the last priest

The place they were going to was a small village about thirty miles away from Hong Village, and it was also one of the most remote villages in An County. Because of the extremely high terrain, this village also got a very interesting name: Chengxiantai.

Qingli came here six or seven years ago. It was a small village with only a dozen or so families in total. In the early years, it was still a bit popular. In recent years, due to the inconvenient transportation, girls from other villages are no longer rare. Married in, more and more people are planning to migrate or are migrating.

The surname "Ding" is the only surname in this village. The rest of the people are almost all relatives. It was only after hearing the introduction on the way that the dead man was called Ding Li. He was 32 years old this year and was the cousin of this middle-aged man. younger brother.

The mountain road was already difficult to walk, and it was drizzling again that day, and Qingli followed the man for almost half an hour, but his legs were sore, and he thought in his heart that he must pay a higher price for this deal. I'm sorry for the leg strength.

It was already afternoon when the two of them formally entered the village, and they saw smoke rising from the front of a house in the village from a long distance away, presumably that was the owner of this trip.

After being introduced, several elders in the family handed Qingli cigarettes and poured tea for him, and only asked the mage from the town to do a good job for him.

Qingli naturally enjoyed the feeling of being held by others. He squinted his eyes and took a compass three times around the front and back of Ding's house. Under the expectant eyes of those old men, he said, "You guys This mountain used to be inhabited by a Dragon Crown Prince, but he was captured by this Ding Li, and most likely killed him, so it was punished by God."

Seeing those old men looking at each other, Qingli went on to say, "Don't you believe me? Then let me ask you, does he often fish?"

"How do you know he fishes?" An old man asked timidly.

Qingli thought to himself, "Isn't this nonsense? Didn't everyone tell me that he was hacked to death while fishing? What's more, there are fishing rods and baskets beside the house?"

He fiddled with the compass in his hand again pretending to be mysterious, and continued: "Don't worry about how I know, I just ask you if he has caught any special fish recently?"

Several old people looked at each other, then entered the room and pulled out a crying woman, and said to Qingqing: "This is his wife, let her tell you." After whispering in the woman's ear for a while, the The woman said: "There are no special fish, they are all raised in the reservoir inside."

Qing Qingli's expression changed, and he asked loudly, "Think about it, what kind of fish does he catch?"

The woman was startled by his sudden voice, and said falteringly: "They are all common fish, such as crucian carp, bream, carp, and some small pouting beaks."

Qing Qingli suddenly slapped the table, startling the onlookers again, "You, you, dare to let him take home any fish, do you know that there are dragons in your mountain? What is Longsheng's son? It's a carp! This Ding Li brought back the son of the Dragon Lord and ate it, so it's so bad, it's just..."

"Just what?" An old man stretched his neck and asked.

Qingli sighed and said slowly: "It's just that I'm afraid that one life is not enough for that Dragon Lord to calm down his anger."

As soon as this remark came out, the group of elderly people outside the house gasped, "Then you should quickly think of a way."

This is actually his usual tactic, first to frighten and then pretend to be profound to rescue, "It is my job not to allow you to say it, come on, you go down the mountain to Hongcun and invite these people up , I can’t handle this matter by myself.” As he spoke, he reported the names of his partners one by one, and the village immediately sent people down the mountain to invite them.

When I entered the room, I found that the man was still sleeping on the door panel, saying that the coffin was still being made.The dead man's face was covered with a piece of yellow toilet paper, so he couldn't see it, and Qingli didn't intend to take it off to take a look, he had to hurry up and rest first.But even though he only scratched it once, he felt that this person looked familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere, several times he wanted to lift the yellow paper but stopped, not because he didn't want to, but because he was a little scared in his heart.

Qingli shook his head vigorously, thinking: I have never seen such a dead person before, besides, I came here to do good things for you.

