Chapter 35: The Victory Technique
Lin Yang was frightened by his boss and jumped up, but he quickly reacted: "But just now we passed by the opposite side and saw an old lady sitting in this position... That, there was an old lady, right? I'm not the only one who saw it, right?"
Having said this, Lin Yang suddenly felt a deep chill running up his spine. The chill penetrated his bones and he couldn't help but shiver.
Lin Yang admitted that ever since the incident with his second uncle, he was not as courageous as before. Even though he knew rationally that he would not be so unlucky every time, he was still afraid of the ropes once bitten.
"Yes, I saw it too." Yu Zhenzhen looked at Lin Yang with contempt and was a little speechless about the way his legs went weak. Was he so scared?
Lin Yang got a positive answer, and seeing the others speechless and amused, he laughed heartily and said, "Haha, it's just embarrassing, you'll get used to it."
Others: “…”
"The grandmother across the street you mentioned is different," the boss narrowed his eyes and said, "Three years ago, the grandmother was very ill and was about to die. Her family asked my father to take care of the funeral. According to the old rules, we put a piece of facial tissue on her face. As a result, when my father led her children around the coffin, we saw the facial tissue was blown up... The grandmother slowly sat up by herself."
He spoke in a deep voice, and everyone got goose bumps when he said this. Imagine an old lady lying in a coffin in a mourning hall in a mountain village, with a piece of yellow paper covering her face. Suddenly, the yellow paper was blown up by the nose, revealing the old lady's dry mouth, and her originally stiff body began to move...
Lin Yang said with a pale face: "Resurrection? Zombie?"
"She should be called the living dead. Anyway, here, she can do things that living people can't do. Everyone in the village knows this, and so do the tourists who have stayed in my house. There is no need for me to lie to you."
"There is, there is such a thing?" Yu Zhenzhen said in disbelief, "Resurrection from the dead?"
She had just laughed at Lin Yang, and now she was also furious.
"It's a state of suspended animation," Tan Xiao was the only one who could still laugh and joke freely. He said to the boss, "Why did many places in ancient times keep the body for a few days before burying it? It's because medicine was not advanced enough at that time, and it was impossible to completely confirm that the deceased was really dead. That mother-in-law should have died at home at the time, and not been sent to the hospital, right?"
You know, there have been cases where people were buried alive by their families because they were in a state of suspended animation and difficult to tell. Therefore, many places use various methods to monitor the dead to prevent "corpses from resurrecting."
The boss glanced at Tan Xiao and became depressed: "Uh... um..."
This strange thing has been a great topic of conversation between the owner and the guests of the B&B in recent years. Everyone finds it strange and is impressed by this place.
If the guest is afraid, he will also say something similar to Tan Xiao's, so that the other party will not be so scared that he dare not stay at his house.
Now Tan Xiao directly interrupted him, which made him a little discouraged. He also wanted to take the opportunity to scare these students.
"But your father, that Taoist priest will have to close his business." Tan Xiao remembered that he had just said that when the grandmother passed away, his father was invited to take care of the funeral, which meant that his father was a local wizard.
The local witchcraft of Qiyun Yao is collectively called "Shigong". Among them, the one who dances ghosts is called "Shigong", the one who presides over funeral ceremonies to save the souls of the dead is called "Daogong", and the female one is called "Xianniang". For example, Lin Yang's mother had sought talismans from Xianniang before.
And as Tan Xiao mentioned on the bus before, the Paijiao was also deeply influenced by it, especially when the Yao and Han people lived together in Qiyunling, the relationship was even closer.
Tan Xiao recalled and said, "If during a funeral, the deceased 'resurrects' before being buried, then according to the rules of Qiyunyao, the Taoist priest can no longer preside over the ceremony, and the clothes cannot be used. They must be kept in the ancestral hall until the resurrected deceased actually dies. Otherwise, the ancestral gods will be angry because the previous ceremony was not completed and the deceased was unable to serve the ancestral gods."
You even know this?
There are some rules that some of the more Chinese-speaking Qi Yunyao here may not know. The innkeeper himself does this because his father at home. He stared at Tan Xiao and said, "Little classmate, you know a lot."
"Of course, he is also a wizard." Several students at the scene said almost in unison, and then looked at each other, well, they all seemed to be inexplicably proud of it.
Tan Xiao felt a little embarrassed.
Lin Yang raised his thumb and gestured to Tan Xiao: "We are all authentic descendants of Nanchu spiritual masters. Although we are not from the same faction, we are all considered colleagues."
