Chapter 55 Dissolute Female Ghost (1/2)

Chapter 55 Dissolute Female Ghost

Guan said: “The Old Hammer of Liuzhou is my master. For many years I did not understand how to use a hammer to make coffins.”

”Oh.” Feng Chunsheng immediately bowed: “Thank you. My wife's coffin was made by the Old Hammer. After he made the coffin, I kowtowed three times. After all, he had not moved the hammer for twenty years. He used the hammer especially for me; his kindness was memorable.”

Feng Chunsheng said, ”You and the Old Hammer are the same. I met you, so I had to thank you as well.”

”Oh. Hah.” Guan immediately became more intimate to us: “You are my friend. Anyone who could make my master pick up the hammer again is a friend of mine.”

I asked Feng Chunsheng, “Was the Old Hammer of Liuzhou famous?”

”He is renowned in Liuzhou.”

He said to me: “China has a saying, ‘eat in Guangzhou, dress in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, and die in Liuzhou’. The coffins of Liuzhou are the best, and the Old Hammer was the most famous in this business. He liked to make coffins in the evening, to let the ghosts try his coffins. This is called ‘The Night Coffin tries the ghost’. He was very famous.”

He added, ”Since you have found Guan to see the coffin photos, I am convinced.”

He was afraid a common coffin maker would make a wrong deduction upon seeing the coffin.

But now he knew Guan was an apprentice of the Old Hammer, so he naturally would not be wrong.

He found that we were all on the same side, and did not worry about seeing the photo. He just poured us each a cup of tea.

Feng Chunsheng asked him: “The Liuzhou coffin business is very prosperous, you can make a lot of money there. So why did you come to Minnan?”

”Hey!” He laughed, ”I wanted to start my own business. In Liuzhou, that would mean taking work away from my master. I couldn’t do something like that, so after studying my craft, I bid farewell my master, took my wife and child, and came here to make coffins. Although the days are not as good as in Liuzhou, it's OK and I do not lack for food and drink.”

In my mind, he was very righteous.

After a while he took the reading glasses and began to look at the photos. He had only looked at it for a short while when he said: “This coffin is not many years old. I’ll count.”

He used his finger and counted, “It hadn’t been buried for many years before 1949.”

”Are you sure?” I asked him.

He pointed to the coffin and said, ”This coffin is brushed with paulownia paint. This paint, when just applied, is especially bright. When it appeared, a lot of people used it, but not for the past four or five years. The paint had a problem - the penetration was too strong.”

He said that there was a man whose father had been dead for three years. He was going to move to another province, so he opened the coffin of his father to dig out the bones. As a result, he found that the coffin was black inside, and his father's bones were also painted black.

He went to find the coffin maker to scold him.

Later, he found that the problem was the paulownia paint.

It happened a lot. After a few years, no one used the paulownia paint anymore.

Just a few years’ time. But now, the paulownia paint has been improved, and is liked by people. Of course, this coffin is not likely to be from those years.

”Before 1949?” I tilted my head to think.

He said again, ”This woman was beautiful and rich, but she died. It was unfortunate.”

”Rich? Where did you see that she was rich?” I asked him.

He said, ”Of course. Look at this coffin. This paulownia paint was a luxury at that time. Could common people use it? And, I don't even need to look at this coffin. It’s made of Liuzhou's best wood. Now, this wood is four or five hundred thousand Yuan; it is expensive.

When he finished, he summed it up a sentence: “This coffin’s wood is gold.”

We were all very clear about this matter.

Damn it.

She was a rich woman who died before 1949, that’s all we knew.

We bid farewell to him, and went out of the coffin shop.

After that, I asked Feng Chunsheng, ”Brother Chun, with this information, can you figure out who she was?”

”I don't know.” He said: “We have to find out how the woman died.”

”I know a way,” I said to him.

”What’s that?” He asked.

I said these rich people all had family journals. They record everything about the family events. The richer, the more detailed the record. It’s the same as historical records.

This was roughly related to these rich people's psychology.

Those rich people all felt they could carry their dynasty forward, so they recorded everything carefully, in case the family became famous.

I thought and said to him, ”Family journals are kept in the city library. We can find them there.”

”How do you know all this?” he was a bit doubtful.

I told him, ”Our family was wealthy before 1949. We were not local, we moved from another place. My great grandfather brought eighteen baskets of pearls to Minnan. Our family also had a family journal which was handed in to the library.”

”Some time ago, the library called me and said that our family journal was in the library. For others to understand old Minnan culture, I could view it at any time,” I said.

He listened, beat his sleeves, and said, ”Ouch, Shui, you’re an aristocrat!”

”The past should not be mentioned. Go home first. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the library,” I said.

”OK.” He also returned to his rental room.

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