On the banks of the Ruhe River in the Eastern Henan Plain, 17 kilometers southeast of Suya Lake, lies a simple small village-the ancient village. This place has beautiful scenery and rich products. It is famous all over the country and even the world for its sesame and sesame oil. I was born here.
One morning in the summer of 1986, I was not happy enough to receive the university admission notice, so I was dragged by my village partner to hide and seek in the endless sesame field in the north of the village.
Playing around, seeing the sun blooming at noon, the partners were so crazy they couldn’t find it anymore. I was soaked in sweat and the fragrance of sesame flowers, and I wanted to find a place to cool off. So aimlessly came to a clearing and sat in the shade of a dozen tall and whirling willow trees.
The surrounding is surprisingly quiet. Suddenly, a erratic but sweet voice sounded behind him—”Are you a college student? Huh? It’s really you!”. I looked back and saw a yellow floral towel on my head, yellow floral trousers, yellow floral shoes on my feet, long hair tied behind my head, eyebrows and red nose, clear eyes, small mouth with a smile, and slightly exposed teeth. A girl with a white and slender neck and a basket with her left arm wiping sweat with her right hand appeared in front of me.
“Yes”, I answered, and then asked her: “Are you?”
“You don’t recognize me? Our elementary school classmates? My name is’Xiaohua’!”
I can’t remember for a while, it’s embarrassing. She became anxious: “I live in Huangcun, past the river in the west of your village! Think about it again? Did you remember?! After our family moved to Huangcun that year, I also transferred to your class…”
I seem to remember that a transfer girl came to our class in the fourth grade, and everyone said she was pretty. Seeing me nodded, she became happy and came to sit down in front of me: “I heard early in the morning that your village was admitted to a college student. I knew it was you, so I ran to see if I could see you. , I haven’t seen you grow so tall in a few years, I don’t dare to recognize it! You studied really well at the time…”
She whispered, I could hear you like a cloud. She wanted an excuse to go back, but her voice stopped. As soon as I looked up, I saw a huge black dog a dozen meters away staring at me with blood-red eyes.
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I felt my heart stop beating and my hair stood up. While standing up, I took off the nunchaku hanging from the back of my waist. The dog screamed and rushed forward with lightning. I stepped forward with my left foot and swiped with my right hand. The steel club head hit the dog’s jaw. The huge impact directly knocked it out, and a black shadow disappeared in the sesame In the flowers.
But at this time, “Xiao Hua” was no longer visible, and only her bamboo basket with grass was left on the ground, as if something was squirming inside. When he dialed it, it turned out to be a small golden snake that was as long as a foot.
I suddenly felt wrong. Looking around carefully, it turned out to be a dry grave. Wiping the cold sweat, and yelling “Little Flower” a few more times. Seeing that there was no response, I put the little snake on the grave where I had been sitting, lifted the bamboo basket, and walked out.
Gradually came to the road. Hearing a rustle behind him, it was “Little Flower” who followed closely out of the tall sesame tree. She tremblingly said: “I’m afraid of dogs! You send me home!”
Soon, two or three friends also appeared. I asked them to go back to the village and told my parents that I would send my classmates to Hexi. They looked at me suspiciously, and a partner asked, “Brother, who are you sending? No one?” I frowned and said, “I’m looking for classmates in Hexi.”
One On the road, an old man whose head and face were almost covered by a black cloth, who was as thin as a bamboo pole, could not hear a sound while walking, and whose jaw seemed to be bleeding, followed us more than ten meters behind. In the evening, I finally reached the entrance of Huangcun Village. I turned and stared at the old man, smiled, and yelled: “Get out!”
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“Xiaohua”‘s parents saw me sending my daughter home. Enthusiasm, and adding “Xiaohua” to say that I am the “college student” that everyone talks about for a day, and they even arrange the dinner immediately. I wanted to leave, but “Xiao Hua” took my hand, pleading gaze in his eyes. Thinking of the old man in black, I stayed. After drinking and eating, “Xiaohua”‘s parents seem to have known what happened during the day, and the despair on their faces and the resentment in their eyes are all revealed. I looked at the sky and asked them to lock the gate of the yard and block the doors and windows of the bedrooms on both sides of the front house. They hung a huge bronze bell scattered in the yard on the beams of the front house. A large white candle was lit on the table below the big clock, and a large hanging mirror was placed behind the candle. In this way, the “Xiao Hua” standing next to me behind the door, completely and clearly cast her figure in the mirror, and when she took a sharp look, “Xiao Hua” was standing at the table in the front room. When I was ready, I twisted the steel nunchakus together, ignored the admiring eyes of “Xiao Hua”, waved her parents to hide in the inner bedroom, and sat behind the door with their eyes closed.
As night fell, it was pitch black outside. After a while, there was a loud wind, and the gate of the yard was smashed open, and a big black dog, as strong as a calf with ejaculation eyes, roared into the main house. Seeing the “little flower” in the mirror, when it was taken aback, the steel rod in my hand slammed its waist with a fierce slap, and saw that its waist ridge was concave at right angles. It screamed and turned its head and wanted to run, but the big bell weighing more than a hundred catties had already been unknotted by me, covering it with a roar, and blood was splashing everywhere. The black dog with its headless arms suddenly turned into an old man with black clothes and green face, sharp canine teeth, and large nails, still trying to push the clock away with his paws. During the change, the inner room suddenly opened wide, and two big snakes swooped forward and swept the old man… For a long time, everything was still, and the huge black dog and two big snake corpses were lying under the big clock.
When the dawn appearsIn the sky, I put the golden yellow snake in the grass of the graveyard. Looking at its lingering figure turning back three times, the head teacher’s sad voice resounded on the morning of the fourth grade of elementary school: “Classmates, I will tell you sadly! Our good classmate Huang Xiaohua was bitten by a mad dog and suffered from rabies. Attack, the treatment is ineffective! Leaving us!…”
Every summer vacation in the four years of university, in the simple courtyard of my hometown, whenever I am sultry and impatient, I always see A big golden snake coiled on the head of my bed. At first, there was one, then there were two, and then, there were three…