Is this the end of the water ghost story? No, there is something else waiting for us that our whole family could not have imagined.
On the way home, grandma complained that my dad and I were too reckless. My dad shouldn't have ignored her and put both bamboo poles in the water. I shouldn't have jumped into the water without her approval. Fortunately, I touched the water ghost first, and I pinched him and scared him away because I have strong yang energy. Otherwise, all three of us might have died in the water today. Grandma said, think before you do anything.
Hearing my grandma complain like this, I feel that she is getting old. The older people get, the more worries they seem to have.
After my grandmother had finished complaining and her anger had subsided, I asked her, "Grandma, after I pinched the water ghost in the water, the water ghost ran away, and I felt that I was suddenly washed by the water. When I came out of the water, I had already reached the other side. I don't think I swam that far. What do you think happened?"
At this time, my grandmother and I were walking in front, and my father and Wang Sihe were walking behind.
Grandma turned her head to look at the pit next to her and said, "It's because you scared him. You felt like you were splashed with water, but in fact he pushed you. You have a strong yang energy, and he doesn't want you to get close to him."
"Oh," I said, and then asked, "When I was swimming towards the shore, why did that dead kid grab my ankle? Did the water ghost return to his body and grab me?"
Grandma said, "After a person dies, the soul leaves the body. Since the body has reached its end, the soul cannot return even if it wants to. Even if it can attach itself to the body, it cannot make the arms and legs move again."
"Then why can he grab my ankle?"
Grandma shook her head gently and stopped talking. We continued to walk forward, and Grandma looked at her feet, looking thoughtful. She seemed to be confused about this point.
At this time, my dad said behind us: "It was a coincidence. The dead kid was standing in the mud with his hands covering his head. After I touched him, I couldn't pull him out by myself. Later, your uncle Sihe and I grabbed one of his wrists and pulled him up. His body was pulled out a lot, and his two arms were also pulled straight. At this time, your grandmother called us to the shore." My dad paused, and then said: "You happened to swim over his head, and his two hands happened to hang on your ankles. If you hadn't panicked, you could have dived into the water and pulled his hands away."
“So that’s how it is…” For the first time, I felt the lack of experience and knowledge. I always boasted about my courage, but in fact, I knew best how courageous I was.
As we were talking, we had walked more than half of the way. We were about to enter the village, so I asked grandma, "Grandma, what did the rat fairy tell you last night? How did it know where the dead child was?"
When I mentioned the Rat Fairy, my grandmother smiled. She said, "There is a temple of this Rat Fairy near the coal ash pit. When the child drowned, the Rat Fairy turned into a human to persuade him, but he didn't listen. The Rat Fairy also knew that this was his fate and could not persuade him. Later, he remembered the location where the body sank and hoped that one day he would meet someone who knew the matter and tell him about it. That's when he met me."
"Will the Rat Immortal just ignore it if he encounters a water ghost?" I asked again.
Grandma looked at me and asked, "Why should he care?"
I asked again: "If the Rat Fairy doesn't care, why should we?"
Grandma smiled and asked, "Why should we care?"
I scratched my head.
After a pause, grandma changed the subject and continued, "During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards destroyed the small temple where our family worshipped the Rat Fairy. The whole family had nowhere to go, so they all went into the mountains. Later, when the Cultural Revolution was over, many descendants of the White Bearded Rat Fairy came out of the mountains again."
"What about the White Bearded Rat Immortal?"
Grandma said: "She is still in the mountains. She is said to be practicing in the mountains with the red-dressed fairy who was with grandma in the past."
"The fairy in red?" I asked again, "Hasn't the fairy in red always been by your side?"
Grandma smiled faintly and said, "This is all about fate. When fate is over, she will no longer guard you. She has guarded me for fifty or sixty years, which is enough. By the way, I will talk to the rat fairy in the coal ash pit someday. You can worship him and ask him to guard you in the future."
"I worship him?" I hesitated. I was still young at that time and felt that it was quite troublesome to worship him.
At this time, my father said from behind: "Mom, our family should stop doing these messy things in the future, and let Huang He be a normal person."
Grandma looked back at my dad and said, "What is a normal person and what is an abnormal person? Zhenlong, this is fate. You can't be whatever you want to be."
I didn’t quite understand what grandma said at the time, but now I understand it more and more. Some people are destined from birth. For example, I…
When I got home, it was already past one in the morning. People in our line of work feel like tomb robbers, always hiding from the public.
After tossing and turning until midnight, on the ground and in the water, I started to complain that I was hungry. It seemed that I was not the only one hungry, my dad and Wang Sihe might also be a little hungry. My dad didn't ask Wang Sihe to go home. He fried a few eggs and a plate of beans in the earthen pot in the yard, and then went to the east room to get a bottle of wine. The two of us moved a small table, lit a candle, and drank in the yard.
