Chapter 2 Chapter 1 Two Sides of a Sword

In the mountains, forgetting and being forgotten are two sides of a sword.On the one hand, these thousand-year-old lonely mountains and bottomless canyons have been forgotten by the prosperity of human settlements; on the other hand, the rocks, bushes and wind here have also forgotten that there is a noisy world outside it.Boss Hu has lived in this canyon for decades, his wife has already been lying in the graveyard on the slope, and a demented son has grown to more than 20 years old, like a black bear, stupid and powerful. Boss Hu's house was built on a slope in the canyon, and the cornfield behind the house looked like a large group of defeated soldiers, scattered and trapped on the hillside under the steep rock.From here you can see the road through the canyon.This road was built 40 years ago. At that time, Boss Hu was still a teenager. He saw countless heavy trucks passing the road in a long snake formation, and felt the house tremble.At night, these panting and howling monsters shot bright lightning through the canyon, driving the poisonous snakes in the bushes to his water tank.All of this is because there is a factory farther away in the mountains, code-named 903 Mailbox. The mountain people talk about "903" like guessing the stars in the night, with a kind of mystery that is both far and near.

Unknowingly, this road has been silent for more than ten years. Grass has grown sporadically on the road, and the potholes that were rolled out by those big wheels back then are full of rainwater.For ten days and a half months, there were occasional cars passing by on this disabled road. This kind of daring car often got stuck in the mud. Whenever this happened, Boss Hu and his demented son would be called to push the car. Afterwards, He'll get a few bills as compensation.Over time, this kind of income has become an important support for his life, and life in the canyon is like this. At noon that day, the torrential rain had just stopped, and the clouds were still piled up in the sky, and the light was very dim.Boss Hu heard the "chug chug" sound of the motor in the house. He knew that a car was stuck in the mud, so he gave his son a hand and said, "Go, push the car."

The gravel road after the rain was very muddy, and an off-road vehicle swayed on the road like a chicken pecking rice, and its right front wheel got stuck in a big mud hole.A young woman was standing in front of the car directing the car to climb out of the pit desperately.The wheels rolled in the mud puddles, splashing mud high and low in vain.At this time, the young woman saw Boss Hu and his son coming on the road, and immediately greeted him as if she had met a savior and said, "Master, please help." "Aww..." Boss Hu's demented son yelled at the car a few times, as if he was greeting a farm cow.

Boss Hu took a look at the young woman. She was obviously from the city, with long legs, wearing jeans and a tight shirt.Boss Hu felt that she was the same kind of person as the woman he saw at the bank counter. "I can push the car up, how much will you give?" Boss Hu glanced at the wheels stuck in the mud and said. "Money? How much do you want?" The young woman was slightly surprised. Boss Hu stretched out a palm and said, "50 yuan." Just as the young woman was about to agree to the deal, a man in his thirties stepped out of the car. He was tall and had black stubble around his lips. "Ai Nan, don't pay attention to him." The man shouted, "What 50 yuan, it's a blackmail!"

"Oh, that's what other drivers are offering." Boss Hu said with a simple and honest face, "You urbanites, do you still care about the money?" Ai Nan obviously wanted to compromise. She glanced at the man who got out of the car and said, "Liu Sheng, tell them to push the car up." "No!" Liu Sheng turned his face to Boss Hu, "Isn't it easy for us urbanites to earn money? It's much harder than you. You can live a year by planting some corn..." "Then let's not talk about it." Boss Hu waved to his demented son, "Let's go home."

"Come back!" Ai Nan made a decisive decision.Although Liu Sheng was annoyed, he was lucky to find someone to help in this rare mountain, and there was no way to spend more money. Boss Hu and his demented son miraculously pulled out some bowl-thick wooden sticks from the crevices of the nearby cliffs. He put the wooden sticks in the mud pit and asked, "Where are you going?" "Mailbox 903." Liu Sheng replied, "Is it still far?" "Oh, it will take two days to drive." Boss Hu said, "Didn't the factory be evacuated long ago?" "Maybe there are still people staying there, I don't know too much." Liu Sheng said, "We are going to do something else."

Boss Hu had laid a lot of wooden sticks in the pit. He straightened up and said, "Have you never been there? Let me tell you, if you want to enter that factory, there are soldiers guarding the mountain pass with guns. Of course, That was in the past, and now I don’t know if I can go in. There is a town outside the mountain pass called Fengdong Town, people who go to '903' can only live in this town, and that town used to be very lively." Boss Hu told Liu Sheng to get in the car and start it after he finished his gossip. He and his son got behind the car and pushed hard. Soon, the car climbed out of the mud pit.When Ai Nan paid Boss Hu, he hesitated for a moment and said, "I don't need to pay this money, just do me a favor."

