Zhao Baoxuan opened the backpack she was carrying and took out a lighter.

The light of the sun faded away, and the whole sky darkened, like the rhythm of a storm.

It was getting darker and darker, and soon I couldn't reach out my fingers.

The wind blew from nowhere, hitting the face, with a hint of coolness.

If it was another girl, she might have been so panicked that she couldn't find the north, or she would have cried in fright.

This kind of darkness that can't distinguish between heaven and earth, and can't see far and near, means great peace and security for Zhao Baoxuan.

It seems to be her innate instinct.

When she was very young, Zhao Qingshan and Wang Cuiyu were busy opening a restaurant, no one at home took the children, and the kindergarten she received refused to accept because she was too young, so Wang Cuiyu sent her to an acquaintance's house for foster care for nearly a year, and picked her up home for a night every week or half a month, sometimes she didn't pick it up at all, sent her food and clothing, fed her a bowl of rice, or sat there to chat with acquaintances, said some kind words and left.

The grandmother who took care of Zhao Baoxuan was a patient whom Wang Enzheng had saved, her temper was more impatient, and her patriarchal thinking was particularly serious, and she often scolded her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, but she was surprisingly good to Zhao Baoxuan.

At that time, electricity was very expensive in the countryside, and the older generation still adhered to the habit of sunrise and sunset, and easily refused to spend a penny more on lamp oil or electricity.

Every time at night, Grandma called her grandchildren to bed early, and the children didn't play enough, and they couldn't sleep at all when they rolled around in bed.

Grandma herself has been busy for a day, she has long been sleepy and yawned, and she has no strength to scold the child, according to Grandma's habit is to give a few slaps on the child's buttocks, and she has to sleep if she sleeps, and she has to sleep if she doesn't sleep.

Zhao Baoxuan likes her little brother and sister very much, so she begged her grandmother to tell a story.

Although she is young and her speech is not very neat, when she is at home, Wang Cuiyu will read her stories every day and coax her to sleep.

Because all adults can tell stories, she thinks that Grandma is so old that she will tell more stories, and every time she sees Grandma yelling at her little brother and sister, she feels sympathy.

Sometimes Wang Cuiyu took her home and came to her grandmother's house again, and she couldn't help but make a request.

Grandma was so sleepy that she couldn't open her eyes and refused to tell a story: "I haven't read a book, I can't tell a story." ”

Zhao Baoxuan begged: "Movie." ”

There are still movies to watch in the countryside, but they are open-air movies, there is no other entertainment life in the countryside, and adults and children can talk happily for a long time after watching a movie.

Grandma couldn't stand Zhao Baoxuan's soft and glutinous pleading, and was reluctant to scold Zhao Baoxuan, and was afraid that her grandchildren would continue to mischievous, so she used a fan to extinguish the oil lamp and began to tell ghost stories to the children.

The story told by Grandma is actually the story of the most old-fashioned scholar and young lady, who has been performed countless times in singing or movies, and he will listen to the children who love to listen to stories even if you tell them a hundred times or a thousand times.

However, if the same story is repeated too much, adults will get tired of it, and they will be sleepy when they talk about it.

Grandma is like this, in order to increase the deterrent effect, she turned the scholar into a ghost: "...... The Xiucai, who could read, saw that as soon as the young lady went out, he closed the door by himself, and ripped off the human skin covering his face, revealing his green fangs. ”

The little brother with a good memory will object: "I remember that the young lady in the movie is the ghost." ”

At this time, Grandma would yell back: "You dead boy doesn't sleep and waits to become a ghost? I don't know how it plays in the movie? The story I tell is not the same thing as in the movie, if you quarrel again, I won't tell it." ”

The fan in his hand clanged on his body.

So the children all shut up.

Grandma continued to scold: "In the movie, they are all liars, what ghosts are women, and the real ghosts are all men!

The voice of Grandma's son came from the next room: "Sleep, stop talking, I have to go to study tomorrow morning." ”

The little brother is nine years old and has to go to school every day.

Zhao Baoxuan had no choice but to beg her grandmother: "Mother-in-law, I'm good, can you whisper to me?"

Grandma turned her anger into a smile: "Xiaoxuan is the most well-behaved, let's sleep first, and I'll talk about it tomorrow." ”

But the young lady was on the other side of the bed and asked tremblingly, "Where will that ghost be hidden? The scholar is not dead, how can he become a ghost? Doesn't it say that there are ghosts only at night?"