"You're a snake witch!" the boss said. He felt relieved. He had scared the wrong person. "No wonder you knew."
"What does the snake witch mean?" Lin Yang wondered, isn't the Chu witch's dance the snake dance? It means the same thing?
"Master calls us that, it's a neutral term, it depends on the tone of voice." Tan Xiao explained, just like Tan Chunying also called them Yao brains. In the eyes of Yao witches, there are many kinds of Han witches, and they are used to classifying them according to their characteristics.
"The signature dance of the spiritual master is the snake dance, so they are called snake witches. If they are female, they are also called snake girls."
"If it is a wizard from Qi, he is called a sheep wizard. But it is not the sheep in the cow-sheep sense, because the wizards of Qi are good at bending one leg and imitating the Shangyang, a divine bird with only one leg, to dance the 'Shangyang' dance."
When Tan Xiao talked about these, they were actually all theoretical knowledge. He didn't have much communication with wizards from other places. He just went to school and heard Tan Chunying talk about them. "My mother sometimes calls them 'Bengbeng wizards'..."
Everyone reacted. Bengbeng Wu? Oh, dancing on one foot, right? Aunt Tan is really mean...
"Well, Tan Xiao, has your family ever encountered such a thing as a dead person coming back to life?" Yu Zhenzhen asked carefully, "Is it okay to ask this?"
"Of course there are. Every time our neighbor's old lady seemed to be dying, my mother would go to help her." Tan Xiao didn't need to recall this, he had witnessed it with his own eyes.
"What do you mean by every time?" Yu Zhenzhen felt like she had discovered a bug.
"Because she was really critically ill many times, but she survived every time. Twice, we even changed her burial clothes." The body will become stiff after death, so people will change her clothes first when they see her dying, but this old lady woke up again.
Therefore, Tan Xiao had no sense of mystery about resurrection, he just made a strict judgment at home without any medical equipment.
Lin Yang raised his hand, "Ah, but, doesn't it mean that the person involved must actually die before the wizard can re-perform the ritual? Or do spiritualists have different customs?"
"Yes!" Tan Xiao said, "It's like this: our family often breaks the rules."
Everyone: “…………”
"What about those who follow the rules? If they can no longer perform rituals, won't they have any income?" Yu Zhenzhen said uncertainly. She didn't quite understand the rules of this industry.
Tan Xiao burst out laughing.
At this point, even the boss started laughing. "Little classmate, how much do you think a shigong can earn? It's not like those Feng Shui masters in the legend. Our shigongs all have their own jobs. My family has been doing this for generations, and my father still has to farm. When people invite him, he goes to take care of the event, and the reward is a few pounds of meat and rice. Later, when the economy got better, many shigongs quit and went out to work to earn more. In my generation, I won't take over the altar anymore. Of course, it's better to open a homestay!"
Otherwise, you can directly participate in tourism singing and dancing performances, which will also bring higher income. Anyway, in the past, there may be several shigongs in a village, but now there may not be one in every village or village.
Yu Zhenzhen looked at Tan Xiao and suddenly realized, "Yeah, there is clearly a precedent, why didn't you think of it?"
As they were talking, a middle-aged man rushed in from outside. When he saw the boss, he asked anxiously, "Jianjun, where is your father?"
"He's in the fields, can't stay idle." The boss, Pan Jianjun, responded and asked, "What do you want him to do?"
The other party stammered, "My family is in trouble. My mother asked me to come and ask for help. She said she wanted to call the Taoist priest."
"Wait a minute, I'll call him." Although Pan Jianjun's father couldn't perform rituals, Qiyunyao's herbal medicine was also very famous, and the masters often used it for both magic and medicine. The elderly in the village still liked to ask his father for medicine. When he heard the old man at home asking, he thought he wanted herbal medicine, so he immediately took out his phone to contact him.
Seeing this, Tan Xiao and his group looked at each other and said, "Thank you, boss. We won't bother you anymore."
We had a great chat just now, don’t forget Kong Xuan and homework are waiting, several people put down their cups, thanked the boss and left.
After leaving the house, Yu Zhenzhen still felt a little regretful: "Is he here to ask the boss dad to do something? I really want to see it."
"It's said that his father can't hold a ceremony. He must have something else to do. If you want to see the ritual, can't you go to Brother Xiao's house?" Lin Yang tried to persuade him.
