Editor's note: This is a very good reasoning novel, step by step towards the truth, with bold assumptions, meticulous and meticulous thinking and verification. The second aunt who was frightened to death by ghosts, the second uncle who looks for ghosts in graveyards every night, the unusual Xie Gui, "I" who was a criminal policeman, and the three skulls on the skeleton tree, all intertwined in a complicated and confusing way. situation. Fortune-telling, faith in fortune, even killing for money. A sense of fate can always easily get lost. There are not too many dialogues between good and evil, and there is no joy of making great achievements and meritorious deeds. There is only heaviness, and thinking about fate and death. Appreciate, hope more people share!
1
After returning to the village for a half-month vacation, I will report to the Criminal Police Team of the County Public Security Bureau, that is to say, I have finally become a formal criminal policeman.
When I was eight years old, my mother told my fortune. The blind fortune teller said that my life is precious, and that in the future I will "step on farting bugs and hold a box cannon in my hand". You don’t understand, right? Our place is too biased and the language is rustic. We still call motorcycles farts and pistols box guns.
The blind man's words convinced the whole village, because the blind man not only counted for me, but also counted for my second aunt.
The fate of the second aunt was expressed by a blind man in a doggerel: the mother's family was carrying rice, and it turned into bran halfway, and a strong wind blew by, and the basket was empty.
The second aunt's family is rich and she spends a lot of time accompanying her, but the second uncle is an alcoholic, so he drank all the money he had. This calculation is tantamount to revealing all the facts of the second uncle drinking and prodigal, and it is so vivid that everyone feels amazing. Except for the second aunt who is sighing and crying because of her own life, many people are eager to try and want to calculate their own fate. .
This calculation made the eight-year-old me straighten up in the village, which means that I should not be underestimated in the future.
Everyone speculated for a long time, thinking that I will join the army in the future, and I will be a scout, because only scouts in the army can ride "fart bugs", and holding a "box cannon" is at least an officer above the company commander.
My second uncle is the head of the village, so when I was eight years old, I learned how my second uncle walked with his hands folded behind his back and his chest straight. Commanding ordinary friends to attack the city and plunder the land, the situation is more powerful than the company commander.
And my current job is to be a criminal police officer. What the blind man said was right, he stepped on a farting bug, and held a box cannon in his hand—a criminal policeman as imposing as a company commander.
This is already a supreme honor in our family. I brought this honor back to the village to stay for half a month. Before that, I had been an intern in the Criminal Police Team of the County Public Security Bureau for half a year. I participated in the detection of many cases and felt like being on the battlefield. of tension. At the crime scene, life is often interpreted in a different way. I look forward to the end of the holiday and start working immediately.
When I went back to the village, the second uncle came to me and said that you are back, and first solve the case in our village.
"Is there a case in our village? What kind of case will our village have?"
"Our village is haunted."
I don't feel a smile. "Second Uncle, you drank too much again. What do you think of me? My nephew is now a well-known criminal policeman of the Public Security Bureau. Did he come back to catch ghosts for you?"
"The ghost scared your second aunt to death."
"Where is the ghost?"
"The skeleton tree at the entrance of the village is haunted."
I naturally know the skeleton tree at the entrance of the village. It is a ginkgo tree that has been handed down in our village for thousands of years. , as eerie and terrifying as a skeleton, people in the village call it the skeleton tree.
"You mean the skeleton tree is haunted?"
"yes."
"Then what can you do? It scares you?"
"Oh, you don't know, your second aunt was scared to death by that ghost."
"How can it be?"
The second uncle said, "Let's go and see the Skeleton Tree tonight."
I nod. At night, we carried flashlights and walked together to the skeleton tree.
A crescent moon hangs in the sky, and the night sky is dark. We walked on the dirt road in the village, and a few dogs barked at us from time to time.
In the criminal police team for half a year, it was like having a face-to-face meeting with the king of hell. We have seen all kinds of dead people. Once we picked up a dead person from the water that had been soaked for several months. It was already a skeleton wrapped in a pile of carrion. The captain asked me to use a brush to clean the carrion off the bones. I dragged the corpses away piece by piece, and then washed them in the water. The white bones came out, and my hair stood on end. Seeped into my stomach, and I lay on the ground, gagging like I drank pesticide.
