Chapter 2 Primer two
The Yuma River is very wide. Looking from this side of the bank, you can't see the edge from a distance.It is more appropriate to say it is a big river than a river.
The water of the Yuma River is extremely turbid. Since the upper reaches are all mountains, the river brought a lot of soil from the mountains, so the color of the river will always be brown in the memory of the locals.
The dark brown water nourishes thousands of residents on the river bank.Also due to the nutrient-rich soil brought by the river, the soil around the river bank is particularly fertile. There is a local saying that even if you throw a bag of rice on the soil, you can grow a rich harvest of rice in autumn.
It doesn't really have much to do with the story, though.
In the sixteenth year of the Republic of China, early autumn.
A group of people in old clothes was walking along the banks of the Yuma River.There were about fifteen people in their team, ten strong young men and five experienced old men. It seemed that they were going to swim upstream along the river.
The oldest person in the team is the one who guides first.His face is full of weather and frost honed by the years, and his hands are calloused. He should be a person who is used to heavy physical labor.
Each of the passers-by carried a small package on their back and a machete on their waist, silently following the old man in the sun.
If you look carefully, it is not difficult to find that they are all locals. Judging from the body shape and the scars and calluses on their hands, they may be mountain workers or quarry workers, but I don’t know why they came here and why they went up along the river bank. roam.
But seeing how the old guide would pick up a stone and look at it after taking a step, he should be looking for something.
"Stop, take a break." The guide waved his hand and told everyone to rest where they were.
So a group of fifteen people stopped. They took out dry food as hard as a rock sitting under their buttocks from the packages behind them, and had a simple lunch with the brown and dirty water in the river beside them.
The old guide also ate a little, and couldn't help but picked up a few stones by the river bank to look at them carefully, and finally smashed the stones to see the inner gut, but judging by his expression, he probably found nothing.The old man couldn't help sighing, and his face became even more lifeless.
"Village Chief, can you still not find it?" A young man in his early nineteens with a clever face came up and asked.
The village head slowly shook his head, "Duck, is it that the sky is going to kill our Yushi Village? The jade mines have disappeared for almost three years. If no new veins can be found, the people in the village will probably leave too. Scattered, the geomantic treasures that our ancestors lived for hundreds of years are gone! People in our village have been mining and processing jade for hundreds of years, and they have long since known how to farm. In this era of war and chaos, I really don’t know how many people there will be can survive."
The young man called Duck Dan touched his dirty face, wiped the grease and dust from his face on his trouser legs, smiled and said: "Village chief, doesn't the teacher in the village often say that the sky is not good?" Is it the road to no one? Since jade mines have been alluvial from the upper reaches of the Yuma River for hundreds of years, there must be veins somewhere in the upper reaches. As long as they are found, the village will not perish. People's lives will get better again."
"I hope so, alas." The village chief sighed again, his cloudy eyes looked at the rushing and roaring water of the Yuma River.
The water of the Yuma River is like a ferocious monster. This monster has protected Yushi Village for thousands of years and brought endless jade mines to the village, allowing the people in the village to live a good life no matter what age they are in. day.
However, since when did the river not bring any more jade ore?
After resting for a while, the pedestrians continued to search upstream again, aimlessly, and they didn't know when they would be able to gain something.
After more than ten days of searching along the river bank, the plain gradually disappeared, and the group began to walk into the rolling hills.For the sake of convenience, everyone did not bring too much dry food, and the dry food bags on everyone's backs had already become more and more dry after more than ten days, and in the end there were only two days' rations left. However, still nothing. Yadan looked at the frowning village chief, shook his empty dry food bag vigorously, handed the last hard pickled vegetable steamed bun to the village chief, and said, "Village chief, I've always found it strange. It's also the alluvial stones from the upstream." , why is it that only our Yushi Village can find jade mines?" The village chief withdrew his gaze of not knowing where he was going, and patted his head lovingly, "That's why the ancestors said that our Yushi Village is a treasure land of geomantic omen." "Then why did the jade mine suddenly disappear?" The face of the village head suddenly darkened, and he pondered for a long time without opening his mouth. He just said to himself: "The dry food is almost gone. My mother-in-law is still waiting for us to go back. If we go back empty-handed, I'm afraid she won't." There is a way to survive. The last food in the family has been used to make dry food. There is no jade mine, so we can’t start work, and few families in the village can use money to buy food. If everyone doesn’t leave the village, I’m afraid they will starve to death. .” "No, we will definitely find the reason for the disappearance of the jade mine. This time, the best prospectors and the most experienced jade workers in the village will come out. As long as we persevere, there will be no problem." Yadan said with determination. Seeing his appearance, the village chief couldn't help laughing, "Haha, it seems that I am really old, or you young people have the courage and drive. If I can get through this time, I, the village chief, should also step aside gone." After speaking, he threw away the stone in his hand, clapped his hands, and shouted, "Go, keep looking."
