Chapter 1.17 Uncle Two (Extra)

At six in the morning, we all gathered at the ancestral hall while Biao Gong and several knowledgeable old people were called over.

Uncle Three blocked the sewer with stones and then poured rice bran and white cement over it. In addition, all the water outlets in the house were blocked, and any snails that crawled out were shoveled aside, smashed, and burned.

The winter here wasn’t very bright, and everything looked a little gray. The ceremony for the nine coffins had been completed and they could be buried today at noon, but this originally grand ceremony wasn’t important at all right now. We gathered around the brazier, feeling the eerie, creepy atmosphere.

“Who was the Taoist priest who said to release the snails? I’ll drown him in a pit!” Uncle Three said resentfully.

Biao Gong snorted, “Now it’s useless to drown him in a pit.” He coughed several times. He apparently didn’t sleep well either. “Let’s think about what happened.”

“In my opinion, this motherfucker is haunted,” someone said from the side.

“Have you ever seen a ghost like this?” Cao Er Daozi quipped, “Maybe your Master Three’s ghost is like this.”

The man, an associate of Uncle Three, immediately glared at him, “What do you know, have you ever been to a tomb?”

Biao Gong waved his hand and stopped him, “If you have any grievances, wait until this matter is resolved before airing them. I don’t want to listen to this nonsense!”

The man shrank back. Biao Gong said to Uncle Two, “Wu Er Bai, you always seem to have an opinion about everything and you’re always meticulous. Don’t keep silent, tell me what you think about it.”

Uncle Two hadn’t spoken much on this occasion, but now that he had been asked, he frowned and said, “I’m not sure, but I feel that this matter may be caused by someone playing tricks.”

“Playing tricks?” Biao Gong shook his head before launching into the story of the ghost-like figure the snails made, which he had stared at for three hours. “Is what I saw with my own eyes really a trick?”

“There’s always an explanation for everything. In other words, the possibility can be high or it can be low,” Uncle Two said.

“Oh, tell me,” Biao Gong said with interest.

“For example, if you’re the one playing tricks, the matter can be explained,” Uncle Two said. “Who knows if what you said is true or not? Snails in the countryside… you can have as many as you want.”

“Nonsense,” Biao Gong said, striking the table.

“I’m just giving an example,” Uncle Two said. “If we can explain it, it will all make sense. I could also say that the ghost of the corpse woman is attached to the snails. I can say anything. Any conjectures we make are useless.”

“What do you think we should do now?” Cao Er Daozi asked. “Mobilize the whole village to destroy the snails?”

Uncle Two shook his head, “What we should do is find out why there was an extra coffin in the ancestral grave. This is the root of the matter. Once you know, you can solve the problem later.”

The crowd was silent; it was obvious that Uncle Two was right.

“I’m afraid it’s very difficult. The coffin has been buried for too long and the old man is gone. I’m afraid it will always be a mystery,” Biao Gong said.

“Is there no one left?” Uncle Two asked.

“It seems that’s really—”

As soon as he said this, I suddenly remembered something familiar and said, “Biao Gong, didn’t you say there was a Xu A Qin in another village who is over a hundred years old? He also helped us to repair the ancestral hall. We can ask him.”

After hearing this, Biao Gong’s eyes brightened, “Yes, there’s Xu A Qin!” But then he frowned. “I don’t know how he is, though, since he’s over a hundred years old. Can he remember what happened back then?”

“Xu A Qin?” Uncle Three muttered, as if he remembered something.

“This matter is so strange that if he knew about it, he would certainly have a deep impression of it,” Uncle Two said. “In any case, now we can only give medicine to a dead horse. (1) I don’t want to run away every time I see snails in the future.”

<Extra 1.16> <Table of Contents><Extra 1.18>

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TN Notes:

(1) Idiom that means to keep trying everything in a desperate situation.

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Updated 11/22/2021

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