There is a trick

Chapter 19 Rice Grave (Please read!)
In the dim inner room, the person pushing the coffin was hidden behind the coffin and his face could not be seen clearly.

The shirtless fat man removed the lids of the two coffins.

Zhou Chang noticed that both coffins were unpainted, and green mold spots were hidden between the wood textures.

"Little boy, do you want to lie in the coffin by yourself, or do you want us to carry you to the coffin?" The fat man was kind and smiled as he spoke to Shi Danzi. "Don't worry, all the people who come here to treat madness and hysteria lie in these coffins and are carried to the cellar below the 'rice tomb'. Nothing will happen."

Shi Danzi looked at the coffin which was pitch black inside and he couldn't see anything clearly, and there was obvious fear in his eyes.

When Zhou Chang looked at him, he suppressed this look of fear.

But the young man was not shrewd enough after all. Zhou Chang saw it and found out something. He lay on the ground and said with a smile: "Uncle Master, didn't you come here to cure your madness?

Don't be afraid, just lie down in the coffin and leave your delusions and sickness in the cellar here. Once you are cured, everything will be fine."

"Yes, Yongsheng Cellar is very effective in treating hysteria and insanity. Most people who think they are insane will have all their insanity gone after staying here for a day." The fat man smiled naively and echoed Zhou Chang's words.

Shi Danzi nodded reluctantly and said, "Okay, okay, I'll do it myself..."

As he spoke, the young man walked towards one of the coffins with difficulty. After trying several times, he failed to climb over the coffin. It was the fat man next to him who reached out and lifted his buttocks, and he was able to climb into the coffin and lie flat inside.

The fat man walked over to Zhou Chang again and said with a smile: "I will have to carry you into the coffin."

Zhou Chang nodded in thanks: "Excuse me."

"It's okay, it's okay." The fat man laughed, bent down, carried Zhou Chang on his shoulders, and then moved Zhou Chang into another coffin.

A strong, sour smell of wine lees was brewing in the coffin. As the fat man lifted him over the edge of the coffin, Zhou Chang saw a dark blue, moldy human-shaped mark on the bottom of the coffin that had never been painted.

This is……

There was a gleam in Zhou Chang's eyes.

The bottom of the coffin was covered with moldy human-shaped outlines, as if the corpse fluid had seeped out of a human body and soaked through the wood texture!
Zhou Chang could no longer see the human-shaped mark after the fat man turned him over.

He lay down in the outline of the human figure.

The smell of wine lees, mold, and various body odors left by predecessors mixed together and kept drilling into Zhou Chang's nostrils. Among all the odors, he distinguished a hint of rot.

The stench of a dead rat is masked by many other smells and is not very obvious, but once you distinguish it, you will feel that this stench is deep and gloomy.

“Someone died in this coffin!

Ah! Don’t close it, don’t cover it yet! "

Suddenly, Shidanzi's panicked shouts were heard in the quiet flat house.

He cried and propped himself up from the coffin, half sitting in the coffin, looking around in horror, and finally his gaze settled on the fat man: "I smell the stench of a rotting corpse in the coffin!

There are corpse marks on the bottom of the coffin!
Someone has died in this coffin! I can’t lie down, I can’t—”

The fat man, who had been quite kind before, immediately drooped his face when he heard Shi Danzi's panicked shouting: "Don't talk nonsense!

These coffins are specially for those of you who are crazy and hysterical. The human prints at the bottom of the coffins are left by the sweat of the people in front of you!
You can smell the stench of a corpse. I think you are seriously ill and need proper treatment!

Wen Saner, push him in and cover him with a board!"

As soon as the fat man finished speaking, the cart pusher who seemed to have disappeared behind the stone egg coffin suddenly rose up in the darkness!
He stretched out his clamp-like hand and pressed the sitting stone egg back into the coffin!

Bang!
The coffin lid closed!
Shi Danzi's cries for help and the sounds of banging on the coffin lid could still be heard from inside.

"Noisy!"

The fat man cursed angrily, lowered his eyes, and glared at Zhou Chang who was lying in the coffin beside him: "If you want to make a scene like him, I'd better close the coffin lid on you as soon as possible."

"He is young and doesn't understand things." Zhou Chang said in a soothing and peaceful voice while lying in the coffin. "My family has spent so much effort to get us a work permit to go into the cellar for treatment. We have to stay in this cellar and get cured no matter what.

Isn't it a waste of the efforts of the elders in the family if he clamors to leave as soon as he comes in?

