Chapter 7 Chapter Six

The explosive room appeared in front of Lao Qi unexpectedly and suddenly. The heavy black-painted iron door installed on the door frame of the explosive room opened a gap about half a meter wide. A dim electric lamp hung on the top of Qingshi Lane.There was no one at the door.When Lao Qi ran to the door with one step at a time, he didn't think too much about it, and just went in.At first, he didn't know it was a dynamite room, and he didn't expect to detonate all the explosives stored in the dynamite room. It happened completely by accident. At that time, he only cared about running for his life.He was being chased in the alley, first by two guys with coal picks, then by two more mine policemen with guns.These four guys may have seen the Japanese notice hanging on the cage, and wanted to tie him up and give it to the Japanese.

In fact, as soon as he returned to Dongping Lane, he understood the danger he was facing. Before he saw the Japanese notice, those despicable and shameless guys in Dongping Lane had already started searching for him everywhere. They believed that this riot was caused by Meng Xinze and his leadership.A well-meaning friend advised him to hide like Meng Xinze did.He didn't hide, he just pulled down the brim of his broken wicker hat, turned down the light of the calcium carbide lamp in his hand, and tried to fool himself into the well. In the initial chaotic moment, those who wanted to arrest him could not do anything. Among the more than 400 brothers in the mine, not many knew him.Later, the mine police and the Japanese who had restored their ruling authority asked the brothers to gather in sections in the tunnel according to the original coal pits and prepare to go into the mine.He realized that something was wrong, so he fled along Dongping Lane to the main lane.Unexpectedly, he was found at the intersection of Dongping Lane and the main alleyway, and he was forced to drill into the low alley leading to the explosives room. Only then did he accidentally discover the explosives room, which was unguarded.

When he stepped into the gate of the explosives room, he stepped on a soft object. He tilted his body and almost fell down. When he regained his composure, he took a look at the calcium carbide lamp in his hand and found that it was the corpse of a Japanese soldier. .There were quite a few lumps of dynamite scattered around the body—apparently, during the riot, some brothers killed the dynamite-room keeper and probably took some of the dynamite. It was very dark in the dynamite room, and the electric lamp hanging on the roof of the alley only illuminated the second door of the dynamite room.The second door is also made of thick iron plates, and many steel nails are densely riveted on the iron plates.

After he entered the second door, he remembered the dim yellow lamp.He felt that the existence of the lamp was not good for him, so he wanted to turn off the lamp, looked around, and found a small military iron knife on a pile of sand at the door.He grabbed it, lifted it up, and shattered the lamp. At this time, the guys who were chasing him rushed over. With all his strength, he lifted the first iron gate, closed it with a bang, and then fastened the steel pins from the inside again. As soon as the pin was inserted, the sound of gun butts and coal picks hitting the iron door rang out, and some vicious curses were mixed with the "crack bang bang bang bang" sound:

"Qi, open the door! Open the door quickly!" "Damn it, if you don't open the door, I'll blow it up with dynamite!" "Let the Japanese use machine guns to sweep and beat this bastard to a pulp!" "Look, there are explosives in the ground, use this explosives to explode!" It was the despicable guys outside the door who reminded him, and he suddenly thought of the use of explosives!Those guys can use dynamite to blow up the door, can't he also use dynamite to do what he wants to do? ! He laughed and shouted at the rattling door: "Fuck it, blow it up! I'm just waiting for you to blow it up! If you don't want to blow it up, I want to blow it up!"

After yelling, he stopped answering them, stepped through the second iron gate, and entered the explosives room with a lamp in his hands.He wanted to find out, how many explosives were there in the explosives room?Can he blow up this hell and send it to the west in one fell swoop? ! The idea of ​​detonating these explosives was born at this moment. He patrolled the explosives room like a general. He was very satisfied with the result of the inspection. The explosives in the room were neatly stacked on three walls. There were 200 boxes of explosives, and there were quite a few fuses. He put the calcium carbide lamp on the explosive box, and used his shoulder to push the coiled fuse upside down. Then, he tore off one of the coils and inserted it into the gap in the explosive box. Then, he tore off the second coil. , the third set, the fourth set.He also opened a box of explosives, poured out all the pieces of explosives wrapped in oiled paper, and inserted a piece of explosives at the top of each fuse.When doing all this, he was very happy, as if he was doing farm work in his own field in the early years, and he hardly felt the fear of death.

