Except for refueling once in the middle, the car kept driving on the highway. Chujiu and I slept and woke up, woke up and slept again.
At dawn, Wan Li drove the jeep off the highway, turned onto a dirt road, drove along the dirt road for more than an hour, and stopped in a small town.
There was a wooden sign hanging on the breakfast stall, which said hot dry noodles cost 3 yuan. Chujiu was clamoring to eat what the hot dry noodles were. After eating, Chujiu curled his lips. Isn't it just dry noodles with sesame sauce?
"Little brother, this is the junction of Hubei and Anhui. We got here three hours earlier than originally planned. Now we have three hours of rest, whether you rest or wander around, three hours
We had to gather in the car afterwards, so I went to sleep in the car!"
After Wan Li had breakfast, he seemed a little tired. After traveling all night, it was really time for him to rest for a while.
For us, this night was not without some gains. At least when Wan Li talked to us, he no longer had the business-like feeling and started calling us "little brothers".
On the ninth day of the lunar month, I said I wanted to go around the town. The portion of hot dry noodles was too small and I was not full. I wanted to take a look at the scenery.
Compared with Chongqing, the temperature here is much lower. I still feel a bit cold wearing a sportswear and hoodie.
I thought Chujiu said he wasn't full and was just looking for an excuse to go out and play. After all, he stayed in the car for more than ten hours. Unexpectedly, he actually went to a soup dumpling shop and asked the boss for two more soup dumplings.
When the boss brought the soup dumplings, he enthusiastically chattered a bunch of words in dialect, and Chujiu smiled happily and nodded.
Chujiu said it was a dialect spoken by the elderly in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan areas. The boss said that their chili was very spicy, and he promised that he would want to eat it again. He also offered us two bowls of egg soup.
I thought the chili from Hong You Chaoshou was the hottest chili I have ever tasted. Unexpectedly, this time I just put a soup dumpling between my hands and lightly dipped it in a little chili oil. It was so spicy that I shed tears and coughed.
Chujiu's mouth was spitting out chili oil, with an expression of great enjoyment.
Several more middle-aged men came in outside the door. The men were wearing thick cotton-padded jackets, their faces were pale from the cold, and they kept rubbing their hands. Two of the men had shotguns on their backs. It was unclear whether they were returning from hunting or going out.
Hunting, because the snakeskin bags they were carrying were empty.
After the soup dumplings were served, the men poured chili peppers into their bowls. After a while, half the bowl of chili oil on their table was gone. One of the men said something to Chujiu and pointed to our table.
On the ninth day of the lunar month, I picked up the chili oil and handed it to the man.
A few people started chatting while eating, and I could only vaguely understand something about something strange happening.
When I was about to ask Chujiu, I saw that Chujiu was also listening attentively with his ears pricked up.
After coming out of the small shop, Chujiu told me that the hunters said that they had not found any prey in the mountains for several days, and it was as if they had disappeared collectively. A few days ago, you could hunt hares and pheasants not long after entering the mountains.
wild boar.
When we entered the mountains this time, we encountered something strange. It was so quiet in the mountains that there were few birds. A few people thought it was because the weather was getting colder and they all moved to the mountains. However, they walked deep into the mountains for a whole day and did not encounter any prey. Among them, they did not encounter any prey.
One person also said that there were monsters in the mountains and that the monsters had eaten them all.
"Haha, such an old man still believes in monsters."
Chujiu smiled and said some possibilities that he thought were possible. It was probably because there was a small earthquake before. People didn't feel it obviously. The more sensitive animals felt it and ran to hide in other places. When he was a child, there was also a small earthquake in the village.
A similar thing happened. For half a month, all the animals disappeared in the mountains, and then slowly came back.
"Guo Guo, let's go see some fishing. There are people fishing over there."
Chujiu pointed to the back of an old house. Through the small alley next to the house, you could see a large green pond. An old man was standing by the pond fishing.
After walking around the old house, my eyes brightened. Rather than a pond, it would be more suitable to call it a small lake.
The mist is rising in the distance of the lake, like a milky white gauze covering the mountains, leaving only the cyan peaks, more like a landscape painting with crisp brushwork and dense density.
The surface of the lake is like a bright mirror, reflecting the mountains not far away, adding to its beauty.
It's so shocking that there are such spectacular views behind several houses on the roadside.
The reflections of the mountains, green trees, blue sky, and white clouds complement each other with the real old trees lying under the water, which is really wonderful.
I stood behind the old house and looked at the scenery in front of me, thinking that this is probably the paradise on earth.
Chujiu had already run to the old man fishing, squatting on the ground, holding the fish basket with both hands, and almost stuck his head in it.
"Little baby, you don't have enough clothes to wear. The waterside is not as cold as other places. Don't look at it. You haven't caught anything in three days."
Seeing Chu Jiu's cute look, the old man put down the fishing rod with a smile, took out a tobacco stick from his coat pocket, took out a match and lit it with a click.
"Little doll, I'm not from the town. I haven't seen you before."
"I'm from Sichuan. Of course you have never seen me. Grandpa, your fishing skills are not good. You haven't caught any fish in three days."
The old man who was smoking a dry cigarette choked on a puff of cigarette and coughed when he heard Chujiu's words.
"You are a very upright little kid. Grandpa is almost dying of worry, but you still laugh."
"Don't worry, I'll give you a candy."
Chujiu took out two White Rabbit toffees from his pocket, handed one to the old man, and stuffed one into his mouth.
When he saw me coming over, he spread his hands and said that he didn't have any more. These two were given by Wanli Daguoguo.
The old man insisted on handing me the candy in his hand, and I told him that my tooth hurt and I couldn't eat candy. The old man carefully put the candy in his pocket and said he was taking it back to his granddaughter.
I walked to the lake and looked at the clear lake bottom, a layer of green sphagnum moss, and occasionally small fry swimming by.
“Grandpa, it’s not like there are no fish in this lake, right?”
The old man took a puff of his cigarette, stared at the lake in the distance for a while, and sighed: "There are fish. Old man, I have been fishing here all my life. I don't know why the fish haven't bitten the hook in the past few days. Also.
It’s very strange, I’ve never encountered it before.”
During the chat, I learned that the old man’s son and his daughter-in-law are working in the south. They go out after the Chinese New Year every year and don’t come back until the end of the year. I planned to work for a few years and wait for the children to go to school and send them to the city. This year it is said that
The factory's performance is not good and wages have not been paid.
Relying on his fishing skills, the old man caught a dozen fish every morning, walked to the county town, and placed them at the intersection of the farmers' market.
After going back and forth for a long time, everyone knew that this old fish seller knew that the fish he caught were big and cheap, and the wild fish had delicious meat. It basically took less than an hour for a dozen fish to be sold.