C1

The villagers all called the fruit of the bracts as bracts. It was already harvest time, and due to the good summer rains, the bracts were very sturdy. They were over a foot long, just like small sticks. The leaves of the bract rice were starting to turn yellow, and its purple roots clung to the soil beneath its feet. No matter how strong the wind was, it would not fall, and would live up to the expectations of the farmers. I could see it from here, piled up in the farmyard with golden bracts of rice and the big yellow bracts of rice pasted on the sides of every family pot in the village. A gust of wind blows and the whole field will be filled with the sound of "hualala". This sound is the note of happiness, the music of harvest …

Beneath his feet was a land of generosity, nurturing those who worked diligently and were kind, and nurturing those hooligans who always wanted to get what they wanted without working. At night, there would always be people who would come out in tricycles to steal rice. On the roads between the fields, the tricycles were nimble, they stole rice and drove away, but they couldn't even catch a shadow. My uncle Bao Daniu was such a person. Ever since he had contracted the land to someone else, he had bought a tricycle, and when the rice was ripe, he would often go out at night to steal other people's rice. During the day, he pretended to be impartial and virtuous. Every time he met more people, he would talk loudly, and regardless of whether other people liked it or not, his words would always roll in his head like fart. If someone spoke to him out of politeness, he would immediately get into a good mood. Not more than ten sentences later, he began to tell them about his family history, proudly claiming that he was a descendant of Genghis Khan, whom he had hoped to hear reverently, but every one who listened to him had the word "disdainful" written clearly on their faces, and they all thought to themselves: "Just insult Genghis Khan." He didn't seem to notice. On the contrary, he became more and more talkative and his voice became more and more high-pitched, as if the student leaders of the May Fourth Youth Movement were encouraging the people to "fight for power outside the country and punish the traitors inside." His words never went beyond the details, and from time to time he came up with the simplest terms to ask his listeners if they understood.

Once, I met Old Liang on the road. He had a wild duck in his hand, and when I asked him how he had caught it, he said he had shot it with a crossbow. So we talked about the crossbow on the road. At this point, my uncle Bao Daniu came back with the sheep. He heard us talking about the crossbows and joined in the conversation, but he made the crossbow sound like "milk". He asked us loudly, "No, you know what milk is? Milk is milk. " Old Liang and I had nothing to say to each other as we hurried away, but as I was busy, I tripped over bricks on the road and said to myself, "This road is not built well."

Bao Daniu didn't miss the opportunity to ask: "Do you know what is the road?"

"I really don't know about that!"

"Why are you so stupid? The road is between two drains for people and traffic. "

"A drain is a long, hollow pit that has been dug by hand. It is used to drain water. It is called a drain. The ditch was made with a shovel. Do you know what a shovel is? "

Old Liang and I looked at each other. "That's even more so. Uncle, you're really knowledgeable." "So, what's the name of the gap between the thighs?"

"You're too stupid. Isn't that just a shitty ditch?"

Old Liang and I quickly fled.

