Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 193: Legend of the Ghost Market
There was a strange atmosphere in the cement courtyard.

The tall and thin Long Zongshu was confused and had a simple mind. But after scratching his head, he could tell that the atmosphere was not right.

Mo Li and Ran Qing looked at each other, and they vaguely guessed that Ran Jianfei wanted to alert the snake and lure it out of its hole.

But this old guy is so confident?
To startle the snake and lure it out of its hole requires sufficient skills.

If you don't have enough ability and lure out a giant python, you're courting death.

Ran Qing was not quite sure about Ran Jianfei's abilities, but he couldn't even beat Li Hongye, and was obviously much weaker than Sixth Aunt.

In addition, he had just been discharged from the hospital, and his leg fracture might not have fully healed.

Being so high-profile at a time like this... where does the confidence come from?

Mo Li hesitated and asked, "Well...why don't we call Uncle Ran and ask him if he needs help?"

Ran Qing shook his head: "That's unnecessary. If a shameless person like him needed help, he would have called me a long time ago."

He still owes the other person a favor.

Although whether or not to repay this favor depends on Ran Qing's conscience, he can also learn to cheat.

But Ran Jianfei didn't even bother asking Ran Qing, which at least showed that this guy was very confident.

No one else came to look for him, but Ran Qing took the initiative to call him... Isn't this asking for trouble?
Ran Qing could guess with his knees how the other party would ridicule him after he offered his face to them.

"He does his thing, and I do mine," Ran Qing said coldly, "That guy has been around for decades, and it's not my turn to worry about him."

"Let's get ready and go to Longchang the day after tomorrow."

The Longchang Ghost Market is what Ran Qing needs to worry about right now.

This time, he specially asked Lao Yangpi to make a few paper figures in straw raincoats.

Paper figures can easily attract evil spirits and ghosts. Sometimes, carrying paper figures with you when traveling may backfire and bring you trouble.

That’s why Ran Qing didn’t bring the paper man with him last time when he went to Huaga Tiankeng. At that time, he didn’t know how terrifying Huaga Tiankeng was and wanted to go in quietly.

But he didn't expect to be surrounded by witches as soon as he entered.

If he had known that there were evil spirits everywhere in there and that he would be targeted if he went in, he should have brought a few paper figures to follow him from the beginning.

The Longchang Ghost Market that we visited this time not only appeared in Aunt Liu's booklet, but even Old Sheepskin knew the legend.

Legend has it that strange and evil things often appear in the market of Longchang Township.

Someone once saw a mandrill with long hair and a strange face covered in bloody human skin going to the market, mingling with the crowd to buy pig cakes, and even drinking with drunkards at the market. As a result, he got drunk and his ugly face under the human skin was exposed, scaring away a lot of people.

There is also a legend that Longchang Town is a place where yin and yang meet and where there are special feng shui and ghosts.

Every Friday, living people come here to have a market during the day, and evil spirits come here to have a market at night.

At night, the entire Longchang Street becomes eerie, and people living on the street often hear strange noises coming from outside after midnight.

Sometimes someone would even knock on the door in the middle of the night, or shout at people inside to go out for a drink.

Once you hear a knock on the door and open it, or hear someone shouting outside and go out to play, that person will never appear again.

It is said that some people heard the sound of ancient opera singing coming from the streets at night.

The entire Longchang Town is extremely strange and dangerous.

There is even a legend that the townspeople are half human and half evil spirits. The evil spirits have long been living in the town disguised as living people, but ordinary people cannot detect them.

Ran Qing frowned when he heard the strange legends told by Old Sheepskin.

However, the further back in time, the less information Aunt Liu gave in her booklet.

Aunt Six wrote very little about Longchang Town. The strangeness of Longchang Town can only be explored by Ran Qing and his friends on their own.

In this way, the three of them rested at home for two days until they gathered again on the morning of the tenth day of the seventh lunar month.

Then the two motorcycles drove out of Yuezhao City towards the rising sun and headed towards Longchang Town.

But this time, in addition to Little Cotton, there were also four paper figures on the motorcycle.

Three thin paper figures were tied together and placed on the back seat of Long Zongshu's motorcycle, and one was also tied on Ran Qing's back.

Riding on a motorcycle and carrying paper figures, they drove through the mountains for more than two hours and arrived at the Beipan River again.

But this time it is upstream of Huaga, much closer to the urban area.

The river in this section is more turbulent and the mountains are more dangerous.

Longchang Town is located on the other side of the Beipan River. Climb up a tall and majestic mountain, and the streets of Longchang Township are on the top of the mountain.

This is a place where traffic converges and transportation must pass through, and the entire Longchang Town is quite lively.

When Ran Qing and his friends arrived at the end of the town on their motorcycles, the loess road ahead was full of people.

Small stalls are lined up on both sides of the bumpy loess road.

The two rows of stalls are like two long parallel snakes, extending all the way to the other end of Longchang Street.

There are stalls selling clothes, rice oil, cornmeal, seasonal fruits, and many stalls selling jelly, pig cakes, and fried potatoes.

The whole market was crowded with people, and the front was full of people.

The bustling and crowded crowd almost filled the entire Longchang Street.

Mo Li's eyes widened in amazement, and he said, "How spectacular... There's nothing like this in other provinces."

Ran Qing was curious: "Isn't there a rush outside?"

Ran Qing thought it was natural for towns and villages to hold markets once a week, and he thought it was the same everywhere in the country.

But Mo Li shook his head and said, "I haven't found it in many places I've been to... By the way, this place is called Longchang, does it have any special meaning?"

Mo Li looked at Ran Qing and Long Zongshu curiously and asked, "There are many towns in Zangke named after animals like Monkey Farm, Cat Farm, and Cow Farm... I can understand the origins of those monkey farms and cat farms. Perhaps they were once raised there, so they named them after animals."

"But this place is called Longchang... It can't be a place to raise dragons, right?" Mo Li was very curious.

Ran Qing also shook his head: "I don't know about this either..."

Since he was a child, he only heard adults talk about going to the market. The village where he lived as a child usually went to Yangmei, Guobuga, or the cattle farm.

I also heard that there is Shunchang Longchang across the river, but it is too far away and I have never been there.

Mo Li was a little disappointed, but the tall and thin Long Zongshu started to explain.

"People in the past didn't follow the Gregorian calendar, and there was no such thing as days of the week or days of the week."

"At that time, people calculated the days according to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches system, which uses the Heavenly Stems (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui) and the Earthly Branches (Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai)."

Long Zongshu explained, "The market days vary from place to place, but the market day of a town is fixed according to the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches."

"The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches are linked to the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, so for convenience, we use the corresponding zodiac animals."

"For example, in some places, the market is held on the day of the Tiger, and this place is called the Cat Market."

Long Zongshu said, "The place we are here at used to be a market held on the day of the dragon, so it was called the Dragon Market."

Long Zongshu performed as steadily and knowledgeably as always, telling the two about local customs and common sense.

(End of this chapter)