Chapter 21 6. Grandpa's Ghost World

Grandpa is the idol that my grandfather worshiped all his life. The grandfather kept the "ancestral sang" left by the great grandfather "Romozhang" in times of crisis, and together with his glorious deeds of stealing a beautiful woman with big feet from a wealthy family, entered the history passed down orally under the old mulberry tree of the old Zhang family , became the pride of my grandfather and Zhang An's entire clan.The tribe said that before Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty seized the throne, he ate mulberries from this mulberry garden and took away a mulberry pole.I thought that Liu Xiu had taken away all Zhang An's earth energy, but in the hands of my grandfather, Zhang An's earth energy returned.My grandfather also learned the unique skill of pinching mulberry branches from my grandfather, and inherited the glory of "Sangzhi Zhang".

The grandfather said that the old man's fate is hard, Liu Xiu obeys him, and ghosts are also afraid of him.At night, the old man carried a lantern to open up wasteland on the beach of Baihe River. He was worried that he could not find a place to hang the lantern, but he heard the river rushing, and a thick tree stump jumped out of the Baihe River, jumping up to him. Only then did he see clearly that it was a big-headed ghost more than four feet tall, his head was as thick as his body, and the more he looked, the more he looked like Liu Tietou.The old man said, "Brother Liu, I was looking for you to get a cow, but you came here by yourself?" The big-headed ghost didn't speak, just jumped like a tree stump, and changed into a hideous grimace.The old man said, "It's beautiful!" The big-headed ghost jumped again and changed into a more terrifying face. The old man slapped his hands again and said, "This one looks better!" The big-headed ghost changed more than a dozen faces in succession. The face, the turtle spirit, the basilisk, and the centipede demon all changed again. The old man slapped his hands repeatedly and said, "One looks better than the other. I'm addicted to it. Change another one!" Frightened, he turned around and jumped to leave, but the grandfather said, "Don't go, stay with me." He put the lantern on top of his head, and the big-headed ghost was covered by the light, blinking his eyelids, but he didn't dare to move.The old man said: "Okay, you will be a lampstand for me." He waved his head to open up wasteland and ignored him.Ghosts are afraid of chicken crowing.When the rooster crows for the first time, the big-headed ghost makes a "squeak" and becomes shorter; when the rooster crows twice, the big-headed ghost makes another "squeak" and becomes shorter; when the rooster crows five times, the big-headed ghost has not yet "squeaked" When it made a sound, it shrank to the ground and disappeared.The grandfather planted a grain of corn at the place where the big head ghost was used as a lampstand, and a short and sturdy corn tree protruded out, but the ears of corn were knotted on the top of the head, like a big pomegranate, wrapped with colorful grains of corn.The old man said, "Brother Liu, I won't be fooled by you!" He peeled a grain of corn and fed it to the chicken. The chicken flapped its wings and died.The old man lit a fire, burned the grains into ashes, separated from the mud, and burned a brick to build it on the cesspool.The feces retting in that cesspool are particularly smelly, and the seedlings on the ground are also very strong.

Grandpa criticized and said: "No matter how many funny faces he will change, as long as you support him to use up all the tricks, the ghost will have no way out, and can only be called on the cesspit." Grandma said: "What do you tell the baby about whether it is ghost or not? Are you afraid to scare the baby?" Grandpa asked me: "Baby, only ghosts are afraid of people, how can anyone be afraid of ghosts, right?" In Kaifeng, my godmother also told me about ghosts.When I was crying at night, my godmother said, "Stop making trouble, a ghost is coming!" The ghost she was talking about was "red eyes, green nose, four hairy hooves. It makes a 'crack' sound when it walks, and it wants to eat children."As soon as I heard the godmother say, "The ghost is coming!" I didn't dare to cry, and hurried into the godmother's arms.Since the "big-headed ghost" that my grandfather talked about has become my grandfather's lampstand, I don't think there is any need to be afraid of it. I just feel that the "big-headed ghost" looks strange, so I put my legs together like a tree stump and hop around in the mulberry garden.Grandpa said: "Okay, no one can jump even if the ghost jumps again. It's my grandson who can jump better!"

