Chapter 10 Chapter Nine: Keeping the Spirit (Part 2)

The memorial ceremony, no matter where it is, will always bring people a sense of mystery.Especially at night. Tonight, the day after Li Nuoyi's grandfather died, it was also the day when Li's grandchildren held vigil. A night vigil is also called a vigil. The ancients believed that a person had to go home to visit within three days after his death, so the children waited in the mourning hall for his soul to return.Every night, relatives and friends accompany him until the body is buried in the coffin.Evolved to the present, the wake is the gathering of relatives to mourn the dead and express their feelings of remembrance.

After a person dies, the body should stay at home for a while, which is called "stopping the spirit." At night, the family members will guard them to show filial piety.Volume 13 mentions: "Both daughters-in-law and daughters-in-law don't keep watch." Shen Congwen Twenty: "The few remaining people have to stay overnight in front of the coffin according to the rules." There are descriptions of the wake in the text. The vigil is basically limited to three days, and there are those who keep vigil in the coffin shed in the residence, in the mourning hall, and also in the rented hall of the funeral parlor.

In suburban counties, there is still the move of "putting aside three dynasties". "Book of Rites · Asking about Mourning" has: "Those who are buried after three days are waiting for their lives. If they are not born for three days, they will not be born. The heart of filial piety has also weakened. When the family is born, the clothes are also It has already been done. Even those whose relatives are far away can reach it. That is why the sage made the decision, and the three days are the ritual system." Therefore, the three nights of vigil are not entirely based on superstition, but three days. After all the preparations are complete, relatives and friends from far away can dare to come, which is enough to show humanity.

As for the vigil in Liluo Village, it is closer to the southeastern region.Please ask Yin and Yang to calculate the auspicious days of the astrology for the number of days for the deceased to keep vigil. It is also a common custom to seal the doors and windows of the relatives of the deceased. But today, as soon as I stepped into Mr. Li's house, I saw many things that I didn't understand. The courtyard in front of the peach house is full of wreaths and paper figurines.Those paper figurines are very delicately made, if not for their dull faces and textureless painted red and green clothes, they would almost be fakes.

My eyes stayed on these creepy sacrificial offerings for a while, only then did I realize that Li Nuoyi was also looking at the paper pierced people.Her body was trembling slightly, as if she was afraid of the thing in front of her. "What's wrong with you?" I held her hand, her palm was cold. "I seem to have seen these paper pierced people somewhere before." She murmured as if she was talking to herself. "You should always look at things from your hometown when you were young." I was somewhat disapproving, "Making the paper pierced people so real will really cast a shadow on children's childhood."

Li Nuoyi shook his head and did not continue the topic. The door of the Peach House was wide open, and just like last night, Mr. Li's coffin was placed in the center. There is an Eight Immortals table in the room. There are chickens, ducks and some fruits on the table as tributes. The scented wax is inserted in the incense burner in the center of the Eight Immortals table. The red candles are not meaningful and festive. It seemed to be extinguished, emitting an ominous and strange light. There are actually two door gods pasted on the door of the peach house, but I don't know any of the door gods in the paintings.

The door god should be a god who can guard the door in the common belief of Taoism and folk.In the old days, people put their gods on the door to drive away evil spirits and avoid ghosts, defend the house, keep safe, help utilitarianism, and bring good luck, etc. It is one of the most popular protection gods among the people. Generally speaking, after someone dies, in order to prevent the soul from coming back, the door god should be temporarily invited down.But why did the Li family deliberately paste two door gods on the door of the peach house where there were no door gods?Could it be that they deliberately want to let Mr. Li's soul linger outside the door?Li Nuoyi guessed my doubts, "It's strange, and I have always thought it was strange. But the custom of Liluo Village has always been like this, and the door gods are never posted on New Years and festivals. The door gods here can only be seen after death. It was put up when the vigil started, and it was taken down as soon as the body was buried."

"Queer customs." I couldn't figure it out. I have been studying folk customs for quite some time, and this is the first time I have come across such contradictory customs. "There are more weird places, and you will get used to it slowly." Li Nuoyi blinked at me, "Let's go, go and burn some paper money for my grandpa." Once the sun set behind the mountain and the sky darkened. Most of the people in Li's family have returned. Li Nuoyi's uncles and aunts looked at me evasively, afraid of angering me. They were afraid of the gun on my body.Perhaps in the minds of these young and old, I have portrayed me as an irritable and extremely threatening psychopath.

