname. I have mentioned about him before. There is another Li named Li Yanzhang. He is a member of the Green Gang. He was also a poor worker in the early days. He helped people carry things on the boat to earn a living. In business, he worked hard for many years, saved a suitcase of gold and silver treasures, took them home, took Li Yanzhang’s boat, and couldn’t find the suitcase when he disembarked, because Li Yanzhang saw that there were gold and silver treasures in the suitcase, so he Seeing the blood, the fly took advantage of the old customer's unpreparedness and hid the suitcase secretly. The Shanxi old customer found that the things were missing when he was about to leave. He was so angry that he spit out blood from his mouth. Unable to think about it, he took short-sightedness, jumped off the bridge and threw himself into the river to die.

Li Yanzhang got the treasures in the suitcases of the old customers in Shanxi, and became rich from then on. He bought a "dragon ticket" for travel and became a big boss in exploiting the travel in the canal. The imperial court does not need to be beaten to the ground to rob jobs. In the jargon of the Qing Gang, this is called "mixing clean water". The entire North Canal is loaded and unloaded by his porters. Speculative profit, bought a county magistrate with money to do it, Ninghe is the name of the county, Ninghe County in Tianjin, there was a saying back then that "Jinbaodi and Yinwuqing are not as good as Ninghe at the fifth watch", it does not refer to the five He was able to dig up treasures in Ninghe County in the darker night. He said that although Wuqing County in Baodi County is good, each governing hundreds of villages, being an official in these two counties is considered a job, but it is not as good as being an official in Ninghe County for a day He made a lot of money because of the salt produced in Ninghe, and money was everywhere. Being an official in Ninghe County was so rich that the bribes given by the salt merchants alone could not be collected. Li Yanzhang went to the temple to swear to win the hearts of the people , claiming that he must be a clean and honest official, never corrupt and accept bribes, his left hand rotted his left hand when he received money, and his right hand rotted his right hand when he received money. The hand is still uncomfortable, so he uses the tea tray to receive the money, if it rots, the tea tray will be rotten. He used to be afraid of poverty. Once this kind of person gains power and makes a fortune, most of them will become rich and unkind. The richer they are, the less they are worth. Accumulating money is known as a land-scraping tiger. After arriving in Ninghe County, there is no limit to making a fortune. If you have money, of course you have to buy property, buy a house, and buy land. He heard that there is a place called Li Gonglou in Dongdong. It has nothing to do with him at all, he starts his business with his feet, and it's hard to say when he mentions it, no matter how rich he is, others look down on him, so he always thinks about putting gold on his face, he thinks that Li Gong is a good name, it's easy Climbing up, I also want to be Li Gong.

Li Gong of Li Gonglou was an official in charge of water transport in the Qing Dynasty. He found a treasure of geomantic omen and built a small building. The place was named after this building, and it is still called Li Gonglou. People, they all live in courtyards built in the area of ​​Ligong Building. They pay attention to being kind and generous in business, and often donate and give alms, so they become the first good place. Li Yanzhang thinks that if he lives in Ligong Building, he can be Li Gong, and most upstarts have With such an inferiority complex, he spent money to buy all the land, but it was not big enough, and several nearby villages also asked him to buy it. They said it was a purchase, but it was actually a robbery. There are a few cemeteries, all of which are old graves hundreds of years ago. Most of the people buried in them are poor people. , because there are only dead bones in the coffin, if you are lucky, at most you can dig out one or two old coins that are worthless. There is really no oil and water. According to Li Yanzhang's original intention, just throw it into the wilderness, but he is afraid of ruining his own. Fame, people poke the back of the back, can't bear the infamy, and he doesn't want to spend more money, what should he do?The ground-scraping tiger turned his eyeballs and came to his mind. Behind the Sanyi Temple was a chaotic death pit, and many corpses had been thrown on the road that no one had restrained. He ordered people to put all the coffins that had been bulldozed and moved from the old graves in the temple. After the big earth pit, numbered it with bricks, and wrote down which family's grave it was. There were more than two hundred coffins in total. They said that they would be buried when they found a place with good geomantic omen, but in fact, they didn't care about it. Li Yanzhang The matter was done too badly, and of course it didn’t end well. Not long after the grave was moved, he passed by the canal wharf, just in time to lift the goods, when the wooden box hanging in mid-empty suddenly fell down, smashing Li Yanzhang so that thousands of peach blossoms bloomed, and his head was smashed. It was smashed, and the skilled cobbler couldn't sew it back together. As a result, when the coffin was buried, there was a headless corpse in the coffin, and a human head was made of elm wood instead.

