Chapter 12: Ten Coffins
Topic: When will the books come back?
Main post: I’m scared. Why can’t I log in after five days of drawing? Could it be that it has been sent?
1L: Stop being such a pessimist! I haven’t seen the article I’m following yet!
2L: It really took a long time, and they just issued a vague announcement saying it was due to technical reasons.
3L: Emmmm, isn't the server rented by the library in our city? I have some connections and heard that the server provider locked the computer room and there are strong men guarding it day and night. I don't know what big problem has happened.
4L: Why lock it? Why do you need a strong man? How come the server has arms to hit people?
…
"Ahhh, I can't accept it. Why would it take so long?"
On the fifth day of the book draw, Yu Zhenzhen, who had been calm before, broke down. It was probably mainly because today was Friday, and she was not like Lin Yang, who usually read all the accumulated updates at once over the weekend.
But she still couldn't log into the website, and she was so anxious that she searched everywhere for the reason why it crashed.
Tan Xiao listened and looked at Yu Zhenzhen thoughtfully. It seemed that two days had passed and Mu Fei had not been found yet.
On the contrary, Lin Yang had adapted after a few days and had gotten over the initial anxiety of withdrawal. He half-closed his eyes and said, "Donor, I will be fine after writing a few more papers."
Yu Zhenzhen was about to turn around and pound on his desk when she saw the head teacher Ji Huiming walk in , so she quickly turned around and sat down.
"The monthly exam is next week." Ji Huiming tapped the table, "Don't just play around on the weekend. We are all sophomores, time flies by quickly, you have to be more cautious, okay?"
Tan Xiao immediately decided to do more chemistry questions on the weekend.
His chemistry score in the last monthly exam was ranked 18th in the grade. There was a tendency for his score to slip, and he had to catch up.
Ji Huiming took a look around, sighed when he saw Kong Xuan, and then left with a hint of melancholy.
Ji Huiming's action was not concealed, and many people noticed it and looked at Kong Xuan. Tan Xiao also looked at Kong Xuan, thinking that Teacher Ji must be worried about the average score, which was indeed difficult.
Kong Xuan immediately turned around sharply and looked at Tan Xiao, sneering in his heart.
Lin Yang slowly leaned back, moving away from the intersection of their lines of sight.
…
Qinglong Road.
This is the famous "Dead Street" in Nanchu, with the Nanchu Funeral Home on the street as the main attraction, and shops selling funeral supplies all around. There is also a police station here, and the residents say that it is named after the street, "Qinglong", to suppress the underworld atmosphere here, but I don't know if it's true or not.
After Tan Xiao finished a lot of questions frantically, he took the bus to Qinglong Road to pick up the sacrificial supplies he had ordered, and also regarded it as a relaxing exercise. Tan Chunying never encouraged him to bury his head in studying.
Mu Fei came over a few days ago, and Tan Xiao gave all the stock to Mu Fei, so he had to prepare some new stock. Although his family doesn't receive tourists now, there will always be other performances, and he can't be left without any stock at the last minute.
Tan Xiao was familiar with the route, and walked past every store. When he arrived at the location, the boss was not there, and he didn't know where he had been visiting, and his phone call was not connected. In fact, the boss must not have gone far, the door was open, and he was probably visiting several nearby stores.
The problem was that Tan Xiao didn't recognize the face, so he stood at the door and looked around, thinking that the boss would come over when he saw him.
While waiting, Tan Xiao saw a boy from the coffin shop next door go in and ask the boss: "Boss, have the coffins we ordered been prepared? I called you and asked you to pick them up in advance."
"Yes, it's ready. I was just thinking of finding someone to carry it to the funeral home for you." The boss pointed to a new coffin and said, "This is it. Urgent work. It's made of cedar wood. You can pay the balance, which is 4,888."
"Okay." The boy lowered his head to scan the code.
Tan Xiao walked over and said, "Excuse me, is this Shige Shanmu?"
Although spiritual masters save the living and heavenly masters save the dead, this is obviously a result of the various schools and sects trying to grab business and subdivide their business. In addition, since they are all in the same circle, spiritual masters also have knowledge of funeral affairs.
