C15 Pasture odd

After eating, the sky outside completely darkened. Uncle Li said to me, "Child, since you've come, Uncle can't treat you unfairly. You don't have to put in effort either. You just have to look at the farm and feed the fodder."

After chatting for a while more about family matters, I followed A-Cong to the farm, which was a field of grass, and was surrounded by fences, not as big as I had imagined. There were five or six cattle in one circle, and in the middle of them was a small wooden house, where A-Cong usually lived.

It was already very late and I had been tired all day. I simply tidied myself up and fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I was awoken by a rooster crowing and started the day's work. I didn't have much work to do, just feeding each of us a portion of food in the morning and evening. The two of them quickly finished the work and the past few days felt very fresh and after less than half a month of living, I began to get bored.

After lunch that day, I found the red bead when I was rummaging through my luggage. I had forgotten about it for so long that after playing with it in my hand for a while it occurred to me that I might as well take it to the jewelry store and put it on a rope and tie it around my neck.

It is strange to say that ever since I put it on, I have nightmares every day. Every day I wake up aching all over my body, and every day I wake up later and later.

I didn't pay much attention to it until one day, when A-Cong saw my face, he jumped and said I felt like a living person with dark eye sockets.

I was frightened by this, too, and thought back. I had been awake since six or seven in the morning, strong and energetic, and had not been able to sleep well since I had put the bead on my head, and had grown lethargic every day, and had lost a great deal of weight.

I hastily took off the red pearl on my neck and recalled its origins. It really was quite an evil character. After hearing from A-Cong that the boss of the village coffin shop knew some of the feng shui techniques, I went to visit him.

The owner of the coffin shop carefully examined the bead and told me, "The Yin Qi in this bead is extremely dense. The Yang Qi in my body will be absorbed if I touch it for a long time, and it might even be something from the ancient tomb. I don't dare to lightly estimate its value, but it's still useless to people, so I decided to throw it as far away as possible."

I was anxious to get rid of this evil bead. At the foot of the mountain, about three or four miles away from the pasture, A-Cong and I discovered a deep hole about half a meter in diameter. The hole was covered with weeds, making it hard to find.

From then on, strange things began to happen one by one around the farm.

Most of the strange things happened less than a month after A-Cong and I threw the bead into the pit at the foot of the mountain.

The first half of the month was fine, but the oddities were mainly concentrated in the second half. Every day, A-Cong and I would sit in the sun and watch the farm, feeding each other in the morning and occasionally mending the fence.

It was in the tenth winter, and the cold breeze from Liberia blew without tiredness. It was early in the morning when it was dark, and if there was nothing important, then A-Cong and I would have already climbed onto the hot brick bed of the wooden house as soon as it was dark. It was said that the wooden house was draughty and draughty, and for this reason, it was built with an inner and outer layer of wooden planks, with a windproof cloth between them.

I don't know what day it was, but at night I heard the howls of the animals outside the cabin. I thought it was the animals, but when I woke up the next morning and looked outside, A-Cong and I were stunned. At the southernmost corner of the pasture, in a sheepfold, a sheep was lying on its back with its four legs facing the ground, frozen in a pool of blood.

When A-Cong and I approached the carcass and examined it closely, we discovered two finger-sized holes in its neck. They looked like they had been bitten by something. Could it be that the wild beasts on the mountain came down to eat the animals?

If he thought about it carefully, he realized that there weren't any large carnivores on the mountains nearby. At the most, there might be a few wild dogs, mountain cats or something like that, even wolves were rare. Besides, even if predators went down the mountain to look for food, what was the meaning of biting a sheep to death? There didn't seem to be much blood, because most of it was frozen on the ground.

It was useless to think about it here. A-Cong and I had dug a hole in the ground nearby and hastily buried the body. I had to inform my uncle and aunt in the village that A-Cong's job was to look after the farm, but now one of them had died. I really didn't know how to explain.

