The magical black land, before setting foot on it, was already destined to be full of unknown colors.

In order to save some travel expenses, Shizhu did not choose to take the train along the Longhai Line to Xuzhou to transfer to the Jinpu Line to Tianjin, and then take the train from Tianjin along the Jingfeng Line to the northeast, but planned to cross the sea from Dengzhou to Lushun, and then to Tieling Longjiabao, and then inquire about Liu Fulong's news along the way. So he went all the way north, entered the boundary of Ganyu in Shandong, and then walked Gaomi to Yantai.

There are a lot of mountain roads on this road, the stone pillar relies on his legs to hurry, when he is lucky, he can also take a hitchhike and save some leg strength, but unfortunately it rained for a few days on the road, and it took him nearly ten days to arrive at the Yantai ferry port.

Early this morning, Shizhu wanted to buy a ferry ticket, who would have thought that all the boat flights had been cancelled. Later, he found out that just the day before, Wang Jingwei had publicly declared that he would cooperate with the Japanese -- in fact, this had been foreshadowed for a long time, and Wang had already telegraphed more than two months ago to announce his defection to the Japanese. In order to prevent the guerrillas in Shandong from coming and going to the Anti-Japanese Union by sea and creating turmoil, the Japanese ordered a blockade of the Bohai Strait, and no ships were allowed to go to sea in the near future without permission.

If there is no boat, you have to go back to Jinan to take the train, and it will take a lot of time. After wandering around the ferry port for a while, Shizhu felt a little hungry in his belly, so he found a stall and had some breakfast.

"Boss, have you been here for a long time? Do you know when the boat to Lushunkou will be available? Shi Zhu saw that the stall owner was a little old, so he asked tentatively while eating breakfast.

The boss was also realistic, speaking Shandong, and said to Shizhu while cleaning up the table next to him: "Guy, you are right, I have been here for more than 40 years - my father was the family of the general soldier of Jiaozhou Bay Chapter, and the German devils moved north from Qingdao to Yantai when they forcibly occupied Jiaozhou Bay. If you want to say that the passenger boat to Lushunkou was originally there every day, but it suddenly stopped yesterday, and many people changed to the land route. In my opinion, if there is no ten days and half a month, I am afraid that it will not be able to open......"

"It's been too long to go on land, boss, do you know if there is any other way?"

"Young man, I see you're quite clever, and if you want to talk about a way, I really know one. Near Penglai Hongshi Mountain, there is a man named Chu San, who specializes in running a private boat from Penglai to Lushunkou, and many people have taken it. He always drives the boat at night, you now go all the way to the west, after the Liangjia River is not far away, there is a carriage to Penglai, if it goes well, you can catch tonight's boat! ”

Hearing this, Shi Zhu immediately became energetic, hurriedly finished breakfast, and prepared to leave immediately.

"But young man, remember", when Shizhu was about to leave, the boss advised, "When you take that boat, you must take care of your own things, it is said that Chu Sanlao was a ringing horse earlier, and his hands and feet are a little unclean, if there are many people on the boat, you don't have to worry." Also, give him half of the boat money first, and then give the rest of the ...... when he arrives at the ground."

"Well, I remember! Thank you boss! According to the instructions of the breakfast stall owner, Shizhu crossed the Liangjia River and got into the carriage smoothly, and after getting off the bus in Penglai, he walked for a while, and when he arrived at the Red Stone Mountain, the sun had not yet set.

That Chu San was quite famous in the area of Hongshi Mountain, and as soon as he inquired, Shi Zhu easily found him.

"May I have a boat to Lushunkou tonight?" Shi Zhu asked, cloaking his hands.

Chu San looked at the stone pillar and said, "Little young man, you are really lucky, there is a boat to Lushunkou tonight, it has been banned for the past two days, there are many people who come to me, and there is still one last place left......

"When is the boat going?" Shi Zhu asked eagerly.