For the matter entrusted by Boss Hu, Liu Sheng immediately agreed.He and Ai Nan waved goodbye to the father and son in the deep mountains, and then drove into the canyon.In the afternoon, the light in the canyon was still very dark, and Ai Nan always felt awkward. She thought that Liu Sheng should not agree to do things for the old man.The old man said that in Fengdong Town in front of the "903" mailbox, there was an orphaned old woman who had died at home for almost three years, and her body was still intact.It is said that as long as a few hairs are taken from the head of the person possessed by the gods, put them in melted wax to make candles, and after lighting them, people's intelligence can be awakened, and any dementia can be cured.The old man asked Liu Sheng to bring some of the old woman's hair to him on the return trip so as to cure his son's dementia, but Liu Sheng agreed.Ai Nan knew that her husband wanted to save money on the cart, but doing this kind of thing always made people feel a little scared.Although the old man said that Liu Sheng didn't need to go directly to get the dead man's hair, because his brother lived in the town and was called Hu Lao Er, so Liu Sheng only had to tell Hu Lao Er to do it.Then, Hu Laoer will give him the hair he took to bring to the old man.

"You shouldn't agree to this." Ai Nan said, looking at the road that kept flowing towards the front of the car. "It's a little effort." Liu Sheng drove the car easily, turned his head to look at Ai Nan's handsome silhouette, and said, "This can save the cart fee, what's wrong?" "Why do you always think about money when you do things?" Ai Nan was suddenly annoyed, "Otherwise, our child would be more than 3 years old." Ai Nan suddenly mentioned what happened more than three years ago, which made Liu Sheng frowned.Although it was a joint decision of the husband and wife to induce labor and lose the child who had been pregnant for more than four months. Was it a success?

"Don't mention the children." Liu Sheng said impatiently, "You gain only when you lose. This proverb has come true. It's been more than three years since we took a trip. Everyone, please be happy?" Ai Nan turned her head and glanced at the back seat of the off-road vehicle. An urn wrapped in a red cloth was quietly sitting on the back seat.What is this travel called?It was obviously to bury Liu Sheng's father.But Liu Sheng thinks that driving from his home in Shanghai to the mountains in Sichuan is a wonderful self-driving trip, and the scenery is wonderful. Ai Nan has never seen the mountains since she was a child, so she found it novel, so she followed.But along the way, the urn on the back seat always made her uncomfortable.After entering the border of Sichuan, another old man appeared who wanted some dead hair. This made Ai Nan lose all interest, and after thinking about it, she always felt a little chill on her back.

This is the fifth day since they hit the road.After entering the border of Sichuan, the mountain became more and more steep, especially after getting on this semi-abandoned road, Ai Nan completely handed over the steering wheel to Liu Sheng.Before that, the expressway as a national highway connected one province after another. The two of them changed their driving, and sometimes stopped early in a characteristic town. The unfamiliar area of ​​the city makes people feel like a world away.However, after entering Sichuan, they were forced to leave the national road and drilled into the belly of the mountain along this desolate road.It can be seen that this road was originally developed to lead to mailbox 903.Without the move of this military enterprise, which is a national third-line construction project, this road would not have been born in the cliff and deep valley. The light in the canyon was very dark. Liu Sheng slowed down the car and carefully avoided the puddles on the road, because he didn't know how deep these potholes were, and it would be difficult to get stuck in them again.Liu Sheng thought, more than 30 years ago, his father and thousands of people drove into the mountains along this road. At that time, he was less than 1 year old and stayed in Shanghai with his mother. Unexpectedly, in the summer of 2003, he and his wife Ai Nan would embark on this mysterious road, and their father had already turned into ashes to walk with them.Liu Sheng felt his nose sore, and said in his heart, Dad, my son is fulfilling your wish to bury your ashes in the place where you have worked for decades. The urn on the back seat of the car was wrapped in red cloth. Liu Sheng glanced in the mirror, thinking that his father must have smelled the smell of the mountains.Life is really impermanent. More than three years ago, that is, the day Ai Nan went