Raising Ghosts Records

Chapter 12
During dinner, old man Huang said that there were not enough medicinal herbs, and asked me to go to the mountains with him to pick some tomorrow morning, because we still have to soak in the bath for four days.I got up before dawn the next day. Old man Huang made a pot of porridge with a pot and brought a sharp hoe, while I brought a snakeskin bag and two sickles.

The mountain we are going to is the top of Xiandian, the highest peak in Zhaoping. It is only about three miles away from the old man Huang’s house, and it takes 10 minutes to walk to the foot of the mountain.

There are eleven kinds of medicines we need to pick, including camphor leaves, fir buds, grass roots, vines, etc. I only know half of these medicines but I can't name them.

Some things can be picked easily, such as camphor leaves and fir tree buds. We picked five or six kinds at the foot of the mountain.Others are not too difficult to find, but there is a kind of vines that are very difficult to find, and you may not be able to find them overnight in the mountains.

The old man Huang said that this kind of vine is called Dracaena vine, which is as thick as a finger, and when cut, it will bleed out a sticky substance like blood, which is poisonous.This dragon blood vine is rare, but it is not precious, because it has no medicinal value, but it is good at repelling insects.In a large pool, as long as a finger-length dragon's blood vine is placed, any fishmen and water bugs will not be able to survive, but the water will also be unusable.

We picked several kinds of medicinal herbs at the foot of the mountain, and then we will go up the mountain, and it is not yet twelve o'clock at noon.Old man Huang and I talked and laughed all the way, and finally we were so tired that we stopped talking and just walked.

The top of this fairy hall is a dirt mountain, similar to that of XZ, with an altitude of about 1200 meters.But if you want to measure it from the ground, it is at least two to 3000 meters high. We stopped and went and climbed for an hour and a half to reach the halfway up the mountain.Old man Huang took a few sips of porridge from the pot, pointed to a path and said to me, go in here.

We left the main road and walked into this small road. After walking for about 10 minutes, we came to a small flat land.The ground is covered with purple grass, which old man Huang said is called color-changing grass.

The color-changing grass is a kind of fern, no more than five centimeters high, and the leaves generally grow close to the ground.The color-changing grass will change to different colors according to the weather, temperature, humidity, etc.It looks purple now, maybe it will turn blue tomorrow, it's amazing.Some people may ask, wouldn't it be profitable to sell such grass as potted plants?

This idea is good, but the environment in which the color-changing grass grows is changeable. Under the artificial potting environment, it will always only show one color, so it is worthless.

Uncle Huang asked me to pull dozens of color-changing grasses, and after pulling them out, I have to look for the last dragon blood vine.However, at this moment, there was a rustling sound from the bushes behind him, like a big boa constrictor crawling.

In this mountain, which is nearly 150 kilometers across from Lipu to Wuzhou, and nearly 120 kilometers from Zhongshan to Pingnan, there are even mandrill ghosts, not to mention boa constrictors.The weather in November is still very hot. It is not surprising that there are big boa constrictors coming out to bask in the sun. This scared old man Huang and me to pee.

Just as we looked at each other and wanted to back away quietly, a yellow dragon sprang out from the bushes.It seemed that the yellow penis had been greatly frightened, and when it saw us, it quickly turned around and ran in another direction.

We thought we had encountered a boa constrictor, but it turned out to be a yellow snake, which made old man Huang very happy.Huang Yi has poor stamina, and he would be exhausted after running for less than 5 minutes. Uncle Huang yelled, "Hurry up."

Uncle Huang and I chased after this yellow scorpion, but it was very nimble, and got into the dense bushes in a short while.Just when I thought it was a waste of time to chase, the old man Huang said that it must have been too tired to run, so it hid, and if it was found, it would be captured alive.So we put our things down, and each of us got into the dense bushes with a sickle.

All kinds of plants grow so densely here that it is difficult to walk. The most disgusting thing is that there are bugs everywhere on the trees on the ground.I saw a few caterpillars as long as chopsticks crawling on a small tree and wanted to get out quickly, but old man Huang refused.

We drilled around in the bushes, sweating profusely from exhaustion, but we didn't find the yellow pen.Just when we were about to give up, there was movement in a bush not far away, the small tree was moving, and the fallen leaves on the ground made the sound of being crushed by something.Uncle Huang raised his sickle and asked me to flank from the other side, so I couldn't let it escape.Uncle Huang and I approached the trembling bush cautiously in different directions. When we got closer, our faces turned pale with fright.

I saw a large piebald boa constrictor with thick thighs on the bushes. At this moment, the yellow snake sandwiched by its body was already foaming at the mouth and dying.

Fortunately, this piebald boa constrictor has caught a prey at this moment, otherwise, at such a close distance, one of Old Man Huang and I might become its prey.

The piebald boa constrictor didn't pounce on us, but within half a second of seeing it, we got out of the bamboo forest as if our buttocks were on fire, took a bag of hoe and ran straight to the road.

Although the old man Huang is over 50, he is very healthy, but I am so tired that I am out of breath.I asked Mr. Huang if he often encountered big snakes when he went to the mountains. Uncle Huang told me with lingering fear that he often encountered big snakes, but it was the first time he saw such a big snake.

