A long sigh from the ghost daughter-in-law sounded in my ear, and when I opened my eyes again, she had vanished without a trace.
At this moment, I didn't want to spend another minute in this ghostly place and quickly ran back home. When I returned to the courtyard, I leaned against the flourishing peach tree in the front yard, gasping for breath.
With a creak, the door opened, and Du Xiaolan, with sleepy eyes, looked at me in puzzlement and asked, "What's wrong with you? Why are you so sweaty?"
I wiped the sweat and asked Du Xiaolan, "Didn't you come out at all?"
"No," she said, puzzled, then asked, "Why? Did you see me?"
I quickly nodded, then shook my head in the next moment. She didn't know about my ghost daughter-in-law, and it was best to keep it that way.
Du Xiaolan gave me a strange look, shook her head, sighed, and didn't ask any more questions, but inquired about where the hot water was. After giving her a basin of hot water, I returned to the room.
Grandpa has already woken up and when he saw me coming in, he asked if I had been outside. I nodded and told him about everything I saw about the ghost daughter-in-law and what she said to me.
Grandpa frowned and asked me to bring his tobacco pipe from the table. After lighting it, he took a deep puff, which made him cough violently, and then he said in a deep voice, "What she said is not wrong."
I rolled my eyes. It was early in the morning and I had already been scared enough by the ghost daughter-in-law. I didn't expect Grandpa to not only not comfort me, but also to strongly agree with what she said.
But the most urgent thing at the moment was to quickly deal with the ghost fetus. If left unchecked, it would definitely become a very powerful force.
I hurriedly asked Grandpa where to find these nine hundred-year-old leg bones. Grandpa shook his head and said, “We do have some, but they are all in the tombs of wealthy families. No one would agree to dig up a grave and take bones out.”
If someone came to my house and said they wanted to dig up ancestors' graves and take bones out of the coffin, I think I would pick up a hoe and hit their head fiercely without hesitation.
This problem is very tricky, but there is a solution now, which is much better than being clueless.
Grandpa finished a whole pot of dry smoke, then happily said that he remembered. There are several deserted tombs in the valley on our side, which have been unattended for decades. Perhaps we can find a tomb of over a hundred years in there.
As soon as I heard this, I eagerly said I would go dig up the graves right away. But Grandpa hurriedly stopped me and said, "Don't rush over now. The Yin energy in a hundred-year-old tomb is very heavy. Even if the leg bones are taken out now, it doesn't compare to the power of peach wood."
"When should we go then?" I asked puzzled.
Grandpa turned to look at the clear sky and said with a smile, "It looks like it's a good day. We'll go when the sun is strong at noon. The Yin energy will be completely burned off by the sunlight when the hundred-year-old leg bones are taken out from the coffin."
I nodded thoughtfully, and Grandpa's mood instantly improved. He got off the kang and went out to wash up.
By the time he finished washing his face, grandma had already prepared breakfast. Du Xiaolan's foolish innocence was not something I made up. She had forgotten all the terrifying things that happened last night and was stuffing herself with fried dough sticks.
It wasn't until after we finished breakfast, it was already past eight o'clock.
Grandpa wasn’t idle either. He took a machete and cut many thin peach branches, and then handed me a piece of red paper and asked me to make identical triangular flags and paste them on the peach branches.
Although this task was simple, it was very complicated for someone like me who lacked patience. I made several of them that were all different, and finally Du Xiaolan couldn’t stand it and kicked me out to sit and make the flags herself.
With nothing else to do, I was ready to go back to my room for a nap.
Grandpa used his tobacco pipe to drive me off the kang and gave me a pair of scissors to go from house to house in the village cutting peach branches.
He ordered that every peach tree must have a branch cut. Some were in orchards, while others were in people's homes. Fortunately, most of the villagers were still at home. After cutting every branch at home, without even calling for them, I went into the orchard.
It took me over an hour, and I returned home with over three hundred peach branches. It was now past ten o'clock, and there was still some time before noon.
Grandpa asked me and grandma to shave these branches into cone shapes of ten centimeters, and then he hurried off.
By the time we finished, it was already noon. At this moment, Grandpa also rushed back, holding a black rooster.
He picked up a shovel from the backyard and handed it to me, then he took a hoe and headed towards the valley.
I followed closely behind Grandpa all the way, not saying a word. Although we had prepared very well in advance, if we hadn't gathered all nine leg bones, everything we did today would be in vain.
There was almost no connection between these burial grounds and peace. After who knows how many years, the tombs no longer looked like tombs.
Grandpa looked at the small mound in the middle of the dirt road and said to me, "Mingyang, this should be over a hundred years old. You dig this, I'll go find something."
I didn't waste any words, spat into my hand, raised the shovel, and started digging.
This grave had been trampled year after year, very firm. It took all my strength to finally dig out the coffin. I respectfully bowed and said sorry, that I had family matters and had to dig up the grave.
I stood up, jumped in, lifted the coffin lid, looked at the sticky liquid inside, quickly pinched my nose, closed my eyes, and groped inside the liquid, finally pulling out two leg bones.
Grandpa was clearly much stronger than me, he had already dug out a piece. After he checked the bones in my hand, it turned out they were a hundred years old. But he asked me to put one of the pieces inside the coffin, saying that these nine leg bones had to belong to the same person.
After an hour, we had already dug out eight bones. We had searched the entire valley, but the ninth leg bone seemed to be playing hide and seek with us, it simply did not appear.
After drying the eight leg bones in the sun, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and asked Grandpa what to do now.
He wasn't in a hurry, he sat on the ground, lit a cigarette, and said that there probably weren't any hundred-year-old leg bones here, and to find the ninth one, he would have to swallow his pride and ask someone else for help.
I was not happy to hear that. Grandpa had lived most of his life, with people asking him for help, he had never asked anyone for help.
After much thought, I remembered the tomb I had dug up for the coffin wood last night. It clearly also had a hundred years of history from its deserted state.
I asked Grandpa to take the eight leg bones back, and I dashed into the graveyard.
Jumping over Zhao Xiaocui's grave, I couldn't help shivering. I murmured "Amitabha" and hurried inward.
The tomb I had opened yesterday was still there, with no coffin lid, the liquid inside had been evaporated by the strong sun, and a foul smell emerged from the coffin.