Ghost Record

  After returning from grazing cattle, I told Third Aunt that Zhang Shenniang had something to do with me and wouldn't be home for dinner tonight. Third Aunt smiled knowingly and said she understood.

  Zhang the godmother has a head of black and white hair, not yet 50 years old but looks like 60. She had an eldest son who drowned in the river while fishing when he was young, and her daughter got married to Pingnan last year. Her husband is a carpenter, usually going out to make doors, windows, tables and chairs for people, often not at home for two or three months.

  In the evening, after six o'clock, I took a bath and came to Zhang Shennu's house. She was in the kitchen wrapping tofu, and when she saw me arrive, she hurriedly asked me to help her watch the fire. The pot had oil in it, and Zhang Shennu picked up a piece of tofu and added some filling. The tofu rolled from left hand to right hand several times before being put into the pot one by one.

  After finishing making tofu, she ran to the bathroom to kill fish, and was busy for more than an hour, making a rare holiday dinner.

  Before I even picked up my chopsticks, I was drooling. The principle that there's no such thing as a free lunch is something I understand without having to read books. What I don't know is what kind of task Zhang Shenniang will have me do. Logically speaking, I'm just a wandering youth; thanks to San Gu's kindness in taking me in, otherwise who knows which bridge hole I'd be settling into. So as long as it doesn't involve doing something that would let down San Gu and Xue Fei, for this delicious meal I'll do whatever it takes.

  After a delicious tofu dish, Zhang Shenniang smiled and asked me if I wanted to drink wine. I awkwardly smiled and said that from childhood to adulthood, I had never drunk wine before! So I'd rather not.

  Zhang the godmother also smiled, picked up a piece of bacon and put it in her mouth, then said to me: "Little Li! I know your situation too, San Shu also told me that you have no parents, not young or old, didn't go to school, don't have any skills, when you grow up, you won't even be able to marry a wife."

  Hearing Zhang Shenniang say this, I didn't know how to respond to her and just lowered my head to eat.

  Yes! At 14 years old, I still haven't gone to school, no father, no mother, no land, not even a home. You can say I have nothing. Where is my future path?

  Zhang the godmother put down her chopsticks and said: "Third sister will remarry in a month or two, and take Xiaofei with her. What will you do then? The house and land will have to be returned to Xiaofei's uncle. Her uncle has three daughters and two sons of his own, it's impossible for him to raise you. Third sister can't take you with her either, after all you're not her son and you're already so big."

  The more Zhang Shenniang spoke, the worse I felt. The dishes in front of me were delicious, but I had lost my appetite.

  "Why don't you learn from me instead? Although it won't make you rich, at least you'll have a skill or two and won't starve to death."

  I raised my head and said to Zhang Shenniang: "Fifth Aunt, just say what you want me to do directly! I'll listen to you."

  Zhang Shenniang saw me like this and put away her smile, asking seriously if I often encountered unclean things.

  "Ah!" I was a bit surprised to hear Zhang Shenniang suddenly ask this, how did she know that I often encountered strange things? The strange things I had encountered since childhood flashed through my mind again.

  After my grandparents passed away, my uncle hadn't married yet and often went out to gamble all night without returning home. I was the only one sleeping in the house at night. I don't remember which year it was, but as long as my uncle wasn't home, there would always be a sound of someone wearing slippers walking around the house at midnight. Our family was very poor and my uncle even made his own wooden clogs because he couldn't afford to buy a pair of slippers for himself. And besides, no thief would be so stupid as to come every night without anything to steal.

  Those footsteps always sound at midnight, coming down from the attic stairs and then walking to my room. Sometimes they even whisper in my ear, but I couldn't hear clearly. There was no electricity at home, so there were no electric lights, and kerosene lamps were used sparingly. After falling asleep, it was pitch black, and every time I could only hide under the quilt, not daring to move, even though I was sweating all over.

  I also saw that thing, once the moon was very bright and shone through the window into my room. That night, at midnight, footsteps came from the hall into my room again. I steeled myself to open a gap in the quilt as wide as a finger, and when the footsteps reached my bedside, I saw it through the gap.

  At that time, I hadn't watched movies or TV shows, so I couldn't imagine what those ghosts and monsters looked like. I just thought they must be the same as humans, but what I saw was only a cat-sized black lump lying on the ground.

  Very dark, just like a very dark cloud on the ground.

  I told this experience to Zhang Shennu, and this experience is just more representative. I have encountered many other strange things.

  Zhang the fortune teller asked me if I wanted to know what that dark and mysterious thing was that whispered to me.

  "Think!" I replied almost without thinking, and then asked her if that wasn't a ghost?

  Zhang Shennu told me that many things cannot be called ghosts, and outsiders find it hard to say clearly.

  The conversation lasted until half past ten at night, and then she took out a small knife from the room and gave it to me. It was the same one that stabbed the banana tree that day. In this way, I inexplicably became her apprentice.

  The apprentice is just a saying, after all, it's not acting on TV, I'm just learning from her. Zhang Shenniang said that I am a person with a celestial bone, if my fate is good, I can become a great talent and work for a high-ranking official in Beijing. If my fate is bad, I estimate it will be difficult to live until the age of thirty.

