Chapter 4 three

Almost located in the center of Chencuo, the well behind the right side of the Temple of the Five Princes of the Chen Mansion has always had many weird legends.This octagonal well with a circle inside and an outside is about three or four feet high at the head of the well. Due to the accumulation of time and humidity, the well wall made of red bricks has a watery red color all day long. The root of the well wall touches the ground. It is covered with lush wet green moss, damp and greasy. Although the area near the mouth of the well is often used and polished very smooth, it is still extremely slippery. Once the water is warm and humid, it will slide down into the well involuntarily.

The latest and most popular legend about this well is that a maid named Chrysanthemum committed suicide by throwing herself into the well here.There are different opinions about the reasons for throwing herself into the well, and she committed suicide because she couldn't bear the persecution. In short, after the death of this wronged maid, she began to appear nearby. People passing by in the middle of the night saw Chrysanthemum sitting on the mouth of the well, dressing up to the figure in the well under the clear moonlight;No matter how Chrysanthemum appears, people who see her always describe her as a sad and beautiful female ghost, not a ghost with a long tongue and blood from seven holes.

And many years have passed, there are still people who say that they saw Chrysanthemum by the well.Therefore, on a clear March day, one of the rare windless days in Lucheng, the sky was bright and quiet, and the sun was shining gently. A Wang Guan and Lin Shi came to this well to draw water to wash clothes. Wang Tonglin said: "The well is next to the Wang Ye Temple, it is the area under the Wang Ye's jurisdiction, and ghosts can also appear. It can be seen that the Wang Ye is so holy, and it gives the wronged people a chance to speak!" Lin Shi, who was holding a washing board and a bamboo basket of clothes, searched for a while after listening, and saw the side corner of Wangye Temple exposed in the leaves of the banyan forest. The sky is clear and blue, and the slight wind drives the white clouds to float lightly.

"That's right!" Lin Shi thought in his heart, "Your Highness is willing to let ghosts appear to express your grievances." Lin Shi also believed in his heart that after the ghost manifested, he finally spread his misfortune, so he found a corner by the well in awe and placed the washboard and clothes.When I went to the well to draw water, I looked into the bottomless abyss in the well, and unconsciously chanted a sentence in my mouth: "Ju Niang, you have spiritual manifestations, please protect me." After speaking, she felt a little uneasy, and looked around at the women washing clothes by the well, but no one noticed her, so she picked up a bucket full of water from the well and walked away quickly.

It was eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and the well was not crowded. The women who had to go to the fields or go to the sea early came to wash clothes at dawn. Most of the people at the well are not young, and they may replace young women who work at home. Housework, or to wash a few clothes that I carry with me, and there are also a few laundry women who have collected all the clothes in the morning and have to wash them until noon. Although there were not too many people, with this well as the center, there were still not many free piles of clothes, washboards, and buckets around the well's edge paved with gray granite within a radius of seven or eight feet.The original drainage channel in this place has been used for a whole morning, and it can no longer be taken care of. It was supposed to let the used water flow to the low-lying place first, and then flow to a nearby ditch. At this time, the water has accumulated in many places. The dead corners of the park are soaked with miscellaneous objects accumulated in the public area: a pair of torn underwear, or a pair of worn-out clogs, swollen from soaking, and also glowing with the unique swamp and damp beside the water, in the warm environment Under the blue sky in spring, there is still a heavy suffocation.

The women by the well, most of whom are old and working, are wearing old, dull-colored clothes. They lower their heads and grit their teeth, struggling to wash the clothes, or they beat the washing rods loudly.Occasionally, one or two children playing nearby would come over to play, but they would always be frightened away by loud reprimands.The women's relationship is not so quiet, and there is often a word or two whispered between each other, and some news will trigger a burst of low laughter.And no matter when, the women will always prick their ears cautiously, waiting for any signs of trouble. For them, it is definitely not a glorious thing to miss any news.

The most interesting moment will always come during the day, when one or two elderly women who like to make things happen among them, the women will listen carefully at this time, and then smile and bite their ears and pass a sentence or two to miss If so, add a few comments or opinions.What was particularly strange was that everyone stopped working and laughed loudly, which is also the case. Undoubtedly, A Wangguan is also such a character who brings jokes. She has many positive deeds. For example, she will snatch a menstrual blood-stained underwear from a certain woman, throw it up, and say with disdain:

"It's a shame to take it out for her sister-in-law to wash, how can there be such a little girl." Official Ah Wang knew almost everything about who had to do the laundry for whom.Or when she sees a nearby washerwoman washing a man's underwear with bloody discharge, she will shake her head and say very righteously and critically: "Where do you go to play like this? I don't know how to restrain myself. I have to tell his mother." The person next to him may say with a smile: "For this kind of thing, just tell him that women are not good." The original speaker, Ah Wang, quickly said with disdain:

