Volume 1 Memoirs Chapter 1 The Back Room of an Old House
I am a post-90s generation, strictly speaking, I should be the first batch of post-90s to undertake the post-80s.
Born in Xiangtan, a holy place of the Red Revolution in Hunan! But it is also a small rural village in the countryside on the outskirts of Xiangtan.
But when I was three years old, I was taken to Guangxi with my sister, who was three years older than me. On the border of Guangxi, he lived in the Pingxiang area for several years.
There is a place called Shangshi in Pingxiang, which is my mother's hometown. In other words, my grandmother's house was there.
My grandmother's family was a landlord family before the revolution, with a little capital, and there were a few ancestral houses, and there were even single-family houses.
After the revolution, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the identity of the landlord was gone, and the assets and land were gone. However, these single-family houses adjacent to the ancestral house have remained.
After moving from Hunan, our family of four lived in my grandmother's house.
The house is not big, there are only two rooms in total, divided into a front house and a back room, and there is a transitional open space in the middle. I am a family of four, and we live in the front room.
The back room, because of the outdated architectural ideas of the local area at that time, caused it to have no windows at all. The only light in the whole room is the door in the middle of the front wall.
Therefore, the back room is basically uninhabitable. But it couldn't be empty, so my dad went to the house to remove the tiles and replaced them with three glass tiles that were considered very luxurious in the countryside at that time for lighting.
As for the back room, it was used to raise some chickens, ducks and poultry.
My dad took our family to Guangxi, and at first he went to one of my uncles to start a betel nut business.
At that time, betel nut in Hunan had risen, but Hunan did not produce betel nut. That uncle happened to run a factory at my grandmother's house, so he went.
As a result, my dad didn't have that business acumen, and he lost money after about a year of work, and he couldn't continue. So in the later period, my family basically lived on farming.
When it comes to farming, I don't have to take care of it at all, so my parents have a lot of time. Therefore, they became independent and started to process betel nut raw fruits.
At that time, I was about four years old and my sister was seven years old. Since then, my sister and I have been feeding the chickens and ducks. At home, it has basically been the two of us.
And I wrote the beginning of the story, and that is from this time!
In this old adobe house that has existed for many years in the last century, I witnessed an unthinkable event, which also laid the foundation for the rest of my life.
That day, my sister and I came back from school. The first thing I do when I get home is to feed the chickens and ducks.
My sister has a lot of strength, she adds all kinds of feed, stirs and mixes well. As for me, the task is to mention the back room little by little, spread and feed. My sister took advantage of this time to start cooking and choosing vegetables, waiting for my parents to come home.
This has been a constant setting for a long time.
But that day, I walked to the back room with the feed, and I didn't hear the noisy chirping of chickens and ducks.
When they were young, they didn't understand much, but they fell asleep. Carrying the fodder and running happily inside.
The back room was pitch black, with only a bright light in the middle. But on this day, the light was so strange that it couldn't illuminate the surroundings, so it reflected the gloomy backroom.
But anyway, I was young and didn't know what it meant to be afraid, so I rushed in.
When I went in, I found that my feet were slimy, and it was hard to walk with sticky feet. Because I couldn't see anything on the ground, I thought I was stepping on chicken poop and duck.
But strangely, I didn't find chickens and ducks. It stands to reason that hundreds of chickens and ducks are raised here, so how can you see a little shadow, right? But I just don't see it.
I walked all the way to the area with the glass tiles and the bright light.
Stand in that light and look around. I saw that around the light, a circle of chicken feathers and duck feathers was dyed red.
Mixed with the red chicken and duck feathers, I also saw the traction, hooked in a mess, sticky 'hemp rope'.
It wasn't until later that I realized that this so-called hemp rope was simply intestines and internal organs!
The slimy one, dyed red and green. And it wasn't until this time that I smelled a very fishy, very fishy stench. It's like the blood when you kill chickens, and it's like the smell of chicken and duck droppings. Anyway, I want to throw up.
I didn't realize anything was wrong at the time, and just because of the smell, I dropped the bucket and ran out.
After I ran out, I went to my sister to talk to me. She still didn't believe it, so she went to the back room to take a look.
When she came out, I saw that my sister's face was very bad, and her mouth was white. I didn't cry, but I seemed to be depressed and uncomfortable.
When she came out and saw me, my sister pulled me and ran directly to the place where my parents ran the factory.
As soon as I saw my parents, my sister cried as soon as she saw her, and the crying was heartbreaking, which frightened my parents.
My mom asked my sister hard, but she was crying so hard that she couldn't tell.
Then he asked me again, and I was like a dumbfounder, and I didn't understand what my sister was crying about. So let's just say that the chickens and ducks in the back room are gone, and there are hairs everywhere.
My parents were startled, left their jobs, and ran home with my sister and me.
