Countless strange-shaped dark clouds moved slowly in the sky, the moon appeared and disappeared, and the sky and the earth were bright and dark; the breeze blew, the corn leaves rustled, and the dewdrops fell on the face, cool and smooth; lively crickets chirped around.
I secretly glanced at my silent phone. It was already past midnight. This meant that we had been waiting for more than four hours, but the legendary ghost had not appeared yet. I was getting impatient and lowered my voice. He said, "Director Li, this ghost won't appear tonight. Why don't you go home and have a couple of drinks?"
Director Li is my classmate from the same village. He was concentrating on looking at a cemetery on the other side of the dirt road through the gaps in the corn stalks. He lowered his voice and said firmly, "It must have appeared. Today is the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. It's Ghost Festival here, and every household visits the graves. There are so many delicious offerings, how can the ghosts not come out to enjoy them?"
Just as the director finished speaking, a woman's cough suddenly came from the cemetery opposite. I was so frightened that my whole body trembled and my scalp went numb. My left hand involuntarily grabbed his arm, and my right hand clenched a half-person-high stick. The director pushed my hand away angrily and said, "You are such a coward even though you are the village chief? Don't beat me to death later. I still need to interrogate you."
There were two more hoarse coughs, and we became alert. Behind the cemetery were sections of ancient city walls with a radius of five miles. These walls were said to be thousands of years old and were about twenty meters thick. They were covered with all kinds of thorns. When I was young, Director Li, Li Xiaoying and I often climbed up to play. All the tombs in our Chengnan Village are located at the foot of the city wall. Among them is a stone land temple. When was the small temple built? Even the oldest elders in the village didn't know about it. Except for festivals or when someone has just died, this place is rarely visited. In addition, a female ghost has appeared frequently in the past three years, making it even less visited. Ghosts have also done good deeds to save people. On a dark summer night, a beautiful girl from the village was kidnapped by several hooligans when she was off work at night and taken to a cemetery where they planned to rape her. The girl screamed loudly and was about to be raped when suddenly A female ghost with a green face and fangs jumped out of the grave, and the hooligans were so scared that they ran away in a panic.
"Old classmate, do you believe that there are really ghosts in the world?" the director leaned over and asked in my ear.
"You, you, look, if that's not a ghost, then what is it?" I, the newly appointed village chief, stammered in fear.
Director Li looked in the direction of my finger and saw a tall, thin black figure jumping out from behind the land temple. She first stopped to see if there was anyone around, then jumped towards She moved forward. In front of a large grave, she stopped and bent over to pick something up, then sat down and coughed a few times. She began to eat, and the sound was like she was chewing an apple.
I asked if they had brought a gun. The director said, yes. I said, aim at her legs and shoot her twice first, then we can go up. The director said, if we catch her alive, we have to record her confession. Then I I first knocked her unconscious with a stick, but the director said that was absolutely not possible. I asked anxiously, what should I do? The director said confidently, "I will catch the ghost as quickly as possible, and you will light the lighter as quickly as possible." , light up the ghost's face, obey the order, go!"
In a flash, the director crossed the dirt road from the cornfield and ran towards the ghost girl. The ghost girl was about to stand up and run away, but the director swept her down with a kick. I pressed the ghost's waist with my knees and cuffed his hands. I was not bad either, I quickly pressed the ghost's neck with a stick, causing the ghost to cough and gasp.
The moon shone through the gaps in the dark clouds, illuminating the ghost's figure. The ghost was tall and thin, with tattered clothes, and her white hair was disheveled all over the ground. She struggled with all her strength, but to no avail.
"Tell us quickly, who is playing tricks here and disturbing social order?" the director shouted harshly.
I kicked the ghost hard and cursed him viciously: "Are you a human or a ghost? Tell me your name!"
The female ghost had no other choice but to cry . Her painful and hoarse voice echoed in the cemetery, making people feel both terrified and pitiful. We pulled her up, lifted her long white hair, and lit a lighter to illuminate her. Pale face. We were all stunned at the same time and cried out at the same time. The female ghost standing in front of us turned out to be my childhood playmate, my best classmate from elementary school to high school, the beautiful and kind Li Xiaoying!
"Xiaoying, how could it be you? Haven't you been dead for three years?" the director asked in surprise.
I was stunned for a long time before I came to my senses. I couldn't help but ask in surprise: "Li Xiaoying, you are really not a ghost, you are really not dead, how did you survive?"
"Brother Li, Brother Wang, I am really Li Xiaoying. I am not a ghost. I am still alive." Li Xiaoying cried excitedly and she collapsed on the ground.
We sat beside her lovingly and began to listen to her extraordinary life experience.
Six years ago, Li Xiaoying worked as a secretary in the county government. She was talented, beautiful and kind, and won the favor and pursuit of many men. Among them, there were several powerful people who coveted her and harassed her in every possible way. However, Li Xiaoying did not respond to all the pursuits and She ignored all the harassment and just wanted to work hard and live a stable and decent life. But things didn't go as planned. One day, several powerful people and a group of wealthy people held a banquet and asked her to accompany them for drinking. Poetry and dancing to liven up the atmosphere. If she refused, she would have her salary deducted for half a year; if she showed up, she would receive a 5,000 yuan on-site reward. Her mother, who depended on her for everything, was in hospital for treatment. She needed money so much, but she would be a sheep if she went there. Into the tiger's mouth.
