Chapter 1 (03)
The first glance fell on the rescue team member who was rescued by him from the wolf's mouth, Shang Cheng felt like he had been struck by lightning, and his mind was completely blank in an instant.
The rescue team members are about 30 years old, and although they are not tall, they have thick arms and strong legs and look very strong. Maybe it was because he had been fighting the two beasts for too long and had too much physical exertion, and the thin yellow face with some short black beards was covered with dirt and sweat, so he looked a little embarrassed. The man's clothes and trousers were all in tatters, a short coat that was neither gray nor black, the hem of which was dragged down to the knee, the right sleeve was bitten off by the wolf, and a few pieces of torn cloth hung from the fracture, and a mass of yellow-brown cotton wool was half-hidden and half-exposed under the jagged strips of cloth, and the edges of the cotton wool were soaked in blood, and the black sticky was sticky to the arm; The sleeve of his left hand was torn by the wolf's claw at the shoulder, and now it was barely joined to the clothes by a few thick threads, and under the strips of cloth was cotton wool of the same color; Several cloth buttons on the chest of the short coat were also torn open in the struggle, and from the left neckline to the right tuck, a large piece of clothing drooped, revealing the gray-white underwear inside the jacket. The pants on the lower body are also black and not autumnal; Maybe it's because the trouser hem is too fat, so there are two strips of cloth tied on the half-leg handlebar. Barefoot in a pair of thick-soled cloth shoes, the upper of which was sprinkled with specks of mud. He was now standing a few paces away from him, his left hand clutching the wrist of his right hand that had been bitten by the wolf, and looking at him gratefully with awe-struck eyes, repeating the same words over and over again. Red blood kept oozing from the fingers of his left hand and trickling down to the grass.
Shang Cheng couldn't understand what he was saying, and he couldn't tell what the dialect was at all, the only word he could hear clearly was "Shang", and after the man had repeated the words of thanks several times, he could barely hear the other word "wolf". Fortunately, this man spoke Chinese, which means that he was not "smuggled" into Belgium or anything......
But "Shang" and "wolf" are not the point, and I don't know the so-called dialect is not the reason why Shang Cheng's mind is blank, and even the nondescript clothes and pants worn by the rescue team members did not let him pay too much attention. He just stared wide, staring intently at the man's head.
Sky! What's on top of his head?
The rescue team members actually had a bun tied to a small wooden stick on their heads!
Taoist? This was the first feeling that came to Shang Cheng's heart. Only Taoist priests can wear their hair in a bun, and only monks can wear this kind of straight clothes with diagonal buttons, and it is not uncommon to meet Taoist priests in the deep mountains and old forests, and it is not uncommon for three or two monks in the rescue team to be familiar with the local environment. However, as soon as this idea came to his mind, he rejected it. The person in front of him does not look like a Taoist priest from the description to the expression, especially the material of the clothes, which makes him silent one by one, he can recognize it, the material of this person's clothes and pants are home-woven homespun cloth, he saw the old people in the countryside when he was a child, the black color on the cloth is because the black pigment is not evenly dyed when dyeing the cloth, so it is only a deep and a shallow black and a gray one, which naturally gives people a dirty and dirty feeling. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed that there were still people wearing such crude old homespun cloth!
But if this person is not a Taoist priest, who will he be? Looking at his appearance, it is a bit similar to say that he is a hunter, it is okay to say that he is a farmer in the mountains, and it is not impossible to say that he is a forest ranger. But what about the bun on the top of his head? And what about a homespun shirt?
Hunters, farmers, rangers...... Speculations about the identities of the rescue team members came out of his heart one after another, and were denied by Shang Cheng himself one after another.
He twisted his face, his mouth half open, all kinds of thoughts came to his mind, and he only cared about being in a daze, and only realized in a daze that the man had knelt in the grass with his injured wrist in his hand.
He had no choice but to put aside the suspicions in his heart first, stood up and walked over and squatted beside the ambulance team, and asked, "Badly injured?" As he spoke, he took the ambulance's right hand and looked at it.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the wound. He had seen half of the ambulance team's forearm to the back of his hand covered with blood, and he thought he had been bitten by a wolf, but after a closer look, he knew that the wound was not too big, only half the size of a palm, and the wound was not deep, just a piece of skin. He grabbed the ambulance's hand and signaled him to clench his fist and release it, and twice, although the man grinned in pain and bared his teeth and sizzled his cool breath, the movement of his fingers and wrists was not much of a hindrance. It doesn't seem to hurt my muscles and bones.
