Chapter 1: The Ghost Story of Southern Fujian

  Three Talents, the Five Elements Cutting Method has it that there are Heavenly Stems, Humanly Branches and Earthly Stems, also known as the Five Elements. Hence the name Three Talents. The profoundness of Chinese Taoist culture, divination and destiny are all interconnected. These folk techniques have long been lost, some hidden in the streets or deep in the mountains...

  Nan San, a lifelong wandering Taoist and a legendary figure, one of the few remaining pure Ming Tao practitioners in the folk, proficient in the art of forbidden spells and talismans, yet deeply trapped in karmic obstacles.

  There is a story about him, which starts from a small village in the mountainous area near the sea in southern Zhejiang. The story begins with a small matter, and it also involves my family's story. Ladies and gentlemen, let us enter into a true tale of a Taoist priest.

  This book contains folk tales of rural cunning, reality and fantasy, for everyone to distinguish.

  In the 1980s, a small village in southern Zhejiang province suffered a severe famine. Days of torrential rain had flooded farmland, destroyed houses, and left numerous corpses floating on the water's surface, with wailing sounds echoing everywhere.

  The village is called Lingshui Village, surrounded by mountains on three sides. This village's Feng Shui has been famous for hundreds of years, so the custom of building tombs has been popular until now, and it has become widespread. Every family wants to choose a good Feng Shui spot to bury their ancestors, hoping to bring wealth and prosperity to their future generations.

  The village is located in the northeast, according to the elderly in the village, it is a feng shui that opens up wealth, and it is a place of great wealth. However, it is regrettable that the villagers are all poor, occasionally there are a few who can go out and make a fortune, but they are stronger than those who cling to this small piece of land. The terrain of Lingjiao Village is low-lying, and this area is often visited by typhoons, which originally made it prone to flooding, but like the current situation, it is still unprecedented.

  Heavy rain caused a large number of earth graves to be washed away, with floods floating around the village. At that time, in Lingjiao Village, there was a family surnamed Liu, known as Tuotuozi, who made a living by doing handicrafts. The old mother was over 70 years old. This Tuotuozi was notorious for his bad temper, with three reasons: one was loving to nag, two was catching whoever he could, and three was being drunk and crazy.

  So this bald camel in the village didn't dare to mess with anyone, but there was no way around it. The whole village wanted to make a chair or a cabinet, and they had to find him. There's a story behind this, saying that when Li Er Ye was young, he was a soldier, and later on the battlefield, he was hit by a bullet in the head, which led to a big change in his temperament. Whether it's true or not, I don't have time to guess.

  Later, I heard from my uncle that he was standing on the roof of his own house at that time. Fortunately, this house is located in a high place and was not washed away by the flood. My uncle saw the camel's house being flooded instantly, and after the floodwaters receded, he rushed to the camel's home with several people.

  Unfortunately, the house was destroyed by water and only a few walls were left. The whereabouts of Tuotuozi are unknown, and Second Uncle and other villagers all shook their heads and sighed, and had already listed Tuotuozi among the dead. Then they began to do the aftermath work.

  I forgot to mention that my second uncle was the only one in the village who had a net worth of over 10,000 yuan back then. In terms of semi-feudal class, he was a landlord. He made his fortune by selling wooden furniture, which was made by Baldy Li. That's why my second uncle was so anxious to see Baldy Li - just to check if this guy was still around, otherwise his source of income would be cut off.

  The famine caused by the flood also lasted for a month or two, and Second Uncle had to dig into his own pockets to buy food for the villagers. No choice, who made being a "landlord" so difficult? Not even two people could fight it, let alone the whole village. Might as well do some good deeds. To say that after Second Uncle cut off his financial resources, he was quite worried. Nobody came to make wooden tools, where would they go to earn money? This is a problem.

  And what I want to mention is that the strange thing started from this matter. After the bald donkey disappeared, the villagers had planned to forget about it until one evening when a villager rushed over to tell Second Uncle that the bald donkey had returned.

  Second Uncle was so shocked and frightened that he jumped high from the bed, with an incredulous expression on his face. Indeed, anyone would have such a reaction to this matter. He hastily put on his clothes and rushed out of the door, running towards Baldy's house. From far away, he saw someone standing among the ruins, and judging by the figure, it was indeed Baldy.