"Leave when it's dark, and we'll be there tomorrow at dawn! But ......", at this time, Chu San's words changed and said, "Now that the sea is forbidden, I am a ship that runs at risk, and the money of this ship will naturally rise!" ”

"The boat money is easy to say! But you have to follow the old rules: pay half first, and then give the other half when you get to Lushun! ”

"It's a regular customer! Okay, then follow the old rules! Chu San runs private boats on this line all the year round, and there are many guests who come and go, and it is impossible to remember every boat passenger, he heard Shi Zhu say "according to the old rules", thinking that Shi Zhu must have been on his boat before, and now he spoke in a different tone, and there was a smile on his face, and his small eyes narrowed, as if they were closed.

Afterwards, Chu San took the stone pillar to a hut, which was crowded with a dozen or so people: a family of three, a mother and son, two pairs of two, four companions, and a few individual guests, all of whom were waiting to take a boat to Lushunkou in the evening.

When Shi Zhu arrived inside, he found a place and squatted down, and then looked carefully at the people in the room, and saw that although the four people who accompanied him were dressed as crop people, judging from his experience, that group of people were obviously the owners with guns. The stone pillar didn't know what was going on, and he didn't dare to rush forward to talk, so he had to be vigilant first and take one step at a time.

After dark, Chu San took everyone on the boat. In the middle of the night, the boat sailed to Huangcheng Island, and Chu San went up in the dark to replenish the ship with some fuel and continued to sail in the direction of Lushunkou. On this night, there was only a gentle sea breeze on the sea, and the passengers were sleeping peacefully, and the night seemed very peaceful. But no one knew that under this tranquility, a catastrophe was looming over them.

When the ship sailed to about ten nautical miles from the mouth of Arthur, a glimmer of white light had already appeared in the eastern sky, and it was estimated that it would be able to reach the shore before dawn.

At this moment, suddenly a strong light of a searchlight hit Chu San's ship, and when he got closer, he saw clearly that it was a Japanese warship, and the gun muzzle of the black hole on the ship was facing Chu San's ship.

When the warship approached, he ordered Chu San to stop the ship, and the noise woke up the passengers, and they all asked what the situation was.

"Don't panic, it's time for inspection! You're all in the cabin, I'll take care of it! Chu San had often encountered inspections on this line before, mostly by giving something and stuffing some money, and he felt that this time was the same, so he said to the passengers in the cabin as usual.

However, Chu San still muttered a little in his heart, because the Japanese had blocked the strait in the past few days, and he ran a private boat, so naturally he did not get the permission of the Japanese, and this time he actually sent a warship to inspect it, which was really a bit abnormal.

After a while, the Japanese released a small boat from the warship and boarded Chu San's ship with a team of soldiers. As soon as they got there, they ordered everyone to go to the deck to be inspected, and a few soldiers went to the cabin and drove all the passengers out.

"Lao Lin, it seems that our whereabouts are exposed, what should we do?" I heard one of the passengers whispering.

"Don't panic yet, you're ready, listen to my command, and act when you see the opportunity!" The one named Lao Lin said to a few people next to him.

After the passengers arrived on the deck, the leading Japanese soldiers checked their documents one by one, and Chu San nodded and laughed on the side, and said vigorously: "Taijun, they are all good people, great good citizens!" ”

After checking everyone's documents, the leading Japanese soldier suddenly said to the person next to Lao Lin: "You, open the baggage!" ”

"Hey......" The man forced a smile on his face, nodding his head, and slowly taking the burden off his shoulder, in fact, he was very nervous, because the burden was ostensibly covered with clothes, but there was an important letter hidden inside.

The three people beside him were also very nervous at this time, and secretly stretched their hands slowly to their waists and quietly touched the pistol.

After the man opened the baggage, the leading Japanese soldier waved his right hand and ordered his two soldiers to check the clothes in the baggage. I saw the two little soldiers shake off their clothes one by one, and after a while, the letters inside fell out.

"What is this? ......”

"Hit!" Before the leading Japanese soldier could finish asking, Lao Lin gave the order to shoot. The four of them instantly pulled out their pistols, and with a few "horns", the leading Japanese soldiers and the two small soldiers who turned over their clothes fell down directly. Seeing this, the Japanese soldiers in the back hurriedly found cover and shot at these four people.

