As I gazed at the rusty bronze mask in front of me, I suddenly remembered what had happened twenty years ago.

At that time, I was not a native man, nor did I open an antique shop, but I was just a milky little kid who ran around the village and the end of the village bare-bottomed, and I was very comfortable.

I don't know what's going on, but the village cadres suddenly wanted to kill the big banyan tree in front of our house, saying that it was a miasma of smoke and needed to be removed.

At first, my father tried desperately to stop it, and he wanted to die or live, after all, he planted it when he was a child. Watching it grow up and have feelings. But in the end, the village cadres directly reported the matter to the government, and they got approval, and they couldn't kill them if they wanted to.

Zhang Kou, the captain of the village cadres, called a large group of men to come to my house in a big way, carrying saws, machetes, and prying, and without saying a word, he started to move, surrounded by the chatter of the villagers' mothers-in-law and mothers.

Click, click, saw, sawed and chopped sawdust all over the sky, but sawed and cut for a long time, the tree was stunned.

"What about the grinders!" The captain scolded, "A large group of men can't handle a tree, eat? me off! Kill! ”

One of the villagers, Sun Er, had a bitter face, like a dead mother, and grinned: "It's not that we are grinding foreign workers, it's that this tree has become a fine tree, and it's not easy to kill." ”

"Fart! Lao Tzu has heard of the fox becoming a spirit, but he has not heard of the old banyan tree becoming a spirit, it does not fall? Why doesn't it fall? It dares not to fall! The captain picked up the small pole shotgun behind him, "Go away, let Lao Tzu give it a shot to extinguish the evil spirit!" ”

The captain took aim, snapped the trigger, and with a bang, a steel ball mixed with colorful sparks struck towards the trunk of the tree, followed by another bang, and a hole was smashed out of the trunk, steaming hot. The tree still hasn't fallen.

The captain was also puzzled, and circled around the tree, and then the corners of his mouth hooked a very confident arc: "It's broken, the fork of the tree is stuck, pull hard, and it will fall." Sun Er, go get the rope. ”

Sun Er's face was reluctant: "Zhang Kou, it's dark this day, if you can't see clearly and hit the tree, it's not a joke." ”

"Why the are you talking so much nonsense, if this tree really grows into a sperm and doesn't kill it now, I'll have to float to your house tonight to find you."

Sun Er couldn't do anything, so he went to the shed to get a rope, and soon, he dragged a bundle of ropes, like a dog that had been beaten out of his intestines.

The captain took the rope, climbed up the tree, tied one end to the canopy, then went down the tree and threw the other end to the group of men: "Pull! ”

The men took the rope and stretched it in a straight line, ready to go.

"Three, two, one, pull!" The captain trumpeted, and the men pulled up with all their strength, feeling like men in the pit.

The old banyan tree kept falling down, and the leaves fell to the ground. Then there was a sudden click, and the top half of the tree was completely broken, and it was about to fall to the ground!

"Not good!" The captain shouted, his eyes were quick, and he quickly rushed out, pitying the group of men, and before he could react, he crushed a tree trunk to the ground.

Everyone was stunned. Then the captain immediately reacted, screaming like a woman: "Help!" ”

At this sound, the surrounding villagers immediately moved to see the situation, and the four or five men who killed the tree were all crushed under the tree, unconscious, and there was blood on the ground.

Someone was about to move the tree together, but was stopped by the captain: "Don't move, move both ends of the tree, and before the rescue comes out, the person will be rubbed to death." ”

There was no way, so I could only send someone to the county to find the government, and the relatives of the man who was pressed didn't wait for a while and cried, as if they were really dead, and they were crying in front of the man. The captain also had a serious face, squatting on the ground and not speaking.

Later, the government sent people down to save people, and the people were pulled out, Sun Er's intestines were pressed out and died, and the rest were either lame or paralyzed, and the captain was pulled away by the government, and I don't know what was going on, anyway, none of the people who killed the tree had a good thing.

When this happened, my dad had been hiding behind and watching, smoking a dry cigarette and being silent.

Later, I heard my father say that when the banyan tree was planted, my grandfather buried something under the tree, and the evil spirit was very heavy, and he couldn't easily see the light, which may be a kind of curse.

My father dug it up, and it was wrapped in a red cloth, and when I untied it, it was a bronze mask, and my grandfather was no longer there, and I didn't have to ask if I wanted to ask anyone, so I left it and passed it on to me.