The village is just over a mile away from the Yellow River, and apart from the village well, there is only water in the Yellow River near the village. I think that the thing that killed Gao Xiaowen should have come out of the Yellow River. Many people drown in the Yellow River every year, and the bodies of monkeys and many people who drown during the flood season are washed from upstream to hundreds of kilometers downstream.

Could it be that the one who killed Gao Xiaowen was a water ghost who was drowned in the Yellow River? But why did it come to Gaojia Village? From the point of view of time, the person who killed Gao Xiaowen and the person who kidnapped Yang Shujun should not be the same thing. Last night, after Miss Bai and I pretended to scare away the villagers and rescued the fox, we were afraid that the villagers would return, so we didn't dare to delay too long in the village branch, and left the village soon after leaving the village branch. When we walked to the reeds, the fox sensed danger and led us to the mound for refuge, which was between eleven and twelve o'clock in the evening. The fox sensed the danger, which meant that the thing was in front of us, so it was impossible for it to run to the Gao Family Ancestral Temple to scare Gao Xiaowen to death.

From this, I think that what scared Gao Xiaowen to death was probably the thing I saw when I came out with the fox in my arms last night, the thing jumping around in the village branch compound, that was a water ghost? So, what is the kidnapper of Yang Shujun, is he also a water ghost? If so, could it be said that that thing got into the Yellow River after taking Yang Shujun away? You must know that people can't survive in the water without the help of oxygen supply equipment, and the game I gave Yang Shujun shows that his life is very hard. In this way, there are two possibilities, one is that the thing that kidnapped him did not take him into the Yellow River, and the other is that Yang Shujun is already dead and cannot be detected by fate... Thinking of this, my heart can't help but tighten, I believe that not only me at that time, but also friends who are reading this book at the moment must also hope that it is the former possibility, not the latter...

I just think my head is big, whether it's a water monster or a water ghost, it's clear that there are at least two of them... Suddenly, I thought of the undecomposed female corpse that I fished out under the bridge of the river behind their village when I rescued Xiaohu, the son of the village chief of Zhao. The woman's body was in a village upstream of the tributary river, and when water was brought from the Yellow River to the tributary river, it was washed downstream. That female corpse may be a water ghost, a water ghost that sucks human blood, but I don't know if she has anything to do with the water ghosts that appeared in Gaojia Village...

After hearing me say that it might be a water monster or a water ghost that killed Gao Xiaowen, those villagers were full of fear, and Gao Xiaowen's wife stopped crying. The village elder's face was gloomy, and his expression looked stiffer than the statue in the middle of the temple house.

"What's the panic?!" The old man said to the two villagers, "You two, take Gao Xiaowen's body home first, and then choose a day to bury it..."

The old man's composure made me feel that he might know something. At that time, I didn't ask anything, and pulled Miss Bai to follow the villagers and walked outside.

The door of the temple house was crowded with villagers, and when Gao Xiaowen's body was carried out, they all made their debut, and there were bursts of panicked cries and discussions in the crowd.

"Alright, alright." The old man looked at everyone, "Worship the ancestors' tombs first, and talk about other things later." ”

In a closed, almost isolated village like this, the village chief has absolute authority in the village. As soon as the old man said this, the villagers immediately fell silent.

"Ah Leng, what are we going to do next?" Miss Bai asked in a low voice.

"Let's see."

I thought to myself, no matter whether Yang Shujun lives or dies, there is no way to find him now, and we are in a hurry. From this old man, you may be able to know something inside.

Under the command of the old man, several villagers also brought pigs' heads and offerings from nowhere and placed them at the door of the temple house. Then it was incense burning and paper burning, and the smoke was in the sky above the temple floor, and those villagers worshipped and worshipped. After tossing for more than an hour, and finally finishing the worship process, the old man waved his hand and walked in the direction of the ancestral tomb first, the villagers followed consciously and quietly, and Miss Bai and I followed last.

It's cloudy again, and it's raining a lot during this time, so it will rain again. The barren grass and small trees on the mountain behind the ancestral grave of the Gao family swayed in the cool breeze, which looked particularly desolate. As soon as the old man gave the order, the two villagers used brick knives to brush the reconciled viscous mud onto the exposed green bricks of the tomb. I couldn't help but wonder, why did the fox steal the head of the ancestor of the Gao family? After seeing the process of worshipping the ancestors of these villagers, I felt that this Gaojia village was full of mystery. After brushing the mud, four or five villagers flew with shovels, and the grave was completed in a short time. Then it was late afternoon when the old man ordered the villagers to disperse and go home.

Scattered raindrops had already begun to fall from the sky, making a 'fluttering' sound on the blades of grass.

"Come..."

I pulled Miss Bai and was about to walk towards the old man, but the old man walked towards us instead.

"You two come with me."

We followed the old man to the village branch, which was no less secluded and gloomy than the ancestral temple.

The room was dark, and for a while, the old man just sat there smoking pot after pot of dry cigarettes, and did not say a word. From time to time, wind mixed with rain seeped into the house, making it even more deserted.

I really couldn't help it, plus I was worried about Yang Shujun, I was a little upset, and asked angrily, "Uncle, why did you call us here, do you want to investigate us for stealing foxes?" Or, don't believe my words, think that Gao Xiaowen was not scared to death by the water ghost? …”

The old man took a hard puff on his cigarette, and was about to speak, when there was a sound of footsteps outside.

