Chapter 34: Fish Disaster Eleven: Cutting open the belly and removing the bones in one go

The sweaty man stumbled and ran on the mountain path.

What awaited him was the small temple he passed by again and again.

He still can't get out!

The fourth brother supported himself on his knees and gasped for breath. He turned his head and saw several fireflies faintly lighting up in the mountains. Upon closer inspection, he saw that they were the eyes of wild foxes. They were jumping up the stone slope in groups of two or three, raising their necks and howling, looking down at him from above.

He was so frightened that he took a few steps back and unknowingly returned to the temple.

The door of the temple where the statue was placed was wide open. He glanced over and found that the statue was not the heroic old woman he had seen before, but a young woman in colorful clothes.

Her face, which was porcelain white with a touch of green glaze, had a half-smile on it, her eyebrows were raised, and her eyes were narrow. The strangest thing was that in her arms was a bloody swaddling cloth, which was connected to her bloody belly with an umbilical cord!

The fourth brother slumped down and tried to crawl out. In just a short while, it was completely dark outside the door.

It is a remote and poor place, without a single light, with insects and crows chirping in the woods, making it seem like a haunted place.

The fourth brother was sweating profusely, bowed with both hands, and kept muttering: "No offense, no offense..."

Before he could continue, a hand reached out from each side, pinched his mouth, and pulled him down into the big red curtain.

Meng Caiyun raised his finger and shushed, "If you don't want to die, shut up."

The fourth brother looked at her with bulging eyes and nodded rapidly.

Feng Jia and Chu Ying were also hiding nearby. After seeing Chu Ying, the fourth brother shrank to the side guiltily, trying to reduce his presence.

After a while, a series of footsteps were heard outside.

Meng Caiyun was lying on the ground, and through the gap in the altar cloth he saw the old temple priest wearing a red Taoist robe, kneeling upright on the cushion, not moving at all.

She thought to herself, this old man is quite sincere.

But after a while, the other party still didn't move. Meng Caiyun was bored of lying there, so he bravely lifted the tablecloth a little more and glanced up.

Only then did she suddenly realize that something was wrong.

The long-lost fishy smell filled her nostrils and was so strong that she frowned.

Wait, the Taoist robe this old man is wearing doesn’t seem to be... red?

She slowly looked up and saw that the old temple keeper stood straight, but above his neck - there was nothing.

His head was chopped off and his clothes were stained with blood!

At this moment, the courtyard door creaked open.

Meng Caiyun immediately put down the tablecloth and asked the others to hide behind her. She exchanged information with Feng Jia through mouthing. Before she could make a decision, Chu Ying suddenly touched the pile of discarded furniture behind her.

“It seems like we can go down here!”

Under the dusty old cabinets, there was actually a tattered lid - similar to the entrance to an ancient cellar.

Feng Jia nodded to Meng Caiyun and said, "Let's go!"

The old temple keeper died in strange circumstances, and we don’t know if the people chasing him are human or ghost. These are two big burdens, so we should make a long-term plan first.

Meng Caiyun suddenly regretted not asking Long Zhu to stay a little longer.

The four of them sneaked down into the cellar. The fourth one kept muttering to himself and rubbing the divine tablet on his chest. Feng Jia got annoyed by this and struck him with a knife, knocking him unconscious on the pile of straw.

Chu Ying found Zhou Qiaochu's schoolbag. She quickly opened it and searched through it, and found that the spare mobile phone was indeed out of battery, but there was still a small flashlight that could be used.

She turned on the flashlight and shone it around.

The walls were damp, with dry grass underfoot. Reptiles, rats, and ants were scurrying about, and the air was filled with a faint musty smell.

"Why are there shackles here?" Chu Ying bent down and pushed the half-rusted chain with his toes. "Could this be a dungeon?"

Meng Caiyun was not particular about trivial matters. After kicking away a few fat rats, he lifted his skirt and sat cross-legged on the haystack.

"Senior Feng, I heard that you incense-readers can 'see the past and know the future'."

Feng Jia knew what she meant and looked around: "The resentment here is very strong, we can give it a try."

Chu Ying was a little nervous: "Aunt, what are you talking about?"

After her setback, she no longer dared to regard her aunt as a "playing tricks", but if she had not seen it with her own eyes, she would still be reluctant to believe that the "Mrs. Hu Er" really existed.

"Yingzi, no matter what happens later, don't be afraid." Feng Jia smoothed his clothes and sat down solemnly. "Grandma is our family, just like you and I."

Chu Ying hesitated for a moment and nodded hesitantly.

Feng Jia placed a lit incense tower on the cleaned up dry ground.

She first straightened her clothes, then combed her hair, and regulated her breathing. In such a dark and harsh environment, she tried her best to make up for the simplicity of the altar with piety and elegance.

After a while, she opened her eyes again, her yellow-green pupils rolled around, and the narrow slits of her eyes moved upwards.

Chu Ying was still frightened and moved back nervously. He saw his aunt taking a deep breath of the fragrance brewing in her throat, and then exhaling a very long puff of white smoke.

The smoke rolled and rose, swirling and covering everyone's eyes.

When it dissipated, the perspective in front of me was floating above the beams of the house.

Chu Ying was so panicked that his hands and feet thrashed about. Meng Caiyun beside him reached out to steady him: "Don't be afraid, this is just an illusion."

"Hu Xian is a psychic. She is now telling us what happened here in the past through illusions."