Psychopaths do not need to be legally responsible for killing people. No one wants to become a dead soul inexplicably, so most of the previous generation of the Li family, Li Wo, stayed away and dared not use words to provoke Li Nuoyi. I'd be happy to see where it is now. The dinner was a big pot of rice cooked by the chef invited from the yard. There were six tables in total, and all the Li family members and the villagers invited to help were immersed in eating.The originally noisy courtyard became strangely quiet during the meal, and their quietness must not be because of me. As the night deepened, the diners became even more silent.Many people looked up at the sky from time to time, speeding up their meal.

While I was eating, I looked at the hurried expressions of the people around me. They all seemed to be tabooing the coming of night. Finally, the last person put down the bowl and chopsticks. Yin Yang looked at his watch, "Today is the second day after Mr. Li passed away, and the guards at night are grandchildren. You are all young, and I am afraid that even if you are from this village, there are many things that you don't know about Liluo Village. Let me simply say One time, you can hear everything clearly, so as to avoid disaster." It was getting dark, and Yin Yang obviously wanted to leave as soon as possible.His expression was very serious, but the second generation of the Li family were young people in their twenties to thirties, and they didn't really agree with him at all. They all looked lazy and didn't listen carefully.

Yin Yang speeded up his speech: "After I leave, the boss will close the door of the peach house, and it will not be opened until the sun comes out at seven o'clock tomorrow morning. It doesn't matter what you do in the peach house, but you must pay attention, there are people under the table of the Eight Immortals. An oil lamp, that is a soul-inducing lamp, it must not be extinguished." One of the girls, who was dressed very differently from others, raised her hand and asked, "Is it okay to go out to pee at night?" Yin Yang's face twitched, "No. There is a toilet in the room, and you can pee in it. Anyway, you must not open the door. At the same time, Don’t let the soul lamp go out.” "Why bother?" The boy who put his arm around the non-mainstream girl's waist asked disdainfully. "This has been a tradition since the establishment of Liluo Village. It is said that if it is not followed, the dead soul will not come back. The wandering soul will bring disaster to the loved ones." Yin Yang felt tired talking to these people, and left in a hurry after saying these words. After Li Jiajian Yinyang left, a playful smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. He deliberately avoided looking at me, and shouted to the brothers and sisters behind him, "Go in, hehe, it's our turn to keep vigil for the dead old man." After everyone entered the door, he closed the peach house and locked the door. A second before the door closed, a gust of wind blew over from outside the courtyard, blowing the wreaths and paper piercing people with a "squeak" sound.It was finally completely dark, and the high-wattage incandescent lamps in the yard were shaking violently in the wind.The light flickered with the lamp, as if the whole world was unreal. Li Nuoyi and I found two stools on the right side of the peach house, beside the coffin, and sat down silently.Li Nuoyi looked at Grandpa's corpse in a daze, while I kept recalling the taboos of keeping a spirit that Yin Yang said.These taboos are very interesting, and there are some unique local folk customs in the very popular customs, which are self-contradictory and complementary, and are indeed worth studying. After the initial silence, the people in the room began to chatter. A person shouted at me: "Hey, you, that little boy. Why don't you introduce yourself?" I ignored him and looked at Li Nuoyi.He came back to his senses because of the roar on the other side, and explained the members of the Li family and the people in the house one by one in my ear. "Grandpa has five children in total, four boys and one girl. You have seen the eldest uncle, second uncle, third uncle and little aunt. My dad is the fourth child." "Among the uncles and aunts of the Li family, the eldest uncle's son is called Li Jia, the one who hates me to the bone. The second uncle's daughter is called Li Li, who is the one who dresses up strangely. The third uncle's son is called Li Yuan, and he just wants you Someone who introduces himself." He pointed to a pair of twins not far away, "They are called Li Shuang and Li He. They are the children of my aunt and her ex-husband. I don't know the rest. They should be their male or female companions." There were ten people in the house who shared the night watch, six were immediate relatives, and the remaining five were all foreigners.There is me beside Li Nuoyi, and beside Li Jia is a girl with long hair and sweet appearance. Li Li was hugging with his boyfriend who was also