Tan Xiao also said: "Don't even mention watching. You can learn if you want. My mom said that when I go to college, she will open a summer interest class for spiritualists. It's also very ancient and mysterious."
Yu Zhenzhen: “…Alright, that’s fine.”
…
Tan Xiao filled his own cup with hot water and added some warm water for Kong Xuan who was sitting there.
Kong Xuan felt that he was already fine, but since this was Tan Xiao's thoughtful gesture, he drank the entire pot of water in one breath.
Tan Xiao was shocked by his "huge capacity". Could it be that it tasted so good? Could it be that the boss actually used mountain spring water? "Drink as much as you want. Do you want more?"
"...I can drink it." If Tan Xiao wanted to give him more to drink.
Tan Xiao didn't understand whether Kong Xuan was thirsty or not. "Then drink later. Don't drink too quickly."
At this moment at the entrance of the village, some of my classmates are already digging soil and rocks, and the work is in full swing.
The weather has cooled down by now, and most of the people who come to Qiyunling are fishing enthusiasts. There is a large pond not far away, which is directly drawn from the Nanxi River. Some fishing enthusiasts are sitting by the pond, and it is quite quiet.
So apart from the noise of the three classes of students, the only sounds you could hear were the gurgling of water, the chirping of insects and the swaying of grass, which was quite interesting.
Tan Xiao and his team have already selected the observation points and are making soil profile observation records.
The activity was almost done and everyone had completed their observation records. The teacher began to unroll the red banner that he had brought, which had the name of the activity and the school class name on it.
"Let's take a group photo." The teacher asked everyone to line up on the slope and asked the villagers to help take photos.
"Teacher, the class monitor brought a camera. Let her use it to take pictures so that we can edit them!" someone shouted.
Yu Zhenzhen changed the camera and took a few pictures. After taking the group photo, she took the camera and took pictures of Tan Xiao and Kong Xuan.
Under the golden sunlight, Tan Xiao was holding a soil sample in his hand, chuckling at Lin Yang's amusement, while Kong Xuan was standing close to him, looking at Tan Xiao in a trance.
The focus is precise, the lighting is beautiful, absolutely amazing.
Yu Zhenzhen ran over and showed it to Tan Xiao: "How is it? My technique is pretty good, right?"
Tan Xiao looked at it for a long time and praised: "The pixels are really high!"
Yu Zhenzhen: “…”
Yu Zhenzhen: "I'll give you a chance to praise me again."
Tan Xiao looked at it carefully again, then pointed at Kong Xuan and said, "Very good, you made Kong Xuan's eyes light up."
When Lin Yang heard this, he immediately started a rumor and shouted, "What? Kong Xuan's eyes lit up when he looked at Xiao Xiao?"
Kong Xuan: “!?”
Kong Xuan immediately scolded: "Nonsense, how could my eyes be shining?" Why would his eyes be shining when he looked at Tan Xiao? Why should he be shining!
Tan Xiao saw his eyes were blazing with anger and felt that he looked familiar again. He thought to himself, "What's wrong with praising him? I mean, there's light in your eyes, which is pretty nice."
Kong Xuan looked at the side and said nonchalantly: "How can human eyes shine?"
He didn’t use any magic…!
"How come there's no light?" Yu Zhenzhen was even more excited than him. "I used a flash to fill in the light in your eyes, why is there no light in your eyes? It's so obvious here!"
If Kong Xuan said there was no light again, she would not accept it and would argue it out!
Kong Xuan: “…………”
Yu Zhenzhen hummed and continued to look at the photos, very satisfied. If the model is good-looking, the photos will turn out well. She immediately uploaded the photos using the card reader on her phone. Once she posted them to the class group, everyone was discussing the photos and zooming in on them with their phones.
Only Kong Xuan didn't see the group and couldn't see the pictures. He didn't even have a mobile phone, let alone join any official class groups, small groups or gossip groups.
Kong Xuan originally thought that this kind of thing was unnecessary, but now he started to think about whether he should get a mobile phone.
Tan Xiao directly showed the camera to Kong Xuan, "Look, it's a very good shot."
Kong Xuan glanced at him and was stunned. From a third person's perspective , this was actually the case. He didn't even realize that he was staring at Tan Xiao in a trance, but at that moment, the setting sun shone through the shade of the trees onto the boy, outlining a beautiful and brilliant outline that was even better than the halo when he was in the spirit.
Kong Xuan: “This one isn’t very good.”