Grandma was stunned for a while, sleepy: "Oh, I was noisy with you just now when I was going to sleep, I don't know what I'm talking about, and I will say the wrong thing when I get there! ”

In fact, Zhao Baoxuan had long heard that Grandma was talking nonsense, but first, she was too young to correct others, and second, she felt that she had to be very well-behaved, and hoped that Grandma would treat her better.

When she encounters this kind of grandma who wants to lose her temper and doesn't tell stories, she keeps silent and plays with her fingers by herself.

Grandma took her to sleep, and she was very clear about her movements, knowing that this little girl would not sleep until the story was finished, so she had to open her eyes and tell nonsense, and continued to make up: "After the scholar took off the human skin and showed the appearance of a ghost, the room suddenly became stinky, and the ghost rubbed and rubbed on himself, and rubbed a lot of mud and moxibustion out......"

Anyway, in Grandma's ghost story, the ghost must be changed by a man, and once he turns back into a ghost, he is lazy and smelly, and has all kinds of vices.

In life, Grandma always coaxes children and says that when a man dies, he becomes a ghost, and when a woman dies, he becomes a fairy.

Every time such a ghost story is told, it doesn't take long for the little brothers and sisters to fall asleep, and only Zhao Baoxuan can fall asleep when she opens her eyes and is almost dawn.

She was convinced of everything her grandmother's story was telling, and when everyone had fallen asleep, she waited quietly for the room to become completely dark.

Grandma took three children to sleep in a room, and Zhao Baoxuan knew exactly who slept where.

The darker the room, the clearer she could see.

She can always see the shadows of people on the roof of the mosquito net, on the beams of the house, and on the tiles, whether it is a man's face or a woman's face, and can distinguish the joy, anger and sorrow on their faces, and can see what they have done to have such expressions.

To be honest, this is much more fun than listening to grandma tell stories.

However, she didn't live in her grandmother's house for too long, Zhao Qingshan's jade kitchen restaurant moved from the old street to the street shop in the city, and the business slowly improved, Wang Cuiyu took Zhao Baoxuan back: "You can go to kindergarten, full care, once a week, I have to go through your kindergarten every day to buy vegetables, I can watch you play games over there, don't cry, I don't have time to take you at night, you can still cultivate collective life ability in kindergarten." ”

So, Zhao Baoxuan, who was less than three years old, gave full play to her ability to make up ghost stories in kindergarten.

Wang Cuiyu sent her to a street kindergarten, with six teachers in the kindergarten, only one of whom graduated from a kindergarten teacher, and the remaining teachers were nursery workers, responsible for taking care of the food, drink and Lazar of the whole nursery children.

In the days of full nursery in kindergarten, it is better to foster care at Grandma's house.

In the eyes of these nursery workers, the dozen or so children are not much better than burdens, and they will always complain that they eat too slowly, move too slowly, cry and easily get their clothes dirty, and when they go to bed at night, the nursery workers and aunts take turns telling ghost stories to scare the children.

There are really little children who are scared to cry.

As soon as someone cried, the nursery workers and aunts intensified: "If you cry again, the ghosts will come to arrest you, eat your flesh, and make you only have bones on your body, and you will become little ghosts." ”

Among all the children, only Zhao Baoxuan has never cried.

She often doesn't sleep much at night, so during the day when the other children get up to eat, she still sleeps.

Those childcare workers are also happy to take it easy, with one less child, saving trouble.

Zhao Baoxuan didn't mean to do this.

It's really because there is nothing fun in the kindergarten during the day, just a teacher teaches them to play games and tell stories, and they are hoarse, and they will be out of tune when they talk about the accordion.

After a few days of class, Zhao Baoxuan felt very bored, far less fun than talking to the shadows who lived on the roof at night.

And those fierce nurses will only be fierce to their children, and they are afraid of ghosts to death, and they don't dare to go alone when they get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, so they are not as good as these children.

Not long after, Zhao Baoxuan was persuaded to quit because two nursery aunts heard Zhao Baoxuan talking to someone when they got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.

"At first we thought she was talking in her sleep, and when we walked over and saw her looking at the ceiling with her eyes open, then we asked her what she was doing, and she said she was talking to people and asked why we couldn't see. The frightened nursery staff directly informed the parents, and when Wang Cuiyu came to the kindergarten, they told her this: "Take her to the doctor, she said there is more than one person on the roof!"

