Ghost Record

  It's not fun to be bitten by it! Tongtong saved my life again after the last mountain ghost, I wonder if I really escaped a death calamity as Zhang Shenniang said, and from now on I will become someone who can achieve great things.

  Since leaving Uncle's house, I have been close to death three times. Once was being dragged into the water by Tongtong, once was the mountain goblin, and now this time, I really am lucky to be alive.

  The leech was illuminated by the flashlight and turned to crawl into the river, preparing to escape. Only to see Tongtong flash his body, then appear on the riverbank to block the leech, grab it and put it around his neck.

  This scared the hell out of me, but thinking that Tóng Tóng is just a water ghost, although it has transformed into a nearly substantial body, there's no blood or flesh, only shape, so I don't need to be afraid of this blood leech, I overreacted.

  This blood leech is just a toy in Tongtong's eyes, and it was played to death by her. Then Tongtong pulled out a thing like rice noodles from the blood leech's mouth. This thing is twenty centimeters long, with a thickness similar to that of rice noodles, and its color is white.

  I asked Tóng Tóng what this was, it's so disgusting, hurry up and throw it away. Tóng Tóng looked at me with a face full of disdain and said: "This thing is extremely toxic, keeping it is better than throwing it away!" Then he came over and handed it to me. I reluctantly took it, wrapped it in leaves, and planned to dry it out and grind it into powder.

  After finishing eating, Tongtong urged me to fix the hoe, but it's broken and can't be fixed by just tightening a screw. The only option is to buy another one. By this time, the sky was already getting light, probably around 5 o'clock. I said that I could only continue digging tomorrow night.

  Although Tóng Tóng was very reluctant, the hoe broke and couldn't be used to dig with hands! So we went back to break some branches, covered the hole and mud that had been dug out, and waited until tomorrow night. The earthen jar was hidden by Tóng Tóng in the muddy sand at the bottom of the river.

  I untied the bamboo raft and let the river water take it away, while I swam back to the shore. Tongtong walked on the water's surface with a bag in hand. After reaching the riverbank, Tongtong returned to the willow forest, and I hurried on foot towards the river mouth. When I arrived at the town, the sky had just brightened up, and I ate a bowl of noodles.

  Last night was too tired from digging holes and didn't sleep, but Jiangkou can't compare to Pingnan, the town doesn't have an inn. Bought a few oranges, also bought a box of matches, a hoe and a set of batteries for use at night, then went to the grassy area by the river to sleep until dark.

  After twelve o'clock, I went back to Xiangsi Zhou to dig holes. Fortunately, Tongtong only let me dig until the duck's back was exposed, otherwise I would have been exhausted and foaming at the mouth.

  This stone duck doesn't know what era it's from or why it was buried here, but I don't care, after all, it's worthless.

  Tongtong brought the urn from the bottom of the river to the shore, I picked it up and put it in the pit on the duck's back, then started filling the soil. There were no candles or incense, nor firecrackers or paper money, all just formalities. After burying the pit, I dug some grass skin to cover it, after everything was done, I threw the hoe into the river and left Xiangsi Zhou.

  I returned to Gui Ping for two things. One was to see if Zhang Shenpo had come back, and the other was to ask my uncle's sister where she was in Hunan. As for burying Tongtong's remains, I hadn't planned it before, nor had I thought about it, it was a completely sudden thing. After burying Tongtong, I walked back to Shepo that night, arrived at the town just as the sky was brightening, bought a few catties of pork and rushed to my uncle's village.

  I lived in that village for 14 years since I was born, and when I left a year ago, I thought I would never come back. As the saying goes, "the world is unpredictable", but today I'm back again. Compared to the me from a year ago who knew nothing, after more than a year of tempering, today's me, except for not having a home, lives better than many people, at least I don't lack money to spend.

  I returned to my uncle's house, only to see the big gate tightly closed, looking like it hadn't been opened for a long time. The tiles in front of the door had fallen off in several places. This house that my grandparents had put so much heart and soul into building was left to this rotten uncle, what a waste, he should be living in a pigsty.

  I was standing in front of the house, ready to call out for my uncle to open the door. At this time, a neighbor's auntie came back with a bucket of manure to fertilize her vegetables and asked me where I came from after seeing me.

  I called out to her and she finally came to, saying "Oh, it's little brother! Where have you been all year? You've grown so tall!"

  My aunt told me that my uncle lost money gambling during last year's Mid-Autumn Festival and owed a lot of debt, all the cows in our house were taken away by others. My aunt was so angry that she returned to her mother's home and never came back. A few days before the Spring Festival, several people from the neighboring village came to collect debts again, your uncle had no money to pay, and he left home without celebrating the New Year, and now there is no news of him.

  I got angry as soon as I heard it, a dog can't change its nature of eating shit after all. But I'm worried about this, where did my uncle go that he's nowhere to be found? And I still need to ask him about his sister's whereabouts!

  I gave those few catties of pork to Auntie and told her I'd come over for dinner tonight. Auntie took the pork and asked me what I've been doing outside all year and where I went.

  I told her that it's a long story, so let's just talk about it slowly over dinner tonight! After hearing this, my aunt reminded me to come tonight and then walked away with the chamber pot.

