Chapter 66. Juren Residence
Arc 3 : Supernatural Horror Movie Nightmare
Du Yan raised his head and looked at the roof of the front hall of the ancestral hall, and then looked across the empty patio in the middle towards the main hall. The roofs of these two parts were painted with exquisite lacquer paintings, which was completely typical of the classical architectural style of using wooden tenons to connect wood.
The back hall was separated by a partition, and the situation inside can not be seen. However, the back hall was usually a place where ancestral tablets were enshrined, and the local villagers must have locked them up to prevent them from being offended.
Apart from these, even Du Yan did not find anything else hanging on the beams. Du Yan glanced at Xiao Lang, and it seemed that his special physique was at work again.
In the movie, the ancient village was the junction where everyone entered another Shunping City. Xiao Lang’s ability will gradually be unlocked, and Du Yan has no way to stop it. Because this was the cornerstone of the dream world. Without the cornerstone, the dream world will collapse directly.
In fact, judging from the plot of the entire movie, Xiao Lang’s friends can be considered innocent people affected by his special abilities.
The fierce ghost wanted to devour Xiao Lang’s soul, but he could only do so when the three fires on his body were extinguished. Now, it seems that Xiao Lang is not easily influenced, and pure fear can not achieve this effect.
Then he could only start with the people around him, infect Xiao Lang with their fear, and finally break down his psychological defenses with the tragic death of his friend. No matter how steadfast a person is, when he sees his good friends die tragically in front of him, he will always be shaken for a moment.
Because the existence of Xiao Lang’s friends is extremely important, the fierce ghosts in another Shunping City will never let them go. Even if Du Yan stopped them from coming to this ancient village, they could not leave Shunping City.
So Du Yan’s plan was to follow the plot and wait for them to enter another Shunping City, then find a way to send Xiao Lang’s friends out and leave Xiao Lang alone.
When Xiao Lang dies, his friends will no longer be of any use to him and can leave smoothly. When Xiao Lang becomes the Ghost King, all problems will be solved, and he will not feel guilty about the tragic death of his friends.
Xiao Lang was looking down at a tourist brochure, which said that the ancestral hall was built more than 200 years ago and was built at about the same time as the chastity archway at the entrance of the village.
These lacquer paintings were also painted in those days. Later, the village hired craftsmen to repair and maintain them every ten years, so they still remain intact until now.
Xiao Lang raised his head and smiled at Du Yan, saying: “This is your area of expertise. You can study it carefully. Maybe you will get some inspiration when you paint.”
After listening to Xiao Lang’s words, Du Yan felt that his current persona could not be destroyed for the time being. So he leaned forward to carefully study the lacquer painting on the pillars in the hall.
A piece of paint on the pillar had peeled off, revealing a little bit of the base color underneath. The base color underneath was very blurry, and the lines and colors were all blurred together. It was almost impossible to see what the content was.
Du Yan looked at them intently for a long while, then suddenly raised his eyebrows and said: “These lacquer paintings are really interesting. It’s a pity that we can’t go in and take a closer look. Let’s leave.”
The other people were amateurs who were just there to watch the excitement. They had already seen everything in the ancestral hall. When they heard Du Yan, the art student who came to collect folk arts, say that he was leaving, they all left the ancestral hall without any objection.
The construction of the ancestral hall emphasizes having water at the entrance. Right in front of the ancestral hall was a pond, so everyone followed the instructions in the manual and walked along the back of the ancestral hall.
After passing a few old houses, they saw another representative attraction mentioned in the brochure: the banyan tree. The brochure said that this banyan tree was also hundreds of years old.
The banyan tree had lush branches and leaves, covering the entire small square in the center of the village. Many of the banyan tree’s strong aerial roots have grown to the ground and inserted into the soil, like tree trunks. It really looks like a single tree forming a forest as described in the introduction.
Zhou Tian raised her hand and pointed, saying: “Is that the well the restaurant owner at the entrance of the village mentioned? I heard that the water from this well tastes especially good.”
Right below the banyan tree was a well built with bluestone bricks, with a windlass above it.
The group walked over and saw that the well water was clear and transparent, and there was a small motor connected to the windlass next to it. It turned out to be an electric windlass, which seemed to be used to facilitate the elderly living in the village to fetch water.
Although the small motor seems to be somewhat out of place in the entire ancient village, but now there was a large banyan tree above everyone’s head, and a well, built with bluestone bricks below, the whole scene still looks quite fascinating.
The breeze blew past, and the leaves of the banyan tree rustled. A few clear bird calls were heard from above. This made everyone present feel relaxed at once.
Zhou Tian was quite interested and said: “We should take our time to walk around in this ancient village. Why don’t we take a break here and chat under the big banyan tree?”
The scenery in front of them was indeed beautiful, and no one raised any objections.
