There is a trick

Chapter 1 Zhong Kui Marries His Sister
Zhou Chang sat quietly on the high stool.

The cold wind kept blowing into the room from the window, blowing against his neck and making his pale skin turn slightly blue.

He sat there like a clay statue, but his eyes moved frequently as he looked at the furnishings in this narrow room.

This is a house built of stones.

A piece of black coarse cloth divides the house into two halves with the door as the central axis.

Zhou Chang could not see anything about what was happening on the other side of the room.

He saw that the walls made of rubble were covered with streaks of black matter mixed with oil and wood ash.

Many colorful clay dolls and masks with ferocious expressions, tied with red ropes, were placed in the corners of the house.

Under the wall opposite the door, there was a coffin without a lid.

There was a thin layer of wet soil on the surface of the thin coffin. The coffin paint revealed where the wet soil had peeled off was still shiny black, and it didn't look like it had been buried deep underground for many years.

Zhou Chang was pulled out of this thin coffin by several people.

One of the old men who had dug him out of the soil was now sitting sideways against the coffin, turning over everything in the two bamboo boxes.

The room was freezing cold, but the old man's face was covered in sweat.

He picked up several bottles and jars from the incense, candles, paper money, copper seals, cow horns and other items piled on the ground and held them all in his arms.

Probably noticing Zhou Chang's gaze, he stood up and looked up at Zhou Chang in the corner, his eyes full of care: "Grandson, don't worry or be afraid, grandpa will draw a talisman on you later, and you will be able to move and speak."

The old man looked mysterious and spoke in a Sichuan dialect. He called Zhou Chang "youngest grandson", but Zhou Chang did not recognize him.

He had no idea where he was or what was happening. The only thing he was clear about was that of his body, only his eyes could move slightly.

He drove back to the countryside last night to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival with his grandfather.

When he woke up, he found himself trapped in a dark and smelly box. Later, as he was dug out from the ground by the old man and his accomplices, Zhou Chang realized that the dark and smelly box was actually a coffin.

Zhou Chang was not sure what the situation was now.

But what is certain is that he was not kidnapped to this place by some passing bandits or criminal gangs while he was sleeping last night.

His current situation is very special.

Similar to the feeling of being trapped in the coffin before, now he felt that his soul seemed to be locked in this coffin called a physical body.

He couldn't struggle, so he simply stopped struggling and sat quietly, watching what would happen.

The skinny old man wore a red-bottomed, black-edged double-breasted gown, tied around his waist with a straw rope. He also brought a few stones from somewhere else and built a platform above the ground at the door.

Then he took out a bronze mirror, opened the bottles and jars in his arms, and started to apply the liquid on his face.

The wind outside was howling sharply, and it was pitch black outside the window.

Zhou Chang observed the old man's movements for a while and confirmed that he was "putting on makeup".

The old man smeared his face with flour until it was pale, then used charcoal to draw his eyebrows, used red yeast rice powder to apply blush, drew red lips, put on a wig made of horsetail hair, and finally decorated the wig and ears with a few paper flowers.

In the blink of an eye, a woman dressed in red and green appeared in front of Zhou Chang.

The old woman had an exaggerated smile on her face, and the bright red double-breasted jacket she wore made her look even more festive. However, as her facial muscles trembled, the flour falling down, the paper flowers swaying in the cold wind, and her face as pale as paper, Zhou Chang always realized that this festive atmosphere was ultimately a layer of whitewash that could not be pierced, and underneath was actually a gloomy truth.

He painted himself as an old man with a festive look on his face. Then he put down the bronze mirror, closed his eyes, and drew a pair of distinct black and white eyes on his eyelids.

He turned his head, and the painted eyes looked directly at Zhou Chang.

Although the painting skills were very poor, Zhou Chang felt that the pair of "eyes" were clearly lively - the old man stared straight at Zhou Chang with these painted eyes!

At this time, someone opened the wooden door from outside.

A long-faced old man with a goatee walked into the house with his hands behind his back.

Behind him followed several young men holding Luoyang shovels, iron bars, hoes and other tools.

Everyone was covered in dust. As they walked into the house, a cold wind rushed in and immediately extinguished the flickering candlelight on the stone platform.

A corner of the black cloth that divided the room into two was blown away by the wind.

Zhou Chang caught a glimpse of the other side of the black cloth. In the thick darkness, there seemed to be a bright red figure sitting.

The man with goatee reached out and grabbed the black cloth that was blown by the wind, so that the situation on the other side of the black cloth was covered again. He turned sideways and glanced towards Zhou Chang.

The dark blue sky shone from outside the door onto the goateed man's face. Zhou Chang saw that the wrinkles on his face, which were originally stretched out, suddenly tightened into a ball.

Zhou Chang didn't move, but Goatbeard was startled. In the darkness, Goatbeard's voice of sucking his teeth and breathing in cold air could be heard: "A Chang was buried only seven days ago, how come he looks so different after being dug out? It's scary..."

“Being targeted by a ghost and surviving a life is already a blessing from the ancestors’ grave. In order to save his life, I can only bury him in this mass grave filled with the dead air. It is normal for a living person to undergo some changes after being buried for seven days.” The old man who painted himself as a festive matchmaker said this and relit the candle.

The appearance of the 'festive matchmaker' did not frighten Goatee anymore.

The goatee looked at Zhou Chang again, frowning deeply, with doubt in his eyes: "The change I mean is not the change on the surface, but the change in the bones. It's like a ghost turning into a human, you know what I mean?"

