The first volume of the funeral Chapter 8 Coffin
"I don't know what will happen," Mu Yiran looked at him coldly, "The last person who did something similar suffered an extremely tragic backlash."
"Okay, then I won't burn them." Ke Xun spread his hands, "What if I draw a turtle, a goatee or something on their faces?"
Mu Yiran looked at him as if he were an idiot: "In China's culture of gods and ghosts, no matter if they are gods or ghosts, they cannot be insulted."
"Then can the fucking gods and ghosts humiliate people?" Ke Xun was helpless.
After everyone checked, they didn't find anything exciting. They looked at the sky, and although it was gray and gloomy, they knew it was already dawn, so they closed the main door and walked out to the yard.
Ke Xun remembered that the old man had told them last night that they had to gather at his place at eight o'clock this morning, so he called Wei Dong who had been staying in the yard.
As soon as I walked out of the hospital, I saw the pancake stall owner sitting on the ground dejectedly, with water stains all over his face, and I couldn't tell whether it was sweat or tears.
Wei Dong finally remembered what Liu Yufei had said to him last night, and he went over to pull the pancake stand owner: "Don't do useless things, you can't run away from this place, no matter where you run, you will end up back where you started, you'd better follow the others, maybe we can find a way back today."
The pancake stall owner stood up in a daze and followed the crowd like a puppet.
Ke Xun asked Wei Dong: "Why do you always end up back where you started no matter how hard you run?"
Wei Dong pointed to the depths of the gray fog in the distance: "Liu Yufei said that no matter which direction you run, you will eventually return to the starting point. It's like a painting in front of you. The person in the painting runs to the left side of the frame, and when he runs out of the frame, he appears on the right side of the frame, and then runs back to the starting point. Do you understand? Anyway, no matter how you run, you can't run out of the frame."
"…It's so fucking hopeless." Ke Xun sighed.
"What did you see in that room?" Wei Dong asked.
Ke Xun briefly explained the situation to him, then looked up and saw Mu Yiran walking in front of him. He quickened his pace to catch up with him, and asked him shoulder to shoulder: "Brother Xiaomu, tell me, what did you find in the mourning hall at that time?"
Mu Yiran closed his eyes. Ke Xun could see a hint of helplessness on his face which was as cold as an iceberg. His brows softened unconsciously. He did not ask any questions, but just tilted his head to look at him and waited quietly.
Mu Yiran lowered his eyes and glanced at the face in front of him. The messy short hair made him look a little lazy and unruly, but the pair of eyes under the two bold and beautiful eyebrows were particularly pure and serious, with clear black and white, and flashing clear light with every glance.
Just looking at this face, you really can't tell that this person has the attributes of a shameless idiot.
Pursing his lips, Mu Yiran looked away and whispered, "There's something wrong with the wood of that coffin. Coffins are usually made of nanmu, paulownia, pine, or a mixture of fir and cypress. But the coffin in the mourning hall is made of pure cypress, without any mixed cypress."
"So?" Ke Xun looked at him.
"In the funeral culture of some parts of China, it is forbidden to use pure willow or pure cypress wood for making coffins." Mu Yiran said in a low voice, "According to old customs, willow trees do not produce seeds, so using them as coffin wood will lead to extinction of the family line. And if you use pure cypress to make a coffin, you will be punished by heaven."
"God strike you?" Ke Xun raised his eyebrows. "God strike you?"
Mu Yiran nodded slightly: "You can say that. Therefore, using pure willow and pure cypress wood to make coffins is a funeral taboo. In places where there are relevant customs, it is usually impossible to make such a mistake."
Ke Xun turned around and looked at the Li family's house which was far behind him: "But this family has committed a taboo, which means..."
"It means it was done on purpose," Mu Yiran also looked back meaningfully, "Knowingly committing a crime, there is probably only one possibility for this behavior, which is to turn a taboo into a curse."
Ke Xun: "...Curse? That's amazing. Why is that?"
Mu Yiran lowered his eyes, as if thinking: "Even if it is a painting, the content must be logical, and if it is a realistic painting, it must be combined with reality. After entering the painting, we become one of the characters in the painting. Among them are people who keep vigil, people who chop wood, people who guard the granary, people who guard the warehouse, and people who dig graves..."
"It seems like something is missing." Ke Xun looked at the people walking in front.
Mu Yiran's eyes flickered slightly: "The second protagonist in the funeral ceremony is missing."
"Who?" Ke Xun looked at him.
Mu Yiran's eyes moved to his face: "Family of the deceased."
Ke Xun suddenly realized: "That's right, there was no one else in the yard last night except us . Wait, could the three dead people be the deceased's family members?"
"No." Mu Yiran pointed at the people walking in front with his chin, "We are all dressed the same. If we were the family members of the deceased, we would be wearing heavy mourning. Even if we were not, our clothes would not be the same. Judging from the situation we were 'arranged' in the old man's house last night, we should be 'villagers'."
