1. Vampire Coffin
The story takes place in the 12th year of the Republic of China. Shiniu County is located on the bank of the Yellow River. The county magistrate is named Sun Yu. Sun Yu can be regarded as a good official in the officialdom of the Republic of China, which is full of corrupt officials.
On that day, in early spring in February, when the water level of the Yellow River was low, he led the people of the entire county to dredge the river channel.
Clearing the silt accumulated in the Yellow River can not only make the Yellow River water pass smoothly through Shiniu County during the flood season, but also serve as fertilizer for the people to grow crops. Sun Yu's command was effective, and the people were active in clearing the silt. Seeing that the silt clearing work was about to be completed, Sun Yu also showed a happy look on his face.
Sun Yu was very happy these days: his son Sun Shiyang had just returned from studying in the UK and opened a small hospital in Shiniu County, which was very popular for its treatment and rescue. Sun Yu was busy with the dredging of the Yellow River and had no time to visit the hospital. He saw that the dredging project was going well and was about to go back to the county town to see his son in the hospital when he saw Hou Ke, a clerk of the county government, running over breathlessly and saying in panic: "Coffin, transparent coffin. The people who dug out the transparent coffin, they, they are fighting!"
The mud at the bottom of the Yellow River is the thickest and most fertile, so a few brave farmers stood in the waist-deep muddy water at the bottom of the river and began to dig the mud. After a while of digging, there was a "click" sound, and the tip of a farmer's shovel broke off the Yellow River ghost coffin. The truth was so horrible that the tip of the shovel was actually a flat stone slab.
Could there be some treasure under the stone slab? The farmers digging the river mud immediately became excited, and everyone worked together with shovels. Half an hour later, a stone coffin weighing seven or eight hundred kilograms was dug out from the mud at the bottom of the river.
After cleaning the mud off the coffin wall, they found that the coffin wall was translucent and there must be something dark inside. The farmers thought that the material of the coffin was exquisite and there must be some treasure hidden inside. Before opening the coffin, the farmers had a dispute over the ownership of the coffin. In the end, they could not reach an agreement and ended up fighting.
After listening to Hou Ke's explanation, Sun Yu waved his hand and said, "Take me to see it!"
The sarcophagus had been carried to the bank of the Yellow River, and three to five hundred farmers who were clearing the silt had surrounded it like an iron barrel. A fierce fight was going on among the crowd, and the clanging sounds of shovels, shoulder poles and other objects colliding were endless.
Sun Yu heard the screams and hurriedly ordered Hou Ke to push through the crowd and squeeze in. Seven or eight farmers who participated in the fight were already injured, and the most frightening thing was that two of them were already dead in front of the coffin. Their heads were split open by iron shovels, and the bright red blood and gray brain matter had already splattered all over the surface of the stone coffin.
When Sun Yu saw that someone was killed, he hurriedly asked Hou Ke to find the chief of the police in the county to arrest the person. Soon, the villagers who participated in the fight were tied up with ropes by the police who rushed over. But when Sun Yu looked at the strange sarcophagus again, he couldn't help but exclaimed "Huh" and was stunned.
When Sun Yu just squeezed into the crowd, the surface of the sarcophagus was splattered with blood and brain matter. But looking at the surface of the sarcophagus now, not only is there no trace of blood and brain matter, the translucent coffin wall seems to be a lot brighter.
The Chinese nation is very particular about burial and Feng Shui, but after the death of the ancestors, no matter how the burial site is chosen, it is not reasonable to bury the coffin at the bottom of the Yellow River. Who is the owner of this coffin, and how did it appear at the bottom of the dark Yellow River? Sun Yu stretched out his finger with doubts and gently touched the wall of the stone coffin. He shivered with a chill as if he touched solid ice.
2. Plague God Boy
Sun Yu ordered people to carry the sarcophagus to the county government office and place it in the back room of the county government.
How to deal with this sarcophagus really troubled Sun Yu. While he was pacing in the study, thinking of an idea, Hou Ke walked into the study with a pot of tea in his hand.
Hou Ke recently got a pack of excellent Huangshan Yunwu, and today he invited County Magistrate Sun to taste tea. Sun Yu, who was trapped in the city, pulled Hou Ke to sit down, sighed and said: "Brother Hou, you are the wise man of our county government, how to deal with this sarcophagus, please help me come up with an idea!"