Don't worry, I won't make as much noise as him."

"Yes, yes, you are older than him, and you really understand things better than him!" The fat man agreed with Zhou Chang's words. He agreed again and again, and his expression towards Zhou Chang returned to his previous kindness. "In this case, I won't close the coffin for you yet, so that you can get some fresh air."

"Thank you very much, thank you very much." Zhou Chang's eyes rolled and he said, "Can you help me up and let me sit in the coffin to see what the rice grave looks like?"

Zhou Chang's respectful attitude, calling the fat man "you" all the time, made the fat man quite pleased.

Normally, the fat man was surrounded by people who tried to curry favor with him, but he had never met anyone who tried to curry favor with him in such a literary way as Zhou Chang - the men in the Wen family were all well-educated and well-mannered, but how could their masters treat a servant like him well?

So when the fat man heard Zhou Chang's request, he agreed without hesitation: "It's okay to want to see something strange. Come, I'll help you up."

As he spoke, he really helped Zhou Chang up and made him sit in the coffin.

"Let's go."

The fat man waved to the two men pushing the cart.

The wheels of the cart under the coffin started turning again, and the dull and heavy sound echoed in the dim inner courtyard.

Zhou Chang sat in the coffin, his eyes sweeping over the various furnishings in the house. Apart from the empty wine jars piled everywhere, only the 'rice tomb' surrounded by numerous pillars was particularly eye-catching, constantly capturing Zhou Chang's attention.

Dense, snow-white hyphae grew on the grain mountain that looked like a grave. The hyphae coiled around each other and formed a hard crust on the surface of this "rice grave".

In front of Mi's grave, the tombstone of 'Old Ancestor Wen' stood silently.

Behind the rice tomb, there is a deep corridor made of mud bricks.

The two coffins were pushed into the corridor one after the other.

The cart went down the long gentle slope. On both sides of the long gentle slope, on the platforms formed by yellow mud bricks, there were also "rice graves" standing tall - but among these numerous rice graves, only a few could produce snow-white mycelium.

Most of the rice graves still retain the original state of various grains, and no mycelium has grown.

Even if a few rice graves grew mycelium, most of them were a dirty green color, and few were as white as snow.

In front of the numerous rice graves, there are also stone tablets standing.

'Wen Zhaolin', 'Wen Zhaofeng'...

'Wen Xingren', 'Wen Xingyi'... 'Wen Sizu', 'Wen Siming'...

The long gentle slope gradually changed direction, spiraling downward.

"Look, buried in these rice graves are people who claim to be suffering from madness and hysteria like you, or objects that people think are weird." The fat man pointed to the rice graves on both sides of the gentle slope and spoke to Zhou Chang. His voice sounded chilly and creepy in this deep underground cellar. "Most people are actually not sick. The mountains of grain piled above them have not changed at all.

Only a few people really went crazy and developed delusions, and the mountains of grain where they were buried began to grow mycelium and slowly turned into rice graves.

Mifen is the distiller's yeast from Yongsheng Distillery.

The reason why these mad people can expel their delusions by lying in the grain pile, causing the grain to grow mycelium and turn into koji, is because the 'sweet koji' of our Yongsheng Distillery is playing a role.

The sweet and mellow koji only exists in the rice grave of ancestor Wen."

"Those tombstones..." Zhou Chang's eyes swept across the rice graves on both sides of the slope. The further he went down, the more mottled the surface of the stone tablets in front of the rice graves became, and they were full of marks of time.

“That’s the name of the liquor label!”

The fat man interrupted Zhou Chang.

The fat man was quite sensitive about the fact that the stone slab with the words "Wen So-and-so" engraved on it in front of Zhou Changcheng's grave was a tombstone. He glared at Zhou Chang with dissatisfaction, pointed at the stone slab with the words "Wen Linquan" engraved on the side of the ramp, and said, "The Wen Linquan cellar specializes in producing "Linquan Old Wine", and the Wen Linzhang cellar specializes in producing "Linzhang Ten-Year Aged Wine"..."

Zhou Chang nodded and said nothing more.

In his eyes, these so-called cellars that stretched from the ground to the underground looked more and more like tombs.

No matter how the fat man explained, he couldn't convince him at all.

Among the ancestors of the Wen family, are there any with names like Wen Linquan, Wen Linzhang, and Wen Zhaolin?
If such a person really existed, could it be that the final resting place of these people after death formed a cellar beneath the huge rice grave of Old Ancestor Wen?
Why did these people die?

