Chapter 5 5. Go to the source

It was already noon when the car arrived in Dadao Town.Liu Kai hastily filled his stomach at a big bakery on the street, and hurriedly set foot on the road to Xiaoba Village. Liu Kai never dreamed that he would walk in the woods alone for most of the day.For the first time in his life, he walked on the soft and slippery sandy road, which made him suffer a lot.It was evening when he touched Xiaoba village. When Xiaoba Village, an unmarked village on the map, appeared in front of Liu Kai, even though he had prepared himself beforehand, he was still shocked by its seclusion and loneliness.He stood on the only village street paved with sand about 200 meters long in Xiaoba Village. From the beginning to the end of the village, he could not see a single pedestrian.Apart from the roaring waves, not even a human voice could be heard.The only street lamp at the head of the village glowed listlessly, like a cold eye, staring at him, a foreigner.

Liu Kai inspected the seaweed houses one by one.He wanted to find the "home" that Li Shuilu once lived in, but he soon realized that it was futile and even a bit ridiculous-how could a woman who had been wandering outside for decades have a home? Liu Kai wandered the desolate village streets for a long time before knocking on the door of a house. It was a teenage girl who opened the door for him. The girl standing under the electric light looked at Liu Kai with a little surprise in her eyes, but she was not as nervous as the people in the city when they encountered similar situations.Liu Kai asked her where the village head lived, and she didn't say much, so she sent Liu Kai to the village head's house in the east of the village.

The village head is a strong man in his thirties.People are simple and kind.He invited Liu Kai into the house, and let his wife and naughty little boy, who were already sitting at the dinner table, go to the suite.Then, he took out a handful of tobacco leaves from a cloth bag containing tobacco leaves on the top of the kang, rolled a cigarette for Liu Kai, and handed it over.Liu Kai waved his hand and said that he doesn't smoke, so he lit it and smoked by himself. Only then did Liu Kai show him his ID and explain his purpose. After seeing Liu Kai's ID, the village chief took him to a public house in the middle of the village for lodging.

The house in the high-walled compound is owned by Xiaoba Village.The courtyard is very large, with three main rooms and two east and west wing rooms.The village's old widow Fang Xiuzhen lived in the East Wing, and the three main rooms were specially prepared for government officials to work and stay in Xiaoba Village.Usually, Fang Xiuzhen is responsible for taking care of the house, and when guests come, she takes care of the guests' board and lodging. When the village head led Liu Kai into the courtyard of the public house, Fang Xiuzhen, who was sitting in front of the pot and having dinner, saw the village head bringing guests, hurriedly put down the bowls and chopsticks, and trotted open the door of the main house with the key. He opened the door of the room, and picked up burning charcoal from his own iron dustpan, and stuffed it into the kang hole. Immediately, the clean and tidy hut became warm.

Fang Xiuzhen quickly took out the cabbage and white noodles from the west room, and quickly made noodle soup in the outer room.Liu Kai and the village chief closed the door and sat on the edge of the kang in the inner room to chat. "Is there someone named Li Shuilu in our village?" Liu Kai took out a photo of Li Shuilu two years ago from his travel bag and asked the village chief.This is the only single photo of Li Shuilu that can be found so far.This photo was taken with a point-and-shoot camera, and the date is clearly marked in the lower right corner.Li Shuilu in the photo looks like she is dying, although in terms of age, she shouldn't be so old.How useful this photo will be in finding Li Shuilu from decades ago, Liu Kai has no idea.This is what I got from Hu Guang before I left.

The village head took the photo and looked at it for a while. "I don't know this person. I haven't heard of her." The village head returned the photo to Liu Kai, just shaking his head vigorously.He told Liu Kai that he was a foreigner, a son-in-law recruited by Xiaoba Village, and he had only been in Xiaoba Village for six or seven years, so he didn't know much about what happened in the village in the past. No one has ever heard of it.Liu Kai asked him who else in the village could know what happened in the past, and he said that there were only two people who could know something, one was Old Ninth Uncle, and the other was Aunt Fang who cooked for Liu Kai.These two people came to Xiaoba village after the tragedy.

"What happened to the tragedy you just mentioned?" Liu Kai asked again after closing his notebook. "The tragedy was committed by the Japanese devils. In the winter of 1944, they bloodbathed Xiaobacun, set fire to all the houses in Xiaobacun, and drove all the villagers into the sea and drowned..." "Not a single survivor?" "Maybe not! I can't explain it clearly. I just heard the teacher talk about this tragedy when I was studying in middle school." At this time, Aunt Fang knocked on the door and said that the noodle soup was ready.The village head stood up and said to Liu Kai with deep apology: "There is nothing to eat in this small place, so you just make do with filling your stomach." After saying that, he left.

