Ghost Blowing Lantern II

Just when I was lost in thought, Ai Hongjun rushed over from behind and said loudly: "What's wrong, company commander? Who did you see? It's like losing your soul. You can't just leave this time. Wait until I get off work." Let’s go drink.”

I was afraid that Ai Hongjun's loud voice would affect other people, so I dragged him outside the Natural History Museum and chatted for a few words. I said, "Ai Niaoran, why did you become a police officer? With your cannon-like voice, Just two miles away scares away thieves."

Ai Hongjun said with a smile: "The leaders of our branch are interested in my bright voice. It's shocking. Last time I heard from other comrades that you were going abroad soon? It seems that we can't recruit you at home. I really plan to go out and speculate." ah?"

I said: "How can there be such a thing about speculation abroad? I'm not going out to be a second-rate dealer. We live a flexible life and do whatever suits us. Why are you wandering around in a museum in uniform? You're not on duty right now?"

After asking this question, I found out that Ai Hongjun’s hometown was in Hunan. After he came out of the army, he was assigned to work in Tianjin. Due to his busy work, he never had time to go home to visit relatives. This time, a group of cultural relics from Hunan Province came to Tianjin for exhibition. Among the staff who came, there was a girl named Ai Xiaohong, Ai Hongjun's biological sister, so Ai Hongjun took the time to come over and see her.

I thought to myself: "Lao Ai, isn't this a ready-made back door?" I quickly said to Ai Hongjun: "I have to put the drinking aside first. Now I have something urgent. You have to find a way to help me use the back door." .”

Ai Hongjun said: "If we can help each other, just ask for anything. In addition to borrowing a gun, you can also lend me your head."

I said: "Who said I asked you to borrow a gun? That's what happened. Did you know that your sister-in-law is an American? Even though she looks the same as us Chinese, she is also an old friend of the Chinese people, but in fact she is chewing Those who grew up in foreign buns are, to put it bluntly, foreigners. Those foreigners like to see our Chinese antiques the most. It is said that the Han Dynasty copper stove on display here was collected by her ancestors several generations ago, so it is very special. It’s emotional and brings tears to my eyes when I see it.”

Ai Hongjun interrupted: "Company commander, are you married? I didn't even drink a glass of wedding wine..."

I said, "Don't interrupt. We're not married yet. When we get married, I'll definitely treat you to a drink. Do you want to have a wedding wine? If you really want to have a wedding wine, you have to help, because your sister-in-law said she wants to be close and careful." Look at this ancient relic. If I can't satisfy her little wish, she will break up with me. You said I'm already a grown-up, so it's not easy to find a wife."

Ai Hongjun looked embarrassed: "These cultural relics from Hunan Province are locked in display cabinets. I am not a member of the security department of this unit, and I don't have the key. Besides, these are national treasures. How can we ordinary people just take a look at them?" Look and touch if you want, foreign guests don’t get this treatment, but don’t worry, company commander, I’ll ask my sister, maybe she can find a chance to show you.”

After Ai Hongjun finished speaking, he called his sister Ai Xiaohong over and introduced us to each other. When I saw that Ai Xiaohong had been a commentator before, she spoke softly and spoke very standard Mandarin. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t believe it. His brother is a biological brother and sister. I first talked a little bit about getting close to each other, and then asked her if she could go through the back door, open the window of the display cabinet, and let us take a closer look at the cultural relics and take some photos to study them?

Unexpectedly, Ai Xiaohong was not embarrassed and agreed: "No problem, but the ones shipped to Tianjin this time are not genuine, but fakes imitated by experts at a one to one ratio, specially for exhibition use, according to relevant regulations , first-class cultural relics are stored in special warehouses and will not be moved easily. It is not a big deal to look at fakes, but it is inconvenient during the day. In the evening, I will say hello to the night shift worker and take you in through the back door to visit. "

When I heard that it was a fake, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Those real things might be tightly sealed in the underground treasure house. Without special opportunities, I might never see them again in this life. I gave up the idea at that time.

But Ai Xiaohong added: "Although they are counterfeit, they are all made by experts, and the details are accurate. They are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Even the cracks on it are exactly the same."