After Li Yanzhang's death, the big tomb of Sanyi Temple was hastily buried by the government. The place is remote and few people come here. People almost forget that there is such a big tomb in Sanyi Temple. After decades of sun and rain , the floating soil on the tomb became less and less, exposing the scattered coffins in the deserted tomb of Sanyi Temple. Wang Kuwa, who delivered the coal, didn't know what happened to the mass burial in Sanyi Temple. He just wanted to find a place where there was no one to burn paper. In the past, there were no people on the road on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, and the shops closed early. , especially children are not allowed to go out, giving way to lonely souls and wild ghosts who receive alms. All the people who go out to burn paper are good men and believers. In the 1960s, those taboos disappeared, but I was afraid of being seen when I went out to burn paper. I didn’t go out until midnight. I couldn’t go to the densely populated alleys and roads, and I couldn’t go to Beining Park. Although the park was closed after dark, there was a night watch. The old man, because he was bored, was extremely vigilant. As long as there was any trouble, the old man would immediately turn on his flashlight and rush to check, so he had to go around to the wasteland behind Beining Park. He had never been here before. It was a ruined temple, and the big grave behind the temple was full of coffins. He was not afraid. He thought he had never done anything wrong, so he kowtowed to Liu Guanzhang in the temple, and found him under the back wall. I found a place with a leeward wind, put away the burnt paper made by my mother, struck a match and lit it on fire, seeing the ashes of the paper whirling around, I was superstitious in the old days, thinking it was a ghost coming, but in fact it was the airflow produced by the burnt paper, so he picked up a dead tree branch It is taboo to burn half of the burning paper, and the paper must be burned through, and say a few words in your mouth: "Burning paper with roasting hands, winning a fight of cards; burning paper with roasting feet, falling down and picking up a big ingot; burning paper with roasting hands" If you bake your face, all the blessings, wealth, longevity and happiness will come; if you burn paper and roast your buttocks, you will not get sick all year round."

In the past, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, folks called the throwing of steamed buns the mouth of flames, which was an act of giving to hungry ghosts everywhere. In fact, the steamed buns thrown on the ground would not be eaten by ghosts, and would be picked up by wild dogs later. , It's like feeding dogs in disguise, and not everyone can afford to throw steamed buns. In times of famine and famine, there is not enough food for the living, so how can there be extra food for ghosts to eat?Therefore, some places use burning paper money instead. There are several ghost festivals in a year. , Burning paper money, throwing steamed buns, and releasing river lanterns" can be done in any way, with the same purpose. They are all for the sake of giving to the lonely ghosts who have no priests to worship. Wang Kuwa comes out to burn paper money every year. He himself can’t believe it, and he can’t say he doesn’t believe it. He thought: “If good deeds are really rewarding, why is my mother’s leg not getting better? I can only carry coal for a living, sweating every day. More than that, struggling to get by, could it be that he didn’t do good things in his previous life? The question is, who would remember what he did in his previous life? Even if there are karmic debts, it shouldn’t be retribution on my head..." When he thought about karma, he felt overwhelmed, I don't want to think about it, but my old lady is right: "People live a lifetime, just do good deeds, don't worry about the future, and a good heart is a blessing." Every time he burns paper, he always has these wild thoughts. After burning the paper money, it is around ten o'clock in the middle of the night. He clears up the ashes on the ground and is just about to go home. , was wondering how to go back, and suddenly heard a coffin board creaking in the grave behind the temple. There was a dirt pit overgrown with weeds. In the dark night, I heard the sound of the wooden board. It was not the noise in the coffin, but What?Although he was bold and bold, in the middle of the night in the ruined temple with no lights, when