Anyone who grew up in the countryside will be unfamiliar with hutongs, right? It resembles the alleys of the city, narrow, deep, and curved, lined with uneven houses of high and low heights.

When I was a child, my home was in a deep alley. Now the alleys are almost gone, and they are outlawed by wide asphalt roads. The impression of the alley remains in the heart and can only become a distant memory. Because of its remoteness, the impression gradually blurred, and its mystery became stronger, with a little terror in between. The reason why I feel this way comes from what I experienced when I was a child.

Hutong, which looks so quiet during the day, becomes scary at night.

At that time, my mother always took me out after dinner (to go to other people's houses to chat), and I was always happy when I went, but when I came home, I was terrified, because every time I came back late, my heart beat at the thought of going into the deep alley. I grabbed the corner of my mother's clothes and urged her to hurry up. In my memory, my mother was always so bold, she was not afraid of the dark, she was not afraid of walking at night, and she didn't even hold a flashlight. Whenever I urged her, she said impatiently, "What's the hurry! Why do you go so fast? "In my memory, my mother's temper was always so bad. As soon as she shouted, I was even more frightened, afraid that she had alarmed something horrible around me that only appeared in the dark of night.

We walked through the alleys and into the one where we were. That home was our old courtyard, which moved out after I was in junior high school, and other residents moved out one after another, and the old house was torn down, and the alley disappeared. I remember that the old courtyard was about the center of the alley, and at that time I wished that the first house was my house, so that I didn't have to go deep into the alley. I leaned against the wall and walked side by side with my mother, so that she could shelter me, and the distance from the mouth of the alley to my house was not very long, but I felt very far away. It wasn't until I got to my doorstep that my fear eased a little. Mom took the key to open the door, and I stood by and waited. There were several keys on the key, and my mother always couldn't figure out the one on the door, so she even touched and tried, and almost a minute passed. During this minute, I was always looking around, and the more scared I was, the more I couldn't help but look everywhere, and of course I couldn't see anything, except for darkness and darkness, and the occasional hazy moonlight. I always imagined what was hidden in the corner, sometimes I imagined it as a ghost fox in a chattering room, sometimes as a terrifying picture on the cover of a horror book, sometimes as a smiling beautiful snake in a folk tale told to me by an old man, and many, many more. Fantasy doesn't come true, everything seems like a mere memorial to me. However, there are always exceptions, and I still remember that night vividly—

That night, my mother took me to the third grandmother's house, and they kept chatting until ten o'clock, and my mother still had no intention of leaving. I was very sleepy, and I urged my mother several times before I planned to leave. When I went out, I saw that it was a moonlit night, and the full moon shone as white as frost on the ground, and there were not many stars.

"You kid, I'll talk for a while, and you'll be done." Mom said angrily. Actually, she said it for 3 hours.

I ignored her and walked silently by the arm.

The night in the countryside is always so lonely, and there is no one on the road but us, and if there is, I am not so afraid.

Mom glanced at the sky, and probably noticed that it was surprisingly bright tonight, so she wanted to take a look at the moon.

"Ah," Mom suddenly poked me with her elbow.

"What?" I was suspicious, even more frightened, her "hey" was sneaky, and I had a hunch that she was going to tell me something terrible.

"Do you see the star next to the moon? The most recent one. My mother looked at the sky again and guided me to look.

"Well, I see." I said, looking up. Sure enough, there was a star very close to the moon, in the huge circle of light that surrounded the moon.

"You know what? Whenever a star is particularly close to the moon, the people will die unjustly. Mom said.

My scalp was tingling. I was scared at first, and she was even more terrible when she said that.

"It's scared to death, it's superstition." I said, "Hold mom tighter."

"Who knows, that's what the elders say." Mom said.

We walked into the alley and were almost home. The alley was half moonlit and half shadowy, and I walked close to the moonlit side, even holding my breath.