to induce labor to lose the child, the father who retired at home found his heartache for the first time. At that time, he never thought it was esophageal cancer. It was late, and my father passed away after suffering three months in extreme pain.When his father was pushed to the morgue, Liu Sheng saw a gauze stuffed in his father's throat, which was a relic of the tracheotomy performed during the rescue.Liu Sheng howled like a wolf, and the 38-year-old felt that he had suddenly become a lonely child.If it weren't for comforting his mother, he felt that he would have passed out in the corridor of the hospital. "Be careful." Ai Nan reminded.She saw the car run over several puddles in a row, the body was bumping, but Liu Sheng was very numb. "Oh." Liu Sheng brought his thoughts back to his eyes, "What time is it?" Ai Nan looked at his watch and said, "A quarter past 2:00 in the afternoon." "We have to run faster." Liu Sheng looked at the road ahead and said, "We have to get to Wushanping before dark. From the map, the town is a little bigger, and there may be hotels there." The car was about to drive out of the canyon, but the light was still dim, and it seemed that there was still a heavy rain coming.Ai Nan went out through the windshield, and the sky outside the canyon seemed to stand upright in front of her eyes. The dark clouds in the sky were tumbling, and the road was suddenly broken when it led to this sky, and I don't know where it sank.At this time, two figures suddenly appeared in front of the road. It was a rural woman leading a little girl, standing in the middle of the road and waving to the approaching cars. "I hate it, I met a hitchhiker." Liu Sheng stopped the car muttering. This is a dark and thin middle-aged woman with premature wrinkles on her forehead.She walked to the window and asked for a ride, but when she spoke, she looked past Liu Sheng and stared directly at Ai Nan.Maybe, she thinks that a woman's heart is softer, and she can't bear to abandon her and this child by the roadside. "Where are you going?" Ai Nan asked, but her eyes stayed on the little girl outside the car.The girl looked more than 3 years old, she was wearing a red floral dress, she was tidied up, she didn't look like a child in the mountains. "Go to the child's grandma's house." The middle-aged woman said, "It's just over ten miles ahead at Shanyakou." Ai Nan got out of the car, opened the back seat door and said, "Get in the car." She heard Liu Sheng in the driver's seat snort unhappily. The middle-aged woman got into the car first, and reached out to pull the little girl, and Ai Nan picked up the little girl from behind and sent her to the car.This little girl is so light and light, it must be due to malnutrition and poor physique. The car starts.When the road exits the canyon, it turns right and climbs steeply to the top of the mountain.Liu Sheng changed gears, and the car began to climb the hill with a low roar. "What is this?" The clear and clear voice of a little girl came from inside the car.Ai Nan turned her head and saw that the little girl's hand was reaching for the urn wrapped in red cloth. "Don't move!" Liu Sheng yelled back, scaring the little girl into the arms of the middle-aged woman. Ai Nan glared at Liu Sheng, and said softly to the little girl, "Don't be afraid, just sit still and don't move." The middle-aged woman touched the little girl's head and said, "Actually, this child is quite obedient. She listens to the adults the most. She can do whatever she is told. You don't need adults to worry about her." The road in the mountains is like a ecstasy, and every turn is like an end. When the car turns around, the road appears again. "Stop." The middle-aged woman suddenly called. "Why, are you here?" Liu Sheng stopped the car and turned around to ask. "No, no," the middle-aged woman said in a panic, "I want, I want to go down, my stomach feels uncomfortable..." It turned out that it was convenient for her.Liu Sheng had no choice but to stop the car, lit a cigarette impatiently and waited.The middle-aged woman got out of the car, turned her head and said to the little girl, "Maizi, be obedient." Then she walked towards the slope on the side of the road and disappeared into the thatch taller than a person. Liu Sheng had finished smoking a cigarette, and while pinching the end of his cigarette, he said to Ai Nan, "Why hasn't that man come back?" At this time, there were already raindrops hitting the windshield continuously, and Ai Nan was also a little anxious, "I'll go and have a look." She said. Ai Nan got out of the car, a gust of cold wind wrapped in sparse raindrops hit her body, she shivered and walked towards the slope by the roadside. "Hey, it's time to drive!" Ai Nan let go of her throat and