15. Shanxi Ancient Road

This is a story told by a friend of my father. This old gentleman's surname is Lu, and I call him Uncle Lu. It was only through my father's retellings that I first learned that he had such a terrible experience. After my noon grinding and hard work, Uncle Lu finally told me in detail about what happened back then.

It happened in 1970, when Uncle Lu was still young and a good boy. On this day, the family received the thunderbolt news that Uncle Lu's aunt had passed away in an unexpected cave collapse. He received a message, and the person who brought the letter did not know the specific situation, so he told them to go quickly.

Hearing the news, Uncle Lu's father immediately burst into tears. It was his only sister who died. His parents died early, and he, who was an older brother, had shouldered the burden of supporting his family since he was a child, begging for food, stealing things, and working as coolies, in short, he tried everything to support his sister and himself. They are not only inseparable flesh and blood relatives, but also intertwined with the feelings of brothers and sisters who have experienced life and death together.

After years of struggle, with the establishment and development of New China, their lives gradually got better. Because Uncle Lu's father (I'll call him Old Man Lu later), he was hardworking and hardworking, and even accumulated a little family property. After some twists and turns, he married his sister to Shanxi, the man is an honest farmer, living in a small mountain village, although he is only a farmer, but he is sincere, and his family background is also passable. Who made this marriage? Why did you marry your sister to Shanxi? Because Old Man Lu has become an ancient, we have no way of knowing. I guess it's because this place in Henan was too poor and bitter after wars and disasters for a long time, and Shanxi has been a blessed land since ancient times, especially the man's family has been in the mountain village, and the impact of the war is relatively small. In short, the marriage went well. In the future, every year or two, Old Man Lu will go to see his sister and brother-in-law. Until something happened one year.

This year, Mr. Lu still went to Shanxi to see his sister, and at this time, he also became a family and had a son (that is, Uncle Lu, but he was still young at that time, still an eleven-year-old child). This time, on a whim, he planned to let Uncle Lu meet his aunt and uncle, who had never been masked, so he decided to take Uncle Lu with him. The two of them took some luggage and gifts and hit the road.

The mountain village is led by an ancient road. At the entrance of the ancient road, there was a broken stone tablet, the text on it was already broken, and Uncle Lu still remembered that when he ran to the stone tablet to pee, he could still recognize the stone tablet engraved with "Daoguang...... Year ......" and so on. I checked the imperial lineage table, if "Daoguang" refers to the Qing Daoguang Emperor, then it can be roughly estimated that the reign of the Daoguang Emperor was 1821-1850, so even if this ancient road was built in the last years of Daoguang, it has a history of more than 100 years.

Old Man Lu has been back and forth several times, and it should be said that he is familiar with the way. But this time there was an accident, and I was delayed on the road for a while, and after leaving the main road and going to the ancient road, it was already dark. In the inaccessible mountains, the mere darkness was scary enough, and even worse it was getting hotter and hotter, as if it were going to rain heavily. Seeing that it is quite far from my brother-in-law's house, it would be terrible if I got drenched on the road. But I'm afraid of something. This is called "the house leak is rainy, and the ship is late and encounters the head wind". The feeling of stuffiness became heavier and heavier, and both father and son were sweaty, and their clothes were sticking to their bodies, which was extremely uncomfortable. But this place where there is no village in front of you and no store in the back can't be stopped. The two of them could only speed up their pace, hoping to get to their relatives' house a moment earlier.

