While we were waiting, I chatted with Lin Sanshui and the Yin and Yang master Xu Lin, and I listened as he explained to me why and how specific hours were chosen for disturbing the grave. The norm was to choose noon at 12 o'clock because that's when the positive energy, or 'yang', is at its height.
Not that it wasn't possible at other times, but generally, someone who had died in troubled circumstances had an overload of negative energy, or 'yin'. And when the coffin was lifted open, the surge of negative energy could be harmful, causing some people with weak constitutions to fall ill instantly.
This method had its origins. We'd seen it on TV - dragging the convict beyond the gate at noon in broad daylight (to be killed as a punishment). The ancient people believed that this hour held the highest positive energy, which could make the souls of those who have been executed scatter instantly. Beware, for when a person is beheaded, their yang will be forcefully consumed, especially during times of severe injustice, high court errors, the officials would be afraid of getting retaliated by the wronged victim's soul.
These few words made everyone admire Xu Lin greatly, and they whispered to each other. This was a real master. They all looked at his explanation and thought, 'He just spoke so solemnly,' whereas I still couldn't feel anything from it because, although this was the first time I had seen a real Feng Shui master, I had read enough books and watched plenty of films. What he said was mostly familiar lines or phrases.
What this made me think was, perhaps the novels and films that I had seen before were not all fiction. I couldn't help but think, or maybe if I read more novels and watched more films I could also become a Feng Shui master?
It wasn’t that I was daydreaming in front of my grandpa's grave, but truth is, I wasn't feeling the tense atmosphere even now.
When it was noon, the villagers, holding shovels and a big canvas, had already set up a framework for the digging ahead of time. My father and my second uncle had also arrived, and my grandmother, not wanting to see my grandpa's grave be dug up again, stayed at home.
As the time approached, the Yin and Yang master took out a sandglass from behind his back, looked at the sun in the sky, and began to calculate.
Several sturdy young men stood at the ready, waiting for the Yin and Yang master's command, to start digging. I had to admit, it was an extremely awe-inspiring profession.
Upon hearing him say that, I couldn't help but admire the insight of this Mr. Yin Yang. At this moment, the matter of Grandpa San feigning death resurfaced in my mind. I even had the idea that after we finished dealing with the situation here, I would take him to see Grandpa San. Don't press the gourd and pour out the scoop.
Thinking of Grandpa San inevitably made me think of Second Uncle. I looked at him and found him looking at this Mr. Yin Yang, Xu Lin, with a cold smile.
I realized that I had overlooked a fact: Second Uncle, in fact, had the performance of a Mr. Yin Yang on that night!
Putting aside the digression, it was noon in the blink of an eye. At this moment, the hourglass of the Mr. Yin Yang just finished flowing completely, and I saw him wave his hand and say, "Let's start!"
After speaking, he turned the hourglass upside down and said, "Remember, if the casket is not opened before this hourglass flows completely, everyone will have to leave!"
His words made me nervous. How could such a small grave not be opened before the hourglass flows completely? Could it be, he had calculated that some unforeseen event would occur during the process of breaking the grave?
When the youngsters heard him say "start," they began digging the grave frantically, like they had received an imperial edict. They were all farmers, so they were very skilled at uncovering graves and digging soil.
I stared at the gradually being uncovered grave, and my father squatted at the grave, smoking silently.
It wasn't until the coffin appeared that I breathed a sigh of relief. I really didn't want to see any unforeseen events now; it would be best to quickly resolve this matter.
At this point, Mr. Yin Yang Xu Lin had a compass in his hand, walking around the coffin, and I noticed that his steps seemed to have a certain pattern.
Just as the coffin was completely exposed to everyone, the spoon on Xu Lin's compass suddenly began to rotate violently in my sight!
He clearly used his hands to support it, but the spoon was spinning wildly as if it had a motor inside!
"Lin Sanshui, has this coffin really just been dead for a few weeks!?" Xu Lin asked Lin Sanshui with a pale face at this moment.