shouted into the depths of the grass.Her cry was swept away by the mountain wind, and then there was silence. Ai Nan walked towards the depths of the thatch, feeling inexplicably nervous.She yelled as she walked, and she didn't stop until she passed through the grass. In front of her, there was no road, only a cliff, and Ai Nan gasped. When Ai Nan returned to the car, the heavy rain had already poured down.The car parked on the side of the road was covered in the vast rain and fog, and the light inside the car became even darker.Ai Nan and Liu Sheng were relatively silent. This strange incident filled them with panic. The little girl fell asleep in the back seat.Ai Nan stood up and hugged her in her arms over the back of the chair.The little girl opened her eyes. "Where did your mother go?" Ai Nan asked. "It's Auntie," said the little girl. "Oh, auntie, where has she been?" The little girl shook her head. "Where is your home? Where are your parents?" The little girl shook her head. "Are you going to grandma's house?" The little girl was still shaking her head. "What's your name? How old are you?" "Wheat." The little girl replied crisply, "I'm already three and a half years old." The little girl has a round face, big eyes, and a very cute appearance. When Ai Nan first saw her, she didn't think she was a child in the mountains. The heavy rain in the mountains came and went quickly. After half an hour, the dark clouds dispersed and the rain stopped.The woman who walked into the thatched grass by the side of the road will not appear again, she disappeared as mysteriously as this rainstorm.According to the clues she gave when she got in the car, the little girl's grandmother's house was more than 12 miles away from the canyon. After Liu Sheng drove on the road again, he paid attention to whether there were any houses on the side of the road along the way, and Ai Nan also searched for the roadside attentively. On both sides, and kept asking the little girl, trying to elicit her memory. However, everything was in vain. The car ran for tens of miles in one breath, always facing a mountain wall and a cliff along the way, and did not find any traces of mountain dwellers living there.To Ai Nan's question, the little girl always shook her head. When she was asked anxiously, she suddenly said that she had no grandma and didn't know her family and parents. Ai Nan stared at her little face and said to herself doubtfully: "Maizi , did you fall from the sky?" Due to the delay on the road, it was already 10 o'clock in the evening when we arrived at Wushanping.This is a small town surrounded by two mountains, with only two T-shaped streets paved with stone slabs.People in the mountains go to bed early, and the whole town is already dark.This off-road vehicle that came from a long way drove into the small town and made a sound on the bluestone road, eliciting the sound of dogs barking from far and near. After turning a corner in the town, Liu Sheng finally found a lantern under the eaves on the side of the road, which was the symbol of the inn in the town.Liu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief.Before that, he had already planned to stay in the car overnight. This inn is indeed too small, with only a few rooms and no guests.The shopkeeper is a hunched old woman who keeps her face on the ground when she walks.She opened a room with two wooden beds, and the quilt was a little damp. "Can I get something to eat?" Ai Nan asked. The old woman tried her best to raise her face: "There is something to eat, noodles and eggs." "Great!" Liu Sheng cheered up. The old woman took them to the kitchen.Liu Sheng, Ai Nan and the little girl sat around the small table, watching the firewood in the stove burst into flames, which made the old woman's wrinkled face purple. Liu Sheng said that he would get up early tomorrow and take the little girl to ask in this town to see if anyone knew her. He judged that the people in the mountains would not be too far away from home, and they were all related to each other. There must be someone who knows this little girl, so that they can take the child away. "I hope so." Ai Nan said with a sigh, the appearance of this little girl had disturbed her. After eating and returning to the room, Liu Sheng fell asleep on the bed and fell asleep quickly. He was really tired after driving all day.Ai Nan and the little girl slept on another bed. In the dark room, there was only a little gray light from the wooden window. Ai Nan couldn't fall asleep.Tonight, in this cloud-covered mountain, how could there be a little girl over 3 years old sleeping beside her? The little girl turned over, and Ai Nan blurted out, "Maizi." "En." The little girl responded, and Ai Nan felt her sit up in the darkness.Suddenly, Ai