Encouraged by my grandfather, I became more courageous and became interested in the ghost stories my grandfather told. Probably because my grandfather felt lonely living alone in the mulberry garden, so he took me as someone to confide in.But he absolutely forbids me to enter the thatched cottage. As soon as I get close to the thatched cottage, he shuts me out of the door with his eyes wide open, waving his hands and saying, "You can't come in, good kids can't come in!" Grandpa said it was him who "became "Fairy" place, but he doesn't ask others to follow him to be a fairy.He said that once he became a fairy, he would fly to the sky and never get up or down.Grandpa asked me sadly and anxiously: "Baby, grandpa is going to heaven soon, do you want grandpa?" I said, "Yes, I will go to heaven with grandpa." Grandpa seemed to be frightened, and shook his head again and again, saying: "No, no, My grandson said that nothing can go to the sky. The sky is not as good as the ground, Tianhan!" Grandpa shrugged his shoulders and looked at the sky blankly.I also looked at the sky, and there was a cold wind blowing down from the sky.I didn't understand at that time why after Grandpa looked at the sky, turbid tears fell from his dry eye sockets.

But I saw my grandma looking at the grass hut sadly, and said to my father: "Old Wei's family is really cruel! Keep sending that thing to your father, and record it in a note. Your father doesn't know how to keep accounts, so he takes branches to the mud. Daozi is painted on the wall, and if the Daozi is full, he is not cured!" My father said: "The Wei family asked my father to roast mulberry branches, and let him refresh himself with that kind of thing when he was sleepy and tired. I have fallen into this problem. It has been many years, and I have to let him go!" Grandma said: "I think your father is leaving soon, he talks about gods and ghosts every day, and he is not afraid of scaring the baby!" Father said: "That's true. I also heard his tutoring when I was a child. Children in the city are not as tough as the children in the country, nor are they as smart as the children in the country, so you should listen to it!" Grandma had to sigh helplessly.

In Zhang'an, I am a junior, and my older friends call me "Xiao Ye".When my grandpa got into his hermitage to be a fairy, he said to my little friend: "Catch grasshoppers for you young masters. I will tell you stories after I catch a bunch of grasshoppers." We are in the mulberry garden. I caught grasshoppers in the grass nest, tied a bunch of grasshoppers with asparagus grass, and hung them on my grandpa's thatched cottage.When Grandpa came out of the hermitage, he was full of energy, his eyes were shining brightly, and he didn't look like he had been frozen in the sky at all.We yelled and surrounded him.

Grandpa sat on a small bamboo chair, but he didn't let me get close, saying that he had a smell on him.I smelled a faint fragrance.Grandpa said that the smell is not good for the children, so he asked me to sit on the grass two steps away from him, and asked me: "Son, what are you talking about today?" I mustered up my courage and said, "I still talk about ghosts." : "Okay, the world is haunted every day, children have to see and see." One of the ghost stories is the "big head ghost". The second ghost story is that my grandfather went to Xinpu to go to the market before dawn. He was walking on the beach of Baihe River, and someone called him from behind: "Hey, who are you?" Wisps of smoke drifted over, and he grinned and said, "I'm a ghost." The old man was startled, gathered himself together, and grinned at the ghost, "Coincidentally, I'm a ghost too!" Unlucky, I was just looking for someone to replace me, but I ran into a ghost, and I couldn't survive!" The old man said, "Don't be discouraged, let's go together. There are many people going to the market today, maybe I will find someone Take the place of the dead ghost." The ghost said: "That's right." Then, he pulled my grandfather's hand, and was taken aback again, "Brother, ghosts are female, and your hands are cold. Why are your hands so hot?" Grandpa Said: "I'm a new ghost who went to Chenghuang Temple to report. My body hasn't cooled down yet. It's not as good as you, an old senior. Your body is also cold in summer, which makes us new ghosts ashamed." Ghosts also like to praise. So I became old friends with my grandfather and said, "Let's take turns carrying it." The ghost picked up my grandfather, panted from exhaustion, and wondered again, "Why are you so heavy, you don't look like a ghost! "The old man said: "My body hasn't melted yet, and I can't be light now. Don't tire you out, tell me to go by myself." The ghost put down my old man, and we waded across the river together.There is no sound when the ghost wades in the water, and there are no waves on the water.But the old man "crashed" and made waves.The ghost became suspicious again, and the old man hurriedly said: "Dear old man, as soon as I heard that you were wading across the river, I knew that you were a rare genius among ghosts. How come you have survived until today?" He sighed and said: "When I was a human being in the yang world, I stole a howling donkey from Widow Yang's house in Xinpu. The king of hell punished me to do three years of hard work in the underworld." The old man said: "You are so lucky. Learn how to be a ghost!" The ghost said happily: "The most important thing to be a ghost is to learn to be invisible, to be able to transform into various things, to hide the ghost shape, just be careful not to let people grab your ears Close your ears, and wait until the sun shines, and you won’t be able to change back.” The grandfather said, “Please change something, so that the younger generation can open their eyes, okay?” The ghost said, “That’s easy!” rabbit.The old man said, "It's too small, can you make it bigger?" The ghost turned into a dog again.The old man said: "It's not big enough, can you change into another howling donkey according to the one you took away?" The ghost turned into a howling donkey, snorting proudly and scratching its hooves.The old man grabbed the donkey's ears and stepped onto the donkey's back. No matter how loudly the donkey kicked, he firmly held onto the donkey's ears and rode it to Xinpu. When the sun came out, the donkey became Not going back.The old man returned the yelling donkey to Widow Yang.

