Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Reaching the Heavens and the Underworld

In my memory, Beijing was hot and rainless that year, but there was a lot of dust, the sky was yellow, the ground was gray, and it was rare to get a clear sky. It is said that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, King Li Chuang entered Beijing and came up with a folk proverb: "The sky is yellow, use swords; the ground is dusty, let people go away." Werewolves mean wolves among men, and murderers. Like what a good sign. On the way home from the train station, I saw this gray-yellow world, and I already had a bad premonition. I couldn't tell what I was afraid of, and I didn't know what I was afraid of. I left in one day, and I didn't get to see him for the last time. Usually Blind Old Yi's body is not good, and his eyesight is not very good, but there are many things that ordinary people can't match. Smell it with your nose first, then touch it with your hand, or at most stick out your tongue to lick it, then you can tell the year when the finger was pulled, and you can tell whether it was buried in the grave or passed down in the family. It is almost impossible to miss it. Without these two moves, how dare you exchange for lamps and play soft drums in the ghost market?Back then, no one objected to the mention of Blind Laoyi's name in the antique shop. He kept many treasures in his life, but unfortunately most of them were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. There was a business of tomb stones, and before the blind old man left, he explained that he left all these things to me.

Although Blind Old Yi passed away, he left a name after his death, and his name is still there. Everyone looked at Blind Old Yi's face and thought that I had something to do with me. I should be a blind old Yi. No matter what, I can't escape it. Fortunately, I have heard a lot from Blind Laoyi in the past, and I have seen a lot of real things. If I can't avoid it, I will deal with it blindly. Sometimes I also rolled a few bags to pick up lamps, and went to the ghost market to squat alone, hoping to get a few licensed goods for good luck. In those years, Blind Laoyi mainly engaged in the business of "tombstones". There is a place called Dushikou near Chicheng, Hebei. As the name suggests, there is a monolithic stone left in ancient times. It takes more than a hundred steps to walk around. It has been exposed to the sun and rain for many years, but it is still standing still. There are four ancient elms growing on the boulder, with luxuriant branches and leaves, which can hide cattle. Where did the monolith come from? There have been many legends throughout the ages, but there is still no conclusion. The local area is famous for its stone work, including "tomb bricks, pillars and pestles, Weng Zhong" in the tomb passage, etc., and there are everything in Dushikou. There are real ones and imitations.

The business along this road is relatively remote, and there is a lot of attention to it, especially the tomb stones with patterns of birds and animals. fire; 狻猊 has the meaning of continuing the incense; the one-horned ox is Xiezhi, which can distinguish between good and evil.” I believe that the customers of these customs are mostly village officials and wealthy landowners in the countryside. In the early 1990s, this trend came again In rural areas, they are not afraid of spending money to build graves for their ancestors. It is also a decent thing to use gravestones hundreds of years ago for their ancestors. There are many types of gravestones, such as old grave bricks with intaglio or relief, The pillars and pestles in the tomb passage, the Weng Zhong who guards the tomb to ward off evil spirits, and the stone figurines and stone horses are all called "tomb passage stones". Most of the stone work comes from the area of ​​Chicheng, Hebei. Blind Laoyi started seven or eight years ago, specializing in this business. After his death, he still owed many customers for the tombstones. Those people also came to me. I demolished the east wall. Buxiqiang, taking care of these customers every day, and often going to the countryside to fetch stones, I am so busy that I can't get away from it. When I think that this is a business left to me by the blind old man, I can't let it go, no matter how difficult it is, I will deal with it Day by day, I had no choice but to write a letter to Sonia first, telling her not to return this year, and to go to the Northeast to look for Jinmai in the spring of next year.

Since then, I have made several trips to Dushikou in northern Hebei, and slowly figured out some ways. As long as I get acquainted with the local villagers, I can discuss everything. Since ancient times, the mountain people in northern Hebei have been hospitable. When you drink tea and eat, you always use a special big bowl to greet you. You have to know the rules when you go there. First, you can’t drink tea with the bottom of the bowl turned upside down. Second, you can’t put down your chopsticks when eating at the table. After eating, you should put two chopsticks flat on the mouth of the bowl. I heard that when it is cold, you have to sleep in the same big kang with the host’s family in the village. Waiting for local products, I will let you take away as much as you can. There are stonemasons in the whole village here. I don’t need to think about it, I was dawdling day after day, but sometimes I had nightmares, and when I closed my eyes, I saw the dead man crawling out of the coffin dragging his intestines. I thought maybe I was thinking too much, But I couldn't help feeling uneasy, until I met a strange man who had already been lying in a coffin in the mountains of western Henan.