At this moment, the whole scene fell silent, and it was clear to everyone that the violently spinning spoon was releasing a dangerous signal.
My first reaction upon seeing this situation was to look at Second Uncle, and I found him looking at the compass, strangely unflustered, with the same unruffled expression.
"Yeah, it hasn't even been five or seven weeks, right?" Lin Sanshui wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Nonsense! A recently deceased spirit should not have such a strong magnetic field!" Xu Lin's face looked extremely unpleasant. He drew his peach wood sword from behind and stared at the coffin, saying, "Don't open the coffin first, lift the coffin out!"
Several youngsters were also frightened, standing motionless on the spot, not daring to move. At this moment, Lin Sanshui shouted to them, "Stop dawdling! I'll reward fifty bucks to whoever finishes this thing. Consider it today's wages!"
Money talks, and although fifty bucks was not a large sum, for this small mountain village, it was enough to last a family a week. A few brave young men walked out of the crowd, jumped into the grave, and tied a few ropes to the coffin, securing dead knots.
The others, who had just been fearful, saw that the few people who jumped into the grave were unscathed and also summoned the courage to jump down to help. How heavy could a coffin be? But after securing the ropes, more than a dozen strong young villagers were unable to lift the coffin!
"Did you all not eat? Or did you use up all your strength on your wife's belly last night?" Lin Sanshui wiped his sweat, but this statement was purely bluster, because everyone present knew that even if these dozen people had been with their wives four or five times last night, they couldn't possibly have no strength left today.
At this point, some of the more timid people in the crowd started running back to the village. Even some of the curious kids were so scared that they wet their pants. I was also frightened; could there really be ghosts in the broad daylight?!
"Mr. Xu, what should we do now?" Lin Sanshui ran up to Xu Lin's back and asked.
"All the women present should go back! Those who are weak or sick should also go back!" Xu Lin shouted. This shout was effective, as almost everyone who realized something was wrong had run away. This made Lin Sanshui angry, and he shouted, "Are you guys carrying a guilt complex? Anyone who dares to tell me to go back today, await the family planning team to catch you!"
The power of this statement was really quite extraordinary. As this village was remote and highly feudal, almost every household had many children, and there was usually no one who came to capture them. It was all taken care of by the village cadres. But now, when Lin Sanshui shouted, a few people stopped in their tracks and reluctantly came back.
"What do we do now?" Lin Sanshui was definitely a devout believer at this moment, completely the opposite of his disbelief before. It seemed that only after experiencing it could one truly understand how terrifying it could be.
Xu Lin handed the compass to Lin Sanshui and then handed me the peach wood sword, saying, "I see that the spot between your brows is undispersed, so you must still be a virgin. If something breaks out of the coffin later, stab it. Remember, once the resurrected entity loses its consciousness, it's no longer your grandfather! Don't be afraid, as a virgin, you won't be affected by evil spirits!" He said to me.
After that, he jumped onto the coffin from the ground and did a motion that was very familiar to me: he stood on his head on the coffin.
"Quick, lift it!" Xu Lin shouted at the ground.
At the critical moment, thanks to Lin Sanshui's presence, the villagers didn't fumble. They quickly ran over and lifted the coffin. Strangely enough, the coffin that a dozen people couldn't lift earlier was now being lifted with one less person, with Xu Lin standing on it, making the task much easier.
Could science explain this?
At this moment, I looked at Second Uncle and found that he was looking at me, shaking his head. Because just now, the action of this Mr. Yin Yang standing on his head was exactly the same as Second Uncle's at the ancestral hall, on Grandpa San's coffin. This moment truly confirmed my suspicion: Second Uncle, like Xu Lin, was also a Mr. Yin Yang!
But why did he just stand by and watch Grandpa's repeated reanimation?
I didn't have time to think about it at all at this moment, because after the coffin was lifted out, Xu Lin took the peach wood sword from my hand and circled the coffin, with a look of doubt on his face.
"Mr. Xu, this spoon, it's still spinning! Can you make it stop?" Lin Sanshui looked at the spoon that was turning on its own, almost on the verge of tears.