"Tell him women have a fart." Then follow the reasoning: "If his woman made him look like this, or got hold of him, she wouldn't give us all these pants to wash." There was a knowing laugh all over the place. Most of the time, Lin Shi also laughed, although he didn't quite understand what he was laughing at.She was brought to the well by Mr. Wang. Her hands and feet are diligent and strong, and she always takes the initiative to carry water for Mr. Mr. Wang. Occasionally, when she sees Mr. Mr. Mr. Wang busy arranging some of her clothes after washing, she will silently Take the clothes for A Wangguan to wash.Every time at this time, Officer Ah Wang always pretended not to know, and continued to talk, and when he reached a paragraph, Lin Shi roughly washed her clothes for her, and then he let out a cry of surprise, and hurriedly said again and again:

"Your good intentions will be rewarded, and good intentions will be rewarded." Then she told Lin Shi how lucky she is now, she has no parents-in-law, no uncles, no need to go to the fields and go to sea, and only needs to take care of their daily life. "Several generations have cultivated this kind of blessing." A Wangguan said emphatically. As usual, Lin Shi lowered his head and didn't say anything, only there was a smile on his rosy long face, and the slightly embarrassed Lala was so stretched that the collar of the bottom shirt was exposed because of the obvious skin plumpness.

Before he got married half a year ago, Lin Shi had put on more than a circle of weight, as if he had grown up that had been temporarily forgotten in the past, and now he was rushing to make up for it, not only his arms became thicker vigorously, but also some female signs became unstoppable.She was originally tall and tall, with a pair of slender eyes with single eyelids on her long face. Now she was a little watery. People who saw her recently all praised her, and they didn't expect that there would be such a thing as a person made of planks. Slightly pretty today. Official Ah Wang looked at Lin Shi coldly, just a few words of praise, there was this kind of smile on his face, and then he looked at Lin Shi's tense chest under his bent body, then from his two thin lips, from Between the white teeth that had been intact for a day, he confided coldly: "You are a lucky person, you can't compare with a widow like me. Unfortunately, people in the previous life still have debts." Then deliberately lowered his voice, almost biting Lin Shi's ear, and continued secretly: "As soon as your guy fucked you, there was nothing to clean up. Every time I heard you shout loudly, I kept thinking of Amitabha Buddha in my heart!" After A Wangguan finished speaking, there was still sadness on his face, but his eyes turned to the women who had held their breath all around, and he gave a wink, and made a pout at Lin Shi.Several women nearby looked at Lin Shi with pity but with contempt. Lin Shi suppressed her smile, lowered her head in a daze, and rubbed her clothes frequently, without the slightest awareness of what was happening around her. Officer Ah Wang watched and saw that Lin Shi hadn't raised his head for a long time, and he was still rubbing an old shirt of Officer Ah Wang in his hands, turning a blind eye to the large soy sauce stains on the front of the shirt, fearing that the clothes would not be washed in the morning if things went on like this Alright, Officer Ah Wang deliberately said loudly: "That's why I said, if you want to get rid of the sins of previous lives, you have to believe in Bodhisattvas. This belief is not to fast on the first day of the new year, rest for three or five months, and then go to the temple to worship on the fifteenth day. There are Bodhisattvas." The way A Wangguan spoke made all the women around him laugh. Lin Shi followed suit and raised his head, seeing that it was the top of the temple where the dragon and the phoenix were woven together, the eaves of the temple on the top of Xieshan Mountain. In the morning sun, there was a layer of yellow light shining, very peaceful, only the Cochin-fired green dragon with its cocked ridge and swallow tail was sitting under the blue sky as if flying, Lin Shi recited Amitabha in his heart, and lowered his head Come and continue to scrub the clothes that are in your hands. A high-pitched voice was heard to replace A Wangguan.Lin Shi glanced at her, and she was a widowed woman in her forties named Chun Zhi. Chun Zhi and her only son lived in the alley behind the well. Speaking in falsetto.Lin Shi remembered that A Wangguan once said that Chun Zhi's voice was "disfigured", and that's why he wanted to be a widow. "Do you know..." It always starts like this, and it will pause for a while, and then fly a glance around to see if there is no eye-obstructing person in front of it, and then continue.And this pause has already attracted several pairs of curious ears. "The sister-in-law next door to me, she and Zha have not been news for a long time. You know that she is going to marry a wife recently, and she will go to a family in Xiangbeijiaotou." "I know she is the daughter of Guan Mei, and the matchmaker is also a relative of my fifth aunt!" The woman named Wangshi said quickly, quite proud of her well-informed.Her husband is a well-known fisherman in Chen Yuzhuang. When they