When I came to the door of the old man's house, it should be more than seven o'clock in the morning, because the local area is not farming, and the villagers have just gotten up, and the young people are in a hurry to go to work in the city, and the older ones go out to buy breakfast, and there are many people on the road.

The shopkeeper knocked on the door, and soon a little girl in her sixteen or seventeenth year old opened the door to us, and after the shopkeeper explained her intentions, the little girl shouted: "Grandpa, someone wants to interview you!" He ran towards the end of the house.

We followed him into the house and saw an old man sitting in a rocking chair with a brown-red teapot in his hand, leaning against the window and basking in the sun.

The old man had a gentle face, and he smiled kindly, and said to the little girl, "If you don't hurry up to school, you will be late all day long!" ”

Although it was like a lesson, it could come out of his mouth, but it gave people a very peaceful feeling.

The little girl stuck out her tongue and went out of the house with her schoolbag on her back.

The shopkeeper said to the old man, "They are reporters and want to interview you." ”

The old man still smiled: "What do I have to interview, our village is much older than me, and the old yellow head in the south of the village is more than 100 years old this year." ”

Speaking of this, the old man turned to us again: "That old yellow head, when others ask him how old he is, he always says that he is ninety-seven, he has been ninety-seven for several years, and he is still ninety-seven, hehehehe." ”

The shopkeeper said, "They want to know about the old stories in our village, oh, the old stories of the Yellow River Estuary." ”

Hearing him say this, the old man immediately became interested: "Oh, it's for this." Okay, okay, who is that, dog, hurry up and make tea! We're here, we've got to entertain it. ”

The shopkeeper smiled and went to the back room to get the tea set, and the old man stood up and said to us, "You sit down by yourself, you're welcome." ”

It can be seen that the old man is very happy about the arrival of a few of us.

The shopkeeper made us tea and left on the pretext that the business needed to be taken care of, until he went out of the door, and the old man asked us, "Which magazine are you from?" ”

I smiled and said, "We collect folk tales for a lot of magazines, but we don't always serve any of them. ”

The old man nodded: "Oh, such a thing, I'm still thinking about it, and I'll take a look at it when you publish it." ”

I said, "Actually, the stories we collect may not be published in the end, hehe, we are responsible for collecting stories, whether the journal is published or not, we don't count." ”

"Oh, it's not in the way," the old man waved his hand and said, "It's good to be here, no one has been together for several years to chat." ”

I smiled and asked him: "I don't see that there is no farming in the village, you usually don't go out, walk around with the old buddies in the village?" ”

The old man shook his head: "Oh, when I am with them, I always listen to their short family and western, like a group of old women, I don't like to be with them." Hey, I just said that you want to hear the old story of the Yellow River Estuary. ”

I nodded and said, "I heard that when you were working as a river worker at the mouth of the Yellow River, you dug out an iron dragon king. ”

"Yes, yes, yes," said the old man, "many people saw the events of that year, but they didn't know what was going on, and they forgot all about it except me." When I talk about those things, they all say I'm blind (lying). ”

I asked the old man, "Have you experienced anything else besides the Iron Dragon King?" ”

The old man thought for a while and said, "No, I also heard my father say that in the early years, there were many things in the village, but the Iron Dragon King, that was what I saw with my own eyes, and it was my hoe that went down and dug out the Iron Dragon King." ”

I took a sip of my tea and leaned in front of the old man, as if I was listening.

The old man seemed pleased with my attitude, and he moistened his throat with tea, and then began to talk about the Iron Dragon King.

Before stating the whole story, the old man first introduced himself to us, his surname was Zhu, his father was not a literate person at the beginning, and there were many children in the family, so he also dealt with it so-so, and casually called a "bolt pillar", Zhu bolt pillar.

Zhu Xuanzhu was born and raised here, and before the age of seventeen, like most people in the village, he grew up listening to old stories about the Yellow River estuary every day.

Until the winter of the seventeen-year-old, two rivers at the mouth of the Yellow River were cut off, and Zhu Xuanzhu, like other sixteen or seventeen-year-old children, went to the river to work as a river worker.

On the third day after the dredging project began, he followed his old man to the river, where he first broke up the slightly harder mud with a hoe, and then picked up the crushed mud and sand one by one with a basket.

That is, on that day, Zhu Xuanzhu was a little restless from early in the morning, when he came to the middle of the river, when he smashed down with a hoe, he felt that there was something hard under the sand, and he put down two hoes, and he heard two sharp sounds of "dang, dang" under the sand.

Zhu Xuanzhu's father also heard this voice, and he thought that Zhu Xuanzhu might have dug up antiques, so he quietly turned Zhu Xuanzhu with his elbow and said, "Don't smash the hoe, dig it with your hands." ”

Zhu Zhuzhu was also very obedient, threw the hoe, and dug it up with both hands, but after digging for a long time, he didn't dig up antiques, but he dug out a black iron stone, which was the size of an adult's chest, and a very thick black iron chain was tied at the end, and the iron chain hung down from the iron stone to the ground, embedded in the mud and sand.