Nan heard a childish voice "Mother." Ai Nan shook her body, patted the little girl beside her and asked repeatedly: "What did you say? What did you say? Did you call me mother?" The little girl was silent.Ai Nan turned on the light and sat up, seeing that the little girl beside her had fallen into a deep sleep. Ai Nan's heart was pounding, she wanted to wake Liu Sheng up, but she didn't know what to say to him.At this time, a faint cough came from outside, why is the old woman who guards the shop still awake? It was almost midnight, and the small town surrounded by two mountains was dark, only the occasional dog barking made people feel alive in the silence. Early the next morning, the sun came out, and the mountains around the town were covered with fir trees, which looked verdant in the sunshine and mist. It seemed that this place called Wushanping lived up to its name. Liu Sheng and Ai Nan led the little girl on the bluestone road, and there were many curious eyes from the eaves on both sides and from the grocery store. Maybe this town has not been visited by people for a long time.They asked everyone they met along the way, but no one knew the little girl named Maizi. They walked all the way to the entrance of the town, and a butcher yelled at Liu Sheng: "Brother, buy mutton! It's just killed, it's very fresh." Liu Sheng waved his hand and declined.Ai Nan led the little girl over and asked him if he recognized the child. The butcher looked at the little girl, and quickly replied: "Yes, yes, I saw this girl in Fengdong Town before, playing in front of a house, she seems to be a child of some family in the town. Why? , someone gave this child to you?" Ai Nan told the story of meeting the child and a woman when the car drove out of the canyon yesterday, and the butcher's face turned pale with shock. "You shouldn't give them a ride," said the man. "Everyone in our area knows that the canyon is the place where the dead are reincarnated. This child... oh, you go, go, I don't want to see you guys." "What you said is true?" Liu Sheng asked nervously. "I don't know anything, don't ask me any more." The butcher repeatedly waved his hands. "Then what about this child?" Ai Nan blurted out. "You can see that it's done." The man said, "If you have the heart, throw her down the cliff. If you can't do it, send her back to Fengdong Town. You can go there and ask. There must be something Every family has had a child die within three years..." The little girl listened to the man's words with half understanding, and burst into tears with a "wow".Ai Nan picked her up and said, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, let's go, this person is inexplicable." Fengdong Town is a small town at the foot of Box 903. You can arrive today. When Liu Sheng drove out of Wushanping Town, he nodded to the butcher, as if thanking him for his advice.Ai Nan said suspiciously: "Liu Sheng, don't pay attention to him, this man is scaring us." There is still a winding mountain road ahead, with one side of the mountain wall and the other side of the cliff. Liu Sheng tried his best to keep the car on the side of the mountain wall, because the side near the cliff is overgrown with weeds and there are no obvious signs. If the wheels slip, everything will be over. up. Ai Nan hugged the little girl and sat in the co-pilot's seat. The branches and grass leaves on the mountain wall kept sweeping past the window, and there were some red and white flowers that flashed by and could be caught with one's hand. "Do you know Fengdong Town?" Ai Nan asked the little girl sitting in her arms, she was playing with the buttons on Ai Nan's chest with her little hands. "I don't know." The little girl said, she had already unbuttoned Ai Nan's chest.Perhaps, this plump breasts aroused some memory in her. "Don't move." Ai Nan took her little hand away and said, "Maizi, is this the name your mother gave you?" "I don't know." The little girl always answered this way. Ai Nan sighed, staring blankly at the road ahead through the windshield.Experiencing the mountains has always been her wish to travel. She never expected that so many incredible things would happen when she really entered the mountains.Perhaps, Dashan and Mystery are synonymous.She glanced back at the urn wrapped in red cloth. Liu Sheng's father asked him to return to the mountain after his death, perhaps following some order from the cloud cover. "I want to pee." The little girl cried out suddenly. "Damn it!" Liu Sheng said, changing gears, "I'm climbing a mountain, how can I park my car?" The little girl struggled in Ai Nan's arms and cried out irrevocably, "Piss, I want to pee." "Stop the car." Ai Nan patted Liu Sheng and said. The little girl lifted up her flowery skirt and squatted on