As the saying goes well-"When you get rich, you meet noble people, and when you are unlucky, you meet a hooker." I went to the west of Henan because of a hooker. Among the people who often came to look for me in Gangfang Hutong, one was my distant relative, who gave him the nickname "" "Big cigarette dish", according to seniority, I should call him cousin, in fact, he is not much older than me, he is not a big carrot, he is older than me, I don't know how to judge this seniority , anyway, he is a distant relative, a distance of three thousand miles, too far away, I feel very disadvantaged, so I only agree to call him "big cigarette dish" because he is addicted to cigarettes and smokes all day long. That's what everyone on the street calls him. He's a poor, fastidious, bold-hearted man who often causes troubles but dares not take responsibility. I don't know which wormwood on their ancestral graves has grown crooked. His luck has always been bad. When he was a teenager, he suddenly wanted to know the secrets of women. He couldn't control the impulse to pick up the wall of the women's toilet. He didn't see what was inside, but he was discovered by the passing neighborhood committee. He was taken to the police station by two street aunts. Before the police asked him, he cried and explained all the mistakes he made from childhood to adulthood, including his father who went to a wild kang two years ago. The sentence was severe that year, and his father was sent to the Northwest In the labor reform, the big smoker was detained first and then dropped out of school. Since then, he has been in the society, and now he can't get high enough to get low. He hangs around all day long. He has never done his job properly. With his ability to speak well, he dumps some fake things in the ghost market He is very jealous when he sees other people making money, and he also goes to the countryside to find fellow villagers to buy antiques, and then finds a way to find a buyer after taking them back. He always tells me that as long as the luck catches up with the real thing, it is like picking up a piece of dog's head gold on the ground, which can be eaten in one bite He is a big fat man, but now those villagers who are farming in the countryside have also begun to learn how to be unfaithful. They go to the city to buy a few fakes and put them on their kangs, and wait until the dealers who collect antiques come to his house in the village. , he lied that it was dug out in the field, and he was often deceived in this respect, which made those old farmers afraid, and he dared not go to too remote places alone, not to mention that he didn't have enough eyesight, and it would be useless to go there. go.

It didn’t rain that summer, and it was hot like a steamer everywhere. In such a hot weather, Big Cigarette insisted on finding me to eat barbecue. After the death of blind old man, I never grilled meat with an iron broiler again. Because I didn't receive anything decent, but I couldn't hold back the big cigarette tray. I was still in that shabby house that day, eating barbecued meat with pine cones and pine branches, and drank a few taels of white wine. It was hot and sweaty. I thought He wanted to talk to me about something, and he was wondering where he would start, when he heard Big Cigarette sighing up to the sky: "Oh...your brother and I are such a strong person, back then I was so ideal and ambitious, but I can't fight for my life, I can't fight for my life, no matter how hard I try to force it, it's all for nothing. Back then, I just picked up the wall of the women's toilet and didn't look at anything. Then I was arrested and sent to the police station. My future has been ruined since then. After going in, you said that a half-year-old boy of fifteen or sixteen has not done some outrageous actions? Why did I get so unlucky?"

I said, "You took the initiative to confess before you entered the police station before being interrogated. Who can blame you?" Big Smoke Disc sighed again: "If you suffer, you will suffer. At that time, I was young and ignorant. I thought that the police would arrest people in the police station. Without further ado, I first took an iron sand gun against my butt and blasted it. What kind of man can stand it?" How about this? Your brother, I thought, Shi can be killed and can’t be humiliated. I confessed myself as soon as possible, so I can keep my ass, and I don’t care whether he is lenient or strict, so I put them all away. Who would have thought that the iron sand gun spanking the ass is all rumors. Alas... this, this..."

I said, "Brother Dier, let's not talk about those embarrassing things. How is your business doing recently?" Big Cigarette came to me this time just because he wanted to talk about it. He planned to let me and him go to the countryside to find some real things. If you want to make a fortune, you have to go out and take some risks. Try your luck in this remote area. If you are lucky, you can make ten trips in one trip. He said to me: "We are both relatives and brothers. Your brother and I grew up so I have never begged anyone else, if you don’t help anyone, you have to help me once.” When it came to where to go, Big Cigarette had already had an idea, and handed me a piece of paper for me to see.