Grandpa commented: "Baby, remember, no matter how invisible a ghost is, it is afraid that people will catch their ears and see the sun." The third ghost story: My uncle is a scholar. One year, he went to the teacher's house in a foreign village and asked the master to find him a secluded place so that he could read and write articles.The owner said that there are three empty rooms that are very secluded, but they are haunted, they are haunted houses, and people dare not live in them.The uncle said: "I just want to see what a ghost looks like, so I will live in a haunted house." At night, my uncle was buried in writing an article, and a palm the size of a dustpan protruded from under the bed.Uncle was so engrossed in writing that he ignored it.The big finger grabbed his trouser legs for a while, and scratched his instep for a while, which annoyed the uncle, so he picked up the brush and wrote the character "mountain" on the big palm, and a scream from under the bed: "Mother, crushed to death!" Me!" The uncle felt that the ghost was screaming pitifully, and wrote a "mountain" character on the palm of his hand, and the two "mountains" stacked together became "out", and the big palm shrank back.The ghost laughed under the bed, "Haha, silly scholar, you can't help me if you ask me to come out!" The uncle was crazy all his life, but he didn't jump out of the ghost's palm, and finally jumped into the Baihe River and drowned.

Grandpa sighed repeatedly, and criticized again: "Baby, I'm afraid you have read too much and listened to the sage's 'words' all day long. You have to be kind to ghosts, and your reading will be wasted!" The fourth ghost story is about a man named Li Popi who went out to beg for food one day, but the food didn't come, but a vicious dog bit him on the heel.At night, he slept in the dilapidated temple, cold, hungry and in pain, and said to himself, "Damn it, it's better to be dead than alive!" As soon as the words fell to the ground, a voice behind him said, "Yes, it's better to die!" Alright!" He turned his head and saw that it was a hanged ghost holding a hemp rope, and the noose had been tied for him.Li Poppi thought to himself, it's not that easy for you to ask me to be a substitute!But he said in his mouth: "Okay, I have met my bosom friend, but how can I die?" The hanged ghost hung the noose on the beam and said, "This is the best death!" Li Poppi said: "Thank you for coming to help me, But, you have to get me something to eat, let me have a good meal before I die, I am not a starving ghost." The hanged ghost went to steal the wine and meat.Li Popi let go of his stomach and ate a full meal, and said: "Man, kowtow to seduce your soul, I should hang myself." The hanged ghost hurriedly knelt down, kowtow like garlic.But Li Poppi did a scorpion climbing upside down on the wall, stood upside down, hooked one foot on the noose, and played diliu.The hanged ghost hurriedly said: "Wrong, wrong! You have to turn it upside down and put your head in a noose." Li Poppi said: "Okay, thank you for your advice, this time I am doomed, you hurry up Kowtow!" The hanged ghost knelt down and kowtowed again and again.Li Poppi faced the wall, hung the back of his head in the noose, closed his eyes, and snored.The hanged ghost said: "It's wrong again!" Li Poppi said impatiently: "I dreamed that death was coming, why did I make a mistake again?" The hanged ghost said: "Face forward, and the noose should be hung around the neck." Li Poppi said: "Okay, I see, I don't believe that I can't learn to hang myself, so hurry up and kowtow." The hanged ghost knelt down and kowtowed again.Li Popi faced forward, but put the noose in his mouth, biting the noose between his teeth and swinging on the swing.The hanged ghost said: "It's wrong again, why don't you hang the noose around your neck?" Li Poppi said: "How do you hold this noose? It slipped into your mouth as soon as you hung it up, if you didn't bite it quickly with your teeth Stop, it will throw me a 'butt stump', do it again, do it again!" Li Poppi dawdled until the cock crowed, and the hanged ghost panicked when he heard the cock crow, threw the noose and ran away.Li Poppi grabbed the ghost and said: "Don't run, why did you run away before you taught me to hang yourself?" As the rooster crowed, the hanged ghost made a "chirp" and turned into a pool of black water.Since then, Li Poppi has another nickname called "Ghosts Are Not Wounded".No matter how powerful a ghost is, they dare not provoke him, and people are also afraid of him.When he went to beg for food again, as long as he stopped in front of someone's house, the family would quickly bring out wine and meat to entertain him.

