The Last Taoist

Chapter 6

General Temple

Our village is also in the mountains. There is a big temple in our village, which is built with gray bricks. My father said that the temple was built in an unknown dynasty. When our great-grandfather fled from other places to here, there was a temple, but no one was managing it at that time. After a hundred years, it looked even more dilapidated.

In the 1960s, a large part of the temple was set on fire, and the bricks of the entire temple were burned red. Only the main hall was not burned down. Gradually, when people wanted to build houses, they went there to pick bricks to build houses, but they didn’t know why. The houses built with the bricks in the temple collapsed easily, killing a family. Later, people used the bricks there to build pig pens.

We also have a brick from there. That brick broke when I was a child. It was very heavy. One side was carved with a unicorn, and the other side was bare. According to today's saying, it should be a relief brick. My father picked it up when he was playing when he was a child. This matter is related to a temple... I heard from the older generation that the temple was called the General Temple. As for what kind of generals came from our poor mountain valley, I really don't know. There are also about a hundred households in the village, but most of them migrated from other places. It is said that the natives here were killed during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, so no one knows the origin of the General Temple. Fortunately, it is neither in the way nor in the way, and everyone is used to its existence.

When children in rural areas were young, they would either climb trees to dig out bird nests, or go into the water to catch fish and shrimps, or play hide-and-seek. I am born brave and don't know what fear is. I have a good friend who is one day older than me. His name is Li Yi. Because he was thin when he was young, we called him "Monkey".

Monkey and I went to the General Temple to play once. There was always a smell in that temple. I couldn't describe it. It was a bit like mold. If someone has an old ancestral hall at home, especially a place with a charity cemetery, a place that is very open but the door is closed, you can also smell a similar smell. But at that time, I was very curious about that smell and always wanted to find the source.

That day, Monkey and I took Xiao Hongxia, who was one year younger than me, to play there. In fact, we were both little bad guys. The three of us played a game, which was to learn to play like doctors and give injections. How to play?

Usually, Monkey and I took turns to be doctors, and Xiao Hongxia was the patient, and we checked her body. At that time, we didn't understand the relationship between men and women. We only knew that the postures of girls and boys were different when they urinated, so this game of doctors checking the body appeared. Checking Xiao Hongxia's body and giving her injections was a game, and it also allowed us to know why the postures of urinating were different.

Although we were still very young, we knew that this kind of game was not allowed in public. We coaxed Xiao Hongxia to the back of the General Temple, and then used a glass marble to reach an agreement with Xiao Hongxia. She would be the patient, I would be the doctor, and Monkey would watch from the side. When I was about to take off Xiao Hongxia's pants, Xiao Hongxia's mother's roar came from outside: "What are you little bastards doing hiding over there?! You d*mn little bastards, I'll come to deal with you!" Before I could cover Xiao Hongxia's mouth, she agreed: "Mom, they took off my pants and played the injection game." This shout scared Monkey and I out of our wits, so we turned around and tried to find a place to hide. We saw that there were only walls and bare stone walls around us. Where could we hide? If you want to say that this disaster is destined for a person, you can't avoid it. Just as Xiao Hongxia's mother's footsteps were getting closer, Monkey shouted to me: "Quick, there is a hole here, get in!"

Turning around, I saw that the outer wall of the ancient temple behind us had a hole dug out of the bottom brick, just big enough for a six-year-old child to get in. Monkey and I got in separately.

When we got in, Xiao Hongxia's mother had already arrived with murderous intent. She cursed us two as little hooligans and dragged Xiao Hongxia out. Monkey and I sat on the ground and didn't dare to breathe. For a while, we didn't dare to go out, because if we wanted to go home, we would definitely pass by Hongxia's house. Where could we escape? Monkey suggested that we wait until it gets dark before going back. It should have been around four o'clock in the afternoon. Xiao Hongxia's mother actually came to have dinner with her. Dinner is usually early in the countryside.

After Hongxia's mother left, we suddenly found ourselves in the ancient temple. At first, we only paid attention to the outside. Now, when we looked up, we saw many traces of smoke on the walls of the temple. This hall should be the main hall at that time. The top of the hall is made of hollow wood carvings, with Tai Chi Bagua, gourds, cranes, etc. The door of the hall is tightly closed because there is a big copper lock on the outside of the door. I don't know which era the lock was put on. In short, I have never seen the door of this temple open, so I have never known what is going on inside the temple.

