Chapter 18 page eighteen

At this time, another person climbed up from the valley. This is our fellow. We call him Wang Gourd. One of his characteristics is that he is older than the big shopkeeper. Beard, like a close relative of the goat.The second feature is that he has no words. Anyone who talks to him will usually get a three-word response: "To the point", "Nonsense". "Facing Li" expresses the meanings of knowing, confirming, agreeing, affirming, etc., while "Nu?cha" expresses negative meanings such as not knowing, not believing, opposing, negating, etc.The third feature is that there is no hair on his head, which is as smooth as a ripe gourd.Because he doesn't talk much and has no hair on his head, we call him Gourd, which means that he, like Gourd, has a mouth but can't speak.His surname is Wang, so he put his surname in front, and the full name is Wang Hulu.Wang Gourd was covered in blood and turned into a blood gourd. He didn't know whether the blood was someone else's or his own.He was exhausted, and fell to the ground wheezing as soon as he climbed up, like an old donkey just unloaded from the mill.Little Hu pulled the rope up, and I knew there were no one of us down here, and even if there were, there were only those who could not speak.However, the shopkeeper hadn't come up yet, and suddenly my heart sank like a cold stone falling into the river, dangling.

The big shopkeeper is gone. If the big shopkeeper is still there, they will not abandon him anyway. Hu Xiaozi sat on the ground and rested for a while, then went to pick up grandma, and said to Wang Gourd: "Put the dog on your back, and don't take out the things in your mouth. This is it? Swearing will hurt your mouth." Wang Hulu carried me on his back. Without the help of his forelimbs, he couldn’t climb this steep hillside. He tied me on his back with a rope untied from a tree, and carried me up the hillside like a mule. climb.I felt that his body was wet. I don't know whether it was blood or sweat, and my clothes were all wet.He was wheezing, and the smell of blood and sweat on his body made it hard for me to breathe.The closer he got to the mountain ridge, the slower he climbed. He took a few steps and rested. I twisted and struggled on his back trying to climb down. Since my mouth was blocked by grass roots, I couldn’t speak, so I had to express my feelings with body language. the meaning of.These days, I have become a gourd just like him, the difference is that he is an active gourd and I am a passive gourd.

Finally struggling to reach the top of the slope, the sky is already bright, and people, mountains, trees, and stones can be seen clearly.The guys who climbed up first gathered here to wait for us, and they all opened their mouths in amazement and surrounded us when they saw us in this situation.My head was a little dizzy, and I felt that there was nothing in front of me except a bunch of mouths. The big man rushed over and asked, "What's the matter? What's the matter? Why did you tie up grandma? Let go." Hu Xiaozi put grandma down and untied the rope that bound her.Grandma sat on the ground dejectedly.Wang Gourd also put me down, and then loosened my waistband, freeing my hands from the waistband.I quickly pulled out the grass roots that were stuffed in my mouth. Gravel and broken grass leaves stuck in my mouth and between my teeth. I used all my saliva reserves to barely clean up the debris in my mouth.

Big man Li asked angrily: "What are you doing? Rebellion?" Er Niang asked anxiously: "Where is the big shopkeeper? Why don't you see the big shopkeeper?" When she asked, everyone found that the shopkeeper was not with us, and the scene suddenly became cold.Everyone understood what happened, and they didn't dare to ask this question any more. Only Erniang didn't react, or she still had a glimmer of hope, and grabbed little Hu and asked repeatedly: "Where's the big shopkeeper? Where's the big shopkeeper? " Grandma spoke at this time, her voice hoarse and low: "The treasurer is dead."

The guess was confirmed, Erniang sat down on the ground and cried aloud. Grandma didn't stop her and let her cry.No one else cried, and kept silent with cold faces.What we pay attention to is that a man bleeds but does not shed tears. Crying, no matter what the reason, is a shameful thing for the guys.Grandma sat on the ground blankly, staring straight ahead, neither crying nor speaking, like a sculpture. The big man Li has a persistent problem, he chased the little man Hu and asked angrily: "Did you tie up grandma after the big treasurer died? Do you still have the law of the king?" Normally we would scold him to death if we couldn't laugh at him to death, but this time, no one was in the mood to laugh at him.Hu Xiaozi stretched his face and ignored him.But Wang Hulu suddenly spoke, and what he said was a series of words: "The shopkeeper has already started to retreat. I just got up and I don't know why I was shot. I just got hit on the head and left without saying a word. Grandma is crazy. We rushed forward in the same way, and we had to fight with the security team. There were only three or five of us left, and the only thing we could fight was the short gun in Grandma's hand. It would be useless to rush forward. We couldn't persuade us, and we pulled We couldn’t help it, so we had to tie her up and carry her back, thanks to the security team who didn’t touch our foundation and didn’t dare to charge, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to come back.”

People who usually don't speak suddenly say such a passage, and it has an absolutely trustworthy persuasive power.Big Li sighed and didn't ask any more questions.We all waited blankly for grandma to speak.Grandma sat there for a while, knelt down and kowtowed three times to the west.We know that she was kowtowing to the big shopkeeper, who died at the gunpoint of the security team in the ditch on the west side.We all knelt down.Kowtow to the west together. After kowtowing, the big man raised his gun and was about to shoot into the sky, but grandma stopped her sharply: "Don't waste bullets, leave them for the dog day's security team." Then she said to us, "Go to Zhangjiabao to take shelter first, wait Let's talk about the next step after we figure it out." After speaking, he got up and walked away without looking back.We followed her in silence.Her body was straight and straight, and the rising sun cast a layer of golden light on her body.

A few days later, we got the news that the body of the shopkeeper was hung on the gate of the county seat, his clothes were torn into pieces, and his body was dried into bacon.Later, the body of the shopkeeper was thrown on the mass grave in the north of the city.When grandma took us to find the corpse of the big shopkeeper secretly, all that was left of the big shopkeeper was a skeleton frame, and all the meat on his body was eaten by wild dogs. His clothes identify him.We put the bones of the shopkeeper in a jar prepared in advance, transported them back and buried them on the sunny slope of Gouwa Mountain.Grandma and Erniang knelt in front of the newly erected mounds to burn paper. Grandma pulled me to kneel together and said, "You also burn a few pieces of paper for the big shopkeeper, so the big shopkeeper didn't hurt you for nothing." After a roll of hemp paper was ignited, a whirlwind rolled up the burnt black ash paper, and the paper ash floated up with the wind, like a group of black butterflies fluttering.Grandma looked at the paper ashes drifting away with the wind and said quietly: "The shopkeeper has collected all the money, and he doesn't need to do this business of licking blood on the tip of a knife in the underworld."