Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen The Devil Is Coming

Guo Tianda, the oldest man in Banzi Village, died. Although Guo Tianda is as thin as a stick, he will be a hundred years old next year.Ninety-nine-year-old Ma Ganzi is as short as a shrimp, but he can still walk down the ground on crutches. Although he only moves an inch at a time, he often slips to distant places outside the village entrance.His eldest wife died of illness more than 40 years ago; his second wife died of old age more than 10 years ago; even his two sons and a land tortoise that he had raised for more than 60 years could not survive him. He got sick and died, leaving only his grandson in his thirties, who was dragged to beat devils.As soon as his grandson left, he was left by himself. Fortunately, many people in Guo's family took care of him, eating and drinking one or two bowls of porridge a day, and giving some good ones during the New Year and holidays.It's not that everyone is particularly kind, and no one cares about the sixty-year-old Guo old guy in the east of the village who starved to death.Most people in the village just want to let Guo Tianda's great excitement continue, and he's already ninety-nine, so this old man must live through one hundred, right?

When Guo Tianda still had his teeth, he said that he had met the emperor. He was not talking nonsense, he really had a hat given by the emperor at home, and the hat had the emperor's handprint on it.Guo Tianda was originally a sugar maker, and he used to make a living in the provincial capital.It is said that the emperor came out to find a woman in private, wandered all the way here, and admired his sugar man very much.Guo Tianda pinched the emperor in his sleeve and gave it to him. The emperor got up and grabbed the hat and gave it to Guo Tianda. The servant next to the emperor told him to show the hat if he was in trouble.So Guo Tianda had no troubles for decades, and his family prospered until the early years of the Republic of China, and then suffered disasters.One day, a strange thunder struck in mid-air, and a big fire broke out to burn his house down completely. Guo Tianda and his wife escaped with their buttocks naked, and their breasts were burnt.The hat went into the flames, and the family was ruined.But no matter how defeated Guo Tian was, they had to go to dinner for a while, and they were still happy every day. People in Banzi Village for several generations had never seen this Guo Tian get angry. You'll know when you're done, and when people ask him, he'll say that he'll marry a younger one when he dies.Guo Tianda lived bigger and bigger, so he was called Guo Mingda. Guo Mingda was never angry, and some people called him Guo Chest.When he was ninety years old, Mr. Yuan Bai presented a plaque with a letter: Destiny and Heart.The old guy looked at the plaque and laughed, and asked Mr. Yuan Bai if he had heard of a woman who was going to marry someone, so he would exchange this plaque for another woman.

Guo Tianda was born with a good temper, and the older he got, the more he liked to talk, and he would talk for a long time if he caught one.But no one can understand what he said—who knows what the mouth that has lost its teeth for 30 years is talking about?But Guo Tianda didn't care, because he said it every time and didn't listen to your answer.He became invisible to everyone, and the folks pretended to be blind and left when they saw the old guy walking around every inch.Guo Tianda couldn't catch up, and he couldn't even roar, so he gradually stopped looking for anyone.He started chatting non-stop with donkeys, horses, pigs, and dogs, chattered with swallows under the eaves and pigeons on the big locust tree, flirted with toads in the Daizi River and hovering dragonflies, and finally Speak to the air and the distance.The more he talked, the farther he went, he stopped pulling people to talk, and the more he said the better he was, he walked out of the village with every small step, passed the big locust tree and got on the main road, and the old guys at the entrance of the village said that someday this old man will die Going out of sight.

And so he died.But it’s not that he couldn’t walk back and starve to death, but he met a group of people who were about his height while walking, and those people asked him something, but he walked forward on his own.That group of people wasn't bad at first, except for one bad-tempered guy, who was stabbed through with a bayonet from the back, as easy as stabbing the window paper.The Guo family passing by saw this scene from a distance, saying that Guo Tianda looked at the bayonet on his chest, laughed as usual, and knocked the blood-red bayonet with a walking stick, and it fell down like a stack of wheat blown by the wind. Not even a little bit of soil can be smashed up.

Guo Tianda's death is actually not important, it's really not a big deal if the devils don't come, everyone just groaned, stretched out their fingers and pinched him to calculate how many days before he was 100 years old.The cause of Guo Tianda's death was so shocking that everyone in the village was asking about the devil.But the witnesses didn't want to talk to them in detail, they just yelled "the devil is coming"!I went home and grabbed the baby and the old man and ran away.The whole village was in chaos, of course Tweety heard it, and panicked at the door of the house. Like many women, she waited for Mr. Yuan Bai to say something, but when she looked up, she saw Mr. Yuan Bai being dragged away by the turtle monster, followed by Mr. He's about as tall as a donkey.Mr. has one bare foot, one trouser leg has not been put down, and the turtle is not idle, holding up his trumpet to run and blow, the tune is dead or alive, it must be an announcement, the meaning is very clear: Stop talking nonsense and run for your life!