the side of the road. She didn't stand up for a long time, and a small hand fiddled with some small flowers on the side of the road. "Maizi, get in the car." Ai Nan called, jumping out of the car and hugging her. The car continued to move forward, and just after turning a corner along the mountain road, Liu Sheng slammed on the brakes and stopped the car. "What's the matter?" Ai Nan asked in amazement, at the same time, she saw some big stones on the road more than 100 meters away, and some small stones were still falling from the cliff beside the road like rain. "Something happened!" Liu Sheng jumped out of the car and said.He saw sacks of corn and broken glass among the rocks. "Maizi, sit still in the car." Ai Nan pushed the little girl, jumped out of the car and closed the door, and ran towards Liu Sheng who was already standing on the edge of the roadside cliff. Below the cliff, at a depth of more than 20 meters, an agricultural truck turned upside down at the bottom of the valley.In the bushes, some people could be faintly seen in disarray, and there were groans. Ai Nan felt a buzzing sound in her head, and the blood rushed straight to her forehead.It was the first time she witnessed such a tragic car accident in the first place. "This car was knocked off the cliff by a boulder falling from the mountain." Liu Sheng judged. Ai Nan's heart suddenly tightened, it's so dangerous!If their car had been driving faster, if the little girl hadn't pissed and stopped the car for a while, then the boulder was probably hitting their car... "Hurry up and save people!" Liu Sheng shouted.He has found a path that leads down to the bottom of the valley. Ai Nan will never forget the scene of blood waking up.The truck was lying on its back, the carriage had been dismembered, and the door and two wheels were thrown in the grass far away.There were bloody people lying everywhere, strictly speaking, corpses, six in total.When Ai Nan went down to the bottom of the valley and saw them for the first time, some of them were still moaning. One of the men had a chest that rose and fell so high. Ai Nan had never seen such a violent chest rise and fall.Ai Nan frantically raised a person's head, and when he looked closely, the person was already lifeless.She stopped the bleeding of a man with a broken leg, tightening his thigh with his trouser belt.But after a while, the man also remained motionless.What was even more frightening was that there was a woman hanging on a protruding cliff, her skull had been broken, and blood and white things were dripping down the rock... Ai Nan and Liu Sheng fumbled among the corpses and people who were about to die for a while.Finally, they stood looking at each other with bloody hands.The black sunlight shines down from the top of the cliff, and an eagle hovers over the valley, calmly writing a kind of confusion and fate in the void. They found a puddle in the grass to wash their hands, and the light green water quickly turned crimson.Ai Nan's shirt and jeans were also stained with blood; Liu Sheng's condition was better, only a little blood stuck to the bottom of his trousers. He poured water on the bottom of his trousers and rubbed it. The blood stain enlarged, but the color was lighter. At this time, seven or eight mountain people came down to the bottom of the valley screaming.It was a group of people who were crowded on a tractor and rushed down the cliff to rescue after discovering a car accident on the road.It seems that they are all mountain people in this area, and they will take care of the funeral.When Ai Nan and Liu Sheng climbed up the cliff and walked to the road, they opened their mouths wide and breathed out, as if they wanted to expel the smell of blood from their throats. They walked towards the dark blue SUV parked by the side of the road.Ai Nan opened the car door, the car was empty, and the little girl was gone! "Did she get out of the car and play?" Liu Sheng took off his sweaty T-shirt, looked at the road and said. "Wheat!" Ai Nan let go of her throat and shouted into the distance, her voice was extremely tense, as if her child had suddenly disappeared. There was silence on the empty road.One side of the road is a mountain wall and the other is a cliff. Where will Maizi go? Ai Nan and Liu Sheng searched separately along the two ends of the road. When they reunited next to the car, they both saw confusion and panic on each other's faces. At this time, some mountain people had already carried the bloody corpse onto the road.Ai Nan walked over and asked the man carrying the corpse if he had seen a little girl.The man said that he had never seen any children before. When the tractor they took arrived here, he saw this off-road vehicle parked by the side of the road. He even went