Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 59: Spiritual Tablets of Past Masters

The stuffy main room was filled with the pungent smell of smoke.

There were clearly no incense or candles burning in this room, yet it was always hot and stuffy, as if there was an incense burner that was always burning in the room.

Ran Qing followed Aunt Liu's instructions and moved the paper people and paper horses into the main room, only to discover that there were two more coffins in the room.

Two black-painted coffins were each supported by a bench and suspended above the ground.

In the dim light, the two coffins were inexplicably creepy.

Ran Qing subconsciously stopped at the door and didn't dare to go in.

He smelled a faint strange odor in his nose.

This smell, a mixture of the fishy smell of earth and the stench of rotting corpses, wafted out from the two coffins.

Ran Qing's expression changed slightly.

On the day of Grandma's burial, at the last moment before the earth was filled, the elders of the village opened the coffin that had been lying there for three days and let Ran Qing take one last look at Grandma. Standing beside the coffin, Ran Qing was greeted by this scent.

The sinister figure of Sixth Aunt appeared from behind him.

"What? Do you smell something?"

Aunt Liu, with a tired face and bloodshot eyes, glanced at Ran Qing and said coldly, "You Ran family members are really sensitive to this smell..."

Ran Qing stared at the two coffins intently and said, "Sixth Aunt, these coffins..."

"Yes, that's right. We dug it out of the ground. Someone was buried there before," Aunt Liu nodded without hiding anything. "Let's move the things in first."

Aunt Six walked over to one of the coffins and placed the newly sewn black shroud on top of it: "This one is mine."

Aunt Liu pointed to the coffin covered with white shrouds next to it and said, "This one is yours."

Aunt Six coldly divided the coffins between the two and said, "We have to go downstairs together tonight. There's no one guarding up there, so we have to find a different way to get through the Ghost Gate."

"First, arrange the paper people and paper horses..."

Aunt Six coldly ordered Ran Qing to do things, and asked him to place paper people and paper horses around the coffin, and to place four colorful soul flags with many ribbons hanging down in the four corners of the room.

The rows of ingot candles are neatly arranged under the tablets of Heaven, Earth, Emperor, Parents and Teachers.

Then, Aunt Liu stood in front of the large jar with only half of the incense ash left and bowed to it respectfully.

Sixth Aunt, who always mocked everything, showed respect and piety for the first time.

Ran Qing was a little surprised. He didn't expect that Sixth Aunt also had things she respected.

After worshipping, Aunt Liu walked to the big vat and put her hand directly into the full vat of incense ash, as if she was digging something out of the thick incense ash.

After struggling for a long time, Aunt Liu finally stood up with her arms covered in incense ash, holding a wooden plaque that was also covered in incense ash in her hand.

This wooden plaque looked like the ancestral tablets seen on TV, but its style was much more rustic and simple. It was engraved with some strange lines that looked like words, but Ran Qing couldn't understand them.

Aunt Liu looked at the wooden sign in her hand with a complicated expression and stood there in a daze for a long time.

She seemed lost in some memories and contemplation, her expression somewhat nostalgic, melancholy, and sentimental...

After a while, Sixth Aunt smiled with a complicated expression and said, "In the blink of an eye, it's been almost twenty years."

"When I took over this shabby sign from that old woman, I laughed at her for being incompetent. I never thought that twenty years later, I'd be no better off than she was..."

Aunt Liu muttered to herself, lost in some melancholy reminiscence.

Ran Qing stood aside and did not disturb Aunt Liu.

But Sixth Aunt didn't linger in her memories for too long. She simply handed over the wooden tablet and said, "Here, this is the tablet of my group of ghost walkers."

"It's engraved with ghost writing. Although I can't understand it, my master said it's the [spiritual tablet of the ancestors]."

"Help me hold this spirit tablet for a while. It's our last life-saving talisman. My old master loved using it, and her lifespan was drained away before she was even forty." "I've never used it, but if your female classmate is so vicious that even I can't handle her, I'll ask all the masters of the past to come out and deal with her!"

When saying the last sentence, Aunt Liu's eyes were cold and she gritted her teeth.

A chilly feeling spread throughout the house.

Aunt Liu's shadow twisted and swayed in the dim light...

Ran Qing watched the scene silently, but did not react much.

He had long discovered that when Aunt Liu was emotionally excited or violent, the thing in her shadow would become restless.

As for the true nature of that shadow, Ran Qing, who had experienced the temptation of the Nuo opera mask last night, had a vague guess...

Ran Qing obediently hugged the gloomy wooden sign. The seemingly thin piece of wood was surprisingly heavy.

Ran Qing followed behind Aunt Liu and saw that Xiao Mianhua had already laid down between the two coffins, with her eyes closed and fallen asleep, looking peaceful.

Aunt Liu bent down and lit all three rows of ingot-shaped candles in front of the statues of Heaven, Earth, Emperor, Parents and Teachers, and then filled the large jar with lit incense sticks.

In the large vat filled with incense sticks, bright red flames flickered and thick smoke wafted out.

After finishing all this, Aunt Liu walked to her coffin and climbed in.

"Put on the shroud, drink the contents of the coffin, and then lie down," Aunt Liu put on the black shroud and instructed Ran Qing.

As she spoke, she raised a bowl of black, sticky liquid and drank it all in one gulp.

Ran Qing did not hesitate and climbed into the coffin as instructed by Sixth Aunt.

The coffin had a slight rotten smell and felt slightly damp to the touch. Inside the coffin was also a Xiaowan filled with black medicine.

Ran Qing carefully climbed into the coffin and drank the medicine in the bowl in one gulp, imitating Aunt Liu's example.

The taste is surprisingly not bad, but rather a little sweet and cool.

After drinking all the medicine, Ran Qing looked to the side and found that his Sixth Aunt was lying in the coffin, motionless.

In the main room with doors and windows closed, the burning incense and candles released even stronger heat.

The four soul flags stood quietly at the four corners of the room, and the colorful ribbons seemed to tremble slowly in the heat.

The bright colors of the paper people and paper horses placed around the coffin seemed to become vivid and dazzling.

Ran Qing was in a daze, not knowing when he found himself lying in the coffin. His eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling above his head.

The cold medicine flowed in his stomach, and he vaguely felt the cold air spreading from his stomach to his whole body.

Aunt Liu's cold voice floated from not far away, but it seemed as if it was separated by a layer of frosted glass.

That strange dreamlike feeling resurfaced.

"...Follow Little Cotton later, don't get lost."

After Aunt Liu finished speaking, a dull drum sound suddenly spread throughout the house.

The next second, Ran Qing's pupils suddenly constricted.

He was shocked to see that the paint on the ceiling was peeling off.

Strips and pieces of mottled, yellowed wall paint peeled off from the ceiling.

Next is the wall, the inner wall of the coffin in sight.

Strips of mottled, yellow flocs kept falling off in the field of vision.

This scene looks so familiar!

(End of this chapter)