he heard the sound of coffin slabs, his hair would stand on end, and all the pores on his body would be open. At this time, there was a wind in the sky, and the hazy moonlight came through the clouds again. He could see things in front of his eyes, and thought to himself: "The coffin contains the bones of the dead, why is there any noise, maybe a wild dog is digging out the coffin?" In the early years, there were many wild dogs in the wilderness. There was a kind of wild dog with a head as big as a bucket. They hid far away during the day, and when they saw a cemetery where a dead person was buried, they ran to dig the grave and dug the earth in the middle of the night. In the years of war, poor people with shallow graves and thin coffins or wrapped in straw mats will most likely be fed to wild dogs when they are buried.Wang Kuwa's heart was right, he thought of this, immediately picked up a stick and walked out, thinking: "If it's a wild dog picking up the dead body, how can you just stand by and wait until I go forward to drive the wild dog away, that's a bad skill. " At this moment, a coffin in the grave was suddenly opened, but no wild dog was seen. It seemed that the dead man in the coffin pushed the coffin lid from the inside. Then he stared and looked around, but saw a hand stretched out from the coffin, and then a head popped out. The moonlight was hazy, and it was hard to see clearly from a distance. He vaguely saw a thing that looked like a human and a beast, with white hair on its body. With two eyes shining and hands like eagle claws, he crawled out of the coffin, turned around and bowed down, it was strange to say that the lid of the coffin closed by itself, the night mist filled the air, the thing swayed, brushed aside the grass, and looked west , disappeared in an instant. Wang Kuwa hid in the ruined temple and was stunned. He went straight in like a wooden sculpture and a clay sculpture. He had heard a lot about the drought demons in the countryside. The things that came out of the coffins in the Sanyi Temple were zombies turned into drought demons. According to legend The dead body was buried in the tomb and sucked up the cloud, which caused a drought in this area. In the past, the drought was severe, and the crops within a few hundred miles were not harvested, so they had to sacrifice to the Dragon King. Every household put a sticker on the door to pray for rain, and then Invite Mr. Feng Shui to watch the air, see which grave has a drought, and then gongs and drums will be played, and the people will gather to go to the grave to fight the drought. The hundred-year-old can be dug out and whipped and burned. The corpse’s breath and blood can In the spread of the plague, neither beheaded nor burned, so they had to be tied up and pressed under the tower. This custom originated in Guanzhong. Guanzhong has deep water and soil, and there are many mummies under the loess. In Guanzhong, he had seen several times of drought demons, and he was convinced of this. No wonder there was no rain in Tianjin Weiyi in 1958, and drought demons appeared in the Sanyi Temple cemetery. He wanted to find someone, but he was worried that he was wrong. If he made a public announcement, and there was no Hanba in Sanyi Temple, wouldn't he be asking for trouble?Maybe it's just a tomb robber who specializes in stealing money from the dead. He thought to himself: "If it's really a drought, I will return after I go, because this monster will hide in the coffin during the day, so I will keep quiet and hide far away in the ruined temple. Let’s see what’s going on, and when I understand it, it’s not too late to pay attention to it.” He has always been bold and good, thinking that as long as he doesn’t make a sound, it doesn’t matter if he looks at it again, maybe it’s not Hanba, but a thief who steals graves, so there’s no need There was a big hole in the back wall of the Sanyi Temple. He hid behind the wall and stared at the cemetery in silence. There was silence among the wild smoke and decaying grass. Like a mountain ghost with teeth and claws, Wang Kuwa is really bold and straightforward. If someone else was timid, she would have been scared away. In the middle of the night, when the moon was setting and there was still no movement, Wang Kuwa thought to herself, "I must have read it wrong." , That is a thief who steals coffins and treasures, why don't you bow down to the coffin? Let me wait here in the middle of the night, how can there be any drought? But... Among