Shang Cheng patted the man's shoulder with a smile and said, "It's okay, it's just a flesh injury, just rest for a while." As he spoke, he looked the man up and down again, took off his half-left sports vest, shook the dust twice, tore it into a few locks and wrapped the wound indiscriminately, and said, "Let's use this first." Wait for the others to come and see if they have alcohol and gauze bandages or something. He glanced at the bun on the man's head and the homespun shirt on his body before asking, "You...... How did you get separated from the big team? ”
From Shang Cheng walked over, the man knelt on the ground and didn't speak, he turned the man's right hand over when he checked the wound, the man inhaled the cool air in his mouth but didn't make a sound, until he tore open his half basketball vest, the man opened his mouth and muttered something. Seeing that he didn't react, he didn't say anything, just stared at his every move. Seeing him talking to himself now, he said gratefully, "...... Business...... Wolf...... Help ......"
It turned out that it was not "autumn age" but "help". Shang Cheng finally understood one more word. He smiled and waved his hand at the man, and said, "What can't be saved, it's far away." He sat down on the grass next to the man, rubbing his arm, which was still a little burning pain, and said nonchalantly, "I should thank you!" If you hadn't come looking for me, how could you have met a wolf? Speaking of which, I put you in danger. Now, you come to save me, and I save you again, so that the two of us will be even, and neither of us will owe anyone. ”
The man blinked and looked at him as if he didn't understand.
Seeing that the ambulance team didn't answer his words, Shang Cheng didn't say any more, pulled a handful of grass and rubbed it in the palm of his hand, washed the blood and soil on his hands with emerald grass juice, and looked at the two wolves who were lying on the cliff wall in the grass for a long time, before he took a long breath, turned his face and said, "Is there smoke?" Seeing that the man didn't seem to understand, he put the two fingers of his right hand to his mouth and made a gesture of smoking. Smoke! Do you have cigarettes on you? ”
“…… Yes, there is. Then the man understood what he meant, straightened up, and hurriedly pulled out a charred black thing in his bosom.
Shang Cheng looked at the man in amazement, holding the thing that looked like bread and bread in both hands, and hesitated for a moment before reaching out to take it. A faint smell of cooked food lingered around his nose, which suddenly made him feel hungry, and his eyes almost burst into flames. He didn't give in to the man, he broke off a piece and stuffed it into his mouth, and swallowed it by his neck without chewing twice. The aroma in the mouth has been diffused between the heart, spleen and heart, and it really has to be more fragrant......
A piece of barley cake mixed with sorghum filled his stomach in an instant, and he smacked his lips and shook his head and sighed - he had never tasted such a delicious delicacy!
The man saw that he was gobbling up sweet and hearty, and he happily took out half a wheat cake from his bosom.
Shang Cheng took the cake, broke off a piece and was about to send it to his mouth, but he stopped again, thought about it, and asked, "How far are we from the big team?" Seeing that the man was just smiling and not talking, and gesturing for him to eat, he had to ask clearly, "I said, how far are the rest of the rescue team from us?" Seeing that the man still didn't understand, he held up a finger, "An hour?" Another finger added, "Two hours? The man was still smiling and dazed. Shang Cheng frowned and said in a daze, "It won't be a day, right?" ”
“…… ...... business," the man said. As he spoke, he gestured in the direction of the south.
Shang Cheng immediately came to his senses and asked, "You mean, are they in the south?" He narrowed his eyes and looked south. To the south, there are still rolling hills, and there is nothing to see but lush trees and wildflowers and grasses that fill the mountains. But he knew that the mountain path he had just walked was hidden in this greenery, winding all the way to the south, and the clear stream was also going south.
The man nodded desperately, and there was a long list of dialects that made Shang Cheng dizzy, and he could only barely understand two words, "home" and "cloth". There is no doubt about "home", but "cloth" is a little unclear, maybe it is "department", maybe "no", maybe it is ...... Shang Cheng didn't bother to guess which word the "bu" syllable represented, so he broke half of the cake in his hand into two halves and handed over the big one.