Tweety picked up a root from the kang, took the donkey's rope and went out. Those chickens wandering around the garden looked at her stupidly, Tweety kicked one of them away, saying that it's good luck for you.As soon as she went out, she bumped into a Shanxi woman who was running with her mother-in-law. The woman with unbound feet was almost dragging the old man with her little feet, but she ran very fast. "Tweety, hurry up and run up the mountain." The Shanxi woman shouted. "Why are you running up the mountain?" Tweety started to run, the donkey didn't seem to want to go, and the rein was lowered.

"They all ran up the mountain." The Shanxi woman helped her kick the donkey's buttocks, and the donkey started to run. Tweety thought it was reasonable, she couldn't run to the entrance of the village, could she?She helped the Shanxi woman lift the old woman onto the donkey's back, and followed everyone.He also saw Guo Tietou carrying his mother on his back, running faster than her donkey, and holding a duck in his left hand, at this moment he lost all his madness.Mr. Yuan Bai stood on a mountain not far away, next to the panicked turtle monster and his donkey.Cui'er hugged Yougen and led the donkey, but she couldn't run anymore, the donkey ran ahead of her.The Shanxi woman scolded the crying mother-in-law on the donkey's back, regardless of whether she liked it or not.Tweety ran wildly following the legs and feet of the Shanxi woman, and she stared at those big feet.Tired from running, she looked back, and her hairs stood on end.She saw some soldiers running from a distance with guns raised, and a strange flag was hanging on one of the guns.They must be soldiers, and they are different soldiers from those who captured Lao Dan.They seemed to be waving to this side, shouting words that no one could understand.Tweety was tired from holding Yougen, so she tucked him under her armpits and pedaled up the mountain road. There were scattered shoes, children's diapers and hats scattered on the mountain road. Er'er's clothes and face scratched Yougen to the point of crying.But she doesn't care about these anymore, she only cares about the pair of big feet running in front of the Shanxi woman.The donkey started to climb the mountain, and the Shanxi woman's mother-in-law screamed and vomited strange things.Tweety slapped the donkey hard on the butt, and the donkey thumped and ran up the slope.

As expected, Mr. Yuan Bai was standing on the hillside, his face turning blue and white.He was not looking at the villagers climbing the mountain, but in the direction of the village entrance.Tweety exhausted herself and climbed to the top of the hill. When she saw everyone standing there, she looked back wonderingly.She saw that the soldiers who got into the village were running back, more panicked than they were. There was a truck of the same size parked at the entrance of the village, and they all ran away with a few cars. "Here we come, we come..." Mr. Yuan Bai pointed to the back of the village with trembling fingers, and the villagers also screamed.

"Water, water..." You Gen stretched out his little hand and pointed.Tweety looked in the direction they pointed, and saw a boundless torrent of water, with dark waves piercing through the jujube forest, flooding the fields full of crops, and when rushing through the Daizi River, the waves were violent. When the ground got bigger, it swept the river away without a trace, and the waves flew five feet high.The water rushed towards Banzi Village viciously with a loud noise, and the Guo family's adobe house rushed away like dry cow dung, and everything in the village was wrapped in black water and rolled over.The water entering the village was much smaller, only three feet at most, but it penetrated into the rows of houses and courtyards, and some earthen walls fell down with a thump, and there was no sound when they fell, because all It was the sound of water.When they fell, Tweet fell, and everyone in the village sat down or fell to their knees.Tweety wanted to cry, but when she saw the chickens in her yard flapping their wings on the top of the water, as if they were about to fly, she thought it was a bit funny, but before they could laugh, they jumped and disappeared; The chicken coop was floating on the water, rolled over and sank.Tweety also groaned loudly, as if her child was sinking.There are still many people in the not very deep water, most of them are old men and women, some from the Guo family and some from the Xie family. Some must have washed down from the yard on the top of the kang, and they are still holding buckwheat husk pillows with their bare buttocks.People on the hillside cried out in surprise, and some people cried sadly.Cui'er hugged You Gen'er tightly, watching a large group of people in the village rush away like that, her legs were so frightened that her legs went limp.The devils in the village ran desperately, some even nimbly climbed onto the roof, and some stupid ones escaped, and ran towards their cart, which happened to be a low-lying place, and those who ran slowly were caught in the waves as tall as a person. The red plaster-like flag disappeared without floating... It was useless for those who got into the car. A few cars were caught by the flood as soon as they drove, as if they were smashed by a wall. It fell, and one of them rolled over.The devils fell out one after another, jumped on the water a few times like Tweety's chickens, and then disappeared, and the ones that could still be seen floated down the big water, drifting for more than a mile in the blink of an eye.