the broken coffins in the wilderness, except for a few What is there to steal with old money in your mouth?" He was thinking wildly in his mind. After waiting for a long time, he couldn't help dozing off. Suddenly, the cold wind hit his body and he shivered. When he came back, Wang Kuwa squatted in the ruined temple until midnight, his feet were numb. He put his hands on the wall, but he felt something cold and lively. It was not visible in the dark, it might be a crack in the wall. The gecko that came out of the house, came out to eat mosquitoes at night, and bumped into Wang Kuwa's hand, and it was scary even if it didn't bite. There was a "bang" sound from the altar table, and he followed it closely. Although the sound was not loud, it sounded very real in the middle of the night. He knew that the situation was not good. The face, the eyes are like lamps, and the moon is shining with green light. Wang Kuwa panicked when she saw that Hanba was disturbed, and screamed bitterly, not knowing how high or low, he stumbled, turned around and ran towards the temple gate, but he didn't know that the corpse was coming and going like the wind, and had already turned around from behind the wall. When he reached the door, he stretched out his arms in a gesture of pouncing.Fortunately, Wang Kuwa stopped abruptly, so she didn't hit the corpse directly, so she had to back up and hide behind Liu Guanzhang's mud-bodied god statue.When the corpse monster arrived in front of the temple gate, it suddenly stopped still, chattering loudly.Wang Kuwa was very puzzled, gasped and looked around, thinking: "It turns out that this thing dare not enter the temple because it must be afraid of the clay statues in the temple. After all, it is related to the public in the Sanyi..." He still had this idea. He didn't finish his turn, but he heard a loud sound of "Kara" at the temple gate. The temple gate was already half destroyed. At this moment, the hag slammed into it and flew up immediately. The top of the hall, the door panel fell to the ground again, a hole was knocked open in the roof of the hall, a large piece of bricks and tiles fell down, the statue of Liu Guanzhang was also covered with dust, and the dusty faces of the three clay-bodied gods, like the land lords, were all covered. changed face. Wang Kuwa was shocked and thought: "It's only because of the protection of the Sanyi spiritual response that I was lucky enough to survive. What is the difference between the statue covered with dust and the ordinary mud tire?" The Sanyi Temple was built hundreds of years ago. It has been ruined for many years, and there has been no incense for a long time. The oil paint on the face of the mud tire has been blown brittle by the wind. Thumping, one person and one corpse circled around the clay statue, two or three times, Wang Kuwa's legs and feet were already weak, panting, and the distance was getting closer and closer. Life is hard to save, and when you are forced to this point, it is a dog jumping over the wall in a hurry, and a man is quick to be wise. He caught a glimpse of a hole in the roof of the temple and said to himself: "Weasel farts for help, and there is one last blow!" Wang Kuwa saw that Hanba's body was stiff, so he was quick-witted and used his hands and feet to climb the back wall and climb to the roof of the temple with broken eaves and tiles to hide. Suddenly, the Hanba jumped up, stretched out its arms and rushed straight at Wang Kuwa, less than half a foot away from the temple top, it fell to the ground with a chirping sound, and then jumped up again.Wang Kuwa saw Hanba jumping up, getting taller each time, and would jump to the top of the temple three or two times, quickly grabbed the tiles, and threw them hard at the leaping Hanba, a thick tile with cloth pattern hit the head of Hanba Hit to pieces. Hanba couldn't get up, and Wang Kuwa couldn't get down either. After a stalemate for an unknown period of time, he heard the sound of a cock crowing in the distance, the east was getting whiter, and there was no movement under the temple. Looking down, I saw Hanba laying motionless on the ground. He still didn't dare to go down. Soon someone came to find him. It turned out that Wang Kuwa's mother asked him to burn paper, and he stayed at home doing needlework while waiting for his son. When Kuwa went out, it was like a mud cow had entered the sea and the kite string had been broken. The old lady waited at home and didn't come back, and she didn't come