I looked at the screen of my mobile phone, and the writing on it was quite clear, but Badu Ancient Village was a very unfamiliar place to me, even though it looked like the name of a tourist attraction, and my profession was very familiar with these places.
I have to understand, but my subconscious tells me that it won't be that simple.
"Have you decided to find this person?" Lao An stared at the screen of his mobile phone.
I don’t know what to say. At the beginning, I always thought that the disappearance of Lao Shengun and the others, including Peixin’s death and Qingyu’s appearance, might have something to do with Lao An, but now, Lao An’s expression and actions
They were all so natural. This natural look made me feel that maybe the old magic stick’s affairs really had nothing to do with him?
I suddenly felt a little regretful. I regretted that he had seen the content of the mobile phone video and text messages. In this way, even if I went to find someone, I would not be able to get rid of Lao An.
"I have to find him, it's very important to me." I stood up with my mobile phone. It was already getting dark, and I wanted to check information and prepare something.
"Don't be anxious yet." Lao An waved his hand to me and motioned for me to sit down again. He is a person who can distinguish priorities. Now that something like this happened, he dispelled the bad mood that Mazi Li brought to him.
He said: "The other party's intention is obvious. Since he has left you a location, I am not afraid that you will not find it. This place can definitely be found. The key thing is that the process may be risky."
I very much agree with Lao An's point of view, his analysis is quite thorough.
"You are a member of the circle, and you don't have much action right now." Lao An said, "I'll go with you."
I didn't agree, but I didn't refuse either. Now is not the time to leave Lao An. I understand my own energy. If I think I can escape from Lao An by finding the clues about the old magic stick, then in the end, I will be the one who suffers.
Lao An has a lot of experience and knows many more people in the old city than I do. He immediately asked someone to check out the Badu Ancient Village. Now that informatization and network coverage are so developed, looking up a rough place name should be
It's not a difficult task, but to my surprise, the people from Lao'an faction worked hard for two hours and found nothing. I didn't trust their ability and went to check it myself. The result was the same. Badu Ancient Village was like the first time.
Appear in the world and no one knows about it.
This result made me a little irritated, and I kept looking at the two-minute video on my phone, hoping to find something useful from the picture. But the person who shot the video was obviously on guard and controlled the perspective very well.
Except for the old magic stick and the two men with one arm each broken, almost nothing could be seen.
In other words, they didn't want me to know anything about Badu Ancient Village before I actually found the place.
"Show me your phone." Lao An stretched out his hand towards me. I hesitated. Anyway, he had already seen the content of the video, so there was no need to hide it now.
Lao An re-viewed the video. He is a very meticulous person, but I don’t believe that he is much more meticulous than me. He probably can’t see things that I can’t see. Lao An watched the video several times, and then
It was frozen at ten seconds and placed in front of me. This made me feel excited. Could he really see something?
The video may be the clearest at about ten seconds. The old magic stick raised his head, but it was far away and his eyes could not be seen. It could only be seen that he was very sloppy, but the two people with broken arms beside him did not.
Showing his face, no matter how much I look at it, I still can’t see what Lao An wants to express.
"Lao An." I put down my phone, looked at him suspiciously, and said, "Do you know this person?"
"I have never seen it before, I can guarantee that. You may have misunderstood." Lao An said: "What I want you to see is not the three people in the picture, but the tree behind them."
"Tree?" I suddenly realized that what Lao An paid attention to was the details.
Lao An said that the tree with the old magic stick tied to it should be a Yunnan pine. This kind of tree does not exist in the north and is mainly distributed in the southwest. However, a tree is not an absolutely reliable clue. Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi are all
There is such a tree.
"At least the goal is clear." Lao An stood up and said, "I'll go find out and try my luck."
There is a complicated underground interpersonal relationship in the old city. It is not clear what role Lao An plays in it, but he must know some people. After Lao An left, I tried to contact the mobile phone number that sent the text message.
, the result was just as I thought, the phone was turned off, that phone number was used entirely for sending text messages, and it was impossible to get through.
Lao An was gone for more than ten hours, and I waited from noon to night without eating or drinking. At about eleven o'clock in the middle of the night, he finally came back.
"How's it going? Did you find anything?" I couldn't keep calm and asked him immediately.
"It seems." Lao An smiled lightly and said, "Your friends are really important to you."
