“Lad, it’s raining, where are you going?”
Yan Chu had been living in the village for three days. In these three days, the rain on the mountain had not stopped. He stayed in the room of Oldman Gen’s house on weekdays and only came out to walk when eating.
He was silent. After many days of not seeing him in the village, the villagers’ vigilance gradually reduced to the lowest level.
But it was raining now, and the sky was gradually darkening, yet he planned to go out with his umbrella, which made Oldman Gen feel energetic at once. His pale yellow eyes looked at him, and his voice was deep and low.
“I think it’s a little bit drizzled now, and I want to go back to the mountain. The mountain forest in the drizzle has a different beauty, which is a good photographic material.”
Yan Chu pretended not to understand the vague precautions in his words, holding up the camera in his hand, looking like an ordinary college student obsessed with photography.
In addition to a camera hanging on his neck, he also had a small backpack behind him. It was not the big climbing backpack he carried when he went up the mountain. It was estimated to be a spare bag in the climbing bag. It was flat, not like it loaded with too many things.
Besides, he had an umbrella in his hand.
“It’s almost dark now, but there are wolves in the back mountain. Lad, do you not fear for your life?”
Oldman Gen thought that the city’s children were strange. In the past, those climbers were like that too. Apart from trees or trees on the top of the mountain, they thought that the beauty of it was pretty good. They did not see that those abducted girls were the same as them. They liked the scenery here and were willing to stay.
“It’s okay, Uncle. My mother gave me a safety charm before I came here.”
Yan Chu smiled and took out a yellow triangle charm from his pocket: “My mother said, this safety charm can protect me without mishap. Not to mention wolves, even if the villain wants to harm me, they can pay with their life.”
Not knowing if it was Oldman Gen’s hallucination or not, he always thought that the young man’s words meant something. After listening to the second half of his speech, his whole person felt the chilly wind, and there was no strength.
But after a closer look, the boy was still smiling. It seemed that it was just his imagination.
“Then you remember to come back early. When it’s truly dark, those wolves and bears are coming out.”
Oldman Gen did not try to persuade him much. In the beginning, Old Zhang’s daughter-in-law ran out in the middle of the night and got killed by the wolf. He was not kind. But if the young man was also killed by the wolf, just like that girl, who would he look for the accommodation and food expenses in the next few days? That was not a small income.
He was looking forward to this rain for a while. In a few days, he would be able to save enough money to buy his son a wife. If his son, who was forty this year, did not get himself a wife, their family would indeed be dead.
Yan Chu nodded and walked into the rain with an umbrella.
“Dazhu, keep your eyes on him and see whether or not he is going to the back mountain.”
The elderly in this kind of village was not easy to fool. Although there was no doubt about Yan Chu, he still asked his son to follow him and stare quietly to see if he had gone up to the back mountain or taken a random picture in the village with his camera.
Oldman Gen’s son, who gnawed at raw sweet potatoes, answered in a muffled voice. Not long after Yan Chu left, he put on his coir raincoat and followed precisely behind him, keeping a distance of tens of meters behind him.
Yan Chu did not seem to notice there was someone behind him. He walked unhurriedly towards the other side of the village, which led to the back mountain.
Now the sun was fading, and the continuous rain had added a bit of darkness to this small village. He watched the children on both sides of the mud road who were not afraid to play in the rain, as well as those old men and old ladies, who were sitting under the eaves of their own houses, smoking old-fashioned dry cigarettes.
Joy, satisfaction, everything was shrouded in the shadows.
Yan Chu smiled, and his eyes were covered with a layer of shadow and killing intent. He very much wanted to destroy all this.
Oldman Gen’s son was far behind him, watching him went out of the village, head toward the back mountain. He chewed the last mouthful of sweet potato on his hand and sucking clean his fingers. He blamed his father for being too careful. He had been harmed much on this pointless trip on that rainy day.
Not to mention that this young man seemed quite ordinary. It was just that he had evil plans. How many youths in their village could have easily removed him?
He looked again, making sure that Yan Chu was far away. He shook his head to sway his mind and went home.
After several days of rain, the path between the mountains was particularly muddy. Yan Chu was wearing a pair of climbing boots, and his toes and heels were covered with yellow mud. He seemed aimlessly walking, but his heart was determined. He turned left and right, not precisely following the path that the predecessors stepped on.
He had been walking who knew long. The sky was completely dark at this time. The full moon in the sky appeared and disappeared under the shelter of clouds and mist. If you looked up at this time, you would be surprised to find that the full moon was red.
The quiet mountain forest, the dark road ahead, was creepy.
Yan Chu stood under a big tree the size of the wrap four people’s arm around, took his backpack behind him, and opened it. There was nothing but a folding hoe inside. He crouched down and shoved up a layer of overgrown weeds on the edge of the tree.