scold each other, they can't scold each other every time. "That's it!" Someone agreed, and Chun Zhi became more and more interested. "Sister-in-law Ah Qiang went to meet someone, and both parties were very agreeable. When they talked about the same, sister-in-law Ah Qiang took the girl's hand and talked endlessly. At the end, she even talked about her Ah Qiang with him." Chunzhi stopped to catch his breath, and the women beside him kept urging him. "Slow down, slow down, let me speak slowly." Chun Zhi deliberately showed off. "You know what sister-in-law A owes to others, saying that she owes her to play with Cha, uses her house as an inn, and spends every penny to those stinky Cha, who pours footwash water and underwear for Smelly Cha" ..." "Ouch!" Someone yelled. Everyone else laughed. "What's the result?" Wang Shi asked. "Of course it scared the uninitiated girls to death. Mrs. Aqian was still crying with tears and snot, saying that she raised her son and wanted him to be filial to her in the future." "True thirty-eight!" "No seven or eight." Many people said. "Where's the marriage?" It was Wang Shi who asked. "Probably forget it." Chunzhi said casually, "I'm not afraid of death, this mother-in-law." Wang Shi was a little annoyed that he didn't know anything about this matter from the beginning to the end. "I never listened to my fifth aunt." Wang Shi said in a firm tone, and he would not give up if he didn't pursue the results. "Next time, I will ask my fifth aunt." Suddenly there was a flat voice, adding a cold sentence: "Perhaps Auntie Aqian said that on purpose." Everyone turned their heads, and it was the silent official Ah Wang who was speaking.Just listen to her lightly say: "It's better to show others a little bit of strength first, and know how much this mother-in-law has under her hands." No one was thinking in this direction, so there was a moment of silence, and then Gu Benma, who was the oldest in the world and had a husband and children, coughed dryly, cleared her throat, and calmed down with a mature understanding of everything. Said gently: "Ah Wang! It's not that I like to talk about you: you are the only person who can guess others like this. Talking about people's mouth is so bad is like cutting vegetables with a knife." A Wangguan snorted softly, but didn't say anything.Gu Benmo looked at the look on Ah Wangguan's face, smiled slightly, and said no more. No one spoke for a while, and everyone lowered their heads to scrub and wash their clothes. After a while, they whispered to each other again, and suddenly Wangshi's bright and loud voice broke out: "What? That person will give his daughter a dowry? His eldest grandson is full moon, and there is not a single onion or a piece of meat in the fried rice." The women first giggled and laughed, and then asked which family Wang Shi was talking about. Lin Shi always listened silently, and when others laughed, she laughed too. What the women talked about was full of endless novelty to her.In the past, at my uncle's house, my aunt would lie in bed all year long, saying that she was sick, but the children kept giving birth one after another. Lin Shi had to take care of eight cousins, and also had to take care of the sick aunt. In addition to years of wars, every family closed their doors when it was dark, almost no chance to listen to other people's chats in Linshi. Of course, they didn't know what happened to the neighbors. Not at all interested. It wasn't until he got acquainted with A Wangguan and listened to her making up various theories that Lin Shi seemed to see many people and things that he had never paid attention to in the past for the first time. It is a pity that most of the people talked about have never met, otherwise, they would have met What's more interesting, Lin Shi thought so.I also vaguely think that one day in the future, she may be like other women, fluently participate in the conversation, know who is who, what has been done, and be able to comment. That morning, because the topic was very hot, Lin Shi got home after such a delay, it was past ten o'clock, and when he entered the door, he saw Chen Jiangshui sitting on a bamboo chair in the living room, Lin Shi knew something was wrong in his heart. As soon as Jiang Shui met, he shouted viciously: "Where did you die?" Lin Shi timidly moved the clothes in the basin around his waist. "Wash a few clothes in one morning. If you like to do laundry, I'll pack it for you and wash it for you. You won't be able to do it for a year." Chen Jiangshui said in a rough voice. "It's quite crowded today." Lin Shi tried to argue in a low voice. Chen Jiangshui jumped off the bamboo chair, leaned over and gave Lin Shi a slap. "I fucked your mother's xx, you dare to talk back when I talk to you." Lin Shi stroked his red and swollen cheeks and lowered his head. Chen Jiangshui continued after a while: "You must be with that old bastard again, Ah Wang, my old mother's xx, if you talk to her again, be careful that one day I will cut your tongue off with a pig's knife." Chen Jiangshui's words were very serious, it didn't look like he was just threatening at all, Lin Shi trembled slightly in fear.Then, Lin Shi saw Chen Jiangshui's hand reaching towards his chest, and he already knew what he wanted, but Lin Shi still couldn't stop screaming. It has