Out of the hotel, we flagged down a small taxi called the "Triangle Donkey" and paid 20 yuan to get to Chen Laosan's boat.

His boat stopped at a small ferry, and with my eyes that saw thousands of miles at night, I saw the scene on both sides of the Yellow River.

It is also a river, the upstream and downstream rivers are very different, there are basically rocks on both sides, and there are a few small piers that have been dug out by hand, and there are also small boats.

Chen Laosan's boat is seven or eight meters long and more than three meters wide, and when he saw the cabin, he realized that he could barely squeeze three people to sleep before, and there was absolutely no exaggeration.

"Xiao Zhen, let's make do with it overnight! It's not cold......"

The little bad looked at the darkness around him and said.

In fact, Li Xiaobai and I are both poor boys, and we have never slept in any haystack house, let alone a cabin.

Chen Laosan walked into the cabin first, lit a kerosene lamp, and called the two of us in.

There was a mattress rolled up on the side of the cabin, and Chen Laosan plugged the oil lamp into the pillar and casually pulled out the rope that tied the mat.

"Two little bosses, you go to sleep first, I'll go to the bow of the boat to smoke a bag of cigarettes."

As he spoke, Chen Laosan paced out.

I was not tired, so I followed him out of the cabin.

"Uncle Chen......"

As soon as I spoke, I was stopped by Chen Laosan.

"What is it called, uncle, just call me the third child, it sounds comfortable!"

"Oh! Third, you ...... How many years have you been in this business? ”

Chen Laosan took a puff of his cigarette vigorously, as if thinking about it, and replied: "I am forty-seven years old this year, and it has been twenty-five years since I officially followed my father when I was twenty-two years old. ”

"Then what kind of river do you think this Yellow River is?" I asked.

"What river? How to answer this! I think sometimes it's very docile, it's like our mother, but sometimes it's like a devil, I don't know how many lives have been devoured! ”

I have heard about the floating corpses of the Yellow River for a long time, and I am not surprised, so I replied casually:

"Isn't it just the drowned one! What's so scary! ”

Chen Laosan smiled, leaned over half of his face, lowered his voice and said, "Ordinary dead people are not strange!" Strange are the ancient corpses and the living dead! ”

When I heard this, I got goosebumps all over my body.

Hurriedly asked, "And the ancient corpses?" What a living dead man! ”

"I don't know what's going on, sometimes a coffin will suddenly appear in the water, and inside are ancient corpses in ancient clothes, and sometimes these corpses will suddenly come to life, and the person who opened the coffin lid will sink into the water together......"

It turned out that Chen Laosan's father, out of curiosity, opened a red coffin floating on the surface of the river and was dragged into the river by a pair of withered hands inside.

Speaking of these things, a trace of trepidation immediately appeared on his face.

After chatting a few more words, Chen Laosan said that he was tired and wanted to sleep.

When we entered the cabin, Li Xiaobai was snoring, and I squeezed him to lie down.

I was about to run the heat wave in my body, when I heard Chen Laosan, who was lying on the other side of Li Xiaobai, lowered his voice and said, "Don't be curious about what sound you hear at night!" Don't even go out of the cabin. ”

I was still waiting for him to say the second half of the sentence, but after a few minutes, I heard him snore.

To tell the truth, I half-believe Chen Laosan's words, when I left Laomiao Village, Xiaobai once told me: society is sinister, people's hearts are unpredictable, many people's words, only believe three points, at most half of it.

After running the heat flow twice in my body, I also put away my mind and prepared to sleep.

At this moment, I faintly heard a sound similar to that of cutting down a tree, and again, the sound came from the bottom of our boat.

All of a sudden, I was sober! Since it's the bottom of the boat, it's in the water! How could it be the sound of a tree being chopped? I secretly used the heat flow to concentrate it on my ears.

Suddenly, the voice in his ears became clear, and at this time, it seemed that someone was hitting the bottom of the boat with his head, because in the water, there was a bit of a change of voice, and it was a bit like someone cutting down a tree with an axe.

Hearing this, I was so shocked that I sweated.

No way! I just heard that there are ancient corpses and living dead in the Yellow River, it can't be such a coincidence! It didn't take long for him to finish speaking, and those things came?

I couldn't breathe as I listened to the sound of the water.

"Knock knock!"

"Knock knock!"

Tap a few times every few minutes.

After waiting like this for more than an hour, the sound under the boat was still so regular, and seeing that there was nothing else abnormal, I gradually relaxed and fell asleep in a daze.

I was woken up by the sound of a conversation, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that Chen Laosan and Li Xiaobai were no longer in the cabin, listening to the voice, these two people seemed to be arguing about something at the bow of the boat.

I opened the curtain with sleepy eyes and asked them what they were arguing about!

"Xiao Zhen, you came just in time, Chen Laosan is a god! He caught three golden-tailed carp in the Yellow River in one minute, didn't you see this process! It's like magic, 'brush, brush' three times, pull up three! ”

It turned out that Li Xiaobai was clamoring for Chen Laosan to teach him the tricks of fishing.

"I eat the river by the river! When I first entered this industry, my father set a rule, that is, no more than three a day. ”

There were three big carps in the bucket in front of Chen Laosan, each weighing more than a catty, and he said with a smile while scraping the scales with the dagger in his hand.