When the boss saw Tan Xiao, his face froze for a moment. He recognized that this was Tan Chunying's son, an expert. And from his tone, it didn't look good.
He was not sure how much Tan Xiao had seen, and hesitantly said, "Uh, it was already decided..."
"Is it the ten-story fir board that they ordered from you?" Tan Xiao emphasized, "Why do I think it's the eighteen-story one?"
The boss cursed in his heart, what kind of eyes, how could he see that?! From such a distance, he could even see that he used a few fake ones?
The boy immediately realized something was wrong: "Boss, are you trying to trick me? I'm telling you, my relative is a yinluo drum player. You think I can't tell? Be careful or I 'll call someone!"
When the boss heard that the buyer's family was also in the underworld, he immediately knew that he was in trouble. The other party looked young and strong, so he immediately admitted his mistake and said, "I made a mistake, it's in the backyard! Really, really, sorry, sorry, I didn't know you were going with me."
The houses in this area are all from the former village. Many of the small shops have front-store and back-works setup, and of course there are also some that specialize in cooperation with factories.
" You can't cheat me even if we're not in the same business!" the boy said indignantly, urging the boss to go to the backyard to move the funeral supplies. He then put his arm around Tan Xiao's shoulder and said familiarly, "Oh my God, thanks to you. If I hadn't happened to meet you, my mother would have scolded me to death."
Tan Xiao was stunned.
He stared at the other person for a few seconds, thought for a moment and said, "Lin Yang, is your second uncle going to be buried?" He had no choice. It was easy to tell at school, as he could tell after a few words. Outside, even if it was a relative, he would have to think for a long time...
"Yes, yes ." The person on the other side was indeed Lin Yang. "I was called over to help. You just said that I was confused, but why did the boss give me 10 pavilions out of 18 pavilions? Isn't it better to have more?"
Seeing that he had guessed correctly, Tan Xiao was secretly delighted and explained, "Ten pieces of wood are used to make a board, and that is called a ten-piece board. Twelve pieces are called a twelve-round board, and eighteen pieces are called an eighteen-piece board. But this is not like Han Xin's saying that the more the better. Fewer pieces of wood means that the wood is large, solid, and has fewer gaps. But why did your second uncle come to order urgent work? He should have prepared a thousand-year house long ago, right?"
The old people in Nanchu have the old custom of preparing their own coffins long before they die. They call this "thousand-year house". Tan Xiao knew that Lin Yang's second uncle was also a funeral clerk, so why didn't he prepare one for himself? Those who pay attention to this will prepare everything from the cemetery, coffin to the shroud.
"This," Lin Yangzhi scratched his head, "I just found out about this too. My second uncle had already designed a complete funeral process for himself, and he had even thought about who to contact for each procedure."
When he went to his second uncle's house, he heard his second uncle muttering about his plans, saying that he couldn't find someone to be his yin and yang master, that someone was in poor health and might die before him, and that someone had good cooking skills and followed the rules...
"The problem is that plans can't keep up with changes, and he thought too much. When he ordered the coffin, he thought that he would be cremated and then buried, so he thought the coffin didn't need to be so big. But now, my aunt and her family have quarreled with the funeral home and said they would bury him directly instead of cremating him. The coffin can't fit in the coffin - my second uncle is very big."
Lin Yang looked helplessly at the Nanchu Funeral Home not far away. "My great-uncle's family has been waiting in line for cremation. You should know the cold storage room before cremation. It costs 200 yuan a day for a single room. Later, because there was no queue, it was frozen.
"Then because we had been waiting in line for a long time but couldn't get cremated, and a few days ago, my family heard that my aunt had talked to my second uncle's apprentice, and he seemed to have done some kind of ceremony, and the divination showed that my second uncle might not want to be cremated. I don't know how they discussed it, but they said to just go and get someone.
"When we came to collect the body, we found out..." Lin Yang's expression became strange, and he didn't know what to say. His voice became smaller, "The body smelled and was rotten."