Once, twice, thrice… The soil had soaked in the rain for many days. It was too soft, and it could dig up with little effort.
At first, all the excavated soil was muddy. Gradually, a few white bones appeared with some rotten flesh.
“This is the bones of Little Sister’s hands.”
Yan Chu very devoutly wiped the dug-out bones and carefully put them into his backpack.
“This is Little Sister’s sternum.”
He was muttering to himself. His initially clear and meaningful face, looked gloomy and terrifying in the dusky environment, especially those eyes, with devil blood-red, just like a madman from top to bottom.
“Yinyin, be good. Big Brother came to you. Big Brother takes you back home. There are Father and Mother at home. Our family will never be separated.”
He kept digging and bone searching until he dug a hole one or two meters deep and determined that he could not find any bones before he stopped his movements.
Very many of the broken bones were incomplete, eaten by wolves and other beasts. All bones were crushed, swallowed, and digested.
Yan Chu searched for two hours, but the bones that he found were already packed with a small cloth bag.
His Yinyin, her skeleton of the dead, had not survived.
“Ah—ah—ah—”
Yan Chu looked at that tattered paper soaked in rain and blood. He could not see the original trace of a small yellow paper. This paper was tightly held in her half gnawed hand’s palm. It was initially like the amulet on Yan Chu’s body, which she asked her mother before going out to play with her friends.
Little Sister Yan Yin had one, and Big Brother Yan Chu also had one.
“Yinyin, Big Brother will take you home.”
When he cried enough, he wiped away his tears. He stood up on one side of the tree trunk where he was kneeling on the muddy ground. He turned slightly to his side, gently speaking.
A little girl in a white dress, drenched with blood all over, stained with mud and rain, had no ordinary eyes, two fist-sized blood holes in her eyes. She looked at him and smiled.
“Village Head, the young man, who lives in our family, has been climbing the mountain for several hours. It’s so dark now. Do you think something’s happened?”
Oldman Gen thought that the young man was going to take photos in the mountain forest near the village. It should not take too long to go back and forth. But who would have thought that after having the meal and anxiously waiting, he did not come back?
He found out that he was wrong, and he hurriedly took his son to find Lin Youde, the most authoritative voice in the village.
“It’s raining heavily, and he’s courting his death. All the animals in the mountain come out to find food in the evening. I daren’t let people go in to find a person.”
Lin Youde was nibbling on the chicken leg. He took chopsticks and patted his wife’s hand. His wife pouted and put the chicken wings that were put into her bowl into her little brother-in-law, Lin Youcai’s, which had a chicken neck to eat.
“But Village Head, before that, after coming to our village, he said those words. He said he had told his mother he came to our village to take photos. If something happened to him, what would we do if his mother reported to the police and made a scene? When the moment comes, I’m afraid they will search for the mountain. We can’t hide all those child brides to the back hill.”
Oldman Gen’s words made Lin Youde angry.
“F***, you didn’t say that earlier, yet you still let him go into the back mountain.” Lin Youde was angry and did not eat his chicken. He came down from the Kang79Kanga heatable brick bed and put on his shoes, going to organize his people.
“Dad, he’s back.”
Oldman Gen’s son was waiting on the road outside. He saw Yan Chu coming back from the mountain with an umbrella and a backpack.
When Oldman Gen, Lin Youde, and others heard him, they ran out quickly.
“You, this child, why did you go so long? Everyone is ready to go up the mountain to find you. What’s the matter with your clothes and shoes?”
Oldman Gen was a little angry. If he was not greedy for money, he was not willing to let this person live in his home again, and he would find trouble for him.
“It’s too slippery on rainy days. I just went to the pit to pick mushrooms. This humble one had to crawl to come up.”
Yan Chu opened his bulging backpack, which was full of small white-brown mushrooms. It was a dense bag, and those many mushrooms were picked.
This stuff was not rare in the eyes of the villagers. Especially in the mountains after the rain, they would pick up a large basket, which was a rarity for these city people. The outsiders always bought something from the villagers to take back every time they were entering the mountains.
“It’s good to be free, Lad. You don’t need to go to the mountain in the evening later on.”
Lin Youde waved. He did not care about such trivial matters. He just scolded Yan Chu with a few words, and then turned back to his home.
A gust of wind blew, and both brother Lin Youde and Lin Youcai’s bodies got goosebumps.
Strange, how it suddenly become colder?
Lin Youde, in particular, felt that his back was unusually sore as if he was carrying dozens of pounds of heavy things.
However, this chill lasted for two or three seconds. The two brothers felt that the temperature was normal, and Lin Youde’s shoulder soreness also disappeared.
They did not see anyone. Just then, Yan Chu’s hands beckoned to Lin Youde.
That her formerly bloody holes from head to toe, leaning forward on Lin Youde’s neck. Looking at his little girl with those bloody eyes, she hesitated for a long time before following Yan Chu away.
