old and young

"Where have you been?" Li Xingzang asked her in surprise.

He Yishu said frankly: "I am not someone who likes to fight with the little devils in the mountains, okay? The key point is that this old man came up today to rob things, and brought so many helpers with him. I thought he was here to take revenge on me, but... I got excited and hit him a little too hard." This caused him to come and complain.

"Huh? That's not right. He can't even get down the mountain, so how could he get here?" He Yishu asked in confusion.

Nighthawk sighed, "A little ghost and Sister Huang complained, and Sister Huang directly notified me to go up the mountain to pick him up." He was a big demon in the Special Investigation Office, but now he had fallen to this point.

"Tsk." He Yishu curled his lips, "He's nothing. He can't even win a group fight. He'll just complain all day long."

"That's enough. He's helped us so much, why are you always arguing with him?" Li Xingzang pondered. Sister Huang had so many subordinates, so there were many good colleagues to choose from, but for now, they needed to discuss it later. "What did you see when you went to his house?"

He Yishu shook his head. "Nothing special, just an old man watching TV on the kang."

"Then—has he eaten yet?" the old man asked anxiously. "It's been at least two or three days since I had the accident. Has he eaten yet?"

He Yishu sighed. She had heard about his family's affairs from the mountains and knew there might be a misunderstanding between them, so she made the trip. "You should have prepared the meal before you left, right? He should have been eating those these days, but... not much."

When the old man heard this, tears started to flow down his face. "...Dad..." After crying for a while, he suddenly remembered something. "Boss Li, please be kind and help me contact my son."

"It will take some time for your son to come to your house, right?" Boss Li sighed. "Take me with you."

The ghost swung his sleeves and said, "What about me?"

"You..." Before Li Xingzang could say anything, Liu Shao hurriedly said, "Please rest here for a while, have something to eat and drink some milk tea. Boss Li, you know that you would never lie to your colleagues."

"Then Boss Li, I'll be waiting for you here." The Yinchai bowed, and Li Xingzang took Ye Ying and He Yishu out on the field.

The old man’s home is indeed not close to Snow City. According to human walking distance, it can be considered to be deep in the mountains.

"Why do you live in the mountains? What if you encounter wild beasts?" Nighthawk asked curiously.

Unexpectedly, the old man sighed and said, "That old man is really looking forward to encountering a wild beast."

"How do you say that?"

"In the past, when we were picking ginseng in the mountains, there were many wolves and bears. To pray for good ginseng and good luck, the elderly would worship tigers as mountain gods and even carve shrines in the trees."

"Oh, there really was such a thing. He said that one time when he was about to go down the mountain, he and his companions heard the howling of wolves. It was so scary that they had to run away quickly. But when you live in the mountains, the most frightening thing is panic. If you panic, you run too fast and you don't know where you will end up."

"That's how they are. They kept running and somehow ended up in a cemetery." The old man spread his hands. "That's the end of it! You're already scared, and now you've run into this area. There's no way you can get out. If it gets dark, you're just going to get eaten by wolves!"

"So what happened next?" He Yishu poked his head out from behind Li Xingzang.

"What happened next? Oh! This is really strange! A huge tiger came from outside the graveyard!" The old man gestured with his hands open, and his crutch almost hit He Yishu's forehead.

"Really?" Xiao He didn't care and widened his eyes in surprise.

"How would I know?" the old man said with a carefree smile, "But my dad told me that the tiger didn't eat them. Instead, it scared the wolves away. They hugged each other all night and found their way home the next day."

"From then on, he became even more convinced that tigers were mountain gods. Whenever he went up the mountain, he would bring a roast chicken or goose, place it on a tree stump, and carve a shrine on it, saying it was for the mountain god. Later, when he was older, I heard that he encountered a tiger again, but it wasn't the same one as before. He said it was a cub."

"I mean, how could it be such a coincidence? Even those who specialize in studying tigers in the mountains might not come across one once, so how could he have encountered one twice? He must have been mistaken."

Li Xingzang pondered what he said and suddenly asked, "Have you always lived in this mountain?"

"No, our hometown is on the other side of Dadingzi Mountain, but later we cut down trees and planted ginseng, so we moved to Ganfanpen."

No wonder. She had asked Aunt Zhao to help find the ginseng-collecting family on Dadingzi Mountain, but Aunt Zhao contacted her father and asked all the families there, but still couldn't find the person Wu Fei was looking for. It turned out that they had moved.

"Look, that's my home." The old man pointed to a row of small bungalows in the mountains. Although only two old people lived there, the house was kept clean and tidy, with smoke coming out of the chimneys on the roofs.

"Is anyone home with you?"