We still haven't found the dragon's blood vine, but we don't dare to take risks when we encounter such a big snake.I asked old man Huang what to do, and he was short of a dragon blood vine. He said that he would go back to the village and ask someone to see who had it.

After sitting on the main road for a while, after finishing the porridge, we started to descend the mountain. After walking out of the mountain pass, I said to go to the town to buy some food, and old man Huang went home alone.It is not far from the town, and the houses in the town can be seen with the eyes, and the distance is only one or two kilometers away.

In order to collect medicine for me, old man Huang, today is really dangerous, I have to show something.When I arrived in the town, I found out that I went into the mountains today, so I didn't bring any money. I was really confused, and I had no choice but to go home empty-handed.

When I got home, old man Huang had already borrowed a small bundle of dracaena vines. Seeing that I had returned empty-handed, he asked me if I hadn’t brought any money.I can only say embarrassingly that I went into the mountain today and forgot to bring any money with me.

I used that water to take a bath again at night, the water was still so spicy, the steam was so hot that I coughed and my eyes were in tears, and then I soaked for three consecutive days.When taking a bath on the last day, Mr. Huang told me that this was the last bath and that we were going to catch bugs tomorrow, which made me feel uneasy.

When the sun was at its highest in the afternoon of the second day, Old Man Huang said it had begun.After he gave me a cup of something salty and spicy to drink, he asked me to take off my shirt and lie on the ground.He brought three eggs and rolled them on my belly, one egg was rolled for about 5 minutes.After the three eggs were rolled, I felt my stomach churning, my throat was itchy, and I couldn't help vomiting when I sat up.

Old man Huang had prepared a bucket for me to vomit, and this time I spit out a pink leech the size of a banana. It struggled a few times and stopped moving.

When I swallowed this leech half a month ago, it was black and green in color, only about the size of a finger, and it was already that big in half a month.When I saw such a big leech spit out from my mouth, I was immediately disgusted, and I vomited for a while, leaving only stomach acid.

After I vomited, Old Man Huang shoveled some ashes from the bottom of the stove and poured them into a bucket. He smiled and asked me how I was doing and whether I felt better.

I nodded. Uncle Huang took the three eggs that had rolled over his belly and smashed them open one by one. The yolks and whites inside turned black. It was really scary!
Is this the leech Gu?How to raise this thing is not just as simple as leeches.It has also been processed by witchcraft, maybe the leech's body is occupied by a wisp of the voodoo's consciousness, who knows!This stuff can't be explained by science at present.

I stayed at Uncle Huang's house for eight days, and after thinking about it for eight days, I finally decided to release the little water ghost, so I went to ask Uncle Huang for advice.

But old man Huang is just a witch doctor, and he only knows a little about ghosts and gods, and he doesn't want me to take risks in his house, so he just gently said let me go home and try again!
I was introduced here by Uncle Xuefei, so I can be regarded as a half-relative. Uncle Huang didn't take any money, and I don't have the face not to give it.In the end, I insisted on keeping 100 yuan, which is a life-saving grace, and there are food, drink and accommodation for these eight days.

After catching the bug, I can't continue to live in Uncle Huang's house with the cheek, but I have new troubles. Should I go back to Guiping Jiangkou, or go to Hunan to find my sister?It's unrealistic to go back to Jiangkou, after all, I have nothing there, and Goddess Zhang doesn't know if she will come back.If I go to Hunan to find my sister, but Hunan is so big, I don't have the conditions to look for it at all, and I don't know if I starve to death on the way.After I gave Uncle Huang 100 yuan, I only had less than [-] yuan left. I was really confused. It would be great if I had a lot of money.

But the road is always made by people. Even if there is no road, there is a road if you go forward.

The night I left Uncle Huang's house, I decided to release the little water ghost. I had similar goals with her, one was looking for my sister and the other was looking for my parents.

According to her dream, as long as the engraved thing on the pagoda wood card is erased, she will be able to come out after being put into the water.

In the evening, I found a piece of gravel, squatted by the river and wiped it against the pagoda tree. It took nearly an hour to wipe off the runes engraved on it.

Finally, I put the pagoda tree card into the shallow water by the river, and then a miracle happened. After the pagoda tree card was put into the water, it began to rotate.Finally, the pagoda stopped, and at the same time, a fish in the river kept jumping out of the water, making splashes of water.At this time, a baby voice sounded in my mind, she told me to throw that demon egg into the water.

This monster egg originally belonged to the little water ghost, but it was taken away by me and Mrs. Zhang, and now it should be returned to its original owner.I dug out the demon egg from the bag, squeezed it to be very elastic, then put it in the water, and sank beside the pagoda tree.

After the monster egg sank into the water, it began to melt like a candle, and finally disappeared completely in the water, I still feel a little distressed.

Just then, a little girl appeared next to me, smiled at me, and jumped into the river.I was startled, and then realized that this is the little water ghost.

I stood by the river and waited for the little water ghost to appear again, when her voice appeared in my mind.The little water ghost told me that she can only show up for a long time on the night of the first and fifteenth day of the lunar new year.Since she is a water ghost and cannot live without water, I asked me to find a willow tree by the river and carve a small wooden figure for her to possess.

(End of this chapter)