Paper Maker

Chapter 1 The Paper Maker

My name is Pan Shenbao. I am a poor child. I lost my father when I was three years old and my mother died when I was five. My grandfather raised me up.

Grandpa is a color maker. The so-called color maker, in layman's terms, is a paper maker.Paper binding, also known as pasting paper, paper binding, color paste, etc., combines paper cutting, painting, straw weaving, bamboo binding and paper pasting. It is a traditional Chinese folk art at a good level, and it is a craft of eating dead people at a bad level. people.Because the things that are tied are not artistic, they are boys and girls burned for the dead, paper houses, paper horses, and the like.

Because of this, my grandpa taught me to make paper, and I inherited his craft.

The craft of paper-making is an old industry in ancient times. "Variety" in ancient times refers to: golden chrysanthemum-a woman who sells tea; kapok-a doctor who treats people; Flowers in the soil—carrier; One door scarf—Fortune teller; Two door skins—herbal medicine seller; Three doors of color—jugglers; Four doors hanging—Jackers; Wumen Ping—Storytelling and Tantan Liumentuan - street singers; Qimendiao - people who set up tents and tie paper; Bamenchao - singers on the high stage.And among these various kinds, Qimendiao refers to paper-making people like us.

In our business, many people think that the paper figurines and horses are only sold to people who hold funerals.If you think so, then you are wrong, because during the day you are in the business of funerals and dead people, but at night, you are in the business of dead people.As the saying goes, make color craftsmen, make ghost paper, and make ghost paper to worship Yin and Yang.Just because the shop is full of paper figurines, paper horses, haunted houses and sedan chairs, it is common for lonely ghosts to enter the shop!
I still remember an incident when I was a child, when my grandfather was still around.One night I played with my friends from the neighboring village until very late, and I rushed to the store after dinner at his house.

I remember that it was already past ten o'clock in the evening, and the night was very dark that night, probably around the seventh and eighth day of the lunar new year, so there was only a round moon in the sky. Although it was not bright, I could still see the night road clearly. , so I didn't ask for a flashlight, so I rushed to the store in the dark.

It is four or five miles away from the neighboring village to the store. Because it is a rural area, it is full of mountain roads, and to go home, you have to pass through a mass grave.

By the way, this mass burial mound is very rumored in our villages. In the surrounding villages, all dead people, old or young, male or female, are all buried there, so what kind of will-o’-the-wisp, Screaming ghosts, ghosts hitting walls and the like happened quite often, and spread widely in the surrounding villages.

The mass graves occupy a large area, and there are protruding earth bumps everywhere. There are old low graves and new graves with wreaths that have just been erected. The mountain road back to the store passes through the mass graves. , if you walk normally, it will take nearly 10 minutes to pass, and if you run, it will take several minutes.

That night, when I passed this mass grave, suddenly there was a "dong dong dong" sound in front of me.As soon as I heard it, the sound in front of me turned out to be the sound of horseshoes. I was very curious at the time, why are there still people driving at night in the middle of the night?And also on horseback?
Speaking of which, I didn't have much doubts at the time, because in the countryside, there were still a few families who raised horses. Of course, they were mainly used to carry heavy objects.What just makes me curious is that in the rural areas at that time, unlike the current cities, the old rural areas were basically fine and rarely walked at night, because there were no entertainment activities, and there was no TV, so people usually had dinner and people went early. will go to bed.

Just like that, after a while, the sound of horseshoes got closer, and then I looked in front of the mass grave, and saw a man riding a white horse towards me through a low mound. Come……

Seeing the white horse running towards me, I hurried to the side of the road and wanted him to pass first.But the white horse stopped in front of me, and then the man on the horse asked me, are you the grandson of Old Man Pan in Yaoshan Village?
I saw that this person was not from our village. Although I didn't know which village this person was from, I saw that he knew my grandfather, so I nodded and said yes.

