Back to the cave, I set up the roots at the entrance of the cave, poured kerosene, and used gauze to start the fire, the cheeks of the blow hurt, and the wet roots slowly emitted green smoke, the second master has not come back, Yuan Mei sat silently alone in the innermost, quiet cave, only the occasional beep sound when the fire burns.

I had the heart to open my mouth to ask her, but after thinking about it, I decided to wait for the second master to come back, the flames had just jumped up, and the second master was covered in mud and walked slowly from the mist, carrying a burden made of a jacket in his hand, I don't know what was inside.

The sky was completely dark, and the whole valley made a sound of ropes from time to time, it should be that the animals came out to forage, the second master walked to my side, put the burden on the ground and said: "In addition to mice and geckos, this thing is left in this place, and it is quite thick." ”

Saying that, he slowly opened the baggage, and when I looked at it, I was startled, it turned out to be three or four flower snakes with thick arms, three or four feet long, swimming in the baggage.

Yuan Mei heard the sound and walked out, looked at the snake in the baggage, frowned, and walked back to the cave with a look of disgust, the second master squatted down, quickly pinched a snake head with his hand, and took it out, just out of the baggage, the snake immediately coiled his arm, the second master stepped on the baggage mouth with his left foot, grabbed the snake's tail with the other hand, and stepped on it at the foot of his right foot, pulled hard, the whole snake was stretched into a straight line, and then he kept slapping the snake's head and body.

I helped tie up the baggage, stepped aside, looked at his every move with doubts, saw him fight for a while, touched down along the snake's belly with his hand, and when he was about to touch the tail, he picked up my mountain knife from the ground, and gently cut it with the tip of the knife to the position he had just touched, inserted two fingers into it and pinched it, pulled out a small black thing, pinched it in front of his eyes and looked at it, hehe smiled, opened his mouth, and swallowed it with his neck up.

It turned out that he was looking for snake gall, when the old Qi shopkeeper fell ill, he specially invited the snake catcher to the scene of Juxian Building to take it alive, it is said that this thing has the effect of cooling and detoxifying, protecting the liver and brightening the purpose, but the snake is much smaller, and the knives and scissors used by people are also special, and the whole process is just a matter of getting up and down, and in the blink of an eye, it is much more elegant than the second master's pig-like posture.

After taking the snake gall bladder, he chopped off the snake's head, threw the snake aside, took out another one from the baggage, took out the snake gall bladder again, handed it to me and said, "Come, this is a good thing, the old man has lost fire." ”

I hesitated to move to his side, took the snake gall, and looked at the firelight, only to see the black snake gall the size of a thumb, revealing a faint green color, thinking about the sky-high price of one gall of the ten eldest sons of the old shopkeeper before, my eyes were closed, my head was tilted, and I swallowed it into my stomach, and instantly a cool slid from my mouth to my stomach, but before I could feel it, I was almost choked by the smell of blood rising from my mouth.

The other two snake gall bladders were swallowed by the second master alone, I was really unblessed, peeled and washed, the second master went to the river to wash the snake meat, by the way fished a few large pebbles, put them in the fire, after the stones were heated, put the snake meat that had been cut into sections on it and roasted, for a moment the sound of cheering was endless, and the smell of meat was sprinkled, filling the entire cave, and the people who smelled it couldn't help but salivate, even Yuanmei squatted aside, staring at the snake meat.

I took advantage of the second master rummaging in the bag to find coarse salt, secretly told Yuanmei about it, he nodded, quietly walked to the fire, used two wooden sticks as chopsticks, turned over the snake meat, this fragrance is too tempting, everyone just waited for a cigarette, regardless of whether it is cooked or not, sprinkled with coarse salt, pinched with his hand and sent it to his mouth, one by one hot open mouth straight inhale.