There were several rough stone tables and benches around the big banyan tree. Not sure whether they were set up here for tourists to rest after the development of tourism or whether the villagers liked to chat and enjoy the cool breeze under the banyan tree.
Anyway, these stools were now small advantages for Xiao Lang and his group. Everyone sat down on the stone stools and took out some water and snacks they brought with them.
It was a rare leisure time to have a drink and some snacks. In such beautiful scenery, everyone was very gracious and carefully put the garbage left behind into plastic bags, ready to take away later.
Liang Fei was a man who could not sit still. Seeing that everyone was sitting there eating, he stood up and walked around the big banyan tree.
He first looked up at the treetops and said: “The ecology here is really good. There are many bird nests up there.”
Xu Yuan smiled and replied: “For a small village like this with no industry and no pollution, it is normal to have bird nests.”
Liang Fei turned around and around until he was behind the banyan tree. After a while, he suddenly cried out in alarm and surprise from behind the banyan tree: “What is this?!”
Everyone was so frightened by his surprise cry that they stood up and ran behind the banyan tree.
Liang Fei was fine. He pointed to a spot behind the banyan tree with a puzzled look on his face: “Look, this thing is weird and looks quite nasty.”
Everyone gathered around, and when they got closer, they knew it was an abandoned well.
The way the bluestone bricks were stacked on the ground was almost the same as the previous well, except that a huge stone was pressed on the mouth of this abandoned well.
In fact, it was understandable to put stones at the wellhead, probably because they were afraid that someone would accidentally fall into the well.
The main reason why Liang Fei was shocked was that this stone was too unusual. The stone was densely wrapped with ropes, and the color of the ropes was also very strange, a dark red to black color, which looked inexplicably weird.
From the gaps between the ropes, one can see some chaotic patterns carved on the stone, but after being corroded by wind and rain, it was impossible to tell what they were.
On those strangely colored ropes, there were wooden signs tied every ten centimeters. Perhaps because of the passage of time, the wooden signs have almost rotted away.
But it can be seen that these rotten wooden signs were tied to the ropes at different times. Looking down along the ropes, the wooden signs were more intact the further down they were.
The wooden sign near the wellhead was still intact and in new condition, and it looks like it was tied to the rope not long ago.
Liang Fei was open-minded and curious, so he didn’t think much about it and just squatted down to look at the wooden sign.
He looked at it seriously for a moment and said with a sigh: “There are words on it, but they are so scribbled that I can’t recognize any of them.”
Upon hearing this, everyone came over to take a look and shook their heads while looking to indicate that they didn’t recognize it either.
Du Yan bent down slightly and glanced at it: “It says time, which means the wooden sign was put up last year, on the 15th of the seventh month of last year, according to the lunar calendar.”
Xiao Lang looked at Du Yan, with some admiration in his tone: “You can understand this too?”
Du Yan said: “This is Xiaozhuan. Some sects of celestial masters like to use this font to draw talismans, believing that it can better communicate between heaven and earth and follow the laws of nature.”
(*Xiaozhuan = the form of Chinese character standardized by the Qin dynasty)
Hearing Du Yan say this, everyone’s eyes were focused on him. No one knew why, but when Du Yan suddenly talked about these mysterious things, no one felt it was inappropriate at all. Instead, they felt that for someone like him, saying these words was very real.
Xiao Lang asked with a smile: “Do you have any research on these?”
Du Yan looked at him and explained: “Folk culture, we artists always have some research on it.”
Seeing Liang Fei getting ready to make a move, Du Yan reminded him: “Although you may not believe in these things, this is the tradition of the village after all, so it’s better not to do anything.”
When Liang Fei heard this, he quickly raised his hand, indicating that he would not dare to touch these mysterious-looking wooden signs.
There was nothing else under the big banyan tree except the two wells. After everyone had rested for a while, they continued walking along the path. According to the route in the brochure, the most representative attraction of the ancient village, Juren Residence, was in front.
(*Juren = scholar who passed the imperial exam/civil servant)
This ancient village produced a scholar two hundred years ago. He was the son of the Fan Shi who was honored by the chastity archway at the entrance.
In ancient times, if a remote village like this could produce a scholar titled Juren, the whole village would benefit. It was only natural to erect a chastity archway for the scholar’s mother.
Juren Residence was completely different from the houses in the ancient village next to it. It was a house with two entrances and two exits.
The brochure states that the backyard was the old house where the scholar lived before passing the exam, and the front yard was built with money raised by the villagers after he became Juren.
The front yard was neatly arranged, from the main gate to the pair of stone lions in front of the gate. Everything was in line with the status of the owner at that time, and it looked quite imposing.
Entering the backyard, the feeling was completely different. Compared with the solemn front, the backyard was much simpler, and it was more like an ancient home environment.
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