When the wine was half drunk, the dignitaries showed their ugly side and made Xiaoying, who couldn't drink at all, drunk. When she woke up, she found six naked men lying on a super large bed. She knew she was gang-raped. In the days that followed, she began to appeal to the authorities, but to no avail. People followed her wherever she went, and she was eventually taken back by the county police. In two years, she failed to bring a lawsuit against anyone, but she became notorious, with insults and contemptuous looks everywhere. Her spirit was on the verge of collapse, and she decided to punish the hooligans herself, so she went to see them with a kitchen knife. She just chopped, but she didn't hurt anyone. Later, she was identified as a mental patient and sent back to Chengnan Village. Because she often waved the kitchen knife around, everyone in the village was afraid of her, so the higher authorities decided to keep her in custody.
There was a dry well behind Chengnan Village that had been abandoned many years ago and became the best place to imprison her. To be on the safe side, the police station asked the best blacksmith in the village to make a pair of high-quality shackles to lock her feet. The dry well was more than ten meters deep. To be on the safe side, a large millstone weighing two hundred kilograms was placed on the wellhead. A bowl-sized grinding hole, so that her only relative, her long-ill mother, could send her some food. She had been suffering from the misery of living in a well since autumn, and her mother dragged her sick body to send her some food. When her mother couldn't come to her for meals, she would ask kind people to do it for her. She looked at the bowl-sized piece of sky and listened to her mother's heart-wrenching cry. Her consciousness gradually became clear and she knew she was not crazy.
When she heard the continuous sound of firecrackers from the local area, she knew it was the New Year; but her mother never came again, and she waited and waited with an empty stomach. Finally one day, a few kind elders in the village came to tell her that her mother She died on New Year's Eve, and everyone pooled money to cremate and bury her behind the land temple at the foot of the city wall. In the days that followed, kind-hearted people in the village would send her food every now and then.
When the rumble of thunder sounded, she knew that summer was coming; she could hear the sound of heavy rain falling on the ground; the rain flowed through the cracks of the millstone, getting heavier and heavier, and submerged her legs. She thought that today was the day she was going to see her mother, so she put her hands together and prayed loudly to the thunder: God, please let me become a ghost, let my ghost punish the evil people and help the good people!
The thunder disappeared, the rain stopped, and a ray of sunlight shone down obliquely. She suddenly found that the muddy water below her was swirling and slowly descending, and finally formed a stream and flowed away from a small round hole in the wall of the well. She bent down to look at the small hole, and then used her skinny fingers to dig. To her surprise, the hole became bigger and bigger, and she could bend down to go in. It was pitch black inside, and she couldn't see anything. Her eyes were filled with anxiety. Her feet were locked, so she could only crawl forward. She didn't know where the strength came from, nor how long she had been crawling, when suddenly she saw a ray of strong sunlight shining in, and a hint of fresh air penetrated into her lungs. Her eyes adjusted to the stimulation of the light, and she quickly crawled towards the small hole. Without much effort, she dug a hole as big as a human head. Ah! She never thought that she would be able to see the outside world in this life. But her reason told her that she couldn't appear in the world openly, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous. After thinking it over, she decided not to be a human in the daytime but a ghost in the dark. In this way, she waited patiently until late at night when everyone was asleep and then sneaked out. She was immediately stunned by what she saw.
The moon was hanging in the west, and the sky and earth were as bright as day. The ancient city wall stood majestically, and the brook not far away was gurgling and shimmering. The sound of summer frogs could be heard from the cornfield on the other side of the dirt road. She was surprised to find that The cave entrance that led her back to the human world was at the foot of the city wall. Ten steps away from the cave entrance was the land temple, and between the cave entrance and the land temple was an earthen grave without a tombstone. She suddenly felt a pang of heartache and knelt down on her knees involuntarily. , the long-lost tears welled up: Mom, your unfilial daughter is here to see you!
Before we knew it, the dark clouds had dissipated, the full moon was setting in the west, and everything was clearly visible; Xiaoying's hair was shining, and her eyes were full of tears; the three of us childhood friends were speechless for a while. After a long silence, I said "What a pity! During the years when you had the accident, I was working in the real estate business in the south, and Brother Li was serving in the armed police force. We had no idea that you had suffered such a great hardship. Later, I heard from the villagers that after several heavy rains that summer, Guan Your dry well collapsed, and the 200-pound millstone fell into it. We called out to you for a long time but there was no response. We were sure you were already dead, so we asked the police station and told them to treat this well as her home. Brother Li and I only found out about your situation during the Spring Festival last year, Xiaoying, now everything is fine. Brother Li is the newly transferred police station chief, and I am the newly appointed village chief. . "
Director Li looked solemn. He slowly took out the key to unlock Xiaoying's handcuffs and said compassionately, "Xiaoying, stop being a ghost and come home with us."
"Brother Li, Brother Wang, I'd better be a ghost. I'm afraid I can't be a human being. I'm scared." Xiaoying said, shrinking back.
"Xiaoying, you don't have to be afraid of anything now. You must believe in the laws of the country." Director Li said solemnly, but Xiaoying still shook her head helplessly.
I sincerely advised her, "Xiaoying, at least you should believe in me and your brother Li. Since it is God's will that we meet in this way and in this place, it is fate. Let us be like when we were little, come, brother. I'll carry you home." I said, bending down.
Xiaoying hesitated for a while and finally leaned over and lay on my back.
(over)