Now, let me talk about my doubts. My name is Xu Yufeng. I am 37 years old. I used to be an engineer and now I am a screenwriter. There is a rule in my hometown that 36 is a very important node in life. After 36, life will become different. For example, many things cannot be said before 36, but they can be said after 36. Many things have to be held back before 36, but after 36, they can be held back without fear. The things I said above are all different from the scientific world view and the traditional historical view.
I never believed in ghosts and gods before. I received more than ten years of education from the state and was a staunch atheist and materialist. I studied science and engineering, majoring in chemical materials, and was a material control engineer in chemical construction. But my worldview began to be questioned in 2009. I was 32 years old that year, and I went to Pakistan to do a project with a chemical construction unit. I boarded the plane at Chengdu Shuangliu Airport. When I boarded the plane, I met a person who was a Taoist priest, or a female Taoist priest.
At that time, the Taoist priest was sitting in the waiting hall, setting up a stall and telling fortunes for a foreigner. I was also curious at the time, why didn't the airport staff care about the Taoist priest telling fortunes in the waiting hall. I was bored in the waiting hall, so I walked over slowly to watch the fun. As a result, when I walked up to the female Taoist priest, she sent the foreigner who was telling fortunes away, and then looked at me for a long time. It made me feel creepy.
What made me even more uneasy was that I seemed to be familiar with this Taoist priest, but when I recalled carefully, I had never dealt with a Taoist priest in my life.
The Taoist priest slowly put her hand on my forehead. Her cold fingers made me dodge reflexively. Then I saw tears in the Taoist priest's eyes. I was worried. How could I meet a Taoist priest who wanted to cry when he saw me? Why did I feel like I had seen this person before? Not only that, but I looked very familiar with him. This female Taoist priest looked a few years younger than me, but she had no memory of this Taoist priest.
I smiled and said to the Taoist priest, "I don't tell fortunes."
The Taoist smiled bitterly and asked me, "Are you interested in writing?"
I was stunned when I heard this. "How do you know this? Are you familiar with me?" At that time, I had already published some essays and prose on the Internet after work. I also wrote one or two novels, but they were just my own interests and feelings. They had a few thousand hits on Tianbian, but almost no one read them. People around me didn't know about my interest. With my writing level and the influence of my articles, it was impossible for me to have fans.
"If I had a story for you," the Taoist said, "would you be willing to write it?"
"How can I do that!" I laughed. This must be a netizen who had read my article and was deliberately trying to confuse me at the airport. "Who are you?"
The Taoist said, "Just write if you like."
"Are we familiar with each other?" I asked.
"I'm not familiar with her," the Taoist said, "I've never seen her before." Then she left. When she left, several people suddenly appeared behind her. They came from nowhere. From the way they walked, they seemed to be protecting her. I was shocked. A female Taoist priest actually had several bodyguards accompanying her. Those bodyguards stood straight. They should be warriors who had changed their jobs, or they were warriors. Damn, when did Taoist priests get such awesome treatment?
What the hell kind of person is this.
Until we boarded the plane, I was still amazed at the strange encounter with a female Taoist priest at the airport. Then we arrived in Karachi, rested in a Karachi hotel, and transferred to our construction site the next day. At night, my colleague next to me started complaining that his computer was stolen. It turned out that his computer bag was originally supposed to contain a computer, but now it was filled with two car magazines.
My colleague couldn't remember how he lost his computer because he never put his computer bag in a place where he couldn't see it. I was also panicked, afraid that the same thing would happen to me. So I immediately opened my computer bag and found that my computer was still there. I was relieved. This was my first laptop in my life. I thought I died early because I studied history . I spent two months' salary to buy it for my work in Pakistan.
I was working in Pakistan and was bored at night, so I wrote something and posted it online as usual, just like I did in China, as a bit of entertainment for myself, since there was nothing else to do at night anyway.
Until one day, when my roommate was playing mahjong and I was looking for the clothes I had brought with me, I suddenly found an oil paper bag in my suitcase. It was a very old-fashioned kind, the kind that I saw adults use when I was very young, tied with hemp rope. I racked my brains but couldn't remember when my family put such a thing in.
Could it be that my family was giving me a surprise? So I began to unpack the oil paper package. After unpacking it, I found three books inside. The top two books were very tattered, with yellowed and curled pages, and a musty smell.
I couldn't tell where these three books came from, so I could only take a look. The one on the top was very small, just a booklet, with a black cover and a title in large seal script. I spent a long time trying to figure out that it was "Qingming Zhi". I had never heard of this title, although I have read a lot of books. I opened it casually and found that it was in vertical traditional Chinese. Judging from the layout, it was very old. This kind of book must be out of print and worth collecting as a cultural relic. I didn't expect my luck to be so good and make a small fortune. But after I read one page of words, I was no longer happy.
"The soldiers led the soldiers to kill the Nanyin Fan Xiu Yanhuo and capture the Western Order to delay for three quarters and one minute, and return three times in the village."