  I don't understand any of this, I'm just afraid that I won't be able to do anything and have nothing, with nowhere to go, and will starve to death in the future.

  I became an apprentice to a fortune teller, and San Gu started making me do less chores. She was about to remarry, so she didn't plant anything in the fields, just waiting for the two pigs to grow fat quickly, so they could be sold for more money. Ah Gui and his friends were also studying, and I didn't have a chance to play with them.

  Although I became Zhang Shennu's apprentice, there was nothing good to learn from her. She just made me memorize some taboos and usually followed her around everywhere. The first thing she had me do was pick up bones, which meant taking people's bones out of coffins and putting them into jars.

  It's actually quite simple, just pick a suitable day, open the coffin with an umbrella, and during the bone-picking process, no talking is allowed, the bones can't be placed randomly, but must be arranged in a certain order in the urn. That time, the red envelope for picking bones was only 20 yuan, equivalent to about 150 yuan now! At that time, most people in our rural area did this and received red envelopes, with varying amounts given casually. This stinginess is not acceptable, if you give too little, we won't say anything, but next time it will be difficult to find someone to help, so the money in the red envelope is usually not too little.

  Zhang the fortune teller does everything except holding memorial services for the dead. She reads wind and water, selects auspicious dates, tells fortunes, sends off ghosts, and makes wishes... Of course, what she does most is sending off ghosts, which is her main business.

  As for how Zhang Shenniang became a shaman, she herself doesn't know. According to her, when she was young, she would go into the mountains to chop firewood and return home exhausted, sleep for five days straight, and wake up with a mind that was sometimes clear and sometimes muddled. When it was clear, she was like Zhuge Liang possessed, but when it wasn't, she would even run around the village naked and disheveled. A shaman from Jintian came to her home and said that a celestial being had taken a liking to her and wanted to use her to help with their own cultivation. Zhang Shenniang initially disagreed, until after her son drowned in the Western River, she became a shaman, and never went mad again.

  Zhang the godmother is usually just an ordinary peasant woman, who understands a little bit about taboos and ways of doing things. Usually at home, there are people coming to read the eight characters, choose auspicious days, make vows, but when it comes to sending ghosts away, that's when the immortal needs to possess her body.

  I became an apprentice to Zhang the Shaman, but in reality it was also this immortal's choice, that is to say he took a liking to me. It should be said that my true master is this immortal, while Zhang the Shaman is just the immortal's "spokesperson" in the mortal world. After all, the immortal is a spirit and must rely on Zhang the Shaman's body to do things.

  The "immortal" mentioned here is just a title, who knows if it's a god or a ghost, or maybe just an animal that has become a spirit. The short knife was a gift from the immortal, which was dug up by Zhang Shenpo from the mountain when the immortal possessed her body, I'll tell you more about this later.

  I once asked Zhang Shenniang why I could see that banana ghost but couldn't see the immortal in your house. Zhang Shenniang told me, this is something that can't be forced, when the immortal wants me to see him, I naturally will.

  One morning at the end of September, I had just finished burning incense in front of the shrine when I saw a man and woman walking in through the entrance. The man was in his twenties, while the woman was in her forties; they appeared to be mother and son.

  That woman saw me and asked if Wu Sao was at home. I told her that Zhang Shenniang hadn't gotten out of bed yet!

  The woman came into the living room and sat down, asking me to put away the gifts she had brought. I took them into the room for a sneak peek, they were all fruits, pork, and lychee dry goods. After putting them away, I came out to pour tea, and saw Zhang Shennu getting out of bed and walking out of the room.

  The woman saw Zhang Sheng immediately stood up, and only heard her say to Zhang Sheng: "Third sister, Xiao Fu's son has an accident, Ah Cai asked me to come find you to go back and take a look!"

  Zhang's wife hastily invited her to sit down and slowly tell what had happened.

  I brought a stool for Zhang Shenniang and she sat down beside the woman without washing her face or brushing her teeth, listening to what she had to say.

  The woman was a relative of Zhang Shen's family, the wife of one of his cousins. The young man who came with her was her eldest son, and the "Little Fu" she mentioned was her youngest son, 13 years old this year.

  This little rich and village companions often go to the small river, big river to catch fish, yesterday they went to Zhenjiang fishing, saw a red big carp in the water.

  That carp is really big! Its body is as large as a fat pig. The three of them were stunned, having never seen such a huge carp before. Catching it would be enough to eat for at least half a month! But the Gan River is so vast, is it that easy to catch?

  Just as the three of them were discussing how to catch the big fish by the river, the carp suddenly swam back to the shore on its own, exciting them. At this time, the carp was only one meter away from the shore, and the water was less than knee-deep. The three of them took off their pants and slowly approached the big carp in the water. Just as they were about to catch it, Xiaofu even touched the fish scales, but the clever carp suddenly swam a short distance into the deep water area. From then on, every time they almost caught it, the fish would swim out a short distance. Finally, the water was up to their necks, and one of his companions said, "Let's go back, there's something wrong with this fish."