"So you're saying that my youngest grandson has turned into a ghost? If he turned into a ghost, how come he wasn't dead when we dug him out?" The 'matchmaker' looked at the goateed man with the pair of eyes painted on her eyelids, and an eerie atmosphere filled the room.

"Hey, that's not what I meant..." Sun Yanshun, the man with the goatee, waved his hands and said to the matchmaker Zhou Sanji, "Forget it, let's not talk about this. We are on the same boat now, and we are all trapped in this mass grave. It's best not to argue with each other. What's the situation now? Let me tell you about it."

Zhou Sanji nodded with a gloomy face.

Sun Yanshun squatted down in front of Zhou Sanji and took out a thread-bound book from his sling bag.

Zhou Chang saw that there were things like a compass and hemp rope in his saddle bag.

Sun Yanshun smeared his fingers with saliva and opened the yellowed thread-bound book. The contents of each page of his thread-bound book were varied, some pages had crooked maps drawn on them, and some pages had fragments cut from newspapers pasted on them.

He turned to a certain page in the book and pointed to the picture pasted on the page for Zhou Sanji to look at.

Zhou Chang was in a commanding position and could see the content of the picture - a woman with very long hair that covered her face and reached her waist was standing at the door of a thatched cottage in a dark, dilapidated and simple fenced courtyard. Several dogs with equally long hair were standing or lying at her feet.

Although there was not much content in the picture, the picture drawn by the painter gave Zhou Changsheng a very strange feeling.

He noticed that there was a line of artistic words on the side of the poster: Old Feng’s wife Li Xiamei, no one allowed to approach.

Generally speaking, "Stranger keep away" probably means "Strangers should not approach", while "Living people should not approach" has a clearer meaning. This pictorial is warning people not to approach the person named "Li Xiamei".

This 'Li Xiamei' is very dangerous.

Zhou Sanji looked at the magazine intently and suddenly said something that even Zhou Chang found familiar: "If you have a stomachache, go find Lao Feng. If Lao Feng is not at home, go find his mother and her three children... Is Li Xiamei's husband the 'Lao Feng' I'm talking about?"

"Yes." Sun Yanshun responded, his expression solemn, he stretched out three fingers and shook them in front of everyone, and then said, "Old Feng's family has lived for at least three hundred years.

It is said that Li Xiamei likes to raise dogs and feed them human hearts and livers, which makes her dogs very vicious and eat people as soon as they see them...

Now I don’t know whether we happened to walk to where she lives, or she met us at her place.

Now that we have encountered this, we must find a way to get through this hurdle."

As soon as he said this, the young men behind him turned pale with fright.

When Zhou Chang heard what Sun Yanshun said, he did not feel any fear, but became more curious about what would happen next - could something that lived for three hundred years still be a human being?
The old man with the goatee said something weird and strange, like he was talking in his sleep.

Is everything now just a dream?
But if it was a dream, how could it be so real?

Also, according to the old man, he was buried in the mud for seven days... What is his condition now that he has been dug out from the mud?
What am I now?
Zhou Sanji stared at Li Xiamei in the picture without saying a word. After a long time, just when Sun Yanshun was getting impatient, he suddenly said, "It is said that the 'Old Feng Family' is specially responsible for guarding the 'Ghost Secret Treasure'. Ordinary people generally cannot provoke them.

I didn't do anything, why did this 'Li Xiamei' suddenly come to me?"

"I didn't do anything either, and now it's here." Sun Yanshun spread his hands and said.

The three people behind him lowered their eyes and said nothing.

It’s just that the various tools in their hands became particularly eye-catching at this moment.

Zhou Chang thought of the compass and hemp rope that Sun Yanshun carried with him, and it suddenly dawned on him that maybe Sun Yanshun and his gang came specifically to dig out the treasure guarded by Old Feng's family.

Seeing that Zhou Sanji didn't say anything, Sun Yanshun turned around and looked at the furnishings in the room. Then he smiled and said to Zhou Sanji, "You are a really capable Taoist priest. You must have thought of a solution by now, right?"

"I figured it out." Zhou Sanji listened to the increasingly urgent sound of the wind outside the door. He stood up, holding a brush in one hand and a cinnabar pot in the other. He came to Zhou Chang, dipped the brush in cinnabar ink, and began to draw on Zhou Chang's chest and back. "I plan to ask 'Zhong Kui' to look after us. As long as that Li Xiamei hasn't raised the flag and become a 'secular god', as long as it is still a 'demon of desire', Zhong Kui should be able to suppress it!
Borrow Zhong Kui's power and lead us out of here!"

When Sun Yanshun heard Zhou Sanji wanted to "invite Zhong Kui", he frowned and said, "Although you have real skills, I'm afraid you are not qualified to borrow Zhong Kui's power, right?
How are you going to invite Zhong Kui over?"

"Sing a play about 'Zhong Kui Marries His Sister'!
"Zhong Kui's sister is getting married, so she will definitely look over here, so can you give her some favors?"

"Achang will be my brother-in-law?" Sun Yanshun asked.

"Yes!" Zhou Sanji responded.

Sun Yanshun took a deep breath, pointed to the opposite side of the house separated by black cloth, and said in a trembling voice: "Are you going to ask that thing that you don't know whether it is a human or a ghost to be Zhong Kui's sister?

Can Zhong Kui agree? ! "

He suddenly lowered his voice again: "That thing was taken out of Ah Chang's coffin!"

(End of this chapter)