Chapter 8 Chapter Seven: The town-house python locked in the coffin

The three fat men, Chen Jianguo, Shuanzi, Xiaomei, and I rushed along the straight corridor to the corner. It was pitch black, only a series of staggered "da da" footsteps and the heavy breathing of everyone could not be heard.But he could still see two groups of green eyeballs looming like will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness. The three fat men cursed loudly, and rushed over immediately.I felt something was wrong in my heart, but I still rushed over with Xiaomei and Shuanzi. The old yellow-skinned boy turned his head, let out a smirk, and disappeared into the darkness. The four of us chased all the way to the end of the corridor, only to find that everyone had unknowingly run to the other half of Yizhuang.And that damned old yellow leather child has also lost its trace.

Immediately there was no sound in the empty room, it was dead silent, and it was a little creepy cold.With the help of the kerosene lamp in their hands, when everyone saw the surrounding environment clearly, their complexions suddenly changed, and Xiaomei couldn't help but yelled out "ah". A series of coffins were lined up in front of us in a lifeless manner. The bottom of each coffin was padded with four bricks and stacked neatly together.On the ground, the coffins were covered with white paper money, and a cool breeze blew from the skylight on the roof, rolled up a dozen white paper money and landed at our feet, and there was no more movement...

The air was filled with a strong Yin Qi, and everyone stared blankly at the deepest area of ​​the Yi Zhuang, only to wake up after a long while, feeling their goosebumps stand up all over their bodies.Xiaomei pressed her chest and couldn't speak for a long time, and finally said: "What's going on, why were we...brought here?" The third fat man also felt that something was wrong, and said to me: "Hey, I said Ba Ye, the situation is not good at the moment. Just now, I was chasing the girl happily, but I haven't seen the surrounding layout clearly. Why is his grandma's Just ran to the place where the coffins are parked in Yizhuang? I think we were all played by that ugly yellow leather man. I didn’t expect Fatty, who was smart all my life, to be thrown into the gutter by such a beast when I arrived at this evil Qinglong Mountain. went."

At this time, Shuanzi complained softly beside him: "Let's just say, this Huang Daxian cannot be offended. Look, isn't this just retribution..." The three fat guys stared and wanted to talk, so I quickly stopped him and said, "Now is not the time to argue, the old yellow man must have had no good intentions in bringing us here, the ghost knows what troubles will happen next, now the last The important thing is to leave here first." I briefly explained a few sentences to Shuanzi and the others, and everyone thought it made sense, so they gave up the search for Old Huangpizi and prepared to leave.

Who knew that at this moment, a loud bang was heard at the door of the corridor, which made the surrounding walls tremble and dust fell down.Everyone was covered in cold sweat from the fright, and they turned their heads quickly. With just one glance, everyone's faces turned pale. At some point, a large iron fence fell down from the door frame of the corridor, blocking the way out and blocking the only way for everyone to go out. The faces of our group all changed suddenly. After the iron fence fell, there was no sound for a while, and the whole hall became calm again.When they came in, everyone's eyes were all focused on the old yellow leather. No one would notice that there was such a mechanism on the door frame. Now that everyone was locked by the iron fence, they suddenly became trapped. It is difficult.

At this time, I heard the third fat man scolding: "Damn it, that yellow-skinned bastard must have done something good. If I want to catch it, I have to flay this old bastard alive." Shuanzi also sighed on the side. According to him, the old Huangpizi is the reincarnation of Huang Daxian, so he should not be offended.Now everyone not only offended Huang Daxian, but also wanted to skin him and cramp him, and the retribution came naturally. Xiaomei was also frightened and turned pale, and said to me: "What should we do now? We are locked in this hall, with no way out, no way to go in and out. If we don't want to find a way out, we can only live." I was starved to death here." Everyone was talking about each other, but none of the words could hit the point, on the contrary, the more they said, the more guilty they felt.

