smuggler

Chapter 90

Although Zhang Laizi looked ugly, after recovering, he bent down and shouted in front of Granny Ma, "Second Granny Ma, you see that all the folks in the village are here to see you off, you can't scare others, you can go on the road with peace of mind. The folks and elders will burn paper for you every year, and they will never forget you."

As he spoke, Zhang Laizi stretched out his hand to close Granny Ma's eyes.

After wiping it off, seeing Granny Ma's eyes closed, the villagers breathed a sigh of relief, and Zhang Laizi sighed and was about to stand up straight.

But at this moment, Granny Ma's eyes opened again.

Zhang Laizi straightened up and took a breath, and instinctively took a few steps back. At this time, the villagers around the mourning hall exploded.

Everyone screamed and backed away. This time, Granny Ma not only opened her eyes, but her cloudy eyeballs were tilted, and she happened to see me standing in the corner of the room.

Under those dead fish-like eyes, my face paled instantly.

Seeing that something was wrong, the old village chief went to the coffin and pulled the crippled Zhang, and asked what was going on with his brows furrowed.

Zhang Laizi put on a difficult expression, gritted his teeth and said word by word: "This is because no one will see her to death, she doesn't want to leave."

Hearing Zhang Laizi's words, an elderly woman in the village snorted: "This second wife Ma is really unreasonable. She has no registered permanent residence, and she still wants someone to hold a spirit card for her and cry for funerals?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple."

Cripple Zhang sighed, then went into the house and found a piece of white banner cloth and a brush from somewhere.

"Does any of you know what the second wife Ma's full name is?"

When Lame Zhang started to write, he turned his head to look at the villagers.

This remark made the villagers in the mourning hall feel troubled, and an elderly man said, "How do you know, she came here from famine. When I came to our village, I remembered that she said her surname was Ma. A sister starved to death due to famine." No, she is the second child at home, so she is called the second wife of a horse."

"If you want to say where she came from and what her name is, no one in the village can tell."

After the old man finished speaking, there were whispers in the mourning hall. It seemed that no one really knew the real name of Second Wife Ma.

Zhang Laizi couldn't write, and his face became more and more ugly.

I thought of that weird dream. In the dream, the black-faced man holding a black flag and wearing a tall hat called Erpo Ma from under the eaves.

After hesitating for a while, I raised my head and said, "Her name should be Ma Guixiang."

"Ma Guixiang?"

Lame Zhang turned his head and looked at me.At this time, the villagers all focused their attention on her, because they were busy with work at the beginning, and although they saw a few of me, they didn't care.

Now that I spoke suddenly, the villagers became a little curious.

The old village chief frowned and asked, "How do you know? Who are you, Ma Erpo?"

I shook my head slowly, "I have nothing to do with her."

The cripple Zhang who was standing in front of the altar looked at me meaningfully, but didn't say much.

After hesitating for a moment, he wrote Ma Guixiang's name on the banner cloth.

After writing the last word, there was another commotion in the mourning hall, and a villager said excitedly, "Close your eyes, Ma Erpo closed your eyes."

While the villagers all exclaimed, standing in the corner, my heart fell into the ice cave.

At the moment when Granny Ma closed her eyes, I could clearly see her looking at her for the last time, with a slight smile on the corner of her mouth.

Seeing Granny Ma's eyes closed, Zhang Laizi let out a sigh of relief.

At this time, he moved closer and wanted to burn incense for Grandma Ma, but strangely, he appeared again.

Fragrance, but it doesn't light up.

Putting the incense on the flame of the candle, it was burnt to black, not even a spark came out.

"Not popular? The second wife of the horse must have some grievances." A villager's voice revealed panic and whispered.

Lame Zhang looked sad, he hesitated for a while, put down the incense and walked to me, and asked in a low voice, "Little girl, tell me what's going on, you don't know Erpo Ma, how do you know her name?"

It was too unbelievable to talk about it, I raised my eyes to look at the lame Zhang and said, "I said that the second wife Ma told me, do you believe it?"

Zhang Laizi stared at me like a pillar, as if he wanted to see if I was lying from my eyes, but my eyes did not evade.

For a moment, Zhang Laizi fixed his eyes on the body of the second wife Ma in the coffin, and let out a breath of cold air.

"Did she ask you to burn incense for her?" Lame Zhang turned his head with a very serious expression.

I was silent for a while, then nodded.

"That's no wonder." Zhang Laizi seemed to understand something, and said to me, "She wants you to offer incense, but she doesn't recognize us, do you know what is said in it?"

I nodded.

There are rules for offering incense to the dead, and the incense must be hand-picked by the deceased, otherwise the deceased will not be able to eat it if other people offer incense.

It stands to reason that this kind of thing is related to immediate family members, because the second wife Ma is an old family in the village, and Zhang Laizi, as the funeral attendant, has to offer incense on her behalf.

After knowing that the second wife Ma asked me to be incensed, he immediately understood why there was a scene of not being incensed just now.

It's not that I don't want to, it's that I'm not related to Granny Ma, and if I use my children and grandchildren to put incense on Second Granny Ma, it doesn't matter and it becomes relevant.

Seeing my hesitation, Zhang Laizi touched me lightly, and said in a low voice, "Little girl, look at Erpo Ma's neck."

Reminded by him, I glanced at the neck of Ma Erpo's corpse, and my whole body was surrounded by fear.

Ma Ermao's neck became bruised, her blood vessels were bruised and purple, and there was a layer of fine white hair all over it, and the hair seemed to be growing slowly.

This is to cheat the corpse! ?

Lame Zhang motioned me to keep silent, and said in a low voice, "Do you know what the second wife Ma was doing when she was alive?" Of course I didn't know.

Zhang Laizi didn't beat around the bush, and said bluntly, "She cuts her hair."

I was taken aback by what I said.

Although it is rare for women to cut their hair nowadays, Granny Ma was born in the era of war and chaos, and she probably cut her hair for food.

But what's so weird about that?

Zhang Laizi looked at my words, saw my doubts, smiled and said, "She is not as simple as you think, she is a sinister, and she was born as a barber."

Speaking of craftsmen, there are two trades, which are basically extinct now. The first one is credit knife. When I was a child, I could occasionally hear someone in the village shouting: "Sharpen scissors and kitchen knives!"

And the other is a barber.

Although now anyone who cuts hair can also be called a barber, but only those who work as a shader know that.

The barber is one of the underworld.

According to folk traditions, the hair-shaving craftsman shaves the genitals of the dead and affirms the wealth of the living. With a pair of yin scissors, all the ghosts and ghosts in the world are wiped away.

Thinking of this, I looked at the mahogany grand master's chair in the main hall, and then looked at the full-length mirror at the door of the side room.

The cripple Zhang next to him said in a deep voice: "I have one foot in the shadows. Granny Ma is a hidden expert. I don't know why she came to Xiaopan Village back then, but she entrusted you with a dream. reason."

(End of this chapter)