Chapter 3: The Night Road
The house we rented was not hot, but we both had sweat on our heads, and I thought that the weirdos on TV would say something to us, but then the whole picture disappeared, and it became the background color of the TV again, and the music was played.
There was a burst of babbling singing, and I could hear that this was by no means a modern song, and if I had to say, this was the tune of the Republic of China period, or the kind that could only be heard on an old-fashioned record player.
I was so disgusted with this kind of music that I didn't want to listen to it anymore and withdrew the disc.
The next afternoon, Panzi and I spent the next afternoon in depression. In the evening, we arrived at the train station on time to catch the train that took us to the remote mountains.
During the ride, I took out my mobile phone and checked the Internet, and the remote mountainous area we went to was called Suiyuan Village, but I found that when we got off the train, we were only halfway through, and the rest of the road, the train could not be passed at all, so we could only rely on the two of us to find a way.
I didn't really think anything at the time, and I said that after getting off the train, I would just take a car or something, but when I got off the train, I realized that the actual situation was far more complicated than I thought.
We took a long-distance bus, then a tractor, and finally a donkey cart.
This donkey cart can't go fast at all, it's about the same as the speed of ordinary people walking, especially the old man who drove the donkey cart, he didn't talk much along the way, so he waved the whip and whipped the donkey, which made me and Panzi very stuffy.
At dusk, our group came to a loess slope, I looked at the endless dirt road in front of me, and I was secretly anxious, afraid that we would not be able to reach Suiyuan Village tonight at this speed, but at this time, the old man stopped the donkey cart and said to the two of us very seriously, "Get off." ”
Pan Zi and I were stunned at the time, and Pan Zi reluctantly smiled and asked, "I said, this is Suiyuan Village?" ”
The old man was not confused at all, he pointed to the distance with his whip and said, "Follow this dirt road, walk another fifty miles, Suiyuan Village will be reached, I can only send you here, and the rest of you walk." ”
I suddenly felt that we had been deceived, we took a donkey cart without a lot of money, and spent 200 "oceans", this old man said very well at the time, how could he be in this wilderness.
Pan Zi and I definitely won't do it, Pan Zi wanted to continue to reason with him with anger, but the old man's next words made us both very sensitive.
He said that Suiyuan Village is a well-known **, usually only the people in the village flee out, and I don't see anyone like us, and the head is squeezed in, and the village is haunted at night, either female ghosts lie on the window, or sing or comb their hair outside the window. He's kind enough to the two of us, he can drive the donkey cart here, and if he is someone else, he won't be able to give any money.
I thought that since he didn't send us to our destination, Panzi and I should ask for this fare back, or even grab it back, but the old man is a lot old, and he can't help tossing, we have to really do it, don't make him three long and two short. In the end, I sighed, admitted my bad luck, and let him go.
At this time, the old man was quite abnormal, and he suddenly smiled in a low voice when he left, I can't say anything about his laughter, anyway, it is weird.
Panzi and I carried our travel bags and continued to walk along this loess road. We are both in our early thirties, and in the prime of life, these fifty miles are nothing to us, and if we go on without stopping, we can probably reach the village before midnight.
But in fact, the mountain road was much more difficult to walk than the oil road in the city, and I wore thick-soled leather shoes, and occasionally when I stepped on a stone, my feet would hurt, and the speed of our walking became extremely slow.
Until 10 p.m., we were wandering along the dirt road, which was lined with sparse weeds. I don't know why the natural environment here is so special, but at this time, there are white fogs floating on the road.
This white fog is very strange, and it is divided into fragments, some places are particularly prosperous, you can't see through it at a glance, and some places are much lighter.
If this scenery is placed in the urban area, it will definitely be regarded as a landscape and attract many tourists, but here, for me and Panzi, it seems to be extremely evil. We looked at this white mist, and we were all uncomfortable
During this time, a strong wind occasionally blew, which not only caused the white mist to dance and scurry like a ghost, but also caused the weeds on both sides of the road to echo with it. Against the backdrop of the night, the weeds sway around like strands of hair growing out of the ground.
I felt that we were under too much pressure to go on like this, so I made a suggestion to Pan Zi to sing while walking, firstly to relieve boredom, and secondly, to divert attention.
Panzi said yes. We used to use singing to relieve boredom in prison, but it was not a serious song, similar to "Eighteen Touches" and "Blowing Lamas". The two of us sang "reach out and touch my sister here, there".
But after walking a short distance, Panzi suddenly stopped, stopped singing, and squinted and stared ahead.
I wondered what was wrong, so I followed his gaze. I noticed a white thing in the grass by the roadside, probably knee-high, and it looked like it was still covered with hair, tangled in dead grass.
Panzi didn't leave at all, and asked me what was that white thing?
I don't know what it is, say it's a rabbit? But it's bigger than a rabbit, say it's a lamb? But how can a lamb hide in the grass in the middle of the night and not come out?
