The sky is getting darker and darker, and the snow on the back of the mountain is covered with cliff branches, and from the cracks in the branches, there is no bottom, and the darkness is a little desolate. The pool is covered with a thick layer of ice, and dozens of long icicles fall vertically from it. There was a dead silence in the whole mountain, and even the dry branches and leaves did not move.

The old man wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and gently wiped the tears that fell to the baby's cheeks, smiled slightly, and stepped on the thick dead leaves up the mountain.

After a while, the old man walked to the platform on the mountainside, gently pushed open the simple wooden door, slowly placed the baby boy on the kang from memory, took out a match and lit the oil lamp, and the yellow lamp illuminated the small earthen house. The house was very simple, with a few books stacked against the wall on the gray homemade table, and a simple stove built under the black earthen wall, next to which were placed a few bags of food for the winter and some simple necessities.

The old man put down the hat and walked to the kang, and saw that the baby boy was still sleeping, so he smiled slightly and covered the quilt for the baby boy. Walked to the pine tree outside the door, knelt down in front of the earthen bag under the tree, took out some incense candle paper money from the crescent cloth bag, lit the incense candle and stood in front of the raised earthen bag, slowly smoked the paper money and threw it into the fire, a pair of bloodshot eyes couldn't help but gradually moisten.

"It's been more than 40 years, and I can't imagine that I have been here for 40 years. The old man raised his eyes and looked around, sighed long and said: "These years, it is really unforgiving, I have become a little old man in the blink of an eye, no children, no daughters, no worries, in fact, I think this is also very good." You are always like the fairy in my heart, you know everything, just like the blind fortune teller in Nanqiaotou, of course, he can't be compared with you at all, he is a deceitful trick, and you are different, you always pinch your fingers to know the future good luck. Your boss said that I was stupid, and indeed, until now I still haven't understood what you said back then. Oh, by the way, I met a poor boy yesterday when I went down the mountain, and he was only a few months old and suffered this calamity, alas!" the old man wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes with his sleeve and continued: "There is a perennial war outside, and it is even more difficult for the poor to live, and this life is gone! If you say no, it will be gone, let alone hunger, and he is so young that he should not suffer such a sin! I want to take him in, just as you did when you took me in. It's so quiet here, there's no one to talk to, so I can only talk to you a few times a day. Today is the first day of October, and it is also the day of your old immortal's death, I went down the mountain to buy some incense candles and paper money, I wanted to buy some more fruit, but the depreciation of the coins outside here is too frequent, and I have saved a year's savings for only such a small thing. ”

As the old man was talking, he suddenly heard a cry from inside the house, and the old man hurriedly grabbed the crescent moon cloth bag and walked quickly into the house. The baby boy was lying on the kang and waving his hands wildly in the air, kicking the quilt with both feet, tearing his throat and crying, his face flushed.

The old man hurriedly stepped forward to pick up the baby boy, and while coaxing him softly, he kept caressing his back with his hand. In the middle of the night, the baby boy stopped crying and fell asleep with his eyes slightly closed. The old man gently put the baby boy on the kang and covered it with a quilt, walked to the corner of the wall to light the stove, and boiled a few taro in an iron pot. When I went out, I stuffed a few thick sticks into the kang door, and walked into the house and sat on the edge of the kang in a daze.

For many years, there were no children, no daughters, no one to talk to each other, and I was alone in this huge mountain. Now that there is a member in the house, the old man is undoubtedly the happiest, but the problem of food has become the root, and the child is so young. In the middle of the night, the old man extinguished the stove, took out the boiled taro from the iron pot, took a plate of pickles, and after a simple meal, he went to the kang. Lying on the hot kang and leaning sideways, his eyes staring at the dark red crystal on the baby boy's chest without blinking, and he was even more puzzled?

The next day, when the sky was gray, the old man got up and dressed on the kang and pulled out a bag from under the table. The bag contained some medicinal herbs that Lao Dao dug in the mountains. He wrapped the baby boy in a thick padded jacket and hurried down the mountain. Although the mountain road is a little steep and rugged, the old man has walked this road countless times, and he knows that it is narrow, wide and uneven, and he is already familiar with the road. When it was almost noon, he walked into a village pharmacy with the baby boy in his arms, and after exchanging a little money, he went to a herdsman's house next to him, bought a dairy sheep and two hens, and returned to Nanshan without stopping for the baby's food.

The days of the two people went by, day after day, year after year, winter went to spring, spring came to winter solstice, and the cycle began, and the years were like a white horse passing by, making people look old in an instant.