This sarcophagus has already caused a sensation in Shiniu County. If it is buried again at the bottom of the Yellow River, someone will inevitably dig it out again, triggering a bigger fight. If Sun Yu orders his men to open the sarcophagus now, regardless of whether they find treasures or not, people throughout the county will say that Sun Yu carried the sarcophagus into the county government office in order to embezzle the funerary objects in the sarcophagus.
Hou Ke helped Sun Yu analyze the dilemma he was facing, and then said, "Actually, this is also very easy to handle!" Hou Ke meant that Sun Yu should come forward and invite all the gentry in the county to the county government office, and then under everyone's supervision, open the sarcophagus together and register the contents of the sarcophagus to set the record straight. In this way, I believe there will be no more rumors that are unfavorable to Sun Yu.
Sun Yu clapped his hands excitedly and said, "Brother, your idea is brilliant. Please help me hire someone!"
Hou Ke led several followers who worked in the county government. More than two hours later, more than 20 gentry from the county came to the county government on horseback and in sedan chairs.
The news of the Yellow River sarcophagus had already been known to the entire county, and these gentry all wanted to know what was in the coffin.
When Sun Yu saw everyone was there, he led them to the back room. He pointed at the stone coffin in the middle of the room, turned around and said to Hou Ke, who was eager to try with tools in his hand: "Open the coffin!"
The sharp steel crowbar was inserted into the gap of the coffin lid. As the crowbar pressed down, the joint of the coffin lid made a strange "creaking, creaking" sound that made people's teeth ache. At this moment, there was a commotion in the backyard, and an urgent and hoarse voice came into the wing room: "County Magistrate Sun, the coffin cannot be opened. Once the coffin is opened, disaster will surely come!"
Sun Yu looked back and saw a middle-aged man in an old Taoist robe rushing into the house. Sun Yu knew this man, his name was Duan Potian, and he was the most skilled wizard in catching ghosts in the county.
Duan Potian broke into the county government office today just to remind Sun Yu not to move the sarcophagus rashly.
Sun Yu had also studied abroad, and he absolutely did not believe in Duan Potian's tricks of catching ghosts. When he saw Duan Potian trying to stop him from opening the coffin, he frowned and said, "Mr. Duan, do you have any reason for me not to open the coffin?"
Duan Potian reached into the sleeve of his old Taoist robe and pulled out a yellowed booklet. He spitted and turned the cover of the booklet, pointing to the record on the third page and saying, "Three hundred years ago during the Ming Dynasty, my great-great …
The ancestor of the Duan family also wrote a line of comments under this brief record: The stone coffin is dangerous and poisonous, no one should go near it! Remember, remember!
Sun Yu looked back at the eager eyes of more than 20 country gentlemen, and was very hesitant. If he really gave up opening the coffin just because of an old book brought by Duan Potian, if this matter were to spread, people would laugh at him for being timid!
When Duan Potian saw Sun Yu was hesitant, he bit his middle finger with a "click" and used the bloody finger as a brush to smear the top of the stone coffin. The blood soaked the wall of the stone coffin, and a child's face with a pointed mouth and shrunken cheeks appeared. The little boy stretched out his long tongue and licked all the blood on the coffin wall.
As the bloodstains on the coffin wall disappeared, the child's face also disappeared. But before he disappeared, he actually smiled sinisterly at Sun Yu. Sun Yu was so scared that he took two steps back. If he hadn't been helped up, he would have almost sat on the ground.
Sun Yu trembled and said, "No one is allowed to open the coffin!"
3. Continuous Death
The next morning, before Sun Yu got up, Hou Ke knocked on his bedroom door and shouted, "County Magistrate Sun, something bad has happened. Someone has died in the back room of the county government!"
The person who died in the back room of the county government was the night watchman, Old Liu. Last night, Sun Yu asked Old Liu to guard the stone coffin every step of the way, so how could he die so early in the morning?
When Sun Yu rushed to the back room and took a look, he was so shocked that he screamed "Ah". It turned out that the sarcophagus had been pried open! A thief must have visited the county government last night. The thief first tied up Old Liu with a rope, then pried open the sarcophagus and took out the things inside. The most terrifying thing was that Old Liu had turned into a corpse. His hands were tied with ropes, but his body had rotted and swollen into a big ball. From his mouth and nostrils, smelly black water kept flowing out!
Sun Yu has handled many murder cases. It would take at least five or six days for the corpse to decompose to this extent. Old Liu died yesterday evening. How could his body be in this state?