Mom as always looking for the key, open the door, we "safely" into the gate, but my fear will not disappear because of entering the yard, at this time I am still frightened, when my mother latched the door, I will turn my head to look into the yard, my yard is very large, close to the gate of the yard is a stake tied to the donkey, the donkey rests here during the day, before dark into the shed, should be asleep at the moment. That day, I didn't know what was going on, I looked at the stake, because the yard was planted with jujube trees, which were dense and dense, so it blocked a little moonlight, and the courtyard was darker than the outside, and the whole was gray. I looked at the stake, and suddenly saw a figure next to the stake, not very clear, translucent, my heart "popped", and then suddenly accelerated, I blinked, the translucent figure was already very thick, dark brown, I could see more clearly, from my position, it was his side, he seemed to be wearing a raincoat that was below the knee, I judged from the top of his pointed hat, he stood with his head down, motionless by the stake, I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman. I was so scared that I quickly turned my head away, and when I looked again, it was gone. The whole process only takes a dozen seconds. To this day, I don't know if it's an illusion or a reality.

From then on, I stopped following my mother and stayed at home at night to read. I didn't want my mother to go out either, and every time she locked the door and the heavy footsteps got farther and farther away, I couldn't help but worry about her, imagining how lonely she was walking alone at night. The darkness always made me feel that she was far away from me, and she went to the door, but it was like going to the far side of the world. In fact, now that I think about it, the reason why I feel that way is because of my awe and unknown of the vast dark night.

I escaped the night, but the day didn't stop, still in the alley—

It was a noon in the summer vacation of the second grade of elementary school, the weather was hot, I was screaming desperately in the trees, my parents were taking a lunch break, and I was drawing on the table. My dad was mentioned here, and my dad worked as a farmer in the spring, summer and fall, and went out to do small business in the winter. In the last story, my dad wasn't mentioned, but he went away to do business.

As I was drawing, I suddenly heard the sound of banging outside, and it was a tofu seller. In rural areas, selling tofu in the streets and alleys requires knocking bangzi, which is a sound that belongs specifically to tofu.

I thought, it's time for people to take a lunch break, everyone is asleep, who will come out to buy tofu? This man really doesn't know how to do business, he should come in the evening.

I suddenly wanted to eat tofu, and when I saw that my parents were sleeping soundly, I put down my paintbrush, took a dollar from my little piggy jar and walked out. At that time, it was basically grain for tofu, but of course it could also be bought with money. I ran out of the house and saw a woman in a white robe with long hair walking in a cart down the alley, heading north, knocking on the bangs as she went. She was dressed strangely, she had never seen any villager dressed like this, and their hair was tied up. The cart she was pushing was a dilapidated bicycle, with a wooden board tied to the back seat of the bike, and the wooden board was covered with tofu and covered with a piece of burlap. At this time, the village was as silent as midnight, and the sound of bangzi was very clear.

"Buy tofu." I shouted and ran towards her.

The woman stopped at my voice and set up the car, but she never looked back, just stood there and waited for me to pass.

"Buy three." I stood next to Tofu behind her.

She still didn't look back, but stepped back, and I didn't understand what she meant, so I quickly dodged to the side, for she was about to step on my foot.

She retreated straight to where I was standing just now, and then began to cut tofu, I still can't see her face where I am standing at the moment, I think she probably has pockmarks on her face.

I weighed the tofu, put it in a bag, put her hand behind my back and handed it to me, I took it, and saw her hands as white as tofu, slender and long, and her nails were dyed red.

"This man is so white." I thought to myself.

Her hand didn't retract, I knew she was waiting for me to give her money, and I suddenly wanted to see what she looked like, so I ran up to her, held the money up to her face, and said, "Give you the money." ”

When I saw her, my eyes widened instantly, and I looked at her in horror, what kind of face was that, a white square piece of tofu!

I screamed and fainted.

When I woke up, I was already lying on the kang.

That person, or tofu is more suitable, she didn't hurt me, I never saw her again. I never understood what she was and where she came from. I even wondered if I was dreaming that afternoon, but my mother said she found me lying down in the alley. I think maybe I sleepwalked, went to an unknown world, and then woke up in the real world.