Little Bosses and Little Monsters

It was around midnight, Tianwang was sleeping soundly with Shu Jing in his arms, but suddenly opened his eyes.

From another room separated by a wall from them came a small sound, like something rubbing against the wall.

In the mountain night when the chirping of insects and birds had completely disappeared, even the slightest noise could not escape Tianwang's ears. This noise was louder than mice, but it would not wake up the sleeping people.Tianwang's first reaction when he woke up was to look at Shu Jing in his arms, Shu Jing was sleeping peacefully and was not affected.

He slowly and gently let go of Shu Jing, and rolled over from the bed without a sound.

A person sat up on the innermost bed, and Hou Qing's eyes were like waves soaked in the night in the darkness.

Tianwang made a silent gesture.

The two left the room without a sound and stood in front of the door of another room.

The old banyan tree behind the house was motionless in the night wind, its complex branches and leaves and air roots enveloped the low house, like a huge mouth slowly opening out from the abyss.

Here are all old houses built in ancient methods, and the walls are made of mud, glutinous rice and various broken rubble.

Tianwang leaned on the dirt wall and listened for a while, holding his breath, and mouthed to Houqing: "There is someone."

He heard the sound of a person breathing, the frequency was fast, not too rough, and it sounded young.

Hou Qing looked at the old copper lock on the door with his hands behind his back.

This seemingly enthusiastic and honest village head has a big living locked up in his house. It seems that they are not an old couple without a story.

There are also strange villages here and there.

There is silence amidst the bustle, hospitable but isolated from the world, while being xenophobic, they continue to marry girls from outside the village, as well as the feudal thoughts and contempt for human life revealed in the words of the old village chief, as well as the fact that they met at the lake today. The strange looking woman who arrived.

Tianwang stretched out his hand to hold the copper lock. Although he didn't have a key, the old lock couldn't hinder him. Just when he was about to violently unlock it, the old woman walked out of the room suddenly.

"What's wrong? Can't sleep?"

Her tone of voice was still so warm and harmonious, as if she was just entertaining them normally, but Tian Wang was a little shuddering, and she hurriedly withdrew her hand like a child who was caught.

Hou Qing took a step back silently, pretending that I was just here to breathe.

"My younger brother had a nightmare at night. He dreamed that a villain was hiding in the next room. When he woke up, he heard a sound from the next room. I told him it was a mouse, but he didn't believe it. He insisted on coming to see for himself." Shu Jing didn't know when He also stood at the door, smiling lightly, and his eyes fell on the old woman for a moment: "Children are full of curiosity, don't take it wrong, anyway, there are only some sundries in the room, let him look at it. You can sleep peacefully, you said, right?"

The village head's wife moved anxiously, looking at the locked door for a while, and looking at them for a while.

There was no movement in the room since the sound of people, but the old woman didn't know that a certain repressed strong emotion breathing sound had already exposed everything under the noses of Houqing and Tianwang.

"It's just a few stray cats that sneaked in to keep warm at night. Recently, a mother cat seems to have given birth to a cub. Did it bother you? I'll drive them out tomorrow. Don't go in now. They haven't been cleaned up yet. It's dirty and messy, and the mother cat is the fiercest when she has kittens, so I won't scratch you for a while."

Shu Jing said: "So that's how it is. It's better not to use it. They are just a few poor little lives. Don't bother others for us."

He turned his eyes to the boy who had been looking at him longingly: "Look, the master said it was a wild cat. Are you satisfied now, can you sleep honestly?"

Hou Qing chimed in: "That's right, you still think about picking other people's locks in the middle of the night, your brother is really worried about you."

Tianwang lowered his head in "ashamedness", and let Shu Jing lead him back to the house.

Houqing finally came in and smiled with the old woman: "It's nothing, I'm sorry to disturb you, this brat is just used to it."

The old woman breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly waved her hands: "It's okay, it's okay, my aunt is getting older and sleep less. Children are like this, go back to sleep."

"Okay, Auntie, you can go to rest too."

Answering the room, Xu Ran sat cross-legged on the bed and asked "what's the situation" with his eyes.

Shu Jing shook his head.The four of them were silent for a while in the dark, and heard the old lady walking slowly to the next door, she seemed to inspect it, and after making sure that the door was locked correctly, she walked back.

After confirming that the old woman had left, Hou Qing said, "It's true that someone has been locked up. Tianwang and I heard it."

Xu Ran's eyes widened: "This is illegal detention, who is that?"

"It's not clear yet."

Shu Jing murmured, "I'm afraid it has something to do with that mysterious son in their family."

"It doesn't take half a day to walk back and forth in this village. If you go to a friend's house, you will live there if you don't come back at night."