become a habit for him to come back to ask for her after killing pigs in the pig stove in the morning, but it is not certain how often he will ask for her.When he just came through the door, Lin Shi had to bear his man almost every other day, sometimes the interval was shorter, and even several times a day, he always wanted her when she was not prepared, no matter whether she was still burning in the stove, She was hanging her clothes to dry, which caused her to scream repeatedly. Of course, Lin Shi had resisted instinctively, but Chen Jiangshui's strength was far beyond her ability to resist. In the end, she still had to be crushed underneath, watching her man's shiny face gradually approaching, watching him squint and sink The eyes in the flesh shone like beasts. Every time he hurt her, Lin Shi couldn't tell what he had done to her in that dim room. Out of intuitive shame, she didn't dare to open her eyes to see Chen Jiangshui's real actions. She just Knowing that he was suffocating her, and the pain was so uncontrollable that she could only cry and moan loudly. Fortunately, no matter what, no matter how long or short the time is, this matter will always pass. At that moment, Chen Jiangshui turned over, lay on the bed and fell asleep immediately, and when the sound of snoring sounded, Lin Shi knew that the most unbearable moment of her day had passed.Standing up and tidying up her clothes, although there was still residual pain, it was not serious, and after accumulating many times of experience, Lin Shi knew that this pain would disappear soon, as long as Chen Jiangshui did not attack her again. Therefore, almost happily, Lin Shi walked out of the room and rushed to the stove.This has become a rule: on the day Chen Jiangshui wants her, he will bring back a wealth of fish, oysters, and occasionally a little sliced ​​meat, and what's more special, there are actually liver-like viscera.Lin Shizai carefully went through the food that was put on the stove today, and then returned to the hall in satisfaction, rolled up a basin of undried clothes, and walked outside the house. On a windless March day in Lucheng, the sky is extremely bright and evenly blue, covering the entire sky. At the junction of the sea and the sky, clusters of reeds on the ground in Haipu also grow spring buds, and the fresh green is continuous. However, although the sun is very gentle, it is still no match for the cold spring, and the slightest chill hits the face. Lin Shi quickly hung several clothes and pants on the bamboo poles, happily returned to the house and was about to cook Chinese food, only to realize that he forgot to bring in the wooden basin for the clothes, turned around and just stepped out of the house, the next door A figure was bumping into the corner of the low dirt wall next to him, it was A Wangguan. Lin Shi was a little surprised, Ah Wang Guan seemed to have been squatting under the earthen wall for a long time, so that she couldn't stand up completely for a while.Seeing Lin Shi, Ah Wang's face wrinkled together and showed a strange smile, her eyes shone with a gleam of aggressiveness, somehow Lin Shi thought of Chen Jiangshui's eyes when he was approaching. "This earthen wall is about to fall down, I will help it up." A Wangguan said shyly that when the spring sun shone on her face, there seemed to be a gleam of rosy glow on her face. "It's all right now! I'm going back to cooking Chinese food." Without waiting for Lin Shi to reply, Guan Ah Wang turned around, dragged his little feet that he let go, and almost limped quickly across the yard and into the house.Lin Shi saw that the wall didn't look like it was going to collapse, he was thinking about the lunch he was going to cook, and he turned and went into the house, forgetting about the strange behavior of Officer Ah Wang. There was fish and meat for lunch, and Lin Shi cooked it in a three-layer pot with soy sauce. As usual, there was a lot of soy sauce, so salty that it tasted like marinated bacon.After cooking, waiting for Chen Jiangshui to wake up, he couldn't help picking it up and tasting it first. After eating several pieces, he stopped chopsticks because it was too salty. Chen Jiangshui went to bed late that day, and didn't get up until nearly one o'clock. He seemed to have slept very well and comfortably. He had a quick meal without saying anything, and didn't tell him that he was going out, and strode towards the reeds in Haipu. go.Lin Shi watched his figure go away, and lazily started to pack the tableware. After washing the dishes, he yawned. Seeing that there was nothing wrong, Lin Shi went to the room and lay down, and fell asleep after a while.Usually, Lin Shi could sleep for two or three hours, and only when Chen Jiangshui had to turn around did he get up to prepare dinner.That afternoon, I didn’t know if I ate too much meat and it was too salty. After a while, I woke up thirsty again and again. I dreamed that I was dipping sweet potatoes with salt. I didn’t have anything to eat, but it was so salty. It kept gushing out, and sucking that blood was also salty. Lin Shi hurriedly got up, went out of the room to drink water, saw that it was still a bright afternoon sun outside the house, and was suddenly a little surprised to think that he was also blessed to be able to take a nap during the day.