Shihua Village, about 90 kilometers away from the city center, is not very far, but after walking out of the suburbs, it is basically a very difficult mountain road. In particular, the last 30 kilometers of the mountain road is almost always carved out of steep cliffs and slopes close to 60 degrees, and many places can only accommodate one car, and every 500 meters or so, there will be a slightly more spacious place for staggering cars.

I probably read it on the Internet: the traffic of this place to the outside world is only one trip a week to the suburbs long-distance bus in, occasionally there will be a car pulling stone in and out, but the traffic is still very inconvenient, although the village is connected to the road and pulled the wire, the water has not been pulled up because the difficulty is too high and the cost is too high, and it still relies on the mountain spring water. There are probably less than 200 people in the whole village, almost all of them are elderly, and there is not even an administrative village chief in this village, and a village party secretary has been a party secretary for nearly 20 years: because there is no one willing to take over.

In the end, it was only me and Liu Yuwei who investigated the source of all this mystery.

Looking at the steep mountain road, I sincerely admired how this road was carved. From the time I came out in the morning to the time I approached the village, I walked for a full 30 kilometers for three hours!

By the time I saw that village, I was already driving exhausted.

From a distance. The village is very peaceful, and it is not very backward as I thought: there are quite a few new houses in the village, which look pretty good from the outside, but there are still a lot of old adobe or brick houses, and there are quite a few of them, and it seems that many of them are uninhabited, and if I didn't know that there are less than 200 people in this place, I would mistake it for a thousand. Ferry to see the new festival

The whole village is built on the mountain, and many places are former quarries: the mountains have been dug out of square gaps, and those people probably collect stones from here and transport them out of the mountain to make money.

But in the days when there were no roads here, I don't know how these people carried the stones out of the mountain.

Finally, little by little, they moved to the gate of the village. I noticed that there were two huge stones at the entrance of the village, standing as if to welcome guests.

And the two stones, one black and one white, are about the same shape (exactly two semicircular arcs) to form a natural doorway, when I looked at it from a distance, I thought it was artificial, and when I arrived at the door, I found that the two stones were actually natural. There is not a trace of excavation.

Driving to the middle, we only saw about 5 people, there is a small square in the middle of the village, I parked the car here, and Liu Yuwei drove around with Liu Yuwei.

There is a general store and a commissary on the side of the square, and it also says Shihua Village Welfare Society, and I really feel like I am back to the 80s when I see this name, but Liu Yuwei has no feeling for everything here. I guess to her this place is purely backwood.

When I entered the welfare club, there was an old man watching Peking Opera on TV, who looked like he was at least 70 years old, and he turned his head to look at me. In a local accent, he said: Buy stones?

Looks like they're in business.

I thought about it and simply nodded: yes, don't accept the big one, collect the small one.

The uncle nodded: Go out to the east, look at the one with the best house, and look for Lao Zhao, where do he do more small things.

Lao Zhao?

I nodded, and was about to leave, but the uncle called me again: Young man, Lao Zhao is good wine, buy two bottles of wine from me to go to the best, so that you can receive good goods!

I nodded, and bought two bottles of locally produced liquor at a slightly more expensive price, seeing that I was very happy to pay, the uncle smiled happily and nodded.

Uncle, are all the people here surnamed Zhao? I took the opportunity to start inquiring.

That's not it, you have any surname. Most of us live here with masons and stonemasons, because in the early days, when there was a war outside, everyone came here to avoid trouble, so there were no native surnames here. The uncle replied enthusiastically.

So uncle, I'll ask you about someone: Do you know Zhao Shanfu? I asked immediately.

Yamafu? Who doesn't know him! Uncle said with a smile: This kid didn't call this name before, called Zhao Qianma, when he was a child, he drove the horse with his father, his father gave him such a name, and then after the outside came out, he felt that this name was really not good, so he took a name called Zhao Shanfu, this kid went out to work, and built a road to the outside of the village, and every time he came back, every family in the mountain sent a full 10,000 yuan! This kid is the first person we can get out here! Now it's all in the city, which one is better

I nodded, it seems that this jungler doesn't know that Zhao Shanfu is already in prison, and the culprit of all this is still me.

So what do you say Lao Zhao has to do with Zhao Shanfu? I then asked.

Lao Zhao is Zhao Shanfu's father's brother, that is, the kid's uncle.