Now that the bracts are ripe, I go to the fields every night to prevent the village hooligans from stealing them." In the long and slow days of the People's Commune a few decades ago, there was a kind of farming that looked at autumn, and now it was gone. But now, there were people stealing rice, so people had no choice but to come out and watch the fall. At that time, after the first autumn of each year, when the weather began to turn cold and the dew fell in the night, the tall stalks of the crops rushed to maturity, one day at a time, looking just like the adolescent girls, rich and radiant. In those days, there was widespread poverty in the countryside. When families were unable to eat their fill, someone had already set his eyes on these semi-mature crops, "Ten members are nine thieves, whoever doesn't want to starve to death will have to do so." Therefore, the production team leader had to arrange for someone to watch over the crops at night. This was called watching over the autumn. The so-called tall stalks of crops, are tall body of bracts rice, sorghum and other crops. Autumn is a very pleasant life, with a straw mat spread out under me, lying in the field in a simple hut, head on a pickaxe handle, looking at the sky full of stars and the moon like a hook, the cool breeze blowing gently, blowing away the day's fatigue, unknowingly fell asleep. There was another benefit to watching the autumn, which was that he could steal from under his watch. The male laborers who watched the autumn walked through the village at dusk with mats and bedrolls between them. They used their heavy, firm steps to tell everyone that no one was watching the autumn tonight and that no one was going to steal it. In the latter half of the night, watching the children of the autumn family sneakily came to the autumn crops, brazenly stealing. At that time, everyone was hungry to the point of going crazy. When they saw something that they could eat, they quickly stuffed it into their mouths. So when the two of them met on the road, they said, Did you eat? Even if one person did not eat, the other person would not treat him to it. No matter how tight the defense was, there would always be a loophole. There would always be people who would take advantage of the night to steal the rice. Moreover, the success rate of stealing the rice was almost one hundred percent. At this time, the brigade department's security officer and nurse Xiao, the big belly, will be wandering in the village alleyway. It was said that he was able to eat fifteen steamed buns and three big bowls of pork stew, so people called him Big Belly. As for his real name, very few people knew it. That day, with the big socialist stick in his hand, he strode with firm socialist steps to visit the bramble thieves who had dug up the walls of the socialist society. His small, beady eyes were vigilant as he observed every trace in the village alleyway. His hard work paid off. He finally found a few bract rice sticks that had been chewed on by a pig in a house. A faint evil smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. He finally found evidence that this family stole the bract rice. It turned out that he had seduced the mistress of this house before, but she had not taken the bait and hated him for her love. At this moment, old and new hatred welled up in his heart. So he taught the school's Red Guards to tie the bran sticks together with a thin hemp rope and hang them around the old woman's neck. Then he made her hold a worn aluminum urinal in her hand and beat the urinal while he yelled, "I stole the bracts. A bunch of bracts is fine. I have no money. I gave it to a pig." Following behind was a large group of children jeering. That woman had lost all her face in front of everyone, and her dignity had been trampled on until it was completely gone …

On this night, the night was not very good. The sky was covered with swimming black clouds, sometimes covering the moon, making the world seem pitch-black. Occasionally, the moon would emerge from the clouds, illuminating the world as if it were day. According to the village elders, this night was called Yin-Yang Night, it was a night where ghosts moved frequently. If one went out, one would encounter moving ghosts. I'm not afraid of these so-called ghosts. I'm only in awe of them. Reverence was not a superstitious act nor was it a profound theory. It was the most universal moral code in a real society.

The bracts that go to my house pass by a graveyard where mulberry and elm trees grow. When I arrived at the bracts, I felt a cold wind blowing through my body, making me feel uncomfortable. Following the direction of the cold wind, I saw that, under the hazy moonlight, the mulberry and elm trees in the graveyard were swaying strangely. They were not very tall, but their shadows under the moonlight were very large.

In the fall of the north, when the sun was still blazing during the day and the wind was cool at night, the whole field was filled with the chirping of the insects, so pleasant that they had no idea that the cold season was coming down on the land where they lived, and that their lives would soon wither in the changing climate. In fact, the bugs lived very freely, they lived far away from the noise of the world and only cared about the things closest to them, they were not worried about today's matters, they did not worry about tomorrow's matters, they ate and drank as they pleased, no wonder Qu Yuan also envied this kind of life where one drank the dew of magnolia, the flower of autumn and autumn fell, and they lived very peacefully, so they were very happy.

I gathered some dry branches from the elms at the edge of the graveyard, and some tender bracts from the bracts. I made a fire at the edge of the ground, and set the bracts on top of the fire. Not long after, the air was filled with the fragrance of roasted rice. After a while, the bracts were cooked, and I took a ear and began to eat them one by one, so that I could eat more elegantly and not black in the mouth. The roasted rice grains were slightly crispy and tasted very good. They were carefully chewed and slowly swallowed. There was even a hint of sweetness in them. In a remote countryside, pick a persimmon or pull a cucumber out of a random plot of land. You don't need to wash it or use your hands to roll it up and you can just put it in your mouth. Yes, there's nothing up there. Apart from some dry raindrops, some marks of wind, some sun temperatures, most of all, there is an untimely bug. However, they were all fragrant. It was a type of clean fragrance, and the same goes for the rice bracts.