As he spoke, the scenery below had already changed.

The musty smell lingered in the cellar, and curled up in the straw was a woman in a short jacket, barely breathing, her limbs shriveled, her belly bulging protruding like a giant, lifeless spider.

Her daughter was sleeping in the corner - she was only two or three years old, skinny and like a newborn kitten.

The cellar door was opened, and the boy in a cotton jacket timidly came down with a bowl: "Mom, Dad asked you to eat."

There was a piece of smoked fish floating in the coarse porcelain bowl. The sporadic aroma woke up the sister in the corner. She crawled over using her hands and feet like a baby animal, and with animal instinct, she tore the fish into big mouthfuls.

While eating, she crawled on the ground and looked up, her dark and innocent eyes staring at the boy at the stairs without blinking, making the other party avoid her gaze inexplicably guilty.

She ate a third of it and fed the rest to the woman lying on the ground.

An old lady with bound feet appeared quietly at the entrance of the cellar.

She just lay there motionless with her head lowered, her eye sockets sunken, like a skeleton dug out from a wild grave.

"Why bother?" Her teeth were loose and her words were slurred. "Everyone has gone through this. Just live a good life with him."

A tear suddenly fell from the woman's wooden eyes.

The smoke ripples and the scene changes.

After an unknown amount of time, the woman was no longer locked in the cellar. She was wearing a gray-blue cotton skirt, her belly was still protruding, but there was a smile on her face.

Under the eaves, a dark-skinned man was smoking a pipe, and a young and strong young man was sitting on a bench next to him. The two of them were whispering to each other, and their eyes occasionally swept over the woman's belly.

Like weighing a piece of goods in your hands.

The cat-like girl grew taller and helped to kill fish outside the yard. She was very skilled and could cut open the belly and remove the bones in one go.

I don't know what they were talking about, but the woman's smile disappeared, and she covered her stomach with her hands, her face pale. "The first two were given away, didn't we agree to keep this one?"

"What do you know?" the dark-skinned man clicked his pipe. "The world has been in turmoil these past two years, and life has been tough. I can't afford to raise a child, so I might as well send him away in exchange for food."

The woman pleaded, "I can just save a few more bites. How much can a child eat?"

The young man glanced at his father embarrassedly, and the man advised earnestly: "It's time for the eldest son to get married. If you don't send him off, how can the family afford to buy him a wife?"

The woman hesitated: "What kind of woman would marry into the mountains?"

The man laughed meaningfully: "You just got married, didn't you? That's how life goes on."

——This is how our days go by.

The woman lowered her head and said nothing.

The man suddenly started talking again: "Do you know the carpenter at the end of the village? His wife died a few days ago. If you marry Erya to him, you can keep this one."

The woman stammered, looking outside the courtyard: "She's barely thirteen years old..."

"Who in the village doesn't get married around this age?" the man said impatiently, "Go to that carpenter's house and take a look. He raises chickens and ducks, and his main house is made of blue bricks. Isn't it better than ours?"

The woman fell silent again.

The girl in the yard was holding a cut fish. The blood on the tip of the knife dripped into the yellow earth, and in an instant only a brown-red mass remained.

She scooped water from the nearby water tank to wash her hands, hastily wiped the water stains on her body, and then quietly took out a straw bracelet from her trouser pocket.

Amidst the emerald green, a few small yellow and white flowers are trembling.

She put it in a wooden box she picked up from somewhere, and at night when the man was not around, she shyly put the "gift" into the woman's arms.

The woman simply opened it and glanced at it casually, then perfunctorily put it aside. She looked at the girl and began to persuade her earnestly, "Your father wants to marry you off to the village carpenter. Did you know that?"

The girl was not good at speaking, she just looked at the other person with her deer-like eyes.

The woman said, "It's better to marry him. Only if you marry him can your brother get married."

The girl was silent for a while and slowly shook her head.

"It's my parents' orders and the matchmaker's words," the woman said suddenly anxiously, "Why are you shaking your head? I gave you your life."

The girl didn't quite understand why her mother would rather have a baby in her womb whom she had never met than have her.

Mingming, in this family, I am the only one who truly treats her well.

The woman's face turned cold: "It's settled. You don't have to help with the work these days. When you get back, pack up and go visit my family over there."

The girl still shook her head.

The woman was shocked and angry, and slapped her in the face.

The next day, the girl, with the slap mark on her face, was picked over like pork on a chopping board in the carpenter's house.

The carpenter who still had a braid looked at her with a grin and wanted to drag her into the house.

The girl bit him hard and ran away.

The girl's father and brother caught her and locked her in the cellar.

The cellar had only one high window, and the woman bent over with difficulty and said, "You are lucky. They have taken a fancy to you and hired the town's opera troupe. Tomorrow your brother will also choose a wife, so we can have the wedding together."

The girl sat there hugging her knees, the light in her eyes fading away bit by bit.

After an unknown amount of time, the sound of gongs, drums and string instruments began to emanate from the village, and the joy reached the girl's ears.

"Tsk tsk, how pitiful."

A troupe of actors came to the high window. A young man in a long gown squatted down with his sleeves gathered up and looked down. He carried a sanxian on his back, and when he smiled, his mouth looked like a black crescent moon.

"The bride is being held here. Are they planning a wedding or a funeral?"

He turned to look at the person next to him: "Why don't we make a deal with her? Tianjiu."