Hou Ke found two coroners, who pinched their noses and used towels to pad their hands before they put Old Liu's rotten and deformed body into a thin-skin coffin.
Sun Yu covered his nose and wanted to go over to see what was in the coffin, but was forcibly pulled away by Hou Ke. Old Liu may have died of plague. Sun Yu was the head of a county. If he was really infected and sick, it would be troublesome.
Sun Yu returned to the office and was about to issue a notice to crack down on coffin thieves when he saw the head of Nanhuangdi Village running into the county government in a sweat. He said in a horrified voice, "County Magistrate Sun, there was a plague in Er Tuzi's family in our village. All five of them died tragically in the yard. Each corpse was rotten and swollen, and black water was coming out of their mouths!"
Sun Yu knew Er Tuzi. His father was a thief, and this kid was even more evil. It was obvious that he must have pried open the sarcophagus.
Just as Sun Yu was about to order the coroner to collect the body, the phone on the table rang. The caller was Sun Yu's son, Sun Shiyang. Sun Shiyang's hospital had admitted several villagers suffering from the plague early in the morning. He had already known about the outbreak in Nanhuangdi Village. Sun Shiyang called Sun Yu to tell his father to pay attention to epidemic prevention. Sun Shiyang was now leading several doctors and nurses under his command, carrying disinfectants, to rush to the site of the outbreak in Nanhuangdi Village to eliminate the epidemic and disinfect it.
Just as Sun Yu was about to tell his son something, Sun Shiyang hung up the phone. Sun Yu hurriedly sent the county government's case handlers, along with the coroner and the local security guard, to Nanhuangdi Village to collect the body first. If the plague really infected Sun Shiyang, he would be without a son!
At noon, Sun Shiyang, wearing antibacterial clothing and a large mask on his face, returned with the county government's case handlers. Sun Shiyang told his father that although he had disinfected Er Tuzi's home with Western medicine, several villagers who had come to Er Tuzi's home to watch the fun had fallen ill, and the symptoms were still swelling all over the body and vomiting black water!
The investigators who went to Nanhuangdi Village also made some gains. They found a purple gold bell in Er Tuzi's house. It is very likely that this purple gold bell was stolen by Er Tuzi from the coffin. The investigators used a wide-mouthed glass bottle that once contained Western disinfectant to put the purple gold bell back.
Sun Shiyang briefly introduced the situation, then carried a medicine pot filled with disinfectant and went straight to the back room. If the sarcophagus was not disinfected, once the epidemic spread in the county government, Shiniu County would be in chaos.
Sun Shiyang carried a pot of potion on his back and sprayed it all into the back room. But when he sprayed it in front of the stone coffin, he was shocked and cried out "Ah". In the six-foot-long stone coffin, there lay a four-foot-tall dwarf skeleton. The most shocking thing was that on the top of the skeleton's head, there was a bone horn as long as a finger.
After Sun Yu heard Sun Shiyang's explanation, he wiped his sweat and said, "Although your father doesn't believe in ghosts and gods, this matter is too strange. Let's find Duan Potian to find out the situation!"
Although Sun Shiyang had seen records of horns growing on humans in Western medical books, this was the first time he had seen one in real life. He decided to go to Duan Potian's house in person to find out more about the situation.
The Duan family had only three thatched huts, and since there were not many evil spirits in Shinius County for him to expel, he lived a very difficult life.
After listening to Sun Shiyang's explanation, Duan Potian said helplessly, "I'd better use the ghost language technique to find out the source of this plague!"
IV. Eternal Burial of All Souls
To put it simply, the art of ghost language is ghost possession. Sun Shiyang, a Western doctor who received Western education, had only heard of ghost possession but had never seen it with his own eyes.
After Duan Potian burned incense and talismans, his body shook violently, and then he was possessed by the ghost that spread the plague. Sun Shiyang felt his scalp shudder as he listened to Duan Potian's shrill voice after he was possessed by the ghost!
Sun Shiyang listened to Duan Potian's shrill voice mumbling to himself, and finally understood what the Yellow River Ghost Coffin was all about.
It turned out that in the late Ming Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and a man who called himself the Emperor of Chaos rose up on the bank of the Yellow River. This Emperor of Chaos was Sun Hao.
