Little Bosses and Little Monsters

The water surface is calm for a long time, and even the insects that stay on the water surface cannot be seen. The reflection of the green shade cuts the lake surface into several distinct color blocks, and the green layers of different shades are stacked to create a visual effect of a cut surface.A few bubbles quietly bloom in the center of the lake.

"Boom."

A stone shattered the mirror-like lake water and scared away the blisters.

Tian Wang squatted by the lake, staring boredly at a child playing by the lake not far away, who was making faces at him provocatively.

"What are you looking at?"

Shu Jing came up from behind.

"Is there any fish in this lake? Grab one and roast it." Tian Wang grabbed the weeds under his hands.

"Do you want to eat fish? Go back and ask Xiaohe to make it for you. How about steaming it?"

Tianwang stood up, moved his feet after squatting for a long time, and muttered childishly: "I don't want to eat."

"Okay then, I want to eat."

Hou Qing and Xu Ran bid farewell to the village head and his wife, and walked out of the courtyard. The native dog Ali stood in the backyard and stared at them from a distance. Tianwang glanced at it, and Ali turned around and ran away.

The four of them walked along the lake according to what the village head taught the day before.

On the road, they could still meet a few villagers carrying farm tools. When they passed the house of the woman who washed vegetables yesterday, they saw a woman with disheveled hair sitting on a small bench in the yard choosing vegetables. This time there was her Her husband, who seemed to be much older, turned away from them and chatted endlessly while binding firewood.

After getting closer, I realized that the woman was actually quite handsome. If it wasn't for the hair piled behind her head like hay, the old clothes, and the overly numb expression, she should be considered a beautiful woman.

The man was immersed in complaining about his wife and didn't notice their approaching, so the four of them also heard a general idea, which meant nothing more than "accusing the wife of not being able to have children".

When I saw this woman by the lake yesterday, although she was a little panicked, she still had the anger of a living person, but when I saw you today, she mechanically repeated the movements of her hands, and she didn't respond to the man's words at all, like a broken man. A rotten puppet, living an endless life day after day.

The four of them couldn't help but slow down in front of this family's door.

I don't know if it's a woman's sixth sense. She sensed the arrival of outsiders before her husband did. She tilted her head slightly and looked at them with a stiff expression, like a dull robot struggling to distinguish everything from the outside world.

Then she probably recognized them, and finally showed a little surprise.

Her husband finally sensed something and turned around.

Shu Jing nodded at him: "Excuse me, fellow townsman, how can I get to Qiangzi's house?"

The man was taken aback by the gentle smile that came across his face, and he stammered and pointed in the direction of Qiangzi's house.

"Thank you."

After Shu Jing and the others left, the man turned his head. His wife had lowered her head again, burying her pale face and eyes showing inferiority.

Qiangzi's family is in a more difficult situation than any family they have seen. Those two bungalows in the urban area are definitely classified as dangerous buildings and will be demolished in another day. Withered yellow hay protruding from the cracked walls , and the seemingly fragile roof make people doubt that this place can still provide a living function.

Hou Qing shook his head and sighed with emotion: "I would be crazy to replace me."

"Is there anyone there?" Xu Ran asked loudly.

At first there was no response in the room, and after waiting for a while, an old man with white beard and hair opened the door.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Hi, sir, you are Qiangzi's father, right?"

Hearing Qiangzi's name, the old man frowned and examined the visitor: "Who are you?"

Hou Qing pushed Xu Ran away, and quickly replied: "We are from the XX Charity Fund Association. Our association has heard about your family's situation and expresses deep sympathy for your family's misfortune. This visit is for a field trip. If it complies with the regulations, we can provide some help to your family, we heard that you still have two children in your family, right?"

Hearing this, the old man's expression changed from vigilance to hesitation. After thinking for a moment, he pushed open the door.

"Come in."

Xu Ran stared at Hou Qing dumbfounded: You are pretending/forced to pretend to go to heaven!Where do we get the charitable money to donate to them? ! !

Taking advantage of the old man's inattention, Hou Qing whispered, "Just say that you don't meet the requirements later. Where can he find us?"