I then thought about it, we came to see this alchemy furnace specifically, mainly because we wanted to see some of the alchemy pictures on the furnace wall. Maybe there would be clues to the golden elixir in the ancient tombs. If the imitations are enough to be fake, the patterns on them The carvings were exactly the same, just like the photos of the real thing, so they should be worth seeing, so Ai Xiaohong agreed to meet at the back door of the Museum of Natural History at 11 o'clock tonight.

Ai Hongjun still had work to do, so he gave Ai Xiaohong a few words, said goodbye to me in a hurry, and rode his bicycle. I waited at the museum gate until Shirley Yang came back, and told me that when I met my former comrades, I could come in through the back door to visit at night. When the matter was briefly explained to her, she was very happy, but when she heard that it was a fake, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

That night we arrived at the back door of the Museum of Natural History as promised. We were on a narrow and deserted street. The cold wind was strong in the middle of the night, making the dead branches creak. There was not a single pedestrian on the street.

I knocked on the door. Ai Xiaohong, wrapped in a military coat and carrying a long and large flashlight, took me and Shirley Yang in. The entire Museum of Natural History was quiet, the lights in the main building were all dark, and the lights outside were all dark. In the concierge, there was an old man on night duty. He had already greeted him in advance, asked him to get a bunch of keys, and went directly to the door.

Unlocking the door and entering the hall, there was a dark specimen exhibition room inside. The hall was very spacious. Every step he took, there was an echo of the space. Ai Xiaohong turned on the flashlight and looked around to see the various insects that had been made into specimens. Both the beast and the beast always maintain a frozen posture. It doesn't look like much during the day, but it does look a bit scary in the dark.

Ai Xiaohong seemed a little scared, and turned to me and said: "The Natural History Museum at night and during the day are really two completely different places. Maybe it is too quiet, and I am not used to it."

I am very familiar with this silent and strange atmosphere, and I know that Ai Xiaohong is not a staff member of the museum, and she is not familiar with the environment and architectural structure inside, so I took the flashlight in her hand and walked forward, while As he walked, he said to her and Shirley Yang: "In this building, the first floor is Zongzi and the second floor is Mingqi. It would be strange if it is not quiet."

Ai Xiaohong didn't know what I meant, but Shirley Yang naturally knew it and whispered: "Don't talk nonsense, the exhibits here are all animal and plant specimens, and there are no ancient human corpses, so there will be no rice dumplings."

I said freely that I thought animal specimens should also be a kind of "zombie". In the process of early taxidermy production, I must have learned a lot of experience in making "mummies", and biological specimens also include "human specimens" , it’s just that the rice dumpling specimens won’t get dead or moldy. I heard from my grandfather that in the Qing Dynasty, there was a female rebel leader named “Wang Guanyin”. After she was unfortunately arrested and killed, her body was stolen and bought by foreigners. He left and made a specimen, which was transported from the sea to the UK for exhibition. It was advertised as the remains of the Virgin Mary and used to defraud foreigners of money through their curiosity about the mysterious East. This kind of human specimen is very inhumane and has nothing to do with popular science.

Ai Xiaohong's face turned pale when she heard me talk about "human specimens", and she quickly said: "Brother Hu, please don't mention these things again. I heard someone say today that there are two specimens in this museum that are very... ...It’s very evil. If you weren’t my brother’s comrade-in-arms, I would really not dare to bring you in at night.”

Shirley Yang and I both felt strange, what kind of specimen should be described with the word "evil"? Ai Xiaohong stopped and pointed to a glass cabinet at the end of the hall: "In that display cabinet, there is a specimen of a white bat."

I wondered: "White bats are indeed rare, but they are not without them in the world. Why is it worth making a fuss about? Why don't you tell me and let me analyze whether they are true or false."

Shirley Yang said to Ai Xiaohong: "There are many collections in the museum, and there are naturally many related stories and legends. Some things have been passed down for a long time, and they will inevitably become distorted. They should not be taken seriously."

Ai Xiaohong said: "Maybe I am too timid. I also heard from an old lady next to the guest house today. She said that there is a white bat specimen in the Natural History Museum, which was hunted by a mountain man before liberation. …”

I have heard about what she said before. It is said that children often disappeared at that time. The people thought that the children were kidnapped and trafficked by "patrons" and did not dare to let the children go out to play easily. Unexpectedly, the children nearby were still missing. The successive disappearances have caused every house to close its doors and live in panic.

