The story takes place during the Song Dynasty. There was a village named Zhujiazhuang in Shandong Province. Because the village was close to mountains and rivers and close to official roads, it had a large population and a relatively prosperous business. Traders from the north and south mostly gathered here.

In the westernmost alley of Zhujiazhuang, there was an old shop with the words "Old Shoulder Shop" written on it. As the name suggests, this was a shop specialising in selling life materials, including coffins, paper figures, and paper horses. The shopkeeper's name was Zhu Chao, and he had been in the life material business since his grandfather's generation.

Zhu Chao had a son named Zhu Biao, who was twenty-one years old at the time. Because the ordinary people of the old Zhu family were more taboo about making a living, Zhu Biao was still single at the age of twenty-one, which could be regarded as an old youth at that time. In the end, Zhu Biao drank all day to relieve his sorrows, spent all day drinking, and fell in love with a singer named Wang Cuihua, and threatened not to marry her.

Wang Cuihua was also happy to agree, as long as she was willing to pay, it was the same as anyone, and it was easier to serve one person. In the end, Zhu Chao had no choice but to take out all his savings to redeem Wang Cuihua, and then held a grand wedding for Zhu Biao and Wang Cuihua. However, just a few days after Zhu Biao got married, Zhu Chao accidentally fell from a tree while going up the mountain to cut wood, and when the neighbors carried Zhu Chao home, Zhu Chao was already dying.

Zhu Biao lay in front of his father's bed, and Zhu Chao signaled for the others to avoid him. Zhu Chao said to Zhu Biao in a weak voice, "The reason why our old Zhu family has been able to survive the years of famine and has been passed down from generation to generation is because we have treasures passed down from our ancestors. Have you seen the door bolt behind the door? According to legend, it is the dragon bar used to carry the coffin for the emperor. That bar is an extremely yin thing. If you use this bar to knock on a coffin, this coffin will definitely be sold tomorrow. It's just that this can only be used as a last resort, otherwise it will damage the yin virtue. I am..."

Zhu Chao spat out a mouthful of blood before he finished speaking, and then he died. In fact, what he wanted to say was that in order to raise money for his son to get married, he used a dragon bar to knock on twenty coffins overnight, but the next day someone came to buy a coffin. Someone in a neighboring village married his daughter and went to see her relatives on a ferry. As a result, there was a sudden storm in the river, and none of the twenty people in the boat survived. Zhu Chao's twenty coffins were also sold out as he wished. However, Zhu Biao did not know the power of this thing and hurriedly buried his father.

Since ancient times, there were no dead people every day. After Zhu Chao's death, the business of the sushi shop was cold and quiet, and soon Wang Cuihua began to complain: "I still miss the days in the brothel before, when I dressed up beautifully every day, drank spicy food, and had a son-in-law give gifts every day.

When Zhu Biao saw his wife complaining so much, he blamed himself. At this time, he looked up and saw the shiny black door bolt behind the door, and thought to himself that before his death, his father said that it was to carry the dragon bar, so it was better to try it tonight, and now it was really a last resort. At night, when Wang Cuihua fell asleep, Zhu Biao quietly took off the door bolt and came to a coffin in the courtyard, knocked lightly, only to hear the buzzing sound in the coffin. Zhu Biao was a little scared and hurried back to sleep.

As soon as it was dawn, there was a hurried knock on the door. Zhu Biao opened the door and saw that it was his neighbor Zhang Sheng. Zhang Sheng said in tears, "Last night, my father got up to go to the toilet and just walked out of the house. Who knew that a wild cat passed by the house and kicked a brick on ridge of the roof.

Zhu Biao's heart was filled with sadness and joy at this time, and he was happy that what his father said should be really good. This black door bolt was really a treasure, and it didn't open for half a month. It was just knocked yesterday, and it came to business today, and it was the coffin that was knocked yesterday. Sadly, it was the neighbor Uncle Zhang who died. Uncle Zhang treated him well during the week, and the specialties brought back from other places during the holidays would also be distributed to him.

Wang Cuihua saw that there was a business, took the money and kissed Zhu Biao's face, and Zhu Biao felt full of strength. At dinner time, Zhu Biao said to Wang Cuihua, "I will definitely make you the happiest woman in Zhu Jiazhuang, just wait for the happiness." Although Wang Cuihua didn't know where Zhu Biao's confidence came from, looking at his confident appearance, she believed that he must have his own way. At night, the two of them tossed on the bed for a long time before falling asleep.

When Zhu Biao saw Wang Cuihua asleep, he quietly got up, picked up the door bolt, and searched for two coffins in the courtyard. Then he knocked on the coffins a few times yesterday, and when the two coffins buzzed, Zhu Biao went back to bed contentedly. The next day, it was also just dawn, and there was a rapid knock on the door. Zhu Biao opened the door and saw that Sun Fuquan was from a neighboring village, and Sun Fuquan's eyes were red. It turned out that his wife died in childbirth last night. He wanted to buy two coffins to bury his wife and children, and finally chose the one large and one small coffin Zhu Biao knocked on yesterday.