The fear of death is no longer a strange thing to Lao Qi, what happened on the battlefield—not to mention, he has experienced it three times in this Hades Hall alone.The first time was when the roof of the 240 coal mine collapsed, the second time was when the Dongxiaojing Old Cave was flooded, and the last time was when Takahashi’s command sword and wolfhound faced Takahashi on the ground.In fact, he should have died three times!Death is nothing new!This time, he was just making a thorough summary of the deaths he had experienced before! After arranging the explosives and fuse, Lao Qi seemed a little tired.He sat cross-legged on the dry cement floor, staring at the explosives and fuse in front of him, thinking proudly:

This time, he will die grandly and vigorously!His death will not be controlled by anyone, and will not be disturbed by anyone. He has won the right to arbitrate and autonomy over life!Such a death is something to be proud of for a soldier and a man! The gang of despicable guys outside the door seemed to feel that something was wrong. They no longer slammed the door viciously, cursed viciously, and did not dare to threaten with explosives and machine guns. They softened and begged him like a woman: "Old Qi! Old Qi! Come out! Don't do stupid things anymore, you must never do stupid things!"

"Yes, Lao Qi, don't think about yourself, you should also think about all of us!" "Old Qi, open the door, let's plead with the Japanese!" "Old Qi, I beg you, brothers, I beg you!" ... Lao Qi slowly turned his face to the door, but he didn't stand up.He didn't lose his temper.His voice is eerily calm: "Guys, think about it! People live a hundred years, and they will inevitably die. Today, our time has come? This is how life should be, and no one can blame anyone!" A guy outside the door started to cry! "Old Qi, think about us! Think about the brothers in the mine, as long as these explosives are blown up, the brothers will be finished!"

"You...brothers? What are you? You are willing to push the whole world into hell for your own survival! You are all bastards who don't have the right to be polite and shameless! You are not qualified to live!" He said these vicious and fierce words very calmly. No one can convince him. There is no reason to convince him. Those shameless people who only care about themselves should be damned, and those who are unwilling to resist and are willing to follow them should be damned!And the rest of the tough guys, those Chinese soldiers who don't want to be animals will definitely agree with his decision and die vigorously for a while.Such a vigorous death is an excellent destination for soldiers, and it will prove a kind of unyielding spirit that belongs to soldiers!