No one wanted to go to the village to tell Uncle Li about this. In the end, it was me, the eldest brother, who compromised and went to the village alone to tell them about this matter.

As soon as Uncle Li heard that the sheep had died, his eyebrows immediately furrowed, and his eyes revealed an ominous glint. Looking at him, I was a little scared, thinking, Isn't it just a sheep that has died? Was there a need to look so ugly?

Without waiting for me to explain in detail, Uncle Li waved his hand and said, "Let's go. Quickly, bring me there to take a look."

I brought Uncle Li to the scene. The sheep's body had already been buried, leaving behind a large pool of frozen blood on the ground. After explaining the specific situation, Uncle Li frowned and said, "I've been breeding here for five to six years. Other than a few dead lambs that died from the cold in the middle of the night, there has never been such a situation."

Ah Cong didn't dare to say anything at the side, as if he had committed some huge mistake. I was also puzzled, Uncle Li's family had nurtured them for five to six years without such a thing happening.

The sheep was already dead, and Bei Feng was howling in the air. Other than shivering due to the cold, there was no other way to deal with it. I rubbed my hands together and said, "Uncle, it's really cold out here. Let's not just stand there foolishly. Ah Cong and I will definitely take good care of this. We definitely won't let anything happen again."

Uncle Li nodded and said, "Yes, we need to strengthen the management. A dead sheep loses a lot of money. This time we'll treat it as a lesson. The two of you take it easy. If another livestock dies next time, you will be fined."

"Yes yes yes, Uncle, you can rest assured. Quickly go back to the village and stop being frozen." A-Cong said on the side.

Uncle Li answered with an "En" and went back to the village. Ah Cong and I carefully checked the fences around the farm but didn't find any damage. Then, how did this thing get into the sheepfold?

The cattle and sheep were not in the pen during the day, and the sheep and cattle were grazing in separate herds, so they didn't wander too far from the pasture. It was probably not during the day when something sneaked into the pasture, and A-Cong and I were watching, so that was the first thing to be ruled out.

After thinking for a long time, I still couldn't possibly stay awake in the middle of the night to keep an eye on the culprit. With such a cold weather, before we could even find the culprit, A-Cong and I would have already glorified the culprit.

It had been three or four days, and the pasture was in a state of peace. I thought this would be the end of it, but just as A-Cong and I let our guard down a little, another sheep died in the fold, lying in a pool of blood as before, frozen solid and uneaten.

This is bad, if Uncle Li were to know about this, he would definitely be so embarrassed that he would turn angry. He would definitely scold us, reprimanding us is nothing, but I'm afraid that he will deduct our wages.

I thought about it and decided not to tell him about it. I had to investigate this secretly. When he thought about it again, he felt that he couldn't. First, he had to pretend to monitor the money, so who was going to pay? What's the point of Uncle Li paying for Ah Cong and me to come here?

Finally, I thought of an idea. Aiya, I was really stupid. Although I couldn't install surveillance, I still had a phone. The phone had video functions.

The cabin was filled with electrical wires, and although I could use electrical and mechanical handles every day, there was almost no signal and I couldn't get on the Internet. I had almost forgotten that I had a cell phone.

For the next two days, I aimed my phone at the sheepfold, slept in the cabin, and took down my phone early the next morning to see if I had caught anything. The first night I took less than two hours, and the phone ran out of battery, but luckily there was nothing wrong with it. The next night, I pulled the plug out of the cable and charged the phone while I shot the sheepfold.

I cleaned up my phone's memory and recharged it while I filmed it. Everything was ready, just waiting for the moment the killer showed his fox tail. Early the next morning, I went up to check.

My phone is gone. I don't know which grandson passed by the pasture in the middle of the night and took my phone away.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. To think that I had forgotten about the thief. After throwing away my phone, I became completely dumbfounded. How am I supposed to find the culprit?

At this moment, the door of the sheepfold was opened. A-Cong was driving the sheep out to graze when he suddenly shouted, "Brother, quickly come and take a look. This sheep is so strange."