the last priest

Looking back at the copper coins in the bamboo flat, this is the real thing to do now.The twelve copper coins were laid out one by one, and the copper coin at twelve o'clock was stained with a drop of egg yolk. The position of the egg yolk was on the left side of the round hole, which also meant that it was not yet twelve o'clock.Cha Wenbin bent down to pick up the copper coin and went out to tell the people who had been waiting for a long time that Second Master Hai left yesterday. Today is the second day of the funeral, and the funeral will be held tomorrow.

Just such a slight deviation was a great help to Hai Erye's family, which was already very poor. One day's expenses were saved, and the funeral might be a little bit profitable.

Seeing grandma busy there, Zha Wenbin knew the difficulties of Second Master Hai's family.The dumb man insisted on keeping Cha Wenbin for a meal, and even gestured and dragged him to be extremely polite, but Cha Wenbin couldn't refuse, so he had no choice but to find a seat, which happened to be at the same table as me.

Hai Erye's family really doesn't have much family background, but the funeral banquet in the countryside is no worse than the wedding wine. The large plate of braised local pork, the authentic old hen stewed in clear soup, the braised duck, the braised crucian carp, and the fruits and vegetables are all homegrown. Classes are all natural green food.Of course, it is inevitable to eat old tofu for this white mourning. This is home-made soybeans that are ground with a stone mill to make soy milk and then hand-cooked. The taste is delicious.

Although weeping and crying inside, the food runners outside were sweating profusely with cigarettes in their trays, and the iron pans in the kitchen were crackling. Almost every family in a village sent representatives to eat in large pieces. Meat, gulp and drink.This is the uniqueness of rural funerals, that is, the so-called happy funerals. Although Hai Erye is not in his sixties, this will not affect the lively atmosphere in the slightest.

On this occasion, even a child like me would not care that there was a dead body parked inside, and the fear and fear would be replaced by the lively scene outside.Hai Erye's family is down and out, so naturally there won't be any distinguished guests on weekdays, and Cha Wenbin can already be regarded as a distinguished guest.Those who came to toast and greet, there are too many people in this area who have been helped by him. During this meal, Zha Wenbin didn't eat a few bites of food, and they were all busy greeting the enthusiastic villagers.

It was only during the meal that I realized that Second Master Hai was still in the same family as Zha Wenbin. His surname was also Zha, and his full name was Zha Minghai.In our generation, this surname was a very small surname, and the rural people were hospitable, and a few old people who were confused did the calculations, and Cha Wenbin became the distant cousin of Hai Erye.This is great, there is an extra "cousin" who passed away, this time, even if Cha Wenbin wanted to leave, he couldn't.So he decided to stay and help this "cousin" who appeared out of nowhere give him a ride, which was considered a family affair.

During the dinner, Cha Wenbin went to find his grandma, and told her to arrange for someone to deliver the Taishi chair to the warehouse in the village commune. The reason was that this thing was used by Hai Erye in front of him, and if someone else sat on it, he was afraid that something bad would happen. .He opened his mouth, how could grandma not believe it, and immediately asked a few young people to carry the thing away.

After going back and forth, Cha Wenbin became the person in charge of the funeral instead. He was busy sending funeral letters, writing elegiac couplets, and preparing materials needed for the dojo. A feeling of comfort: perhaps, this is what Taoist priests really want to do.

In the evening, he went to bathe and change clothes first, changed into a Taoist robe, and then set up an incense stand in front of Hai Erye's coffin, and walked the same way as in the past.Anyway, I just watched the excitement, chanting scriptures, burning paper, and superseding none of them. Hai Erye lived a worthless life, but died quite solemnly. When I heard that Cha Wenbin did it himself, the people in the surrounding villages Everyone rushed to watch the excitement, everyone knew that he was good, but it was getting harder and harder to get out of the mountain.

In this way, a funeral completely became the stage for Cha Wenbin to perform. After sending Master Hai to the cemetery for burial the next day, Cha Wenbin did not go home directly, but went to his grandmother's house to rest.

He and his grandmother's family are real old acquaintances. Since he was often away from home, Heizi has been returned to his little uncle. He doesn't know how arrogant he is on weekdays, but since Cha Wenbin came, that black dog has followed me docilely. Like a sheep, she kept sticking to him.

Naturally, Heizi couldn't forget the toad that Zha Wenbin was carrying. It was funny when the two met each other. You chased each other and made a fuss. At that time, the three-legged toad was obviously bigger than before. Much better, Cha Wenbin had to prepare another bag with it.