He calmly picked up the calcium carbide lamp, and lit the five fuses on the cement floor in front of him.In an instant, the fuse "squeaked" and burned, and milky white smoke quickly diffused in the explosive room... When the fuse was half burned, smoke came out from the gap in the iron door. The guys outside the door panicked. They gave up all their self-righteous thoughts and ran into the alley. Lao Qi clearly heard their screams and hurried footsteps along the way. Lao Qi laughed heartily again. After laughing, he took off the steel pin and opened the big iron gate with a "bang dang". He knelt down facing the big iron gate, facing the Guizhou plateau he imagined, and facing the hometown he missed infinitely: "Parents, loyalty and filial piety have always been difficult to achieve in ancient times. Today, the unfilial son has taken a step forward for our suffering country..." On the cheeks, tears flowed... At 8:38 on the same day, a big explosion occurred, and most of the more than 200 prisoners of war who had surrendered for the second time gathered at the mouth of the well and the main roadway were killed.The main roadway and the horse farm and stockyard near the big wellhead were completely destroyed. All the roadways and coal pits within two miles around the explosives house were completely destroyed by the earthquake. The big derrick far away from the ground was also damaged.There seemed to be an earthquake on the ground near Dajing, and the glass on many buildings was shattered... The moment the explosion happened, Wang Shaoheng had just stepped out of the cage.He stepped down from the well platform and first noticed that the ground under his feet was trembling. After a short while, he saw the thick smoke and gas waves erupting from the wellhead.He was so frightened that he fell limply on the ground and couldn't get up. Two Japanese soldiers lifted his arms and threw him to the low wall next to the mouth of the well.There were quite a few people gathered by the low wall, about thirty or forty of them.The first hundred or so people who came up were escorted away, and they were also waiting to be escorted.Japanese soldiers stood on the low wall, machine guns were supported on the platform of the winch house opposite the low wall, and the surrounding tall buildings were full of mine police and Japanese soldiers. Both Long Zeshou and Takahashi Taijun came.Long Zeshou was standing on the well platform less than 20 meters away from him with a command knife. Takahashi was busy asking the Japanese and the mine police who had just entered the well to understand the situation below. curse. At this time, the ground trembled violently for a while again, and the smoke from the mouth of the big well surged more fiercely, as if there was a giant beast swallowing clouds lying deep in the ground. Everyone didn't realize that it was an explosion in the underground explosives room. Not only Wang Shaoheng and his brothers didn't realize it, but neither did Long Zeshou and Takahashi Taijun.Both Long Zeshou and Takahashi Taijun ran to the well platform to look at the mouth of the well.They also looked at each other with questioning eyes, and murmured something. The confusion lasted about five or six minutes. Before Long Zeshou and Takahashi Taijun thought of the explosion in the explosives room, Wang Shaoheng had already thought of this, and he decided that he was doomed! He was betrayed! He was betrayed by those desperadoes in the well! Those fools don't want to live, and they won't let him live!They shouldn't be doing this at all!There is no right to do that at all!But they did!This bunch of devoid of conscience! He guessed that it was Meng Xinze who did it. Meng Xinze was his nemesis and the enemy of his destiny. This bastard is smelly and tough. Only he can do such reckless things. He really regrets not being able to kill him with a single shot in the well. he.He thought, if he took advantage of the chaos and killed him at that time, the matter in front of him would end beautifully.So far, the Japanese have indeed not killed a single prisoner of war!The Japanese are more or less reasonable! He wants to live.I really want to live.After entering the Hades Hall, survival became the goal of all his actions and efforts.Relying on his own prudence, he vigilantly escaped disaster after disaster. He never expected that he would be swallowed up by disaster in the end... The bright sun was hanging on the gangue mountain opposite, illuminating the steel cage on the top of the gangue mountain brightly.The rails laid on the mountain are like two shining ropes, tying the steel cage on the top of the mountain to the ground below.A goshawk is flying against the sun, unrestrained and free.A few children were carrying charcoal on the gangue hill, and they were looking over here. How wonderful it all is!His sun, his goshawk! However, in another ten minutes, or five minutes later, all of this will disappear from his eyes!Because of the desperation of those desperadoes in the well, he will become the soul of the Imperial Japanese Army!He will, like an egg dropped on a stone, let the juices of life flow to a strange land. He looked up at the sun again. He imagined the sun as the yolk of an egg. "How nice it is to be alive!" he thought again. But, who on earth would not let him live?Except for those