"What is this?" I asked the young man who knew Chinese.
The guy told me that this is the powder of Kowloon vine, and the gray one is incense ash.
When I found out it was incense ash, I immediately frowned. Only in the old society would people think incense ash could disinfect! If this stuff didn't cause inflammation when sprinkled on a person's wound, that person would be lucky. It didn't have any effect on healing the wound at all.
As for the Nine Dragon Vine, I have never heard of it. It should be a kind of herb unique to the Miao people. But even if it has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects, its effect will probably be greatly reduced after being mixed with incense ash.
The young man obviously saw through my thoughts. He sighed, pointed at the man and said, "For thousands of years, villagers have used this medicine when they were injured. This medicine is useless. In fact, it just serves as a psychological comfort. The Miao people can recover only because they are strong and have strong recovery abilities. If the elderly and children can't make it and die, it is also God's will."
The young man also told me that he knew the medicine was useless, but the village was deep in the mountains and had no communication with people from the outside world. If the villagers had common sense, would they still go to the "female bodhisattva" in Xuanguan Town to treat infertility in women?
When the young man said this, my heart suddenly shuddered: Yes, how could he have forgotten the important matter!
"Where is the man with blood blisters last night? Is he still alive? Where are the others?" I asked hurriedly. The young man told me that the man with blood blisters constantly coming out of his body was the son of the village chief. He is still at home, and his parents are temporarily using leeches to help him absorb the blood in his body.
The few people who went to Xuanguan Town together yesterday also went crazy one after another last night and bit the women and children in their homes. They have been locked up in the lake at home and separated from normal people.
I nodded and quickly asked the young man to inform the Miao people that as long as they made some wounds on the people first, and then poured black dog blood on their wounds, and let the blood seep in, they would be cured. As for the strange disease of the village chief's son, I don't know how to treat it for the time being, so I can only go and see first.
When I arrived at the village chief's house, I smelled a sweet and fishy smell of blood before I even entered the door.
When I entered the room, I saw that the village chief's son was a skeleton. His face was ashen, his eyes were dark blue, and he was lying beside the bed with his eyes closed. There was also an old couple in the room, both wearing black clothes that looked like mourning clothes. The young man told me that they were the village chief and his wife, and they were going to stay here to take care of their son and see him off to the end.
I noticed that under the quilt, the village chief's son seemed to be wearing a bright red dress, which was embroidered with various flowers and lifelike butterfly patterns with gold thread, which looked very festive. He also wore a red headscarf on his head, and the tassels on the headscarf hung down and covered his pale face. Some people were dead while alive , which made his face look even more deadly.
It was obviously inappropriate for a terminally ill person to dress like this.
"Is the red thing he's wearing… a wedding dress?" I asked with a frown. He was about to die, so why was he dressed like this?
"Yes, that's what he meant. His wife is also wearing wedding clothes, inside the quilt. He wants to be a couple with his wife in the underworld." The young man said. I then realized that the quilt was bulging, and there was a bulge on the right side of the village chief's son, and a human figure could be vaguely seen.
At this moment, the man on the bed suddenly trembled, and then a trace of pain appeared on his expressionless face. A bulge in the quilt was visibly seen, as if something was pushing against the quilt and trying to get out.
The old couple in the corner of the room, who were holding back their tears, panicked. The old village chief quickly scooped something out of a bucket beside him, and then he lifted the quilt. As soon as the quilt was opened , some people were alive but he was already dead . I immediately smelled a foul odor, and at the same time I saw the bride covered in the quilt.
The woman was still in the same position she had been in when she died last night, with her legs spread wide and her hands clenched tightly. Her waist and abdomen were somewhat deformed, and the flesh torn apart by the ghost baby held up the wedding dress high. She died with her eyes open, her head turned to the side and just happened to be looking at me.
I saw that the woman's face was covered with purple spots, which looked very strange. Her eyes were still wide open, her eye sockets were stretched round, and her slightly bulging eyeballs seemed to be popping out of her eye sockets.
Although the woman had only been dead for a day, for some reason her flesh and blood had withered, causing her to be as thin as a skeleton, making the red wedding dress look particularly bulky. And because there were too many wounds and too much blood on her body, the woman's body exuded a foul odor that was very unpleasant.