I know that the current situation must make a decision early, otherwise the longer the delay, the worse it will be for us, so I asked everyone to be quiet. Everyone looked at me, and the three fat men asked me what else I could do now.I said: "The current situation must not be messed up. Now that the door of the corridor is sealed, we can only find another place. First, look around for any exits or passages. If you can find windows and the like door, you can try to get out." Sighing, I went on to say: "Besides, from my point of view, there are eccentricities everywhere in this Yizhuang. It must not be as simple as it seems on the surface. There were so many rooms that were bricked up on both sides of the corridor before, and now even this coffin There are organs with iron fences inside, obviously not wanting something to come out or leave here. But until now, except that the old yellow man was a bit evil just now, we haven't found any difference here."

The third fat man said: "Grandma, Fatty, I felt something was wrong here. Needless to say, the cripple Wang from Yizhuang is definitely not a good guy. He is obviously a night watchman, but until now, I have not heard of Fatty." I saw half a figure. It's best not to jump out of the things in this place. Otherwise, I will annoy the fat man, even if I hide in the old grave, I will dig it out to see what kind of shady thing it is. " I said from the side: "Don't talk so much. All in all, everyone should be careful. No matter how bad it is, you should observe the surrounding environment to prevent possible changes, and you won't be caught off guard."

Everyone stayed in this Yizhuang for a while and couldn't get out. Hearing that what I said made sense, they felt relieved a little bit, and groped in the whole coffin and searched coffins one by one.During the period, the third fat man and I went to the door frame of the corridor to check the iron fence, and found that the fence was rusty and had been for a certain period of time.The opening and closing is also tightly locked by a large copper lock that is also covered with copper rust. It is impossible to open it without tools, so we gave up the idea of ​​breaking out directly. We were about to turn around and search other places, when we heard two voices at the end of the coffin saying: "Brother Erba, there is a hole here, Brother Three."

"The hole in the roof is too high. Even if there is a coffin underneath, we still have to put something on it to climb up!" Although the voices of these two people are not loud, they can still be heard clearly in this deadly coffin. The three fat guys and I looked at each other, and we both saw the excitement in each other's eyes.He quickly ran towards the area where Xiaomei and Shuanzi were. A very strange smell came, and we came to the end of the coffin, surrounded by dark brick walls, no windows, only an open "hole" in the center of the roof.To be more accurate, it should be a "patio" opened on the roof for lighting.From the patio, you can directly see the moonlight outside, and it is covered with spider webs. It seems that no one has gone up there for a long time.

