Chapter 3 ghost world

A relative brought Ayang, a fellow countryman, to live with him.After dinner, relatives went out to discuss work.Sitting under the lamp and drinking tea, Ah Yang chatted with me. "When I first arrived here," he said first, "I really find it strange!" He lives in the mountains of his hometown, twenty-five miles away from my home. He farms in the mountains all year round, and goes to the mountains to chop firewood during the off-season.Life is simple and simple, unless you sell firewood to my house, eat lunch at my house; usually go out with a rice bag, wrap a few dried vegetables, never go into restaurants and teahouses, and have little knowledge; when I came to the city suddenly, I thought that for tall bungalows, streamlined Cars, and colorful neon lights feel strange.But he went on to say, "Things are so expensive, 2,000 yuan for a deep-fried dough stick, 2,000 yuan for a sesame seed cake.

In the past, I only heard that it was so expensive in the underworld, and it cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, so the ingots were burned to the ancestors in strings, and the ancestors still couldn't help being poor. " I can't imagine the situation in the underworld.However, when I was young, I often saw my mother smash the duck egg shells offered to ancestors, saying that they were in the underworld, but the wages for chiseling the duck egg shells were 400 yuan each.In addition to burning more paper ingots, I always put the extra food on the sacrificial table; it is also because I heard that things in the underworld are expensive, and I am afraid that my ancestors will starve.

"All banknotes are used here," he said again. Today, in Lishan Village, silver dollars are still used for larger sums. "Aren't the new banknotes with big knives and big knives very similar to the paper foreign money in the underworld?" I didn't answer, and A Yang started to say, "On the street, I saw many unkempt things with messy hair covering their shoulders, like river ghosts. But a few of them came across and took a closer look. Look, it looks like a hanged ghost. The rouge on the face is smeared red, and the lips are also very red, as if bleeding; the hair is loose; doesn't this look like a hanged ghost?"

"Country people don't know the beauty of horror," I thought, and I remained silent. A Yang continued to narrate his feelings, "His shoulders are high, and he looks like Wuchang; she is a woman, it should be said that she looks like Wuchang's sister-in-law." "Some of them have snow-white faces, as if covered with plaster, with only two slender black eyebrows. This is the God of Wealth and Wealth. The Bodhisattva God of Wealth is supposed to be a man, and the God of Wealth and Wealth are both men. Why isn’t the God of Wealth here a man? " I don't know the God of Wealth at all, and it doesn't matter whether it's a man or a woman.A Yang didn't wait for my answer, Gu Zi said again: "There is also a kind of straight-legged ghost here, who strides with straight feet and needs to use a crutch with a curved handle to help him. He didn't have bigfoot, and he was still young. How can you use crutches to walk? This kind of straight-legged ghost can't walk with bare hands, how can he walk with a big load of rice and a big load of firewood?"

I still didn't answer, but while he was waiting for my answer, I gently asked him from the side, "How is the mountain? Is Niancheng okay?" This aroused his sense of fate. "Ghosts often come," he said angrily, "will it be okay? If it is done well, I won't want to come out to work. The worst thing is to arrest people; in the past, the impermanence of life was invisible, and probably the elderly were arrested.Elderly people who can't do it anymore will return to Huangtian after their lifespan is over, and they will follow the impermanence of life, and have nothing to say.Now there are more visible impermanence, young people who are able to plow the fields are arrested one by one, regardless of whether you have planted the rice seedlings or not, whether the rice has been harvested or not, when the impermanence comes, you will be arrested; In the middle of the night, when you slam the door and come in, you have to go if you grab it, and you can't stay for half a day.Those who have been caught can't even find a bone, and those who haven't been caught have no peace of mind.

Originally, when the son grows up, he has food to eat and can enjoy some blessings; but with the visible impermanence of life, he is more worried, and the son has to worry about things when he grows up.How can it be done well? ──It’s hard enough, but I still have to meet vampires from time to time.This kind of ghost is really powerful; it will suck as much blood as you have.I will suck you without blood.No matter how painful you are, it will always suck you to the point of nowhere. What is the purpose of continuously sucking so much blood?I didn't know it before, but now I understand that straight-legged ghosts don't farm or chop firewood, but they have to dress well and eat well.A lot of blood was smeared on the face of the disheveled ghost, and also dripped on the lips of the hanged ghost! "

Originally published in Issue 148 on March 1, 1948