back after waiting, and she didn't see anyone until the middle of the night.The old lady was worried that something might happen to him in the middle of the night, so she begged the neighbors to help him find it.Everyone learned that Wang Kuwa went out secretly to burn paper, so she must have gone to a place where no one was around, so she shouldn’t have gone too far. Considering that there are no people around, there are people coming and going around the North Railway Station, and although the Liangfang Hutong is quiet, But there are also people living there. There is an old man guarding the gate at night in Beining Park. This is not a place to burn paper. And there is a Sanyi Temple behind Ningyuan. The dilapidated temple has been dilapidated for a long time. Across a big ditch, when Li Yanzhang broke ground for the grave, he left a big pit. Wild dogs haunted it from time to time. Most likely, Wang Kuwa went to the ruined temple to burn paper.People came looking for it at dawn, and saw Wang Kuwa hiding on the roof of the ruined temple, and there was a dead body lying on the back wall.Everyone was startled when they saw this, and they were even more astonished when they heard Wang Kuwa next and heard him explain the process. Some of the people present believed what Wang Kuwa said, and some did not believe it. Some believed it was Hanba, and some believed that Wang Kuwa stole the grave and dug up a dead person. It's hard to find, there are no valuable burial utensils, and there should be no one who is full to dig the grave and open the coffin in the middle of the night. After all, no one has an opinion. Everyone reported it, and they dared not mention anything. Anyway, Sanyi The dead people in the coffin of the temple are the corpses buried in the graves many years ago. It is impossible for Wang Kuwa to kill them. Wang Kuwa burning paper on the ghost festival is superstitious and ignorant at best. After all, it is not a big deal. Education, let him stop burning paper next time, send the dead body to the crematorium, try to suppress the matter as much as possible, and want to make big things small and small things into nothing, but the rumors among the people have not been quelled by this. People discuss in private, The drought in 1958 may have been caused by the drought in Sanyi Temple, but more people believe that "Tomb No. 209" is the main reason. Wang Kuwa went to Sanyi Temple to burn paper at midnight on the 15th day of the lunar calendar in 1958. The "tomb No. 209" mentioned earlier happened on the same day as this incident, which was also the night of the 15th day of the lunar calendar. , I can’t talk about two things. After talking about Sanyi Temple, let’s talk about "Tomb No. 209". The "Tomb No. 209" we are talking about is also not far from Ningyuan of the North Railway Station. It’s too long, so it’s called Wang Chuanchang for short. In the late Qing Dynasty, a lot of private houses were built, and there were several alleys. No. 209 is one of the houses. The owner’s name is Zhao Jia, who is in his early thirties. I went to the city from another place, worked as an apprentice and set up a stall. It was not easy to get up early and stay late. I managed to earn money to buy this small one-story house. After liberation, I made fried fruit in a state-run breakfast shop in front of the railway station. It is called Bangchui or Guozi, and there are also oil cakes with eggs in the middle. The early shop also sells soy milk, fried dough sticks, wontons, and steamed buns. It opens early in the morning and only receives in the afternoon. , the oil stains all over his body were mixed with sweat, and he really suffered. Zhao Jia has an old brother named Zhao Yi in his hometown, who is more than ten years younger than his brother. He has been looking for his brother to settle down this year, and he wants to go to the factory to find a job. He temporarily lives in his brother Zhao Jia's house. The two brothers lived, and the size of the houses at that time was almost the same. They were all about ten square meters square, with a plank on each side. Zhao A slept on the left side, and Zhao Yi slept on the right side. There is something wrong in the house. When I live here, I am always thirsty, and no matter how much water I drink, it doesn't help. At the beginning, Zhao A said to Zhao Yi: "Brother, the work in the factory now is a radish and a pit. Strength alone is not enough. You have to have connections. If you have the right way, you will send it