Chapter 8: The Wolf Plague
This was the second winter in which the merchant Li Lai told him that the Japanese had occupied Mukden. www.biquge.info Huo Yuanman planned to go out of the mountain to inquire about the news, but it was delayed due to various things, and the heavy snow came early this winter, so it didn't happen, and only one person was worried about it.
Late that night, it was the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, the mountains were silent, and outside the house was a bright moon, and through the tightly sealed window paper, the moonlight cast the shadows of the branches in front of the door into the house.
The three members of Huo Yuan's family were all lying on the hot kang in the northeast. Huo Xiaoshan, who had been playing crazy for a day, had fallen asleep, while Song Zijun was snuggled in Huo Yuan's arms, Huo Yuan stroked his wife, but his eyes looked at the window paper illuminated by the moonlight outside the house, thoughtfully.
"I don't know what's going on outside the mountain?" Song Zijun's eyes shone brightly in the night.
"Hmm. Originally, we wanted to learn from Tao Yuanming and find a paradise to live this dull life, but we didn't want to be able to escape the disaster of war here. Since it is a disaster that cannot be avoided, he can only teach Xiaoshan martial arts, no matter whether he can 'drive away Dayu' as Mr. Sun Yat-sen said, but he must always be able to protect himself in troubled times. Huo Yuan slowly said his thoughts
"The future is unknowable, no one knows what will happen tomorrow. I think our Xiaoshan is indeed the material for practicing martial arts, but you are also ruthless, just take a bath in summer, and let him do a cold bath in the autumn when the water is cold, and now it's good, what do you do to do a snow bath, and what do you say' practice muscles and bones outside, and practice a breath inside', and you are not afraid of pulling out the child. Song Zijun said Huo Yuan angrily.
"Now the world is so chaotic, the Japanese devil is fierce, our son is practicing hard now, and he will have a blessing. Besides, it's not a one-step let him do a snow bath, isn't it also gradually conditioned, you see whose son can be like our hill, and now he is as strong as a calf, and he also dropped Liu Erpole that day, hehe, he smashed that Liu Erpole to the eyebrows, and he didn't say anything for a long time. Huo Yuan said proudly.
"You, although you also study Buddhism, are a martial arts student after all, and you are always fierce and fierce." Song Zijun muttered in a low voice, but he was no longer as opposed as he was when he saw Xiaoshan taking a cold shower, after all, his son's strong body was there now.
"It's just that he doesn't have to hurt his life." For a long time, Song Zijun muttered.
When Song Zijun was unmarried, he was known for his talent and appearance in Jinling, Nanjing, and he knew everything about piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, but his mind was extremely sensitive, but he had always believed in Buddhism, looked down on fame and fortune in the world, and looked down on the many suitors like a carp crossing the river, but by chance he fell in love with Huo Yuan, who was dressed in military uniform.
And Na Huo Yuan originally came out of his own martial family, full of masculinity, young Xi Baji Fist Yongguan three armies in the North Valve Army neutral combat merits, although it was in the heart of the Chinese Nian, but long tired of the Chinese themselves to fight and kill the past, so he took the beautiful woman to avoid the war between the mountains and wilderness.
"Xiaoshan, this kid may surpass you if he practices martial arts, don't you realize that he has taken all the advantages of the two of us?" Song Zijun looked at the sleeping child next to him lovingly in the moonlight, while Huo Xiaoshan turned over and kicked the quilt covering his body in his sleep.
"It's not honest to sleep, kid." Song Zijun muttered in his mouth, sat up, and covered his son with the quilt again, revealing the smooth curves in his obscene clothes.
"That's, I didn't look at anyone's son, but then again, if the seeds are good, the crops will be better, hehe" Huo Yuan said seriously, but he couldn't help but hehe in the end.
"Nasty." Song Zijun blushed and gently pinched his husband, but he still snuggled into his warm arms, and his hand gently stroked Huo Yuan's strong chest muscles.
Huo Yuan held his wife's rough hand, and said without a hint of gratitude: "It's not good to be your eldest lady, it's really difficult for you to run with me to this place where there is no village in front of the village and no store in the back, why do you have to marry me?" ”
"People are just willing to follow you, if you don't marry someone else, you still have to marry, so it's okay" Song Zijun objected in a low voice, and the two of them couldn't help but chuckle.
"Brother Yuan, you said that at that ball, there were so many ladies and ladies, why did you notice me?" Song Zijun asked.
Song Zijun said that the ball refers to a dance held by the upper class at that time to welcome the victory of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and it is also the only dance that Song Zijun has participated in in this life.
In fact, in so many years of married life, she has asked Huo Yuan the same question many times, and Huo Yuan has also answered it many times, but both of them are happy with this topic.
"My mother said that a girl who is not crazy is a good girl, that day, although there are a lot of people at the ball, but I noticed you at a glance, you are so different from other girls, I decided at a glance that you are my Huo Yuan's daughter-in-law." Huo Yuan replied honestly.
"Hehe, then you say, how am I?" Song Zijun raised his head in Huo Yuan's arms and looked eagerly into her husband's eyes, all the women who were praised by their husbands were a happy and slightly smoked feeling, and Song Zijun was no exception.
"Good, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good." Huo Yuan replied very dishonestly.
Song Zijunfu put his head into Huo Yuan's arms again, and laughed deliciously.
Huo Yuan patted Song Zijun on the shoulder and said, "Sleep, there will be work tomorrow."
