Summer afternoons are always mixed with a touch of laziness and leisure. The old man sat under the tree, drinking tea and shaking a fan, watching the passing cars and crowds. When I had passed, the old man got up, poured me a cup of tea, and smiled and let me taste it.

Growing up, I had never drunk tea, but I had the impression that tea should have a bitter taste. And I don't like to drink bitter things so much, even every time I go to coffee, I habitually ask Sister Guozi to add more sugar to me, so when the old man puts the tea in front of me, I am very hesitant to pick it up and drink it.

The old man saw the hesitation on my face, smiled at me, and then told me:

"This cup of tea is not poisonous, little girl, you can drink it with confidence."

"No, it's not like that, I'm not afraid of being toxic, I'm ......"

I was too embarrassed to say that I was afraid of suffering, and when the old man saw that I was speechless, he pushed the cup in front of me again, and said with a smile:

"Drink, don't be afraid of bitterness. The taste of this tea is definitely much better than you think, try it. ”

It was difficult to resist the hospitality, and I was not very good at refusing others, so when the old man persuaded me for the second time, I carefully picked up the teacup and took a sip very lightly.

The bitter tea soup slid down the tip of my tongue and down my throat, I instinctively frowned, and then put down the cup, but the next moment, I suddenly felt a very special sweet taste that spread from the tip of my tongue to all the places where the tea flowed. Biting my lip, I looked up at the old man in surprise, and the smile on the old man's face became even brighter as he looked at my expression.

"Well, little girl, I'm not wrong, old man."

I nodded, still looking at him incredulously. The old man looked away, took a sip of tea from his teacup, and continued to me:

"The things in this world are not just used with the eyes to see, but with imagination to guess, you can understand the whole picture. A lot of times, you'll have to try it out for yourself to see what it is. Girl, you are still too young, maybe you don't understand what grandpa said, but you have to remember this sentence, and when you grow up, you will definitely understand. ”

After the old man finished speaking, he lay back on the chaise longue and continued to shake his fan. And because I was greedy for this sweetness, after drinking the tea in the cup, I automatically and consciously poured myself a cup.

Although I really didn't understand why the old man was talking to me about these things, I have to admit that what he said really calmed my mind. So I made up my mind, bit my lip, cleared my throat, and then cautiously asked:

"Grandpa, I heard a legend about this mountain, do you know?"

After listening to my question, the old man glanced at me, and then continued to shake his fan and answer me:

"I've lived here all my life, how could I not know this legend. The girl wants to hear the story, okay, while there are no guests now, grandpa will tell you this story. ”

……

Once upon a time, it was a plain. Because of the fertile land and the proximity to the river, when the first people who fled the natural disaster arrived, they did not hesitate to choose to live here.

After a few decades, the village developed into a small village, and after the birth of the third generation of their descendants, an even more terrible disaster occurred in this land that had been damaged by the disaster.

Imperial civil strife.

The people who live here are almost isolated from the rest of the world, unaware of the suffering of people like them outside of their lives. They naively thought that life was so simple and comfortable, until the new emperor followed the instructions of a sorcerer and sent an army to them in search of treasure.

When the 10,000 well-equipped soldiers arrived at the village, the villagers, still unaware of the danger, enthusiastically provided the soldiers with water and food, and gave up their houses for the generals to use. But their enthusiasm did not bring them any protection of life, and that night, the general ordered the entire village to be set on fire.

That night, the sky was cloudy, there was no moonlight, and there was no light from the stars, but the fire that burned in the village reflected the place as bright as day. And in this sea of fire, the good people kept wailing, and they frantically poured out of the village, but what awaited them outside the village was the spears in the hands of the smiling soldiers during the day.

The fire burned all night, and by the time the first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds in the morning, the once beautiful and peaceful village was left with nothing but ashes. Some of the soldiers stepped on the ground mixed with wood chips or the ashes of the villagers, and began to clean up the site piece by piece, while others began to dig up what the wizard called the priceless treasure.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, the sun sets again. When night fell completely, lightning and thunder suddenly thundered in the distance, and then a heavy rain fell without warning.

The rain was pouring down, and soon the water of the nearby river was rising and faintly spreading over the ruins of the village. The murderers had no choice but to evacuate their original camp so that the river would not reach them.

As they cleaned up their tents, the sound of the rain, occasionally mixed with muffled thunder, came the same mournful cries as they had been last night.

The soldiers, who were stained with the blood of innocent people, were all terrified. Some cowardly people even rushed into the rain on the spot and ended their lives with their own weapons.

At this moment, the military order has lost its effect, and more and more people have begun to break free from the shackles of their comrades and embark on the road of suicide. When the rain stopped, the army of 10,000 men was wiped out, and not a single one was left alive, and where their corpses had been covered, a mountain rose from the ground, crushing all the corpses of all the people and the so-called treasure of the wizard under the mountain.

The old man stopped at this point and looked at me with blazing eyes. I was fascinated by what he was listening to, and he stopped abruptly like this, which made me feel very unhappy, and I couldn't help urging:

"And what about later? What happened? Did the Emperor know about this? ”

Faced with my inquiry, the old man laughed:

"In the past, people who asked me questions like this were children, and children as old as you would tell me that I was making up a story and coax them to play."

When I heard the old man's words, my face turned red, and I muttered an explanation:

"A story is a story, and no one can tell whether it's true or false. There are still true and false historical stories, half-truths and half-truths, I just want to know the ending, and I am not interested in the truth......"