Chapter 29 Section 3 The Snake Seller Says

One day, looking through the previous interview records, I suddenly remembered my life in that small seaside town a year ago, where Uncle Huo, Uncle Ouyang, the happy old man sharpening the knife, and the foreigner who made snake wine.They once appeared in "Unannounced Visits to the Den of Black Doctors", and they haven't seen each other for a year. I don't know how they live?I miss life in that small town infinitely. I hardly thought about it, so I got on the bus to that small town and went to visit Uncle Huo and Uncle Ouyang.The old knife grinder like a migratory bird must be wandering in Jiangsu or Zhejiang at this moment, riding that honest and honest bicycle; and the stranger who makes snake wine, can I see him?

I saw the tall banyan tree again, its aerial roots fluttering in the breeze like long beards; I saw the road again, on which the rich people’s Mercedes-Benz BMWs and the poor’s bicycles were still running However, what about the teahouse on the side of the road?Where is Uncle Huo dozing off under the banyan tree?where did they goThose old houses that have stood here for hundreds or even hundreds of years can no longer be found; those ancient buildings that have witnessed the wind and rain of this small city are now forgotten by people together with the history, and replaced by A few nondescript buildings, with cold faces on the floor, look like salesmen in department stores in the era of planned economy.

Demolition is like a forklift, under its shovel, all the buildings and emotions are reduced to dust.In just one year, this city has "changed its old appearance", it has become steel-framed, indifferent, and has become not much different from other cities; and the only difference is that those who are different from other cities Different street names. Standing under the banyan tree, I feel dejected. So, I started looking for Uncle Huo. In the newly opened neat and tidy shop, no one knew about Uncle Huo.I asked again and again and was disappointed again and again.Finding a person in a small city with a population of hundreds of thousands is not much easier than finding a needle in a haystack.Later, in desperation, I had no choice but to find the station master. Uncle Huo is the station master's uncle.

The station master said that Uncle Huo was dead.It is said that Uncle Huo stayed in the house left by his ancestors for a long time, and finally made the developer's patience reach the limit.A group of security guards dragged him out of the ancestral house and forcibly pressed his finger on the contract.Then, the forklift raised its claws, and with one claw, his house collapsed. Uncle Huo fainted, and soon he died. Such tragedies were performed almost every day in the city at that time.Now, the "Urban Demolition Regulations" has finally come to an end in the frequent brutal demolition incidents.

The kind old man who is always smiling, the old man who has gone through ups and downs all his life but still has a childlike innocence, can never be seen again. I continued to look for Uncle Ouyang, and I was worried that the optimistic and funny Uncle Ouyang, who traveled all over the world, would not be found either.In those few days, I ran around the streets and alleys of the small town, always hoping that Uncle Ouyang would appear in my sight, but I didn't see him.Until now, I have not seen him again.After so many years, if Uncle Ouyang is still alive, how will he spend his days?If he passed away, who would die for him who was never married?

My heart is full of sadness. At that moment, I suddenly understood that everyone's ending is the same, and they will all go to death; life is actually a process, which is extremely short and unpredictable.We can only be happy if we live in the moment and live every day well. I didn't see Uncle Huo and Uncle Ouyang, but I accidentally saw a snake seller in the small town.He walks through the streets, carrying a net bag filled with all kinds of wriggling snakes.He squatted at the entrance of the alley and put down the net bag. The restless snakes dragged the net bag around, and he had to drag the net bag to the side every once in a while.He didn't need to shout, he was surrounded by onlookers.

The snake seller was very happy to see me, he has not forgotten me.At that time we were good friends and often chatted for a long time.However, he didn't know that I was a reporter, he only knew that I was a "scholar", and he, who hadn't read a book for a few days, had a spontaneous respect for scholars. I said, I am writing novels, selling words to make money and supporting myself.In fact, this is also my highest ideal. That day, the snake seller took me to his rented house. The rented house exuded a stench, which made people a little scared.In the corner of the house, there is a large vat, the mouth of which is covered with barbed wire, and there are many snakes in the vat.Those snakes scrambled and twisted their bodies, making people creepy.There was another man in the rented house, who was younger than the snake seller.They all come from the Wuling Mountains, and these snakes also come from the Wuling Mountains.

Before that, I had never been to the Wuling Mountains, but I only knew that it was surrounded by mountains and stretched across Guizhou, Lianghu, Chongqing and other places, where Tujia, Miao, Dong and other ethnic minorities lived.The snake seller said that many people in his village caught snakes, and they were bought by snake dealers and sent to the south.Some precious snakes, such as five-paced snakes, bamboo leaf greens, and silver ring snakes, were bought by big bosses, and some people bought them as pets, while ordinary snakes were sold to them, and they made snakes for the people of the city. liquor.A bottle of snake wine can be sold for more than 200 yuan, which contains four or five ordinary snakes.They also said that many people sold snakes that were domesticated but claimed to be wild, while the snakes they sold were definitely wild.