"I'm going to die." I wanted to vomit my internal organs, the old forensic doctor looked at me and kept laughing.
"If you vomit this time, you will become a real criminal policeman," said the old forensic doctor.
I said to the old forensic doctor: "After vomiting this time, I won't vomit even after eating shit."
After I vomited that time, I really became a real criminal policeman, and no matter whether people or ghosts in front of me can't frighten me.
Since then, we have waited at the funeral parlor late at night, carried the dead at night, and were not afraid at all. I understand what happens after death. People vomit at best after death, but they don't turn into ghosts.
If you hear that a person was scared to death by a ghost, there must be a ghost in it.
But the situation is different under this skeleton tree, because there are memories of my childhood here. When we were children, we used to play hide-and-seek here at night, catch ghosts, catch a partner and shout "ghost". Then learn a ghost cry. Then everyone dispersed and ran in a hurry. At this time, it was not people chasing ghosts but ghosts chasing people. The eerie feeling was suffocating and frightening. Moreover, there are ghost faces growing everywhere on the trunk of the skeleton tree, and when the moonlight shines, there are ghosts with shaved hair, hanged ghosts, and starved ghosts. In severe cases, you will be so frightened that you will have a high fever, and let your mother climb to the roof and hug the chimney to call out the soul.
Therefore, when walking alone at night, I am afraid of the voice of the ancestor of all ghosts . When I go to the skeleton tree, I always go around and try not to provoke the skeleton tree.
At this time, a gust of wind blew by, and the branches of the skeleton tree were like loose wooden beds, making creaking sounds.
A black bird soared up from the tree hole with a "hoo" sound, making a strange cry. And there are strange sounds that have never been heard from the top of the tree, like real ghost calls.
At this time, the second uncle's body suddenly fell backwards, foaming at the mouth.
"Second uncle, second uncle."
"Ghost, ghost, ghost, I saw a ghost."
"Where is there a ghost, you missed it, it's a bird, not a ghost."
"It's a ghost, it's really a ghost, let's go."
I also got scared, my hair stood on end, and I ran back with my second uncle on my back, farting two loud farts while running, how dare I stop for half a step.
2
I got up early the next morning and came to the skeleton tree. I regretted it a little, I shouldn't have panicked like that. What are you afraid of? Although you don't have a box cannon in your hand, but as a criminal policeman panicked like this, if the villagers saw it, wouldn't it be a joke.
I looked at the skeleton tree again and again, and there was nothing unusual.
I burrowed into the hollow of the tree, which was filled with stones by naughty children.
I found a rope, tied a buckle, threw the buckle to the branch at the top of the tree like a knight, and then climbed to the top of the skeleton tree.
I went to the top of the tree, which was dilapidated, more like a robbed indoor scene, but I saw a few real skulls in a tree hole on the top.
I was shocked, I stayed in the criminal police team for half a year, and trained my sensitivity to skeletons. As a criminal policeman, who would dare to underestimate a skull. The dead are the big ones, and human lives are at stake. As soon as you hear that a dead person or skeleton is found, the sirens will sound immediately, and the criminal police will rush to the scene like firefighters.
And now I'm on the scene of the skull.
But I still don't have the excitement and nervousness of discovering important alarms.
Because our place is a mountain village, before the cremation, the dead within a radius of ten miles were carried to the mountain in coffins. This situation has gone through generations and years, so that every step is a cemetery, and some graves that have been in disrepair are dilapidated. , The dog will stick its head in from the hole and pull out human bones or even skeletons. A heavy rain will also wash the skeletons out of the grave.
When we were young, we herded cattle and would fall asleep unknowingly on the grass on the mountain. When we woke up, we found a skeleton not far away. Some skeletons were brought into the village by us as toys for children to play with each other.
Therefore, as long as there are skeletons anywhere in this village, it should not be surprising. If you make a big fuss because of this, you have to say that a homicide may occur in the village, you have to control and protect the scene, you have to shake the world, and let the colleagues from the county criminal police team rush over, in case it is a dead head picked up in the wild, so that people don't laugh out loud . People must say that I want to solve the case, I want to be crazy, and I want to be famous, so I will get a notorious reputation for being unstable. You know, it is very scary for a criminal policeman to have a notorious reputation for being unsteady. No matter what the criminal police team does, it cannot be entrusted to an unsteady person.