Ever since he lived with the baby boy, the old man had discovered many strange things. The mosquitoes, snakes and ants in the mountains have disappeared around the earthen houses on the mountainside, except for the fact that there is hardly a living creature at the bottom of the mountain, and the whole mountain is quiet and terrible in the middle of the night. The baby boy looks like a sick body, but he has never been sick once, what to feed and eat, it is very easy to bring, but every year on the first day of October when he falls asleep in the middle of the night, the baby boy seems to see a terrible picture, like an electric shock, his eyes are full of tears. For these strange things, the old man was a little unimpressed, and he didn't think about it, and as time went by, it became a knot in his heart that he couldn't get rid of for a long time. Seeing the baby boy growing up and being sensible and filial, the old man also buried these things deep in his heart and did not say anything.

In the twentieth year of the Republic of China, the baby boy has grown into a teenager, and the old man is named: Baishan. Because he had been busy in the fields for a long time and suffered from the scorching heat and winter, his skin was wheat complexion, and some of them were dark, and he looked a little different for his age; his facial features were angular, his eyebrows were slightly loose, and his two eyes were black and bright, and he looked a little deep and clear; his body was slightly thin, and he had a feeling of weakness and impassivity, and he was full of bookishness.

Bandits are rampant outside the mountains, warlords are rioting, and the people are complaining, and in order to protect themselves, they betray their relatives and compatriots in exchange for groveling and prolonging the rest of their lives.

The mountain was peaceful, the sun rose and sunset, the smoke of the war could not be seen, the roar of guns could not be heard, everything was so dull and quiet. During the day, Bai Shan went down the mountain with the old man to do farm work in the fields of Tanbian, and at night, the two sat cross-legged on the hot kang, and Bai Shan listened to the old man's story about him with a fascination on his face. When some necessities of life are used up, the old man will also take Baishan out of the mountain once, and Baishan can see the outside world.

In the past fifteen years, the old man treated Baishan as a relative, but never mentioned his life experience. Human flesh is mortal, and eating grains and grains cannot withstand the wind and frost of the years after all. The old man was getting older, and many things were obviously beyond his strength, and he finally couldn't afford to be paralyzed.

In the two years when the old man collapsed on the kang, Bai Shan went down the mountain to grab medicine for the old man, inquired about home remedies, took care of the old man's urgent needs, carried the food of the two people, and ran at both ends of the mountain, while busy with the crops in the field, while going back to the small earthen house to solve the hunger of the old man. The old man looked at this half-old boy who was sensible and filial, taking care of his daily life and diet like a little adult, and he would always think of himself back then, because he could always see his shadow in Baishan's body.

As far as Bai Shan is concerned, the first thing he saw since he could remember was this old man with white hair and a wrinkled face, teaching him to walk, teaching him to speak, teaching him to read and write, and teaching him to distinguish between loyalty, treachery, good and evil. And what he heard the most was the world in the old man's mouth, the world was sinister, people's hearts were unpredictable, and he could seek people's lives for his own selfishness. What the old man said was completely opposite to the world in his own eyes, and in his heart the old man was the best person in the world, just like those people in the villages dozens of miles away from the mountain, with a kind face and approachable face.

In the past fifteen years, he has been very puzzled by his life experience, and every time he asks about the old man, he seems to have something unspeakable, and he always cleverly transfers his words, and over time he no longer asks. And he also has reservations about the old man, that is, when he sleeps in the middle of the night on October 1 every year, the strange dream that is like a magic spell that haunts him.

It was as if it was another world, where the sky was connected to the sky, and the earth was connected to the earth, and there was no end in sight, and it was impossible to see the way out. It was blood-red and hung low overhead, and its ground was dark and uneven. Suddenly, a baby boy less than 50 centimeters tall, dressed in a black Tang costume and wearing a black Tang hat, suddenly appeared, walking on this road with no beginning and no end. In this dream, he is just a pair of eyes, unable to move, unable to speak, like a puppet, his eyes melt into the blood-red sky, floating above the baby's head, irresistibly appearing in this strange world, observing this baby boy who appears out of thin air. The baby boy walked at the same distance and walked unhurriedly, like a lonely alternative in this world. Suddenly, a black boulder appeared in front of the baby boy, and a woman slowly appeared on top of the stone. The man sat with his back to the baby boy, wearing a hairstyle in a fragrant bun, dressed in a wide gray plain robe, and falling from a rock. Although he has not heard of his appearance, he has been born from this person's leisurely state, and his demeanor can tell the person's appearance and appearance. The baby boy stopped behind the woman, and tears gradually welled up in his dark and shining eyes. As the baby boy cried, Bai Shan, who was floating in the air, gradually felt pain in his heart, and couldn't help but shed tears. Just when Bai Shan's eyes were full of tears and his heart didn't know what to do, suddenly, the baby boy's black and shiny eyes instantly turned red, and he turned his head to look at the direction of Bai Mountain in the sky. As soon as Bai Shan glanced at him, he felt as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss, and his breathing suddenly became difficult, as if he had been choked by someone, and the fear in his heart couldn't help but gush out again and again. In a panic, he hurriedly closed his eyes and dodged, not daring to look at the oppressive eyes again. And at this time, it was when Bai Shan woke up, his eyes were full of tears, and his black face turned pale with shock.