"Nonsense, it's obviously great, everyone likes it. I like it too." Lin Yang thought to himself, "The lighting is really good, I am not as good as the two of you."
Kong Xuan slid his hand across the camera screen, and Lin Yang was cut out of the picture, leaving only him and Tan Xiao.
That's good.
Lin Yang: “…”
The bad relationship is referring to him? My deskmate's heart will also be hurt.
Tan Xiao laughed, handed the camera to Kong Xuan, asked him to look at it himself, and went to collect soil samples.
I have to get a cell phone! Kong Xuan slid the wheel again, and the photos moved forward a few times. They were all photos of the house taken by Yu Zhenzhen. When he slid to the front, he saw a scene on the bus:
Tan Xiao sat on the outside with his head leaning back. The boy's flexible body was nestled in the seat, with his head slightly tilted back, his arms folded and his eyes closed to rest, exuding a soft and peaceful atmosphere. On his legs was a larger body, with its body folded and its head buried, like some large animal acting coquettishly.
"This picture wasn't sent to the group, right?" Lin Yang glanced at it and asked.
Kong Xuan almost shrank back, feeling a bit ashamed, even though he was the one openly resting his head on his knees in the car.
"I seem to have forgotten. Kong Xuan, do you want this one? If you want, I'll send it to you separately." Yu Zhenzhen said after taking a look.
Kong Xuan hesitated for a while, then said with a guilty conscience: "Yes!"
"Oh, hahaha." Yu Zhenzhen looked at Kong Xuan: "Can I add your WeChat ID?"
Kong Xuan was silent, "...it will happen."
"What? You just don't like it, right? We're deskmates. Is it necessary? I can't even add you on WeChat?" Yu Zhenzhen complained in a low voice, "I won't sell your WeChat ID to other girls in school."
Kong Xuan: "...I don't have a WeChat account. Save it and wait for me."
Yu Zhenzhen was shocked. Kong Xuan said that, which meant he really didn't have a WeChat account. He wasn't just making excuses and misunderstanding his deskmate. "Okay, okay."
"Okay, it's time for us to go." The geography teacher at the side looked at his phone and asked everyone to get back on the bus.
Kong Xuan was walking in the front. He quietly performed a ritual for himself and couldn't wait to show off to Tan Xiao that he was no longer carsick.
As everyone was walking towards the parking lot in twos and threes, a group of young people from the village suddenly came over. They looked to be in their twenties. They pushed something on a cart, covered it with a cloth, and pushed it to the pond. They said in unison, "Just leave it here."
"Didn't you fish it out of the river before?"
"The pond and the river are connected, what's the problem?"
"Yes, come on, throw it in."
They opened the cover and found a huge black iron tortoise inside. It looked like it weighed at least several hundred kilograms. There were some inscriptions on it, but they were blurry and unclear.
"Wow, what is this?" The students who were still standing there all came forward curiously to take a look and asked the geography teacher, "Teacher, what is this?"
"What is this writing? Why can't I recognize it?"
The geography teacher couldn't make out what the words were, so he asked, "Young man, this looks like an old item. What is it for?"
The locals didn't say anything, they just looked at him.
The geography teacher was a little embarrassed for a moment.
Tan Xiao took a look at it. It was clearly written in snake-foot script. He could make out some words, such as "water monster lurking" and "solid as a rock". In addition, there were many . He blinked and said, "This should have been put down by the Pai Sect to suppress the river. According to legend, during the Yuan Dynasty, when Dujiangyan was flooded, a 16,000-jin iron turtle was cast to suppress the water. It was one of the ancient methods of warding off evil. It's the dry season recently, so was this salvaged recently?"
The so-called "suppression victory" means "to win by suppressing", which can be understood as repression and suppression.
"Awesome!" The classmates cheered. This sounded quite interesting. Tan Xiaocai in the car in front gave a brief introduction on platoon teaching.
"Yes... it was recently salvaged." Several young men looked at each other with a somewhat subtle expression. It seemed that it was only after Tan Xiao said so that they realized that this was something from the Pai Sect. "Is this, the Pai Sect's river-suppressing thing?"
People in Qiyunling have heard the legend of the Paijiao people driving corpses in the water when they were young. The impression they have of them is that they are mysterious, evil and scary, even though in theory the Paijiao are the ones who help the rafts.
"Then is it still lost..."
"If you don't throw it away, will you keep it and put it in your house?"
A few people were whispering, not wanting the onlookers to know what was going on, so they took the iron turtle off the cart and wanted to throw it into the pond.