I said to Panzi, "Let's go over and see." ”
We informants can't have guns, but we all have a habit of hiding a switchblade in our socks. We took out our knives and walked back and forth.
We stopped five meters away from the white stuff. I noticed that it hadn't moved all this time. It happened that there was a pebble under my feet, so I picked up a random one and skimmed it.
I skimmed it on the spot, and the pebble clicked on it, and then bounced off. I was stimulated by this click, and I thought of a possibility. If you can make a pebble make such a sound, it means that this white thing is also quite hard, and I thought to myself, could it be that this thing is a stone tablet with a moss appearance?
Panzi was about the same as I thought, and scolded the fuck.
When I got closer, I found that the white thing was long and wide, and it was wrapped in weeds, and I poked it with the tip of my knife and shaved some white hair.
These white hairs are indeed moss. I looked around again, and said to myself, since this is a stone tablet, and it should not be standing here, then it must have something special about it, and it will still have words engraved on it.
It was the first time for us to come to this remote mountainous area, and it was inevitable that we should be cautious when we encountered strange things, so I said to Pan Zi, "Let's not rush to leave, clean up the stele with the back of a knife, and see if there is any information on it." ”
Panzi nodded, and we went our separate ways.
I mainly scraped the front side, and I found that the switchblade was a sharp tool for hanging moss, and with a few brushes, this side was very neat.
By the moonlight, I saw that there were really words written on it, and it was still in italics-Suiyuan Village. Pan Zi is a little flustered, who knows what he thinks, he actually scraped the top, it is said that who has ever seen the top of the stele can write something, but he made such a mistake, there was really an unexpected discovery. He snorted and dragged me again.
I knew he must have found something, so I leaned over to take a look.
At the top of the stele there is a large slit, which at first glance looks like a natural crack, except that it is very straight and the edges are very neat.
Pan Zi spoke first, pointing to the stone stele, "This thing has been repaired, and there is a fault. ”
I agree with this statement, to put it bluntly, this stele was not so big before, but it was later remodeled and a new "signboard" was pasted on its original stele.
Pan Zi first picked the crack with his hand, saying that he felt that the fault was not so strong, and he could kick it open with his feet. He told me to duck to the side again, and then raised his foot and kicked it at the stele.
Pan Zi had a brute force, and after more than ten kicks, the fault was loosened, and the cracks became bigger and bigger. I didn't want Pan Zi to be tired, so I took advantage of the time to replace him, and also greeted him on the stone tablet with thick-soled leather shoes.
I didn't think much about it, so I tried to kick the stele apart, but there was an accident during this time.
Pan Zi leaned his face forward, wanting to observe the loosening of the stele up close, and at this moment, a stream of water squirted out from the stele.
The water was smacking on Panzi's neck, and I could see it clearly from a distance, it was actually scarlet, and it was slowly flowing down Panzi's neck.
Pan Zi wiped it casually, but after seeing that his palms were red, he was stunned, and he couldn't say what he wanted to say for a while, and his feet took a few steps back.
I can guess what Pan Zi thinks, this water looks like blood, and it is spurting out of the stone, so whoever is cold and does not stand up for this thing, you have to be afraid.
I didn't care about studying this stone tablet, so I hurriedly grabbed Panzi and asked him not to move, and touched his neck by the way.
By the touch, the water was quite thick, and it really meant a little blood, but I put my hand in front of my nose and smelled it, and found that the taste was a little sweet, which was completely different from the fishy smell of blood.
I had a guess, pointed to the stone and said, "Panzi, I guess what kind of plant grows in the stele, just now when I kicked the stele, I broke it, and then a stream of juice spewed out." ”
Panzi still looked at me with some disbelief, so I boldly leaned forward and put the knife in again.
I slashed the knife from top to bottom, and when I got to the middle of the fault, I found that the knife was blocked by something. I had a flashlight around my waist, so I shone it in again.
I saw that there were indeed plants inside, but they did not grow leaves, but were all small broken branches, and they were spread out in a mess like blood vessels.
I picked a place and rubbed it back and forth with a knife, cut off a small branch and took it out, I looked at it and remembered Yang Xie Cao, this grass was still accidentally chatting with a friend when I heard about it, although I didn't dare to determine whether the plant in front of me was Yang Xie Cao, but the juice of Yang Xie Cao was red.
I handed it to Panzi again. Pan Zi was staring at it at first, but then he became bold and took the plant with his hand and "played" with it.
I gave Pan Zi time to breathe a sigh of relief, and then beckoned him to join him and clean the inside of the fault with a switchblade, during which there would occasionally be a stream of red water spewed out, but we didn't pay much attention to it.
In the end, the two of us worked together to break the fault. At the moment when it revealed the true face of Lushan, I saw a human face painted on it.
This person's face is very rough, and he can only vaguely see a contour of his facial features, but on the whole, he is smiling hideously!