Xu Ran bowed down.

The inside of the house looks more decent than the outside, at least the furniture is complete. Two children are inside the house, one is only three or four years old, and the other can’t even speak clearly. The grandma asked the child to sit in his arms. Coaxing on the bed, the older one looked at them timidly from behind the dining table, with a bowl of white porridge in front of him.

They noticed that there were several bottles of white wine piled up in the corner, not the sweet and fragrant green red of the village chief's house, but Erguotou with a high concentration.

Qiangzi's father dusted the bed surface with vicissitudes of life: "There is no other place, just sit down."

"No need, uncle, we can just stand."

"You can watch whatever you want, my family's things are here."

"What kind of work did Qiang Zi do before his death?"

The old man sneered: "What else can we do here? Farming and hunting. Our family doesn't have much land, and game is not easy to hunt this season. Not long ago, Qiangzi thought of a way to catch fish from the lake and sell them down the mountain. But the villagers refused to let me sell it once and never did it again.”

"Why not?"

"That's Fengzi Lake in Banqiao Village. The water and fish in the lake can be used by our village ourselves, but it's a taboo to sell them to outsiders."

Hou Qing nodded: "The wife who died with him, your daughter-in-law, doesn't she have a regular job?"

Qiangzi's mother, who had been sitting by the bed without making a sound, suddenly said with red eyes and hatred: "What are you doing to mention that woman? Besides harming our family, what else can she do?!"

"Okay, you're here again. Go to the back and see if the water is boiling." Qiangzi's father showed two deep marks on his brows.

There is no kitchen in their house, and all cooking is done on the stove set up at the back of the house.

Qiangzi's mother hugged her little grandson and went out through the back door with red eyes.

The eldest grandson at the dining table looked terrified, holding the iron spoon tightly in his little hand, and looked at his grandfather tremblingly.

Qiangzi's father let out a heavy breath impatiently, and suppressed his anger: "You go out too."

As if the child had been pardoned, Sa Yazi ran to the front yard.

Hou Qing smiled, wanting to ease the oppressive atmosphere in the room.

He briefly chatted with Qiangzi's father for a few more routine questions. Before leaving, Shu Jing looked at the wine bottle on the ground and said, "Drinking alcohol hurts your health, the old man should take care of your health."

Qiangzi's father didn't understand what he was talking about at first, but when he noticed the wine bottles, he said, "That belongs to Qiangzi. He used to have no other hobbies, but he liked to drink some wine. No one will drink this wine in the future." .”

They left the room and found that Tianwang ran out of the house at some point, probably out of boredom, and squatted on the wooden stake in the yard with the eldest grandson. Made of flour, the gray powder fell down, showing the prototype of a puppy in the child's shocked eyes.

Seeing Shu Jing and the others come out, Tianwang handed the unfinished stone statue to the child, who took it in a daze, opened his mouth wide, and didn't notice the snot dripping on his lips.

Shu Jing helped Tian Wang to knock off the stone powder that fell on his body, and the group left under the admiration of the little boy.

On the way back, Shu Jing muttered worryingly: "You can't stop for a while if you can't see it. Fortunately, no one else saw it. Don't do it next time."

Tian Wang lowered his eyes.

"The child has bruises."

Shu Jing was silent.

There were bruises on the arms under the boy's sleeves. On the day Qiangzi and his wife died, his wife Yueping had similar scars on the exposed skin under the torn clothes. Linking their poor family conditions and piles of wine bottles, something very It is easy to think of it.

When they were about to return to the village head's house, some ominous signals were transmitted in the wind blowing in front of them. They heard someone crying from ahead.

He quickened his pace, and it didn't take long to see a dozen people gathered around the lake, and a couple of men and women knelt on the ground and cried bitterly.

problem occurs.

In the center surrounded by the crowd lay a small body quietly.

The little boy who had made faces at Tianwang a few hours ago was actually dead.

The four of them looked at each other, and silently walked closer to observe.