"Where does the water come from? God don't attack the village if you want to attack devils!" Xie Lao Si's woman cried and beat the ground. "This is the opening of the Yellow River..." Mr. Yuan Bai said, "It's not God's doing...such a dry day..." Tweety was paralyzed on the ground, watching the black water rushing fiercely against the hillside, they surged up for a while, then went down again when they couldn't get up, turned around and rushed to the entrance of the low-lying village.In the blink of an eye, the dilapidated but neat village houses collapsed, everything that could collapse collapsed, everything that could float floated, and everyone who could cry cried. The ghosts who were about to enter the village rushed to disappear. The few people above were worried about something, and jumped into the water with a splash.Tweety hated the water, but also felt extremely lucky.She doesn't understand Mr. Yuan Bai's words, but as long as she is still alive, she has time to ask him.

"The terrain of our village is high, and the water has gone to the old road again, and it won't be flooded for a few days. Will the devils come again?" the turtle monster asked, leading the donkey. "You can't beat it even if you beat it, but can a little water wash it away?" Mr. Yuan Bai walked a few steps with his hands behind his back, and then set up an arbor to look into the distance, "Even if the water recedes, the village will not be able to live for a while. Half a foot of mud, it’s not a big deal if the house is destroyed, but those lands can’t be planted this year.” "Then how do we live?" Presumably everyone was thinking about this, including Tweety, but she was still asked by the Shanxi woman. "People can live! People can live!" Mr. Yuan Bai said categorically, "This water has harmed us, but it also helped us? The devils can't get in. Now it's the beginning of Xia again. We will neither starve to death nor freeze to death. This is passing water, which looks like rippling from a washbasin. It is not more than three feet high. The Yellow River has always breached, and it always returns to the same path. Let's wait for the water to fall again. I can go back and tidy it up. Having said that, look at the black water. Although it has sand, it also brings a lot of fertilizer. Even if the land is harvested a year late, there may be twice as much food. We will be hungry for a year Not bad..." "Listen to Mr. Yuan Bai!" Guo Tietou said suddenly.All the eyes were staring at him, Guo Tietou hastily rolled his eyes, maybe he felt bored again, spit on the ground, his face was as red as a monkey's butt. The water came and went quickly, and it didn't roll over the big waves that were ten feet high as Tweety'er thought. After two or three hours, there were no more waves in the water, and it just flowed like that, bumping east and west, I hurried to the southeast again.The immensity and suddenness of the flood still frightened Tweety, and her home in the marshes made her cry. Her mother's house thirty miles away seemed to be on a high place, but she didn't know if she could escape.It all came and went so quickly, and she was full of hope.She looked at the entrance of the village, the road was smoothed by mud and water, the old well under the big locust tree was nowhere to be seen, and the open space outside the village was as flat as a black mirror.Where did Lao Dan go, would they also be washed away by the flood?He is half a landlubber, although he is big, he can't stand such fierce water.But Cui'er didn't want to cry, because everyone else was crying like her family was ruined, her father was dead, her husband was mourning, so what's the point of crying any more?Those old people were either sitting cross-legged or standing on crutches, just silently looking at the water in front of them, neither speaking nor paying attention to the crying people around them.The old man is like an old locust tree, who can neither live nor die.Tweety touched Yougen's head, this guy's eyes were slick, Lao Dan was a bag, but this son was stubborn.But it was too hard, it was harder to make him cry than to make his father kill someone.But no matter what, this two-year-old son who always doesn't cry makes Tweety feel that she has strength. As long as he is one year older, he will definitely improve his skills, and he will be a solid support in a short time.Tweety couldn't help but look at the egg under his open crotch pants again.Although it is still a small bunch of peanuts and walnuts, it also has the style of a father. As for this thing that is bound to grow up, this son is also a dragon.So Cui'er hugged him, kissed him hard on the face a few times, and said, "You Gen'er, you go to meet him when your father comes back, okay?" "There will be no rain this ten days..." Mr. Yuan Bai said looking at the starry sky. It was a rough night.The moonlight in the sky is blue, and the water on the ground is cold.The hillside is like an isolated island hanging in the air, and there is darkness everywhere.Mr. Yuan Bai didn't allow a fire to be lit on the slope, fearing