The Years When I Went to the Grave

My name is Chen Shan. I was born in the year Bingwu. I am from Chenjia Village in eastern Henan. I have lived for seventy-six years. In this life, my feet have stepped on the mud at the bottom of the Yellow River, my hands have touched the porcelain tiles in the Beijing Liulichang, I have crawled through the mountains of the Qinling Mountains, I have descended into the barren tombs of Mobei, and I have personally explored a hundred large tombs and small tombs. Before I was 20 years old, I was a rural child digging in the soil. I had never even left the county seat. I thought that the sky was the top of the poplar forest at the entrance of the village, and the ground was the three acres of thin fields under my feet. When I was twenty years old, a hoe dug out a copper lump with native flowers, which completely changed my life. This notebook was written down stroke by stroke while lying on the hospital bed. There is no falsehood or exaggeration, it is all my real experience, real dangers and real skills in making money and fighting in this life. From the dirt fields of Chenjia Village to the antique streets of the capital, from worshiping the old ghost master as my teacher to forming my five dead friends, there are one hundred tombs, each of which hides the secrets of the dead and the lives of us living people. Today, I will start from the day when I was twenty years old that changed my life.