On the fifteenth day of the search for the jade mine, dry food had already been exhausted, and the group could only survive by gathering wild vegetables, hunting and fishing.Everyone is walking forward with a sigh of relief, and no one has a way out. If the jade mine cannot be found, the village will perish, and few of their family members can survive the migration in this world of warlords and warlords. They walked from the hills into the mountains, surrounded by steep mountains.Fortunately, the Yuma River is still extremely wide, and the river bank has formed a path due to the accumulation of the river for thousands of years, so it is not difficult to walk. On the seventeenth day, the salt they brought had run out, and the people looking for jade veins could only catch small animals, and drink the blood of animals to maintain nutrition and ingest salt.Long-distance travel, the physical decline caused by the lack of salt in the body is terrible, and you will lose your life at every turn. In the past seventeen days, everyone has gradually turned from optimism to despair. If the village chief hadn't urged them to move forward, they might have given up long ago.Even the cheerful Duck's face turned gloomy. For the first time, I felt that there was no way to complete the task this time. In a team full of despair, there is usually a murmur coming from someone's mouth.As a result, more and more people began to doubt the decision of the village chief, and even doubted the correctness of his decision on this search. At this moment, a turning point finally happened. The person assigned to hunt caught a snake from the creek. The snake was very long. I don’t know what species it was, but it weighed more than ten kilograms. There was enough food to eat a full meal, and it was usually hungry. Most people are able to let go of everything. So people cut open the stomach of this strange-looking snake, dug out its internal organs, and prepared to make a barbecue feast, but unexpectedly, a strange thing was pulled out of the snake's stomach. This thing looks like a ball of meat, and it also looks like a ball of stones. In short, even the well-informed old village head can't recognize what it is. Regardless of this stuff, the next thing that was pulled out made everyone boil. It is a group of jade mines, both the shape and the emerald green color are very top-quality jade mines. The old village chief immediately became agitated. He grabbed one of the pedestrians who were hunting and asked anxiously, "Where did you get this snake?" "From the creek in the mountain stream." The hunter was taken aback. "Go!" The village chief waved his hand and was about to walk to that place. Looking at the jade mine with a rough appearance in his hand, the original noise disappeared immediately, and everyone followed him in a tacit understanding. No one knows that once they leave, they will never come back...
After more than ten days of searching along the river bank, the plain gradually disappeared, and the group began to walk into the rolling hills.For the sake of convenience, everyone did not bring too much dry food, and the dry food bags on everyone's backs had already become more and more dry after more than ten days, and in the end there were only two days' rations left. However, still nothing. Yadan looked at the frowning village chief, shook his empty dry food bag vigorously, handed the last hard pickled vegetable steamed bun to the village chief, and said, "Village chief, I've always found it strange. It's also the alluvial stones from the upstream." , why is it that only our Yushi Village can find jade mines?" The village chief withdrew his gaze of not knowing where he was going, and patted his head lovingly, "That's why the ancestors said that our Yushi Village is a treasure land of geomantic omen." "Then why did the jade mine suddenly disappear?" The face of the village head suddenly darkened, and he pondered for a long time without opening his mouth. He just said to himself: "The dry food is almost gone. My mother-in-law is still waiting for us to go back. If we go back empty-handed, I'm afraid she won't." There is a way to survive. The last food in the family has been used to make dry food. There is no jade mine, so we can’t start work, and few families in the village can use money to buy food. If everyone doesn’t leave the village, I’m afraid they will starve to death. .” "No, we will definitely find the reason for the disappearance of the jade mine. This time, the best prospectors and the most experienced jade workers in the village will come out. As long as we persevere, there will be no problem." Yadan said with determination. Seeing his appearance, the village chief couldn't help laughing, "Haha, it seems that I am really old, or you young people have the courage and drive. If I can get through this time, I, the village chief, should also step aside gone." After speaking, he threw away the stone in his hand, clapped his hands, and shouted, "Go, keep looking."
On the fifteenth day of the search for the jade mine, dry food had already been exhausted, and the group could only survive by gathering wild vegetables, hunting and fishing.Everyone is walking forward with a sigh of relief, and no one has a way out. If the jade mine cannot be found, the village will perish, and few of their family members can survive the migration in this world of warlords and warlords. They walked from the hills into the mountains, surrounded by steep mountains.Fortunately, the Yuma River is still extremely wide, and the river bank has formed a path due to the accumulation of the river for thousands of years, so it is not difficult to walk. On the seventeenth day, the salt they brought had run out, and the people looking for jade veins could only catch small animals, and drink the blood of animals to maintain nutrition and ingest salt.Long-distance travel, the physical decline caused by the lack of salt in the body is terrible, and you will lose your life at every turn. In the past seventeen days, everyone has gradually turned from optimism to despair. If the village chief hadn't urged them to move forward, they might have given up long ago.Even the cheerful Duck's face turned gloomy. For the first time, I felt that there was no way to complete the task this time. In a team full of despair, there is usually a murmur coming from someone's mouth.As a result, more and more people began to doubt the decision of the village chief, and even doubted the correctness of his decision on this search. At this moment, a turning point finally happened. The person assigned to hunt caught a snake from the creek. The snake was very long. I don’t know what species it was, but it weighed more than ten kilograms. There was enough food to eat a full meal, and it was usually hungry. Most people are able to let go of everything. So people cut open the stomach of this strange-looking snake, dug out its internal organs, and prepared to make a barbecue feast, but unexpectedly, a strange thing was pulled out of the snake's stomach. This thing looks like a ball of meat, and it also looks like a ball of stones. In short, even the well-informed old village head can't recognize what it is. Regardless of this stuff, the next thing that was pulled out made everyone boil. It is a group of jade mines, both the shape and the emerald green color are very top-quality jade mines. The old village chief immediately became agitated. He grabbed one of the pedestrians who were hunting and asked anxiously, "Where did you get this snake?" "From the creek in the mountain stream." The hunter was taken aback. "Go!" The village chief waved his hand and was about to walk to that place. Looking at the jade mine with a rough appearance in his hand, the original noise disappeared immediately, and everyone followed him in a tacit understanding. No one knows that once they leave, they will never come back...