So that's the case, by the way, uncle, I remember that Zhao Shanfu has a wife named Ji Yueqin who is also from here?

Yueqin? As soon as I heard this name, the uncle frowned, and at that moment, I suddenly felt that the boss's dizzy eyes seemed to flash a light that I didn't know what it was.

What the hell do you kid do? Know so many things? What are you asking for?

The uncle's face sank, staring at me tightly, and I could see that he seemed to be very nervous?

It's nothing, just a casual question about me perfunctory, and I walked straight out the door.

The gaze of the old man behind me was like a knife stabbing me in the back.

Carrying two bottles of wine out of the welfare club, Liu Yuwei was still waiting for me outside, after I roughly explained the situation, Liu Yuwei shook her head and said: Come on, I stood here for a while just now, at least 10 old men walked from the square and looked at me, their eyes were all red. Bare. Bare. The kind of disgusting!

I don't think there are any young girls in this kind of place, no way, bear with me. I said with a smile.

I hope I won't see such a strange old man in a while

To the east of the welfare cooperative, there was a dirt road, barely wide enough for a car, and after walking more than 100 meters, I found my destination.

At present, it is a well-built three-story building, and there is a signboard at the door, which is a big stone character.

This sign is also simple and straightforward, and other houses don't have this thing, it seems that it is still specialized in business.

When I walked to the door, I found that it looked like an antique shop: the first floor was very large, full of very strong wooden shelves, all kinds of stone carvings were placed in a small and large way, and there were various stone carvings, which looked like various animals, Buddha statues, characters from Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc., as well as stone busts and full-length statues of various former national leaders, etc.

Nicely carved. Liu Yuwei seemed to be a little interested at this time, stroking a carved lifelike monkey and said with a smile: Stone carving is a very difficult kind of sculpture, and the carving technician is very good in terms of craftsmanship and artistic feeling, and he must be a person who has been engaged in stone carving for decades to carve so well.

Liu Yuwei's artistic appreciation is estimated to have been cultivated since childhood, and I can only see that the carving is indeed very beautiful.

This young lady has a good level of appreciation, do you want to customize a statue for yourself?

With a young-sounding voice, a man stood up from one of the workstations in the shop and smiled at us.

The man looked to be in his 50s at first glance, with very old-fashioned eyes, and not a lot of wrinkles on his face, but his hair was gray. However, this gentleman is in the transition stage between middle age and old age, but he is in very good spirits, looking at us and smiling.

A closer look at his figure gave me a sense of shock: at first he was sitting, and when he saw that we were looking at him, he stood up politely, wearing a bib that seemed to be made of sandpaper, and his upper body was bare. Naked, the muscles of those arms are tangled, the muscles in the chest are like two ping-pong pong pong pong puffs bulging, and the arms are moving like a basketball rolling on the arm.

Although there is stone powder everywhere on his body and a little beard rubbing, he is such a full macho man!

Are you Master Zhao? I walked up and asked curiously.

You mean Zhao Lao, right? Now it's noon and taking a nap inside, I'm his apprentice, my surname is Kong, Confucius's Kong, my full name is Kong Jiasheng, are you here to buy stone carvings?

When I walked up to me, I saw that he was carving a full-length figure that looked like it was supposed to be a figure, about 30 centimeters high, and it was already half-carved.

We also came here, and I heard that the masters in this place are very good, so we came to see it.

Haha, sure enough, it's just that we don't have a good road here, but the stones are first-class, please sit down!

Kong Jiasheng seems to be not only a sculptor, but also a person who is quite good at business, and when he saw the two of us, he immediately decided that he was a big customer. Quickly served us tea and water, and then began to ask what we were going to buy.

In this process, I was casually talking to Kong Jiasheng, Liu Yuwei looked up, then pulled me and pointed to a corner to show me.

It was a small and inconspicuous corner of the room, and there were two statues that were similar to the one being carved.

The two statues have been gray for a long time, and they look like a man and a woman, but I can't understand the gray and look at Liu Yuwei.

The male one, I'm pretty sure it's the young Zhao Shanfu, although the appearance has changed a little but the basic appearance hasn't changed, and the other one looks like Zhao Shihan!

There will definitely be no sculpture of Zhao Shihan here, then the owner of that statue must be: Ji Yueqin!