At this moment, the sounds of children chattering could be heard from the graveyard. The sound was getting closer and closer. I felt that it was strange. Why did a group of children come so late at night? The children came to my side, talking and laughing. I looked and saw that I didn't recognize any of these children. I ask you, whose family's child are you? At this late hour, who brought you here, aren't you afraid? They laughed and did not answer. When I looked more closely, I could see that some of these children were naked, and others had a circle of grain wrapped around their waists. I was a little puzzled, but I didn't think too much about it. I said, you eat the bract rice, so they eat the bract rice in the fire. I said that you guys should hurry home after eating the rice. When the adults see that you guys aren't going home, they should be worried. Whose child? I thought. The adults in the house were relieved to have their children running around at such a late hour. I said, you guys go home, I have to go home too. Then a child spoke up and said, "Is your school still taking in preschool students?" I looked at the boy again, a strange light shining in my eyes. I said there would be enough now. I looked at him and saw that the child in the shadows had no skin at all on his head. It was a skull, and he was eating a stalk of rice from his white hand. I was shocked and suddenly understood. It was already so late, a group of children without adults leading them, daring to play in the wilderness of the Lonelytomb. How could they still be human? I steadied my emotions and calmly said, "The bracts are delicious, I'll go and get some more stewed rice for you." After saying that, I started to walk towards the rice bracts. Suddenly, I started to run wildly. Even if the rice bracts were on my face, I didn't feel any pain. The terror had already far surpassed the pain. At this moment, the moon also entered the clouds, the world was pitch-black, and he could no longer see anything. Those damn children also chased after him, while shouting, "The sprouts are so delicious, I still want to …" The sound, carried by the night wind, drilled into my ears.

As the saying goes, hunger will not choose food, winter will not choose clothes, poverty will not choose a wife, panic will not choose a path. To get out of danger quickly, I ran. He was supposed to run towards the west side of the village, but he suddenly turned and ran eastward. After all, that was a graveyard. As I ran, I fell three times, flipped over twice, tripped over a branch, and did a two-and-a-half-week somersault. I fell headfirst into the big pit where the villagers had built the houses and gathered the earth, and because the soil at the bottom of the pit was soft, I did not fall in pain. I sat at the bottom of the pit for a moment to catch my breath and calm myself.

The pit was about five to six meters above the ground. It was seven to eight meters long and two meters wide. The pit was located right in the middle of the graveyard. I looked up at the top of the pit and saw that the surrounding weeds, branches, shrubs, and other plants were all growing towards the pit's mouth. Moonlight shone through the branches and leaves, lighting up the pit until it was pale white. It suddenly occurred to me that today was the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, and the fifteenth day of the month was when the yin energy was at its heaviest. In the middle of the night, I was chased by a group of ghostly children.

I sat there, looking around for an escape route. The wall of the pit was steep and straight, and suddenly I saw that the root of an elm tree was clinging to it. It was easy to climb out of the pit by following the root of the elm tree, but I couldn't climb out yet, because the kid who was chasing me might still be nearby. Rest first, I sat down quietly, but just as I sat down, I felt something hard against my hip, and I immediately stood up again. In the moonlight that shone into the pit, I saw something that made me take a deep breath. My hair stood on end, and I shivered all over. It turned out that the skeleton of a human was lying at my feet. Its bones were deathly pale and the two eye sockets of the skeleton were pitch-black. Its bared teeth were ghastly white as it looked at me with an evil grin … I stepped back until I reached the root of the elm tree on the wall of the pit. I turned and grabbed at the root to climb, looking over my shoulder, afraid that the skeleton would pounce on me at any moment. It's like an army. If they're already attacking us, it's not scary, because their targets and methods of attack are exposed, so it's not hard to deal with them. But if an army doesn't move, we don't know when, where, or in what way they'll attack us, and that's what makes people so worried, for instance, that a human skeleton is playing a psychological game with me! I was trembling with fear as I prepared to climb up to the top of the pit when I heard the faint sounds of a conversation coming from above. My spirits were lifted and I tilted my head to listen carefully. There were indeed two men speaking. I think that the two of them must have met at night, and now I am saved. I immediately felt elated and wanted to call out to them, but then I thought better of it and decided not to. I scared them and ran away, but still no one came to save me. The conversation was getting closer and closer to the pit. One of the voices sounded familiar, but for a moment he couldn't remember who it was. From what I heard, they were talking about winning or losing in the mahjong competition, like how we had just left the mahjong competition and were talking about the mahjong competition. I didn't think it was strange for the two men to come out of the mahjong complex in the middle of the night and chat while looking at the mahjong competition.