Seeing that the man repeatedly waved his hand to refuse, he did not pretend to make a gesture, stuffed the small piece of cake he had just broken into his mouth and chewed it slowly, and then asked: "You, how, and, the big team, are separated?" He learned the lessons of his previous conversations, not only slowing down the frequency and speed of his pronunciation, but also trying to make his Mandarin as standard as a radio announcer. Even so, he had to repeat the same words three or four times.
The man was obviously aware of the difficulties in language communication between the two people, and he didn't speak so fast, but he couldn't even make Shang Cheng understand how he met the two wolves.
However, Shang Cheng still understood something. This man's house is on the south side, some kind of "cloth"; He also had some kind of animal, which seemed to be a horse, and had disappeared when he had just met a wolf; As for what happened to these two wolves and how they could be entangled with him, Shang Chengcheng didn't hear clearly. But if you think about it, you can understand the reason: these are two lost lone wolves, one by one, they lack the advantage of group hunting and face a survival crisis, the lone wolf is the most ferocious carnivore, in order to get food, they have to take risks, not to mention that the female wolf is still pregnant with cubs, and the male wolf will definitely not give up any opportunity; Lone wolves are the most cunning predators, they can accurately distinguish which prey is easier to reach, so they give up the defenseless pack horse and choose the owner of the pack horse, after all, man does not have the speed of a horse, nor the endurance of a horse, as for the rudimentary weapon that the owner of the pack horse holds in his hand, it does not even serve a warning in the eyes of the wolf......
Thinking about these things, Shang Cheng couldn't help but grin. He now knew that the man was not a member of the rescue team. He was saying, "Why does a rescue team member carry only half a piece of wheat bread with him?" No wonder when he rescued him from the wolf's mouth, he trembled with excitement and couldn't utter a whole sentence for a long time. He is his "rescue team" for a long time! No! It's not just rescue, to be exact, it's help, and he is his savior!
Thinking about this verse, he immediately found that this person kneeling on the grass was not because of too much physical exertion, nor because his legs and feet were injured and he couldn't support his body, but because he was using this posture to express his most sincere gratitude! No wonder he said he was holding the wheat cake in both hands and handing it to himself!
How can this work? He almost jumped over and pulled the man out of the grass.
But his sanity immediately dispelled the idea. It was too late for him to stop him now, and he could only embarrass both of them. He had to pretend not to care, to pretend that he didn't see it, to pretend that he had killed two wolves and was still immersed in happiness and luck...... He reached out and patted the grass and motioned for the man to sit down. The man hesitated, but obeyed his command, and sat down on the grass with a leaning body.
Shang Cheng pretended not to see the man gently rubbing his legs and feet, chewing wheat cakes in his mouth, and after a while asked, "Here, yes, what place?" ”
"Yanshan...... Prefecture...... County ......"
Yanshan? Prefecture? County? What does that mean? Shang Cheng frowned, thinking hard about what these words meant. He didn't remember any place called Yanshan, but he knew that one of Beijing's ancient titles was "Yanjing", could it be that he was in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang area? Or is it in Hebei Province? Or is this Shanxi Province? "County" can still be understood, but how can "fu" be explained? While he was thinking, he couldn't help but ask the question again.
"What kind of place do you think this is?" His whole mind was on pondering the meaning of the words "fu" and "county", so he forgot to speak Mandarin and did not deliberately reduce the frequency of his speech.
"Yanshan...... Prefecture...... County ......"
The man said it again, Shang Cheng still couldn't hear it clearly, he forced a smile and wanted to ask again, but a thought suddenly flashed in his mind! Could it be ......
In an instant, as if all the blood in his body had been drained, his face turned blue and yellow, and a cold cold air flowed down his spine from the top of his head, and instantly spread throughout his body. Everything in front of me became distorted and blurred......
Could it be that he suddenly appeared in this deep mountain and old forest from the dormitory, not only in terms of spatial transfer, but also in time leap?
No! That's impossible! A voice roared hysterically in his head! You definitely can't cross time! How can you possibly cross time? There is still a theoretical basis for the transfer in space, and there is no theory in the time span!