When we got home, my dad wouldn't let us in, so my mom took my sister and brother outside the house, and he went straight to the back room.
It didn't take long for my dad to come out, his face also pale. And I still remember it vividly, his eyes were full of fear.
Seeing my dad's expression, it was like telepathy, and my sister suddenly cried again. My mom's face turned white.
That night, my sister and I were sent to the village to stay at my aunt's house. By the time my sister and I were sent away, there were already a lot of people in my house, including my uncle, who wasn't very careful.
This uncle has a cold face all day long, looking like you don't mess with me, you don't like me. He didn't care about anything, he didn't ask anything, he lived in his grandmother's ancestral house, which was next door to my house.
In the past, no matter what happened, they would not come to my house. And when he told his grandmother that he wanted to live in this house, he also refused. So, I always thought he had an opinion about my family.
My dad also said that when he married my mom, my uncle didn't agree. Now I'm running back again, maybe there's a mustard.
But he came one night, and among so many people, he seemed to have a very high status, and those people listened to him.
As for what they did that night, I don't know. All I know is that after that night, the back room was sealed with a seal, locked down, and completely sealed off.
In the front room, my parents lived, but they never took my sister and me home.
The things in the back room are inexplicable, and I don't understand them anyway, and it's impossible to ask. It didn't take long for me to forget.
When I came to my aunt's house, it was a fresh place. My aunt was very trendy and had a very luxurious radio at the time. Every night, my aunt would play some popular music for us to listen to.
Her radio is more advanced and has a recording function. Slip a cassette into it and press the red and start buttons to record. A cassette tape, repeated recording, recorded the sound we learned to sing after listening to the song.
It was also shortly after the closure of the back house, that night. I don't know what time it is, and I don't know how to read the clock at that time.
After listening to the theme song of Chu Liuxiang, which was popular at that time, as soon as my aunt started the recording, we sang it openly.
As soon as the singing was finished, it was noisy with the chaotic singing of the three of us. As soon as we heard these crooked, intonation sounds, we laughed. It's a must-do every night, but it's a pleasure to do every night.
But just as we were laughing, I suddenly heard a different voice on the radio.
It's a bit like an airtight sound, it's very small, it's making a sound to our beat, it's very peculiar.
In previous recordings, there was no such sound. For this reason, I told my aunt and sister.
But they didn't believe it, so they replayed it again. After this time, I heard that voice again. However, my sister and aunt didn't hear it.
Therefore, they suspected that I was hallucinating, or hearing the noise of the tape recorder. And when it comes to noise, I will be skeptical and not think much about it.
We didn't go to bed until late, and after my aunt turned off the lights, the three of us fell asleep.
But it didn't take long for me to close my eyes. Suddenly, I heard the hissing sound again.
It's not in the recording this time, it can't be a murmur, right?
I was startled and arched violently, and at the same time startled my aunt and sister.
So I asked them if they had heard anything, and who knows, they shook their heads and said they hadn't heard. Immediately I wondered.
At this time, the lights were not turned on, it was pitch black, and when I was wondering, green bright spots with the thickness of two fingers suddenly appeared in the black mosquito net.
These two green dots are separated by the length of an adult's shoe. Across from me, right across from the three of us.
When these two green dots appeared, the hissing sound of air leakage reappeared.
Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, and things that have never been seen before are very rare for children, and they will not be afraid at all.
On the contrary, it is strange sounds that frighten children.
So when I saw the two green dots, instead of screaming in fear, I ignored the voice and stared intently.
The appearance of the green dot did not attract the attention of my sister and aunt, and I stared intently at the green dot. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything behind the green dot.
The green dot stood silently in mid-air, motionless for a long time. During this period, the hissing sound of air leakage appeared intermittently from time to time.
Of course, I didn't care about that voice at all at this time.
After staring at the green dot for about two or three minutes, the dot suddenly floated up, and then quickly went down. Not long after, the two green dots suddenly disappeared out of thin air.
At this time, a strange wind suddenly appeared, swirled around the room, and blew so that the mosquito nets that were originally rolled up fell off automatically.
My aunt was immediately surprised, the window in this room was not big, there was no reason for the wind to come in, and it was such a big tornado.
Involuntarily, my aunt turned on the light.
And at this moment, I had been staring at the green dot's disappearing eyes, and suddenly I saw a huge white shadow slide past and disappear into the window that came very high.
My eyes widened, stunned by the shadow.
If I'm not mistaken, I'm not mistaken. Later, when I saw something again, I suddenly noticed that the shadow that had slid out of the window had layers of fingernail-sized, dense, scales.
What it was, I never know. Even when I later realized that it was a scale, I still didn't think about the true face of the thing.
Until another day to remember, I met a terrifying creature that I still can't forget. I realized what the shadow and the green dot I saw in my aunt's room that night were.