But this matter is difficult for me. If it is a murder case, I will turn a blind eye. Once the truth comes out in the future, I will bear a bad reputation for being insensitive. Who are you, you are a criminal policeman, you saw three skulls, they were put together, and in front of your folks, after you saw them, you left as if nothing happened? Do you still want to hang out in the criminal police team in the future?
Oh, this is embarrassing me, what can I do?
I still decided to give full play to the power of my criminal policeman and try my best to explore the depth of the water here.
3
The second uncle woke up, looking dazed.
"Second uncle, did you find anything else at the scene?"
"The scene? What scene?"
"It's where my second aunt died."
"It was raining heavily at the time, and your second aunt and I didn't know the personnel, so how could we know what was left there. However, someone was picking up an ax there."
"The axe? Who picked it up?"
"Your mother, did your mother not tell you?"
God, what a coincidence.
I went home immediately to look for the axe, which was lying carelessly behind the door.
This is the ax that appeared on the scene? This is an ordinary ax.
If it was lost by a villager, no matter who it is, they will go from house to house in the whole village to find it, so it won't be lying here carelessly.
"Mom, has no one ever come looking for this axe?"
"Yeah, do you think it's strange? After I picked up this ax under the skeleton tree, I let everyone in the village see it. No one recognized the ax. It might have been lost by a passer-by."
"Mom, tell me, how did Second Aunt die?"
"Your second aunt got a strange disease and died. She said she saw a ghost at night and was frightened to death by the ghost. That night your second uncle went to the town to drink, and when he came back after drinking in the middle of the night, he fell and fell under the skeleton tree. Your second aunt Seeing that your second uncle has not come back, I took a flashlight to look for it. When I found it under the skeleton tree, I met a ghost. I was scared by the ghost and lost my soul. If a person loses his soul, how can he survive? Called Guiguigui. He died a few days later, with his eyes open when he died. I have never seen such a terrifying death, poor thing."
"Did the second uncle scare her?"
"No, they are husband and wife after all. You still don't understand this. When people become husband and wife, it's like the left hand and the right hand. No matter what, the left hand will not scare the right hand to death."
I am amazed at my mother's expressive ability. My mother has long been accustomed to parents' short stories, and has trained an excellent eloquence, so that she can easily explain the ins and outs of this matter to me. The mother used a metaphor of a left hand and a right hand, basically ruling out the possibility that the second uncle scared the second aunt to death.
"So, what else happened in our village that night?"
"Then I can't remember."
"Think about it, Mom, you must think about it, your memory has always been very good, especially for things that have nothing to do with our family."
"Yes, let me think about it."
My mother has already told the Zhang family about her son's becoming a criminal policeman to the Li family, and she has said it a thousand and two hundred times. Now she may see a kind of urgency and seriousness from my face, and there is another exclusive news that she will be the first. The kind of excitement that spreads people.
"I remembered that it was going to rain that night, and three people who bought medicinal materials wanted to live in Xie Gui's house in our village. I don't know if they lived or not, but after that, those three people never came to our village again. It’s like disappearing without being here.”
three people? Three skeletons? My heart constricted for a while, and my body shivered.
"What kind of people are the three?"
"The three men are all in their thirties or forties. I heard they are from Henan. They push a cart and often come to our village to buy medicinal materials."
"Do they often live in our village?"
"I don't live here often, only when it rains."
"Mom, this ax needs to be hidden, it can't be left carelessly here."
I asked my mother to hide the ax immediately.
4
Xie Gui's family is digging a well, which is done by people invited from other villages.
Our place is remote, and there is a reservoir on the mountain. We usually fetch water from the reservoir, but in recent years, more and more people think that the water in the reservoir is dirty, and they have to dig wells to get water by themselves. In fact, the water in the reservoir is mountain spring, as clear as washing. People in the village think it is dirty because there are graves everywhere on the mountain. Can all the water flowing from the dead body flow into this reservoir? The fish in the reservoir are fatter than those in other places. People are not fish. Fish will grow fat if they eat this water, and people will be unlucky if they eat this water. Is the water in this reservoir still drinkable? So far, no one in the village has ever suffered from a disease more serious than a cold, and three or five people have lived past the age of ninety. But people's life is more governed by psychology. At noon on the day after brushing the bones of the dead, I vomited to death in the face of the white rice. of dead bones. Of course, I believe that the water in the reservoir is clean. Between the cemetery and the reservoir, there is a long section of green hills and verdant forests, and field soil. They work 24 hours a day like the human immune system, blocking it for us. Infiltration of various viruses.