desperadoes in the well, and his nemesis Meng Xinze, who else would not let him live?He thought of the Japanese in front of him logically, and thought of the war he had participated in that is still going on now. In the final analysis, it was the brutal Japanese who killed him, and it was this war that killed him... At this moment, Takahashi stood on the well platform and called out. At this moment, Long Zeshou's command saber was lifted up, and then fell down again. At this moment, the machine gun mounted on the platform of the winch house head-on rang... He suddenly realized that the egg of his life was falling to a hard rock.The moment the machine gun on the opposite platform rang out, he suddenly raised his clenched fist like a real man, and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Knock down..." Many voices roared: "Knock down..." Machine gunfire drowned out the last roar. Meng Xinze woke up when the whole strata was trembling with the sound of the explosion.He was surprised to find that most of his body was submerged in the muddy water, and a dirty and smelly dead mouse was floating on his chest. This is a bit strange!Wasn't he lying on a piece of dry coal dust beside the coal gang?How could he be lying in the black water?What disaster happened in this dark underground? He scrambled to the coal ledge with instinctive terror, fumbling about for his lamp.When the wet head touched the side of the coal, the lamp touched. The lights came on again.The jumping lights were like a sun shrunk many times, pushing many memories about light to him.His sanity was surprisingly sober, and he immediately realized his dangerous situation.He thought: Maybe the Japanese are carrying out a massacre under this stratum, maybe the Japanese have entered Dongping Lane, maybe the Japanese are searching for him near the 2420 coal nest!Yes, they will never let him go so easily, they must find him - those who don't find him must also find the body! He immediately decided to climb up, farther away from the entrance of the cave. He looked at the pocket watch tucked into his waistband, and checked the time. Then, he bit the lamp on his mouth, lifted the coal pick that Lao Qi had left him, and stooped towards the old cave. After walking about fifty or sixty meters, the cave became shorter, and the coal gangs in some places collapsed, and the cat couldn't get through even with his lower back, so he crawled on his stomach.He knew that there would be no serious danger in this cave—the mouse Lao Qi and Tian Desheng had both been in this cave, and if there was any dirt in the cave, they would have lost their lives long ago. He climbed for a while, resting twice in the middle, and finally climbed to the gentle slope on the top of the cave. There was indeed a dark water tank on the gentle slope, and the water in the tank continued to top up.He brushed away the soot and wood chips floating on the water, bent down and took a drink of water, and then lay down on his back on the gentle slope. He saw the roof above the head, which was made of igneous rock and was very smooth, without any support under the roof.He turned his head to the side and noticed again that there were no supports on either side of the coal gang.He immediately decided: This section of the hole was not opened today! He turned over and got up, holding the lamp in his trembling hand, and felt down along the coal seam for a while, then turned back and felt up until he reached the mouth of the water tank.The coal seam forms an inconspicuous "~" shape in this area, and the water tank is just in the depression of that ~!This shows that the hole was dug along the coal seam. If the accumulated water in the depression is released, the hole may be able to pass through! He cheered up all of a sudden, his whole body trembled, his hair stood on end, and tears welled up in his eyes.Wiping the tears from his face, he thought: as long as he made a ditch on the gentle slope less than five meters long and let the water from the top of the cave go down, the entrance of the cave might be like a round of morning sun. Jump out of the darkness. The idea is extremely seductive. He abruptly stopped his pervasive thoughts, and only stared at the sun he was imagining with his survival eyes in the depths of his heart.He wants to create a miracle of life under the shining of his sun.He can't let go of his sun. With a flick of the coat, he put the calcium carbide lamp on the side of the coal gang. He picked up the life-saving coal pick and started digging on the gentle slope under his feet. The movements were mechanical and powerful, as if his whole life was controlled by an unknown god.Amidst the continuous impact of coal picks and gangue, his consciousness disappeared bit by bit, like a basin of water poured on the ground, it first flowed along the ground, and then all seeped into the dirty soil inside…… After digging for some time, he fell down from exhaustion. He slept on his stomach on the ditch he had dug. When he woke up, he looked at his watch and immediately forgot about the time—time meant nothing to him anymore. He bent down again to dig in the ground. Like a rabbit, he scraped the loose gangue slag to both sides of the coal gang with his hands. Blood came out from the hands. He finally got to the edge of the water tank, and the overflowing