It took a whole day to climb over this small Aoki Mountain, and when Gu Changsheng and Lao Li walked to the foot of the mountain, it was already almost dark, looking at the village under the mountain, Lao Li asked Gu Changsheng to stop practicing. This form of walking could be seen by the villagers as foolishness, and it was already dark, making it inconvenient.

The village below the hill is very quiet, and there are no warblers or barking frogs. Even in this dim sky, I can still vaguely see that most of the houses in the village are made of wood, and the wood used should be the green wood on the green wood mountain on the back, all of which are arm-thick dry green wood driven into the ground vertically, one by one, the small gaps in the middle are glued with yellow mud, and the roof is covered with smooth blue-gray stone slabs. It was the first time Gu Changsheng had seen this style of house, and this kind of blue wooden house gave people a sense of nature, as if it blended with the green mountains.

Gu Changming and Lao Li walked into the village together, passed by several houses, and found that the doors were all hidden, and there were no lights in the houses. Gu Changsheng didn't want to rush to knock on the door, maybe the people had rested or had not returned from work. So Gu Changming and Lao Li continued to walk towards the village, trying to find the residents in the house who still had the lights on and the owner had not yet slept, but they passed by a few households that were still like this. Gu Changsheng and Lao Li had to continue searching, and walked forward for a short time before they saw the lights in a wooden house on Po Tianlong from a distance, so the two walked quickly towards the wooden house.

Adjacent to the wooden house, a pile of slender dry firewood was scattered in the small courtyard outside, the bamboo chicken coop was empty, and the pigsty was also wide open, and there were no livestock in it. The wooden door was closed, but the light from the house shone through the windows in the small courtyard.

Lao Li had to knock on the door, knocked a few times, an old voice came from the house, "Who is it?", Lao Li replied: "We are in front of Anping Town, we went out to visit relatives, there was a delay on the way, it was dark, so I wanted to borrow your house to rest for one night." After waiting for a while, the wooden door opened a small crack, and the people inside saw a large number of Gu Changsheng and Lao Li through the crack in the door, which should be seen as a young man and an old man, so he opened the door and beckoned the two to enter.

The furnishings in the house are very simple, a wooden table, a few hoes and a wooden plow are placed in the corner, and a few small benches are scattered casually in the house. The one who opened the door was an old man with a dark complexion, with horizontal and vertical wrinkles on his face like a ravine, the old man should be in his sixties, and there were already some hunched old men on his back beckoned Gu Changsheng and Lao Li to sit down. Gu Changsheng and Lao Li were not polite, and each took a bench and sat down.

"Old man, are you alone at home?" asked Gu Changming.

"There's also an old wife, but she's paralyzed, and she's in the inner room. So saying, the old man looked into the inner room.

"What about your children?" Gu Changsheng whispered to the old man.

"Hey, I still have a son, but, hey, forget it, I think the two of you are hungry, and the old man will go and get you some food. The old man's voice was slightly lower, and his face was a little sad.

Gu Changsheng suddenly regretted asking this sentence, which aroused the old man's sadness. Hearing that the old man was going to prepare a meal for himself and Lao Li, Gu Changming and Lao Li hurriedly refused, "Don't dare to bother the old man anymore, we brought dry food when we came, and it is already a great favor for us for the old man to let us stay here." Gu Changsheng said.

"Brother, let's sit down and talk, we don't have to bother getting food," Lao Li also said to the old man.

When the old man heard this, he didn't insist anymore, but also found an old bench and sat down and said, "It's okay, old man, I haven't talked to anyone for a long time." ”

"Why don't we go out and talk, it's probably cooler outside, and the moon is nice tonight." Gu Changsheng proposed.

Lao Li naturally didn't have any problems, and the old man also agreed, so Gu Changming and Lao Li took the bench and walked out of the room, and the old man put out the oil lamp before following out. The old man was still a little happy in his heart, so that he could save some lamp oil, and the village could only buy lamp oil in the town, and it was not cheap.

When the old man thought of this, a thought suddenly popped into him, could it be that this young man thought the same way, so he proposed to sit outside? Maybe he thought too much, but if this is the case, then this young man is a little interesting.

So all three of them sat down in the moonlit courtyard. "Brother, what did you mean by what you just said, why haven't you talked to anyone for a long time?" asked Lao Li to the old man.

"You must have seen it when you came, why are there so few lights in this village at night? In fact, there are not many people in this village anymore, only those of us who can't walk and don't want to leave our homeland stay. The old man asked himself.

"Old man, why is this happening?" The average farmer household has the mood of relocating to the land, and it is easy not to leave the place where their ancestors have lived for generations, and this place is backed by green mountains, the stream is abundant and the water is abundant, and the fields are also fertile, so Gu Changsheng is very surprised by this situation.

Gu Changsheng's reaction was normal in the eyes of the old man, yes, who would want to leave their homeland if they could survive?

"Hey, it's a long story, this side of the water and soil has long been raising people here. The old man sighed and said.

"Brother, what do you say?" Lao Li asked.

The old man did not sell it, and continued to explain: "I think you have already seen it when you entered the village, in fact, the land outside the village is fertile, and it is still possible to feed the people of this village. But about 30 years ago, the villagers began to realize that the grain they planted was not as good as the harvest in a year. At first, the grain was just a little less deflated, and the villagers didn't pay attention to it, guessing that it might be a lack of soil strength, so they all burned straw and sprinkled it in the soil, and got some manure to pour it in the soil. But it didn't play a big role, and the villagers didn't take it as a big deal, relying on the sky to eat, and it was normal to be full for two years and hungry for two years.

But it was like this for four or five years in a row, and it was not normal, and it was only when the villagers realized that something bad was wrong. But all kinds of methods have been tried, but it still doesn't work, it looks like fertile soil, but it can't grow much food. But even so, the villagers did not think of moving away, and although life was hard, it was still possible. However, it was not until more than ten years ago that the land in the village suddenly could not grow any food. The seeds were buried in the ground, and the next day they were turned over and found to be rotten. At this point, the villagers had to look elsewhere, and the villagers were scattered, and there are not many people in the village left. ”

"And such strange things?" Gu Changsheng whispered.

"It's weird, the green trees of Aoki Mountain behind are getting denser and greener every year, and the weeds in the fields are getting more and more lush every year, but as long as it's grain, if you sprinkle it, you won't get any grains. The old man added.

But the old man bowed his head again and said to himself: "Strange things, strange things, it's also retribution, retribution." Although the old man's voice was like a mosquito and a fly, Gu Changsheng and Lao Li still listened to it all over the place.