"Then why do we have to let the villagers keep vigil?" Ke Xun asked.
“In some villages with a small population, when a family has a wedding or funeral, the whole village will go to help.” Mu replied happily.
Ke Xun asked, "Could it be that you, Brother Xiaomu, are from a simple peasant family?"
Mu Yiran looked at him coldly: "Read more."
"I'm from the Sports Department." Ke Xun showed no shame on his face. "By the way, can the book teach you how to identify the wood used for coffins?"
Mu Yiran didn't seem to want to answer, but seemed to be afraid of being pestered by Ke Xun, so he could only answer reluctantly: "I have a friend who is obsessed with wood art."
This "obsession" is very particular. Usually, obsession is accompanied by crazy promotion - I guess you have been promoted the knowledge about wood a lot.
"Then why didn't the deceased's family show up?" Ke Xun returned to the topic. "The deceased was cursed with a cypress coffin, but the family didn't have any explanation? Who made the coffin for the deceased?"
Mu Yiran said calmly: "If you find the answers to these questions, you can probably leave here."
As they were talking, they had already arrived at the old man's house from last night. After entering the house, they saw steamed buns, rice porridge, and bowls and chopsticks on the table in the main room. The old man's lifeless eyes swept over everyone: "Everyone worked hard last night, have breakfast first. There is no work to do during the day, everyone can take a rest, come to my place after dark, I will arrange work for everyone tonight."
After saying that, the old man turned and went into the inner room.
Ke Xun was wondering if the food on the table was poisonous, but he saw two or three people had already walked over and sat down to eat. Ke Xun looked at Mu Yiran and saw that his face looked a little gloomy, but he also walked towards the table and served himself a bowl of porridge.
"Are you really okay?" Ke Xun sat next to him and watched him scoop a spoonful of porridge into his mouth with elegant movements.
Liu Yufei next to him said sarcastically, "Eat it with confidence. If the food was poisonous, there would be no need to make so many mysterious things to bother us. We could just leave them in the house and starve for a month. No one would survive."
Ke Xun still looked at Mu Yiran: "Then what's wrong with your face? Is there shit in the porridge?"
Mu Yiran gave him a cold look and said, "If you want to die in one second, I'll grant your wish."
Ke Xun immediately remembered the situation last night when he was pinned to the ground by this man without any resistance, so he said to him, "Stop making trouble and eat quickly."
He reached out and grabbed two buns, and handed one to Boss Mu in a very servile manner. Boss Mu ignored him and Wei Dong snatched it away.
Liu Yufei, who was standing beside him, was stirring the watery rice porridge in his bowl with a spoon in disgust, while continuing to talk to Ke Xun: "He looks unhappy . I guess it's because the two people who went to dig the graves are dead."
Ke Xun paused, counted the heads in the room, and found that the two who went to dig the grave yesterday were indeed missing: "How do you know those two are dead?"
"Because the old man asked us to eat without waiting for those two to come back," Liu Yufei pointed to the inner room, "If those two were still alive, the old man would have waited until they were all here before saying what he just said."
"Shit." Wei Dong cursed at the side, "We lost five in one night. At this rate, how many will we have left after today?"
No one answered him, they just ate in silence. Some people looked numb, some seemed to be thinking about something, and some were in a daze.
The taste of this meal is really indescribable. The porridge is cold, the buns are hard, there are white hairs hanging on the pickled vegetable sticks, and I don’t know what the bun fillings are made of. They taste like grass and have a smell of horse manure.
But no matter how bad the food tastes, you still have to eat it, otherwise you don’t know how long your physical strength can last.
The unpalatable meal was quickly finished, and Mu stood up and walked out.
Ke Xun pulled Wei Dong to follow him: "Where are we going?"
"Go outside and look for clues." Mu Yiran answered in a deep voice.
"Can you walk around randomly? Aren't you afraid of encountering something?" Wei Dong asked.
"Based on the content of the painting, it should be fine during the day," Mu Yiran said, "Besides, the old man didn't mention not going outside in his speech just now, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"We'll go with you." Ke Xun decided to hold on to the boss's thigh tightly and not let go.
Mu Yiran ignored him, walked out of the yard with his long legs, and headed straight towards the north of the village.
There is a wasteland to the north of the village, and further away there is still endless chaos and blur.
Over the wasteland, a few crows cried miserably. After circling a few times, they landed beside a mound.
Ke Xunweidong followed Mu Yiran and strode over, but saw two corpses beside the mound.
Wei Dong yelled and sat down on the ground. Then he used his hands and hips to retreat seven or eight meters before he stopped, pointing at the corpse and trembling.
"Close your eyes and get out of the way." Ke Xun stood in front of him. He didn't want to see the death of the two bodies, but he saw Mu Yiran walked straight up to him, lowered his head and examined the bodies carefully. He endured the discomfort and looked at the bodies twice.
I almost vomited on the spot when I saw this.