There are murals painted all around the walls. It is hard to tell who is in the murals on two of them. Only the person in the mural on the right can be roughly distinguished. The old man in the mural is holding a whisk, which should be Taishang Laojun!

After all this time, there are Taoist murals in this so-called general temple, which means that this temple should have been a Taoist temple before!

What made us feel even more terrified was that the whole hall was empty, except for a large red-brown coffin in the middle, which was covered with dust. The musty smell in the room was very strong. Fortunately, there was a bright tile above our heads, and the light from outside could shine in through the gaps in the tiles, so we could still distinguish a lot of things. However, in this environment, even if we were brave enough, we were still scared, especially the monkey who turned around and ran and got out of the small hole again. Before I left, I took a look at the wall that was blackened by smoke. The patterns on the wall seemed to be composed of some words or symbols, which looked very strange. I couldn't help but look at it a few more times. At that time, I hadn't gone to school yet and couldn't read, but I was attracted by those things that looked like words, and my mind was left with a blank.

The monkey's urging voice outside pulled me back to reality. I took another look at the big coffin, and I couldn't help but get out. The monkey asked me why I stayed in there for so long and didn't come out. Did he think I was caught by a ghost?

Did I say a long time? The monkey said, "Look, the sun has already set." Only then did I realize that the monkey had been out for nearly half an hour, and I had been inside alone for half an hour, but I had no sense of time at all.

When the two of us passed by Xiao Hongxia's house, her mother inevitably scolded us as little hooligans and shameless, but I didn't care at all. My mind was full of things I saw in the temple, those things that looked like words, the mural, and the big coffin. When we were very young, the adults told us not to go to the General Temple to play. When we asked why, the adults always said not to ask, just don't go there.

The most strange thing for me was that it was obviously a Taoist temple, why was it called the General Temple? I said hello to the monkey and told him not to tell us that we went to the General Temple when we got back, otherwise we would be beaten. The monkey stuck out his tongue and said he wouldn't tell, and we even made a pinky promise before we went home.

After I got home, nothing unusual happened. My mother thought I had gone out to play again, so she didn't care until dinner time when Xiao Hongxia's mother came to my house. I knew I was doomed. As expected, her big mouth mother started to talk about how Monkey and I treated her daughter, and asked my mother to discipline me. In fact, I really didn't see Xiao Hongxia's butt that day. Her mother came before she took off her pants. However, no matter how powerful her mother was, she could not have thought that Monkey would take off Xiao Hongxia's pants several years later. My mother twisted my ears while apologizing to others. I was very afraid of my mother. She had three ways to deal with me: twisting my ears, s******g my butt with bamboo branches, and kneeling down. Looking at the situation today, I can't escape any of the three. Sure enough, after Xiao Hongxia's mother left, I was twisted by the ear and lifted up in the air. Then I knelt down. I knelt down obediently, because if I resisted at this time, it would be like calling Zhuya to beat me. My mother ignored me and just warned me not to go there again. In the end, it was my grandfather who pleaded for me to stand up.

My grandfather felt sorry for me as his grandson. In that era of material scarcity, he always secretly bought some snacks for me to eat, or made some for me to eat first when stewing meat. Grandpa held me and rubbed my numb knees, and I asked him why I couldn't go there?

Grandpa said that there was a ghost there. When someone set fire to it, only the hall was not burned down. The person who led the arson was found to have hanged himself on the beam of the hall not long after. From then on, the village locked the door of the temple.

I asked my grandfather who the coffin belonged to, but when my grandfather heard me mention the coffin, he seemed very taboo and refused to say anything.

A few days later, I started to have a rash, and then I had a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea. My mother took me to the hospital. The doctor said it was a viral cold. I was given injections and took medicine, but the disease not only did not get better, but became worse. I was already thin, and at that time I was just skin and bones. I was itchy all over, and my skin would break if I scratched it. I went to several hospitals but none of them worked. My grandfather knew my situation and suggested that my mother go find a "godman" to see me. In fact, my mother is an atheist, and she refused to go. In the end, my grandfather secretly found a local shaman.