Grandpa said: "Baby, remember, ghosts are difficult to deal with, not as difficult as rogues." I originally wanted to compile a "Compendium of Ghosts and Monsters" for my grandfather, with a note: "Grandpa dictated at the end of his life, and his unfilial grandson compiled it. All rights reserved, piracy must be prosecuted." I handed it over to "Second Channel" to buy a book number and publish it.But I remembered what my grandfather said: "Ghosts and ghosts are cultivated for many years. Wherever there are people, they must be haunted. Knowing that you are a human being, just write the word 'human' well." It can be seen that my grandfather did not expect ghosts to become extinct. I just want to be alone, and I think, if the ghosts are left to "ghosts not entangled" to deal with, "ghosts not entangled" will have a legitimate job, which is also a great blessing for human beings, so I canceled publishing a book for my grandfather to warn future generations. The idea of ​​making a small fortune out of this.

But I found that grandpa is very afraid of ghosts in his bones.One night, my grandfather asked me to take my father's flashlight and catch "climbing forks" according to the mulberry tree for him. "Climbing fork" is the larva of cicadas. At night in summer, it will arch out from the hole under the tree, climb up the mulberry tree, climb to the top of the tree, and then shed a transparent hard shell and become Got it.Grandpa caught a "climbing fork" from a tree, and grandma soaked it in salt water, and then fried it for me to eat. It was a unique delicacy I enjoyed in Zhang'an.Grandpa said: "This thing just crawled out of the soil. I have never eaten the filth of the world. My baby feels clean after eating it." That night I played with a flashlight and followed my grandpa around the mulberry garden. I just grabbed a crock pot and "climbed fork".Grandpa was happy, and said that he would teach me to catch crickets. He took the flashlight from me, listened to the crickets, and pointed the flashlight at a tile under the earth wall and said, "It is pulling strings under the tile. Erli, you go and cover it with your hand, be gentle, hurry up, and don't make it jump." Just as I was about to make a move, there was a sound of "shua-shua-shua-tom" from outside the earthen wall. The crickets were alarmed and stopped their chirping immediately.Grandpa also stared at the earth wall in amazement, his eyes followed the sound outside the earth wall, moved along the top of the wall until it reached the end of the earth wall, and with a whistle in his throat, he said: "This Ghost, this deadly ghost!" I was terrified by Grandpa's expression, and hugged Grandpa's leg tightly.Grandpa said: "Don't be afraid, we don't owe him anything!" The voice of "Shua, Shua, tom, tom" sounded again, from far to near.The whistle sounded again in Grandpa's throat, and he shone the flashlight on the gap in the earthen wall, panting and said, "What are you measuring? No matter how big or small the mulberry garden is, it's still named Zhang! It was brought back by Congwa." I gave you all the money, and it's settled!" The sound gradually faded away, and the sound of the fox came from the wilderness shrouded in night.Grandpa turned off his flashlight and knelt down, put his arms around me and said, "We're not afraid, we really don't owe him anything!"