Archaeological Notes

Chapter 12

The village was full of voices and shouts, and it was even more lively than the annual meeting. Something must have happened again. Dao Scar was also woken up at this time, and the four rushed to the center of the village in a hurry. , Qiqi was dumbfounded.

The ancestral hall in the middle of the village is surrounded by a large threshing field. After the autumn harvest, the millet is put into the warehouse and the straw is piled up into haystacks several meters high. The whole area is as big as a football field.In the middle of winter, few people come here. Except for children playing peek-a-boo in twos and threes, there are only a few sparrows looking for food.However, the atmosphere at the scene was clearly boiling to the extreme. Fires rose in all directions, and the flames more than ten feet high rushed into the night sky, illuminating the whole village as if it were daytime.But what is puzzling is that the villagers are not busy fighting the fire, they don't even have a washbasin, and they stare anxiously at the fire with a look of tension.

My brows were frowned, and I looked at my watch. It was already three o'clock in the morning. As far as the current situation is concerned, it should be firefighting.But in the hot air, an old man crouched, holding a walking stick and watching the fire spread coldly, I felt a little bit in my heart, it was the Shuanzi master.

When the monk saw it, he was so excited to watch it again. He couldn't figure it out, so he stepped forward and asked, "I said, sir, what are you doing here in the middle of the night, leading the masses of people here? Make a bonfire." Party?"

Master Shuanzi looked stern and did not respond. The young man wearing a dog fur hat smiled and said: "Someone saw that zombie hiding in the pasture. There is no way to catch it. We set fire to force it out."

"What?" This surprised me: "There are zombies in the village? Who saw it?"

At this time, several village names came up, and one of the skinny men said: "I heard that Dahaizi from the village saw it. He came out to shed thatch at night, and as soon as he squatted down, he saw a squatting one in the haystack. Looking at him, I was so frightened that I was so frightened that I ran back to Grandpa Shuanzi's house to ask him to come out, and only then did I think of setting fire to him."

After Dao Scar heard about it, he didn't show much surprise, and took a look at us: "Perhaps Slant-eyed San really became stiff, and he is not good enough but covets the things in the coffin, so he should ask for trouble, this time It’s not worth the candle.”

"Then there is no room for redemption?" I couldn't bear it.

Scar was a little disdainful, "If you come to me just after being recruited, maybe you can think of a way, but it's not sure. But after so many days, the insidiousness has penetrated into the bone marrow, even Da Luoxian Linfan has no way to recover gone."

Recalling that when I was a child, my grandma often told me stories about ghosts, gods and Buddhas, among which most of them were tomb robbers.I still don't know where her stories come from, but they always sound so real and immersive.I feel that her old man is like a story box, and I can't finish telling it for days and nights, so sleeping in her arms when I was a child has become the best memory of my childhood.She once mentioned such a story, saying that in the early Qing Dynasty, there was a small village on a mountain in the west of southern Shonan. There were more than 200 households in the whole village, and more than 700 people were zombies.The reason is that an idler in the village was bitten by a zombie because he coveted the treasure in the random graveyard, and he turned into a zombie when he returned to the village, which led to a situation where no one was spared.I was horrified when I heard it at the time, but now that I think about it, it is so close to reality. Slanting Eyes Three is actually exactly the same as the person in the story.

In fact, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, there are many records of this kind. After the living people are infected with corpse poison, the final result, without exception, is that they will all die miserably, and the death condition is extremely disgusting.The scientific explanation is also ambiguous, and it can only be prevaricated as the deadly mutated virus causing the body to become dysfunctional and become what people call a "zombie".

The threshing floor has turned into a sea of ​​flames, Master Shuan Zi worked hard, and naturally he refused to stop until he saw the three squinting eyes.Suddenly, I heard people on one side shouting loudly, and people from all around immediately surrounded them. Because of the distance, I only saw a black shadow rushing out of the sea of ​​flames, catching a gap, Pretend to escape.

Fortunately, all the old and young men in the village mobilized and had an absolute advantage in numbers. Master Shuan took the lead in commanding, chasing and intercepting him. In less than half an hour, Slanting Eyes Three was caught.The villagers roared loudly, and Yixiang also joined in the fun. According to her, the village would not be so happy if they could hunt wild boars.

The villagers bundled the squint-eyed three into a big rice dumpling, and the inner three layers and the outer three layers couldn't squeeze in at all, so they couldn't see if the squint-eyed three turned into a zombie.Someone suggested that there is a big locust tree at the entrance of the village, which can be hung up and exposed to the sun until dawn, so that it will not bite people.So the crowd applauded, put Xie Yansan into a sack and dragged it on the ground, and went straight to the entrance of the village.

Someone brought an iron hook used for slaughtering pigs, and hung Slant Eyes Three under the big locust tree. The six Chinese characters pulled the rope up, and then slowly rose, and I finally saw Slant Eyes Three clearly. In the whole picture, I immediately felt that my stomach was contracting violently as if due to a spasm.

I haven't seen him for a few days, and I can hardly recognize that the "monster" in front of me is the former squint-eyed three!The clothes on it were rotted into strips, and the whole person was skinny, and several inches of black hair grew on its black-blue face!It's like something sour and moldy, and you can smell the rancid smell from it from a long distance away.The most weird thing is that its eyes are like glass balls covered with plasma, glowing red in the dark, its teeth are sharp and sharp, with a little flesh and hair attached.Just like that, he was dropped on the tree, his mouth drooling, whining like a wild animal, trying to break the dozens of turns of the thick hemp rope tied around his body.

There was no point of support in the whole body, and it was impossible to break free. The scene suddenly turned cold, and everyone looked at Master Shuanzi in unison, as if waiting for him to make up his mind.