People in the village also suspect that the water in the reservoir is poisonous, but few people dig wells. Why did Xie Gui's family dig a well?
I deliberately passed by Xie Gui's house.
Xie Gui handed me a smiling face, in terms of seniority, Xie Gui is a generation older than me, I call him Uncle Xie.
"Uncle Xie, dig a well at home."
"Yeah, the water in the reservoir is dirty."
"I became a policeman before I realized that the water was dirty. After a dead person soaked in the water for a month, the meat was like steamed buns soaked in water. It was loose and loose. You could pull a piece out of it with a light tug. You said let the dead Can the soaked water not be dirty?"
I fixed my eyes on him to see his reaction.
There is a kind of people with poor psychological endurance and poor self-control, who are happy and worried; the other kind of people are just the opposite, and they are not afraid of the collapse of Mount Tai before their eyes. These two kinds of people generally exist in the people we live in, even in remote rural areas. Of course, due to the remoteness of our village and the simple folk customs, people’s hearts are like a well with clear water flowing upwards, without a control valve, so few people have such self-control. I hope that Xie Gui in front of me is also like this, but I also wish that he would panic when he sees me like my second uncle saw a ghost.
Xie Gui had a smile on his face, looking at the expression on his face, it was very natural and unhurried.
"I brought back good tea from the county. When water comes out of your well, I will use your well water to make tea." I said.
"Okay." Xie Gui replied.
The contact with Xie Gui still made me feel a little strange, because I stopped in front of him, and he didn't even warm up, for example: "Xiao Lin, today our family digs a well and kills a goose, come here Let’s have dinner at home.” It’s just to warm up, it’s not a real invitation, and I won’t really go if I’m invited, almost everyone in our village would say such kind words, but Xie Gui didn’t say it, maybe there’s something real going on.
But Xie Gui brought a large bowl of goose meat to my house that night.
"It's a goose that was killed at home, let Xiao Lin try it out."
"How can it be." I hastily pushed back.
"Xiao Lin, you are promising now. It is rare for a golden phoenix like you to fly out of our village. In the future, my sons will depend on you to take care of them."
"I heard that their academic performance is very good."
"Oh, I need your help in the future."
Xie Gui put down the goose meat and left.
Looking at Xie Gui's back, it seems that there is something abnormal about his gestures, but after careful consideration, it is difficult to tell the difference.
Could there be something wrong with that well?
At night, I couldn't sleep, so I tiptoed to the well, and the well opened like a big eye, emitting a death-like light, as if all the secrets on the skeleton tree were hidden in this death light.
Looking around the bamboo forest and the woods, the bamboo leaves under the moonlight showed unimaginable uniformity, the divine light separated and reunited, and the yin and yang suddenly appeared, showing a strange beauty.
At this time, it seemed as if a black shadow flashed among the bamboo forests. I quickly raised my foot to chase after it, but my foot slipped, and with a "boom", my whole body fell into the deep well. The bottom of the well is dark, and even if there are any secrets, I can't pry into it. My body is lying on a large pile of clay. If it weren't for this pile of clay, I would have become a ghost in the well.
How did I fall into Xie Gui's well? At this time, I am really like a frog in a well, how can a criminal policeman have the air, when I look up at the sky, the broken shadows of bamboo leaves in the air become complicated and messy, playfully showing their beauty and mystery, and the chipped moonlight is like broken silver The earth is thrown into the well, which makes people feel as if they have arrived in the underworld.
I didn't dare to shout. If the black figure found me falling into the well, if he turned around, he could quickly push down the soil beside the well and bury me alive in an instant. I dare not shout, I cannot let Xie Gui know that I fell into the well, I have to wait, wait for tomorrow to come. Soon, however, there was the sound of footsteps coming straight for the well, and my heart jumped.
"Who is it? Who is in the well? Is it a human or a ghost?" It was Xie Gui's voice.
