Ghost Record

  I followed Zhang Shenniang to collect bones once, choosing a good day, prying open the coffin with an umbrella, and then picking up the bones into a jar. I don't know if it was like that, anyway, what I saw was like that, Zhang Shenniang didn't tell me in detail either, maybe because it was my first time, she just let me watch.

  I pulled away the mud and shone my flashlight, only to see that inside the broken pottery wasn't bones, but a jar of gold, silver and jewels.

  I've heard my grandfather tell stories that treasures buried underground for many years will produce spiritual energy, generating a yellow cat, white horse, yellow rabbit and other animal spirits. These animal spirits will let people with good fortune see them, then run to a place and disappear, this place must have hidden treasure.

  Am I the lucky one in the story? Seeing all this gold and silver, my eyes are shining brightly, and my heart is racing wildly. If I had a heart condition, I'd probably have an acute attack of excitement-induced heart disease by now.

  Looking at this pot of gold and silver, a scene appeared in my mind: I was driving a Jeep with my sister back to my uncle's house, took out a stack of money from my pocket and said: "Hey! Take this little money to fix your teeth!"

  Just thinking about it makes me burst out laughing, and then I let out a deep sigh. At the thought that I'm only 15 years old and have already experienced so much hardship, wandering around alone - now things are finally going to turn around for me.

  My mind was extremely excited, but I was still rational. If I took this pot of gold and silver back, what if I met someone halfway and got robbed?

  As soon as I thought of this, I quickly buried the soil again, and finally covered it with grass and leaves, and inserted a stick on the ground to mark it. Tomorrow, I will buy a box, come back at night to dig it up, put it in the box, and leave Ba Bu directly.

  After reburying that pot of gold, I hid the hoe in the grass and hummed a tune all the way home.

  That exciting night couldn't sleep a wink, but by day slept like a dead pig, sleeping all the way to more than five o'clock in the evening, almost forgot about buying a box.

  After getting out of bed, I rushed to the street and bought a wooden box with a lock, without even bargaining, and didn't even want the change. After returning home, I told Uncle Xiao that I was ready to leave tonight and thanked him for taking care of me for several months.

  Uncle Xiao and his wife were both surprised, asking me why I left at night. Why not wait until tomorrow? Where did you go at night? I thought to myself, what can I do! Only leaving at night is safe, after all, there's a pot of gold waiting for me!

  I threw away everything I had bought before, only bringing the ancient bronze knife, money box, that needle and the willow wooden man. As we walked along the riverbank, I told Tiantian that we would become very rich and have a lot of money, and it would be easy to find your parents then.

  Tong Tong emerged from the willow tree, looking bewildered. I just said wait a minute and you'll know.

  I walked back to the place where I dug for gold last night, found the hoe in the grass, picked it up and went to the place where I buried the gold, spat on my palm, rubbed it a bit, and started digging.

  Because it was dug and filled again, the soil is loose. This time, it took less than 20 minutes to dig to the tile tank. Tiantian also emerged from the willow wood man, stretched his neck to look into the pit.

  I jumped down into the pit and dug out the broken mud. One look and I almost fainted. Where did my gold go?

  The gold that was about to be in my hands suddenly vanished into thin air, and I had buried it properly, without anyone touching it. I couldn't accept this result, so I picked up the hoe and dug again, uncovering the entire tile jar.

  I plopped down on the ground, oh! The gold is really gone, my mood seemed to drop from the clouds to the bottom of the earth, and my mind was a complete blank. How could this be such a big joke for me? I hoped it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, so I quickly asked Tiantian what was in the vase.

  Tongtong puffed out his mouth and blew a breath of air. A yellow cloth floated out from the tile tray and fell in front of me.

  I picked up this piece of cloth and took a look at it, with some crooked writing on it that I didn't know what it said. I spat out a mouthful of saliva and threw it to one side.

  Tong Tong picked it up and put it in the bag, then crawled back into the willow tree. Tong Tong was like that, always speaking very little, perhaps because she missed her parents!

  I finally accepted reality, but reluctantly used the flashlight to shine into the pit several times, hoping to see gold suddenly appear, but it was clearly impossible.

  I filled in the pit with a few shovels and left, where am I going? Plan to go back to Guilin first, one is to ask my uncle and sister where they are in Hunan, and the other is to see if Zhang Shennu has returned.

  It's been several months since I left Guiping and came to Huangyao for medical treatment and catching insects, and then went to Babu to sell fish. In the past, there were no phones, even if we relied on letters to communicate, we still needed a mailing address, otherwise it would be like disappearing from the world.

  I, who have already saved up a bit, will definitely not walk back again and won't encounter those mountain spirits and wild ghosts. Thinking about it, if a young boy is walking alone in the deep mountains at midnight and doesn't run into something strange, that's what would be weird. If Tongtong hadn't saved me that night and covered me all over with cow dung, I'm afraid I would have already become a meal for the mountain goblins.

  After dawn, I hitchhiked from Babu to Wuzhou and then took a boat back to Guiping. In the early 90s, transportation was not as convenient as it is today. The boat was slow like a snail. Last night, I left Xiao Shu's house without sleeping for a minute, so I fell asleep on the boat, feeling extremely tired.

  When I was sleeping soundly, Tongtong appeared in my dream, making a loud noise and shouting that something had been stolen, hurry up and wake up! After Tongtong finished speaking, she pouted her mouth and blew a strong breath at me. I only felt a chill all over my body as if I had been splashed with ice water, and I suddenly woke up.