While Liu Kai was sitting cross-legged on the Kang to eat, Aunt Fang was cleaning the pots and stoves in the outer room. Liu Kai then said, "Aunt Fang, I want to ask you something." Hearing that the family members wanted to inquire about matters with her, Fang Xiuzhen had no choice but to go into the back room and sit on the edge of the kang with her back to the light. "Aunt Fang, is there anyone named Li Shuilu in our village?" As soon as Liu Kai's words came out of his mouth, Aunt Fang's expression changed: "What are you asking about her?" "So there is someone like Li Shuilu!" Liu Kai said hurriedly.

"Yes, yes. But she is not from Xiaoba Village at all." Aunt Fang immediately asked, "Why do you ask her?" Liu Kai just followed his own train of thought: "Do you know Li Shuilu?" "know." "Where is she from?" "It's from Sichuan." "From Sichuan? Are you mistaken?" "Why did I make a mistake? She told me herself. She came to Xiaoba Village and visited my house several times!" "Do you think it's this person?" Liu Kaifu took out a photo of Li Shuilu again for Aunt Fang to identify. "This is her! She is a southern woman with a delicate face, just like those southern daughter-in-laws on TV, very handsome." Aunt Fang squinted her eyes, looking at the old woman in the photo , shaking his head again and again.

"You're talking about Li Shuilu when she was young, right? This photo was taken two years ago, so of course it's different." Liu Kai explained. Unexpectedly, Aunt Fang patted her hand: "Look at what you police comrade said, when Li Shuilu died in Xiaoba Village, she was still young! You can still get photos of her when she was old, it's not like you ran into a ghost!" Liu Kai suddenly realized that the Li Shuilu Aunt Fang mentioned and the Li Shuilu he was looking for were completely two people.But in such a small village, it is impossible to have two people with the same name and surname!