At this time, Zhu Biao was no longer as excited as yesterday, but was deeply torn in his heart. Sun Fuquan was no one else. He had saved Zhu Biao's life in the early years. At that time, the two of them also bowed to each other and agreed that one day if the children of the two families were a boy and a girl, they would become in-laws.

Since then, Zhu Biao has never taken the dragon bar to knock on the coffin again, but strangely enough, his family's material life business has become even more popular. One day, Zhu Biao got up to go to the toilet at night and saw that Wang Cuihua was not on the couch. When he went out to take a look, he saw Wang Cuihua knocking on the coffin in the courtyard one by one with the black door bolt. It turned out that when Zhu Biao knocked on the coffin that day, Wang Cuihua just pretended to be asleep. Finally, Wang Cuihua discovered the mystery and saw that her husband did not want to knock, so she knocked on it herself, and knocked on at least several coffins each time.

Wang Cuihua was so scared that she lifted the bar and threw it to the ground. At this time, she had already knocked on five coffins. Seeing that it was Zhu Biao, Wang Cuihua calmed down and said, "Who do I think it is? People are scary and scared to death, don't you know? I stayed up late to work overtime to earn you money, should you reward me?"

The two had a big fight, each got angry and finally fell asleep.

The next day at dawn, there was a loud cry not far away. A woman brought her two children back to her parents' house because it was cold at that time, and when they slept at night, they lit a fire to keep warm. Finally, when everyone was asleep, sparks lit the bedding, and when the villagers found out, they had burned black charcoal. At this time, there were rumors in the village that these mysterious deaths must be related to the Lao Zhu family, because they were the ultimate beneficiaries. It turned out that the neighbors heard Zhu Biao and Wang Cuihua arguing at night, but they didn't really hear it, and they roughly understood that deaths of the villagers were related to them.

Wang Cuihua disagreed and cursed: "Catch thieves and steal stolen goods, catch rapists and catch twins, you can eat more food, but don't talk nonsense. I can sue you for imprisonment if you falsely accuse a good person." Because everyone had no evidence, the government determined that it was indeed an accidental death, and in the end it was all over.

In the blink of an eye, winter fell heavily in the north, and Wang Cuihua came to the courtyard wearing a mink coat and carrying a dragon bar. She saw that the snow on the coffin seemed to have fallen a lot. She picked up the door bolt and knocked a few times, only to hear a sigh from inside: "Someone, stop knocking." Wang Cuihua was so frightened that she turned her head and ran into the house, then called Zhu Biao and said, "It's not good, there's a ghost in the coffin." Zhu Biao came over with an oil lamp and found a person lying in the coffin.

Zhu Biao asked softly, "How did this brother come to this?" The man trembled and said, "In order to avoid the pursuit of the enemy, I accidentally ran into and hid here. If my brother can save me, I will give you a lot of gold and silver in the future." Wang Cuihua pulled the man out and cursed: "Do you think my mother is a three-year-old child? You can't protect yourself now, and you still promise me a lot of gold and silver? You can die wherever you like, don't dirty my coffin."

There was a hillside behind her house. Wang Cuihua thought it would be bad luck to die at her door, so she simply pushed him down the hillside and went back to sleep after cleaning up.

Zhu Biao couldn't resist the guilt in his heart, so he carried the lantern to the hillside to find the person just now. The snow was very thick, and Zhu Biao's feet were deep and shallow, and he could not find the shadow of the person until dawn. He could only see messy footprints at the bottom of the valley, but the snow was very thick, and the whereabouts of the footprints could not be known. When Zhu Biao returned home, he was shocked and saw all the doors were open, and the things in the house were thrown to the ground in a mess.

Since ancient times, bandits have not been able to enter the coffin shop, because it is unlucky to rob something from a dead person, but for some reason, their own shroud shop has been stolen today. Zhu Biao counted his belongings and found that there was not a single piece of gold and silver jewelry missing. The only coffin in the courtyard was missing a bite, and it was the one that the person slept in yesterday, along with Zhu Biao's wife Wang Cuihua! I saw that Wang Cuihua's mink coat was still thrown on the couch, so it was so cold that she probably wouldn't go far.

Zhu Biao found a few neighbors to look for it together, and finally found the missing coffin in the forest behind the village. Inside lay Zhu Biao's wife, Wang Cuihua, but Wang Cuihua was naked and had already frozen to death. Later, a fire broke out in Zhu Biao's house, and the coffin in the courtyard was burned, carrying the dragon bar, and Zhu Biao disappeared. Some people said Zhu Biao did too many immoral things and was burned to death by fire. Others said Zhu Biao became a monk.

As for Wang Cuihua's death, some people later said that the person who was lying in the coffin that day was named Shi Xiu, and he was also a man of green forest. He offended someone and fled to Zhu's house, but Wang Cuihua pushed him into the valley. Fortunately, they happened to meet their old friend Yang Xiong and others, and finally heard what happened to Shi Xiu.

Postscript:

Good and evil will be rewarded in the end, and the right path in the world is vicissitudes of life.