My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

"Brother, I arrived here at 8 a.m. Jida has a branch in Loujia Village, which delivers to Loujia Village and two other residential areas to the north. There are more than 800 packages in Loujia Village today, but only 18 of them are addressed to someone surnamed Jia."

"The ratio is quite disproportionate."

"That's normal. This place is full of out-of-towners. Two of these 18 packages weren't delivered because no one was home and they couldn't answer the phone, so I brought them back to the branch. I asked each of the remaining 16 packages."

"Hmm. Don't rush, take your time. Have some coffee to warm yourself up!"

"I really can't drink anymore, my kidneys are overloaded! I asked for a bowl of water as soon as I walked into these 16 restaurants, hoping to get some information out of them. I drank my fill of water, but I didn't get a single decent answer from them."

"How so?"

"Why is the village of the Jia family called Loujia Village? I asked four people in total, but I don't think any of them gave a clear answer. Let me tell you what I found out, and see if it helps. I mainly asked people whose houses had elderly people inside, because I think older people know more about the past, and they're probably more bored at home and would like to chat more."

As Dang Xingyang spoke, he pulled a small notebook out of his pocket. The notebook was filled with various numbers and notes:

"At No. 95, Lounan Yi, there was an old man in his seventies living there. He told me that the Jia family came to Loujia Village from famine, and that this place was originally called Loujia Village. I asked him where the Lou family members were. The old man said he didn't know, but there were no Lou family members in Loujia Village, only Jia family members."

"At No. 23 Lounan, I didn't see any elderly people when I went in, but there was a woman in her forties who was quite talkative. She said she married into Loujia Village and that her mother-in-law had told her that the Jia family had married into the Lou family, and then the Lou family had no one left, the old man died, and the Jia family changed all the children back to their original surname."

"She also told me that there is another Zhang family in Loujia Village. The Zhang family is in the same situation. They were married into the family during her father-in-law's generation, and now they have more than a dozen households in Loujia Village. The Jia family and the Zhang family have been fighting over the homestead since the 1960s."

"The Zhang family? Hmm, the Zhang family, I've heard about that. Heh." Xiang Nanfeng had obviously heard it from Old Man Zheng, the former live-in son-in-law from Loujia Village. "It seems the Jia family has a long tradition of hiring live-in sons-in-law. Okay, go on. What else have you heard?"

"At No. 12 Lounanjia, there's an old man in his eighties. He told me that the Jia family fled from a neighboring province during the Qing Dynasty because of a major flood."

"Refugees, plague. Hmm, go on." Xiang Nanfeng also took out a notebook, and he immediately jotted down anything he thought would be useful.

"This Grandpa Jia, oh no, Grandpa Jia, said that when their ancestors came, this place was called Loujia Village. Loujia Village was an empty village at the time, and they just occupied it. So there was no such thing as the Loujia family. It's just that because the Jia family were outsiders, the people in the surrounding villages didn't recognize them, so they still called this place Loujia Village."

"I heard that the ancestors of the Jia family also wanted to change the name to Jiajia Village, but later the fortune teller said that Loujia Village was a good name, so that the Lou family could take the lead and protect the Jia family from disasters. So the name has never been changed since then."

"The fortune teller said it was to ward off disaster?"

"Yes, to ward off disaster."

"Hmm, but that doesn't make sense. Since Loujia Village is an empty village, and since the Jia family has occupied it, and the surrounding villages don't recognize the Jia family and still call it Loujia Village, why don't the surrounding villages occupy Loujia Village themselves? Why do they have to wait for the Jia family to occupy it? It doesn't seem to make logical sense."

"It seems so, but they didn't say so."

"Hmm, is there anything else?"

"And then there's this household, number 15 Loubei. There's an old man in this household, over sixty years old. He said he didn't know much about the history of the Lou and Jia families, but he recommended someone to me, saying he was his third uncle."

"This man is Jia Shouguang, and he is 93 years old this year. He is the clan head of the Jia family in Loujia Village, a college student during the Republic of China era, and a researcher at the Provincial Academy of Social Sciences before retirement. He said he definitely knows these things. He gave me my son's phone number. He said that this Jia Shouguang and his eldest son now live in the Baishan Garden community in the city."

"Look, this is a telephone."

"Oh? This is good, this is actually quite interesting."

"Shall I call and ask?"

"Hmm...no, it's too rash and deliberate of you to make this call. I'll make the call myself. By the way, in what capacity are you asking these people?"

"Oh, I'll do what you taught me before. I'll say I'm a deliveryman, delivering packages for this area. I write novels in my spare time and want to learn about local customs and traditions to gather material for my writing."

"Hmm... alright. It's still early, so don't go back. Just stay here on the bed and take a nap. I'm going out for a bit now, and we'll have dinner together tonight when I get back. I'll tell you all about the accident on my head and the strange things that happened during my coma after the surgery. Then, early tomorrow morning, in the middle of the night, you'll have to cover for me while we go dig something up at the village entrance. After that, you're free for now."

"Okay, no problem. But digging something? Digging what?"

"Stone tablet".

"Huh? What are you going to dig up?"