Lao An didn't lie about it, and then told me the result. If I couldn't find anything about Badu Ancient Village on the Internet, I had to find other ways. The Yunnan pine was a reminder that Lao An was in Lao An.
He walked around the city, specifically looking for people coming from the southwest, and finally found a cook.
The cook is the head chef of the largest Sichuan restaurant in the old city. He is a Yi. He grew up in Guizhou. When he was about 20 years old, he moved to Sichuan and learned cooking skills. From then on, he was at home all over the world. In the old city
I have lived here for almost five years. Lao An talked to him. In fact, I didn’t have high hopes at first. But what Lao An didn’t expect was that when he just mentioned Badu Ancient Village, the old Yi man was actually excited.
stand up.
Moreover, Lao An observed that among the old Yi people, there was an unspeakable fear among the excitement.
"The Badu Ancient Village is in Guizhou, not far from the hometown of the Yi people."
In the remote southwest, especially where Miao and Yi Buyi gather, there is basically no concept of a village. Some people call natural villages villages. The hometown of the old Yi people is near Beipanjiang. If we look at the current geographical location,
It should be in the Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Guizhou. In a mountainous area with harsh and complex terrain, traffic is blocked, and a village is like a small independent kingdom.
In that environment, survival is the first issue that needs to be considered. The ethnic composition of southwestern Guizhou is complex, and the Yi people are not the only owners of that land. However, if there are two villages relatively close to each other in an area, even if they are not the same
Unless there is an old enmity between the villages, they will live in harmony and help each other when encountering problems. The relationship is very harmonious.
The old Yi people lived in the village until they were twenty years old and were very familiar with that area. In southwestern Guizhou, the Nan and Beipan Rivers and the Hongshui River constitute three small regional water systems. Sometimes, when people have to go out
, the waterway may be more convenient than the mountain road. About sixty miles away from their village, there is a place with very good terrain. The Yi people once built a village there, which has remained until now.
The village has a long history, and its geographical location is relatively good. There are eight small ferries around the village, and you can go to any place around the village along the river. But from the time when the old Yi people can remember, they have been following this village.
There is almost no traffic in the village.
It’s not that I don’t want to interact with each other, it’s that I don’t dare to interact with them.
When I told Lao An about this, Lao Yi was still a little taboo. Maybe that village left such a deep impression on him that he can't forget it to this day. However, it was easy for Lao An to trick him.
The old Yi people said that the people in the village with eight ferries around seemed to be very withdrawn and hated interacting with outsiders. When the old Yi people were teenagers, they met a girl in that village by chance. That girl
She was very handsome, but she was lame on one leg, but the old Yi man was immediately attracted to her and liked her very much. After returning home, he told his parents that he wanted to marry this girl and asked them to go to Badu Village to propose marriage.
.However, his parents severely reprimanded him and told him that he was absolutely not allowed to associate with anyone in Badu Village.
His parents said that the people in the Badu Village are all freaks. Because the old Yi people’s village has a long history, they know the Badu Ancient Village better than anyone else. It is said that the new born in the Badu Ancient Village
Babies, regardless of gender, regardless of their health status, will inevitably be disabled by their biological parents within a few days after birth. Or an arm will be amputated, or a leg will be broken, and some will even blind a child.
Eyes, in short, this custom is quite weird and cruel. How many newborn babies can withstand such torture? Many died early under the torture of their parents, but only a few can survive and survive. It is because of this weirdness
Due to cruel and vulgar customs, the population of Badu Ancient Village has never been large.
"Why did they do this?" I thought about it. At first, I thought it was an ancient method of population control. In remote mountainous areas, arable land and various resources are limited. The limited resources to support the expanding population will sooner or later lead to
The simple economic model of the village has collapsed. I prefer to think so, because thinking from this perspective, the people in Badu Ancient Village may appear normal and follow this bad habit in order to survive. After all, I don’t want to deal with a group of weirdos.
But after thinking about it, this wishful thinking was rejected.
"I believe that the place Lao Yi mentioned is the Badu Ancient Village mentioned in the text message." After Lao An finished speaking, he summarized his opinions in one sentence.
I remained silent, but I already agreed with Lao An's opinion. In the video, the two people standing next to Lao An, each missing an arm, flashed past my mind.
Involuntarily, I felt a chill rushing from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. Whether I wanted to or not, I might have to face this ancient Yi village in person that was so weird that it was impossible to fathom.