After such self-consolation, he first lit a long cotton lamp under the door panel, and then asked someone to use a table to set up a proposal case. The case was greeted with three meat and three vegetables, a bowl of half-cooked down-to-earth rice, A half-cooked egg had to be placed on top of the rice.This kind of opening remarks is almost the same as that of Cha Wenbin. After all, the form of this thing is greater than the function, and anyone can understand it after watching it a few times.

Seizing the time when no one else came, he hurriedly found a place at the door to shut up for a while, he was quite tired tonight.

Because it was a rainy day, the sky was getting dark earlier than usual, and the old people who had been muttering how to go out to report the news hadn't come back yet.

Under normal circumstances, they should have arrived an hour ago, but it was getting dark now.Because of the lack of manpower, Qingli had no choice but to wait. Unexpectedly, he waited until night.Unable to wait any longer, the village sent several people down the mountain to have a look. It took a while for someone to come back and report: "The road below the mountain has collapsed in mudslides, no wonder they can't get in."

The roads in the mountainous area are all small trails, which are built along the mountains and along the river. It is the easiest way to release this kind of geological disaster. Even if you organize people to repair it, it will take at least two days. In other words, you have to rely on Qingli alone for these two days. up.

What Qingli did was based on ability three times and fooling around seven parts. He had never taken over a job by himself, and tonight he was driven to a dead end.Or how to say to support the bold and starve the timid to death, this guy said: ok, I will do it alone, and I won't have to share the money with them.

Qingli said to a group of people surrounding him: "Let me see it this way. Since I am here, I will take care of it alone. Don't worry, I will definitely help you solve this matter."

As he said that, he opened the box, and as soon as the contents inside were exposed, it attracted people's tongue-in-cheek comments.That Taoist robe, that wooden sword, that bell, those incense paper pens and inks, none of them are things in the storybook, and people suddenly have a little more admiration for this legendary master.

Qingli is dressed in Taoist robes, and with his many years of experience in the Taoist temple, it really looks like that at first glance.

After he was sitting upright, beside him were some white linen cloth, also called filial cloth.The people present were divided into several rows according to their seniority. The elders stood aside first, and each of the ordinary generation received a piece of filial piety cloth, which was tied on the head and just covered the back of the neck; It has to be dragged all the way to the buttocks, and a thinner one is made for a belt, and the length of the younger generation reaches the waist immediately.

After finishing the preparations, he found a bamboo flat that is commonly used in rural areas for drying things. In the bamboo flat, rice was sprinkled with a circular pattern, and an "s" was drawn in the middle of the ball of rice with chopsticks. , which happens to be divided into a Yin-Yang pattern.Then he took out a bag from the box. Inside the bag were copper coins. Each group of six copper coins, a total of eight groups, were placed in the eight positions of the Yin-Yang diagram according to the pattern of the Eight Diagrams, forming a complete Eight Diagrams. .

With just this one hand, the old people watching couldn't stop nodding their heads. After taking a look, Qingli knew what was going on in his heart. It's not difficult to confuse this group of people!

Then he took out a few small cards from his pocket, each with the names of various gods written on them, these small cards were inserted in the bowl containing the inverted rice according to the position of the five lines, and then placed Around the bamboo flat.

After Qing Qingli was done, he called Ding Li's son and told him to hold five long incense sticks and teach him to put them in the bowl respectively.Children are ignorant, so they can do whatever adults tell them to do.Just when the child finished the last stick of incense, a gust of wind suddenly blew through the open door, it was not too small, but it happened that the wind didn't blow anything down, but it just blew off the paper covering Ding Li's face up. . . . . .

The scene suddenly became flustered, and the invited master had no choice but to pretend to be calm and said: "This is because he was moved by the child's filial piety, and he wants to see the child again." He picked up the child and walked to the side of the lying dead man, and he almost threw the child in his hand before he walked over.

This person is clearly the person who went into his shop to buy ingots in the afternoon!

Why do you say that?Although the man had been wearing a bamboo hat this afternoon, there was a scar about one centimeter on his chin, and now this scar was growing on the chin of the corpse in front of him!