[Folk Horror] Ten Days of Mourning

You slowly approach your friend's face, hold your breath, and carefully listen to her sleep talk.

"...I..." She frowned, as if she was having a bad dream, "I... can't..."

You didn't make a sound, just listening to her words quietly.

Your friend is trembling all over, shaking more and more violently, almost bouncing off the bed, cold sweat is all over her forehead, you have to wake her up quickly.At this moment, the friend suddenly and completely said: "I can't hurt her!"

You startled, and then your friend suddenly opened his eyes. You were caught off guard and met her gaze.The friend seems to be awake for a while, half asleep, half awake, staring at you blankly.

"Are you okay?" you say, "You had a nightmare...?"

"Ah... yes..." The friend sat up and was stunned for a while, "Well... I had a terrible dream, did it wake you up?"

"No." You answer.

"I can't sleep anyway," my friend sighed, "Let's talk about how to deal with it?"

"Grandma Qian has a lot of information..." you said, "It's very complicated."

"Yes, in short, according to Qian Lao's suicide note, we have to use things related to the Yin God to kill the living things related to the Yin God. Using this as a ritual, we can touch the Yin God... After that, Qian Grandma didn’t research it.” The friend said, “Although we are close to the solution to the problem, in a certain way, the mystery has not diminished.”

You said: "Well... you also found out?"

The friend nodded: "There are many contradictions."

You said: "First of all, there are those two stories, let alone other more obvious things... Let's say that Muran Zhi Heshen mentioned that after the 11th year of Jiaqing, no one drowned for ten years, but in the Muran Zhi family Nao Li It is said that in the 12th year of Jiaqing, an old man drowned."

"Secondly, it was mentioned in the village annals that when the son died, his heart disappeared, and the seal said that the son was here. It is the old man who needs his favorite child to accompany him, and the story of this family trouble is more like punishment for an unfilial son..." The friend paused for a while, and then said, "Also, do you feel that although it may be a long time Exaggeration, the Yin Gods in these two stories seem to be more numerous than the Yin Gods we encountered, right?"

"That's right, it can transform into a human form, it can hide its head alive, it can bless no one from drowning for ten years, and it can make tombs rise from the ground..." you said, "and when we meet The Yin God, not to mention not even seeing a single entity, that is, killing small animals, and finally tossing and tossing for a long time to get to the person, and relying on dreams to persuade Goddess Zhao to kill me..."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"It's just a guess..." you said, "The first is that during the Jiaqing period, the Yin God easily fooled the ancients by means of dreaming and apparitions, making them regard the Yin God as the River God, and desperately give Him up without saying a word. Posting gold, posting is regardless of logic, the second is, maybe these contents are not completely false, it is very likely that the power of the Yin God is weakening, at the beginning He was very strong, so He can do more things, until He began to weaken."

"These two points may coexist. Maybe he is so powerful that he doesn't need to dream, just mind control, so the river shrine was built inexplicably, and no one drowned in ten years was just an improvised rhetoric for rationalization. We can go to see when the Heshen Temple was built, and see whether it was the 11th year of Jiaqing or the 21st year of Jiaqing... But obviously, isn't He very smart..." My friend said, "The idea that the Yin God is weakening is also true. It can explain the difference between family troubles and ten-day mourning."

"How to say?"

"At the very beginning, maybe He let the unworthy son die, which was just a part of his manifestation. Isn't that what the divine manifestation is like? Either fulfilling other people's wishes or punishing the wicked, it's good to punish the unworthy son." The friend said, "Until He started to weaken and needed to steal life from people, so he thought of turning the family disturbance into a ten-day funeral, and doing something out of it... If we still have time, maybe we can check the average life expectancy in the village before..."

You also understand: "I understand, this is why the change from punishing the unfilial son to calling on the filial son to go down with his family. Because this is more universal, punishing the unfilial son is a deterrent, and no one dares to continue after the deterrence is over. If you are unfilial, how can there be any room for rituals? The Yin God needs to establish a relationship, simply put, it needs the subjective consent of people..."

The friend continued: "So He turned the family quarrel into a ten-day mourning. Only a filial son can do it. For the ancients, perhaps this is still a kind of glory."

"Until the time is getting closer and closer to modern times, no one can be fooled by this statement. In addition to the current situation, the Yin God had to change his strategy and attack point-to-point. For 40 years, he gave up large-scale operations and specifically found Fucked my great-grandfather."

"And after arriving, the River God Temple was demolished, and fewer and fewer people knew about the legend of the River God, and fewer and fewer people were superstitious. Apart from your family, He probably has no other targets, so he is more concerned about your family. After all, you are the only one left to eat." The friend continued, "Grandma Qian mentioned on the note in the note that the Yin God will definitely use all kinds of methods to lure you. Your grandpa keeps asking God...do you remember your situation?"

"I have jaundice, high fever..." What did you think of, "Same as my cousin's grandson!"

"That's right, maybe your serious illness wasn't a natural condition at that time," my friend nodded, "I couldn't do anything to adults, so I did it to babies. It seems that He really has a lot of research on connection—family love is also a kind of connect."

"Didn't my grandpa think of this possibility? Maybe I wouldn't have died of illness at all."

"But what if?" My friend said, "As Grandma Qian said in his suicide note, people are not always so rational. When emotions cannot accept the consequences of what happens, there is actually no other choice."

"Is it the same for you?" you ask.

"What?" The friend was taken aback.

You're already starting to lose control of your emotions: "You're really not going to tell me... if I didn't eavesdrop on your dreams, you're not going to tell me what you dreamed, are you?"

The Yin God entrusted a dream to Goddess Zhao to kill you.

Friend had nightmare in which she said 'there's no way I could hurt her'

- kill her if you want to live

- i can ' t hurt her

Your eyes are hot, as if you are about to cry: "...it's you today, isn't it?"

[End of the fifth day]