"Village chief, they're all here."

When a villager came to the door, he stepped aside, and several old men walked in.

"Well, sit down." The old man knocked the cigarette pouch pot.

"Village Chief, what did you call us here?" One of the old men looked at Miss Bai and me with a wary look and asked.

"Village chief, is calling us here related to Gao Xiaowen's death?" Another old man asked.

The village elder nodded, let out a long sigh, and said gloomily, "I think, maybe he's coming..."

"You mean..."

The village elder nodded.

"He? Who is he? I frowned.

"Tall grandfather."

"Tall grandfather?" Miss Bai and I looked at each other, "Isn't that person already dead?" ”

The old man sneered, "Of course I'm already dead, otherwise how could I become a ghost?" ”

"Uncle, what's going on, tell me, maybe I can help you." I said.

The old man lit another pot of cigarettes, and in the smoke, he spoke slowly...

It was 1942, in the midst of the Sino-Japanese War. Chiang Kai-shek, in order to stop the iron hooves of the Japanese invaders, ordered people to blow up the embankment at the mouth of the Yellow River, causing hundreds of thousands of people to drown and tens of millions of people to be displaced. Large-scale yellow floods have been formed in the downstream areas, and crops have been uncultivated for many years. In 1942, a rare drought broke out in Henan, causing a massive famine. The drought has spread to some areas in Shandong, bordering Henan, where the Yellow River has bottomed out, and crops in the fields south of Gaojia Village have died. Fortunately, the village still has some food for the first year, which can barely fill the stomach.

This old man is in his seventies this year (2oo5), and he is still a half-old child at the time. One day, he was playing with a group of children of the same age in the west of the village, and they saw a person lying in the ancestral temple. When they ran over to take a look, they saw that the man was about thirty years old, and he looked like he was dead, and several children mustered up the courage to touch it, and felt that the man still had breath, so they ran home and called the adults. At first, those adults thought that they were fleeing from Henan, because from time to time there would be escapees coming to Gaojia Village, and the kind-hearted villagers would give them a little bit of food from the amount of food.

However, when the adults came to him, the man did not look like he had fled the famine, for his clothes, though tattered and old, looked like a military uniform. At that time, the common people were afraid of being soldiers, and the people of Gaojia Village were no exception, and there was a dispute over whether to save the person, and in the end, a man named Gao Lao Shuan put the cigarette bag and pot into the waistband of his pants and said, "It's also a human life, if you don't save me, if something happens, I'll carry it myself."

Gao Lao Shuo carried the man home, boiled some millet porridge and fed him to drink, and took care of it carefully, and two days later, the man was completely conscious. The man told him that his surname was Xu, and he was originally the political commissar of an engineering company of the Eighth Route Army in the revolutionary base area of Taihang Mountain, and when he was carrying out a task of digging a cave, he encountered a sudden incident, and the troops were forced to transfer, and then for some reason, the company was disbanded, and he suffered from the wind and cold on the way back to his hometown, coupled with hunger, and he couldn't walk to Gaojia Village, and saw a temple in the west of the village, and wanted to go to the temple to rest, but fainted at the temple gate.

At the beginning, the people of Gaojia Village were both respectful and afraid of Na Xu's political commissar, and they called him chief when they saw him. Later, seeing that Political Commissar Xu was humble and polite, I heard that he was also from a poor family, and the army he was in before fought for the poor, so he dared to approach him. After recuperating in Gaojia Village for more than a month, Political Commissar Xu's body gradually recovered.

Gao Laozhuan has an only daughter, who is at the age of marriage, with a big butt and a round face, hardworking and simple, in the eyes of the rural boys at that time, she belongs to the standard good wife and mother type. After going back and forth, the girl had feelings for Political Commissar Xu. Political Commissar Xu's parents were killed by the devil's plane, and there are no relatives in his hometown. Because of his gratitude for Gao Laozhuan's life-saving grace and his liking for the girl, Political Commissar Xu settled in Gaojia Village and became Gao Laozhuan's son-in-law.

The following day, the little surplus food in Gaojia Village was finally eaten. The villagers began to pick tree bark for food, and although they faced the possibility of starvation to death at any time, none of those villagers left the village to flee the famine, because they had to protect the ancestral grave of the Gao family.

I don't know what day it was, the political commissar Xu ran to the Yellow River before dawn every day, and only came back at night. Gao Laozhuan asked his daughter, and Political Commissar Xu didn't say what he was doing. Finally, on this day, Political Commissar Xu found the hungry and dying head of Gaojia Village and asked him to gather all the villagers. Political Commissar Xu waved his hand and said, come with me, I know where to eat. Then, he took the villagers to the Yellow River, walked four or five miles east along the river, pointed to a place and said, dig down, and the food is right down here.

The villagers dug down about five or six meters in disbelief and dug into the wet soil. After digging down for a while, a hole collapsed in the 'boom'. There was a large space under the cave, and many fish weighing several pounds were curled up in the wet mud at the bottom of the space! …

"You mean, the commissar's surname is Xu?" I asked.

"Hmm." The old man nodded, and lit another pot of cigarettes.

Why do I ask this, because I suddenly thought of the 'Xu Shi' mentioned in the Eighth Route Army engineering diary when Miss Bai and I were in the cave behind the stone village...

Tips: The new domain name "biquge.info" has been launched by Biquge, and the original domain name is about to be discontinued. Please tell each other, thank you!