I was saved, but it seems that I was unlucky to the extreme. I rejoiced in my heart and was about to call for help when that familiar voice once again sounded in my ears. I suddenly remembered, isn't this voice Zhiguo's voice? He's been dead for three years, and his grave is near here. Only he was in his early thirties, and it was a good time for his fellow patients to feel sorry for him. He was so young that he had to die, and he said, "What's wrong with me? The babies that have been aborted are not even a year old!" The sickly friends were speechless, they all shook their heads and said, "That's right, at least you've grown up like this."

As a scoundrel, he knocked on the door in the middle of the night. I've never done anything wicked in my life, but I've come to see you tonight, and now I've run into a ghost. It's really bad luck.

The two of them, or more accurately, the more they chatted, the more they chatted, the happier they became. Even if they could run, they couldn't move, for fear of being discovered by the two ghosts. All I could do was hold my breath and try to keep calm. A cold wind blew, and I felt cold all over, and my body was shaking so badly that I could feel the fine beads of sweat seeping from my forehead. After being on tenterhooks for a long time, the hole finally stopped moving. Gone? I was still breathless, and it was eerily quiet. After a while, he still didn't speak. Probably gone, thank God, my nervous nerves finally relaxed a little, and I lifted my hand to wipe my sweat. After working for so long, I felt very tired, my back pressed against the wall of the pit, and my gaze fell on the skeleton. I thought to myself, quickly get out of the pit, and comforted myself in my heart, don't be afraid, there are no ghosts in this world, and after a person dies, there will be nothing left, not to mention a skeleton without any signs of life! Take a deep breath... Take a deep breath... Calm down... Calm down... I took a deep breath and adjusted my emotions. Soon, my emotions stabilized, and I felt relieved when I thought about the ghostly conversation I had just heard, which might have been a hallucination caused by a moment of mental stress.

I grabbed hold of the elm root on the wall of the pit and climbed up. I sat down next to the elm tree by the edge of the pit and listened carefully for any unusual sounds around me. After listening for a long time, other than the sounds of insects, there was nothing else. I fumbled for a cigarette, trying to compose myself. The Yin Qi in this cemetery is too heavy, let's smoke and expel it. Perhaps it was because of the strain, but my hand was shaking so badly that I hadn't even struck a dozen matches. I could see that the phosphorous surface of the matchbox had been scratched, but the match was still not lit. Could it be that something was playing a trick on him? My heart, which had just calmed down a little, began pounding again. I looked around nervously, but there was nothing there. He grabbed another match, and with a "chi", it was finally struck. I lit a cigarette, took a few long puffs, felt dizzy, closed my eyes, leaned my head against the trunk, and breathed deeply. Give me a cigarette. " A voice behind me scared me out of my wits. I opened my eyes in horror and saw a white, old, blue-veined hand in front of me. "I was so stunned that I wanted to turn around and look, but my neck seemed to have been grabbed by someone, and I couldn't move it. I wanted to ask you who you were, but I could only hear a strange gurgling sound in my throat, and I couldn't even make out what it was." Give me a cigarette. " The thing spoke again, the hand held motionless, so insistent, with a tenacity that would not withdraw until the cigarette was sworn. I took a deep breath, took a cigarette from my pack, and threw it at the withered hand. I can't stay here any longer, I thought. I have to get out of here. I suddenly leaped up, and before I could get far, I tripped over some grass and fell to the ground. Without caring about my painful knee, I jumped up and ran in the direction of the village, only hearing the sound of the wind in my ears, constantly getting hit by mosquitoes on my face. Some of the mosquitoes hit on my eyes, making me feel as if I couldn't care about all this anymore, I sprinted forward, and when I was about to enter the village, I stopped running and panted heavily. Give me another cigarette. " That hand actually stretched out again! I threw the rest of the cigarette into that hand and screamed, Here you go, I'll fucking give it to you, that's all! I shouted as I ran for my life towards the village …