Tan Xiao was surprised and asked, "It went from refrigerated to frozen again, how could that happen?"
Not only is the temperature in the refrigerator several degrees above zero, but the freezer is even below zero.
"Yeah, that's why there's a quarrel. Who knows what problems they have with management."
Lin Yang himself didn't understand any of this, he just heard it from others, but he was also filled with indignation, and when he thought about the dreams he had before, he felt goosebumps all over his body.
This is too mysterious!
"It must be because there are too many people. Someone with connections was able to cut in line!" The boss had already asked the workers to carry out the coffin and said with a pout.
"You don't know this, but this happens every time the funeral home is in its peak season, especially in the winter when many old people pass away. But it's summer now, and the body hasn't been cremated yet. Tsk, it must be smelly. Oh my god, they are making money by defrauding the dead. Damn it."
Tan Xiao and Lin Yang looked at him together.
The boss lowered his head in shame: "Me too, I deserve to die."
Tan Xiao: "..."
"The smell is so strong, can't the funeral home staff smell it?" Tan Xiao said to himself. China pays attention to treating the dead as if they were alive, and respecting the deceased. In fact, he had heard of situations like the boss described before, but that was a long time ago, and the management was not so strict. Anyway, with the connections of the Tan Xiao family, he had not heard of such problems in Nanchu in recent years.
But no matter what the problem was, the family members were already heartbroken after losing their loved ones, and to know that their loved ones' bodies were treated like this was another huge blow.
"If they hadn't changed their minds, they definitely wouldn't have known about it. But now that they've found out, they can definitely claim compensation." The boss grumbled. He had seen a lot of things running a shop here. "I'm telling you, this is their responsibility. Ask them to pay."
"Let's talk about it later. We have to finish the funeral quickly. My great uncle's entire team came here before, and there was also a Yin-Yang master who was old and fainted from anger." Lin Yang smiled bitterly, "Otherwise why would they ask me to come and get the funeral supplies? I'm so busy, and I have to contact someone to replace the Yin-Yang master."
Hearing this, Tan Xiao checked the time and said, "If you guys can't find anyone, I can help out."
Lin Yang was surprised and asked: "Really?"
"Really? My mom said that she worked with your great-uncle twice when she was young." Tan Xiao wanted to lend a hand to his classmate, but on the other hand, he felt something was odd and he couldn't figure it out.
Lin Yang's second great uncle used to be a member of the Yinluogu Band. As the name suggests, Yinluogu corresponds to Yang, and is a kind of gong and drum band used for funerals and worshiping the dead. It is also called "singing funeral songs" and has a strong Chu flavor.
There is usually a character in their team who can communicate with ghosts and gods, such as a Yin-Yang master, a fairy lady, or a spiritual master. In the early years, when Tan Chunying had not yet completely switched to the cultural and tourism track, she had worked with them several times and made money together.
Tan Xiao and Lin Yang, together with the workers from the coffin shop, moved the coffin to the rented car and entered the funeral home.
…
Lin Yang's aunt and her group had been invited to the office. The conversation had just ended. When Tan Xiao and Lin Yang arrived, they happened to see Aunt Lin walking out with a gloomy face, and the person in charge of the funeral home was still bowing to her from behind.
A young man next to him whispered, "We really checked it every day. There's obviously no problem. How could there be a problem with the temperature..."
“Stop talking!” The person in charge saw Aunt Lin’s eyebrows raised and quickly stopped the young man. “This is definitely our fault. Once again, we sincerely apologize to the family.”
As he spoke, he kept bowing. How could you argue with the family members at a time like this, especially since you were in the wrong in the first place?
The young man's eyes welled up with tears. He bowed and said, "I'm sorry."
Aunt Lin's eyes also turned red. She wiped her eyes, looked at them hatefully, turned her head and said to her father's apprentice: "Brother Ning, let's go."
She took a deep breath to control her emotions and asked, "Did you find it, sir?"
Uncle Lin Yang's apprentice was only about ten years younger than him, and quite old. He frowned and said, "Not yet."