"It's my ancestor of all ghosts , Xiao Lin, I fell into your well."
"Xiao Lin, why did you come to the well so late, why didn't you call for someone, luckily I heard the sound of you falling into the well."
That black figure stood on the edge of the well, and poked his head out. His face was like a few strokes scribbled on a piece of black paper. There was no human face at all. I was afraid, would he kill me? can you?
"Xiao Lin, I'll throw the rope down. You grab the rope, but you're about to hold on tight. I'll pull you up."
Sure enough, Xie Gui dropped the rope. I grabbed the rope and quickly judged its thickness and straightness. It is said that the Buddha is able to send a spider's silk into the underworld to rescue all the innocent souls there. I accurately judged that the thing that saved me was a rope instead of spider silk, and that the person who saved me was Xie Gui not Buddha. Xie Gui, why would he do this? At this time, his strength was almost close to that of Buddha, because the rope in my hand not only gave me enough upward strength, but also was firm and stable. I climbed up the well along the rope with almost no trouble.
I am a little embarrassed. There are countless ditches and caves on the ground in this village, which may be smelly latrines or deep wells with water. There is no record of citizens in this village falling into wells and pits, not to mention that I am a criminal policeman.
"Don't walk in the village for a few years, the roads are unfamiliar." Xie Gui laughed at his embarrassment just now.
At this moment, I really doubted my original judgment, could this Xie Gui be the murderer who made three skeletons?
My disappearance caused anxiety to my mother and second uncle. If I don’t come back, they will send someone to look for me. I asked my mother to show me the ax again.
They all thought that I must have made some new discoveries. In fact, I just wanted to divert their attention. I have never been in such an embarrassing situation since I was told by a fortune teller when I was eight years old.
I was startled suddenly, and I jumped up against the table, scaring my second uncle at a loss.
"Damn it, I finally caught the fox by the tail."
"What's wrong?"
"Look, the handle of this ax can only be left-handed if it is used for a long time. The person who uses this ax is a left-hander. Who is left-handed in our village?"
The second uncle and my mother did not speak.
"Is Xie Gui left-handed?" I asked.
The second uncle and my mother both nodded in unison.
Xie Gui who was digging the well, Xie Gui who was carrying the goose meat, Xie Gui who dragged me out of the well just now, every time I come into contact with him, don't I feel that inexplicable difference in him? What's different about him, as if his left hand frightened his right hand to death, so that he would stick out his left hand for everything.
Could it really be him? I couldn't bear to think like this, I could feel the unhesitating power when he pulled me out of the well, and there might be some kind of kindness in that power, the crime was like a deep well, even a criminal policeman couldn't perceive its depth.
After all, he saved me just now, if he is the murderer, he can make another choice. Falling sky crimes often turn a person's heart into a bottomless well. You fall into his well without any harm, just because you are a criminal policeman?
However, I clearly felt that the force of his throwing the rope came from his left hand.
He seemed to be one step closer to the goal I was looking for, and one step further away.
what do I do?
The next day, I took the ax to Xie Gui's house.
"Uncle Xie, does this ax belong to your family?"
"Ah… yes yes, this ax has been lost for several years, why is it in your hands?"
"My mother picked it up under the skeleton tree. She didn't know who lost it. I researched it for a long time and found that the person who used this ax was left-handed. My second uncle said that you are the only left-handed person in the village, so I thought of you." .”
"Xiao Lin, you really deserve to be a criminal police officer. You will definitely have great promise in the future."
Xie Gui still looked calm, he took the ax, held the ax in his left hand, and looked at the ax carefully, I knew that at this time, he was not looking at the ax, but at me, so I stood in front of him, not speech. The east wind and the west wind often confront each other in the air like this, so the east wind overwhelms the west wind or the west wind overwhelms the east wind, and I want to overwhelm him, beat him, beat him in the cold light of the ax and my eyes. At this moment, the inner power from the vast and deep protrudes between our foreheads in the shape of a horn, revealing a kind of tenacity and coldness. My eyes are fixed on him, and my eyes are like a knife, while his eyes are still so flexible. The light, we have been at each other for a long time, but he is still calm and composed.
"Xiao Lin, thank you for sending the axe, and thank your mother for me."
He picked up the ax and turned away.