The passengers on the boat screamed, covered their ears and covered their heads, and scattered in all directions. Chu San and a few sailors were also so frightened that they squatted down, their heads lowered, although they had been ringing horses before, but the first time they encountered this incident on their own boat, they were all panicked all of a sudden.

"Don't be afraid, everyone, we are anti-union guerrillas, quickly hide inside...... Lao Lin took a few people to shoot at the Japanese soldiers, and beckoned others to hide in the cabin. Shi Zhu also hid inside with the boatmen, but he kept thinking about going out to fight these devils, and from time to time he went out to see the situation.

In addition to the three Japanese soldiers who were directly killed, there were about eight or nine Japanese soldiers on board, and Lao Lin and them were only four people, and they had been suppressed by the Japanese soldiers with all their strength in terms of firepower. After a while, the man who had just been searched for his baggage collapsed in the hatch of the ship, and a bullet hit the center of the eyebrow.

"Sixth!" Lao Lin shouted at the man who fell, and saw that he had been shot in the center of his eyebrows, and he was estimated to have been sacrificed, so he didn't go up to see what was going on, and continued to shoot at the Japanese devils.

The stone pillar could be seen clearly in the hatch, and when the sixth man fell, the gun was thrown out of his hand and fell in front of his eyes. Seeing the gun in front of him, Shi Zhu didn't say a word, just picked it up and rushed out.

After observing the situation, Shi Zhu fired two shots and directly killed the two Japanese soldiers on the side. Then he crawled forward, dragged down the grenades on the two Japanese soldiers who died first, slammed them on the board, and threw them at the Japanese devils on the opposite side one by one.

This group of devils had already lost the command of the squad leader, and because they were bombed like this, they directly lost the will to fight, and the few people who could still move quickly jumped into the boat and fled to the warship.

Lao Lin and the other two were also seriously injured at this time, and when he saw that the stone pillar had beaten the Japanese away, he said, "Thank you, little brother!" It's a pity that I'm going to affect you! ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the cannons on the Japanese warships came at him, and before the first shot could be hit, the shells only blew up the sea water and splashed all over the ship. The second and third guns all hit the ship, and the hull began to break and slowly sank.

Chu San saw that his boat was broken in two, and he was sure that he could no longer glue it with universal glue, so he jumped into the sea, intending to flee for his life. When the sailors saw that the boss had abandoned ship, they also jumped into the sea one by one.

When the shelling came, Lao Lin used his body to protect the stone pillar, and the stone pillar was spared, but he himself was seriously injured by the explosion. The other two guerrillas were also shot and killed.

"Little brother, I'm dying, you have to find a way to get ashore alive and give this letter to Captain Shi of the Anti-Japanese Federation on Lotus Mountain in the east of Changchun." Lao Lin knew that his fate was not long in coming, so he quickly took out the letter in Lao Liu's baggage and handed it to Shi Zhu, "The information in the letter is very important, remember, the joint code: you say, 'I'll bring you something at the old dock', and the other party answers, 'Okay, I love salted fish!'" Be sure to find a way to deliver it! ”

Faced with the entrustment of the dying stranger in front of him, Shi Zhu's heart was extremely complicated, and not to mention whether he could agree or not, it was a question whether he could even go ashore alive. But just now it was indeed this person who used his body to protect himself from death, so Shi Zhu said: "Uncle, my name is Shi Zhu, I can only do my best!" ”

"Little brother Shizhu, please ......" As soon as the words fell, Lao Lin swallowed his last breath.

The other passengers in the cabin screamed in fright. Watching the ship slowly sink and the sea water rushing into the cabin, they all ran out, intending to jump into the sea to escape. However, when the Japanese soldiers on the warship saw someone running out, instead of rescuing them, they opened direct fire with machine guns.

Dada, dada......