"Brother, how did you determine that the old landmark stone tablet at the entrance of Loujia Village and the two broken tablets you saw in Shounan Mountain are made of the same stone? Did you compare the patterns on these stones?"

In the first half of the night on the 7th, Xiang Nanfeng will tell Dang Xingyang everything about how he and Lin Shu were involved in a car accident during an interview, how he met and fell in love with Gui Luyao in his dream, how he encountered an accident on Shounan Mountain, how he discovered that he was infected with the Miepan Gu, and how he met Mao Xi Gu Master in the online world and searched for the dream world.

This fantastical and outrageous experience was comparable to a legendary novel, leaving Dang Xingyang completely dumbfounded.

Things have developed to this point, and it's certainly not as easily dismissed as they were two weeks ago when he first woke up and returned to the real world. At first, Dang Xingyang would chime in with a few questions, but later he would just interrupt him from time to time, saying, "Wait a minute, let me catch my breath," while occasionally picking up his water glass and taking big gulps of water.

Until finally, after Xiang Nanfeng finished recounting everything that had happened, and mentioned that they were going to dig up the old village monument buried in the lawn under the new gatehouse at the entrance of Loujia Village late that night, Dang Xingyang was stunned for a long time before finally letting out three "Ouch" sounds, saying, "Forget it, forget it. I've always done whatever you say since I was little. No matter how weird this is, as long as you've made up your mind, I'll listen to you. You know my brain isn't very good. You can think about many things at the same time, but I can only think about one thing at most. So let's talk about digging up the monument. It's still early. Tell me how you set your sights on that village monument at the entrance of the village, so I can calm down..."

"Well, at first I didn't notice the relationship between these three, or rather, two, steles. Because on the surface, although they are all made of bluish-white stone and are all quite old, the inscription on the old village stele at the village entrance is in clerical script, while the two broken sections inside Shounan Mountain are in seal script."

"These three steles should not have been made by the same person. It would be a stretch to say they came from the same material just because they are made of bluish-white stone. What made me suspicious later was that the old village stele at the village entrance was extremely disproportionate and too thick. I actually measured it this afternoon when I walked past here, and it is 31.5 centimeters thick."

Is it very thick?

"Of course, for such a small piece of stone, I think it would be more like 20 centimeters thick. As for the two broken pieces in the mountains, the one on the mountaintop that is embedded in the fallen rocks, I can't measure it, so I don't know, but I measured the half on the gravel beach, and it's 31.5 centimeters thick."

"Could it be a coincidence?"

「你觉着呢？它不是18、不是20、不是30，甚至不是31，你觉着31.5会是巧合吗？」

"It doesn't seem quite right; it has both whole and odd amounts."

"It's not just a matter of whole or odd sizes; have you ever seen stone processing?"

"I might have seen it when I went to the building materials market; it was cutting with an angle grinder, producing a huge amount of dust."

"That's mechanization. But whether it's machine-made or purely manual, stone processing always involves cutting the thickness first, then the length and width."

"In ancient times, when cutting stone by hand, lines would be drawn on a large stone, and then holes would be drilled vertically along a straight line on a flat surface. For example, a hole would be drilled every ten centimeters along the line, and then pins would be inserted. The pins would be struck one by one with a hammer. This way, the expansion of the pins would create a lateral force on the stone. Because you have struck a row of pins, the stone would crack from the middle."

"Because when taking the thickness, the hole is drilled the deepest and the pin is inserted the deepest, so when cutting a large stone, the thickness is definitely taken first, and after taking the width, the length and width are taken from the relatively thin stone slab."

"Yes."

"So if you want to process two stone tablets of the same thickness, the best way is to take material from one piece of stone, take the same thickness only once, and then take the length and width separately. Otherwise, if you take material from two large pieces of stone separately, the thickness will definitely be inaccurate."

"But if you want to eliminate this error, that's troublesome. You'll have to grind it. And because you took the thickness first, the cross-sectional area of ​​the thickness is the largest, so grinding it is the most labor-intensive."

"I don't know if you understand?"

"I didn't understand what you meant by cross-section, brother, you know I'm not good at studying. But I think I roughly understood. It means these three steles are all the same thickness, so they were made from the same piece of material."

"Yes, I've seen that half-stone tablet on the gravel beach. It was originally upside down, and there are no signs of polishing on its back. The same goes for the village tablet at the entrance of Loujia Village; there are no signs of polishing on its back either. Since none of them have been polished, the 31.5-centimeter thickness is the original thickness. Moreover, I think the most important thing is not the thickness itself. The thickness is at most a reason for doubt, not a reason for my conclusion."

My reason for this conclusion is still based on the bluish-white stone.

"This bluish-white stone is not found in our province at all; it is not produced here."

"No matter how you look at it, the old village stele in Loujia Village was carved in the Qing Dynasty. If this stele was carved a few years ago, then there is no problem. Their village can buy a stone from another province or even Beijing to carve a stele. But since it is at least from the Qing Dynasty, then it is the same as the two broken ones in the mountains. The stone was transported from thousands of miles away to Wangshan."

"This phenomenon is too abnormal."