The two of them were walking briskly along the winding ancient road, when suddenly Old Man Lu turned around and said, "Huh", "There are still people!" Uncle Lu also looked back, and there were black holes around him. You know, they are in the mountains, there are no street lights, it is cloudy at this time, there is no moon, and the surroundings are dark, so they can't walk, but before the old man Lu entered the mountain, he put a torch, and they relied on the light of the torch to illuminate. At this time, the torch was the only source of light within their line of sight. Who's there? Uncle Lu said suspiciously, "Dad, no one." Old Man Lu glanced at him: "There are people, there are three people, walking not far behind." Uncle Lu looked back again. The ancient path of the black hole, even with the help of the light of the torch, cannot see far. On such a dark road, if someone has no lights, if there are lights, the lights will definitely be visible. "Dad, there's no one!" "Nonsense," Old Man Lu glared at him, "Look, they're not getting closer. As soon as he finished speaking, Old Man Lu's face suddenly changed, he turned around, grabbed Uncle Lu, and walked faster without saying a word, he walked fast, almost running. Uncle Lu is still young, and he was already tired after walking for so long, and he was so tired that he couldn't breathe after running this time. "Dad, I can't walk." He begged Old Man Lu to stop. But Old Man Lu didn't say a word, and decisively threw the luggage on the ground. Then he picked up Uncle Lu and continued to walk forward quickly. As he walked, he pressed his mouth with his hand.

Uncle Lu raised his head and saw his father's gloomy face, the old man was already panting, after all, Uncle Lu was an eleven-year-old child, and his weight was not light. But he kept walking, as if he was dodging something terrible, as if something was chasing them closely, as if he could be swallowed by the terrible thing if he took a step slower. At this moment, there was a muffled thunder in the dark sky, and heavy rain poured down. Old Man Lu hesitated for a moment, took off his clothes to wrap Uncle Lu, and continued to rush forward naked, braving the heavy rain. Their umbrellas had been thrown away just now, and although Uncle Lu was wrapped in clothes, a summer single coat did not block the rain at all, and within a few minutes, both father and son were drenched. Uncle Lu was shivering from the cold. Their torches have long been extinguished. In the pouring rain, it was pitch black three steps away, and Old Man Lu was walking completely by intuition. Just like this, he stumbled and walked a few more steps, Old Man Lu couldn't hold on, he just walked quickly, sweating profusely, and at this time, he was poured by the cold rain, and his body was cold, and he began to feel dizzy and nauseous. He knew that he couldn't go on, not only the child couldn't stand it, but he himself couldn't hold on. He looked back again, seemed relieved, and muttered, "Didn't keep up!" ”。 There was a large tree in the vicinity. Of course, according to our current common sense, it is actually very unsafe under the big trees in thunder and lightning weather. But Old Man Lu didn't have such knowledge, he only hoped to be able to hide from the rain at this time, so he hid under the big tree with Uncle Lu in his arms.

The old man tried to find a clean place to sit down and catch his breath for a while. Uncle Lu is feeling better now. He took the hand of the old man Lalu; "Dad, what happened to you just now?" Old Man Lu looked left and right, and whispered, "We've run into a ghost." "What the hell?" Uncle Lu is young, but when he hears the word "ghost", he still feels terrified. "What's a ghost cha?" Old Man Lu was so frightened that he quickly gagged him. "Be quiet, don't let the ghost hear." He stuck his head out from behind the tree again, looked at the ancient path, and probably didn't see anything, he retracted his head, lowered his voice and said, "If you let the ghost cha catch you, you will die." Uncle Lu sat in the arms of Old Man Lu and said in a low voice, "Dad, what's the ghost?" How can I not see? Old Man Lu leaned against the trunk of the tree and whispered, "It's also the first time I've seen it, there are three people." At first they were so far away that I couldn't see clearly, and I thought they were pedestrians, but I was glad that someone could walk with us. It's better to have a companion, but when they got closer, I realized that the three were all dressed in ......" As soon as he said this, the old man suddenly stopped, he listened nervously, and then cautiously peeked out from behind the tree and looked at the ancient road.

Uncle Lu saw that his father suddenly stopped talking, and was about to speak, when suddenly he also heard the sound of chains on the ancient road where no one was around. He was also afraid, but the more he was afraid, the more curious he became, and he stretched his head out of his father's arms and looked at the ancient road.

The dark and dreary ancient road is vague. It was dark like ink. Only the pouring rain was falling. But the sound of the rain could not suppress the "ding" sound of the chain impacting, and the sound became clearer and clearer. Walking in the direction of father and son. The father and son were so cold and afraid, snuggled up to each other and curled up, shivering in the dark and rainy night waiting for the unknown horror.