Chapter 9 Funeral at Shihu Temple Grandpa nodded and kept fiddling with the black bamboo hexagram in his hand. "Oh, Uncle Yang, when my wife was drinking water, there were some strange noises coming from the well. I quickly stopped her. After hearing the noises, she stopped drinking and continued to work with me. Before the sun went down, we went down the mountain and went home. As soon as she got home, she had a stern face and didn't say a word to me. She went to bed without eating dinner. When I went to bed, I heard her snoring in a daze... Then I realized, "Alas!" The birthday boy rubbed his head with his hands, feeling irritated. The grandfather comforted him in a deep voice: "Birthday boy, everyone has their own destiny. You should arrange your wife's funeral first. These children have lost their mother. Life is hard. You have to hold on." The birthday boy nodded, then stood up. His shaky body was like a rotten, yellow leaf that would fall at any time. Aunt Zhao's body was lying there so lonely. My heart suddenly ached. Why was this feeling so familiar? It seemed that I had also been lying there before, and someone was crying and calling me beside me. Who was it... "Bai Tian, come here quickly." Just as I was wandering in confusion, my grandfather stood on the eaves and waved to me. I was startled and found that I had squatted down next to Aunt Zhao's body without knowing when. At this time, the oil lamp in the room was dim, and the flame flickered with the cool breeze, as if it would go out at any time. Through the white cloth, I could almost see Aunt Zhao's eyes wide open, her purple tongue hanging long from the side of her mouth, looking at me lifelessly. I shouted, "Grandpa", and ran over in panic, grabbing his hand and not daring to let go. Grandpa patted my shoulder and said softly, "Grandson, don't be afraid." I nodded nervously and quickly recited the words my grandfather often taught me: "Don't talk too much, don't look too much, don't do too much..."
My grandfather took me to a table that was piled with incense sticks and paper money. He stopped talking, just sat down and started arranging the Buddha's head. After a while, the birthday uncle came over and called grandpa away, leaving me alone. I sat at the table obediently as usual, and continued to sort out the paper money for my grandfather. The oil lamps in the house were bright, and the villagers always looked at me in surprise or surprise when they came and went. Although I pretended to be calm, I was too young after all, and I felt a little uneasy. I could only look forward to my grandfather's return. Just when I was feeling a little sleepy, a plate of colorful and beautiful cakes suddenly appeared in front of me. A woman sat down lazily at the table. "You are five years old, right? This doesn't look like you..." Before the woman finished her words, she gently covered her red lips with her slender jade hand and smiled elegantly. "Eat." The woman looked at me, sneered and shook her head. This kind of sneer and disdain was just like the expression of Second Aunt a few days ago. I didn't say anything, but just looked at her calmly. She was dressed in red silk and had a graceful figure. She didn't wear the clothes of the villagers, but looked like a fairy descending to the earth. However, I am sure that I have never seen her in my memory, but the inexplicable sense of familiarity makes it as unclear as seeing flowers in thick fog. "The clothes are nice, but the person is not." I looked at her and said very seriously. "Hehehe, woooo, Hai Xiner, with your peerless beauty, there is still someone who thinks you are ugly. Hehe, this is really funny." A strange voice was heard, like laughing and crying. "You...you little girl are still the same." The woman froze there, her full breasts heaving with anger like a volcano about to erupt. I felt a sudden chill on my back and I turned my head to the side reflexively. With a whoosh, a leaf flew past my ear and stabbed into the cake like a sharp kitchen knife. Someone was using a leaf as a weapon. I looked up and saw a man in silk clothes. His body fell like a leaf in the wind, silently but strangely. I walked up to him like a possessed man. His face was fleshless, his eyes were deeply sunken, his eyes were lifeless, he was so thin that it looked like skin wrapped around bones, and he was covered with a layer of strange green-yellow thin skin. His body was thin and straight like a bamboo. I don't know why, but I suddenly smiled sweetly at him, and inexplicably called out, "Impermanence." He was obviously surprised, staring at me blankly as if he had grown roots, and suddenly he uttered a hoarse voice with tears in his eyes: "Your Majesty?" I stared at him in a daze, not knowing why he shouted like that. Hai Xiner sneered: "Wuchang, does this face look like someone to you? Hahaha..." "Alas, women love to be like this, chattering and nagging." Hearing the crazy laughter of the woman called Hai Xin'er, my head went numb and I felt extremely annoyed. Looking back at the bamboo-like man, I suddenly felt a pain in my heart, so I stopped looking at him and turned to walk into the peach house.
"Your Majesty," Wuchang's almost whispering voice made me stop for a moment, but I didn't want to look back. I felt uncomfortable because my heart ached. At this moment, the power of silence seems to attract me more. As soon as I turned around, I entered the peach room where Aunt Zhao's body was placed. I liked the silence in the peach room, so quiet that there was no sound of breathing. Grandpa said that I liked quietness and liked staying in the peach room because the dead could not speak, let alone talk nonsense. At this time, the peach house was already filled with sacrificial items, and the children who had just been crying had all left one by one. Aunt Zhao's body had been put into a coffin, and the coffin lid had been fixed. Under the dim light, I looked at the coffin. The material was not as good as the golden nanmu wood that my grandfather gave me, but it looked OK. I walked over and sat down next to the coffin. I slowly took out the cake I had just taken from the shrine from my arms and tasted it gently. The fermented taste of the cake was intoxicating... "Oh, look, that's the little daughter of Yang Laoqi from Shijia Bay. Look, she actually went to Tao's house, which is really creepy. I saw her just now. She was talking there alone, which was very strange. What's this? I heard that when she was born, there was a strange phenomenon in the sky. Crows were flying all over the mountain. This is an unlucky girl. Maybe she was the one who killed Aunt Zhao. Now she is sitting next to the coffin. She won't even let the corpse go, will she?" The old woman with bound feet seemed to speak softly, but she wished everyone could hear it. "Oh, yes. Our Shijia Bay is a place of the dead, so it's not surprising to have a baby like this. Anyway, we have one foot in the coffin, so we are just afraid that it will affect you in the neighboring village." Second Aunt appeared out of nowhere and spoke in a weird voice. "Stop talking. My sister-in-law was found hanged. It has nothing to do with this little girl. And, and I saw it last night." Dongmei, the sister-in-law of the birthday uncle, suddenly came over. What did you see? A group of women came over immediately. Dongmei looked around carefully, swallowed her saliva and said: "When I was chatting with my sister-in-law in the yard, a man in black whose face could not be seen came up to the main road. He was dressed in black and walked straight to our yard. But the strange thing is that he had a large circle of hemp rope on his shoulders, as scary as a python. When he came to the entrance of the yard, he asked me to help take down the rope. I don’t know why, I felt that he was not a human, but a ghost. So, how could I dare to help him take this thing, wouldn’t it cost me my life. But, but my sister-in-law suddenly ran over and helped this handsome man to carry the rope... I was so scared that I screamed: "Sister-in-law, he is a hanged ghost." But she couldn't hear anything. My scream woke my husband up from his sleep, and at this time I heard the birthday boy calling for help..." Ah, so this was a dream... Please don't say it anymore, it's so scary. When the women heard this, they looked around in horror. "Alas... another group of women like this, so annoying." I really don't want to hear this chattering noise anymore, and I have nowhere to go. The only way I can forget myself temporarily is to continue to taste the cakes. After a few bites, I feel drowsy... (End of this chapter)