"Um, Auntie, this is my classmate." Lin Yang quickly interrupted, "His name is Tan Xiao. I was almost cheated by the coffin shop owner outside just now. He helped me figure it out and said he would come over to help."
The custom in China is that relatives and friends come to help when there is a wedding or funeral. It is not surprising that they come to help and lend a hand when this happens, as they are in chaos here.
Brother Ning looked at Tan Xiao and exclaimed, "Ah!" He recognized him and said, "Tan Chunying's son, right?"
Tan Xiao nodded and greeted, then called out, "Brother Ning."
No matter how old they are, everyone in their team calls the team leader "brother". When Tan Xiao does the same, no one will think it's impolite, but will understand that he knows the rules.
"Oh, your family is doing well now." Brother Ning forced out his first smile of the day, "Please say hello to your mother for me. You don't know, my family was in trouble before. Tan Chunying signed a performance contract with the scenic spot, and she said that she wanted to include me and my brothers to accompany her. You are in high school now?"
Tan Xiao nodded, "In the second year of high school, Lin Yang and I were in the same class."
"Okay, okay, learn from your mother well. Once you learn this skill, you will have a more secure job than us in the future." Brother Ning also knew that the Tan family was now a name card of folk culture in Southern Chu, and they received many official invitations.
"Grandpa Ning," Lin Yang is not in this line of work, he usually calls him grandpa, but today he always feels that he is several generations younger than Tan Xiao, he is puzzled, "Tan Xiao just said that if there are not enough people, he can help."
Tan Xiao said, "Hmm," "If you don't have a soul summoner, I can do it."
Aunt Lin wiped her tears: "Really?"
Their original plan was to bring the body back and take care of it for three days, but now they found that the body had started to stink, and after divination they were anxious to bury it, so it was difficult to find someone because of the sudden and hasty response.
Although Aunt Lin didn't recognize Tan Xiao, but after hearing Brother Ning praising Tan Xiao's mother just now and seeing that he was Lin Yang's classmate, she knew he was reliable.
"Yes, my mother is not in Nanchu now. Logically, she would be willing to help if she knew about this matter." Tan Xiao explained, "I have seen these procedures since I was a child. If Brother Ning thinks it is okay, I will lend you a hand."
"Sure, why not?" Brother Ning nodded immediately, "Thank you for your hard work. You will escort the car with us and our daughter later."
Tan Xiao nodded and walked with Lin Yang.
The members of the Yinluo Drum Troupe gathered together, and someone raised an objection to Brother Ning: "Brother Ning, Tan Chunying is already an old mascot, are you really going to ask his young mascot to join the troupe?"
Brother Ning has received a favor from Tan Chunying, but some people think that Tan Chunying is not a good enough person and it would be more appropriate for him to be a mascot.
It was Old Master Lin himself who asked everyone to take him out and bury him in a dream, so he might be holding a grudge.
"How about you find someone who can summon spirits now? Who will be responsible if it takes too long?" Brother Ning said with a straight face, "The Yin-Yang master in front has already chosen the place. What's wrong with him following the ritual?"
During the ceremony, professionals such as the Yin-Yang master or spiritualist are mainly responsible for three things: dividing the gold and selecting the land, sealing the coffin and clearing the way, and settling the family gods.
The first task, looking at the land, had already been completed by Mr. Lin himself. He personally selected the cemetery. To appease the family gods means that if a funeral disturbs the family gods, they must use a ceremony to appease them. However, they are burying the dead urgently now, so there will be no funeral disturbances.
In fact, the only thing left is to seal the coffin, which is not that difficult in comparison.
"That's true, but he's still young..." The man knew this was the best choice, but he couldn't help but say a few words, "Is he going to do it or not?"
The so-called scholar learning yin and yang does not need much time in the afternoon.
Brother Ning said with disdain: "Tan Xiao and Lin Yang are from the same school, which is a key high school. They will definitely go to famous universities in the future. You are a junior high school dropout, and you are talking about them. Are you good at it? You only do one show a day, and they perform 17 or 18 shows a day for tourists. How can you compare?"
“…”