But how to explain what is in front of you?!
You're dreaming, you're in your own dream, it's a world you've made up completely, you just need to pinch yourself lightly, or order yourself to wake up, and you can get rid of everything in front of you...... The voice got lower and lower, and by the end it was as thin as a gossamer, and it was impossible to discern it.
It's certainly not a dream! If you dream, how can you explain the blood marks scratched by the wolf's claws on this body? How do you explain this hot pain? And this mountain, this tree, this wind, this grass, and this faint fragrance of flowers wafting with the wind, how to explain it? If you dream, you can still draw the rough grains of wheat that are not ground in the wheat cake left in your mouth so clearly and straightforwardly?
You must be dreaming! Think about it, think about it, where have you ever heard that someone can travel through time? In which book have you ever seen someone swear that they have traveled through time? Think about it, there are legends and rumors about the nonsense of traveling through space, but who has mentioned traveling through time?
…… This is not unreasonable, he only saw in the magazine that an Argentine couple had inexplicably crossed the Atlantic from the South American continent to Belgium in Europe. No matter how unbelievable this story is, it is just an obstacle through space, and as for traveling through time, he has never read it in any magazine......
Just when he was hesitating in his heart whether he was trapped in a dream, a cold voice sneered and said: How can a person who has traveled through time still have the opportunity to tell his story to others?
These words were like a hammer struck on his head, and he was stunned by the ringing in his ears......
I don't know how much time it took for him to gradually wake up from the confusion. There is still grass in front of me, brilliant wildflowers looming in the grass, and the gentle wind brings a chill and the fragrance of flowers and plants; The sun was already turning west, and the cliff behind it was already dragging a wide and long shadow on the grass under the sunlight.
I don't know when, four or five more people came to the meadow, and now they were sitting around and talking not far from him, helping him to shield him from the cold wind that drifted down the valley. Looking at the dress of these people, they are not much different from the "rescue team members", but their ages are not the same, the younger ones are about the same as themselves, and the older ones may be older than the "rescue team members". These men all carried knives or spears around their waists, and two of them still had wooden bows in their arms and quivers tied to their backs, and a few arrows were crookedly exposed in the pots. He looked at the men with a tense face, at their homespun clothes, at the crude weapons in their hands, at their high or low black buns, and his mind was blank.
Seeing him open his eyes, the "rescue team" hurriedly pulled away the crowd and walked over, folded his hands and performed a Buddhist ritual towards him, bowed down and said, "...... Business ,......"
He still couldn't understand the dialect of the "rescue team member", but watching several people bow down solemnly with awe in their eyes, he finally understood why the "rescue team member" kept calling his surname one by one, and he was not talking about "Shang", but "monk".
Monk? He touched his flat head that had been shaved the day before yesterday, and then compared the buns of the people in front of him, and the corners of his mouth twitched twice. Alas, their hair is short and flat, no wonder they think of themselves as monks who have made a family.
“…… Monk...... Cloth...... Home ......"
It seems that the "rescue team" is inviting himself, a life-saver, to his house. Just go, I don't have anywhere else to go anyway. As for what would happen after he arrived at his "cloth" home, Shang Cheng couldn't think about it anymore, or rather, he didn't care anymore.
Seeing Shang Chengmu nodding his head in agreement, the few people all smiled, and saluted him noisily, so they shouted and drove past the pack horses that were gnawing grass on the field, and threw the two wolves on the pack frame. The youngest guy saw that Shang Cheng was wearing only a pair of big pants with a bare backbone, and when he came over, he took off his straight shirt and put it on him, and he still muttered "wind cold" in his mouth.
Although this young man is stocky, he is not very tall, half a head shorter than Shang Cheng, and the clothes he handed over are obviously not suitable for Shang Cheng. Fortunately, this straight shirt was made wide, and he could barely put it on, but his shoulders and arms were tightly banded, and the small half of his arms were exposed. Shang Cheng touched the rough jacket, and couldn't help sighing in his heart, wanting to say something but didn't know where to start, he muttered for a long time, and finally squeezed out two words from between his teeth: "Thank you." ”
The young man just smiled at him, not knowing if he understood him.