Later, an old man with a white ribbon around his waist came to the village. He said that all the children were eaten by the "Yaksha Hungry Ghost". After the hungry ghost ate many children, it would turn into a human form and be reincarnated. All pregnant women with big bellies within a hundred miles of it would be reincarnated. Maybe she was pregnant with a "ghost fetus", but now she has no choice but to take medicine to abort the fetus, or throw the stillborn fetus into the mountains.

Before liberation, people were very superstitious, and they immediately believed it to be true. There were countless fools and followers who forced pregnant women to drink medicine to cause miscarriages, and then threw stillborn fetuses into a ravine, killing countless innocent lives.

There was a hunter in the mountains who chased a white rabbit one day. He lost his way and got into a cave. He saw the cave was full of bones. When he was panicking, he saw a white shadow flashing deep in the cave. He immediately struck the rabbit with his hunting fork. , actually stabbed an old gray-white bat to death, and since then no children have been lost nearby.

Some people say that this old bat was transformed by an evil spirit between heaven and earth during the early days of chaos. It specializes in eating people. It also transformed into an old man and deceived people in the market, tricking people into using medicine to cause miscarriages and throwing them into the mountains to support it. It must be Guanyin Bodhisattva appeared and asked the white rabbit to lead the hunters into the cave, eliminating this harm for the people. It can be seen that Buddha and Heaven are very close, and he really saved the suffering. Otherwise, without the comprehensive Buddhist teachings, how could a mere hunter have the ability to kill the old monster in the cave? ?

And the hunter got the white bat carcass, and his deeds were widely spread. Several foreigners came to buy it back with money, made it into a specimen and put it in a museum in Tianjin, where it has been preserved to this day.

Eighty percent of this kind of legend is false. It may be true that white bats were caught by white bats by hunters and resold to foreigners to make specimens. The rest cannot be verified. Most of them are passed around and become more and more untrue. Reliable gossip.

I walked closer and shined a flashlight on the white bat specimen. I couldn't tell that it had been a man-eating devil when it was alive. I was about to ask Ai Xiaohong to come over and have a look. Don't be so suspicious, but suddenly Hearing the sound of footsteps above her head, Ai Xiaohong was startled and almost fell to the ground in fright: "The old bat spirit is really alive!"

Suddenly an idea flashed in my mind, and I immediately remembered the figure I saw from the back during the day. I called Shirley Yang and Ai Xiaohong and said, "There are snitches on the second floor..." Before I finished speaking, I rushed upstairs first, but the second floor The door was locked, and the key was still in Ai Xiaohong's hand. I had no choice but to hold up a flashlight and shine it through the glass window.

Sure enough, there was a figure in the darkness, squatting near the alchemy furnace. He suddenly saw me outside the door and was surprised. He turned around and ran to the window and climbed out from the window sill. At this time, Ai Xiaohong and Shirley Yang He also followed and hurriedly got the key to open the door.

I couldn't wait to push the door and go inside. I saw that the window was open and the cold wind was blowing into the house. The man escaped so fast and had already disappeared into the night. Seeing that we had nowhere to chase, we had to close the window and walk around. After looking at it, I found that nothing was missing, and they were all imitations. It didn’t matter if they were really damaged or lost. However, when I first saw these exhibits, I mistakenly thought they were real things because they were far away. This museum is There are no strict security measures, so no wonder someone would be interested in these antiquities.

I said to Ai Xiaohong: "Since there is no loss, I don't think there is any need to tell the police. Thieves have the most guilty conscience. After being alarmed this time, they will definitely not dare to come here again."

At this time, Shirley Yang picked up a notebook with a red plastic cover on the ground. This kind of notebook is very common. Most of them are issued by the workplace. It has work records printed on it. Maybe the snitch left it in a hurry and threw it in the panic. on the ground.

I took the work record from her hand, opened it and looked at it. I saw the owner's name "Sun Xuewu" written on the first page. I read it twice in my mouth and asked Shirley Yang: "Who is Sun Xuewu?" Who? I seem to have heard this name somewhere, do you have any impression of it? "

Shirley Yang said: "Old Hu, you forgot, this is Professor Sun's name. Professor Sun, an expert who often travels to villages to collect dragon bone scriptures and studies ancient symbols and characters, what is he doing at the Natural History Museum late at night?"

(To be continued. If you want to know what happened, please log in. There are more chapters. Support the author and genuine reading!)