to the door, and the second-class one will go to the door. The third class has no door, and you and I are not as good as the fourth class. It's easy to say, but there is no way, and we can find it if we want. I think you can stay here for a few days, and then go back to your hometown. " Zhao Yi felt wrong when he heard this, and asked, "Brother, do you dislike me?" Zhao Jia said: "Where are you thinking, you are my brother, how could I dislike you." Zhao Yi said: "Then why do you want to drive me away? Do you think I'm hindering you by living here?" Zhao Jia said: "You don't know, my house is not clean, it used to be a tomb." Zhao Yi said: "Is it really a house built on the top of the grave?" Zhao Jia said: "I lied to you, if it wasn't for this kind of house, would I be able to afford it if I sold it earlier?" Zhao Yi said: "That's superstition, since you dare to live, I'm not afraid." Zhao Jia said: "It doesn't matter if you live here, but don't mess with the things in my house." Zhao Yi didn't believe what his brother said, thinking that his brother had saved money to marry a wife and hid it in the house, and he was the only one who sold breakfast, what else could he have?How can you guard your brother like a thief? Zhao Yi immediately lived in No. 209. Zhao A got up at dawn every day, and went to the breakfast shop to fry fruit in an oil pan at five o'clock. At that time, Zhao Yi was still asleep and couldn't find a job. I have nothing to do, and I don't think there is anything unclean in the house. Apart from being thirsty, there is nothing unusual about it. I think Zhao Jia's scaring words are nonsense. At that time, it was already daylight, and the room was not completely dark. He squinted his eyes to see who that person was, and saw that Zhao Jia was standing in the room, silently, staring at him.Zhao Yi saw in a daze that the person was Zhao Jia. He knew that his elder brother got up early and was going to make fire fried fruit early. One day would not be like this, so he didn't pay much attention, so he just lay there without moving, not expecting what happened next. Things are weird. Zhao A stood still in the room, staring straight at Zhao Yi. After a long while, he went to grope under his bed again, as if he found something, took it in his hand and checked that it was still there, as if he was relieved , and put the thing back on the bed, and then went out to sell fried dough sticks at the breakfast shop. Zhao Yi was very puzzled: "What did my brother hide next to my bed, and he was worried. He felt at ease when he saw that it was still there, but he was afraid that I would see it?" The worn-out yellow paper talisman was also a spell to exorcise evil spirits before liberation. He thought to himself: "Is this my own brother? If you can't drive me away, you want to scare me away and see if I don't burn your ghost talisman!" In a fit of rage, he burned the yellow paper talisman to ashes, wandered around the road for a day in a fit of anger, and had a meal at a fellow countryman's house. Zhao Yi ate and drank enough, and didn't think of going home until dark. That day happened to be the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar in 1958. After dark, there were no pedestrians on the road, and there seemed to be fewer mosquitoes and bats than usual. Zhao Yi was timid. Remembering that it was Ghost Festival, he felt scared, and his previous anger disappeared. , think about it carefully, my brother will not tolerate him, after all, the two brothers who have broken bones and connected tendons are like brothers, maybe I have wronged my brother, the more he thinks about it, the more ashamed he is, he hurried home and went to the faucet at the entrance of the alley At that time, there was no running water in the one-story houses, and some alleys had public running water pipes, and some had well water. He went to the faucet and wiped his face indiscriminately, then rinsed his feet, and opened his mouth to pour cold water. I'm not afraid of stomach troubles. I don't know why I'm always thirsty, and I can't drink enough water. It may be because the weather is too hot. I sweat a lot in hot weather, so I always want to drink water. I never think about it. After finishing the water, he pushed the door and entered the house. Zhao A was very tired from work every day, he got up early and went to bed early, Zhao Yi wandered around outside, not sure when he would come back, so he left the door for his brother, and did not lock the door from