Chapter 3

Children have short memories. Although I was a little scared at first, I soon put the incident behind me.

Later, I met a new friend. His name was Zhang Song, and he was from Xiagou. He had a somewhat simple personality, was much stronger than Maomao, and was incredibly brave. He was the only one from Xiagou in our class, and no one usually played with him. He was incredibly mischievous, constantly teasing his classmates, and no one in the class liked him.

During the May Day holiday in fourth grade, my grandfather's son got married. His family lived in Xiagou. My grandfather went to pay his respects, but he was worried about leaving me alone at home, so he took me with him.

Xiagou is much farther than Xigou. It took my grandfather and I almost half an hour to get there.

That family also had the surname Zhang, and they swore brotherhood to my grandfather when they were young. Coincidentally, the uncle who got married to my stepfather was Zhang Song's uncle.

At that time, for us kids, going to the ceremony was basically just waiting for food, which was very boring. In addition, the custom here was to treat the guests to a meal at noon and another at night, so we basically stayed in Xiagou all day.

At this time, a brother who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, named Zhang Lei, came. We all called him Brother Lei. He had thick eyebrows and big eyes, and he looked very square. He said he wanted to take us kids to the reservoir to play.

There is a large reservoir in Xiagou. When it is hot in summer, they will go to the reservoir to play in the water. I heard that it is very cool.

But our elders wouldn't let us go because it was too dangerous. They were all busy with the wedding and couldn't keep an eye on us. When they weren't paying attention, Brother Lei sneaked us out.

The reservoir is not far from my uncle's house, only about a five-minute walk away. It's huge, originating from a mountain spring, surrounded by mountains on either side. A dam was built in the distance to enclose the reservoir.

The mountain was covered with lush pine and cypress trees, and the road ran along the foot of the mountain all the way to the mountain. When Lei Ge and the other boys saw the reservoir, they all ran towards it.

But they didn't go into the water. Instead, they formed a circle on the dam with Brother Lei as the center. When I caught up with them, I found out that it was Brother Lei who was telling a story.

Brother Lei said that several people, both adults and children, had died in the reservoir in the past two years. Last year, a little girl died there. She and her mother had come to wash clothes and were playing in the water near the shore when, for unknown reasons, she suddenly fell into the shallow water. Her mother, seeing the girl unable to get up, reached out to grab her, but she drifted further and further away from the shore.

Her mother, anxious, jumped into the water to rescue her. However, the reservoir's banks were shallow, and the water quickly dropped off into deep, precipitous waters. Her mother, who couldn't swim, saw her daughter about to enter the deep water, but she didn't care and rushed toward her daughter, causing both of them to fall into the deep water. Fortunately, a villager returned from farming and, upon seeing someone in the water, quickly jumped in, calling for help from those behind them.

In the end, although the mother was rescued, her daughter was no longer breathing. People found purple scratches on the girl's ankles, as if someone had grabbed her ankles tightly in the water.

After Brother Lei finished speaking, we all remained silent, and the atmosphere fell into an eerie silence.

At this moment, Brother Lei suddenly screamed "Ah", which scared us all.

When Brother Lei saw that we were scared by him, he held his stomach and laughed out loud.

Only then did we realize that he told this story on purpose to scare us.

"I'm not afraid." Zhang Song said, took off his clothes except for his shorts, and jumped into the reservoir.

Seeing that Zhang Song was not afraid at all, Lei Ge knew that he had not been frightened, so he jumped in too. The rest of the children saw them jump in and followed suit.

I can't swim, so I just watched them play on the dam.

The reservoir is very deep and the water is green. I looked down from the dam and the deep green water seemed to have a magical power that attracted me and made me want to jump in. But my heart reminded me to stay away from the water.

I took a few steps back and sat in the middle of the dam, afraid of falling in accidentally.

They were having a blast, especially Zhang Song and Lei Ge, who were clearly better swimmers than the other kids. They played catch in the water, and I watched them play, not feeling bored. But I still felt a lingering unease, a vague feeling that something was about to happen.

Just as I was thinking about it, the water suddenly splashed with a large amount of water. I heard the sound was Brother Lei. He was flopping up and down in the water, shouting: "Help!"

Seeing that they were drowning, two timid people started to swim towards the shore. However, Zhang Song swam straight towards Brother Lei. When he got close to Brother Lei, he was grabbed by Brother Lei and dragged into the water.

The splashes disappeared and the silence became eerie. I looked at the calm water surface uneasily.

About half a minute later, Brother Lei and Zhang Song emerged from the water, gasping for breath. They looked at the two people swimming towards the shore and laughed at them for being cowards.

It turns out that this was just a prank by Brother Lei and Zhang Song.

They played happily in the water for the entire afternoon and only came out when it was time for dinner. Fortunately, my worries were just a false alarm and nothing happened.

We followed Brother Lei back to Grandpa Gan's house. We arrived just in time for dinner. The sun had already set, and seeing my uncle and aunt in their wedding attire toasting everyone, I suddenly remembered what happened that night in Xigou.

My uncle and aunt were real people, their faces were filled with happy smiles, and the atmosphere of the banquet was very warm, but it couldn't dispel the discomfort in my heart.

The kids ate very quickly, and we finished eating just as they started drinking. At this moment, Zhang Song suddenly pulled my arm. I didn't want to pay attention to him, but I also didn't want to stay at the banquet because I really don't like the smell of white wine, so I left with him.

When I got outside, I saw Brother Lei and the others were all there. Just when I was wondering, Brother Lei said, "Let's go and continue playing."

After the meal, they seemed to have regained their energy. Without waiting for me to refuse, Zhang Song pulled me and ran with them.

It was not dark at this time, and although the sun had set, there was still some light.

They played catch in the water again.

Zhang Song started to act naughty. Perhaps he and Lei Ge had made an agreement that they would dive underwater and grab other children's ankles to scare them. When the people they caught were scared, the two of them would laugh triumphantly in the water.

Just when they were having fun, a person suddenly started flopping in the water. At first, they didn't pay much attention, thinking it was another prank by Brother Lei and Zhang Song. But the person flopping around for almost half a minute. Then everyone noticed something was wrong, and Brother Lei shouted, "Zhang Song, stop it, let him go."

But as soon as he finished speaking, everyone realized that the only person floating on the water was Zhang Song.

Brother Lei quickly swam towards the splash of water, and the other children saw this and quickly swam towards the shore.

Brother Lei quickly swam to the splash. Now it was certain that the person splashing was Zhang Song.

I stood on the shore, feeling extremely uneasy.

I saw a dark shadow surrounding Lei Ge and his friend, and they were making a huge splash in the water. I shouted to the person who had already swam to the shore, "Go find an adult!"

Those kids didn't even have time to put on their clothes before they ran to my grandfather's house.

After the sun went down, it got dark very quickly. In just a moment, all the surrounding scenery became blurred. The water in the entire reservoir turned completely black, like a deep, blood-thirsty swamp.

In the splashes stirred up by Lei Ge and Zhang Song, a little child's head slowly emerged from the water, his face was purple and a pair of sharp teeth were exposed.

Staring at me and smiling.