ghost craftsman

Chapter 7
Hearing what my brother said, although I didn't understand it very well, I still nodded and didn't say a word, so I followed the master and walked towards the back of the village. Wei Dezhen said that she had something to do, so she didn't go with us.

What puzzled me was that my brother seemed to be very familiar with this village, and led me through a few small roads, and then appeared in the back mountain.

The back mountain is not high, it just looks like a hillside, but the trees on the mountain are very dense, but because it is autumn, there is a lot of withered and yellow leaves, and there is a loud noise when you step on it.

"Brother, what tree are we looking for?" I asked my brother as soon as I arrived at the back mountain.

He glanced at me and said softly, "Pine tree."

I was taken aback, and stayed with my brother for a while. I know this pine tree. The wood is moderately soft and hard, delicate, has a slight fragrance, and has strong corrosion resistance. It is usually used to make furniture, and pine trees are used to make coffins. But it rarely occurs. First, the hardness of the pine tree is not enough, and second, there is a saying that the tree is evergreen for a hundred years, and it is not auspicious to use it for making a coffin.After all, if the deceased sleeps in it, he has to follow the laws of nature and let the corpse rot slowly. If the corpse stays stiff and does not rot, it will be bad for future generations.

Immediately, I said this idea to my senior brother.

He looked up at me, didn't speak, and walked forward. I was anxious, so I quickly chased after him and asked another question.

He still didn't speak, his eyes looked around, as if he found something, his feet moved towards the left at a faster speed, and I immediately followed.

The senior brother stopped by a pine tree, smiled slightly, turned his head and glanced at me, and said slowly: "Naturally, pine trees cannot be used as raw materials for ordinary coffins, as it will affect the aura of the coffin itself, and it will also cause the dead to flow into the coffin." It's uncomfortable, but this pine tree is the most suitable for the kind of coffin Wei Dezhen requested."

I was slightly taken aback, and quickly asked, "What kind of coffin is that kind of coffin?"

He smiled, shook his head and said nothing, and handed me the ax in his hand, and he bowed to the pine tree, muttering a few words in his mouth. This process took about 1 minute. After he finished all this, The senior brother looked at me and said slowly, "Chuanzi, today the senior brother will teach you the first step, logging."

Hearing this, I immediately understood that he was planning to teach me some skills, so I hummed.

The brother said: "Ordinary carpenters don't pay any attention to logging, they just do what they want, but we ghost craftsmen are different. We ghost craftsmen have to pay attention to time, location and avoid some evil spirits when cutting wood."

When I heard that there are so many things to pay attention to when logging, I asked him the reason, and he said: "The time only needs to be avoided. The child year is at noon, the ugly year is at Wei, and the Yin year is at Shen. These three hours are taboos for logging. , Once the wood is cut during these hours, it will be against the Tai Sui, and it will be a big murder, and the felled wood, no matter what it is used for, will be a murder."

Speaking of this, the brother paused, and then told me the general quantity of felled wood. Yang numbers such as [-] are considered auspicious, and yin numbers such as [-] are considered unlucky. Avoid violating the yellow evil spirit, the eight evil spirits of the emperor, and the great evil spirits of the nine heavens. Once logging falls into these evil spirits, the wood will become brittle, and the things made will not be durable. In severe cases, ghosts and gods will even be concerned.

I hummed, and kept what my senior said in my heart, and found that my senior pointed to the pine tree and said slowly: "Chuanzi, you remember clearly, when you are looking for wood, you should remember not to look for trees over a hundred years old. Most of the trees planted have spirituality, and if they are cut down, we ghost craftsmen will be the ones who will be punished in the end, so when looking for wood, you must find wood that is less than a hundred years old."

While talking, he took the ax from my hand, raised the ax and chopped down the pine tree. As soon as the ax fell, the whole pine tree shook violently a few times. The brother said: "To observe the age of a tree, there is no need to use the annual rings to measure the age of the pine tree." Check, just look at the bumps on the bark to know the age of the tree."

After saying this, the senior brother stretched out his hand to touch the tree pole, and said in a low voice: "This pine tree has unevenness, and its unevenness is curved, which means that the age of this pine tree is 22 years old."

I can't believe it. As a freshman in high school, I know that the age of a tree depends on the annual rings, but my brother ignored my doubtful eyes. After a few axes, the pine tree was cut down to the point of collapse, and my brother didn't care. Urgently, he took a deep breath and continued: "Remember, you must use all your strength in the last stroke of logging. Only in this way can the relationship between the tree and the ground be completely cut off. Otherwise, it is easy for the yin energy from the ground to penetrate into the tree." heart, which causes the trees to be wet all year round, and the things that are punched out are also easy to regain moisture."

I nodded thoughtfully, and before I could open my mouth, I heard a bang, and the pine tree fell to the ground. I ran over immediately, squatted down and checked, and found that the annual rings of the pine tree were exactly 22 rings. The stated age of 22 years is exactly the same.

This changed the way I looked at my brother. I always thought that my brother was just an ordinary coffin guy, and I also thought that making a coffin was just a matter of putting together a few pieces of wood. I didn't expect him to know so much.

However, what I didn't expect was that this was only the most basic thing, because the next sentence of the senior brother completely surprised me. He first handed the ax in his hand to me, and said softly: "Follow the method I taught you Go southeast to cut wood in Jiazi, there is a pine tree there."

I was slightly taken aback, and asked in confusion, "Brother, how do you know that there is a pine tree in that direction?"

He glanced at me, sat down on the tree trunk, and said with a smile: "In this vast world, no matter people or plants have their own characteristics, as big as every mountain, as small as every shrub and grass, they all depend on the environment. However, we only need to use the characteristics of their growth and the distance to accurately tell which plants are near them.”

Then, he paused, and continued: "Look at this pine tree, the pine tree has lush branches and leaves, but there is no smell of shrubs or grass beside the pine tree, which means that there is a group of stones nearby, according to the growth of the pine tree characteristics, there must be a pine tree near the stone group, and finally, if you look at the angle of inclination of the pine tree and the direction of the leaves, it is not difficult to judge that there is a pine tree in the southeast of Jiazi."

After that, he stood up, raised his hand and patted me heavily on the shoulder, and said softly: "Chuanzi, if you want to be a good ghost craftsman, you must first integrate into nature and feel every move of nature. Take all the phenomena presented by nature for your own use.”

Hearing this, I was a little confused, ghost craftsman still has this ability?Can you feel the nature?

Seeing me standing there in a daze, senior brother frowned and said, "Why are you standing there, hurry up!"

I came back to my senses, nodded quickly, didn't dare to hesitate any longer, and immediately ran towards the southeast Jiazi position. The fact is just as my brother guessed, there is a pine tree in this position, which is a size bigger than the previous pine tree. Following the example of my senior brother, I bowed to the pine tree first, then raised my ax and hacked it. According to the unevenness taught by my senior brother, I roughly checked the age of the tree. It was about 30 years old, but I was not sure about the exact age.

After estimating the age of the tree, I didn't hesitate, rolled up my sleeves, raised my ax and chopped down the pine tree.

The moment I cut down the pine tree, there was a voice behind me, which startled me a lot. When I looked back, it was my brother. He looked at me with a smile on his face, didn’t speak, and didn’t know Why, I suddenly felt that my brother's smile was a little weird.

(End of this chapter)