that it would attract devils who didn't rush to death, so the turtle monster and others found a leeward mountainside, dug a hole, chopped a dead tree on the mountain, and scooped up a pot of black and yellow fire. The water was cleared up, and half a bag of grain that Mr. Yuan Bai brought was sprinkled.Everyone sat in a circle on the slope, put the children in the middle, and took out all the things that could keep warm to protect them.A pot of porridge is sandwiched with raw soil, but it is also the most beautiful delicacy.Even though the stars are like tears, they still start to discuss things for tomorrow.They will live under such stars for the next day or so, until a new roof is put up to cover them.These two hundred people were crowded together like never before, with the warmth of others in their bodies and the smell of each other in their breath.They talked here and there, and it was so dark that they couldn't tell who it was, but what they said was hope. On this hillside in the dark night, no matter how you walked on weekdays, you would feel like you would encounter a ghost. is hope.Cui'er hugged You Gen'er who was sleeping soundly - the boy fell asleep as soon as he said he was asleep, looked at the string of stars in the sky that seemed familiar but not familiar, and remembered the night when Lao Dan opened the window and pointed them out to her.Lao Dan stood on the kang like a big tree, his strong arms stretched out into the stars, he kept telling her what kind of god that star was, but Tweety only looked at what he hadn't softened, it was lying sideways that day Embedded in this string of stars, like a bolt on the gate of heaven. In the dark night after the flood, there were many movements of creatures.Rats are densely infested around the hillside, and there are some crowded pheasants.Guo Tietou was a strong man, following the sound of the boulder being thrown down, seven or eight of them were knocked unconscious.The old men plucked the feathers and roasted them on the fire. The aroma woke up the children, and more people smashed the pheasants.Mr. Yuan Bai had someone dig out the yellow mud, wrap the plucked pheasant into an egg, and roast it in the fire. After half an hour, he kicked it out and threw it on the ground. The mud shattered. It tastes better when it is burned. "Will the devil smell the meat?" "Is it your worry? I heard that I came here earlier." "What should we do if we really come here? Shall we run or surrender?" "Then it's up to you? Isn't it what you are asked to do? Maybe you even ate it with the chicken..." "Mr. Yuan Bai said that the flood can't scare the devils away, so will they come after the water recedes?" "Then you ask the devil." "There is nothing in our village, and there are no men. What are they doing here? Now my family only has half a basket of eggs..." "Isn't there still you? You are a woman!" "Why is a devil called a devil? Does it look like a ghost?" "Just get one and you'll know...the chicken drumsticks are delicious...Mr. Yuan Bai has a way." Cui'er ate half a chicken, and Yougen ate a chicken leg. The two of them gained strength and felt warm all over.Mr. Yuan Bai was lying in an earthen pit, covered with a quilt from an unknown family.The turtle monster was wrapped in clothes and fell asleep with a big burden on it.Some people filled the fire pit with firewood, and threw chicken bones into it and burned it.The donkey had nothing to eat, so it kept smelling Tweety's hair.Cui Er couldn't fall asleep because of it, and stared at You Gen who was bouncing under the moonlight in a daze.A shooting star hurriedly passed by, and one pointed at the sky and creaked.Cui'er then said: "I saw it, I saw it, it was your father who sent you a message, hurry up and write back to your father..." Yougen looked at the sky and ran to the side with small steps, as if he wanted to catch up with the disappearing meteor, but he fell over after only a few steps, and fell hard.As usual, he didn't cry, stood up and wanted to run again, when he heard his mother's call.Tweety knelt up and called him in a low voice, fearing that he would roll into the water under the hillside.Yougen turned his head and hesitated, and Tweety held up his remaining chicken leg bone and teased it with a smile. Behind Yougen was a pitch-black night, so dark that there was nothing.When Yougen was running back, several shiny things rose from the ground, and after a few swings on the ground, they rose higher and higher. When she reached the sky, she saw that they were several people. The shiny things in their hands were the bayonets on several large guns, and the shiny things on top of their heads were hard helmet shells. They walked up slowly and separated and stood still. Pointing the shiny bayonets at the villagers, one of the bayonets swung and pointed at her who was staring.The donkey suddenly neighed loudly.Tweety finally saw the terribly tense black face of the visitor, covered with cracked mud.And that look is even more frightening, like the old Dan who woke up from a nightmare and stared at her.