Xu Ran hesitated: "Why do you want to lock up your son? Could it be that the child made a mistake and taught him a lesson?"

Shu Jing asked him back: "It's just a lesson to my own children, why is there any need to lie to us, you are so nervous even to get close?"

Xu Ran was dumbfounded by the question.

Tianwang said: "There is something wrong everywhere in this village."

"I think so too." Houqing recalled what he saw during the day: "Have you noticed? We walked all the way, and the villagers we met were almost all men. Even if women don't go down to work in the fields, they are not seen in the yard at home." To a few, even the woman I met by the lake is also very weird."

According to the words of the old village chief, it is understandable that there are fewer women in this village, but it is really confusing that the traces are hard to find.

Xu Ran nodded: "And what the old man said, what do you mean if there are no women in the village, go outside to look for it? It's not my reality. With the conditions in Banqiao Village, no matter men or women, there are really few people who are willing to marry and stay. He said it Very lightweight."

Shu Jing laughed playfully: "Bless my ancestors, I have only had boys but no girls for decades. I have never seen such an ancestor, such a 'blessing'."

"Could it be that the feng shui of this place is really strange, otherwise how can it be done?"

"This place is surrounded by mountains and rivers. It should have been a good feng shui a few decades ago, but now I don't know why the air is stagnant, the water quality is chaotic, and it doesn't flow well. It has become a place of evil, and the village head is still happy that the villagers live long, and he will not be able to laugh after he passes away. Their spiritual roots have been bound here, and they will not be let go to reincarnate after death. I've spent a long time at the bottom of this mountain." Hou Qing said gloatingly.

This kind of feng shui conversion, Xu Ran has also seen in the book, it is mostly caused by the deep and heavy debt of life, and the accumulation of grievances in one place.How could such a small village, which is indifferent to the world, encounter such an accident?

"For so many years, it is absolutely impossible to conceive only a boy and not a girl. Whether it is a boy or a girl can be controlled artificially."

As a new youth in the 21st century, Xu Ran doesn't have a deep understanding of this malignant tumor left over from the feudal society. Hou Qing's words left a rough idea in his mind, but he couldn't believe it because it was too cruel.

"During the Qing Dynasty, some places had the bad habit of submerging newborn baby girls because they valued sons over daughters. Therefore, some local governments even erected a stone tablet of 'Strictly Prohibit Drowning Daughters' to control this phenomenon."

Xu Ran gasped for breath: "Impossible, the Qing Dynasty has been dead for many years, how could such a thing happen now?"

Shu Jing sighed heavily, and he didn't really want to admit it: "Look at this village, it has a bit of a modern atmosphere."

From the construction of the houses, the furniture used, to the living habits of the villagers, the time here seems to be stuck in the last century, but for the people in the village, it is the mountain or the What about their hearts?

Xu Ran lost his mind and said: "Damn...they are crazy..."

He wanted to ask whether Banqiao Village was not afraid of someone calling the police, but then he thought about it, if he hadn't lived here intentionally, if he hadn't observed the whole village carefully, if he hadn't been paying attention to the old village chief, if he hadn't just discovered the secret of the village chief's house, what would he have known about this place? What was your first impression?I'm afraid that the people outside are also the same. The proprietress halfway up the mountain is the most typical example. Outsiders' understanding of Banqiao Village is, without exception, the folk customs and honesty.

The warm smiles of the old village head and his wife when they entertained them, the warm-hearted old man who guided them, the simple villagers they met along the way, and the patient and gentle Qiangzi who never left the "crazy wife" at the entrance of the hot spring club that day , these faces flashed in front of him one by one, but he was suddenly not sure if he really saw their faces clearly, the sincere smiles on those ordinary faces instantly became blurred, they really understood how terrible what they had done thing?When they committed those cruel crimes, did they also have such simple and honest smiles on their faces?

This frightening scene plunged the room into a silence more suffocating than the night.

Till Tianwang rubbed his eyes and muttered in a low voice: "Sleepy."

The milky saliva successfully broke the heavy atmosphere.

He may not understand these things, or he may understand them but not understand them. In short, these are not worries that will be put into Tianwang's heart. His world is only eating, sleeping and relaxing.

I don't know who in the darkness couldn't hold back a laugh.

Shu Jing also stretched his brows, pulled his hand rubbing his eyes, and comforted him softly: "Go back to sleep if you're sleepy, there are still two or three hours before dawn."

The four of them lay down again, and no one mentioned the words just now. Tianwang's posture remained unchanged, and he returned to the sweet dream with Shu Jing in his arms.

The author has something to say:

I found that the fishwife article seems a bit too long