to the car window to look in, but there was no one in the car.Liu Sheng said that they couldn't wait for the little girl, because there was almost no hope of finding her.Besides, they had to arrive at Fengdong Town before dark, otherwise, if they were trapped on the mountain road at night, the consequences would be disastrous.Liu Sheng told the mountain dweller that if he saw the little girl, he would send her to the township government. There was no other way, Ai Nan reluctantly got into the car, and saw a lot of blood on her shirt and jeans again.You can't wear it to Fengdong Town, otherwise it will be unbelievable to be seen by others, and you might think they are murderers who fled into the mountains. Ai Nan pulled out the suitcase from the back compartment of the car, but found no suitable clothes to change after searching, so she casually took out a milky white dress and got into the back seat of the car to change.Standing outside the car, Liu Sheng saw her fair and clean body when changing clothes from the car window, and couldn't help but feel moved.This trip was originally thought to be very romantic, but he and Ai Nan had only made each other once in the six days they were on the road, and that happened when they were staying in a small town with beautiful scenery before entering Sichuan.In the other few nights, Ai Nan either said she was tired or that the room in the inn was too dirty, so Liu Sheng had no choice but to sleep on her back. When you arrive at Fengdong Town, you have to take a good rest.Liu Sheng glanced at his wife in the milky white dress, and suddenly felt a strange feeling about her plump and long body. He stepped on the accelerator, carefully drove the car through the rocks on the road, and then accelerated to the distance. "Wheat——" Ai Nan stuck her head out of the window, and yelled at the side of the road unwillingly. In the middle of the night, Ai Nan woke up from Liu Sheng's snoring, the wooden lattice windows reflected light, the moon came out, and the room was half-lit and half-dark like an old photo from a long time ago.Ai Nan was in it, feeling that even she was not real. There was the sound of rats running in the house outside, mixed with the sound of "squeak".This is Fengdong Town, where hundreds of empty houses are infested with rats.The restaurant owner warned, don't mess with them, these rats are running out of food.One day, they will gnaw off all the wooden beams and pillars of these houses. At that time, with a "bang", all the houses in Fengdong Town will collapse into ruins.The restaurant owner said that day will come. The owner of the restaurant, surnamed Wan, is in his fifties, thin and energetic.He followed his master from other provinces to Sichuan to buy Chinese medicinal materials since he was a child. Later, the master died, and he started this business by himself. "Hey, this car is so beautiful." He looked at the off-road vehicle parked on the street and said to Liu Sheng, "Fengdong Town has not seen this kind of car for a long time. If more than 20 years ago, this kind of car was parked all over the street. Both." Today's Fengdong Town is an empty city.Ai Nan got up and stood by the window, the moonlight in the second half of the night looked particularly pale, and there was the sound of water splashing on the stones from the mountain stream.In the distance is the shady foot of the mountain, where the moonlight does not reach, and it is pitch black, only some branches stretched in the air catch the moonlight, and these branches are like wisps of dark green smoke in the haze.Liu Sheng slept peacefully like at home on that strange wooden bed, which made Ai Nan feel unbelievable. In any case, living in this almost uninhabited town makes people feel uneasy. When Ai Nan saw this small town for the first time, she never thought it would be an empty city.At that time, their car was driving on the road on the mountainside. Looking down from the car window, a large black roof appeared in the canyon. It could be seen that this was a large-scale small town in the deep mountains.It was dusk, and Ai Nan ignored that there was no smoke in the town, only the afterglow of the setting sun hitting the roofs from the gap between the two mountains, as lonely as shining on clumps of stones. Entering the town, there is still a stone road, but tall grass has grown in the joints of the stone.There was no one on the street, and the doors and windows of the houses on both sides were all closed.The roar of the car seemed particularly loud, as if shaking the houses on both sides.The car turned a corner, and Ai Nan saw an open door not far away. A goat was hanging upside down on the porch. A boy in his twenties was skinning the goat with a sharp knife. There was a pile of dark red