Dry Well Hides Soul

Lin Yu pushed open the wooden door of his ancestral home in the mountains of southeastern Guizhou, and the smell of mold dust and time rushed into his face. The copper key found while sorting out his father's belongings can actually open the attic lock on the wooden ladder outside the west wing. In the camphor wood box at the attic, a scroll wrapped in yellow silk sent shivers down his spine - the man in the painting wearing a dark green gown had a similar eyebrow to his own, with the inscription "Lin Haoran's self-portrait, autumn of Gengchen year". The 90-year-old patriarch Lin Laogeng recognized this as his great ancestor Lin Haoran. In the twenty-seventh year of the Republic of China, Lin Haoran led the villagers to fight against the defeated army. He was both wise and brave. However, on the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, he was betrayed by his cousin Lin Youcai and died in an ambush on Yingzui Cliff. The old patriarch warned Lin Yu not to look into the past, but he instead went to Lin Fugui's house in the west of the village. When Lin Fugui saw him mentioning his ancestors, he picked up an ax and drove him away. The seven wooden figures with iron nails under the eaves made hollow clicking sounds in the wind. That night Lin Yu dreamed of Lin Haoran standing on the patio, pointing to the west. The next day, I met a crazy old man and learned that Lin Haoran did not die at Yingzui Cliff, but was pushed into a dry well in Heifeng Ridge by Lin Youcai. Lin Yu found Lin Fugui with the defense map hand-drawn by Lin Haoran, and the other party finally collapsed: Lin Youcai sold the map to pay off his gambling debts, and when he saw Lin Haoran fell into the well and was still alive, he hit him on the head with a rock. Lin Fugui called Mu Ren the "Seven Evil Soul-Calming Techniques", and his son became a fool because he could not suppress his resentment. Lin Yu took the risk to uncover the stone slab of the dry well, and saw fresh scratches in the cold and rotten air. After returning to the village, the old patriarch's dog died suddenly. Lin Fugui's silly son suddenly woke up, pointed to the memorial tablet in the ancestral hall and said, "It's so cold in the well." Looking at the scroll again, under the kerosene lamp, there seems to be water stains on the corners of the eyes of the person in the painting, and the eyes are exposed through the cracks in the door. The camphor wood box in the attic closed quietly, and Lin Yu was shocked to realize that he had been involved in a whirlpool of revenge that spanned eighty years.