Xu Lin's brow furrowed deeply. He took the compass back, went to the side of my grandfather's coffin, and found that the rapidly spinning compass gradually stopped. He took a step back to the side of the pit and the compass, which had just calmed down, began to spin wildly again.
"So, it seems that for a recently deceased person, even if the corpse transforms into a spirit, it shouldn't trigger the compass alert. It seems the problem lies underneath this grave. The one underneath should be the most terrifying one." Xu Lin said.
"What? There's another one underneath?" Lin Sanshui was taken aback by Xu Lin's words.
"Yes. Young man, tell me, who was responsible for overseeing your grandfather's grave?" Xu Lin nodded.
"No one oversaw it. The rule in our old Lin family is to bury one after another next to the ancestral grave, moving outward in circles. What's wrong? Is there a problem underneath?" At this moment, my father, who had been smoking, finally stood up.
"Yes, there is an extremely powerful figure below. To put it bluntly, Mr. Lin has occupied someone else's courtyard. It's strange that he hasn't been driven out. To put it even more bluntly, in terms of feng shui, this is a grave within a grave. If you unintentionally buried here, it's fine. But if a feng shui master specifically identified this as a suitable burial site for you, it's an offense. A grave within a grave layout is sure to lead to the destruction of your family." Xu Lin said to my father.
After hearing Xu Lin's words, I looked at Second Uncle.
If he was also a Mr. Yin Yang.
If Xu Lin's words were true.
Then why could he watch my family's downfall without doing anything?!
This Xu Lin might have just begun to pay attention to his grandpa shortly after his death. It appears that ghosts, like wine, also have different qualities depending on their generation. The older they are, the more powerful they become. It's possible that under grandpa's grave lies an old, powerful ghost.
I'm just curious, is it really a coincidence that grandpa's grave is right on top of someone else's coffin?
After Xu Lin inserted the apricot yellow flag, he held a peach wood sword and asked the villagers to start digging. However, at this point, the villagers were truly scared by the atmosphere and had no strength left. It was only after Lin Sanshui threatened and persuaded them that a few people finally jumped into the grave together.
But after digging for half an hour, the panting villagers found nothing. One villager I knew, named Lin Gazi, said to Dao Chang, "Sir, could you have made a mistake? There's nothing here at all!"
Xu Lin stared at the compass and said, "Keep digging. There's definitely something inside. Don't worry, it's high noon, and no matter how powerful, evil spirits wouldn't dare to act at this time. Besides, I've set up the Zhen Wu seven-piece formation here. Dig without worry!"
Lin Sanshui also raised the fee from fifty to a hundred. Watching the busy Lin Sanshui, I suddenly felt uneasy. To be honest, he's a pretty good guy, so how did he end up being childless?
The temptation of money, the coercion from the family planning team, plus Xu Lin's enthusiasm, forced the villagers to continue working. These people had originally come to just watch, but by now they must have been regretting it deeply. This little excitement, why does it seem to be getting more and more unsettling?
We were almost about to dig up water here, the original loess had turned into yellow mud. Xu Lin said to everyone, "Keep digging, it's almost there!"
After saying that, he looked at the sun in the sky, wearing a worried expression. I heard him muttering to himself, "Water belongs to yin. No wonder it has become like this."
Before he finished speaking, someone shouted, "We've hit something! We've hit something!" The villagers began to flee frantically, like they were mad. Lin Sanshui took a shovel and stood outside the pit, shouting, "Anyone who dares come up, I'll smack them with this shovel! If Mr. Xu doesn't speak, no one is allowed to move!"
"I tell you, Lin Sanshui, you need to calm down. Don't lose face when given face! If you're so capable, come down by yourself!" Nowadays, society is different from the production team era. The cadres have the power of life and death. In reality, the villagers don't have much fear of Lin Sanshui. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people gossiping about his childless state behind his back.
This matter of face really is, if it's given to you, then you accept it. If it's not given to you, can you still take it off? Lin Sanshui was angered by this statement and had no choice but to go down into the grave with a rope. Looking up, he asked the Yin Yang Master Xu Lin, "Mr. Xu, what should we do now?"