There were too few snakes to even stuff between their teeth, so they had no choice but to take out the dry pancakes from their bags, divide a small piece of each, and eat them with the cold water in the kettle, and the three of them sat around the fire, and roasted the moisture off their bodies while eating, and a white light flashed outside, and then there were bursts of thunder, and it seemed that it was going to rain again.

The second master suddenly looked up at Yuanmei and asked, "Big sister, do you have something you want to talk to our brothers?" We are grasshoppers on a rope now, don't hold yourself back if you have something. ”

Yuanmei raised her eyes and looked at him, threw the remaining cake in her hand into her mouth, drank a sip of water, took out a human skin map from her clothes, spread it on the ground and pointed to it, and said, "We are in this position now, pay attention to the mark next to it." ”

The two of us put our heads on the ground, lay on the ground and looked carefully, and saw that the place pointed by Yuanmei was tortuously painted a few lines, which seemed to represent the valley, and there was a thing like a tooth painted next to the valley, and a small gecko was painted under the teeth, and there were a few water ripples next to it, followed by the shape of the teeth.

The two of us squinted, stared at the four figures back and forth for a long time, raised our heads, and looked at Yuanmei with a puzzled face, Yuanmei unhurriedly folded the map and put it in her pocket, drank saliva and said: "I think the tooth may represent danger, and the gecko should refer to the kind of big gecko with red spots on a black background that we have seen before, the water ripples I haven't thought of it yet, but looking at the teeth behind it, I'm afraid it's not a good sign." ”

"You mean, this gecko bites?" The second master said with some sarcasm, this time Yuanmei didn't roll his eyes, but said seriously: "I'm afraid it's really like this." ”

"Then what's there to be afraid of, let's not talk about whether there is a biting gecko, even if there is, how big is this thing's mouth and how many teeth can it have?" A slap can kill a piece of death, you said that this ancient person is also a little interesting, afraid of the sky, afraid of the ground, even a gecko is afraid, who has a few in the house. ”

"This place is isolated from the world all the year round, there is no daylight, many things are not completely clear, we must not take it lightly, since the ancients wrote this, there must be his reason, it is better to be careful, I propose not to go near the water's edge tonight, and this fire, must not be extinguished." ”

I agree with Yuanmei's words, so many years of experience have taught me that many things must not be taken for granted by experience, and there are still many things in the world that we do not know, and there is no harm in being careful.

The second master said a little unhappily: "I also plan to go to the stream to wipe my body in a while, this day even mud and sweat, what do you say the ancients have to say, draw two ghosts and draw talismans, pretending to be ghosts." ”

"That's not called trickery, because we can't understand these words, the Miao and Tujia characters have been lost thousands of years ago, the so-called ghost drawings on this map, should be the only remaining words in the world, don't say it's us, it's just looking at the whole country, I'm afraid no one knows." ”

The second master has always been dismissive of Yuan Mei's theory, and after listening to it, he pursed his lips, picked up a burning Zhengwang tree root, stood up and walked out, Yuan Mei asked sharply, "Why are you going?" ”

"I went out to put water out of the water, and I was afraid that I would pee my pants in fear of being bitten by a gecko. ”

Yuanmei snorted angrily, and sure enough, after a while, there was a sound of rushing water outside, Yuanmei said: "disgusting", got up and walked back to the depths of the cave, I gathered the remaining roots on the ground, picked out a few thick and sturdy ones, wrapped them with gauze, and made them into torches in case of emergency.

After the torch was done, I found that the second master had not come back, and there was no sound outside, I was shocked, I got up slowly, picked up the mountain knife and climbed out of the hole, just showed my head, a big hand with a smell of noise pressed on my mouth, I thought the second master was joking with me, struggling in disgust, just about to get up, the second master lay in my ear and shushed briefly and softly, pointed to the stream with his hand, followed the direction he pointed, squinted his eyes and looked carefully.

In the afterglow of a bolt of lightning, a small round creature was crouching by the river rummaging for something, looking very much like a fat mouse, and another lightning bolt swept by, hedgehog?

