Stove

Chapter 10 Stove

In the middle of the night, Xue Baoping vaguely heard a "bang" in the yard, which frightened her. She sat up on the bed and listened with open ears, but there was no other sound. Only the crickets in the doorway of the outhouse slowly started chirping again, so she fell asleep again, thinking that maybe it was a wild boar from outside the town. door panel.

When it got dark and she yawned and opened the back door of the wing, she discovered that the stove had burned down.

The wing room opens from the front and back. She usually goes in from the back door in the yard and carries some firewood, ingredients, etc. Later, she disassembles the four front door panels and puts them on small stools, and becomes a guest at the "Xue Family" "shop" with four tables for dining.

The stove is on the right side of the entrance to the wing.

When she was just over three years old and could remember things, her parents were still there. At that time, the business of Xue's store was not bad, and the stove was not placed here, but on the left hand side of the door. One day, when her father opened the door in the morning, he saw a Taoist priest sleeping outside the door, with unkempt hair and sores on his neck, so he took the Taoist priest home and took good care of little Ban Yue, feeding him some homemade sugar water and herbs, and finally brought him back home. Saved.

After the Taoist priest recovered, he claimed to be the worshiper of Siming Zhenjun, also known as the Kitchen God. At first, he saw that Xue's store was a food shop, and he must be worshiping the Stove Lord, so he collapsed outside the door and asked for help. In order to express gratitude to her father for saving her life, she helped her family look at the stove, and then instructed her father to build a new stove, which is the one we have now.

Taoist priests said that when people worship the Stove Lord, they often throw food and living animals into the stove as sacrifices, but this is not very effective. True worship should be done by keeping the fire burning forever, so that the incense can penetrate the nine heavens and reach the wonderful realm where Lord Siming lives.

Therefore, after setting up a new stove, the fire in the Xuejiadian stove has not been extinguished. This naturally consumes a lot more firewood, but the business has really improved. When Xue Baoping was six years old, the family rebuilt the house - now she sleeps in the east-west room and the double-ear room. The tile-roofed house was built at that time.

But the good times didn't last long. After the new house was built, her father contracted lung disease, and her mother soon became ill as well. After more than half a year, the family's money was exhausted and both of them passed away. Fortunately, there was a period of Xuanjiao in Jinshui Town more than thirty years ago. Nowadays, there are many empty houses in the town, so no one covets the remote house in the east of her town. She supports herself and stumbles around. Grow to seventeen years old.

Xue Baoping remembered her father's words before he died. Her father said that Taoist priests said that worshiping the Stove Lord and keeping the incense burning is good for the present and future generations. Even after a person dies, the soul can follow the incense to the wonderful realm above the nine heavens. But this kind of worship cannot be easily interrupted. Otherwise, if a person's heavenly soul is halfway up to the sky and the stove fire suddenly goes out, he will be unable to go up or down, and he will be stuck in the wind above the nine heavens forever, and will not be reincarnated. of.

So Xue Baoping continued to burn this fire for more than ten years, until today——

A corner of the stove collapsed, and broken bricks and loess were scattered on the ground. Because of the large opening, the firewood that could have been simmering all night had long been extinguished. The white ash rose out due to the heat, and it looked like snow had fallen on the ground.

She stared blankly for a while, then slowly leaned against the door, hugged her knees and sat on the ground. She wondered if her father and mother had reached the wonderful realm above the nine heavens.

After a while, she wiped the corners of her eyes and stood up, going to the stove to collect the broken bricks. Of course she couldn't open the door today, but she just thought that she didn't plan to open the door in the future.

Her parents didn't teach her any skills before they passed away. It was only three years ago that she thought the stove was burning, so she hung up the "Xue Family Store" board again. But she only knows how to cook some melons, vegetables, etc., and even makes noodle soup. She felt that adding more meat, oil and water would make it more fragrant, but she had to rely on bran and vegetables to fill her stomach from time to time, so naturally the meat, oil and water could not be supplied all the time. So only some merchants who happened to pass by from other places would come here to have a good time. The locals were too lazy to visit. Since it collapsed, they might as well go to cut firewood and sell it outside the town. Maybe they would be better off than they are now.

She was sneezing and picking up broken bricks, and then she saw something in the white ashes.

It's shiny gold and the size of a soybean grain. She initially thought it was burnt copper, but after twisting it out of the ashes and blowing on it, she found it looked more like a small cocoon. The outside of the cocoon, which once seemed to be covered with a layer of skin, was scorched in the fire, revealing a bit of gold underneath. She took this thing and walked to the door. Looking at it in the light of the morning sun, she could clearly see the exposed layer of gold——

It seems that underneath the leather, there is another layer woven with extremely fine copper wire or gold wire, and further inside, it seems to be stuffed with fine threads.

Xue Baoping was stunned and wanted to take this thing to the water tank to wash it. But at this time, the front door panel was not removed and the room was still a little dark. She accidentally tripped over the firewood on the ground beside the water tank. She stretched out her hand to support the stove, and the little thing fell into a small nearby with a thud. The blood of the male pheasant was gone. She quickly fished it out, put it in a bowl, and poured some water in to wash it off.

When the water was poured in, the chicken blood stained on the thing rippled at the bottom of the bowl. Xue Baoping was about to rub it clean with his fingers when he suddenly noticed that the wisps of blood were being sucked in by the small ball through the hole where the copper wire was exposed. She was stunned for a moment, but in such a stunned moment, she saw the small ball sucked twice in a row, swallowing all the blood like a fish sucking water.

This is a living thing.

Xue Baoping took a few quick breaths, turned around and slowly sat on the stove, looking at the little thing in the bowl with her side face.

She thought of her parents, the yard when she was a child, the April locust flowers, the red stove, the hot steam and voices in this room in the past, and then she wishfully thought that this little thing, whether it was a moth cocoon or some other little insect, might be sent to her by her parents to keep her company.

Thinking of this, she felt a little relieved, so she slowly cleaned up while looking at the little thing soaked in water. Seeing that all the blood at the bottom of the bowl was absorbed by it, she broke a branch from the firewood and dipped a little chicken blood in it.

In this way, when the house was almost cleaned up, she found that this thing seemed to have swelled a little. The black color of the originally burnt place became lighter, and the broken place where the gold thread underneath was previously exposed was also covered with a very thin layer of pink membrane, as if a new skin had grown.

At the same time, she also knew why the stove collapsed. She finally picked up a green brick from the ash pile. It seemed that there were some runes carved on the outside, but the inside was hollow and divided into two layers, which looked like a small house. However, no matter what was originally placed inside, it was now completely burned and broken into two pieces.

Xue Baoping thought that this might be what the Taoist priest had put in when he instructed his parents to start a new stove, just like when ordinary people renovate their houses, they would bury talismans to ward off evil spirits and exorcise ghosts in the beams or foundations. However, this brick was hollow, so it might not be fire-resistant. After burning for more than ten years, it finally exploded and collapsed the stove.

So she did not pile the two broken bricks with the other broken bricks, but like the bowl of water, she carefully brought them back to the house and placed them on the windowsill before going to the yard to fetch water.

After a while, the bowl was slightly rippled, and a bubble came out of the little thing - Li Wuxiang exhaled.

His mind was in a state of confusion, his consciousness was like a curled-up veil, he vaguely knew that he had escaped from the prison and the sea of ​​fire, but he was not sure where he was.

The only thing he was sure of was hunger, a hunger that transcended everything and reason. A few drops of blood could not relieve his hunger at all, he wanted more flesh and blood. But another voice and will suppressed his instinct, telling him to curl up again temporarily, anxiously waiting for the opportunity to grow and eat.

This is the first update.