I saw the words on the paper, took it over and read: "Chairman Mao has surpassed my own grandfather..." I was very puzzled and asked, "What do you mean? You want to take me to visit the Chairman Memorial Hall?" The big cigarette tray didn’t sound right. When I looked carefully, I found that I had turned the paper upside down. It was a page he tore from an old newspaper. He turned it over to show me the other side, and the paper was twisted. He drew a topographic map crookedly, and there was a big mountain in it. He said it was Tongtianling, Funiu Mountain in western Henan. Someone once received a jade cup from the villagers of Huangquangou in Tongtianling, a wine cup made of jade. With a gold buckle, in ancient times, only the emperor or princes and kings could use this kind of gold buckle jade cup when offering sacrifices to gods. There may be ancient tombs in Tongtianling. stiff.

Tongtian Ridge is almost isolated from the world. In ancient times, not only savage mountain ghosts haunted it, but it was also said that there were flying zombies. But those were all legends told by tomb robbers and antique dealers before liberation. No one has seen it for hundreds of years. There are many similar gossips circulating on the Internet, most of which should not be taken seriously, but Big Cigarette is interested. He drew this simple map based on other people's narration, and asked me to go with him no matter what. In fact, he This picture is completely useless. If it's a business of digging graves and stealing treasures, I don't want to go into it with him. It's okay to just go to the mountain village under Tongtian Mountain to collect a few things. In the wrinkled area connected by veins, the mountains are not generally large. Tongtianling is in this mountain. Since ancient times, bandits in western Henan have been seriously affected. "General", from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, there were constant wars, coupled with years of drought, and it was the year when bandits appeared everywhere. At that time, there were no less than 100,000 generals in western Henan. It is also in the west of Henan Province where he made his home. According to superstitious legends in the past, Jiuchongtian above is Xuantian, and Jiuchongquan below is Huangquan. Just listening to the name Huangquangou is also dangerous. It is just the opposite of Tongtianling. One is deep, which shows that the mountain has a huge drop. Although today is different from the past, all the troops in western Henan were wiped out after liberation, and there is no banditry anymore. I was worried about Big Cigarette going alone, and my curiosity was aroused again, so I agreed to go with him.

We often fail to keep up with the changes when we think about the plan. We take one step at a time on the way. There is no need to make too many preparations before, so the next day, based on a legend decades ago, we set off for the mountain in the west of Henan. The Tongtianling Mountain is majestic. Connecting to the Taihang Mountains, it connects to the Qinling Mountains in the west, and the peaks are like plastics. How big is that mountain range? Where can I find an inconspicuous valley? Unexpectedly, there is such a Tongtianling Huangquangou in the map book. Although the location is in the mountains, there are dangerous roads to pass through. Even if it is a deep mountain and old forest, as long as the road is open and there are cottages, you don’t have to worry about encountering wild animals. We took the road into the mountain, and took a passing truck on the way. The driver who drove the truck was a veteran. He was from the same city as us. His surname was Pi and he was full of tendons. I heard there were other drivers passing by Knowing him, everyone calls him "Cheeky", which is probably his nickname. The thick-skinned driver promises to take us to Tongtianling. Get off the car and walk a few miles to the side of the road to Huangquangou, but you have to collect the car when you get there Money, the big cigarette dish is worn out, he is not willing to take less than a penny, and told us that the place is steep and the road is dangerous, we have to pass many cliffs, the mountain road is not smooth, and it is very difficult to walk.Big Cigarette had no choice but to agree to pay the agreed price and take a ride with the cheeky driver. The thick-skinned driver said: "The money is not in vain. Let's find a place where no one is around and have fun secretly. I will take you to the Wushu Cave. It is a shortcut. You must arrive before dark." He drove the car to Dashan Going deep, we can see that due to weathering and erosion along the way, a hollow-shaped landform with a flat top and a steep edge has been formed. These square hills, whether large or small, are similar to grave mounds. I heard that there was a strange animal in Tongtianling in ancient times. This animal "has a human face with long lips, a black body with hair, and heels turned back, and it smiles when it sees people." , covered in black hair, laughs like a human, looks like a savage or a human bear, but it has already become extinct, because two thousand years ago, the climate of Tongtianling in Funiu Mountain was warm and humid, and it was covered with forests everywhere, and then soil erosion , not even bobcats and dogs are seen anymore, only barren mountains and wild mountains are left. Apart from the mountains on the way, they are all bald mountains that look like tombs. The mountains are rolling like huge tombs, stretching to the end of the day.