  I went around to the back of the house and retrieved an iron wire key from a hole in the wall, then returned to the front door and opened it. I walked into the musty room. Then I took the main gate key from the kitchen stove and opened the door to the hall, walking inside.

  The hall and I left without any change, a table, several wooden stools, and an uncle's own nailed wooden bed.

  Although our home is simple, it's still the place where I grew up with my mother since childhood, that's the feeling of home. What's infuriating is that now it has been abandoned by my uncle.

  I had just moved a chair and sat down when the door of the room on my left suddenly opened by itself, which gave me quite a fright. I used to sleep alone in this room for many years, and as a child, I often heard footsteps in the middle of the night and saw a dark shadowy thing. The house had been empty for over a month, and now the door was opening by itself, bringing back the childhood terror that had resurfaced in my mind.

  But I'm no longer the same person as before. I stood up and took out a small ancient bronze knife from my bag, walking straight into the room.

  As soon as I walked into the room, I felt a wave of coolness, like the cool feeling of entering a mountain cave in summer. My eyes scanned every corner, but I didn't see anything, yet I knew it was absolutely not a mouse.

  Although it was daytime and not in the water, I still called Tiantian out, but she refused. She only told me that there were two ghosts hiding under the bed and several more hiding in the cabinet. They saw my ancient bronze dagger and were scared away.

  As soon as Tongtong said that, although I was holding the ancient bronze dagger, which was unearthed by Zhang's family from the mountains and had an unknown age, I still felt a chill run down my spine, but it wasn't fear. Instead, I was furious, perhaps because my own home was occupied by lonely spirits and wild ghosts, while I wandered outside with no place to return to.

  How did so many ghosts get into my room? I opened the flashlight and shone it under the bed, but couldn't see anything. However, Tongtong said there were two hiding, and I believe she wouldn't lie to me.

  I held the small knife in front of my chest and said to the air: "I don't care who you were when you were alive, whether it's an elder or a relative. This is my home, my room. Get out quickly, otherwise I'll make sure to dig up each of your graves, one by one, and feed your bones to the dogs."

  As soon as I finished saying this, I felt an inexplicable sense of dominance. Thinking back to a year ago when I saw the ghost fire in the bamboo forest and was so scared that I peed my pants, now I'm alone facing so many lonely spirits and yelling at them - isn't Zhang Shenpo just like me?!

  Ghosts, the more you fear them, the more they'll haunt you. If you don't fear them, they'll be afraid of you. The prerequisite is that you have the ability to not fear them. Although I don't have this ability, I carry with me things that make them fearful, which is also a kind of ability.

  I was just about to go and lift up the bed board when Tung Tung told me that her grave in Hsiang Si had been dug up.

  My head is big, why are there so many annoying things. On this side, I just returned home and my uncle ran away with debts, our house was occupied by evil spirits. On the other side, Tongtong's newly buried grave was dug up by someone.

  I thrust the ancient bronze dagger into the ground of the room with force, turned around and closed the door to leave home, I had to hurry back to Xiangsi Island to see who dared to dig up Tongtong's grave.

  Found a man in the village who killed pigs, he had a Jialing 50, ten yuan was agreed to take me to the other side of the river mouth, I paid for the gas. Less than half an hour later, we arrived at the riverbank of the river mouth, and directly rented a small boat to rush to Xiangsi Zhou.

  When I arrived at the place where we dug a hole last night, I saw two people digging there. They had already dug quite deep. An old man and a young man, probably father and son. I asked them angrily what they were digging here for.

  The two of them stopped what they were doing, the old man wiped the sweat from his forehead and narrowed his eyes at me saying: "Last night in the middle of the night I heard a noise over here, this morning I came to take a look and found that it had been dug up and then buried again, don't know what was buried or taken away." After the old man finished speaking, the younger one asked me where I came from.

  I suddenly said, "I'm just here to visit Xiangsi Island and saw you digging things up, so I came over to take a look." As soon as I finished speaking, I became anxious and angry, and they were about to dig to the depth where Tongtong's remains were buried.

  Those two listened to me finish speaking, looked at each other in dismay for a moment, and then started digging again. I was anxious but couldn't do anything, watching helplessly as they dug deeper and deeper.

  I asked Tongtong if there was a way to stop it, and Tongtong's voice echoed in my mind, saying that there was a way, but it would damage her soul.

  As soon as the fairy tale was finished, I only felt a tremble of the willow wood man, and I knew she had come out. No matter how ferocious sharks are in the sea, no matter how powerful Tiantian is in the water, coming out on this bright day's land doesn't know what consequences it will have.

  In less than two minutes, I saw hundreds of blood leeches crawling out from the river onto the ground. All of them crawled towards the two people digging holes, scaring them so much that they dropped their hoes and ran to one side. Seeing that the leeches didn't follow, they walked back again.

  Those hundreds of blood leeches didn't chase people to bite, but all crawled into the pit. At this time, Tongtong's voice appeared in my mind, telling me to fill the pit quickly.

  I rushed over and picked up the hoe, shoveling the mud back into the hole. The two people saw this and came to help, and before long it was filled in. Hundreds of blood leeches were buried inside.