False evidence

Chapter 36 Cursed Poisoning (4)

I crawled out from under Old Man Bai's cotton-padded coat and was running into the house when the dark figure was thrown right in front of me.

I could tell it had fallen really hard, but after rolling and thrashing on the ground a couple of times, it actually came straight at me!

At this critical moment, I was no longer afraid. I even imitated what Grandpa had just done and tried to grab the shadow.

"Son, run!" Old Master Bai shouted anxiously.

I couldn't pull my hand back. I felt like I touched that dark shadow, as if I had touched something real. But even now, I can't describe that special feeling of contact.

I couldn't catch the dark figure; it vanished before my eyes in the next second.

At this moment, Old Bai arrived, shouting and cursing, and slapped me hard on the head.

I was already dizzy, and he used a lot of force to slap me so hard that I ended up sitting on the ground.

"Uncle Bai, what a jerk, why did you hit me?" I felt extremely wronged.

But it was at this moment that I witnessed the most terrifying scene.

I plopped down right outside the main room door, and the coffin was right in front of me, separated only by the door.

I was sitting on the ground, intending to look up at Old Bai and my grandfather.

But as soon as he lifted his eyelids, he saw that there was a person sitting inside the coffin!

The person's cheeks were a different color from the average person's. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that one side was covered with a layer of yellow paper, and blush was drawn on the yellow paper.

At first glance, it reminded me of the paper-making shop in town.

The person sitting up in the coffin looked just like the paper figures in that shop at first glance.

However, I quickly realized that this was definitely not a paper figure.

Because paper figures don't blink, while the person in the coffin, after sitting up, suddenly opened their eyes!
Those lifeless eyes met mine.

That's when I recognized him. Wasn't this the dead Shao Hanzi?
What happened to his face?

A cracking sound rang out, followed by Old Master Bai stomping his foot and yelling, "What are you doing?!"

Shao Hanzi's mother cried out, "This is my son, I can't let him urinate on me..."

Later, I overheard the adults talking and learned that, according to the plan, they were originally going to pour my bowl of virgin urine on Shao Hanzi's head at the last moment, or even feed it to him.

Actually, nobody wants to do that, but it's a last resort.

Seeing Shao Hanzi sit up, my grandfather picked up the bowl of boy's urine. But Shao Hanzi's mother suddenly rushed up and knocked the bowl to the ground.

I was still in a daze when suddenly I felt like I was 'flying'.

It wasn't until I realized that it was Grandpa Bai who picked me up.

The old man lifted me directly onto the coffin, made me stand on the edge of the coffin, and yanked down my pants. "Pee! Son, pee on him!"

I panicked: "I can't pee! I can't!"

Just kidding, I'm not a water gun that's filled with water and can't just come out whenever I want.

At this crucial moment, I lost my nerve. When I saw that Shao Hanzi actually seemed to be looking at me with his eyelids raised, I couldn't help but feel a surge of malice. I lowered my head and stared back at him.

In reality, at this point, besides glaring at him, there was nothing else I could do.

The main problem is my position; Old Bai has even pulled my pants down. If I don't scare Shao Hanzi, he might reach out and pull me down, then bite me on the stomach...

For a moment, the atmosphere froze completely.

I didn't see what Grandpa was doing; all I could hear was the faint sound of Grandpa Bai holding his breath. Shao Hanzi's mother stopped wailing, and no one spoke.

Looking back, the scene was like a still frame from a movie.

I stared at Shao Hanzi the whole time, not daring to blink.

I don't know how much time passed, but my eyes were sore from staring.

I saw that Shao Hanzi's yellow paper cheeks suddenly turned redder and redder.

At first I didn’t understand what was going on, but soon I noticed that blood was flowing from both sides of his face!

Dark red blood gushed out, quickly washing away the yellow paper on Shao Hanzi's face.

That's when I saw that it wasn't his face anymore. His cheeks looked like they had been gnawed off, leaving only two bloody holes. If you looked closely, you could even see his back teeth.

Seeing Shao Hanzi's terrifying appearance, my legs went weak, and suddenly I heard my grandfather shout:
"Sanzi! Stand up straight!"

Grandpa's words were more powerful than any stimulant these days. Hearing his shout, my confidence immediately returned. I straightened my back, no longer needing Grandpa Bai's support, and stood there firmly in a horse stance, 'nailed' to the edge of the coffin!
At that moment, Shao Hanzi's eyes suddenly rolled strangely, and then with a "bang," he collapsed.

Later, my grandfather lifted me down from the coffin.

Grandpa took me back to the room we used to live in. In the middle of the night, a lot of people came to the courtyard. They came and went, talking and chatting. I don’t know what they were busy with.

As soon as it was light, Old Master Bai came in and asked, "How is the child?"

The old man was smoking his pipe and drinking his morning wine with peanuts when he heard this, and replied with a smirk:

"Don't worry, this kid may be young, but he's got guts. Those filthy things that dare to mess with him are just asking for death."

Old Master Bai nodded: "It's alright. You should drink less too. The main room is all tidied up now, so we need to start all over again."

Grandpa's eyes lit up, and he glanced at me sideways, saying, "Then we'll have to eat it for another day."

I was overjoyed to hear that I could have another grand feast.

However, I haven't forgotten what happened last night.

I thought about it for a while, and then I asked Grandpa and Old Bai, "What's on the roof beam in the main room?"

"what?"

Both Grandpa and Old Bai were taken aback.

I said, "Last night, when Shao Hanzi lay down in the coffin, I saw him staring at the roof beam, and I even saw his mouth move. He also straightened up a bit... I felt like he was looking at the roof beam, and there seemed to be something on it..."

"Hey, my goodness!" Grandpa slapped his thigh.

Old Master Bai seemed to have thought of something, and he followed the master out the door and into the main room.

Someone carried a ladder into the main room, and Old Master Bai climbed up to the roof beam himself. After fiddling with it for a while, he bent down and handed a fuzzy roll of something to the man below...

Serving tofu rice twice in a row is a rare sight in the countryside.

Although I was frightened, once I swallowed two pieces of pork knuckle with skin on, I forgot all about it.

At the same table of old men, an old man who had worked as a carpenter his whole life said, "Old Shao's family has offended someone, and someone has cast a curse on them!"

Another old man said, "When they were rebuilding this house, I advised them not to be so stingy, not to ruin their reputation over a few dollars. But none of them listened. In order to save a few dollars, they didn't use the village workers and instead hired some shady characters from the town."

"You're willing to risk everything to hire outsiders to build your house, fine, but at least treat them properly! This family, on the other hand, feeds their workers barely better than pig swill, and then they nitpick and complain like they're all 'experts.' They want the horse to run fast, but they won't feed it well—is that even fair?"

The old carpenter sighed, "Well, that's all fine. People work hard to earn money to support their families, so they can just endure a little mistreatment. But they really went too far, and now look what happened. What a tragedy, what a tragedy..."

(End of this chapter)