black water in the water tank "splashed", pouring down like a waterfall, making noise all the way, and flowing down the ditch he dug into the old cave below. The black water flowed around him for a while, like a cheerful stream.Later, when the water in the ditch gradually became shallower, he felt a gust of cold wind blowing... wind! windy! He stood up abruptly, hitting his wicker-capped head against the hard ceiling. He passed out. It was the cool wind that woke him up.He got up and sat on the wet ground by the ditch for a while, then raised the lamp to shine on the tank.He saw the water in the water tank leaving the roof, and the cool wind was blowing from the gap between the water surface and the roof! He jumped into the water without hesitation, and walked forward facing the wind. At first, the black water only reached his waist, and then, the black water rose to his chest, his neck, and almost reached his mouth.The lamp was out, and he turned it out, holding it high above his head, so that the lamp rested against the ceiling.After walking less than ten meters, the water began to fall, and the entire cave began to rise. He climbed onto the dry ground again. Blocking the wind with his body, he lit the lamp. The blazing light tore through the silent and mysterious darkness, and a completely strange world appeared in front of him. First, he saw a big basket-like coal basket that he had never seen before. The coal basket was right next to him. There was some coal in the basket less than two feet away.The basket tie, as thick as a thumb, was almost dragged in front of him.He instinctively grabbed the basket with his hands, but he never expected that what he caught was a handful of plaster. He trembled in fright and shrank back. There is water and hell behind him, he has no way out, he can only move forward. He crawled forward like a dog, climbed to the edge of the coal basket, touched the coal basket with his feet, and the coal basket scattered without a sound. From this, he concluded that he had climbed out of the mines ruled by the Japanese and entered a small kiln opened by the predecessors.This kind of thing is not uncommon. Countless small kilns were opened in the land of Xiyan Town in the late Qing Dynasty. When they dug coal, they often encountered some gobs from that year. He held up the lamp again and looked ahead, and that's when he saw the skeleton that he could never forget again.The skeleton lay lying in a patch of muddy water five steps away from him, with braids around its rounded head, like a turtle lying on a coiled snake.The skeleton is in a crawling posture intact, one leg bone is straight, the foot bone is pushed into the mud, and the other leg bone is bent; two hands, one pressed under the breastbone, one stretched forward, five The separated fingers dug into the coal gangue, and the white phalanges looked like a string of white mildew spots. He concluded that the owner of this skeleton was a man, a man from a long time ago!He opened a kiln here, and he laid a kiln here.I met the god of death here, and I had a contest with the god of death here!He can use a man's way of thinking to deduce the story of this man who has become eternal.He suddenly felt that he had seen all the secrets of life from the bones of this ancient man. He crawled up to the man and sat down beside him.He turned up the light of the calcium carbide lamp and hung it over the man's head to illuminate it. "Dude! Dude!" He shouted obsessively, as if what he was facing was not a skeleton, but a living person. He himself didn't know what he was shouting about. The skeleton seemed to be moving, some joints were rattling. He took another step back. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew out the lights, and this old coal cave that belonged to history fell into boundless darkness again. The bones sounded louder in the dark, as if a violent man was cursing with his fists. He is not afraid at all.He was completely numb. When striking matches to light the lamp, the matches burned his hands, and his body trembled, only to wake up from the trance state. He took one last look at the skeleton and walked out step by step. He walked from the stratum of history to the ground of reality. He walked from the dark hell to the hopeful sun. All those objects belonging to history were left far behind by him, in an eternal darkness and peace.He does not belong to the history of the past, he does not belong to the eternal darkness, he only belongs to today, his restless life is longing for another vigorous explosion. The sound of explosions rang in his ears one after another, the machine gun was rattling, the motor of the plane was rolling in the air like thunder, and the air around him was hot. "May 19", the "May 19" of disaster!live!live!The wolfhound is barking. Machine guns, watch out for machine guns!As long as everyone resists with one heart, China will not perish, and China will last forever... The mind was in a mess, and the spirit became trance again.When he bit the lamp on his mouth and crawled on the ground, he didn't know; blood was rubbed on his hands and legs, but he didn't feel any pain.When he was clear-headed, he felt very dangerous. He thought, he should sing a song, sing it loudly, and use this song to control his thinking and judgment. He opened his throat and sang the