The people who stayed on the mountain first found a big cave and let the elderly, the weak, women and children hide in it, and then the young people went out to guard it.
Lin Wenxuan was only 20 years old. He was one of the people who were protecting his mother and wife on the mountain. At this moment, he was carrying a hoe and standing on the outskirts of the mountain top with other young people, guarding against the Japanese rushing up.
Zhang Xiaonv came over crying several times, asking Lin Wenxuan to go back and look after his wife and she would take over.
Lin Wenxuan was speechless.
"Mom, don't come here anymore! Go back and look after Shengdi! If you're bored, make her something to eat! She's pregnant and gets hungry fast!"
All the young men were standing here. Even Fuqiang, the 13-year-old from Youliang's family, was standing there with a rake in his hand. He was already 20! His mother wanted him to live a life of shame, right?
Zhang Xiaonv didn't think there was anything wrong with her actions. She slapped her thigh and cried, "How many people are there in their family? How many people are there in our family? If you were gone, our family would be finished!"
"As long as Shengdi is alive, our family will survive. If the Japanese come, we will all be finished."
Lin Wenxuan still drove his mother back. When Zhang Xiaonv returned to her own territory crying, Liang Shengdi had already collected firewood and set up the pot.
Zhang Xiaonv: ...
"I'm dying! You're still in the mood to eat! Your man is going to fight the Japanese to death! You're not in a hurry!"
Liang Shengdi was trying to figure out how to cook rice without water. When she heard her mother-in-law scolding her, she looked up and said quietly,
"Mom, I'm hungry..."
Liang Shengdi didn't eat enough or sleep enough last night, and she climbed the mountain for most of the night. She hasn't had a drop of water or a grain of rice yet.
She was so hungry that her heart was beating fast, her face was gray, her lips were white, and her eyes were dim.
Zhang Xiaonu was frightened by her expression and didn't dare to say anything more. She trotted off to find Dashanma. She remembered that there was a stream on the top of the mountain...
Now my son and daughter-in-law are both precious and cannot die.
She is the least valuable.
Liang Shengdi was not the only pregnant woman in the cave, so everyone decided to put them all in the innermost part of the cave so that no matter whether they were burning or cooking, the smell would not drift out.
When Liang Shengdi finally drank the hot porridge, the old village chief and his men on the mountainside had already started fighting with the Japanese.
Compared to the Japanese, their weapons and equipment were like a primitive tribe encountering a modern army. The old village chief knew that eggs could not defeat stones, so everyone hid in the trees and avoided direct communication.
When people walked into the encirclement, they jumped down from the tree, wielding hoes and sickles, and hacked them to death.
At first, they killed four of them easily, but the remaining two were more difficult. Seeing the miserable state of their companions, they just opened fire crazily with their guns.
Several older villagers were beaten to death before they could climb back up the trees.
"Dad!" Someone on the tree yelled with gritted teeth and jumped down.
A white-haired old man was shot in the chest. He struggled to take a few steps forward and threw himself directly onto the bayonet of the Japanese soldier, pressing him to the ground with his body.
Before the Japanese soldier could push him away, his head was smashed into pieces by the hoe.
"Dad! Dad! You haven't heard Jinshui call you Grandpa yet!"
The old man's son Dachun killed the Japanese soldier, but he didn't care about the other one. He knelt beside his 72-year-old father and wailed in grief.
Another Japanese soldier was still firing, and no one could get close to him. Seeing that he was about to fire towards Dachun, the old village chief stepped on the blood-soaked dead leaves and rushed towards the Japanese soldier, waving the sickle in his hand.
A bullet hit the village chief's shoulder blade. His face froze, but he did not hesitate to stop for a second and rushed towards the Japanese.
"Click, click."
The Japanese soldier had run out of bullets and had no time to change the magazine, but there was a bayonet on his gun, so he stabbed forward and pierced the old village chief's chest.
The village chief's sickle just barely hooked onto his neck, and he used the last of his strength to pull it forward.
The devil's neck was bleeding, and the villagers who came behind him hit him hard, and he soon fell to the ground.
"village head!"
"Old Lin!"
…
When I led people down the mountain, it was just morning when the sun was rising.
When they were carrying the person back, the sun was at its hottest.
About twenty people carried five or six people back.
The relatives of the man lying on the ground wailed and cried loudly, while the relatives of the man standing, even though they were glad that their men were still alive, could not laugh and could only cry along with them.
Lin Youliang was crying so hard that he was out of breath. He asked his son Lin Fuqiang to come over and kowtow to him three times.
"Your grandfather loves you the most. You should kowtow to him a few times so that he can pass away peacefully."
Chen Dachun asked his son Yu Nian to hold his grandson Jinshui, who was just born and not even one year old, and knelt in the front row, not only to kowtow to his own father, but also to the village chief and other elders who had passed away.
If the old village chief hadn't protected him just now, he would not have been able to come back.
At this time, it is impossible to hold funerals according to tradition. Everyone can only dig graves, erect tombstones, and everyone from the oldest to the youngest takes turns to kowtow to these graves. This is considered a funeral.
All the young and old in the village who could kneel did so. If it weren't for the sacrifice of these elders, those above them would have died as well.
Liang Shengdi originally wanted to kneel down beside Lin Wenxuan, but before her knees touched the ground, she was pulled up by Zhang Xiaonv.
"Even the Bodhisattva couldn't bear the kneeling of a pregnant woman, let alone now. You are shortening the life span of the village chief and his men."
Liang Shengdi looked around with tears in her eyes. Perhaps it was customary, as expected, several other pregnant women like her did not kneel, but stood by and wiped their tears. So she followed suit and stood up to wipe her tears together.
The originally noisy mountaintop was now deserted, as if everyone had been silenced by the poison, and no one dared to speak.
Even the little babies seemed to have learned to read the adults' expressions and nestled in their mothers' arms without saying a word.
Lin Youliang sat beside his father's grave, and the remaining elders in the village gathered around him.
“There is food… Now that your father is gone, you will be the village chief from now on.
What should we do next? When should we get down the mountain? What if the Japanese invade again?
You tell us what you want, and we will listen to you."
Village chiefs these days are hereditary. The Lin family has been village chiefs for generations. Perhaps because they are fair in their work and are skilled at it, the villagers have never even thought about changing families.
Anyway, there must be someone to take the lead. Now that Old Lin is gone, Little Lin will take over.
Lin Youliang himself was aware of the burden he had on his shoulders and had no time to grieve for too long, so he could only wipe away his tears and stand up to take charge of the situation.
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