The dead boy was wet all over. He should have just been fished out of the lake, but he was no longer breathing. An old man with a medical kit was kneeling beside him. After examining the corpse, he shook his head silently, declaring that he was hopeless.

The child's mother couldn't bear it any longer and burst into tears, holding her son's body in agony.

The fresh and fragile life force flowed away from this young body and sank into the icy lake forever.The desperate mother struggled to bury the child in her chest, trying in vain to call her child back with her own body temperature. Thin arms leaked out of her arms and lay powerlessly on the ground.

Shu Jing's gaze was fixed on the bare skin of that arm solemnly, and she turned her head to exchange a glance with Hou Qing, both of whom understood something.

After the child's parents took their son away, the moaning crowd gradually dispersed, and they heard someone talking in a low voice.

"Why did you drown another one? It's really bad luck recently."

"Recently, I dare not let my children play by the lake again."

"Is there something dirty, how can it be drowned in a good way?"

"Don't talk nonsense, this lake has supported us for so many years, how could there be a problem."

……

Xu Ran chased after a few steps and stopped the doctor who was about to leave after packing up his things. According to their previous knowledge, there was only one doctor in the village, so he was the one who diagnosed Yang Yueping's madness, although the medical certificate is already very watery. Obviously, but he still wanted to prove it.

The closer he got to the truth, the closer Xu Ran's favorability towards this village became to a negative number, and he couldn't even put on a good face towards the old doctor: "Please stay, Yang Yueping's psychiatric certificate was issued by you, may I ask how did you do it?" Determine her condition?"

"What, what Yang Yueping?" The old doctor was stunned by this straight-to-the-point rudeness.

Xu Ran sneered: "Yang Yueping, who was diagnosed as mentally ill by you, ran away from this village, and finally died tragically at the entrance of the hotel. It's only been a few days, you won't forget it?"

The old doctor's face was pale.

"You, you are, who are you?"

Shu Jing stared into his eyes, making the doctor unable to dodge: "Don't be nervous, we are not the police, and we will not do anything to you, we just want to prove something."

Hearing that they were not policemen, the old doctor relaxed a little, but what followed was a more dejected expression. He seemed to have been drained of all energy and energy, and he didn't even have the strength to straighten his spine.

Eyes as thick as wine bottle caps hung from the bridge of his nose, covering his dull and cloudy gaze.

"Hey, what else do you ask? What can I do, you guys, don't ask me, I can't help myself."

The old doctor clenched the strap of his medicine box, staggered around them, and left as quickly as if he were fleeing.

This amounts to an admission in disguise.

Anger welled up in Xu Ran's heart. He wanted to grab the old man and ask him if he understood what he had done and how serious a crime he had committed. A light piece of paper from him would be able to kill a struggling man. The woman was dragged back to hell, and beyond redemption.

But Shu Jing held him back, and he looked at the old doctor's back with pity, bent and old, crumbling.

"This village is united, he is isolated and helpless here, and many things are indeed unavoidable."

Xu Ran clenched his fists: "I must go to the police when I go out, and make everything here public, and these people must be punished!"

They were standing by the lake at this moment, with their backs facing the lake, and the villagers who had been watching just now had completely disappeared.

The hustle and bustle came and went in the same hurry, Tianwang moved his ears first, and when he turned his head, he saw a string of bubbles rising on the surface of Fengzi Lake, which was still like a pool of stagnant water just now.

It was the time when the sun was at its highest in this winter day, and in the sparkling light, they could see clearly that half a human face flashed past in the middle of the lake, and after that half face sank, a huge fish tail Pushing aside the surface of the water, a small wave splashed.

Hou Qing narrowed his eyes and licked his lips.

"It really is a fishwife."

Xu Ran was startled: "Fishwife?! Is that the kind of monster made by combining a dead man and a fish?"

"That's right." After prolonging the ending, Hou Qing curled up one corner of his mouth in the sunshine and in the eerie silence, showing a playful and dangerous smile: "This 'cannibal' village has finally waited to be killed." A day of food."

The author has something to say:

I'm thick and long even when I'm sick, I'm awesome.this bad season...