That night, I bought braised pork and roast chicken, a few plates of stir-fried vegetables, a bucket of rice, and two bottles of white wine on the street.The snake seller and his companions were drunk with glee, and they spoke freely. They told me about the situation in their hometown like a few treasures. The snake seller's hometown is in the mountains, where the forest is verdant, the land is sparsely populated, and the transportation is inconvenient.Later, I checked the information and learned that the forest coverage rate in the Wuling Mountains has reached more than 50%, and it is difficult to see a complete piece of land with an area of ​​tens of mu.The people here have a tradition of hunting from generation to generation.Later, the forest environment was destroyed, the food chain was in crisis, and hunting was strictly prohibited, but some people still poached.

"Twenty years ago, when you entered the mountains, you could often see five-step snakes. You were walking, and it suddenly slipped past your eyes. Now you can't see a few of them a year." The snake seller said, where did you see it? Coiling a five-step snake is equivalent to seeing a pile of shiny gold coiled somewhere. Who would not be tempted by seeing it?The five-step snake is the most expensive wild poisonous snake in Wuling Mountains. It is said that after being smuggled abroad, a five-step snake can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The snake seller has been regretting that he didn't catch a few five-step snakes in the early years, otherwise he would have made a fortune long ago.Then he laughed at himself and said: "In the early years, no one bought this thing."

I told them about it. More than 1,000 years ago, Liu Zongyuan was demoted to Yongzhou, which is now the junction of Hunan and Guangdong. He took his elderly mother and cousin on the road together.In Yongzhou, he saw a snake with "black body and white stripes; it will die if it touches vegetation; it bites people, and there is no defense against it."This kind of snake is the five-step snake.At that time, the five-paced snake grew in a wide range, but now only the Wuling Mountains still have this kind of snake. I said, "It can be seen from the article that this snake is very poisonous." The snake seller said: "It's too strong. Several people in the village have been bitten. Some died, and some were lucky. They survived, but they also became disabled." I asked, "You only have five-step snakes there?" The snake seller said that there are everything on the mountain there, not just five-paced snakes.In their village, people who want to go hunting in the mountains are usually in groups of three. The people in front know the way, from the hoofprints on the ground, the excrement under the trees, the smell coming, and the situation of fallen vegetation, they can judge that there is something ahead. what animal.The second person is an expert snake catcher, holding a pole in his hand with a fork at the front, a tool that cannot be separated from snake hunting.The third person specially set traps to deal with all kinds of birds and beasts.These people walked over, and all kinds of animals along the way were not spared.Snake catchers can catch any snake they encounter, such as five-step snake, bamboo leaf green snake, black-sharp snake, golden krait, and silver krait...all of which can be sold for money.The last person eats all animals, big and small. Weasel badgers, spiny-breasted frogs, golden monkeys, golden pheasants, water chickens, musk deer, and civet cats cannot escape.Some people collect medicinal materials all the way. There are many precious medicinal materials in Wuling mountainous area. The snake seller also said that there is a lot of knowledge just by setting the traps. Some traps hang the animals in the air, and some traps cover the animals' bodies.The knowledge of lower clamps is even greater. There is a kind of clamp called a wolf's tooth clamp, which clamps an animal's leg and bites it tightly like a wolf's tooth.Animals will lose blood and pass out after running for dozens of steps. Hunters can find prey by following the blood. There is a kind of clamp called bamboo pole clamp. After the prey is clamped, it must drag a one-meter-square wooden stick to walk in the woods , stumbling all the way, will soon be trapped to death by the bushes.There are also traps, which are mainly for those large wild animals. That night, the snake seller and his companions were very drunk.When a person is drunk, his mind is clear, and the words in his heart will be blurted out without any precautions.This is what the saying goes, "Speak the truth after drinking." I asked where their home was, and they told me it was in eastern Guizhou, in the hinterland of the Wuling Mountains.I offered to go back with them and see how they catch snakes.They said that the danger of catching snakes was very high, and they would die if they were not careful, so they didn't take me there anyway, and they didn't tell me the name of their village.They said that several people had died in the village, and if something happened to me, they would be sad for the rest of their lives. They are very kind mountain people, and I believe they are telling the truth. In the second half of the night, they fell asleep, snoring like thunder.I quietly got up, turned on the phone, and wrote down the phone number they had written in chalk on the back of the door.When I just entered the door in the afternoon, I noticed these numbers, these calls, there may be calls from snake catchers. After dawn, I said goodbye to them and returned to the city where I worked. At that time, there was no phone number on the Internet to check the ownership. I could only call the number one by one, judge where they were from from their accent, and then tell me that I was a businessman who bought Viper.People with local accents were very alert. They hung up the phone in a hurry, saying that they did not do this kind of business.People with non-local accents are much more kind. One of them told me that he was in Jiangkou County, and there were poisonous snakes in his house, but he wanted me to go to Guizhou to get it, because he couldn’t afford the fare.I am ecstatic. Then, I tried my best to persuade the leader of the newspaper office, and finally agreed to send me to Guizhou.The leaders of the newspaper office and the snake seller said the same thing. They both felt that the interview was too dangerous, but I was as fearless as a newborn calf at that time, not knowing that the road to growth was full of thorns and ups and downs.I naively thought that I would not be in any danger when I was with the snake catcher. I didn't think that the danger had already happened before I reached the village where the snake catcher was. The snake catcher's surname was Gu, and he asked me to call him Old Gu.