I didn't eat it: I hung it on the beam above my head, and tied it to one end of a twine strung with rowan berries, and it was as red as the heart of a robin; There were also a few garlic heads hanging from the hemp rope.

Heavy snow fell outside the palace, covering the footprints of the hunters and her delicate body lying in the forest.

I told the blacksmith to remove the bars from the window. During the short days of winter, every afternoon, I would spend some time in the dormitory, peering out the window into the woods until it got dark.

As I said before, there are people living in the forest. They always have to come out, and some of them come out to catch the spring fair: they are greedy by nature, hot-tempered, and very dangerous; Some people are underdeveloped from an early age – dwarves, gnomes, hunchbacks; Others have big teeth and a white face

Empty gaze like a fool; Some people have fingernails that resemble webbed claws or crab claws. Every spring, when the snow melts, they emerge from the forest to gather in the market.

When I was a kid working in the market, I was scared of the people in the forest. I told fortunes to the marketers through the still water, and when I grew up, I told fortunes with a polished mirror, the back of which was silver-plated. It was a gift from a businessman, and I found his lost horse in the reflection of ink.

The market vendors were afraid of the people in the forest: they nailed their goods to the wooden planks of the stalls - gingerbread and belts were fastened to the wooden boards with iron nails. It is said that if the goods are not nailed, the people of the forest will steal them, chew the stolen gingerbread and whip them with a belt, and then run away.

The people of the forest have money, but there is only a copper here, a copper there, and sometimes the years and dust have cloated the coin with a moldy green color, and the head on the coin is not even recognized by the oldest of us. The people of the forest also came to exchange things, so that the bazaar could be proudly maintained, and the hooligans and gnomes were also received; Robbers also receive (as long as they behave properly), robbing the few tourists from neighbouring countries far away from the forest, either stealing gypsies or deer. (According to the law, this is tantamount to theft.) The deer was the property of the queen. ）

In this way, several years passed slowly, and I was praised by my subjects for my wisdom in governing the country. The heart still hangs from the beam at the head of the bed, and at night, it beats softly. I realized that no one missed the child: she was a terrible thing, a thing of the past, and everyone thought it would be better to get rid of her.

Spring after spring, market after market, and like this five years passed, the market became more and more desolate, more and more impoverished, more and more dilapidated. Fewer and fewer people are coming out of the forest to buy things. Those who came out looked low-spirited and tired. Stallholders no longer nail their pottery to the wooden planks of their stalls. By the fifth year, only a handful of mountain dwellers had come out of the forest—and there was no one but a horrible group of men with long hair.

When the market was over, the leader of the market came to me with his entourage. I knew him before he became queen.

"I did not come to you because you are my queen," he said.

I listened quietly and did not speak.

"I'm here because you're smart," he continued. "When you were a child, you found a lost mule just by staring at a puddle of ink; Then you become a big girl and find the missing baby in the mirror, and he is far, far away from his mother.

You know many secrets and can see things you can't see. The queen ......," he asked, "why are the mountain people so anxious?" There will be no spring market next year. There are fewer and fewer tourists from neighboring countries, almost gone, and the mountain people in the forest are almost gone. If this is the case the year after tomorrow, we will all starve to death. ”

I ordered the maid to bring the mirror. It was a plain round glass mirror with a silver-plated back. I wrapped it in a piece of suede and put it in a box, which I hid in my dormitory.

They held up the mirror in front of me, and I stared at it:

She was twelve years old, no longer a child, her skin was a little pale, her eyes and hair were as black as coals, her lips were red as blood, and she was still dressed as when she left the castle: a loose blouse, a skirt, but there were many holes and patches in the clothes, a leather robe over it, and the slender feet had no boots, but two leather bags, which were tied tightly with belts.

She was standing in the forest, next to a tree.

I watched intently, and with the eyes of my mind, I saw her slowly moving sideways from bush to bush, walking briskly, leaping and leaping, walking softly and slowly, like a beast, like a rat or a wolf. She's stalking someone.

He was a monk, dressed in burlap, barefoot, with rough and hard ringworm on his feet. His beard and shaved top hair had been grown to a certain length, his hair had never been cut, and his beard had never been shaved.

She hid behind a tree and peeked at him. At last, he stopped to spend the night, started a bonfire, spread young branches on the ground, and smashed a robin's nest to start a fire. He had a velvet box hidden in his robe. He struck the flint on the scythe, and at last the spark burned the velvet, and the branches lit a bonfire.

There were two eggs in the nest he found, and he ate them in large gulps, and ate them raw without waiting for them to be cooked. He was so burly, it couldn't fill his belly.

He was standing there, in the firelight, and she stepped out of her hiding place, curled up on the other side of the campfire, eyes fixed on him. He grinned as if he hadn't met another human in a long time. He beckoned her over.

She stood up and walked around the fire to his side, waiting an arm's length away. He reached into his burlap robe, and at last found a coin, a very small copper coin, and threw it at her. She caught the coin, nodded, and approached him. He untied the belt around his waist and lifted his robe. He had thick fur, like a bear. She pushed him to the mossy ground. One of her hands was like a crawling spider, slowly crawling through his thick body hair, and finally approached his **; She used her other hand to make a circle on the ** on his left. He closed his eyes and reached out a large hand to fumble in her skirt. She moved her mouth to the ** she had just teased, her bare white skin pressed against his swarthy and hairy body.

She bit his chest hard with her teeth. At first, he opened his eyes, then closed them again, and she drank the blood.

She stepped over him and fed him blood. As she did so, a thin stream of black blood flowed from between her thighs......

"Do you know what's driving tourists out of our town? What happened to the people in the forest? The bazaar leader asked.

I covered the mirror with a suede and told him that I would take matters into my own hands and restore peace to the forest.

I had to, even though she scared me. Who made me queen?

If she were a silly woman, she would go straight into the forest and try to catch the brute; But I've been confused once, and I don't want to make a second mistake.

I knew a few words, so I spent some time browsing through the old books. I also spent some time consulting with a Gypsy woman. She would rather go through our country over the mountains to the south than through the forest to the north or the west.

I was mentally prepared, gathered all the necessary items, and finally, the first snow started to fall, and everything was ready.

I walked alone to one of the highest towers of the palace, which was in the open air. The wind is biting; I got goosebumps on my arms, thighs, and chest. I brought a silver basin and a basket. I put in the basket a silver knife, a silver needle, a pair of tongs, a gray-white robe, and three verdant apples.

I put my things on the ground and stood naked in the tower, kneeling under the night sky and in the wind. But if anyone finds me standing like this, I will gouge out his eyes; Actually, no one was spying on me. White clouds passed through the sky, first covering the moon and then the moon rose.