the inside, so as not to When the brother came back, he had to knock on the door, and the food was covered with a sarong and placed on the table. As usual, Zhao Yi pushed the door open and entered the house. He had already fallen asleep when he heard Zhao Jia snoring. He was afraid of waking his brother up. I can touch the bed and bolt the door behind my back. As the saying goes, "a broken house is worth ten thousand yuan." In the second half of the night, you still have to guard against thieves. As the saying goes, thieves don't leave empty space. You can also steal an onion, but the most hateful thing is that there are thieves who steal shoes and clothes. Although the clothes and shoes are worthless, they are useful things. You can't go out barefoot. The old Tianjin Wei has rules, no matter how hot the weather is. If you go out barefoot, you must at least wear a pair of cloth shoes if you don’t wear leggings. Regardless of whether the shoes are good or bad, you can only walk barefoot with muddy legs. It’s so unruly and despised, so there is an old saying-no shoes under the feet are poor. Zhao Jia followed the Romans when he went to the countryside, and he didn't want to be looked down upon by not wearing shoes, so he repeatedly asked Zhao Yi to let him come back and think about putting the door bolt, so as to prevent thieves from coming in to steal the shoes.Zhao Yi never remembered it before, but he didn't forget it that day. When he came in, he closed the door first, then lay down on the bed, and saw Duke Zhou after a while, and slept until midnight. Zhao Yi found something on his body, and he was so sleepy that he couldn't open his eyes , the room was also dark, and I couldn't see anything. I touched it with my hands in a daze, and my fingers touched the cold and smooth skin, but it was a woman's hand. Zhao Yi knew in his heart that he wanted to open his eyes but couldn't open them, and he couldn't get up. He felt the woman slowly crawling over him, and then heard the "creaking" sound of the planks next to him. He was so sleepy that he turned over. fell asleep again. Before he knew it, he slept until daylight, and when he got up, he saw Zhao Jia still lying there. Usually, he would have gone to sell deep-fried dough sticks at this time, what happened today?He hurriedly went down to push, but when he went over, he found that something was wrong. The man was upright, his face was blue, his body was cold, and his body was lying in the room. When he entered the room yesterday, Zhao Jia was still snoring and sleeping, why did he open his eyes? People die?A thief came in in the middle of the night, but seeing that the door was well inserted, it was impossible for anyone to come in, and even if someone came in, it would be impossible to lock the door from the inside when going out. I suddenly thought that there seemed to be a woman in the room last night. He turned pale with fright, shouted that there was a ghost in the house, and hurried out to find someone. The neighbors in the neighborhood heard that someone was killed in No. 209, and they all rushed to see it. They ran to report the case quickly. People came to see that Zhao Jia had no external injuries, but it was a sudden death at night, not a homicide. Zhao Yi refused. He said that there was a female ghost in the house, and it was the female ghost who strangled his brother to death. No one believed him, so he rushed into the house and lifted the plank, and saw that the bricks underneath were loose in many places, obviously someone had moved it. Cutting apart two bricks, it turned out to be a mummy with long hair. 经过辨认，干尸是解放前失踪的一个年轻寡妇，如此一来，事情变大了，经过咱们简短节说，209号曾是一座老坟，迁坟盖房的时候，从坟中挖出了干尸，当地很少有干尸，出了干尸即是旱魃，因此没人愿意在这住，解放前赵甲贪便宜住到209号，估计他是看上住在隔壁的一个年轻寡妇，有天夜里，他借故将小寡妇带进屋，逼奸不成，伤了人命，外头人多眼多，无法抛尸，只好埋在铺板下头，他也知道209号以前是个坟，风水不好，于是请来一道“天官压鬼咒”，把纸符贴到床头，小寡妇无亲无故，突然失踪不见，人们以为她和哪个相好的跑了，那会儿世道也乱，没有人来理会此事，自以为神也不知鬼也不觉，哪成想一九五八年阴历十五这天，赵乙跟他哥怄气，偷着揭掉了纸符，夜里赵甲在屋中暴毙，后来因为赵甲已死，这个案子不了了之。 人们更愿意相信赵乙的一面之词，要按他的话说，是铺板下的女鬼半夜出来，将他兄长赵甲活活掐死，209号本来是个老坟，出过旱魃，赵甲在屋中埋尸，那女子也成了旱魃，要不怎么住在这的人总是口渴，胡同里草木枯槁，井打得再深也没水，209号坟墓的事一下子传遍了，至今还有人在说，可是大部分传得走了样，怎么说的都有，加入了很多怪力乱神的内容，实际情况是兄弟俩住一个屋子里，哥哥莫名其妙地半夜猝死，兄弟报案说屋里有鬼，随后挖出干尸，此案即是209号坟墓传说的由来。 总之是同一天，前后差不了几个小时，三义庙和209号坟墓两地，分别发现干尸，官面儿上不认为那是旱魃，可是不信不行，当天中午不到，西北浓云密布，雷声滚滚，下起一场大雨，干枯的河道全有了水，河工们刚挖到海张五那座塔下的洞口，赶上下雨涨水，没办法再往下挖，从此停工。 咱把话说回来，阴历七月十六下午，天气突变，云层中传来闷雷之声，挖大河的活儿不得不停，郭师傅在河边看见天气上来了，想要找个地方躲避，忽然望见有道黑气连天接地，似有龙蛇变化，灰蒙蒙的天越来越黑，这道黑气很快被阴云挡住，再也看不到了，以前认为云雾挂天为龙蛇之变，郭师傅发现云雾有龙蛇变化的方向，应在北宁公园粮房胡同，此时记起张半仙说过的话，粮房胡同凶宅里果然有东西，而且这东西一旦出来，一定会水漫天津卫，要闹大水了。