There are no traces of mottling on the roofs of the kindergarten classrooms and dormitories, only two ceiling fans.

It's just that Zhao Baoxuan's ability is here, as long as she sees the shadow, she can quickly make up a few characters, these characters are determined by her to be grandparents, fairy sisters, ghost uncles, good people are fairy sisters, and bad people are ghost uncles.

Wang Cuiyu was shocked and assured the kindergarten teacher: "Bao Xuan never talks in her sleep at home!"

The kindergarten teacher was helpless: "Sometimes she mutters to herself for a long time, and she will scare the children next to her into crying. ”

Zhao Baoxuan stood aside silently, wanting to defend herself: Xiao Ming was not me crying at all, it was my aunt who said that a ghost was coming to catch him and eat his flesh, so he would cry.

But she vaguely knew that if she had a problem, she wouldn't have to live in the kindergarten.

When Wang Cuiyu asked her if she was uncomfortable and why she didn't sleep at night and had to talk to herself alone, Zhao Baoxuan said: "Well, I didn't eat during the day, I couldn't sleep at night, and I was very hungry." ”

This is true—she wakes up every day and it's time for the children to have a snack in the afternoon—and after having dinner with the children, the other children wash up and go to bed, and she is just starting to refresh.

Wang Cuiyu asked left and right, and finally figured it out, it turned out that her daughter only ate one meal and one snack a day in kindergarten.

Immediately became angry: "Spending so much money to let you come here hungry, you should have said it earlier!"

They themselves are in the catering industry, Zhao Qingshan is tall and strong, but the children of the Zhao family are starving and skinny in the kindergarten, so they have to let the family know, then their Zhao family's jade kitchen restaurant will become a joke.

Wang Cuiyu took Zhao Baoxuan back in a fit of rage, didn't let her go to kindergarten, and took it herself.

After a few days, after the anger passed, Wang Cuiyu found that he was not qualified to take the role of taking a child at all, and complained to Zhao Qingshan: "Why is it that our children eat like taking medicine, and the rice has to be eaten one by one!"

Not only did he not have the energy to do things in the restaurant, he sacrificed his working time to take care of the children at home, the children were not fat, and they became more silent, calling his mother at most once a day, and he didn't shout to eat when he was hungry, and he didn't shout to drink water when he was thirsty.

Zhao Qingshan has no other way, so the child can only find his elders to take care of him: "Then I can only call your father, there are few relatives in our Zhao family's old house, and the one or two people who have a good relationship are old, and no one can take care of Baoxuan." ”

Zhao Baoxuan has never seen her grandmother and grandmother since she was born, her grandfather died not long after she was born, her grandfather practiced medicine all the year round and rarely appeared at home, Zhao Baoxuan has almost no memory of these elders, if you want to say that there is an impression, it is really the grandmother she fostered for half a year.

Wang Cuiyu was very helpless, please ask a little nanny, there is really no such habit in the fishing city - they are all working people, and ordinary people hire a nanny at home, which is purely to explain to the neighbors that the hostess in this house is idle and lazy.

In desperation, Wang Cuiyu tried to write a letter to Wang Enzheng, using the excuse that Zhao Baoxuan was frail and sick and had no kindergarten willing to accept it, so he called back his old father, who had been collecting medicine and practicing medicine all year round.

Wang En has been collecting medicines and medicines in the mountainous areas all year round, and has treated many villagers and mountain people, and he also has a lot of experience in many children's diseases.

When he heard that his granddaughter was sick, he packed his bags and went back to Yucheng without saying a word: "If there is no son, a daughter is a son, and if there is no grandson, a granddaughter is a grandson! I can save others, and of course I have to cure my own child!"

Different from other people's attitudes, Wang Enzheng listened to Wang Cuiyu talk about Zhao Baoxuan's sleepwalking symptoms, just rolled Zhao Baoxuan's lower eyes, looked at her tongue, and looked at her fingers, and happily announced: "Okay, the child will be taken by me, one year, just one year, I promise to raise her for nothing!"

It's all a small problem, and it's easy to treat. The point is that it's too late. If you talk about it early and give it to your child early, you can grow a lot taller.

(Revised later)