"Uncle Xu, let me ask you, is there a black coffin in the warehouse at the end of the village?"

Because my grandfather Xu Luban used to be a coffin maker, and the husband and wife were named after opening the coffin shop, so my grandfather really knew a little about this matter.

"There is such a thing. The style of the coffin is different from what I have ever seen. I have never seen a coffin with a small head and a big tail in my whole life. It is the opposite of the coffin we usually see. But the coffin The paint is so good, the previous generation moved it down from the mountain in Litou during the land reform, and it was said that there was a large house there, and the old people said that the emperor lived there before.”

When Zha Wenbin heard this, he laughed, and his grandfather hurriedly gestured and said, "Don't believe it, the foundation of that place is made of such big flax, and we all went there to pry marijuana at that time." The stones were brought down to make millstones. The millstones of every household in this village were taken from there. There were some old houses in the past, but they were all tall and important. Later, the old and broken houses were demolished during the Cultural Revolution, and the coffin was also made of stones. It was discovered in time."

Looking at it one by one, what the man in white said was true, and Cha Wenbin asked again: "When it was dug out, was there anything in the coffin?"

"No, it's empty. It's just a coffin. By the way, it seems that it hasn't been covered yet. At that time, it was filled with mud. Because I was in this industry, I was also regarded as an education for feudal superstition at that time. Object, later they asked me to clear the coffin, in fact, those Red Guards were just looking for treasures inside, and there was nothing in the coffin.”

Back then, because my grandfather had been running the coffin shop, he was listed as one of the enemies of the socialist proletarian revolution. He lived in a cowshed, swam across the street, and attended criticism meetings.It was because of the torture of those years that his right leg became so ill that he walked with a limp in his later years.

"Are the Red Guards still there?"

Speaking of this, the grandfather became angry and said: "Yes, why not, those bastards are still embarrassed to see me now."

After Zha Wenbin responded, he stopped talking. At night, he took Heizi and said that he was going out to do some errands, and then left.

where did he goNaturally, he didn't go home, but went to the warehouse of the village commune first.The person looking at the warehouse is also a five-guarantee household. The house at home has collapsed and there is no place to live, so the village arranges him to live here, and gives him some food money every month.

After carrying two bottles of wine and a bag of peanuts, the old man opened the warehouse door for Cha Wenbin. The piles inside were mainly agricultural machinery and equipment, seeds and fertilizers from the village, and some were collective grain and old things left over from the past. assets.As for the coffin, the old man who guarded the gate gave Cha Wenbin a kerosene lamp to point to and walked away. Obviously, he didn't want to get close to it.

The coffins were stacked in a small corner, covered with dust.Zha Wenbin wiped it with his hands, and the paint underneath was as bright as new.Now the coffin is filled with harvested grain, and the place where the dead should lie is replaced by sacks of rice and corn.

The coffin was very thick, and there was a muffled sound when it was knocked on. It was not at all obvious that this thing had been buried in the ground.As my grandfather said, the head of this coffin is very narrow, but the tail is very wide. This is the first time Cha Wenbin has seen such a design.It is said that after death, the coffin is made according to the structure of the body, with a wide and high head and a narrow and low tail, or a rectangle with the same width as the whole body. This kind of inverted trapezoid is indeed a bit weird.

When he came out, there was nothing on the grand teacher's chair, and Zha Wenbin stared at it for a long time but did not see the man in white appearing again.He patted Heizi on the head, but the dog just licked his palm, and didn't seem to notice any vision here. You must know that Heizi has opened his eyes. If the man in white was really there, he would definitely not invisible.

After leaving the warehouse, he looked up and saw that there was enough starlight at night, and he could vaguely see a shadow of about ten meters on the road outside, so he patted Heizi, and walked towards the mountain behind the village, one person and one dog.

No one can say how deep the mountain is, even the farmers here have never gone to the bottom to collect firewood or dig herbs.In short, this mountain seems to be one mountain after another, stretching for a long distance. No one has ever climbed over this mountain and can see people. My mother also went there to hunt pigweed and dig herbs when she was young. She often drove behind my grandmother's house. That mountain is one hundred thousand mountains, without end.

After passing the small reservoir back then, there is a trail left by logging inside, and there is no way to go further inside.Cha Wenbin walked up a small mountain stream, which is actually a small ditch, because since there were people on this mountain, water must be needed. It is the fastest and wisest choice to find the relics through the river. This is what Chaozi told his. . . . . .