dressed in a weird way, kissing passionately like no one else.Li Yuan looked at me, the light in his eyes was a bit annoying, this guy was obviously angry when he saw me ignoring him for a long time. The twins Li Shuang and Li He sat tightly together, they were silent and seemed not interested in anything.There were many blue and purple bruises on the backs of their hands, as if they were pinched out by someone.The nouveau riche family is also a single-parent family. Children of this status are more or less eccentric. Could it be that their sexual orientation is abnormal, and they are also incest?I looked at the scars on their bodies and guessed maliciously. "Hey, my husband is asking you something, you little boy!" Li Yuan's girlfriend, a beautiful but obviously snobby girl, quickly shouted at me as if to claim credit when her boyfriend was angry. I raised my head slowly, "Oh, I've been exposed to the sun a lot recently, so my face shouldn't be pale." "You just have a pretty face. How much does Li Nuoyi pay you for a month?" Li Yuan's girlfriend asked arrogantly. I scratched my head, "What's your market price?" She was about to answer when Li Yuan slapped the back of her head, "Idiot, he's playing with you." This kid, I can't see that he is a little smart. Li Yuan squinted, looking at me with a gloomy look, "I don't care whether you want to cheat money or not, don't think that if you climb the big tree of Li Nuoyi, you can jump into the company and take real power. The company belongs to our Li family, hehe, maybe this dead woman will be thrown out of the company once the funeral of the dead old man is over." After hearing these words, I was so angry that my lungs almost burst.What kind of family is this? As the saying goes, the bottom of every family's pot is black, and no prosperous family is clean, but it is really appalling to be so unclean.With a gloomy face, I suppressed my anger and thought to myself how to make Li Yuan paralyzed. Seeing that I didn't speak, Li Yuan thought that I was scared, so he proudly hugged his girlfriend Qingqing me and got up. Li Jia knew that I had a gun on me, so when Li Yuan provoked me, he gloated.But after waiting and waiting, I didn't run away, so I couldn't help standing up disappointed. He walked up to the old man's coffin to have a look, and then suggested to his brothers: "Come, gather around a mahjong table. Anyway, it's rare for us to get together all night, so let's discuss it." Except for the twins and us, the others readily agreed, found mahjong, and took the offerings from the Eight Immortals table and put them on the ground casually. Four people went into battle, and three people watched from the sidelines. Li Nuoyi was enraged by the disrespect of her brothers and sisters towards her grandfather, "What are you doing, you throw away the offerings at will, so you are not afraid of retribution?" "What is retribution? Cousin, I think there will be retribution, and you should be the most retribution. " Li Li glanced at Li Nuoyi bitterly, "Our family is a cow and a horse, but you are good. If you don't do anything, you will occupy most of the company's shares. You are a dead woman, and there will be retribution!" " You!" Li Nuoyi was so angry that her breath became short of breath, and she couldn't say anything. "Don't pay attention to them, these people's outlook on life has long been distorted." I patted her on the back and comforted her. "I knew their morals were bad, but I didn't expect them to go so far!" She clenched her teeth, obviously extremely angry. The offerings were thrown on the inside of the peach house, and the soul-inducing lamp was burning alone under the Eight Immortals table, being tossed in turn by the eight legs on the table who were concentrating on building mahjong.Every time a foot shakes, the gust of wind it brings can harass the thin flames of the Soul Lamp until it shakes desperately. I shook my head secretly, looked at the two brothers Li Shuang and Li He who were still sitting An Qingzheng not far away, and asked softly: "The two children of your little aunt seem to be a little shy." "Maybe it's because I haven't had a father since I was a child. My aunt's ex-husband is also from the Fox family, but he disappeared ten years ago. Before the current stepfather appeared, they were still very active. But since more than six years A while ago, when Wu Shengze became a door-to-door son-in-law, Li He and Li Shuang became silent." Li Nuoyi always has a natural dislike for Wu Shengze, "Because of the sixth sense of women, I always feel that there is something wrong with him. But from the two of them, I can't ask anything." After finishing speaking, Li Nuoyi couldn't bear it any longer. She walked to the Eight Immortals table, took out the precarious soul-inducing lamp at the feet of the group of mahjong players, and put it under the coffin far away from the people. While playing cards at the mahjong table, Li Jia deliberately or unintentionally turned the topic on me and Li Nuoyi, trying