But this commotion made the fishermen over there unhappy.
"What are you doing? You're scaring my fish away." Someone stood up and accused, "You're throwing things in there? It's so big, can we still fish?"
He spoke with confidence, because people who fish here have paid the village, charged by the hour, and they eat and live in the village, which is a legitimate demand of consumers.
The young people who wanted to throw the iron turtle were stunned for a moment, looking at each other, and said irritably: "Okay, okay, let's go down and throw it into the river."
They were busy carrying the iron turtle back to the car.
"Dacheng, Chuanzi, don't move!"
Someone shouted in the distance.
The man came over on his motorcycle, yelling, "Who told you to dump it? Just because you scooped it up, do you think you can put it back? Don't touch it!"
"Is this the boss from before?" Lin Yang whispered to Tan Xiao. Tan Xiao took a look at his clothes and it was indeed him.
Pan Jianjun rode up to them on his motorcycle and scolded them, "Just leave it here and don't move."
The young people looked at each other helplessly, "But..."
"Humph," Pan Jianjun snorted, "I know about Lei Zi's matter. You didn't even tell him you were going to his house to help, but you wanted to deal with it secretly here. Is this something you can do? Leave the Iron Turtle here, and get out of here."
When the young men heard this, they didn't dare to say a word. They quickly let go of the cart and the iron turtle and ran away.
The students in Class 3 watched the story with great interest. Although it made no sense, it felt like a story. What happened? How should the iron turtle be dealt with?
The geography teacher has more experience. Looking at the iron turtle, he guessed that there is a rule in the village that things that are fished out cannot be handled casually. Qiyunyao still preserves quite a lot of folk customs.
He was actually interested and found it quite interesting, but he didn't have enough time to return to school. "Okay, okay, you all should go back and stop watching. If I want to watch it again, I'll ask my parents to bring you here to play."
Obviously, this could not be handled in a short time, and the remaining students walked towards the parking lot reluctantly.
Tan Xiao was about to leave, but Pan Jianjun grabbed him and said, "Little snake witch, wait a minute."
Tan Xiao stopped walking, and the other students didn't notice, and walked forward. He asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"
"Is your last name Tan? I heard someone calling you, right?"
"yes."
"My father heard that you were here. He knows what you do and wanted to ask you for a favor. You saw that the iron turtle that suppresses water here has been fished out. According to the old rules, we need to perform a ceremony to put it back." Pan Jianjun considered how to talk to Tan Xiao, "My father wants to set up an altar now, but his things are all under the control of the ancestral hall."
Tan Xiao felt uneasy, wondering if his fame had spread to Qiyuling.
Tan Xiao said embarrassedly: "I don't have any props with me, so I can't set up the altar." Moreover, he didn't understand the ritual process of Paijiao and Master Qiyunyao. Could he just interfere?
"Ah? No." Pan Jianjun said with a smile, "Why would they ask you to set up the altar? My father said he knows the spiritual master Tan Chunying, who is very famous. You are Tan Chunying's son, right?"
Seeing Tan Xiao nod, he continued, "My father wants you to come forward and say that you are representing the family and invite my father to cooperate in the performance, so that the elders in the ancestral hall of the village above will return the costume to my father. Otherwise, they will not easily return the costume to my father because they are afraid of angering the ancestral gods."
He already knew the nature of the Tan family. Tan Xiao had disturbed him and tried to scare people before, but at this moment, time was tight, so he really had to ask Tan Xiao for help.
Tan Xiao seemed to want to say something but stopped.
Pan Jianjun: "Please, I'll take up some of your time. How about I drive you back? My dad said that he knows your mom's personality. He can teach your family some Yao medicine recipes. Tourists will definitely pay for it!"
When Tan Xiao heard the one-sided statement, his heart was pounding: "...But isn't the old Taoist afraid of angering the ancestral gods?"
"My dad will bear the cost himself, or burn a substitute. After all, he is the only Taoist priest around here." Pan Jianjun sighed, then suddenly came to his senses and looked at him dissatisfiedly, "Classmate, this is unnecessary. Are you deliberately using this to mock my dad for being superstitious and conservative, so he can't make money? If you don't want to help, just say so. If you can't help, I'll call the travel agency."
Tan Xiao: "..."
Tan Xiao: "You think too much...! I am willing to show my concern for you!"
He wasn't really that disappointed, he was used to it. Pan Jianjun approached him, like most people, mainly because he wanted him to serve as a mascot.