"Then have you seen this person? Take a closer look, is there anyone like her among your former acquaintances?" Liu Kai further enlightened. But after Aunt Fang carefully looked at the old woman in the photo, she returned the photo to Liu Kai. "Haven't seen her?" "never seen it." Liu Kai thought for a while and said, "Then tell me about the Li Shuilu you know!" "Li Shuilu came all the way from Sichuan to Xiaoba Village to find her missing husband. Her husband joined the army in 1942, and after he left home, he didn't hear from her." "Then how did Li Shuilu die in Xiaoba Village?" Liu Kai asked closely. "Alas! drowned in the sea." "Drown?" Aunt Fang sighed, "Oh, poor woman. It's been more than thirty years, but no matter when I think about it, my heart hurts. According to the official document, she accidentally fell into the sea. drowned, but I know she committed suicide by jumping into the sea." "Why did she commit suicide?" "I'm living without a goal. People, if there is no goal, they will lose the idea of ​​living. Think about it, a small woman like her, in order to find her missing husband, traveled from the south to our big north. I have traveled all over China. I have been looking for it since the founding of New China, and I have been looking for it for more than ten years. In the end, I didn’t even find my husband’s body. Is this feeling of not being able to see the dead body? Is it human? Also, That man didn't even leave her a child. She didn't want to go back to Sichuan alone, so she took the last step..." Listening to Aunt Fang's narration, Liu Kai further determined that this Li Shuilu and the Li Shuilu he was looking for were indeed two people.But he still asked in a tentative tone: "After this Li Shuilu jumped into the sea, will she be rescued again. In other words, she is still alive?" Aunt Fang smiled wryly: "You comrade is really mysterious. How can such a good thing happen! If I can't find her body, I still have this thought, but her body was washed ashore by the tide later. The people from the County Public Security Bureau asked us women to identify the corpse together..." Aunt Fang couldn't continue. Since this Li Shuilu is not the other Li Shuilu, Liu Kai can't ask any more questions. "Aunt Fang, how long have you been in Xiaoba Village?" Liu Kai changed the subject. "I came here in the spring of the second year of the tragedy." "Do you still remember the scene at that time?" "Yes!" When talking about the past, Aunt Fang, who seemed serious and unsmiling, suddenly seemed to have opened up a chatterbox, and she started talking endlessly, "Yugu was the first one to come to Xiaoba Village after the tragedy. She is very capable." , led the people who came one after another, and built a new Xiaoba Village on a piece of broken bricks and tiles. She later married Brother Nine. Among us, except Yugu, who is an authentic Xiaoba Village, The rest were fleeing famine and begging for food. When the war just ended, people in the mountains ran to the beach, and people in the mountains went to the mountains when they needed food and clothing. Those days..." Recalling the old days, Aunt Fang couldn't help feeling deeply moved. "Aunt Yu, is she still alive?" "I don't know. She is the same age as me. If she was alive, she would be in her sixties this year." Liu Kai looked puzzled at Aunt Fang's face hiding in the shadows: "You mean..." "I really don't know whether she is dead or alive now. She disappeared suddenly. After careful calculation, in the early years, there were two unfortunate events in our Xiaoba Village. One was the drowning death of a foreign woman Li Shuilu The other thing is Yugu's sudden disappearance. The matter of Yugu is still pending. Decades have passed, and there is still no news of her. It is hard for Brother Nine. His son and daughter-in-law settled down in the county. He was the only one left in the old house..." Intuition told Liu Kai that the Yugu Aunt Fang was talking about might be the Li Shuilu he was looking for.The hope that suddenly appeared in this disappointment made him very excited.In order to alleviate the pain of crossing his legs, he jumped off the kang, put on his shoes, sat on the edge of the kang with Aunt Fang face to face, and started a long conversation. "The Yugu you mentioned, how did she disappear?" Liu Kai's questioning became more detailed and cautious. "I'm afraid no one in Xiaoba Village can answer your question. This matter is a bit outrageous. No one in the village would have thought that something would happen to her. At that time, although she was no longer a village cadre, she was still the whole village The backbone of the people! Even the leaders of the town are full of praise when they mention her." "Could it be that there is something wrong with the relationship between the husband and wife?" "Aunt Yu and Brother Ninth had conflicts? How could it be? At that time, Brother Nine was still working in a pharmacy in the county town, and he only came home once every two months. The couple couldn't kiss enough! Really, this is so strange Oddly, for no reason at all, she suddenly disappeared one night." "Have you found her?" "I have looked for it. Even the police station in the town was alerted, and the "Workers and Peasants Daily" published by the county still published a missing person notice in the cracks. Brother Nine also resigned from the public office and searched every village in Dadao Town. Missing people is no longer a miracle nowadays, and there are always people looking for children on TV. It was different in those days, it was earth-shattering! Since the tragedy in Xiaoba Village, people have been living in peace , and nothing unusual happened. Not only Xiaoba Village, but also Dadao Town, is also calm. Yugu suddenly disappeared, which made people panic, and people said everything. In private, I often think, she She was dead, and Li Shuilu's ghost was hooked into the sea in the middle of the night and drowned. I don't know what happened, since Li Shuilu came to Xiaoba Village, Yugu seemed to have lost her soul, and she was always absent-minded. Because of this, she She resigned from her position as a village cadre. But in the end, she was seduced by Li Shuilu, the dead ghost." Liu Kai was dumbfounded by Aunt Fang's supernatural analysis.But he didn't refute Aunt Fang's "reasoning" because he didn't want to spoil Aunt Fang's face.After all, it was Aunt Fang who helped him find the "Li Shuilu" he was looking for.Now, he can almost conclude that the Yugu that Aunt Fang is talking about is Li Shuilu. "Did Yugu's disappearance and Li Shuilu's drowning happen in the same year?" "Yu Gu's disappearance came later. There was a few years between the two of them." "Then Li Shuilu has been dead for several years, is the ghost still there?" "Oh, some ghosts will seek revenge from living people twenty years later!" Seeing that Aunt Fang spoke vividly, Liu Kai couldn't help laughing again: "This is just your way of saying it. Can you tell me what other people think about it?" "Other people... At that time, most people in the village thought that Yugu was not missing, she ran away with someone. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Yugu had no mother since she was a child, and it was her mother who lived in Nanshan. She was brought up by her aunt. According to news from Dadao Town, when Aunt Yu was at her aunt’s house, there was a man who was a squad leader of the Eighth Route Army. Later, that man went to the front and cut off contact with her. Now that he is liberated, It is estimated that the squad leader came back and connected with Yugu in Dadao Town or some other secret place. Some people also said that it was Li Shuilu who brought the squad leader's message to Yugu. At first, she had a husband Yugu and the child were just hesitant, so she was full of worries all day long. After a few years, she finally made up her mind and left. I heard that Yugu and the monitor were very close to each other, and Lihuo met Ganchai. , can you not cheat?" "Did Aunt Yu stay at my aunt's house before returning to Xiaoba Village?" "That's right! She shouldn't have gone back to Xiaoba Village. When the squad leader was recuperating at her aunt's house, a couple of boys and girls secretly fell in love. Because of this, she was driven back to Xiaoba Village by her aunt. " "Does Yugu's husband, Old Ninth Uncle, know about this?" "Of course he heard about it. It's just that he is very stubborn, and he refuses to believe it even if he dies. It's true, a loving couple, a happy family, how can they just leave behind! What Brother Jiu thought in his heart told me The same—he also believed that Yugu was dead. He searched for more than half a year, and saw that Yugu had not heard from her, so he made a fake grave for her, and buried a few old clothes that Yugu often wore. Yugu's The grave is next to Li Shuilu's. Every year during the Ching Ming Festival, Old Ninth Uncle would go to the grave to burn a few pieces of paper. In the early days, he would take his son with him. When his son grew up, he didn't believe in this, so he went alone. It's like this every year, without interruption." As Aunt Fang said, she couldn't help but sigh. Liu Kai was deeply shocked: "He still insisted on doing this even though Yugu's body was never found? Did he ever suspect that Yugu might still be alive?" "I don't know much about that." Hearing Aunt Fang mention the word "grave", Liu Kai couldn't help thinking of the note left by the old man who scavenged waste. He seemed to hear a sad voice saying: "My brother——your grave is in the small grave." Hachimura, my grave is also there—although I am still alive, my soul has long since died, and like you, I was buried in Xiaobacun in a foreign land." "Where is Yugu's grave? Is it far from the village?" Liu Kai asked. "It's in the woods beside the path leading to Dadao Town, quite close to the village." "When people in the village die, are they all buried there?" "Ok." "Can you show me?" "It's unlucky for you to visit a dead person's grave!" Aunt Fang looked at Liu Kai reproachfully. "A fake tomb is often paid homage to. Such a miracle only existed in ancient times. What age is it now..." Liu Kai said thoughtfully. After sending Aunt Fang away, Liu Kai took out a pen and notebook from his pocket, lay down on the three-drawer table, and began to sort out Yugu's life experience told by Aunt Fang: Yugu was the only real Xiaoba Villager, the only real Xiaoba villager. After the tragedy, the first person to come to Xiaoba Village.Before that, she lived at her aunt's house in the mountains, and fell in love with a squad leader of the Eighth Route Army who was recuperating at her aunt's house.Next, Yugu led the whole village to build Xiaoba Village on the ruins. Therefore, she had a very high prestige in the village and was praised by her superiors.During this period, she married Lao Jiushu, had a happy married life and had a son.The problem happened after Li Shuilu came to Xiaoba Village. As Aunt Fang said, it seemed an ominous omen. Li Shuilu's arrival made Yugu lose her soul, and she even ceased to be a village cadre.Indeed, Aunt Fang linked Yugu's disappearance with Li Shuilu's death.She believed that it was Li Shuilu's lingering ghost who seduced Yugu in the end.In the middle, what happened?What is the relationship between Li Shuilu and the squad leader and Yugu?Why did Yugu use the name of the deceased Li Shuilu?The real Li Shuilu is dead, and what exactly she brought to Yugu after her arrival, I am afraid that the answer can only be found from the still alive Old Ninth Uncle... Also, the grave of Yugu——Old Ninth Uncle What is the purpose of the missing wife making such a fake grave?Why did he try his best to overcome all opinions when he could not see the dead body and did not see each other alive? He would rather believe that his wife was dead than that he had eloped with someone?Such an inference is counterintuitive!He even insisted on making a fake grave for his wife. Did he make a fake grave to express his grief, or to cover up something?Facts have proved that Yugu did walk out of Xiaoba Village alive, that is to say, she did not disappear, but ran away from home.But her beloved husband "buried" her alive behind her.This is so weird.Is it because of hate?Either because of love? And who is the "brother" mentioned in the note of the old man who scavenged waste and the old man who scavenged waste?Right now, there is no way to start the investigation of these two people.But Liu Kai still noticed that neither Aunt Fang nor the village head mentioned that a man from outside died here.Since the scavenger old man mentioned the grave in his note, maybe some clues can be found in the cemetery of Xiaoba Village. The more Liu Kai thought about it, the more strange he felt.After finishing his notes, he sat alone under the lamp for a long time.The note in front of him left too many question marks, he seemed to have entered a maze, and he couldn't see where the exit to solve the problem was.From Li Shuilu to Yugu, and from Yugu to Li Shuilu, what happened in the middle that made the fates of these two unrelated women inexplicably linked together?Li Shuilu came to Xiaoba Village and died here, and Yugu ran away; Yugu pretended to be Li Shuilu, but was killed in another village.There is a ambiguity here, that is, is Yugu running away to pursue her lover in Girls' Generation, or to escape?Judging from the later ending, it seems that she has never found the monitor, otherwise she would not have become a "black man" living on the street.So, what is she running from?But after all, he did not escape the palm of death.When Liu Kai searched for the reason, he felt that his thoughts seemed to span a whole century, so far away and long.In this huge space-time, it is really difficult to find the welded chain.Everything had to start from the beginning, from the moment Li Shuilu walked out of Xiaoba Village, no, it should start from the moment Yugu walked into Xiaoba Village after the catastrophe... Liu Kai stood up and took a deep breath.He stretched himself, trying to relax his tense spirit.He stood in front of the table and looked at the names of the two women on the notebook. At this moment, he decided to restore the real name of the impostor Li Shuilu in the investigation of Xiaobacun: Yugu.He picked up the phone and told Ma Sen, who was far away in Baiyun, the ins and outs of the incident.