"Although I can't find a reason for this abnormal phenomenon, it makes no difference whether it is transported into Shounan Mountain or to Loujia Village."

"Hmm, brother, your analysis makes a lot of sense. But I have another question, brother. Why did you dig up that monument at the village entrance? It's clearly written there, 'Lou Family,' that's the village name. Can't you just look at it? Why did you have to dig it up? Did you expect it to tell you why everyone living in Lou Family Village is from the Jia family?"

"Hehe. You know what, I really do have that thought. If I could make a stone talk, its words would definitely be more credible than human words."

Outside Loujia Village, the moon was dark and the wind was high. The stars that occasionally twinkled during the day had all disappeared this night, and the dark clouds made the night even darker.

The streetlights at the entrance of Loujia Village are not under the jurisdiction of the municipality. In order to save electricity, the village installed solar streetlights. Yesterday's weather was no different from tonight's. These streetlights, which did not absorb enough energy during the day, are now at their last gasp. Some of them are dim and droopy, like old people with drooping heads and drooping eyes. Others look like they have glaucoma or cataracts, just blinking and unable to see anything.

At that time, Loujia Village had long since become a miniature sleeping town. Apart from a few internet cafes that operated all night and breakfast stalls preparing food for breakfast, the entire village was an endless dreamland.

Xiang Nanfeng drove the old Hongzhong Jiabao sedan out of the parking lot, turned off all the lights, and parked it on the sidewalk next to the old village monument. At this location, south of the village monument are the houses of Loujia Village, and north of it is Tianlou Road, which connects to Loujia Village North Road.

Tianlou Road is a municipal road, and Loujia Village is its southern starting point. Apart from vehicles and pedestrians coming and going from Loujia Village itself, outsiders cannot get here.

The car heading south was parked right between the village monument and the road. Not to mention at this time, there were almost no vehicles or pedestrians entering or leaving Loujia Village. Even if there were, they wouldn't be able to see the two of them unless they went around the car.

"what?"

"Dry!"

At Xiang Nanfeng's command, the two got out of the car and went around to the back. Xiang Nanfeng opened the trunk and took out two entrenching tools from a travel bag. He threw one of them to Dang Xingyang, and the two of them went to the old village monument of Loujia Village one after the other. Without lighting any lamps or wasting any words, they started digging.

The part of the village stele that is exposed above ground can be roughly divided into three parts. The first part is the blank space at the top, without any inscription, only the scratches left by the passage of time; the middle part is inscribed with the character "Lou"; and the bottom part is inscribed with the character "Jia".

Logically, the area below the character "家" (jia, meaning family/home) should be symmetrical to the top, leaving at least half a portion of space as blank space for the ground. Then, a corresponding height should be left below this blank space for the inscription to be inserted into the soil or a base. This layout would be considered logical. However, this old village stele only shows the top three portions, suggesting that the area below the character "家" is missing a portion.

In reality, when Xiang Nanfeng determined that this old village stele and the two broken steles on the mountainside of Shounan Mountain came from the same piece of stone, such a misunderstanding was dispelled.

It is known that the thickness of this large stone is 31.5 centimeters. The broken stele on the gravel beach of Shounan Mountain is not obstructed. Through measurement, its width is 139 centimeters. Since this broken stele and the half on the mountain were originally the same stele, their widths should both be 139 centimeters.

So, since these three steles are divided from the same piece of stone, what should be the height of the old village stele?

It's clearly impossible for its height to match the overall height of the Shounanshan stele; that would be too tall. Therefore, its height can only be equal to the width of the two broken pieces of the Shounanshan stele, which is 139 centimeters. This is nothing more than a simple elementary school word problem!

At noon, Xiang Nanfeng realized this and immediately measured the position and distance of the two characters on the stone tablet.

The character "娄" is about 22 centimeters high from the top edge of the stele. The character "娄" in "娄家" is also about 22 centimeters high. The space between the characters "娄" and "家" in "娄家" is about 4 centimeters high. The character "家" in "娄家" is about 23 centimeters high. If we follow this proportion, the top edge of the stele buried in the soil should also be 22 centimeters. The "家" in the top edge should also have about 20 centimeters of actual support for inserting layers or a base. So, if the height of this old village stele is 139 centimeters, subtracting these amounts should leave 26 centimeters. This 26 centimeters is located between the "家" in "娄家" and the space between the top edge of "娄家". Doesn't this exactly add up to the height of the space between the characters plus the height of the character itself?

In other words, if Xiang Nanfeng's prediction is correct, there should be another character hidden beneath the surface of this old village monument that only reveals the two characters "Lou Family"! And what is this character?

Could it be a village?

Is it really just land subsidence that has buried the blank space at the edge of the land and the entire village underground?

Is what's buried in the soil really just ancient writing and not some distant truth?

The shovels, wielded with force, tossed aside the damp, cold earth, and the heavy, distant Qingbaishi Village Stele collapsed with a crash in the dappled night.

The truth is coming, but the night is not yet over.

Nomads Go on a Party 2012.01.09 05:37

"Master Mao Xi, I think I know where Lu Yao came from: No. 93 Loubei is a grave."