"You continue to play, and I will solve the major issues in life."
Lying on the stone slab, leisurely basking in the sun and enjoying the mud bath, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I said hello to my friends and prepared to find a place to deal with it.
"I think you just want to be mean and find a place without sun."
"Bah! Do you need to cheat? When have I not been the first?"
I ignored Xiaopang's teasing, got up and ran along the river.
"Qin Feng, can you run in another direction? That side is upwind. Do you want to suffocate us all to death?"
I turned around and ran in another direction. About a hundred meters away, I found a hidden pit, which happened to be not far from Sha Tin.
I randomly picked a few leaves of an unknown weed. The leaves are as big as a washbasin. The cotton is soft and strong and will not be broken. It is the first choice for friends when they go to the toilet in the wild and forget to bring paper.
After I finished solving the big problem, I just jumped from the sand to the river. I saw an old man wearing strange clothes sitting on a stone not far from the river.
In such a hot weather, the old man was actually wearing a long shirt and trousers. It looked like the clothes were still of some age.
I'm sure the old man is not from Lijia Village. I can recognize everyone in Lijia Village just by looking at their backs.
The old man stared at the water and sat on the shore with his back to me. I guessed it was someone from the next village passing by to rest.
Just when I was about to return to the shore to find my friends, the old man turned his head and shook his withered hand at me.
"Little doll, come here."
I walked to the old man in confusion, not knowing what he was calling me to do.
The old man stared at me for a long time, the wrinkles on his face forming several layers when he smiled.
"Little doll, what are you doing here?"
"Let's play in the water with them. Grandpa is from a village where I haven't seen you before."
After I asked, the old man showed some inexplicable expressions on his face. After a while, he wrinkled up his smile again and said:
"Grandpa? That's right! I came up from below!"
"below?"
I looked downstream. Although I had never been there, I heard from adults that there were several villages there. I thought the old man must be from one of the villages downstream.
"What are you doing sitting here? Your cloth shoes will get wet after a while."
Looking at the cloth shoes on the old man's feet, which were not far from the water, I didn't have the nerve to directly say that I might as well go barefoot. The cloth shoes were extremely uncomfortable to wear when they got wet.
"I'm waiting for someone, I've been waiting for a long time!"
"Waiting for someone? Waiting for a long time? Then why haven't you come yet?"
Not only was the old man dressed strangely, but he also spoke in an incomprehensible way, so I asked him casually.
"Hey, it's almost here. I want to ask you a favor. Can you wait here for me for a while?"
When the old man said this, there was no hint of asking for help. It was as if he was casually talking about something at home, and he didn't even turn to look at me.
I was stunned. Please help me? They are all from nearby villages. I feel a little embarrassed to refuse. After all, I am so old.
Don't refuse, Big Fatty and the others are still waiting for me to play in the water.
I was in a dilemma. Looking at the old man's slightly hunched back, I thought, I should play less water today.
My grandfather also often told me that if you encounter someone who has difficulties, you should help them if you can within your ability.
"Okay! I'll go over and talk to them first."
The mud on my body had dried in the sun by now, and every step I took was painful, and the skin all over my body felt an endless tingling sensation.
I turned around and walked back step by step. I completely ignored the old man sitting on the stone under the scorching sun, and there was no shadow cast on the ground.
"Why did it take so long?"
Big Fatty had crawled out of the water and was standing naked by the river. When he saw me coming back, he grabbed a handful of mud from the water and threw it over.
"We were delayed for a while. There is an old man in the village down below. He is sitting in front waiting for someone. He seems to have something to do and asked me to wait for him for a while."
Following the direction I pointed, Big Fatty and the others looked downstream, their brows and eyes full of confusion.
"Where is there anyone? Who from the lower village would walk along the river?"
"Why don't you just sit there?"
I turned back and pointed to the place where I was just now, rubbed my eyes, and looked puzzled as well, where is the person?
Maybe it's because the sun is too strong, so we need to change places. I discussed it with my friends and decided that I would wait for the old man first. After a while, when they finish, they can just come and call me.
I jumped into the river and let the water wash away the mud on my body. The river water centered on me became even more yellow.
When the friends saw this, they grabbed the mud and threw it at me, and then jumped in with a plop. The big fat man yelled to see who could swim farther, and swam downstream first.
Watching a few people swimming hard downstream, I thought I would have to go there soon anyway, so I swam behind them.
Ten minutes later, I watched the adults on the edge of the sand field getting farther and farther away, and the big fat man floated in the water, indicating that he could swim back.
This is everyone's default rule. You can play in the river, but you can't leave the sight of adults.
Big Fatty and the others said that they would come to me after a while and began to swim back.
Thinking that the few dozen meters ahead were where the old man had been, I simply didn't go ashore. I pulled my arm forward and swam forward.
Suddenly I felt very strange. Even though the sun was so bright, the water temperature was getting lower and lower. It was completely different from before.
I even felt goosebumps starting to form on my skin. Could it be that there is an underground spring under the water?
We usually don’t swim to this place. However, where we swam, there was also an area where the water temperature was extremely low. The adults said it was because there was an underground spring at the bottom of the water.
An underground spring is just a spring. It is generally not too big and has a limited impact on the water surface. As long as you swim through this area, the water temperature will recover.
I swam forward vigorously, wanting to leave the underground spring area as soon as possible. It was easy to catch a cold due to the hot and cold conditions.
If you catch a cold from playing in the water, let alone grandpa, even your old-fashioned father will probably be upset and will probably get a beating.
"Grandma, there's such a big spring underneath. After swimming so far, it's getting colder and colder."
I have already seen in the water the stone that the old man was sitting on.
Are there any figures of the old man around? It seems that he must have gone back to the village with the person he was waiting for.
With the water temperature, I really couldn't bear to swim back the way I came. I decided to swim to the shore and walk back to meet my friends.
My location was only ten or twenty meters away from the shore. I turned around and swam towards the shore.
Suddenly a piercing cold feeling spread throughout my body. I couldn't help but shudder and moved my hands forward fiercely.
But my body stayed in place and did not swim forward. My ankle was tightly grasped by a cold hand.
"Are you here to wait for someone for me?"
A broken gong-like voice came from behind me, and I recognized it as the old man from before.