Poor man, before he could jump into the sea, he fell, and the blood slowly flowed down the sloping hull into the sea, staining the wreckage red all around, and the screaming stopped abruptly.

Seeing that the Japanese were shooting with machine guns, Shi Zhu hurriedly put the letter in his snakeskin satchel, dragged a large board, and hid under it and did not dare to move. It wasn't until the Japanese stopped strafing and left that Shizhu took advantage of the point of the thorny dragon dagger poking on the board and struggled to climb to the top of the board.

After this toss, the stone pillar was exhausted, and lay on the board panting.

At this time, the sun had risen, illuminating the surroundings red, and the sea water was rippling in the breeze, reflecting the sunlight into the eyes of the stone pillar from time to time, so that the stone pillar's eyes were difficult to open, so he simply closed his eyes.

In Shi Zhu's memory, the last time he lay on the water like this was several years ago, when he was not yet in middle school, but at that time he was lying on a fishing boat leisurely with Luo Erfang and a few others, instead of being alone on the sea, life and death were uncertain.

There are four or five rivers in Guwei Village, Shizhu's hometown, more than a mile to the west, flowing more than ten kilometers from north to south, the river surface is not very wide, but the river water is crystal clear. In the summer, it's a children's paradise. At that time, regardless of men, women and children, swimming was a necessary skill, and children could swim at the age of six or seven, and those with good water characteristics could hold their breath in the water for a long time.

A little further south of the village, there is a Niudun River that is vertically connected to the Siwu River, which leads east to the mouth of the Guan River. In the summer, the young people in the village often meet in groups to catch clams, snails, clams, fish and shrimp in the river. The water of the Niudun River is quite deep, and it does take some skill to dive to the bottom.

At that time, Shizhu often followed the young people in the village to play in these two rivers with his friends, and when he was tired, he lay on the fishing boat, closed his eyes, basked in the sun, and let the boat drift...... Thinking like this, the stone pillar seemed to return to his childhood, as if the small fishing boat was lying under him. Somehow, however, the boat slowly sank, and the pillar itself sank into the sea.

When he opened his eyes, he found that he could stay under the water, and then looked around, and at some point there was a large group of whales, they were like pillars, all head up and tail down, motionless, obviously sleeping-Shi Zhu once heard Zhu Guanglian say that he had seen whales sleeping in the sea when he went fishing with the people in the village earlier, but he didn't expect to see them with his own eyes this time.

After a while, the sea suddenly shook violently, and the body of the whale slowly swayed with the water waves, becoming more and more blurred, until it also turned into sea water and disappeared. After a while, the drifting water waves slowly turned into a face, extremely vicious - Shi Zhu recognized that it was Liu Fulong's face. Suddenly, next to his face, another hand stretched out, holding a gun, and "banging" at the stone pillar was a shot......

After the gunshot, as before, the stone pillar was awakened again!

Shi Zhu opened his eyes vigorously, only to realize that it was just a dream, and he turned his head to look at the sun again, and estimated that it was already afternoon at this moment. Since yesterday's dinner, Shi Zhu had not eaten anything, not even water, and at this time he suddenly felt dry and hungry, and only hoped that there would be a good meal in front of him.

But many times, things backfire, and even worse.

Just as Shi Zhu was thinking about the meal in a daze, he suddenly felt the sea water under him really shake violently, just like in a dream. After he settled down and looked to both sides, he suddenly shuddered and collapsed: there was actually a group of sharks swimming around! Although he only saw a few fins, he was sure that it was shark fins!

"God, you can't mess with people like this! Not only will I not be able to eat lunch now, but I will become a shark's lunch......" Wave after wave, Shi Zhu thought in his heart at this time, thinking that this time he was really in a catastrophe!

Looking at the group of sharks, they may have smelled the blood in the water and gathered after the smell. At first they didn't seem so ferocious, just swam around the planks as usual, and seemed to be quiet. But after a while, they suddenly became furious, and not only did they swim faster, but they also knocked over the large plank on which the stone pillar was lying.

The stone pillar fell into the sea again, and for a moment he didn't pay attention, choking on several mouthfuls of water.