The old couple didn't care about the fishy smell coming from their daughter-in-law. They went over and untied their son's wedding suit with trembling hands, and soon found a blood blister under his ribs.
The blood bubble was as big as a fist and was wriggling slightly as if it had life.
The old man put something in his hand on his son's body. After he moved his hand away, I saw that it was a leech. After the leech was placed on the man's skin, it began to suck the blood in his body, and soon the leech's belly became round and bulging.
The man on the bed stopped moving, and the pain on his face faded away. I noticed that the corners of his mouth seemed to be slightly upturned, revealing a strange smile.
After the leech had sucked enough blood and the blood bubble under the ribs subsided, the old couple picked the leech off. The leech left a fingernail-sized wound on the man's skin, and the skin was a little withered due to blood loss, showing a light purple-gray color.
Seeing this, I couldn't help but ask the young man next to me: "Are you using leeches to suck his blood? Just sucking blood won't work. He will die from excessive blood loss!"
"Well, what can we do?" The young man shook his head.
"Blood transfusion, go to the hospital!" I was so anxious. The young man looked at me and pointed at the village chief's house: "Look, this is the village chief's house. His family is considered to have the best living conditions in our village. Do you think that with such family conditions, they can go to the hospital? Besides, even if they can go, they won't go. The people in the village strictly abide by the 'rules' left by their ancestors and will not easily leave the mountains."
I followed the young man's finger and looked around the house. Sure enough, everything in the house was made of wood. Although the carvings on the wooden furniture were very delicate and looked antique and beautiful, the other side of the antique style also represented backwardness.
If you look closely, you will find that there is no electronic product in this family, not even a radio or a kettle. There is no chandelier in the room, no wonder the group of people gathered at the entrance of the village last night holding torches instead of flashlights.
This village seems to be even more backward than Fenren Xuanguan Town. At least most people in Xuanguan Town can speak Chinese, and the village has electricity, so every household has electric lights at night.
The backwardness of this village is beyond my imagination. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would hardly imagine that there is a village where people rely on incense ash to treat illnesses…
Just as I was thinking about this, the old couple suddenly said something to me, and the young man told me that they meant for me to leave and go save others.
I was a little confused. Shouldn't a normal person let me save their son? The young man nodded to the old couple and then took me out of the room. After we left, the young man told me that the village chief's son and daughter-in-law had never given birth. The son was very anxious, so he took his wife to Xuanguan Town to find the "female bodhisattva" in the hope of having a child.
But I didn't expect that the female Bodhisattva was actually a harmful person. She killed my wife and infected my son with a strange disease. In this case, even if my son could be saved by me, he would spend the rest of his life guarding his wife's grave in loneliness. Instead of suffering like that, it would be better for him to go to the underworld with his wife and be husband and wife.
I was a little stunned after hearing this, and it took me a long time to come back to my senses: "You mean, if someone in your village is widowed, they must be buried alive with their spouse or remain a widow for the rest of their lives?"
The young man shook his head after hearing what I said: "How can it be said to be a must? It still depends on their choice. Of course, some people don't want to. They will leave the village after three years of mourning and go to other places to marry or marry someone else. But when we Miao people get married, we marry the person we love the most. Once we get married, the two people are as close as one and will never be separated again. If the spouse dies, the living person will most likely not be tempted by others."
The young man said it with a serious face, he must not be lying to me. I was silent for a long time after listening to him, his words lingered in my mind for a long time, the figure of the woman who went to the sea of fire to save her husband last night also appeared in my mind again and again, that selfless attitude moved me deeply.
Just now I thought the Miao village was too backward and felt a little disgusted, but now I envy and respect every couple in this village.
Although other things are a bit backward, their loyalty to marriage and love and their worship of marriage are almost like worshipping a deity. In such a village, everyone marries for love and marries the person they love. Such a life can be considered very happy.
I was thinking about this blankly when the young man next to me suddenly touched my arm. I looked up and saw a few Miao people standing beside me. The young man told me that the method of using black dog blood really cured those people's madness. I nodded, and at this moment, a Miao child made an unexpected move.