Listen to the story

Hello guys, I've said before that I like short stories, and I'm going to have another chapter today. As mentioned earlier, the water ghost is an image of the unfortunate drowning of the dead in the water, and I believe that everyone was warned by the adults in the family when they were children, and they must stay away from the water's edge.

The story I am going to tell today comes from my dear mother and grandmother, in front of my grandmother's house there was a vegetable garden, a pigsty that no longer kept pigs, and next to the pigsty were planted three or two vines that could produce green grapes in those years, and the vegetable garden was very large, and I remember that I used to help with the long water pipe, and then my grandmother used this pipe to water the garden. The best thing in it is the sweet potato field, which is only three or two rows, but my grandmother's sweet potatoes are always very sticky and sweet. The summer garden smells very good, and there is a clear river in front of the garden, at that time the river can always see lobsters from time to time, and the elf fireflies after nightfall, the fireflies are so many stars in the eyes of children, twinkle and twinkle, always tempting me to catch them.

They would talk to me a lot in the shade on the chaise longitude, and one day while we were chatting, my grandmother told me the story of the water ghost, which I think she must have told for many years, because my mother also talked to me from time to time to perfect some details.

There are also a lot of waterways in my grandmother's hometown, although there are not many of the big rivers, but there are a lot of small rivers that wind and cross, and in my grandmother's time, electronic products are not very common, not to mention movie theaters, which are currently everywhere but scarce back then. In those days, film screenings relied on projectionists to run errands from place to place, sometimes several villages shared a place, with curtains and movie projectors, maybe once a month, maybe once a month, and they couldn't tell the exact time.

At that time, the movie screening was the day that children looked forward to the most, which can be equated with the day when the grandfather of fried rice arrived, and the children in the village could stay late when accompanied by adults, but if the adults were not available, even if the children were reluctant, they had to leave early. That time was so unfortunate, adults have something, but a large number of children want to watch movies, and there is no way to be entangled, and adults have come up with a compromise solution, so that a few teenage older children with a group of younger children, children in that era are always self-reliant very early, and they are quite responsible, and parents think that children of that age are trustworthy.

The group went to the next village to watch a movie so happily, and by the time the screening was over, it had been dark for a long time, and the group was ready to go home, with the big children in front and the children following behind. Maybe they watched a movie that they hadn't seen for a long time, and their emotions were high. In order to get home early, the older children decided to take them across a knee-high river, which would reduce their travel time.

The little ones always like to play after the big ones, and they don't even disagree with the big kids' suggestions. When they get to the river, the big children often cross the river during the day, because the river water is clear, they will always catch some small fish and shrimp from time to time, they are quite familiar with this small river, for the big children, the river is not deep, and it is also relatively wide, the river water and summer are always a perfect match, especially when there is no condition to blow the air conditioner and blow the electric fan without control, the river water is an excellent place to play in the heat.

The leading child was the first to go down into the water, and the river water on a summer night was cold, and it seemed to wash away the excitement of the hot day, and the people behind followed him into the water, one after another, no different from the usual day. The leading child went ashore safely, and the one after another also went ashore, but the child in the back had an accident just when he walked to the middle of the river, and the children in the back were not far apart, and the child who was last in line suddenly fell into the water, maybe he stepped on a smooth stone, maybe he stepped on a stone with moss, everyone thought so, and at first they didn't think it was a big deal, but after the man fell into the water, he struggled several times and didn't get up, and he saw that he was about to slide into a more open riverThe older children felt terrible, and they hurriedly jumped into the water to catch the child at the back. The river looked dark at night, but there was a faint starlight to borrow, and they caught up with the child, who was still flowing in the direction of the river, and grabbed his water, whose hair was soaked with the water. The eldest child at the head took his hand and shouted in dialect to the other children, 'Come and help, come and help!' The child who heard the cry for help pulled the other hand of the child in the water, but the strange thing was that the two older children couldn't even pull the little one, which was unusually heavy at the moment when the child could be easily picked up.

He couldn't help crying, saying that something seemed to be pulling his feet in the water, and his feet couldn't move anymore, and the children who followed him also helped drag him, which at most only kept him from being taken into the river, but he couldn't pull him back. There is a bold child who puts his head in the water, the river in the dark night looks dark and dull, but it is a little shimmering under the starlight, through this starlight he sees a person in the water, he doesn't know what is floating on his body, like what kind of aquatic weed, "he" pulled the child's feet, as if he felt that someone saw "him", he suddenly raised his head in the water and looked back, the child he saw lifted his body from the water, and quickly shouted, "Oh no, there is a person in the water dragging his feet." The eldest child at the head of the group has also heard the story of a water ghost in the big river, saying that someone accidentally drowned in the big river not long ago, and asked them to stay away from the big river, but he really didn't expect to encounter such a thing in the small river, but fortunately he has not yet reached the big river.

The people on the shore picked up the stones and threw them in the direction in front of the child who was pulled by the foot, but the strength of the child was big and small, some of them were thrown on their own people, but some of them were really thrown on the body of the water ghost in the river, and they felt that the strength on their feet was a little loose, and the older child also hurriedly dragged him to the shore. But soon the strength grew again, and the children on the shore did not dare to throw any more, for they were afraid of smashing their own heads.

The eldest child at the head did not dare to go over easily, and that position was getting closer and closer to the river, and he was also a little afraid. He shouted into the river, 'You can pull it again, we are not afraid of you, if you pull it again, we will rush into the river and beat you, see if you are good or we are good.' I don't know if it's really useful, the pull on the foot really disappeared at once, and everyone didn't dare to rub and immediately climbed to the shore, and the last one to go ashore was the big child, he saw that a hand that followed him at the moment he climbed to the shore pounced, and he didn't have the courage to continue scolding, and the group hurriedly returned to their homes. The older children were afraid to tell the family about what they had encountered, and although the younger children were a little frightened, most of them didn't know what was going on, and they only had the impression that someone had slipped into the water. As for the children who were pulled into the water, they did not dare to approach the water's edge casually.

The child who saw the water ghost came home with a high fever, and the adults only thought that it was soaked in water at night, and the fever caused by the wind chill. Fortunately, it got better in the back. Later, some older children also went to see the small river, the quiet river, the slowly flowing river, there is no separation on weekdays, it is clean, it is crystal clear, of course, there are no aquatic plants, and there are no people who are sunk in the water. Things seem to have passed so peacefully, and the days went so quietly, after a long time, someone drowned in the river, saying that it was an adult in the village, and crossed the river at night, Xu was slipping on the soles of his feet, and he fell into the water and accidentally entered the river, everyone found the flashlight he carried in the river, but the person finally floated in the river, everyone guessed so, but the strange thing is that this person is very good at swimming, and the river does not have the strength of the water.

Those children guessed that maybe the water ghost had finally waited for the lone person, even the adults didn't let it go.

The stories I heard in my childhood always seemed so bizarre, but they were also full of interesting things, and as for the truth and falsehood, it was really not within the scope of my research, I was just a reteller of the story, and there was no point of view in this story, and of course I did not need to force my intervention.