There are coffins everywhere in the coffin, but it is empty under this "patio", only a high-quality vermilion coffin that is nearly twice the size of the other coffins is placed there, isolated from the other coffins Come, it is covered with dust, I don't know how many years it has been placed. Looking at the courtyard directly above the big vermilion coffin, the third fat man and I were overjoyed. Although we felt that the layout of the coffin was a bit strange, we didn't take it too seriously.The most important thing for us now is to get out of here first, other things can be discussed separately. I discussed it with Chen Jianguo, the third fat man, and decided to go up to see it alone.This patio is so high that one person can step on another person's shoulders to build an adult ladder, plus the height of the vermilion coffin below the patio, the person standing on top can go up to see what's outside Condition. With the size of the three fat men, if you want to stack Arhats, I can only go up.Although there are Xiaomei and Shuanzi watching below, we still dare not be too careless.The third fat man first went up to try to see if the lid of the vermilion coffin was firm. The two discussed their contact information later and decided to leave. It was night now, except for the faint light from the kerosene lamp, the surroundings were pitch black, and the specific situation in the courtyard could not be seen clearly even if I poked my head.I stepped on the shoulders of the three fat guys, and tried my best to poke my head upwards. Occasionally, there was a cool breeze from the top of the patio, and it directly poured into the neck. In addition, the humidity above the hole made me unable to resist There was a chill. The four walls of the courtyard are made of bricks, covered with moss, and the four walls are slippery and difficult to climb. Judging by the age of the brick walls, it has been old for some time. Suddenly my head hit something, I didn't care about the pain, I quickly picked up the kerosene lamp and shone it, and saw a thick stone door pressing on the top of the courtyard, leaving only a gap of about a fist, and the moonlight came from that gap swayed down.And I happened to be hanging on the position a little lower than the thick stone door. I gestured to the bottom to indicate that I had reached the apex.The cold wind kept blowing from the gap left by the stone gate. I shrank my neck and pushed the stone gate with my hands, and found that the stone gate was completely a natural bluestone slab, which was very heavy. The front of the stone gate is engraved with densely packed inscribed runes. It seems that the inscriptions have been inscribed for a long time. Parts of the stone wall are peeled off and blurred, covered with dust. If you are not very careful, you will definitely not be able to find them.I don't know the meaning of it, but I looked at the scriptures like "Diamond Sutra" to suppress evil spirits. What surprised me in particular was that on the stone gate, there was actually a statue similar to the "green-faced fox fairy" enshrined in the lobby of Yizhuang's front hall. At this moment, I leaned half of my body into the courtyard, and by the dim kerosene lamp, I saw that strange fox face at a glance, and I couldn't help being startled. The old man with a fox face in the stone carving pattern, wearing the costumes of ethnic minorities, has a vivid image, as if he is hiding somewhere and secretly watching some ceremony.In an open space in front of him, a group of naked "people" are forming a huge circle, everyone is wearing a mask, dancing an ancient and mysterious dance.In the very center of the circle was placed a neatly arranged large coffin, and each coffin was half-open, exposing half of the straight dead body inside.These corpses were all wearing strange bronze masks and clothes that resembled fish skin, with distinct scales, and each of them had obviously been carefully dressed. Immediately after that, there is an engraving of a huge ancient tree, which has been dead for an unknown number of years. Every branch and branch is as huge as a canopy, and dozens of people can't hug it; the next picture, There are many slave-like people hung on the tree trunks, and the blood flows along the lines carved on the ancient wood; there are also a few pictures that vaguely show an endless lair, and the huge lair looks very simple , but surprisingly large, it is made up of many black giant trees piled up like a mountain, which looks extremely mysterious and majestic. Judging from the inscription on the stone gate, this is obviously a sacrifice scene of a certain tribe or some kind of force. I kept watching, but the more I looked at it, the more strange it became. This kind of sacrifice scene is very weird and incomprehensible. I frowned, then looked down, expecting to find the answer, the pattern behind is a series of ritual things.Many people who looked like slaves were killed, their blood stained the huge ancient tree branches, and many masked "people" threw the corpses of these dead people into the abyss... The next few pictures stopped abruptly , as if someone didn't want people to know what happened next, and erased it from the stone gate. These serial patterns engraved on the stone gate make me feel confused and confused, but there is one thing that always makes me feel a little weird, that is, the figure of the fox-faced old man appears in every shadow.He moved very carefully, always hiding in the dark furtively.According to my speculation, this person is peeking at the mysterious and weird sacrifice ceremony of the group of masked men. If nothing else, the engraved pattern on the entire stone gate should be left by this fox-faced old man. Or his descendants can't get rid of