When I was a child, my grandfather once told me that less than a hundred meters east of my house, there was a beard (as we call bandits here), and he was captured alive by the Eighth Route Army and executed there.
Grandpa was young at the time, and he remembers it clearly.
Because a soldier of the Little Eighth Route Army, who was only eighteen years old, was caught by these mustaches, tied to the back of a horse, and dragged to death.
Soon after, the unit came back, broke up the beards, and captured the bearded leaders alive.
Several soldiers of the Eighth Route Army escorted him, and after parading through the streets of the village, they stabbed him to death with a bayonet in the place east of my house, and then dug a pit on the spot and buried him.
More than 30 years after this incident, my father began to rush to this dead beard several times a year.
As soon as he rushed to a dead beard, his whole body hurt like a knife.
Every now and then, my grandmother would say that my father had rushed to that dead beard again.
Thereupon. Quickly found three thin sorghum stalks, cut them to the length of chopsticks, sharpened one end into a pointed shape, scooped a bowl of water, put the tip of the three sorghum stalks in the water bowl, and muttered: "You are the dead beard, right?" Is there no one to burn paper on your grave, and you lack food and clothing? If you have a dead beard, stop me, give you water when you are thirsty, give you rice when you are hungry, and give you two pieces of paper if you are not thirsty or hungry! ”
After repeating this several times, the sorghum stalks in the water bowl stood upright in the middle of the bowl.
Grandma stood up, let out a long breath and said, "Look, it's a dead beard again!" He is a lonely ghost, he goes to the grave to burn paper, he must have no money to spend, okay, give him some money, and send it away! ”
Mom is timid, and every time she encounters this, she hides in the kitchen.
At this time, my mother took a kitchen knife behind her back (because this happens several times a year, and my mother knows what to do), and secretly stuffed it in my grandmother's hand.
Grandma took the kitchen knife, suddenly slashed at the sorghum stalk in the bowl, and said, "I'll kill you, see if you dare to come!" ”
Then, take a water scoop, put some millet porridge in it, pour the water in the bowl into the water scoop, and then take all the paper money, and draw a few circles back and forth on Dad's body, and mutter: "If you don't see anyone coming, don't see anyone leaving, take away all the disasters you have beaten!"
Finally, burn the paper money and throw the paper ashes into the water scoop.
My mother walked outside the gate with the scoop and dumped all the contents of the ladle on the garbage heap, so that she could not turn back, but walked straight back.
After a while, Dad's illness gradually improved.
Later, some people said that sending a lamp to a ghost could make it reincarnate early.
So, every year on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, we go to send a lamp to it.
After three years like this, Dad really didn't rush to that dead beard again.
Until now, he is over eighty years old and still alive.