"Hmm." Song Zijun responded in an almost inaudible voice.
The house was silent, and the moonlight outside the house was like a wash.
In the middle of the night, the dogs in the village suddenly barked, and not one dog, but all the dogs in the village, mixed with the howling of pigs. Then the gong of the old man's head sounded rapidly, accompanied by his hoarse and hurried shout: "Get up quickly, the wolves have entered the village!" ”
The kerosene lamps in the houses were lit one after another. The men hurriedly put on their cotton trousers and cotton jackets, and drove out of the house with shotguns, machetes, and axes, but they saw that in the big moon field, some of the dogs were rolling and neighing with the wolves, and some were so frightened by the wolves that they were huddled at the base of the wall and whined.
"Hurry up and light the torch." I don't know who shouted, the torch made by Song Mingzi was lit, and then there was a "bang" of gunshots, which came from the direction of Liu Ergong's house, and then several more gunshots came from different places in the village. One torch, two torches, three torches, many torches lit up, and soon the village was illuminated, and under the deterrence of the fire and gunfire, the wolves retreated, and in the light of the fire there were blue stars outside the village, which were the bloodthirsty eyes of the wolves when they looked back at the village.
Huo Yuan and Liu Erpole took a big turn around the village with a shotgun, only to find that it was wolves that entered the village this time.
The loss of the village is unprecedented, not only most of the pigs were bitten to death, but also several dogs in the yard were also bitten off their throats in the neighing with the wolf, and the big black dog with the old head was also bitten off half of its ear, and what is even more evil is that several pigs were actually "held" away by the wolf, and the old man saw with his own eyes that the two wolves each bit one of the pig's ears and squeezed the pig with their bodies, and the pig was obediently taken away, of course, the wolf was also killed by the villagers with a shotgun.
"The wolves here are too fierce, how can they get into the wolves?" This is the question of everyone in the village.
Since they are mountain people, they will always deal with wolves, and they still know the habits of wolves.
In fact, wolves are afraid of people, and it is rare for a lone wolf to actively attack adults. And the little wolf pack usually only enters the village when they are hungry and can't find food, like the big smoke bubble last time that the wolves take the initiative to enter the village, but it will never be like this time, not to mention that sixty or seventy wolves have to rush in.
The men all gathered at Huo Yuan's house to talk about it, and finally reached an agreement before returning to their respective homes.
Early the next morning, Huo Yuan and Liu Erpole went into the mountains with shotguns and two hunting dogs along the traces of yesterday's wolf retreat, and they searched along the road, trying to find the real reason why the wolves entered the village this time.
Huo Xiaoshan helped Song Zijun clean up his pigsty in the morning. Since his home was in the northernmost part of the village, the pig that had been held by Huo Xiaoshan for a summer was not spared, and it must have been the first to be bitten to death by the wolf, and it had been bitten open, Huo Xiaoshan was very angry. After lunch, he stepped on his skis and carried a slingshot in his waist out of the village, and before leaving the door, Song Zijun told him not to go too far, and he promised to slide out of the snow like an arrow.
The snow was still clearly visible from the messy wolf paw prints left last night, interspersed with pig's hoof prints, and sometimes a little bit of frozen blood, all the way to the mountains in the distance.
Huo Xiaoshan's skiing skills are now extremely proficient, especially a few days ago, he asked Ga Douzi's father to make him a new pair of skis, making two thin wooden edges along the bottom edge of each ski, this is to prevent the skis from sliding sideways when they are too fast.
The winter in Heilongjiang is extremely cold, and it is normal for it to be thirty or forty degrees below zero, but the dogskin hat on Huo Xiaoshan's head is not even tied with a hat belt, this is because since the beginning of autumn this year, he has been taking a cold bath according to Huo Yuan's requirements, and his ability to resist cold has far exceeded that of ordinary people.
The cold water bath is to slap the cold water outside the house when the weather turns cool in autumn, until the whole body is patted red, and then enter the house to warm up, and then come out to pat the cold water before entering the house. Repeating this process, as the temperature gets colder, people's own blood circulation is like doing gymnastics, which can produce a lot of heat energy at low temperatures, so the ability to resist cold will be greatly improved, and even be able to swim in winter at a low temperature of minus thirty or forty degrees without hurting the body.
It is precisely because of such a gradual process that Huo Xiaoshan's physique has improved significantly, and now he not only wears a big pants outside the house to take a cold bath every day, but also rubs his whole body with snow, and he himself named this exercise Snow Bath.
It took about twenty minutes, Huo Xiaoshan passed through the low hills, into the edge of the mountain, now these gradually increasing mountain bags, has become Huo Xiaoshan's favorite skiing, he always finds the kind of place where one side is flatter and the other side is steeper, from the flat place to slide quickly, and finally leap down from the steep surface, he himself estimated, he once slid out of the air more than forty meters at the farthest time, and the height difference was more than thirty meters.
It was a feeling of flying, he never felt scared but felt a kind of comfort, this was his Huo Xiaoshan's talent.
The difference between people and people's talents is like some people are born with a fear of heights, and they dare not look down when they stand a little higher, and some people are not afraid of how high they are, and dare to walk a tightrope in the sky.
Huo Xiaoshan glided down a steep slope again, this time he flew the farthest, already more than fifty meters, the cold wind blew his face red, but he didn't feel cold at all, he realized more and more the benefits of his father teaching him to make a cold bath. Just as he was about to start over again, he heard gunshots! Gunshots like popping beans coming from the direction of the village!