Just as I was pondering what was wrong with this skeleton, Grandpa spoke up, "Yang'er, judge, what did this person do in life, and how did he die? Was it a man or a woman, if it was a woman did she ever have children, how old was she when she died, what kind of disease did she have before she died, tell me as much as you know."
"Grandpa, are you testing me?" I asked.
"Sort of!" Grandpa lightly smoked a cigarette.
I thought to myself that this test is too fucking chic, right? Dragging me out of bed in the middle of the night and taking me to a mass grave to dig up other people's graves, there's probably no second grandpa in the whole world who would do such a thing.
"Hurry up and look, this place is too cold and gloomy, I'm afraid my old bones won't be able to endure it if I stay here for a long time." Saying that, grandpa stomped his foot vigorously.
I quietly surveyed the skeleton, some suspicious movements came from time to time around the mass grave, coupled with the gloomy atmosphere of this place, it was very affecting! But as I sunk my mind, I gradually excluded all these disturbances.
This corpse that I put together was one meter eight in length from head to toe, and I thought that this person was a big tall man in life, but his feet were small, which was really unscientific. Human feet and height is about one to seven fixed ratio, the higher the height, the longer the feet, unless the person was born like the ancient times of women wrapped small feet like their feet into three inches of golden lotus.
I do not dwell on this for the time being, and go to judge the gender of this person, judging from the coarseness of the bones, my first reaction is a man, but a look at the diastolic pelvis, and clearly female characteristics, and there is still a scar left by childbirth on the pubic bone!
I picked up the skull to confirm the age, judging from the wear and tear of the teeth, it was properly an adult in his early thirties. However, looking at the thigh bone, the bone is slightly lighter, which is a sign of calcium loss, and bending due to years of stress, these features are clearly an older person, this is too strange ...
What's even more pitiful is this person's arms, bone joints are thick, this should be the characteristics of the leg bones, is it possible that this person has been walking on all four limbs since he was born?
This skeleton from head to toe, everywhere is full of contradictions, calling people the more they look at the more they can not get an idea, but suddenly, I understand the intention of my grandfather, this examination will never be so simple, I already have an answer in my heart!
Squatting for too long, I stood up with a dizzy spell, a burst of blackness in front of my eyes, and my legs were stiff as a rock. Grandpa had thrown a field of cigarette butts in front of him, and it turned out that I had been squatting there for half an hour without realizing it.
"How's it going, Yang'er?" Grandpa asked.
"This person is about thirty years old, both a man and a woman, lived in captivity for years after being born, walked on four legs, ate rough food, and gave birth to seven or eight children before being drowned in water and then hacked to death."
"That's your conclusion?" Grandfather sneered.
"Yes, because it's not a person at all!" I said.
"Oh?" Grandpa got interested, "Tell me how he's not a person."
This skeleton had all the body parts borrowed from animals except for the head, the legs were from a sheep, the hands were from a pig, the pelvis was from another old sow, and the hands and feet were pieced together with bits and pieces of bone, probably from a cat or dog.
If I had to judge the cause of this person's death, judging from the broken wound on the neck bone, it was killed by decapitation.
Hearing me finish, grandpa nodded his head gratefully, "Children can be taught, the ancients say that all books are better than no books, if you can't even tell the difference between human and animal bones, then it's a waste of time to talk to you any more, very good, very good, my Song family really has a successor."
"But Grandpa ...," I said the doubt in my heart, "What is this skeleton all about?"
Grandpa inhaled a cigarette and told the origin of this weird skeleton -
It was thirty years ago.
At that time, there was a villager named Huang San in Yangshuzhuang near the county town, Huang San was an idle bachelor, who could do nothing but drink, gamble, and turn over the widow's wall in the middle of the night, and when he was less than twenty years old, he pissed off his own mother to death.
This kid of course did not get a wife, all day around borrowing money, the village people are very dislike him, Huang San in the village can not get along with the out of work, in this construction site to do two days, in that restaurant to do two days, the hands of the two money to run to gamble.
Once he owed 5,000 yuan gambling debt ran away, the debtor chased to the village to ask for money, at that time that was a huge amount of money, enough to build a few good houses in the countryside, relatives and friends who do not want to take the blame for him, they said they did not know him.
A few days later, someone picked up a black plastic bag containing a bloody human head on the side of a mountain road and immediately reported it to the police! The police took a photo in the newspaper published a notice of identification of the body, yellow three of a distant uncle recognized that the head is yellow three, the boy is eighty percent of the debtor killed, people think that the boy is to make their own death, coupled with the conservative thinking of the countryside, did not bring a lawsuit, the police have not filed a case to investigate, this murder is so unsettled.
Huang San's head was sent back to the village, we all think the Huang family is too bad, so cut off the fire, Huang San to death did not leave a whole body, for fear that the ghost will not come back! Some people found that Huang San's mother is a Chaoshan people, so in accordance with the customs of the Chaoshan side, to give him a 'body burial', that is, with the bones of other animals to put together a body for him to be buried, but also to let him after death to live in peace.
Finished talking about the origin of this skeleton, grandpa told me to bury Huang San's bones back, after I buried, he took out a pile of yellow paper from his pocket, wiped a match to light it, and put it on the grave, saying: "Huang San brother, how much to bother me, I know that you died unjustly, and behind you have no children, so this offering probably can't look at it. When you next year the day of sacrifice, I will ask some monks and Taoist priests to do magic for you, to overthrow your dead spirit!"
The words just fell, a cloudy wind rose for no reason, blowing the firelight wavering, I seemed to hear the wind also mixed with a cry if not, wrapped in paper ash floating to the sky.
I was so stunned by the scene that my grandfather pressed my head and told me to kowtow a few times to apologize.
After I got up, the strange wind had disappeared, and I asked my grandfather with a trembling voice: "Are there really ghosts in this world?"
"Some things are there if you believe in them, but not if you don't. But Yang'er, you have to remember that the pallbearer examining the corpse itself is an offense to the dead! That's why you have to maintain a sense of reverence at all times in order to be worthy of heaven and earth."
I nodded, "I remember!"
But with a change of mind, did that mean that I could be a forensic pathologist in the future, so I asked, "Grandpa, I passed your test as well, so can I be a forensic pathologist for Uncle Sun in the future?"
"No, absolutely not, the Song family's ancestral tradition is something that can never be violated!" Grandpa snapped.