At that time, Sun Hao had less than a thousand men. In order to carve out his own territory on the bank of the Yellow River, he spared no expense to invite a strange man named Jiao Tianshi who had horns on his head. When Jiao Tianshi attacked Shiniu County, he used magic to capture a plague boy in order to destroy the government troops.
The plague boy was naughty and unruly, and could not be controlled by Master Jiao Tianshi at all. Before the plague spread to the government troops guarding Shiniu County, the rebel army of Emperor Hunshi Sun Hao was the first to suffer.
Before being killed by the plague, Master Jiao Tianshi used up his last bit of strength to imprison the plague boy in his purple gold bell.
The ancestor of the Duan family used the Suoyin Stone to make a sarcophagus that could prevent the plague boy from escaping. Then he sealed Master Jiao and his purple gold bell in the sarcophagus and buried them at the bottom of the Yellow River.
The plague boy used Duan Potian's mouth to scream and scream, and finally said: "How dare you imprison me at the bottom of the Yellow River for three hundred years? I want revenge. I want to kill ten thousand lives in Shiniu County, otherwise I will never stop!"
After Duan Potian finished speaking, he foamed at the mouth and fell to the ground with a plop. After a long while, he finally came to his senses. After listening to Sun Shiyang's retelling of the ghost's words, he said, "The plague boy wants to kill 10,000 lives? Then there will be no living people in our Shiniu County!"
Sun Shiyang thought for a moment and said, "Since the stone coffin can restrict the activities of the plague boy, we can simply throw the purple gold bell that the plague boy lives in into the stone coffin, and then bury the stone coffin at the bottom of the Yellow River again!"
Duan Potian hurriedly shook his head. Now that the plague of the Plague Boy had been released, what was the point of imprisoning the Plague Boy? It would never stop until it killed 10,000 lives!
The two discussed for a long time, but Duan Potian didn't come up with a decent idea. Sun Shiyang sneered and said, "I studied Western medicine. I have disinfectants and sulfuric acid in my hospital. If all else fails, I will set a big fire and kill the plague boy in the purple gold bell."
Duan Potian was so shocked that he waved his hands and said, "The Plague Boy is a vicious god that spreads the plague. If the plague is not spread for a long time, the plague will come back to bite you. Since the plague has been spread by it, there is only one way, that is to obey it rather than disobey it, or let it kill 10,000 lives…"
Sun Shiyang was so angry that he cursed and said bullshit, then he threw his sleeves and left Duan's house.
In the early morning of the next day, Sun Shiyang brought disinfectant and sulfuric acid from the hospital, and then carried the coffin to the square of the county government. He had already laid a three-foot-thick layer of firewood under the coffin.
Sun Shiyang first poured disinfectant and sulfuric acid into the coffin. Then he threw the purple gold bell in the glass bottle into the solution in the coffin. As the plague boy's howl sounded in the sulfuric acid solution, Sun Shiyang immediately ordered people to light a fire on the firewood.
As the flames rose, a whirlwind was seen floating in the coffin. In the middle of the whirlwind was a stream of black stinking water like a black python. This stinking water rose higher and higher, extinguishing the flames on the firewood. Just as this stream of stinking water was about to be sprinkled on Sun Shiyang's head, a "crack" of a whip came from the side, and Duan Potian drove a carriage quickly over. The cattail bags on his cart were filled with small wild fish caught from the river. These lively little wild fish were thrown into the coffin one by one. Every time a cattail bag was thrown, the black water in the coffin became shorter.
There were definitely more than 10,000 small wild fish in the more than 20 cattail bags. After all the cattail bags were thrown away, the stinking water in the coffin disappeared. After the fresh small wild fish were thrown into the coffin, they immediately turned into rotten fish carcasses, and the stench could be smelled two miles away…
Duan Potian hurriedly called Sun Shiyang, who was stunned by the scene, and they worked together to close the heavy coffin lid. Afterwards, the strange stone coffin was transported to the bank of the Yellow River, and then buried deep in the original pit at the bottom of the river. Duan Potian personally picked up an axe and chisel and carved a total of 16 large characters on the coffin lid: "There is a plague child inside, spreading the disease, stay away from the strangers, and the words are engraved as a warning."
When the flood season arrived, the Yellow River filled up the riverbed. The Yellow River carp in other counties were inexhaustible, but in Shiniu County, there was not even a single Yellow River carp on the surface of the Yellow River, which was more than ten miles long. This situation lasted for three years before it slowly changed…