The old man also shook his head in surprise, "I don't know."

Li Xingzang walked forward with Nighthawk, "Is anyone there?"

"Ah, who are you?" An aproned woman walked out of the small room and looked at Li Xingzang in confusion, "Who are you..."

"Oh! It's Director Shi." The old man patted his thigh, "He is the village director of the village at the foot of the mountain. He came up the mountain to deliver something to us right away. I didn't expect..." He wiped his tears with emotion again.

"Director Shi, right?" Li Xingzang laughed. "We're here to see Grandpa Wang."

"Oh, you know me?" Director Shi saw that the girl was fair and pretty, and her smile was pleasing to the eye, so his attitude softened. "But... I wonder where Fourth Uncle is?"

"Ah..." Li Xingzang hesitated, "Then... is Master Wang home?"

"What... is going on with you guys?" Although I didn't think the little girl was a bad person, the guy next to her was quite fierce, not to mention that he was carrying a big dog that looked like a wolf, staring at you with its eyes, which was really creepy.

Li Xingzang noticed her look and patted Bai Lang's head. "Don't be afraid, we are here to interview you."

"Interview?"

"Yes!" Boss Li nudged Nighthawk. "This is our cameraman. We're students at Ice City University. We heard from a classmate that the great-grandfather here is already a hundred years old, so we wanted to interview him and celebrate the motherland's birthday. We heard there were wild animals in the mountains, so we brought it out."

"Oh, it's still a long time before National Day. Are you guys starting preparations so early?" Director Shi looked at the student ID she had conjured up and actually believed it. He opened the gate and said, "Come in quickly."

The house was much as they had imagined. The kitchen was right inside, with a burning stove connected to the main room's large kang. A young man was working the fire and greeted them. He was the village official. On the kang, a hundred-year-old Old Master Wang was drowsily leaning against the quilt, as if about to fall asleep.

"Dad..." Uncle Wang choked and cried. He always wanted to spend the rest of his life with his father here, but he didn't expect that he would have to send his father off at such an old age. He couldn't even say goodbye. Although his old father was already confused, if he knew that something had happened to him, he would be in trouble.

"Shuanzi..." Uncle Wang also became a wandering soul. The three humans in the hut could not see him, but the old man suddenly called him at this time.

"Dad...? Dad...!" Grandpa Wang shouted excitedly. Li Xingzang gave Ye Ying a look, asking him to steady Grandpa Wang. Then he looked at Director Shi worriedly, "Director Shi, Grandpa..."

Director Shi shook her head. "This old man was confused to begin with, but when we came here today, I don't know what happened, he was able to recognize people. I guess..." She sighed, "I don't know where Fourth Uncle went. I thought Xiao Li and I would stay here for a day and wait for him. If he doesn't come back tomorrow, we will have to call the police."

"You guys... I think you should just forget it." The end of his life is approaching. Interviews and honors are all just clouds in the sky.

Li Xingzang also sighed, "Alright then, but we can't come here for nothing. We should stay here with the cameraman to help out, just in case we are needed."

"That... is fine." She had come here before and stayed overnight, but with one more person it would make a big difference. Now that Lao Wang was not here and the old man was mysterious, she was feeling very nervous.

In the afternoon, Old Master Wang finally woke up for a while. The first thing he said when he saw Director Shi was, "I think I saw Shuanzi just now."

Director Shi often came here, so he naturally knew who Shuanzi was. He was stunned when he heard him say this, "Seventh Master, Fourth Uncle is not here. Are you dreaming?"

The old man stared at her for a long moment with his cloudy eyes. "Ah... really..." Then he looked at Li Xingzang on the other side. "He's standing right behind that girl, crying. He's quite old and not ashamed at all."

Director Shi felt a little scared when she saw the surprised people, but she was the oldest person present and also the village director. If she showed any fear, these young people would be even more afraid.

"Seventh Master, you must be dreaming! Fourth Uncle might have gone to his son's place. You forgot about what he said to you and will be back tomorrow!" In fact, when she came here and didn't see Lao Wang, she called his son, but the news she got was not good. It made sense. How could such a filial person leave a hundred-year-old father here? Then, it goes without saying what it means for a seventy-eight-year-old man to disappear in the mountains.

"Ah... I might as well be dreaming." But he still stared at Li Xingzang. Director Shi was afraid that she would be scared, so he hurriedly pulled her away, "My girl, he's already like this, don't take it to heart."

"No." Li Xingzang patted Director Shi's hand soothingly.

After Li Xingzang left, Uncle Wang, who had been sitting on the stool behind her, came out. The old man and the young man stared at each other from a distance of only a few steps, but could no longer speak a word.