After the pillar fell into the water, the group of sharks came at him one by one, but fortunately they did not open their mouths. When the shark approached, the stone pillar pushed the shark's nose hard, causing the shark to change the direction of swimming, and he dodged to the side, avoiding the shark's impact.

At this moment, two more sharks collided with each other from both sides, and although the pillar flashed next to one shark, the opposite one did not change the direction of swimming. Seeing that he was about to be squeezed in the middle by the bodies of the two sharks, the force of squeezing and rolling was estimated to be difficult to bear, Shi Zhu quickly pulled out the thorn dragon dagger, stabbed at the back of the shark, and with this power, he jumped above the two sharks, and then dodged.

After the shark was injured, blood gushed out from the wound, and the other sharks suddenly became manic, swarmed up, and surrounded it with a bite, and the shark's flesh and blood were blurred in an instant, and they whimpered for their lives.

Then the group of sharks turned around and opened their mouths, ready to attack the pillars.

After the shark swam in, the stone pillar kicked its jaw with both feet, and the whole person reached the bottom of the shark's belly, holding the thorny dragon dagger with both hands, and borrowing the shark's swimming power, it swiped past its belly, and suddenly there was a long bloody mouth.

Not surprisingly, the badly injured shark was bitten by other sharks!

The stone pillar counted, and in addition to the two that were already dead, there were four sharks with their mouths wide open at him. In the face of this danger, Shi Zhu knew that in this vast sea, no matter how much he escaped, he would not be able to swim past the shark, and he could only fight to the death, and he might still have a chance of life.

The four sharks quickly approached the stone pillar, although the stone pillar was a little dazed, but he was already holding the mentality of death, holding the dragon dagger tightly, and when he saw the shark coming, he stabbed indiscriminately, and he couldn't tell which one was the same. After the stone pillar stabbed randomly, the four sharks were all injured to varying degrees. The next scene of the stone pillar was even more unexpected: after the four sharks were injured, they actually bit each other, and finally ended up in all four wounded, and they had no strength to move again. This is simply unheard of, and no one would believe it unless they saw it with their own eyes.

"Maybe it was really God who opened my eyes and let me escape this catastrophe!" Shi Zhu thought with emotion.

After this struggle, Shizhu was already exhausted, and his stomach was even more hungry. Seeing that the sharks were motionless as if they were dead, Shizhu suddenly had a bold idea - he had seen Japanese people eating sashimi in the port, and presumably this shark meat could also be eaten raw! Since you haven't been eaten by a shark, let's just eat the shark!

So he leaned over slowly, and used the thorny dragon dagger to cut a large piece of flesh on the most injured shark, and the shark did not move. Then, the stone pillar looked around, found the large plank, swam over, pressed his arms against the edge of the board, and picked up the shark meat with both hands and gnawed it. The raw shark meat is really not delicious, Shi Zhu just took the first bite and spit it out, but there was no way, if he didn't eat it, he might be starved to death, he could only endure it, and sucked the shark meat one bite at a time.

Then the stone pillar climbed to the plank with all his strength, spread his hands, and lay there with his eyes closed, letting the waves roll, waiting for the judgment of fate, or rather for God's arrangement.

Little by little, the light disappeared from the sea level, and the weather gradually cooled, and at night the stone pillars felt cold and curled up together. After dawn the next day, Shi Zhu felt even more dizzy, his body trembled, and the whole person gradually lost consciousness.

I don't know how long later, Shizhu saw a behemoth coming straight at him from a distance, spitting black smoke from his mouth, which floated straight into the air, and then disappeared into the clouds. The monster's head jumped out of the sea and plunged in, and it was even more incredible to get closer, and it looked more than ten meters long in the confusion, just like the black python that was caught in Mangdang Mountain, and the moment it jumped out of the sea, it also made a "whoop, woo" sound.