"Lift it up!" Xu Lin said with a stern face. I could clearly feel his tension and anxiety.
Now that Lin Sanshui had gone down, and the villagers had said nothing, I stretched my head to look at the coffin underground. I could only see a rough outline amidst the crowd. It was actually a red coffin!
The villagers quickly tied up the coffin and carried it up. It was only at this point that I could see the complete picture of the coffin. It was small, much smaller than grandpa's coffin. I even suspected if it was a child's coffin. How could it be so small?
This coffin did not act the same way as before. Because of its small size, it was easily pulled up by the villagers. Once they had it up, they had truly completed the task. Since Lin Sanshui had already fallen out with the others before, they all left in a hurry, not wanting to risk their lives for such excitement.
There were only five people left at the scene. I looked at my second uncle, who was staring at the red coffin. Up to now, he still showed no signs of emotion. My father didn't care about this, he was busy cleaning the dirt off grandpa's coffin. The only ones focused on the red coffin were the three of us.
"Mr. Xu, is this a child's coffin?" Lin Sanshui asked. At this moment, he seemed to be on the same wavelength as me.
"No, this is a town-body coffin. The figure inside has once played a trick in feigning death and was sealed in this coffin by a senior master. However, due to the recent increase in water levels, the ink lines have been watered down, and since water is yin, the things inside have been nurtured by yin and grown stronger." Xu Lin walked over and wiped off the yellow mud from the red coffin.
We could now see clearly that the red coffin was wrapped in black threads, wound around many times. There was also a huge talisman carved on the coffin board, the kind we often see Taoist priests using to subdue zombies on TV.
"So what do we do now, set fire to this thing? Fire is yang, and it can drive away all evil spirits." Lin Sanshui said, he seemed to know about this, which wasn't surprising considering that scenes of burning zombies were common on TV.
Xu Lin walked over and collected all the small apricot yellow flags that were of no obvious use on the ground. He shook his head and said to Lin Sanshui, "If simple burning could work, the senior master would not have sealed it in a town-body coffin. In all honesty, if I had known there was such a powerful thing here, I wouldn't have come. This is something I can't handle. My skills are insufficient."
When I first heard this, I thought Xu Lin was going to ask for more money because of this red coffin. It was as if he wanted to say, "I was here to take care of your grandpa's affairs, but now that there's something so troublesome, I need more money." But instead, he said, "It's not that I can't handle it, it's that a thousand dollars isn't enough for me to handle it."
I said, "Mr. Xu, if you want to handle this matter properly, you can't give up halfway. We can discuss the money."
Xu Lin glanced at me and said, "Do you really think I would come all the way here for a thousand dollars? Young man, let me tell you, I came here to repay a favor to your village head. We, outsiders, pay great attention to cause and effect. A single connection could lead to big troubles in the future. Sanshui, in this way, I still owe you a favor, but I can't handle this matter. You'd better find someone else."
Having said that, the Yin Yang Master Xu Lin didn't even intend to accept the thousand dollars. He packed up his things and was ready to leave. Neither Lin Sanshui nor I could stop him. At this moment, my second uncle suddenly stepped in front of Xu Lin and said, "Friend, when doing something, you need to see it through from start to finish. Now that we've dug up this coffin, are you just going to leave this mess?"
"Do you have a problem?" Xu Lin was also annoyed, looking at my uncle who suddenly blocked his way.
"I don't dare have a problem, but you just said that we, outsiders, pay great attention to cause and effect. Do you not think that leaving like this would create karma for you in the future? If this coffin is left here and we don't know what to do with it, if things go wrong, the whole village will suffer. Wouldn't that be the most damaging to your virtue?" My uncle made Xu Lin speechless with these words.
Xu Lin opened his mouth for a long time, then sighed and said, "What you are saying makes sense, but to be honest, embarrassing as it may sound, I can't handle this thing. The talisman on top was made by the direct line of the Zhang family, senior masters from Longhu Mountain. It needs the Zhang family master's intervention for this bewitching thing. I really can't handle it."