Later, Zhu Xuanzhu and his son were also curious, so they tried to pull the iron chain, but they didn't expect the iron chain to be heavier than expected, and the two of them couldn't move a single inch with all their strength, and then some people came, and they all felt that Tito and the chain were very strange, buried in the water for so many years without rust, and this weight is not like ordinary iron.

At that time, there was a person named Huangshan in the village, his grandfather used to be a god in the village, it is said to be very effective, Huangshan grew up with him since he was a child, and he was also familiar with those gods and ghosts, after he saw the iron chain, he said to the people around him, the chain and iron stone here may be used to deter water ghosts, so that the villagers do not move.

The parties concerned believed these things, and after he said so, no one dared to touch the iron chain again.

I thought that this was the end of the matter, but that night, strange sounds began to appear in the two rivers that had been dry, and since the rivers were not far from the village, everyone heard the strange sound of "cooing".

It was also that Huangshan who picked up the lantern and took a few villagers to the other side of the river to check, and Zhu Xuanzhu also went with him.

When I arrived at the river, I saw that the middle of the river was pouring out of the yellow water one by one, and the villagers were all natives, and they were very familiar with these two rivers.

There was a lot of yellow water bubbling out of the mud, which was unheard of.

Huang Shan saw the scene in the river, immediately frowned, he told the villagers that the water coming out of the river is the yellow spring water, it is the villagers who drag the chains at the bottom of the Yellow River, disturb the water ghosts underground, if the yellow spring water fills the entire river, the water ghosts will come out to harm people.

In fact, when I listened to the old man talk about this paragraph, I knew that the Yellow Mountain was talking nonsense, and the water in the river was backing up, which should be caused by the high groundwater level, but he insisted on pulling on the Yellow Spring Water, and this person's imagination is rich enough.

But when the old man said this, I continued to listen without interrupting him.

The old man went on to say that after seeing the river, Huangshan took the villagers back to the mouth of the Yellow River, originally wanting to see the iron stone that Zhu Xuanzhu dug out in the morning. But when I arrived at the mouth of the Yellow River, I found that there was still any iron stone in the river, and there was only a thick iron chain that was about to rust off.

This chain was fine in the morning, but why did it rust like this in less than a day's work? And the iron stone that more than a dozen people couldn't lift, why did it disappear?

The villagers immediately became nervous, and Huangshan told everyone not to panic, and told the villagers to hurry home and not go out again all night today.

At this time, the villagers obeyed Huangshan's words, went home one by one, and locked the door.

Zhu Xuanzhu also returned home, he told his father what he had seen and heard before, and his father also seemed very nervous, closed the latch on the door, and found a thick burning stick to hold the door firm.

The old man said that the reason why the villagers were nervous was because there was a story in the early years of the Yellow River estuary, saying that someone dug up an iron ox from the mouth of the Yellow River a hundred years ago, and the iron ox was also very heavy, and more than a dozen people could not move, and then the squire in the village did not know what to think, so they let people set up a fire in the river and directly melted the iron ox, and on the same night, the squire's family of more than a dozen people all died violently, and the county government sent people to investigate, but did not find out the cause of death.

Later generations said that the squire melted the iron ox and angered the dragon king in the Yellow River, so he was retributed that night.

This story has been widely circulated in the village, and almost everyone has heard it, they are afraid that the iron stone is also the dragon king's thing, and if the dragon king gets angry again this time, he may not know who will take the knife.

But in any case, Zhu Xuanzhu's house is the most dangerous, because the stone was dug up by their father and son.

That night, Zhu Xuanzhu's family didn't dare to sleep, and several pairs of eyes stared at the door of the house, for fear that the Dragon King would come to make trouble.

Until the third watch, there was a sudden scream in the village, the voice was extremely terrible, Zhu Xuanzhu was staring at the door with anxiety, and he heard this movement coldly, and almost scared his soul away.

His father, who was still calm, was the first to get up from his bed, leaned over to the window, and listened with his ear sideways.

Not long after, there was another scream of "ah-" in the village.

This time, Zhu Xuanzhu also heard it, the sound came from the east of the village, and the Huangshan family lived in that place, and listening to the sound, it seemed to come from the mouth of Huangshan.

Immediately after, there was a series of screams, and Zhu Xuanzhu's father glanced through the crack in the window, and then his body trembled and sat down on the ground.

Zhu Xuanzhu also ran over, trying to help his father up, but his father refused to stand up, and told Zhu Xuanzhu not to look out the window.

But Zhu Xuanzhu was young at that time, he was afraid of being afraid, but he was full of curiosity about external things, and he glanced out of the window while his father was not paying attention.

It doesn't matter if you look at it, Zhu Xuanzhu was almost paralyzed with fright.