Li Xiaobai was still unwilling, and asked: "What do you call only three a day!" ”

"In a year, I spend two-thirds of my time on this boat, and I can live safely until now, and it is all thanks to the blessing of the river god, so those of us who eat the river will never dare to be too greedy for the Yellow River! So I take up to three fish a day. ”

Hearing him say this, I said to myself: Fortunately, you are not a fisherman, otherwise you would not have starved to death!

Unlike Li Xiaobai, I was not interested in fishing and catching shrimp, so I walked to the stern of the boat by myself, sat on the board, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery on both sides of the Yellow River.

Li Xiaobai was still unwilling, but Chen Laosan no longer paid attention to him.

After a while, with the sound of boiling pots, a burst of fish fragrance wafted over, which immediately aroused my appetite.

"Third child, this fish is so fragrant!"

I shouted as I walked back to the bow of the boat.

"Today, I will let you taste the freshest and most delicious sauerkraut fish on the Yellow River, and you two will go under the splint at the stern and get pots and chopsticks."

Chen Laosan's way of making sauerkraut fish is a bit special, he just takes a whole fish that has been packed, splits it in half from the middle, smashes the fish head, first frying it in a hot pan, then puts cold water into the pot, and then puts the local unique sauerkraut and seasonings.

Ten minutes later, there was a burst of heat wafting out of the pot, and at the same time, a strong smell of fish reached my nose.

The three of them were swept away by a gust of wind, and more than three catties of carp were eaten with leftover fish bones, and Li Xiaobai also drank two bowls of sour soup, burping with satisfaction.

Chen Laosan picked his teeth with his yellowed fingernails, and asked me with a smile: "Boss Chen, this taste is reasonable!"

I also ate a little swollen, burped, and gave him a thumbs up.

"Third brother, with your skills, you can go to a big city to open a fish shop, and the business will definitely be prosperous, so why nest here!"

Chen Laosan smiled and replied: "If you eat Yellow River rice one day, you will have to eat Yellow River rice for the rest of your life, I have signed a life and death contract with the river god, I was born on the Yellow River, and I have to die on the Yellow River in the end." ”

Hearing him say this, I didn't ask anything anymore, and I could hear that Chen Laosan always had reservations when talking to us, which was also very understandable, and we had known each other for less than 24 hours.

After putting away the dishes and chopsticks, Chen Laosan asked me: "Boss Chen, let's go now?" ”

I followed his example, smiled, and replied, "Let's go!" But I call you the third child, and you don't want the boss to be long and short, just call him Xiao Zhen and call him Xiao Bad. ”

As I spoke, I pointed to Li Xiaobai, who was standing at the stern of the boat and peeing in the river.

"Good! I'll call you Xiao Zhen. I'm going to start the oars! ”

As he spoke, Chen Laosan lifted the wooden plank on the side of the bow of the boat, revealing a hole underneath, and he got into it, and soon the roar of the machine sounded inside.

"Bang bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

Then, the boat slowly moved against the current.

After Chen Laosan climbed out, he said to me with a smile: "Xiao Zhen! This boat designed by my third child himself is reasonable, right?"

Only then did I realize that most of the mysteries of this seemingly simple wooden ship were hidden under the wooden planks, and only the rudder stood in the middle of the bow.

As soon as the boat is started, the rest of the operation depends on this circular rudder.

Chen Laosan drove the boat while humming a local tune, what "the little daughter-in-law sat on the boat, swaying and thinking about the groom, and when she arrived on the kang at night, hey rammed", what "the fish in the river are so fat, they bit my lip all of a sudden, and my wife came to kiss the two mouthfuls, leaving half a red lip print......"

Li Xiaobai and I sat next to him.

In broad daylight, the banks of the Yellow River in Ningxia are completely different from those in our lower reaches, there are no river beaches, no soft sand, and as far as the eye can see, except for strange rocks and cliffs, there are ravines and ravines.

The speed of the boat was not comparable to that of the car, and after driving for nearly two hours, I saw a hat-shaped mountain in the distance, I pointed and asked Chen Laosan: "Third brother, is that Helan Mountain?" ”

Chen Laosan didn't know that my eyesight was more than ten times that of ordinary people, so he looked at me suspiciously:

"Xiao Zhen, can you see that mountain here?" It was hard to believe his expression.

"My eyesight is much better than the average person, and I ...... You can only see the outline of the summit. ”

I explained.

"Ahh It's clairvoyance! Right...... That's right! Helan Mountain is in that location. ”

I heard Chen Laosan say that Helan Mountain is one of the only two high mountains in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (the other is Liupan Mountain), and later became famous because of Yue Fei's Manjianghong.

I asked if it was the sentence "stepping through the lack of Helan Mountain"?

Chen Laosan nodded.

After driving for another twenty or thirty minutes, Li Xiaobai also exclaimed: "I saw Helan Mountain!" ”

In fact, there is still a long distance from "being able to see" to "getting closer".

Listening to the sound of the hull of the boat brushing the river, I remembered the "knock" sound I heard last night, like a human head hitting the hull of the boat, so I asked Chen Laosan.

"Third brother, last night I heard something in the water hitting our wear! Didn't you hear? ”

As soon as I asked, Chen Laosan's color changed slightly, and he recovered in an instant.

"Oh—nothing, probably a river otter! Amphibians that live in this area. ”

Chen Laosan's tone was a little unnatural, and I could see at a glance that he was lying!