it. But I always felt that something was wrong, so I checked the stone gate carefully, and finally found a half-remnant picture near the junction of the stone gate and the courtyard wall.After wiping off the stains on it, I took a look at it by the light of a kerosene lamp. The engraved pattern is a side view, the old man with the fox face is still hiding in the dark and peeping furtively, in the procession of the masked man ceremony, the mask of a "person" who looks like the leader seems to have fallen off down. According to my previous thinking, these masks are just one of the props for the ceremony, and there is nothing surprising about them.But when the leader bent over to pick up the mask, the face that had always been hidden behind the mask was revealed, and I was taken aback. The face of the masked man seemed to be covered with hard scales.Because the stone wall on the engraved map has been severely peeled off, it is not clear what it looks like, but it obviously does not look like a human being. According to my understanding, the only thing that can be referred to by the blue-faced fox in the western Hubei area is the "four boards" in Tufuzi's business.This tomb robber should be peeking at some ancient and mysterious sacrificial ceremony.The huge dead tree is similar to the giant tree reaching the sky in some ancient myths, and it is a symbol of some kind of divine right.It's just that what are these "people" who are hiding their true colors doing? Are they offering sacrifices to the things in the huge ebony lair? What makes me even more unbelievable is, what does that huge ebony nest represent?Is it really some kind of giant reptilian creature or the nest of some giant bird that has not yet been discovered by humans? If the engraved patterns on the stone gate were all carved according to a certain proportion, then compared with the corpse of the slave who was nailed to the branch of the ancient tree, the thing occupying this ebony lair would be too big for ordinary people to imagine. All my attention was focused on the engraved pattern on the stone gate, and I was guessing, but when I heard the urging voices of the three fat guys below, I remembered my current situation and couldn't help scratching my head in embarrassment.After searching carefully for a while, I still couldn't find the way out.Although there is no lock on the stone door, if you want to remove it from the patio, you may need a crowbar. Seeing that I couldn't get out for a while, I yelled down here and asked the fat man to let me down.I told them what I saw in the courtyard, and everyone was amazed.The third fat man exclaimed even more: "His grandma's, it's really strange. Even the patio is covered, it's a barren mountain, a place where the birds don't shit, and there is no gold, silver or jewelry. Are you afraid of people?" It’s impossible to steal it. There’s really nothing to do, or you guys will get me up and let Fatty move the stone gate.” I said: "That's a good thing. However, with your physique, Fatty, you can't carry all three of us to death. So you better save me. If you fall from the top, It's not a big deal if you fall to death, if someone is killed again, it will save money to buy a coffin, and it will be directly placed in the coffin of Yizhuang, and it will be collected on the spot." Of course, this is just a joke. At this moment, the three fat guys and I know that this "Qinglong Mountain", which is adjacent to the edge of the ancient Yangtze River ferry and surrounded by countless bizarre rumors, is definitely not a good place.Especially in the yizhuang on the mountainside, there are even more weird things one after another, which are completely different from our previous imagination. The blue-faced fox, the room covered by brick walls, and the smirking yellow-skinned child are hiding in the coffin. The iron fence, the suppressed stone gate on the patio... Is this really just a Yi Zhuang that provides a temporary resting place for people who die in other places? Thinking of this, I couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive, and I was even more curious, what kind of shady things are hidden in this yizhuang on Qinglong Mountain?Thinking of the blue-faced fox enshrined on the shrine in the lobby, the night watchman of Yizhuang, Old Lame Wang, must be a veteran in the "four boards" business. Who is he?Where are you now?Does the weirdness of this Yizhuang have anything to do with him?There is also the engraved pattern on the stone gate of the courtyard. The content inside is bizarre and unimaginable. Could it be left by the ancestors of the crippled old man?Also... all kinds of thoughts turned over and over in my mind, but in the end I didn't come up with an ugly one. At this moment, the third fat man, Chen Jianguo, patted me on the shoulder abruptly, interrupting my thoughts, and only heard him say: "Hey, Mr. Erba, the more I think about it, the more I feel that something is wrong, this place is not clean Ah. I suddenly thought of such a thing. What do you think the big stone gate on the courtyard looks like? The more I look at it, the more I think it looks like the town house stone in old Beijing. Especially when you said that there are carved stones on it. I don’t understand the runes, this is Yizhuang again, could it be that there is really something dirty locked here that we bumped into?” I already had some hidden worries in my heart, but now I can't help but feel a sudden suddenness when I hear the three fat guys say that.Speaking of town house stones, they are most common in the north.In the early years, there were many rumors about hanging ghosts, zombies, and evil spirits among the people. Over time, the folks were panicked, so gradually old Beijing courtyards, no matter how