"Ahem!" He cleared his throat, and finally said, "The village has not been peaceful these days, and some people purposely make troubles, the old man came here today just to let you see what happens to people who don't feel comfortable! "

As soon as these words came out, I saw that several people present, including those led by Liu Maodi, lowered their heads. It seemed that Master Shuan wanted to let the villagers realize the reality, and that he was the hard-working master.

As for the placement of Slanting Eyes Three, Master Shuan also knew that there was no way to do this anyway, so he had better seek the opinions of the big guys.In the end, after much discussion and discussion, there was no result. Anyway, I couldn't run away, so I simply said to go back to sleep first, and then think of a solution after dawn.

At night in the twelfth lunar month, sweating and standing in the ice and snow would surely catch a cold. The villagers began to leave in twos and threes, yawning and rushing home.Scar looked at it for a while, and felt that there was nothing worth staying, so he signaled us to go back to the hotel.

I was about to turn around and leave, but my eyes refused to move away from Slanting Eyes San. Although he would die if he committed many injustices, it seemed that he hadn't done anything harmful.I even had the urge to go up and put him down, to ask him clearly, but I didn't do it, I knew that half of Slant Eyes San's body had already sunk into the coffin, no matter what you do, it won't help .

The last time I took a look, that is, when I was about to turn my head, the squint-eyed three who hung on the tree and calmed down, but his hands were slowly bent in front of his chest, as if he was trying hard to make a movement, looking very strenuous.But this slight change was clearly seen by me, and I am glad that I noticed it.

Its two hands that have festered so badly seem to be pulling something in its arms, gesticulating non-stop, as if comparing it to a boxy thing.I was puzzled, and when I looked at its head, I found that those pus-drenched eyes were staring at me, with an expression of regret.

I'm still confused, it seems to be in a hurry, and it keeps gesturing.I felt as if someone had hit me with a sap, and my head buzzed immediately, wondering if it was conscious?What message is this sending me?
Sudden!A thing suddenly came to my mind. In the middle of the night, it was this person who entrusted me with something. Isn't it just square?It was a pocket-sized "four and a half yuan", and I realized in an instant that it was referring to this, so I immediately looked at him and nodded slightly meaningfully, indicating that I received it.

At that time, there were still some people who hadn't dispersed. Although most people saw his move, it was regarded as his last dying struggle.At the same time I nodded to it, its whole body seemed to be sucked away, and the person suddenly became limp, with both hands hanging by the side of the body, and then there was no movement.

On the way back, I had mixed feelings and an extremely heavy heart.I still can't guess what's in the small coffin that Slanting Eye San entrusted to me.Suddenly, there is a vague premonition that what he entrusted to me is a mission, something that allows me to take over from him...

Scar woke me up early the next morning, saying that he had something to discuss in his room.

It was still early in the day, the window was still dimly lit, and the light inside the room was very dark. Scar did not turn on the light. There was a kerosene lamp on the table, and the wisps of smoke made people yawn.The monk rubbed his sleepy eyes and kept complaining, while Tian Rui sat beside him hugging his chest, stuffy, waiting for Scar to speak.

Dao Scar was sitting opposite me, flipping through the archaeological notebook left by his father, after a long time, he closed the notebook and looked around the three of us: "Today we have to go to a place, and we must be invisible. "

What he has done in the past few days seems to be a "leading figure", so I am not surprised by what he said, but just asked symbolically: "Where are you going?"

"People in the village today must be busy with the squinting three caught last night, and all their attention is focused on it." Scar lowered his voice: "There is a cat's ear hole on the cliff in the west of the village. what we were looking for."

Cat ear piercing is neither unfamiliar nor mysterious to some elderly people.In the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the People's Liberation Army once dug a large number of cat ear holes.It is actually one of the most common battlefield shelters. Usually, it is built on both sides of trenches or traffic trenches. The arched semi-circular gate is about one meter high, tens of centimeters wide, and the depth varies from small to small. It can only accommodate three or five people, and it can accommodate dozens of people. Its functions are mainly used for anti-gun, hiding, storage of ammunition, etc., to provide living space for soldiers who stick to their positions.The dark and damp inside the cave is even more difficult to describe. It is filthy, and you have to stay with poisonous insects, snakes and ants all day long. In short, it is not a good place to go.

The monk was the first to express his opinion, wondering: "The cat's ear hole is full of garbage dumps. What do you do in that hole? Is it to reminisce about the hard times of the war and learn to "fight in the field"?"

I couldn't help laughing when I heard this, the monk talked about some useless things, and when I was about to add a few words to run him down, Dao Scar explained: "My old man's notes have recorded such a thing. But he may be Afraid that the notes will fall into the hands of others, some things can be said to be very obscure when writing. For example, he only wrote about the process of something he experienced, but he only wrote about his feelings. The word is not mentioned, and it is secretive. The whole notebook, the things described, can be said to be disorganized, and it is estimated that only he can understand it, so I can only get a general idea. It is said in the notebook that he came to the corpse in [-]. When I was in the ghost village, I also heard the legend about the ancient tomb of the Jin Dynasty. After many investigations, I finally locked the cat's ear cave on the north cliff. , it has already been locked within the Greater Khingan Mountains, apparently he found some important clues in the cat's ear hole."

I nodded after hearing this, "The village is in a mess, and it is impossible to start an investigation. Since it is recorded in your father's notes, it may be a thread, as long as you find it in the cat's ear hole This thing, then all problems will be solved.”

Tian Rui snorted, a little contemptuous of my opinion, "It's not as simple as you think! Things in the village can't be explained clearly in a few words, and the relationship between people is very subtle. Have you noticed that? , Granny Xie of this inn, since we came to Corpse Ghost Village, we have never seen him show his face in the village."

(End of this chapter)