sheep on the ground. Blood. Liu Sheng stopped the car.Finally seeing the first person in this town, Ai Nan's hanging heart was relieved.Surprisingly, this is actually a small restaurant.There was already a man drinking alcohol sitting inside, and one of them, a skinny half-old man, stood up to greet them and praised their car for its beauty.This person is Boss Wan who purchased medicinal materials, and he also opened this small restaurant.The other two men at the wine table, one is a wandering photographer, in his forties, with a beard.When he saw Ai Nan, his eyes were a little strange. He was surprised by the sudden appearance of an elegant woman in a milky white dress in the deep mountains and old mountains. The other man on the wine table was in his sixties with a strong body. The photographer introduced him as Professor Xu, I came here for archaeology. These are all the people that Ai Nan and Liu Sheng saw when they entered Fengdong Town.After the meal, Boss Wan urged them to find a place to stay quickly. He said that a group of men would come here for a drink soon. This restaurant was actually just for them. Fern girl, a wild girl born and raised in the local area, it is said that she dared to catch a poisonous snake in her hand and twist it to pieces.This group would question strangers who came to Windmill for a long time, and they might even hurt them.The boss's words made Ai Nan very scared. Liu Sheng pretended to be calm, but quickly asked Boss Wan if there was a hotel in this town. "Hotel?" Boss Wan laughed loudly, "there are hundreds of houses in this town, all of which are empty. You two just open a door, find a room with a bed, and live in it. I can lend you bedding. What? Like? You two traveled by car, haven’t you seen this kind of place before?” It was already dark, Ai Nan and Liu Sheng stood on the stone road in the small town, the eaves on both sides of the street were at different heights, like two rows of black monsters.Boss Wan said that these houses used to be shops, restaurants, hotels or residential houses, but now they are all empty, you can just find a house to live in.Boss Wan sighed, as if he was nostalgic for the glory of the past.He said that Fengdong Town was trapped in a poor mountain valley, and there used to be only 20 or 30 families living there. Forty years ago, when the military factory of Box 903 moved here, Fengdong Town became lively, with more and more houses, small The territory of the town has expanded dozens of times.But since the factory was withdrawn more than ten years ago, the town has died.Originally, nothing but stones were produced here, and the patronage of tens of thousands of workers disappeared, and the people who flocked to the town for prosperity had to scatter.Now, except for a dozen families of mountain people living in the east of the town, the houses in the whole town are all empty, and it would not be surprising if ghosts came to the street at night. Facing the empty city in the darkness, Ai Nan's legs felt weak, and the stone slab under her feet seemed to be a little turbulent.Boss Wan found out that she and Liu Sheng were at a loss, so he took them forward for more than ten meters, opened a door and said, you can live here. This used to be a small shop with beds in the front. Some time ago, people who lived in the mountains to collect herbs had less yin in the house. 现在是后半夜，月光铺在山谷里，艾楠从木格窗望出去时感到这世界虚幻得要命。幸好有刘盛的鼾声，这让她感到一种依靠和踏实。以前在家里，她最讨厌的就是刘盛的鼾声了，她说这是呼吸道有问题的表现，她劝他去医院，劝他减肥。刘盛却不以为然地说，这是你们做保险行业的人的敏感，老想着生病啦、赔付啦这些问题。至于减肥，刘盛说人到中年身体发福一点是正常的，他都38岁了，如果还像以前那样瘦削反而不对，不过，刘盛确实还说不上胖，只是肚子稍稍凸起了一点，作为一家企业咨询公司的企划部主任，他的扮相正符合人们习惯的标准。 艾楠瞥了一眼熟睡中的刘盛，他盖着一床鹅黄色的毯子，有月光照着的地方颜色就浅一些。这床毯子还有另外一些睡具是她从家里出发时丢在越野车上的。从上海到四川，自驾车旅游总得备一些东西，艾楠在心里反复强调这是一次旅游，是为了冲淡此行是为了安葬岳父骨灰的这一事实，不然，她没法让自己轻松起来。自从大学毕业进入保险公司工作后，八年来她从推销员干到地区经理，年收入从二万多元增加到现在的二十多万，她真的是一天也没休息过。她跑烂过十多双鞋子，公司领导现在常以她为例子来教育新员工。这次安排她一个月的休假，也算是一种奖励。 但是，艾楠怎么也想不到要到达的目的地风动镇会是一座空城。从木格窗的窗洞望出去，有风在山野里游走，这使得后半夜的月光从草尖上一波一波地掠过，这番童话景象比房子正面的街道好看多了，街道上是两排阴森的屋檐，在夜里会让任何人望而却步。看来，被人使用过又被抛弃的东西总会反过来让人恐惧，而自然界就不同了，山野月光最多让人有点恍惚而已。 木格窗旁边有一道木门，是这座房子的后门。艾楠开门走了出去，她是多少年没见过这样的月光了；或者说，生活在大城市里，人们根本就遗忘了月光这件上帝的礼物。 眼前是乱石和草丛，不远处有一道山涧，睡觉前艾楠和刘盛就是在这里洗脸净身的。水是无比清澈，凉得有点刺骨，但让人很享受。两人站在水里洗着，开始还穿着内衣，后来便全脱掉了，当时月亮还没出来，在黑漆漆的山野中，人是自由的，刘盛看着艾楠的身体说，这里像是伊甸园。艾楠说没有这一大片空房子才算得上，想想曾有那么多人在这里拥挤过，伊甸园的味道就淡了。刘盛替艾楠洗身，手触到她的乳房时停了下来，刘盛低下头去吸吮乳头，艾楠仰脸对着夜空说，这本是留给我们孩子的，现在被你独占了。艾楠在夜空中看见了三年前引产的一幕，她从胸前推开刘盛的头说，讨厌！ 此刻，艾楠独自来到后半夜的月光中，有点神情恍惚。她穿着一件红色的吊带式睡裙，月光下赤裸的双臂如雪，像是一位新娘。月光在风中发出细雨似的声音，有夜鸟的啼叫传来，不同的啼叫声表明它们属于不同的种类，有一种啼声像是老年人的咳嗽，听来让人害怕。 艾楠漫无目的地走在山野的月光中，离房子越来越远。她甚至忘记了自己从哪里来，到哪里去。她30岁，丈夫可靠，事业成功，她还缺什么呢？如果什么也不缺，此时的心为什么空荡无比。在城市的忙碌中她从未感受到这点，而今夜，在风动镇的月光中，她竟在后半夜莫名醒来，头脑异常清醒，并且毫无恐惧地扑进山野月色之中。 “妈妈———”一声稚气的叫声突然传来，艾楠全身一震，附近的草丛中仿佛有一个小女孩的身影轻轻晃过。 这不是麦子吗？那个在路上搭车同行后又走失了的小女孩。艾楠的心“咚咚”直跳，她对着草丛叫了一声“麦子”，但声音一出口便被风带走了，被月光溶化了，山野里寂静无声，只有她自己的心跳。