Early the next morning, the young daughter-in-law opened the door early without alarming her newlywed husband and found that the moss on the bluestone steps was slippery and slippery, like the back of a loach, which was the traces of last night's rain.

The gray-haired old man also got up early in the morning, but the young daughter-in-law lived with him in the east of the village and the west of the village. When he got up early in the morning, he saw the moss under his feet peeling off the stones, curled up like the skin of a serpent.

The two of them were the first people in the village to rush to the well. The old man arrived first, and the young daughter-in-law was half a step slower.

The young daughter-in-law, who had slowed down half a step, looked at the old man standing by the well from behind, her silver hair was blown by the cool morning breeze, like a dandelion in a hurry to break away from the plant, and the clothes washed with rice soup pulp made the sound of hunting. She looked down at the grass at the mouth of the well, and curled up like an old man as she was crawling to the ground by the raindrops of the previous night.

"You're so early?" The young daughter-in-law greeted the old man timidly, and the words were also slightly cool in the morning, and the confidence was obviously insufficient.

"Hmm......" The old man didn't know that someone was coming behind him, and was startled by the sudden voice of the young daughter-in-law. You heard the roosters and the rain last night, right? Isn't it? The old man's eyes were as cold as the night dew on the steps in the early morning, and the young daughter-in-law couldn't help but feel a chill, and goosebumps rose on her body.

Of course, the young daughter-in-law also heard the strange rooster crowing and the unexpected rain last night. The old man did not intend to ask the young daughter-in-law if she knew, but to elicit what he was going to say later, just like the first thing people asked when they met: "Have you eaten?" "The original intention is not to really care so much about whether people eat it or not, but to lead to what is going to be said later.

A gust of wind blew, whining low. The young daughter-in-law cowered, but she didn't dare to answer the old man's usual questions.

"Listen, well, hear is heard." She squirmed thin lips and replied in a very thin voice. The voice was so soft that it seemed to be carried away by the wind.

The old man turned his head to look at the well and did not speak.

"I heard it." "But what's wrong with that," she repeated. Although she knew that something was obviously wrong, she still had a fluke mentality. She thought to herself that maybe it had nothing to do with her rituals. Her view of the wellhead was just blocked by the old man, perhaps because the old man's clothes were wet with the wet grass and trees in the early morning, and she smelled the thin smell of rice soup coming from the old man, faintly arousing her appetite. She had not had time to make breakfast before she came to see the well.

"Don't you think the rooster crows any differently than it used to be?" The old man put his hands behind his back. The young daughter-in-law couldn't see the expression on his face when he spoke, and didn't know what he was suggesting when he asked.

The young daughter-in-law thought for a moment and said, "I came earlier than usual." In fact, it came much earlier, not earlier, and the young daughter-in-law was worried in her heart, and deliberately made things more plain.

She saw the old man nod, and then the old man asked again, "Do you know how the rain last night was different from before?" ”

Again, the young daughter-in-law thought to herself.

"Is there any difference?" The young daughter-in-law asked rhetorically. Except for the sound of rain just when the rooster crowed, there was nothing else unusual. The moss on the steps wasn't much slippery than usual. However, it may also be a coincidence that the sound of rain is just after the rooster crows.

"Huh?" The young daughter-in-law looked down at the grass by the well again, "confused" and "confused".

"What's wrong?" The old man asked, but he didn't turn his head to look at her, as if he knew what she was surprised about, and was very confident in his guess.

"Obviously it rained last night, why is the grass on this side of the well withered and yellow, and the grass on the other side of the well wet?" The young daughter-in-law was surprised, and hurriedly ran in front of the old man, kneeling on one knee to touch the slightly curled weeds.

This run, the wellhead was in full view in front of her eyes.

Her hands were still on the curled grass, but her eyes were already fixed on the mouth of the well.

The old man's eyes were also fixed on the mouth of the well. Those weathered eyes were less frightened by the young daughter-in-law's fright, and more pity and pain. Another gust of wind blew, bringing a trace of water vapor into the young daughter-in-law's nose and into her stomach, leaving her with a breath of cold air.

"What's wrong with this well water?" The young daughter-in-law slowly raised her hand to touch the grass, pointed to the well water and asked the old man.

When the breeze blows, the long grass around the well is slightly lowered, and a wider area of well water is taken in. Along the dividing line between the curled and creeping meadows, the well water is divided into two parts, one clear and the other muddy. Unlike the ground, the dividing line of the grassland is straight, while the dividing line of the well water is curved, and when viewed from the entire round wellhead, it looks like a regular taiji.

"I think it has something to do with your rituals." The old man said bluntly, "What do you think? The old man's voice was erratic, and he couldn't tell whether he was criticizing the mistakes of the young daughter-in-law, or regretting and blaming himself on the same front as the young daughter-in-law.

The young woman looked up, tears welling up in her eyes like a source of activity. Tears slid down her face, crystal clear like the other half of the well water.

"Hey......" The white-haired old man sighed, held the weak shoulders of the young daughter-in-law and comforted her, "Forget it, you have done your best, and you can't be blamed for this, but only your stingy mother-in-law." Thankfully, there is still half clean water, which is better than nothing. ”

After this incident, the villagers often went to this small well to fetch water, but they had to be careful to avoid the dirty water on the other half. The clean water is still as sweet as before, and the heart is relaxed and the armpits are windy; If the water is dirty, it will cause diarrhea when you drink it, like a laxative. However, some people sometimes deliberately use it as a laxative.

But from the time of its formation to the present, when I was fifty or sixty years old, I occasionally went back to my parents' house to have a look, and the well water still maintained a clear appearance on both sides.

But now, many people have forgotten that there was once a young daughter-in-law who threw a stone charm here. It turned out that the young daughter-in-law had moved out of the village where the "milk" and "milk" grew up, and many people forgot the young daughter-in-law like forgetting the stone charm, but the "milk" and "milk" still clearly remembered her appearance. When "milk" and "milk" tell us about her, we can still go from the eyebrows to the nose, from the nose to the mouth, carefully and clearly.