every means to bring out conflicts, so that his brothers and sisters would take the lead in making trouble for us.But no one in this room was stupid, Li Yuan had a confident expression, as if waiting for the funeral to be over, and tear Li Nuoyi off the company's highest throne. And Li Li took the initiative to change the topic, and asked carelessly: "The Fox family has been very uneasy recently. There are more than 60 people in a family, dead, missing, and there seems to be not much left. I just talked about it yesterday. Come back, does anyone know what's going on?" "Why do you care so much, they're all dead. All the land was vacated, and it didn't end up in the hands of our Li family." Li Yuan smiled obscenely, like the most obscene villain in the movie. "It's so simple. You haven't seen the old men and women in Li's house, all of them looking sad and imminent. There may be something hidden from us!" Li Jia touched a card and swiped his thumb. Then throw it on the table. "I came back earlier, so I probably know something about it. It seems that the disaster of the Fox family began more than ten days ago. At that time, the old man who was more than a hundred years old had just died, and it was the turn of the great-grandchildren to guard the last day. " "After that day, his body will be burned, but the next morning, when Yin Yang and the Hu family arrived at the place, they saw the gate of the mourning hall was wide open. Except for the disappearance of Huhu, the rest of the night watchmen died in the house. Here, the appearance of death is unbearable. Every corpse has signs of being eaten by some kind of animal." Li Jia licked his lips, making an expression of telling a ghost story, "And the old man Fox's body that should have started to rot in the coffin, has disappeared." "Since that day, the Fox family has died strangely one by one from the son generation, then the grandson generation, and the great-grandchildren. In the end, even people with other surnames who are related to the Fox family began to die or disappear mysteriously." When he said this, he turned his head and looked at Li Nuoyi, "I guess some people are coming soon!" Li Nuoyi and I frowned at the same time. I heard everything the Li family said just now, and the Fox family was indeed cursed.If his words are true, Li Nuoyi, whose mother is the second generation of the Fox family, may indeed be implicated.Could it be that the so-called mysterious curse that frequently appeared on her during this time was passed on from the Fox family?In terms of time, it is very likely. Apparently Li Nuoyi also thought about it, she leaned against me nervously, her soft body trembling slightly. "Early tomorrow morning, we will go to the Fox Family Compound to check." I comforted me: "Speaking of which, when Huhu's body was discovered today, there were still people who came out of the Hu family's mansion. They shouldn't be dead like the rumors said." "No, I don't know any of the Fox family who came out today." Li Nuoyi's face was ugly, she shook her head and judged, "According to the information Li Jia said, the death or disappearance of the Fox family seems to be in a pyramid-shaped order from top to bottom. First, the blood source closest to Mr. Fox is the first." first generation, then second and third generations." "After the direct line died, the curse began to harm the collateral line with weaker blood. What kind of curse is this? Can it still produce intelligence? If there is no wisdom, how does it choose the next victim?" I asked. Uncompromising, "I'm not sure if it's a curse, what if it's an accident or a coincidence?" "Coincidence? Then how can I explain what happened to me? Being pulled into strange spaces time and time again, for me, It's unbelievable." Li Nuoyi was a little depressed. Li Jia's words weighed heavily on her heart like a stone, and the fear that had been suppressed burst out uncontrollably. There was always a thought circling in her head, would she be the next one to die?After being pulled into that weird space, she had no confidence in escaping at all!I reached out and touched the top of her head, "It's okay, don't be afraid, I'm here." Li Nuoyi shuddered all over. She felt the warmth from my head and my palm, and her hanging heart immediately settled down. The soul lamp burns slowly in the lamp oil, and the orange flame looks very strange under the coffin.The mourning hall was full of noise because of the group of mahjong players.Time was flowing slowly, and soon, at eleven o'clock, the lamp oil in the oil lamp was gradually burned out. I took the oil bucket and added some to it. But the next scene almost scared me to the ground.The light of the soul-inducing lamp suddenly turned green, icy green.That cold flame seemed to shoot directly into the depths of his heart, freezing his heart. Blinking hard, but like an illusion, the gentle orange color returned. Illusion?I scratched my head, who told me, I don't want to add to Li Nuoyi's fear. I hope it is really an illusion!