The flame in the lantern gradually shrinks,

The charm all around was burned away by that tiny light,

The human skin paper absorbed all the breath burned by the flames, but no writing emerged.

Su Wu took it back,

I have other questions on my mind.

The opera sung by the female ghost before was the last scene in Liang Zhuli where she cried at the grave and turned into a butterfly.

It is said that

The story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai originated in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

It was passed down orally by the people to later generations,

There's nothing wrong with a female ghost singing a few verses of Butterfly Lovers.

but,

The play that Human Skin Paper parodied before was the Peking Opera's "Farewell My Concubine".

The history of the birth of Peking Opera is not that long ago.

How could this scholar whose wife died in 1705 parody Farewell My Concubine?

There is something quite strange in this.

but,

1705 was already the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty.

How far is it from the current period?

Su Wu shook his head,

Get rid of the confusing thoughts from your mind.

His eyes looked towards the dark woods,

I have seen the trembling little boy Gou Sheng huddled behind a tree.

Lifting the lantern, he stood still and called to Gou Sheng: "Gou Sheng, what are you still doing hiding in the woods?

The monster was scared away by something unknown.

We are safe,

Come quickly,

We still have to rush to Tanjiacun!"

Su Wu's tone was calm,

Contains the power to soothe fear in people's hearts,

Gou Sheng was moved by his few words and slowly moved out of the woods.

More than ten steps apart,

The little boy looked at Su Wu: "Brother, are you a real person?"

Previously, Gou Sheng was entangled in a strange rhyme and was almost dragged to the grave. His courage was frightened, so he did not see any movement on Su Wu's side.

——Even if he saw Su Wu parodying him as ‘Overlord’,

Su Wu could also deduce that he was too frightened and was blinded.

The matter is harmless.

But after Gou Sheng was rescued,

I felt like I was scared to death, but this brother could still be so calm, which was a bit surprising.

That's why there was this question looking at each other across the road.

"Of course I am a real person,

I told you before, don’t panic when encountering something strange.

If you panic, the devil will bully you.

If you can calm your mind,

Of course we can control the evil ones." Su Wu said with a smile.

The little boy heard him repeat what he had told him before.

I immediately believed in my heart that this brother was a real person.

Rather than the legendary state of being possessed by a fox ghost,

He breathed a sigh of relief, walked up to Su Wu, and said repeatedly: "Brother is so brave. The scene just now made me so scared that I wet my pants, but brother seems to be fine at all."

"Do what we do,

How could you not have the guts?

You also need to train yourself more,

There will always be times when you go to deliver rice alone in the future. If you don’t have enough courage, won’t you be swallowed up by the devil in an instant?”

"I understand, brother."

…

In the open space outside the bamboo forest,

The mute girl moved the bundles of firewood to each stove.

She is young,

It is very difficult to carry such heavy firewood.

But she has been carrying it silently,

There is no stopping from beginning to end.

Li Yueshan, the 'stove master', watched the mute woman carry firewood, but did not help her - he also had a lot of things to do, and he had no time to spare at the moment.

There are still too few people gathered under my stove...

but,

anyway,

If there are too many people, I won’t be able to feed myself…

As thoughts swirled in his mind, Li Yueshan thought that as long as he successfully started the stove this time and established a reputation, the situation would always get better and better in the future - especially when he set up the stove for the first time, he got a good seedling - Li Wu,

I suddenly felt at ease.

He turned around and took out the clay pot from under a table.

on the clay pot,

Painted with people dancing around the flames.

"Let's take a rest first,

This firewood is almost enough."

Li Yueshan said hello to the mute girl, and the mute girl stopped moving firewood.

Then he squatted down behind the firewood stove where Li Yueshan was standing, and kept filling the stove holes with firewood.

The iron pot gradually heats up,

Although this girl cannot speak, she looks like a piece of wood.

But a child who works diligently is not a child without winks.

Li Yueshan nodded secretly in his heart,

Then he shook the clay pot in his hand,

Weigh how much 'fried oil' is left inside.

The clay pot shook slightly,

It makes the sound of liquid churning.

Just by listening to the sound, the fat old man knew that less than half of the fat in the pot was left.

'Everything goes bad when a person is poor...'

He sighed secretly,

The property that I now have was passed down to me by my master and my wife before they died.

Only relying on this little possession to stand on one's feet,

Then everything must be calculated carefully,
To be continued...