When the monster arrived in front of the stone pillar, it suddenly turned into a giant flower dragon - black and white, red, green, yellow, purple and blue, colorful and colorful, and the pair of yellow eyes alone were terrifyingly big when they opened. Without thinking, the stone pillar grabbed the dragon horn in a trance and rode it directly, and the flower dragon took the stone pillar, attached to the sea, and swam all the way to the direction of the sun on his back......

The stone pillar was so weak that before he could open his eyes, he fell asleep again on Hualong. When he opened his eyes again, it was already dark, and he felt that he was clearly lying on the bed rather than the large plank in the sea. But it wasn't until he pinched his face and confirmed that he was still alive that Shizhu believed it was true.

"You're awake!" At this moment, the lights suddenly turned on, and a little girl who looked like a nurse came over, wearing a white oval hat on her head.

By the light, he could see that he was lying in a small room, which had no windows, only a strange door, which looked like the hatch of a ship. Seeing this, Shi Zhu subconsciously touched his body, and lifted the quilt again, as if he was looking for something.

"Your bag and dagger are on the nightstand!" The little girl said.

Shi Zhu opened the bedside table, took out his satchel and the dragon dagger, and saw that the contents of the bag were still there, so he was relieved. "What kind of place is this? Who are you? Shizhu asked the little girl.

"We are a Jewish refugee ship from Qingdao to Manchukuo, and we will dock at Yingkou tomorrow morning, and I am the nurse on board. We found you in the afternoon and rescued you from the sea! ”

"Oh, I see! What time is it? How long have I been asleep? ”

"It's the middle of the night, and you've been asleep for almost half the day! You're so lucky, no one would have seen you at sea, but there was a group of dolphins jumping around you, and the people on the boat came out to see the excitement and found you! The nurse continued, "When they brought you up, you had a bad cold and gave you an injection. Come, don't move yet, I'll take your temperature......"

"Is there anyone else who has rescued you?"

"No, you're alone! ...... Well, it looks like you're in good shape, and the fever has subsided, but you still need to rest more! With that, the nurse took the plate, turned off the light, and went out.

Early the next morning, the boat came to the mouth of the camp and docked, and the stone pillar was awakened by the noisy disembarkation of the crowd outside, but he could not understand a word of what the Jews were saying. After getting up, Shizhu thought about going to the captain to thank him. The captain was also Jewish, tall with a mustache, in uniform, and always holding a pipe in his hand.

When Shi Zhu saw the captain, he took out some silver dollars to express his gratitude.

The captain said in a Chinese dialect that he was not fluent in: "Young man, since we saved you, we are also fated, and we cannot ask for this money." You have a saying in China that 'rely on your parents at home, rely on your friends outside', we are also your friends, you don't have to be polite to help with this! Besides, your Chinese friends have saved the lives of many of us Jews, and we will save you as a kind of reward! ”

"This, this...... Thank you so much! If I have the opportunity in the future, I will definitely repay you again! ”

"Where are you going? Friend! The captain asked with a smile.

"I'm going to Tieling, I heard that it's four hundred miles away from here, and I have to walk for a few days, so I have to set off quickly......"

When the captain heard this, he laughed and said to Shizhu: "Friend, it seems that you are used to being alone, don't you have an ancient saying in China called 'enter the mountain and ask the wood, enter the water and ask the fisher'!" You go ashore, go straight for ten miles from here, there is a pass, there is a passenger boat, from the Da Liao River to the Xiao Liao River, all the way to Fushun, you can get there before it gets dark. You get off the boat in Fushun and then go to Tieling, saving time and effort! ”

"Thank you, Captain! My name is Shizhu, I don't thank you for my great kindness, there will be a period later! With that, Shizhu took his leave and got off the ship.

When he got to the shore, Shizhu couldn't help but close his eyes, raise his head, and breathe in the fresh morning air. This is the first time in his life that he has set foot on the land of Northeast China, and he feels extremely excited in his heart. But then, he was a little disappointed, the huge northeast was originally Chinese, but now why was it turned into (pseudo) Manchukuo by the Japanese?! When the Chinese arrived in the Northeast, it was like going to a foreign country!!