While the pot was still hot, my grandma cooked some noodles for me and made a poached egg. After I finished eating the noodles and the poached egg, I went to sleep.
The next day, I woke up quite late. Before I opened my eyes, I heard someone yelling outside. When I listened carefully, it sounded like my dad was arguing with someone. I sat up from the bed, put on my clothes in a daze, and went outside to take a look.
My father, my mother, and my grandmother were standing at the door of our house. On the road outside our door, there were two women, and a few neighbors gathered around to watch the fun. My father was arguing fiercely with the two women.
I quickly walked to the door and took a look at the two women. They looked very unfamiliar, as if they were not from our village. However, I still remember their appearance vividly. I guess I will remember them for the rest of my life!
The two women were both under 40 years old. One of them was younger, probably in her early 30s. She had small single eyelids and looked very mean. The other was a little older, maybe about 35 or 36 years old. She had a black mole the size of a grain of rice on the left corner of her mouth, which made her look treacherous and vicious. They also had one thing in common: they all had thin lips, which were thinner than the lips of ordinary people. Women with thin lips like to argue with others. Especially women with thin lips with moles on the corners of their mouths, not only do they like to quarrel with others, but they are also very mean when they scold others.
At this time, the curses at our door were particularly harsh, calling my grandmother an old witch who brought disaster to people and saying that our whole family would never have a good life.
The other woman was also very vicious. She cursed my grandma, "Old thing, why don't you push your two grandsons into the water?"
I was completely confused by what he said. My dad was like a dynamite, full of anger, and he yelled at the two women to get out. I could see that if the two men had yelled at us in front of our house, my dad would have beaten them half to death. My mom also joined in, yelling at the two women.
My grandmother and Qiangshun's mother tried to stop my father and mother, but they were so angry that they couldn't stop them. Wang Sihe was probably so angry that he didn't see him on the mountain. Otherwise, he must have been as angry as my father at that time.
The two sides were in a stalemate for a while, and more and more people gathered to watch the fun. It was quite embarrassing. At this time, I basically understood what was going on.
God is my witness! Don't wrongly accuse people like this!
Who are these two women? Why are they blocking our door and cursing us so early in the morning?
Before, the two children who drowned in the pit to our west were their children. The two women were from West Village. After the children drowned, they pulled the children’s bodies back home crying.
We are not afraid of no good things happening, we are just afraid of no good people. They heard from somewhere that their two children were pushed into the water and drowned.
Who pushed the child? Someone said, it was my grandma!
It is said that on the first day the children drowned, my grandmother was always hanging around the pit, not allowing anyone to fish or swim in the pit, saying that there was a water ghost in the water. She could not produce any evidence, so she pushed the two children into the water so that she could tell people in the future that it was the water ghost that pulled the children into the water.
God can be my witness, is it possible to wrongly accuse someone like this? Is it possible to wrongly accuse someone like this?
Think about why we came all the way to the coal ash pit last night! My dad, Wang Sihe and I, the three of us, almost died in the coal ash pit. Why did we do that?
I want to cry but I have no tears, I want to shout but I have no voice!
The neighbors who were watching the fun nearby were just watching, no one said a word. Perhaps they also felt annoyed by grandma's advice not to go to the pit.
People, human hearts, are like this. As long as you appear to have affected their interests, you are unforgivable.
After my grandmother passed away, I didn't go to burn paper at any of the deserted graves where it was appropriate to do so. I even said, "Who cares? Whoever wants to burn paper can do so." I feel that this statement makes a lot of philosophical sense, although my grandmother would definitely not agree if she knew about this.
Finally, the two women really drove my dad crazy. He pointed at their noses and yelled hysterically, "Go find all your men. Your child is dead. I will make your whole family die here today!"
My dad's words seemed to scare the two women. They were stunned at the same time and couldn't say anything. They suddenly became quiet.
At this time, an old man's voice was heard, "What are you arguing about? My granddaughter and daughter-in-law, do you still have any shame? Do you know what this Liu family does? You can't wrongly accuse anyone else but theirs."
This sentence is quite clear and said at the right time, just when the two parties in a quarrel pause for a while.
Everyone present heard it clearly and looked in the direction where the sound came from. The sound actually came from behind the crowd.
The crowd of onlookers soon parted, and an old man wearing sunglasses came from behind the crowd. The old man was wearing a black Zhongshan suit and holding a bamboo pole wrapped with red cloth in his hand.
It was no one else. Many people present were familiar with him, Blind Chen from Xicun who did feng shui and fortune-telling…