My uncle suddenly looked at me, then pulled Xu Lin aside to speak privately in a place where we couldn't see or hear them.
"What's your second uncle up to?" Lin Sanshui, covered in yellow mud, asked me.
I shrugged and said, "He's always mysterious, I don't know."
Lin Sanshui sighed and said, "To be honest, until today, I still suspected his intentions. He came to your house too suddenly. More importantly, after he came, our village experienced so many incidents. I even suspected him of being a jinx incarnate."
"Sanshui, that's not true. My second uncle is a man of few words, but he's not a bad person." I saw my father, who had been gentle and obedient, stop what he was doing with grandpa's coffin and glare at Lin Sanshui.
My father was a good man, he was my elder brother, and I could say anything about my second uncle, but others couldn't. That was my father's attitude.
Lin Sanshui realized he had misspoken and smiled apologetically at my father, saying, "Brother, that's my way of doing things. You shouldn't take it to heart."
After a while, Xu Lin and my second uncle walked back to us. Xu Lin still looked troubled and said, "This brother also has a point. Here's what I'll do. I really can't leave this matter half-finished. If it reached my master, he wouldn't forgive me easily. But let me make it clear, I can only try. If it really doesn't work, then there's nothing I can do."
Lin Sanshui greatly admired Xu Lin and said, "Mr. Xu, please go ahead. You've said that you have a master, so if it doesn't work, just ask your master to come here. You shouldn't have any psychological pressure."
Xu Lin's face darkened. He said, "My master has already passed away."
Lin Sanshui was immediately at a loss for words.
After that, we didn't idle around. Although the villagers were just watching from a distance, as more and more gathered, the few of us felt like clowns. Xu Lin's method, on the other hand, was quite complex.
The coffin was inscribed with the talisman of the Zhang family, direct descendants of the Longhu Mountain Zhang family master. The object inside the coffin must have been filled with intense yin energy. Opening it recklessly would endanger everyone, so Xu Lin's only way was to use a dispersing yin-essay and gradually drain the intense yin energy from the coffin. This process would take 49 days, during which time the object inside the coffin would lose much of its power. However, even at that point, Xu Lin's confidence in dealing with it would be limited.
What we had to do now was to move the red ghost coffin away from this place. We couldn't let it touch the ground again, as fire was yang, earth could douse fire, and fire could consume wood. Of all woods, peach wood is the most effective at repelling evil. I was to go find a place, chop some peach wood branches, and make a frame. It was something Xu Lin needed.
I knew about peach wood's ability to repel evil. It wasn't a secret at all. We had a peach orchard in our village, so it wouldn't be hard to chop down a couple of peach trees and make a frame. A hundred or so dollars would suffice. Thinking this, I nodded and went off like Lin Sanshui did earlier.
As soon as I left, my father was also assigned to come out, so I deliberately slowed down my pace, waiting for my father to come to my side and asked him, "What did Mr. Xu ask you to do?"
"He asked me to find a place, with few people usually, and large enough to place that red coffin. I think your third granduncle's ancestral hall is pretty good. I'll go back and tidy it up," my father said.
I thought about it. Even if such a ghostly coffin was placed in my house, I estimated that I would be restless. It is most appropriate to place it in the ancestral hall. To speak bluntly, even if it is very powerful, there are still our Lin family ancestors in the ancestral hall. No matter how tough you are, you can't handle more people, right?
But at this time, I turned back and found that my second uncle was not on duty, but standing with Xu Lin. I even saw Xu Lin showing some respect towards him.
Could it be that the discussion they had behind the tomb just now was my second uncle intimidating Xu Lin, so he was a little afraid of my second uncle, who was capable of anything?
In a moment, we both arrived at the crowd at the village entrance. An aunt asked me, "Xiaofan, I heard that a coffin was dug up. Is it ominous? Can this Mr. Xu control it?"
"It's ominous, but can it be more ominous than your plump figure?" I retorted.