  Tongtong's voice appeared in my mind, saying that the thief had run to the back of the boat. I looked around and found that the bag beside me was gone, inside which were a flashlight, a willow wooden man, an ancient bronze knife, that needle, and over 1,000 yuan I earned from selling fish for two months. This scared the cold sweat out of me; if these things were lost, I would be back to where I started before liberation.

  I rushed out of the stern and saw a young man wearing a brown cotton-padded jacket, squatting at the stern. He had already pried open my money box, and the small copper knife and other items such as the needle were scattered around, along with the yellow cloth note from last night.

  The thief saw so much money in the box, his face was flushed with excitement and he couldn't close his mouth. But then he suddenly saw me appear. I thought he would jump into the river and escape, but instead he surprised me. His panic only lasted for half a second, and then he looked at me with a fierce and arrogant gaze. In his eyes, I was just a weak and skinny boy who could be blown away by a strong gust of wind, so he wasn't afraid of me at all and didn't intend to run away.

  There were thirty or forty people sitting on the boat. I shouted into the cabin, "Someone has stolen something! Come out and catch him!" As soon as my voice fell, three strong men rushed out of the cabin and asked me where the thief was. The little thief had been proud just now, but seeing that things were not going well, he immediately turned around and jumped into the river, taking only my money box with him.

  After the thief jumped into the river, several onlookers, including women, ran out of the cabin. Before long, more than 20 people gathered at one side of the boat to watch.

  Those three sturdy men saw the thief jump into the icy water and didn't want to chase him anymore, they just took things out of the cabin and threw them. Those things didn't hit the thief, he had already swum out a distance of 40 or 50 meters, I was so anxious that my feet were tapping rapidly.

  At this critical moment, Tongtong took action and said that this person can't escape, just watch her!

  That little thief was wearing clothes, but he swam very fast in the water. I guess he often steals things on the boat and then jumps into the river to escape. The people on the boat were watching the excitement, and I was also looking at the river surface with a relaxed face, because Tongtong was in the water.

  Tongtong has been in Xijiang for many years, and when he had a fish body, he probably swam to this section of the river to harm people. This little thief is asking for death by stealing from me.

  Just as the thief was about to swim to the shore, a huge whirlpool suddenly appeared on the river surface and sucked him in. The dozens of onlookers were shocked by the sudden appearance of the massive whirlpool. How could such a slow-moving river surface suddenly produce a huge whirlpool that swallowed a person whole? They would never know.

  Just when everyone thought the thief had been sucked into the water and disappeared, he reappeared. He floated up from the bottom of the water, less than a meter away from the boat, floating on the surface like a corpse, but still holding my money box in his hand. Two strong men picked him up, felt his nose and found he was still breathing, then tied his hands and feet with rope.

  A strong man picked up the money box and asked me, "Little brother, is this your thing?" I nodded, and saw the strong man curiously open the lid of the box to take a look, saying "So much money!" Then, he reluctantly returned the box to me.

  Money is a good thing, everyone wants it. Carrying too much money on you will make people envy you. As the saying goes, "an innocent man has no guilt, but one who carries jade has guilt." Looking at this strong man's greedy eyes, if there weren't many people around, I reckon he would take my wallet for himself.

  Although it was Tiantian who retrieved the money box, they were just passing acquaintances, and it's not easy for them to lend a helping hand at the first opportunity. I gave each of the three strong men 20 yuan in red envelopes, and soon after cleaning up, we got off the boat.

  Don't know how much longer until Guilin, afraid it will be dark when I arrive, with so much money on me when getting off the boat, I'll be followed and robbed.

  So I changed to another boat, which was much safer.

  In the cabin with nothing to do, I turned over the bag and found the yellow note that was left after Jinzi disappeared last night.

  Although I have been self-studying for more than two months, I don't recognize a single character on the yellow cloth, and it's also very different from the text I usually see. I asked a middle-aged man wearing glasses next to me, "What is written on this cloth?"

  This middle-aged man saw me ask him, then took it from my hand to take a look, and frowned. I asked him if you didn't recognize these characters either?

  The middle-aged man told me that this is not Chinese characters, but rather looks like Tibetan script. He couldn't understand it either. Then he shook his head, smiled again, and returned the yellow cloth strip to me.

  The boat arrived at Pingnan and I got off, because going back to Jiangkou from Pingnan is closer than from Guiping. Some people may ask if the boat doesn't stop at Jiangkou? Yes, it doesn't stop, at least the boat I took didn't stop after asking.

  I arrived in Pingnan when it was already dark, so I found an inn to stay for the night. The next day at dawn, I took a bus back to Jiangkou. When I got off the bus, I felt a sense of being home, even though I'm from Shepo and not Jiangkou.

  It takes half an hour to walk from the town back to Zhang Shenniang's village, and I don't know if she has returned. It has been three months since I was deceived by the old man in white and I haven't seen Zhang Shenniang, my emotions are very complicated, and I don't know whether she is dead or alive.

  Arrived at the village entrance, the third house was Zhang Shenpo's home. Three months without returning, the village has changed a lot, it has been electrified, and there are now electric poles along the road.

  I ran to the door in a few steps, knocked on it and shouted twice. A young woman under thirty came out of the house. After opening the door, she asked me where I was from and who I was looking for. I said I was looking for my aunt! Has she come back?

  As soon as I finished speaking, I saw the woman's face turn gloomy.