The cart was near the bottom. Zhou Chang moved his eyes and looked down. The bottom was still pitch black, but the air was getting colder and damper. Occasionally, the fat man and the two people pushing the cart stepped on some dirt and rocks, which fell into the dark cellar bottom. Zhou Chang could hear the faint sound of water.

There should be a water source at the bottom of Old Ancestor Wen’s rice tomb.

“There are no empty pools here…

Is the cellar so full today?" The fat man looked around. Even though he was already at the bottom of the cellar, there were still piles of rice on the several cellars on both sides of the ramp. The slightly yellowed mycelium was shaking gently in the cold air.

The rice graves here have all fermented into mycelium and are gradually being grown into koji.

The red rope on Zhou Chang's wrist did not move at all.

The koji here doesn't seem to interest it, it prefers to absorb the aroma from the finished wine.

"You two are lucky." The fat man glanced at the coffins of Zhou Chang and Shi Danzi, then waved his hand, signaling the people behind to continue pushing the carts. He then put his hands behind his back, led two carts, and walked into the bottom of the cellar.

Wow…

The sound of water came closer and closer, almost ringing in Zhou Chang's ears.

Zhou Chang lowered his eyes and looked to the side - in the middle of the naturally formed stone layer at the bottom of the cellar, there was a spring as big as a human head. The sound of gurgling water came from this spring.

Next to this spring, there are two cellars that look like newly dug ones.

In the cellar, there were two brand new wooden coffins.

In front of the cellar, there are two stone tablets with clear words on them - Wen Yongxing and Wen Yongsheng!

“The reason why the sweet koji of Yongsheng Distillery can make people ferment their delusions into grains and make koji is because of the sweet spring water discovered by Ancestor Wen!
You two are so lucky - we just dug two more cellars next to the sweet spring this year, and not many people have had their madness cured in these two cellars.

You guys got a bargain!"

The fat man patted Zhou Chang on the shoulder and asked him, "If you were more obedient, I would let you choose the cellar first. Which one would you choose?"

Zhou Chang's eyes lingered between the two newly dug cellars. After a moment, he replied, "Wen Yongsheng."

"it is good!"

The fat man nodded, reached out and carried Zhou Chang out of the coffin.

He carried Zhou Chang to the cellar where the tombstone of "Wen Yongsheng" was erected. The two cart pushers who had been hiding and trying not to let anyone see their true faces now squatted down and opened the lid of the coffin in the cellar.

Zhou Chang saw that there was still a dark blue human-shaped mark on the bottom of this brand new wooden coffin.

A stronger corpse stench emanated from the human-shaped imprint.

He was then lowered into the coffin.

The people pushing the carts at both ends of the coffin slowly pushed the coffin lids together. When they closed the lids, they occasionally stretched their heads to look at Zhou Chang in the coffin. Zhou Chang also saw them. Under their messy hair were two rotten faces covered with knife wounds and burns!

Bang!
The coffin was finally closed.

Strands of slightly white and transparent silk threads were attached to the tiny gap between the coffin lid and the edge of the coffin.

——The red string on Zhou Chang's wrist showed no interest in the wine here, but the thought between his brows was deeply moved by the rice graves here.

Crash! Crash…

Zhou Chang, who was lying in the coffin, heard the sound of food falling on the coffin lid outside.

He speculated that the cellar where he and Shidanzi were was gradually piled up with a high mountain of grain.

This sound lasted for a while and then stopped abruptly.

After a long time, Zhou Chang heard the fat man shouting from far away: "Begin fermentation!"

The sound came down from high in the distance, circling in the deep and winding huge cellar, forming layers of echoes - each echo changed its tone, from the fat man's voice to the different voices of men, women, old and young:
“Begin fermenting!”

“Begin fermenting!”

“Begin fermenting!”

The strange and swirling echo, at this moment, seemed to have raised an imperceptible wind in the cellar. The wind blew across every rice grave and grain mountain in the cellar, making the mycelium on each rice grave grow more densely, and causing mycelium to gradually grow on some of the grain mountains!
This gust of wind also blew across Zhou Chang's body!

On the mountain of grain covering the cellar of Wen Yongsheng, clusters of snow-white mycelium began to grow wildly!
The mountain of graves mixed with various kinds of grains gradually turned into a mountain of pure white rice!
Under the rice mountain!
The thoughts belonging to Zhou Chang then coiled up and penetrated deeply into his own rice grave. The color of the thoughts gradually turned from transparent to blood red!
(End of this chapter)