There are no punctuation marks in the whole book, only pauses. I can understand this sentence. It is a kind of writing style in ancient times. In ancient times, every time a clerk went on an official business, he would record the content of his work, so as not to forget it when the official business became complicated. When the superior asked about it, there was evidence to check. But the content of this sentence is strange. It is clearly saying that a clerk is carrying out a very terrible task.
My interpretation word by word:
"Soldier" and "Ya" mean that he brought a few followers with him, or he called himself a soldier. There is also another interpretation, that is, a group of people who joined the army escorted a person, and he followed them.
"Ding killed Nanyin" is a good explanation. It means that he killed a person in Nanyin. Nanyin is not a place name, but a direction. Since ancient times, the north of the mountain and the south of the water are Yin, and the south of the mountain and the north of the water are Yang. For example, the Chinese place names Jinyang and Liaoyang, Dangyang, Mianyang, Hanyang, etc. in Hubei, mean that this place is on the south side of the mountain and the north side of the river. It is suitable for population to live and multiply, and the geographical location is good, that is, Feng Shui is good. However, there are very few place names with Yin in their names. I seem to have only heard of Tangyin, Yue Fei's hometown, and similar Jiangyin and Huaiyin. Especially in modern times, place names with Yin are even rarer. The Nanyin mentioned in this book means a river on the south side of a mountain. It is not good for living people to stay in such a place. It is best not to build a house there, and it is best not to go there to farm or plant crops. It is not a place for the human world.
This sentence means that a person was killed on the riverbank at the foot of the mountain. In ancient times, if the government killed someone, after a formal trial, they would approve the death row and wait for execution in autumn. However, there were exceptions, that is, the extremely evil fugitives or those who committed treason could be executed immediately without waiting until autumn. So when I saw the two words "Fanxiu", I knew that this person was executed in summer. Fanxiu in ancient times corresponds to summer, and fire in the five elements means the vigorous growth of all things, so summer is the most taboo time for killing people.
The first half of the sentence is not unusual, it is just a petty official saying that he participated in a murder mission on the river beach. But the second half of the sentence is unusual.
The three words "nai xi fang" (take the bodies of the executed to the west) mean to take the bodies of the executed to the west, but the west is a general direction, which is not correct. If it is a place name or a government office, it is also wrong. In ancient times, the government no longer cared about the execution of criminals, unlike today when an urn is given to the family members. In ancient times, the bodies of the criminals were thrown at the execution ground, waiting for the family members to pick them up. "nai xi fang" (take the bodies of the executed to the west) is very strange, and then there is the word "zhi", which is used exclusively for the emperor.
What kind of criminal would alarm the emperor to issue an order in person, or be executed on the riverbank. But the order meant that the time would be delayed by 3 quarters and 1 minute, which is equivalent to about one hour and 50 minutes today. But the person has already been killed, so what is the point of delaying?
The last sentence is the most puzzling, "三返 in the ruins", "墟" can be understood as ruins, but what ruins are there on the river beach? I thought about it and learned that "墟" had another meaning in ancient times, which is almost no longer used in modern times, and that is the underworld and hell.
When I thought of this, my back suddenly went numb, and then I thought of "三返". The word "三返" does not mean three times, but the custom in ancient Chinese, which means many times. "三返" means going back and forth many times.
I immediately understood the true meaning of this sentence. That is to say, the prisoner who was executed on the execution ground had come back and forth many times. The clerk who wrote the work record was not an ordinary clerk at all, but a ghost messenger. The emperor who issued the decree was not the emperor of the world at all, but the King of Hell. To take the west means to take the soul to the underworld.
Thinking about it this way, the whole meaning of this sentence is clear: this ghost messenger knew that a prisoner was executed on the riverbank, and his duty was to wait on the riverbank and pull the soul of the executed prisoner to the underworld. However, after the prisoner died, the King of Hell suddenly came to order, saying that the prisoner's life span had not yet ended and he had to live another hour and fifty minutes. So the ghost messenger released the soul, and the soul came back to life and pretended to be dead on the execution ground, causing chaos. The ghost messenger could not control himself and tried to pull someone else, but this person was a very powerful bandit. The ghost messenger was not strong enough and pulled the soul to the underworld. The soul resisted, and the two fought, going back and forth several times. Finally, the ghost messenger completed his mission and returned.
Damn it! Isn't this just a bad workbook?
I immediately looked at the records on the other pages, and they were all of this kind. It was all about this Yinchai describing the difficulties of his job and how he had arrested the wrong person. It was both laughable and terrifying.
I closed the book "Qingmingzhi" and wondered where this ghost book came from. I slowly recalled my recent experiences to see if there was anything new. After thinking about it, I realized that I met a strange female Taoist priest at Shuangliu Airport.
"If I gave you a story, would you be willing to write it?"
I suddenly remembered what the female Taoist priest said. Did she want me to write a story about a ghost messenger?