The second master let go of his hand, leaned into my ear and whispered: "Hedgehogs can also eat, that meat is stronger than snake meat, you see I will catch you later." ”

The two looked at the hedgehog from a distance, this little thing kept turning over the stones by the river, it should be looking for insects or snails and the like to eat, the second master tiptoed towards it, I held my breath and looked at it behind, the nervous palms were sweating, there were about two steps away, lightning crossed, I saw that the hedgehog bit something in his mouth, suddenly, the hedgehog jumped into the stream like crazy, kept rolling in it, the stream was stirred and splashed, and there was a loud noise.

The second master was obviously frightened by the scene in front of him, and stood in place at a loss, waiting for the stream to completely stop moving, he was just about to continue moving forward, and Yuan Mei shouted behind him: "Don't move!" ”

I don't know when Yuanmei stood at the entrance of the cave behind her, she carried the torch I had just made in her hand, lit it on the fire, and slowly walked to the stream, the three of them looked into the water at the same time, but there was no hedgehog figure, if it weren't for a handful of hard thorns in the mud at the bottom of the water, no one believed that a hedgehog had just died in it.

The second master locked his eyebrows and stared at the thorn, and said to himself: "Why is this hedgehog gone?" ”

Yuanmei stared at the bottom of the water for a long time, and pointed with her hand: "Look at that."

I saw that in the middle of the thorn, there was a small tail with black and red spots, if I didn't look carefully, I thought it was hanging a wisp of aquatic weed, and the second master and I exclaimed in unison: "Gecko?!" ”

Yuanmei turned around and ran to the cave, we followed closely, did not dare to delay for a second, after the three of them entered the cave, hurriedly threw a few roots into the fire, watching the fire gradually get bigger, the three of them breathed, sat by the fire, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the branches and leaves outside, the second master said: "How poisonous this gecko is, the hedgehog will melt in one bite." ”

"The ancients once said that guarding the palace is extremely lewd, likes water, and copies with water. Its essence is highly poisonous, and human food turns into pus, I always thought it was a rumor spread falsely, but now it seems that it is just a different breed, and the gecko here should be the kind of highly poisonous gecko that the ancients said will turn people into water" Yuan Mei's voice had a trace of fear.

"When I was a child, I heard people often say that guarding the palace sand, guarding the palace sand, is this thing? The second master didn't know where to think of such a play, and asked casually.

"Shougong sand is to put the gecko in a container, feed its cinnabar every day, when the gecko eats enough seven catties of cinnabar, it will become red all over, and then put it in the stone mortar, pound it with a pestle to ten thousand, the cinnabar is the shougong sand, point on the woman to show chastity, well, now it seems that these geckos should be afraid of fire, as long as the fire is not extinguished, we should be safe, everyone takes turns to keep vigil, pay attention to the fire, do not let it go out. After Yuanmei finished speaking, she sat on the stone wall next to the fire and began to add tree roots to the fire, it seemed that she was going to be on the first shift.

The second master nodded, lay down on the ground, and said to me: "My last shift", turned over and stopped talking, I lay down next to him, the ground was cold and damp, and the danger was close by, but I still couldn't stop the tiredness of running around for days, and after lying down for a few minutes, I fell into a half-dream and half-awake.

I don't know how long I slept, a chill hit, and at the same time, there was a sudden "gurgle" two sounds in my ears, the sound was like thunder, and woke up the person in the dream, I opened my eyes and quickly turned my head to look at the source of the sound, only to see two soybean-sized eyes shooting out of the cold light, staring at me, looking at each other for a few seconds, this thing turned around and ran away, and then, there was a "gurgle" above my head, I sat up, the fire had been extinguished, the embers were shining, Yuanmei leaned on the stone wall and snored peacefully, At the position of a fist above her head, lying on the stomach of the half-arm-long black-on-black red-spotted gecko, when she saw me get up, it swished and disappeared into the darkness of the cave, although she couldn't see it, but she could still feel its cold gaze.