familiar military song: We come from the place where the Yunnan Uprising was great. Walked through the mountains. Open to the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War. Brothers use flesh and blood to fight for the liberation of the nation... Damn, I can't sing anymore!I can't remember the lyrics below! Sing again from the beginning: We come from the place where the Yunnan Uprising was great. Walked through the mountains. Open to the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War. Brothers use flesh and blood to fight for the liberation of the nation... Still can't sing. "Asshole! Asshole! Asshole..." He cursed with all his might. He sang again, howling like a wolf. Still those four sentences. He guessed that there was something wrong with his head, and he didn't want to embarrass his head.He just sang those four lines, over and over again, head to tail, tail to head, until the end, he couldn't figure out which was the beginning and which was the end. He sang this incomplete military song castrated by memory, and climbed section after section. He sang this incomplete military song, digging up piles of falling waste rock. Singing the incomplete military song, he climbed to a half-collapsed brick wall. He numbly climbed over the brick wall. Outside the brick wall is a mass of graves.Some dancing fireflies floated on the dilapidated tombs.In the distance is a confused land, a land full of hope and vitality. He climbed over the brick wall at the entrance of the kiln and fell on a weedy mound.A coffin protruding from the loess and weeds was hard against his washboard-like ribs.The two crows were startled, flapping their wings and flying into the air. The crow that flew up suddenly awakened him from his numb state, and he realized that he had created a miracle of life and climbed up from hell. He was overjoyed for a while, and could hardly believe it was true! He laughed wildly, with his head arched over the mound, like a hungry sheep, gnawing the grass on the mound with his mouth.He chewed freedom from the bitter sap of the grass.Jier, he wept silently.He felt that the real him hadn't come out of hell, his body, his flesh and blood, his emotions, his hatred...everything about him had stayed in that hell, in that period of time. In the eternal silence that has become history.What came out was not him, but the skeleton, the skeleton without flesh and blood, without emotion, without fantasy. Life and death, life and death, life and death, the living dies, the dead live, there is no clear boundary between life and death.The reincarnation of yin and yang goes back and forth, upside down, and no one can tell when who is born and who dies.Life is death, death is life... With all these miscellaneous thoughts about life and death, he fell asleep on the grave, pillowed on a piece of loess, covered with a sky full of stars--in fact, he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to go, but his stupid brain Already commanding the immobile bastard's body. When he woke up, another person crawled out from the broken kiln. The person was covered in mud and his face was black, like a ghost. He didn't try to identify the person's face carefully, so he jumped up and hugged him. The man yelled: "Old Meng, it's really you, it's really you! Your dog... the dog's life is really big!" Only then did he recognize that the man was Tian Desheng. "Old Tian, ​​you! You are alive!" "Yes! Yes! I am not a small fortune! Those bastards wanted to catch me, so I hid here and there, and finally came to you, haha, uh, let's go, I can't get away at dawn!" He asked again: "What about the brothers?" Tian Desheng called out: "Fucking brothers! You live, I live, isn't this fucking enough?!" He fell silent, patted Tian Desheng on the shoulder, and squeezed out a word between his teeth: "Walk!" The wilderness is vast and silent.The night wind swayed on the grave mound, among the grass, and on the dark ground.Some early withered leaves rolled underfoot.They judged the direction, walked out of the cemetery, walked up the field ridge, and walked towards the yellow mud road at the end of the field ridge. At this time, the scene of May 19th, 27th year of the Republic of China appeared before his eyes again, and he told himself arrogantly: Tomorrow will be May 20th, 27th year of the Republic of China! At the end of the avenue in the distance, a small village loomed.The barking of the dog is carried by the wind in bursts... Guerrilla?Hey!Where did the guerrillas come from!Some people said that they did not contact the guerrillas at all during the riots; others said that they did, but the guerrillas did not come. Who knows? !After the riot, it took the Japanese half a year to restore the mine.They respected the prisoners of war who died underground, and their attitude towards us survivors was much better.They have to admit: the Chinese are not easy to bully!There are also many tough guys among the Chinese soldiers!Later, when the Pacific War broke out, Yanwangtang was taken over by the Wang puppet government. At this time, we heard that a few people escaped from the riot, and they escaped from the old cave.Under the cover of the local people, these people entered the mountain, and after that, they went to Chongqing several times. The newspapers in Chongqing at that time published their stories...