Chapter 81 Will
Chapter 81 Will
The area under the stilt house is not a good place. It is usually used to store sundries or garbage. Some people even use bamboo fences to enclose the land to raise pigs. In short, it is not a place for people to live.
Placing the coffin containing the elders under the stilt house is itself outrageous enough, not to mention that there is not even a bit of paper money or symbolic wreaths or pine trees around the coffin. Just a bare coffin dumped downstairs is as filthy as it can be.
Ning Zhe shed his owl feathers in the forest and transformed into a young man wearing a windbreaker and a devil mask. He walked to the open space under the stilt house, squatted down, and gently knocked on the side of the coffin with his knuckles.
dong dong.
The crisp and hollow sound indicated that the coffin board was very thin, perhaps less than 2 centimeters.
Traditional Chinese people value lavish burials. Poor people who cannot afford it can only wrap their bodies in straw mats. Emperors have always had nine-layer coffins and nine-layer outer coffins. Although Ji Bochang was not a feudal emperor, he was not a man short of money. Why was his coffin so shabby?
Ning Zhe pinched the surface of the coffin with his hands, and his nails pierced directly into the wood.
"Paulownia wood?" Ning Zhe became even more confused.
Paulownia wood is a fast-growing wood. If the saplings are planted and managed well, they can mature into timber in as little as five years. The lightweight wood is mostly used to make cheap and affordable small furniture. It is easy to use and inexpensive, but not very high-end either. Using this cheap wood to make coffins is only slightly better than wrapping the corpse with a straw mat.
Ji Bochang was, after all, a well-known calligrapher and painter in Yunzhou, and was suspected to be a promoted person. Even if his children were unfilial, they would not have fallen to such an extent.
On second thought, Ning Zhe felt that he might have had some preconceived ideas:
[Ji Bochang's funeral was held at Izumo Villa ≠ The person lying in the coffin at Izumo Villa was Ji Bochang]
The inequality was broken. This coffin might not belong to Ji Bochang at all. But if it wasn't Ji Bochang's, then whose could it be? Was there anyone else who died in this villa?
Ning Zhe knew that some elderly people who were running out of time would prepare coffins for themselves in advance and store them in a separate warehouse, but he had never seen anyone who would just throw away such an unlucky thing as a coffin downstairs of their house. At least they would build a shed, right?
"The sheep statue standing at the gate, the weird couplets in front of the stilt house, the coffins scattered everywhere downstairs..."
Ning Zhe stood up from in front of the paulownia wood coffin painted with the word "Lu" and frowned slightly.
This Izumo Villa is weird in every way. Every flower and tree gives Ning Zhe an indescribable sense of disharmony. It is only a few dozen minutes' drive to the east to the prosperous Yundu City with a population of nearly 10 million. There are also many other villas and manors surrounded by mountains and rivers. Only the style of this Izumo Villa is particularly strange.
It seems that this villa did not belong to this world from the beginning, but was an incongruous thing that was forcibly cut and pasted from somewhere else.
It's like a cat head of Kaede was forcibly photoshopped onto the head of the Emperor Armor. This is a sign that something strange is about to happen.
"No wonder Ji Bochang's children sent out black invitations, inviting Yu Ziqian, the promoted one, to attend the funeral..." Ning Zhe thought as he turned and looked at the vast lake in the distance.
Just as he turned around, something that looked like a branch or a stick suddenly fell from the sky and landed right where Ning Zhe had just stood, making a bang. Fortunately, Ning Zhe was lucky today, otherwise he would have been hit on the head.
"Hmm?" Ning Zhe looked up subconsciously, and saw that a window on the second floor of the stilt house above his head had been opened at some point. A graceful figure was leaning against the window, and the bright light illuminated her soft profile.
"I'll go, Pan Jinlian."
Ning Zhe bent down to pick up the wooden stick that fell on the ground and found that it was not a wooden stick, but a large wolf-hair brush.
"It turns out she is COSing Pan Jinlian."
Ning Zhe breathed a sigh of relief, and saw the man upstairs waving at him, so he waved back and went upstairs from the small hill next to him, holding the brush. The man was already standing at the gate waiting for him.
Ning Zhe was greeted by a charming girl with tender eyes, picturesque features and a delicate figure. Although beautiful, it always made people feel unreal. Even plastic surgery could not make her look like this. She looked more like she walked out of a painting.
The hideous evil ghost mask on Ning Zhe's face did not scare the pretty lady at all. She smiled politely and said softly, "It turns out to be Mr. Ye Yao. The memorial service will not start until tomorrow. Others have not arrived yet. You are a little early."
As the words fell, Taiyi's rules were quietly triggered, and a piece of information flowed into Ning Zhe's mind. The person in front of him was Ji Bochang's daughter in his later years. She took her mother's surname Shi and was called Shi Yurou.
Shi Yurou is an ordinary person. She has never been involved in any strange events and does not know Yu Ziqian. She only saw Yu Ziqian's photo in the will left by Ji Bochang.
Ning Zhe took out the invitation from his bosom and handed it to Shi Yurou along with the brush he had just used. He said, "It's the same sooner or later. Also, my last name is not Ximen, so don't hit me with a stick for no reason."
Shi Yurou burst out laughing: "Mr. Yeyao, you are joking. Come upstairs with me first."
"it is good."
Ning Zhe glanced sideways at the couplets on both sides of the gate, then walked into the building with Shi Yurou.
The decoration in the stilt house is antique. A huge root carving coffee table in the center of the living room is very eye-catching. The four walls are made of solid wood, and are mounted with calligraphy of idioms with graceful strokes. From the decoration to the furniture and even the arc transitions at the corners, they are all traditional Chinese style, very standard for wealthy people in Yundu.
But again, Ning Zhe didn't see any elements related to funerals in this building.
"Whose coffin is that downstairs?" Ning Zhe asked.
"My father's." Shi Yurou answered truthfully.
It really was Ji Bo who tasted it...
"Then you are really disobedient." Ning Zhe said softly.
When your own father died, you just made a thin coffin made of cheap wood, hastily put the body in a pig farm? This is not just ordinary unfilial, this is how you treat your enemy.
But Shi Yurou shook her head: "These were all requested by my father himself before he died."
"You mean, he was the one who asked you to dump his body in the pigsty?" Ning Zhe's tone became subtle.
Shi Yurou nodded, went up to the second floor, and led Ning Zhe into a study. From her, Ning Zhe roughly understood the situation in Chuyun Villa.
Before his death, Ji Bochang left a will, asking Shi Yurou and Ji Yunying to follow it:
1. Ji Bo once requested that his body be contained in a thin coffin and placed under the stilt house, and that nothing else be given.
2. Ji Bo once asked them to keep all the things and objects in the building in the same state as before his death and not to move them.
3. Before his death, Ji Bochang gave his brother and sister a list of names and asked them to invite these people to his funeral with black invitations.
The name and contact information of 'Ye Yao' were also on the list, but the siblings had no idea about the true identities of these people.
"Also, my brother and I were downstairs keeping vigil for my father at midnight yesterday."
Shi Yurou stopped in front of the table where her father had written before he died, turned around and looked at the evil ghost mask on Ning Zhe's face, and whispered: "At that time, there were suddenly several knocks in the coffin, like someone knocking on the wooden board inside... I remember it very clearly, three long knocks and two short knocks. This sound only sounded once, and then it never appeared again. I thought it was an illusion at the time."
"But the next day, when my brother and I returned to the building to wash up after guarding the casket, we discovered that one of the copper coins we had with us was missing."
At this point, Shi Yurou's expression became solemn: "After checking, we found that my father's body was missing from the coffin."
(End of this chapter)