  It was late at night, and everyone didn't dare to get close. On the one hand, they were afraid of the bald donkey's temper, and on the other hand, it was a psychological effect. Why? They were just afraid of evil spirits.

  Helpless, Second Uncle had to take the flashlight and approach cautiously, his heart in his throat. Before he even got close, the bald man suddenly turned around, his face deathly pale, scaring Second Uncle so badly that the flashlight slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.

  But then he saw that Baldy's tone was somewhat impatient, with a hint of coldness: "Old Li, you're not being very kind, I've only been out for a few months and the house is already gone?"

  His uncle was quite scared at the time, he had seen with his own eyes how this house had been swallowed up by the floodwaters, and wasn't Baldy inside? From the sound of it, it seemed like he didn't even know about the flood, so he steeled himself to say: "Baldy, your house was destroyed in a flood several months ago, how could you not know?"

  This was actually to test the bald donkey, but the old man seemed to have no reaction, only "oh" and continued to stand stupidly in the damaged ruins. Later, I heard my second uncle say that his first impression of the bald donkey at that time was cold, cold to the bone marrow, not just the expression, but also the body seemed to emit a chilly atmosphere.

  When they saw the bald donkey, there was no movement. The second uncle didn't dare to continue waiting and could only take everyone back first. They would come over again tomorrow to see what happened. However, when the second uncle and others came over early in the morning of the next day, they found that the bald donkey had disappeared without a trace. There were only some cyan and white small snakes crawling among the ruins.

  This small snake is rare, and at the time, my uncle couldn't describe it, only saying that it was like a White Lady or a Small Green Snake, so I've always been racking my brains wondering if this snake is human or animal.

  Later, an old man in the village said that the snake might have escaped from the Snake King Temple and was washed down by the flood. However, Second Uncle remained skeptical, wondering why there were no snakes three months ago, but they appeared only after the arrival of the bald camel. As for the Snake King Temple, this is actually prevalent in the Minyue region, where snake totems were worshipped during the Yue period, and temples were built, with the saying "half-ridge has a snake-yak shrine".

  The Snake King Temple is located at the back waist of the mountain, and although Second Uncle was puzzled, he could only suppress it in his heart. This situation continued for a week, after which Second Uncle discovered that there were more and more small snakes on the ruins, and the villagers began to whisper among themselves, discussing this strange occurrence, gradually becoming fearful.

  Second Uncle was only in his early thirties at the time and had a lot of energy, he always wanted to get to the bottom of this matter, thinking that since the snake came from She Wang Temple, he took the two people on a trip to She Wang Temple behind the mountain.

  The road is really not easy to walk, the mountain road that has been washed by the flood is muddy all over, and you can see broken bones everywhere. In rural areas, cremation has not yet become popular, and burial is still the trend. It took Second Uncle and his group half a day to arrive at the Snake King Temple, only to find it covered in dust, with miscellaneous objects piled up inside, except for a single turtle-snake statue placed in the center, which was as tall as a person.

  After careful examination, Second Uncle found that there was nothing wrong. The two young men who followed behind him complained after walking on the mountain road for half a day: "Brother Li, there's nothing here, I think we should go back?"

  At this time, the second uncle was also planning to go back. Just as he agreed, a blood-colored skull suddenly fell from the beam of the Snake King Temple, which scared the three people back several steps. They looked up and saw that on the beam above, it was not something else, but the bald camel.

  At this moment, the camel's body was completely rotten, with no good meat left, its skin and flesh bursting open, even its eyeballs were gone. A few greenish-white snakes were slithering in and out of the corpse, making onlookers feel nauseous, and two young men couldn't help but vomit on the ground. Second Uncle was still calm, his face pale as he stared at the camel, then shouted: "Let's go, we can't stay here."

  After finishing, he pulled the two of them and ran out. Suddenly, a faint breathing sound came from the Snake King Temple. If you didn't listen carefully, you wouldn't be able to hear it. The second uncle's body was certain. Originally, one of the young men who was being pulled by the hand encountered resistance. He turned his head to look and found that the young man in front of him had followed suit, motionless. The second uncle hastily pushed him: "Big boy, what's wrong with you?"

  No matter how much Second Uncle urged them on, there was no response. In desperation, the two of them could only lift him up and, stumbling and crawling, ran back to the village.