poor or rich they were, had to place townhouses inside and outside the mansions. Ask for smooth weather. As far as the origin is concerned, it has long been unclear.I just heard from the old man that this is a method handed down in the early years to guard the house, drive away evil spirits, and suppress evil spirits.There is a record in an old book, which is called: "Bury stones to guard houses, and evil spirits will not be worshiped." This is the truth. I discussed it with the fat man, and thinking of the weird runes engraved on the stone gate of the courtyard, I couldn't help thinking that it was used to suppress evil spirits. There are indeed some places in the Yizhuang that are not clean.It doesn't matter if we chatted, but it made Xiaomei on the side even more nervous. She took a step closer to me and said in a low voice: "Brother Erba, please stop talking about this, I feel even more uneasy. Now we What should we do, we don’t go to the village or back to the store, we have to wait for the old Wangtou who is watching the night to find us earlier.” I found that after this series of events, Xiaomei's courage has indeed become much smaller.But this is also normal. After encountering so many weird things one after another, even the old fritters like San Fatty and I feel a little scared in our hearts, let alone a girl like her. The pressure on her heart can be imagined. Just when the three fat guys and I were discussing what to do next, Shuan Zi, who had been silent over there, suddenly turned pale, and made a quiet gesture to us. Seeing his appearance, we were all shocked. We didn't know what happened to make him so frightened. We hurried to Shuanzi, and we all bent down to listen. And at the next moment, everyone's expressions changed.This time we could hear clearly, it turned out that at some point, there was a strange sound in the whole coffin.It is a sound that is difficult to describe in words, similar to the sound of fingernails scratching the cover. The sound was extremely soft, but extremely harsh.In the dark depths of this deathly silence, it was like a cat's paw constantly scratching the hearts of everyone, making people feel more and more uncontrollable unease in their fear. Soon, all of us focused our attention on the vermilion coffin.That voice came from inside the huge vermilion coffin, and everyone finally felt their hearts being pulled. The vermilion coffin was covered with dust, and it had been placed for an unknown number of years. Now there was a sudden sound of scratching the cover from inside the coffin. What did this mean? The frequency of my heartbeat couldn't help speeding up. The three fat guys and the others were all affected by the strange atmosphere in the coffin, and their expressions began to change. Then there was another muffled "boom", and the lid of the coffin, which should have been tight, was pushed upwards suddenly. Everyone felt their hearts tense up and stopped in their tracks. There was a suffocating tense atmosphere in the air. I felt a little uneasy in my heart, but I still raised my eyes and looked in the direction of the vermilion coffin.The three fat guys and I looked at each other, and both found that the vermilion coffin was deflected by the force, revealing a narrow black hole. Several people looked at each other and felt the uneasiness in each other's hearts. We made Shuanzi and Xiaomei stand farther away, and the third fat man and I divided into two lines of defense and approached the vermilion coffin. Soon, we came to the side of the coffin, and the black gap between the coffin lid and the coffin board also faintly appeared in front of us. It was dark for a while, and we couldn't see what was inside. There was a strange fishy smell, like the slime of some kind of fish. I couldn't help frowning, and the surroundings returned to the deathly silence, only the heavy breathing of the crowd was still faintly discernible.Three Fatty and I went to listen to the scratching nails in the vermilion coffin again.This time, I found that I didn't hear anything, just for a moment, the last bit of sound seemed to disappear in the coffin. Seeing that they were about to reach the entrance of the cave, everyone's eyes were all on the vermilion coffin.This coffin is different from any other coffins in the coffin. It is obviously made of high-quality mahogany, and its volume is even larger than ordinary coffins.If this standard was followed, the corpse of the person lying inside would be surprisingly large, perhaps at least 3.5 meters in height. Fatty Three and I made gestures to each other, forced ourselves to suppress the panic in our hearts, and together we moved the heavy mahogany coffin lid a dozen centimeters outward, hoping to see the contents of the coffin clearly.However, when I finally moved the kerosene lamp over the vermilion coffin, everyone present was stunned. There was no corpse change as we imagined in the huge vermilion coffin, not even a single piece of coffin.Because the one lying inside is not a human being at all, but a large piebald python that is as thick as an ordinary person's calf.The huge head lay there curled up, motionless as if dead. "Damn it, there's a dead snake lying in his grandma's coffin." The three fatty exclaimed, directly breaking the peace in the coffin.Shuan Zi and Xiao Mei, who were at the back, could not help leaning over curiously, with their mouths wide open, unable to believe their eyes. And at this moment, Shuan Zi standing behind me on the left suddenly exclaimed and backed away again and again.We were startled, and quickly looked at the large piebald python lying in the vermilion coffin.It was discovered that at some point, the two blood-red eyeballs of the dead snake suddenly widened, and it came back to life.