The man heard what I said, so he told me that the sedan chair he bought in my grandfather's shop not long ago was rotten, and he went to my grandfather and found that it was not in the shop, so he asked me to go to his house to repair it.

I saw that it was already so late, so I asked him if you could tell me the address, and I will ask my grandfather to come to repair it tomorrow.The other party disagreed, and said that he had to use a sedan chair tonight, had to hurry, and couldn't wait.

It looked very irritable like that, not like lying.

I didn't have too many doubts at the time, I just thought that his family would use it tonight for the funeral.So I couldn't wait to see him, so I nodded and agreed to him, and asked him how far it was and which village he was from?

The other party said, not far, just ahead.So I didn't even think about it, let him lead the way, and I followed behind to his house...

The other party really didn't lie to me, his house was really not far ahead, but this house made me frown, because his house was so low, as short as a small dirt bag.What makes me feel even more strange is that I live in the village all year round, why do I never know that there are still people living here?Because I always thought that there was no human habitation in the place of mass graves.

When we got there, the other party invited me into the house. The house was quite simple, and there was a sedan chair in the middle of the living room. It was colorful, just like the paper sedan chair made in my shop.

Why do you say that, because the sedan chair in front of you is a real sedan chair, not a paper sedan chair at all.

I asked the other party, what about your sedan chair, take it out and let me repair it.As a result, the other party pointed to the real sedan chair in front of him and said, this is it, please help me fix it quickly, I will have to carry my wife out later.

I was dumbfounded at the time, thinking that I had heard it wrong, but after I confirmed again and again that this was indeed the sedan chair I bought in my shop, I finally started to get scared, knowing that I must have run into a ghost.

I didn't dare to ask more questions at that time, seeing that only one of the lifting bars of the sedan chair in front of me was broken, so I hurriedly asked the other party to find a piece of bamboo, made a new lifting bar and installed it on it.

I'm going to leave after I've done all this, but the other party said that he would give me some money for hard work, how dare I ask for his money, no matter how much money I have to pay for hard work, it might be some ghost coins.But no matter how many excuses I made, the other party would not let me go if he refused to accept it, so I had no choice but to put on a bitter face, accept the money he gave, and then leave his house, and then let my legs go home run……

When I ran back to the shop, my grandfather was sitting in the shop, and when he saw me coming back, he asked me what was going on in such a panic.So I told my grandfather what happened on the road, and then my grandfather looked me up and down and told me that I had encountered a ghost.

And when I took out the money the other party gave me from my pocket, I found that all the money had really turned into ghost coins, which made me shudder severely.

That night, I had a high fever, and my grandfather drew a talisman for me to drink, and I lay on the bed for two days before I got better.

Of course, grandpa's craft is not easy. He used to be a Mr. Yin and Yang, but he changed his profession during the wave of breaking the four olds and opened a paper making shop.

According to grandpa, paper-making is a job of eating dead people, and dealing with ghosts every day, how can you not know something about yin and yang.You must know that everything in the world is made of yin and yang. Humans are yang, ghosts are yin, convex is yang, concave is yin, the sun is yang, and the moon is yin. As the saying goes, yang turns around from the left, and yin from the right. Knowing the principle of yin and yang, why worry about the earth not meeting each other.

Grandpa can not only recognize yin and yang, judge good and bad, but also avoid disasters and save lives. It can be said that he has great skills.It's a pity that when my grandfather passed away, I didn't learn his ability to recognize yin and yang. The main reason is that I didn't want to learn it. After all, for a young man like me, I don't really want to make a living by it. .It's just that good luck tricked people, and then I followed the old path of grandpa. Of course, this is a story.

However, then again, they all said that they would not do anything wrong and would not be afraid of ghosts calling at the door in the middle of the night, but because of this paper shop, it was common for ghosts to call at the door in the middle of the night.Or the souls of dying people come to choose coffins and choose horses, or lonely ghosts come to make trouble, in short, in the middle of the night, the people who come to the store are definitely not strangers...

(End of this chapter)