The sky was still gray, and everyone was carrying a large backpack with all sorts of items hanging on their bodies.
Holding a stick in one hand and a machete in the other, Si Cheng walked at the front of the group, scouting the way and easily dealing with any vines blocking the path.
The six people behind them each looked around, forming a pyramid shape as they slowly cleared a path and explored.
This is what everyone prepared for a week to check the situation on the back mountain.
Jinwu Mountain wasn't very high to begin with, but it covered a large area. Previously, there weren't many large animals on the mountain; it was mostly home to common small animals like rabbits, pheasants, and snakes.
In the past, villagers rarely climbed the mountain unless they had to; they would usually just collect some dry branches on the outskirts to use as firewood. Later, with the widespread use of gas and coal, even collecting firewood gradually decreased.
Because of the previous earthquake, many plants on the mountain died due to the tremors and the loosening of the soil. However, this also made it easier for everyone to check road conditions.
The group walked for a day but didn't find any particularly loose areas. It's possible that Jinwu Mountain was originally a rocky mountain, and the earthquake exposed many large rocks.
Seeing that it was getting late, everyone found a relatively sheltered spot to sit down and rest, deciding to make do with the night there.
"Brother Monkey, do you think there might be a landslide here?" Yunxun, who had come with him, asked the monkey beside him curiously.
“We just looked around the area. Wujin Mountain isn’t very steep, and it’s not very high either. We also checked, and the soil isn’t very loose, so it shouldn’t cause a landslide. Besides, the village is quite far from the mountain.” Monkey explained to everyone based on the actual situation.
"If there's no major danger, why are we even here?" Zhao Dongwei asked, somewhat puzzled.
Uncle Bing tapped Zhao Dongwei on the head. "You kids, don't you know how to make a living off the mountains? Checking for safety is one thing, but inspecting the vegetation in the mountains is also an important task this time. According to the older generation, back in the 1980s, the village used to have large orchards on the mountains. But later, due to problems with taste, transportation, and sales, they were gradually abandoned. We haven't been up the mountain for many years. When we were little, we used to climb up the mountain often to pick some fruit to take home."
"Then why don't we remember it? You adults never brought us up the mountain."
"There's a reason for that. It seems that a few children went up the mountain to pick fruit together back then. Somehow, they got lost on the mountain. When they were found, two were dead, three were seriously injured, and one went insane." Uncle Bing still felt lingering fear when he talked about that incident.
"What happened? Tell us quickly." As soon as they heard there was a story to tell, everyone quickly gathered around Uncle Bing.
"Later, I heard from the injured people that they encountered a venomous snake on the mountain. One person was bitten at first, and another was bitten when he tried to drive the snake away. The group carried the two injured people back to the village, but they got lost in the mountains, probably because they were in such a hurry. They went in the wrong direction and naturally wandered further and further away, so no one in the village found them in time. They stumbled and fell along the way, and one of them, because of his poor mental fortitude, spent the night on the mountain, hearing all sorts of noises. In addition, the two people who were bitten by the snake didn't survive and died along the way. All these frights drove him insane."
"And what about them now?"
"Back then, the two who died were cousins. The family suddenly lost two young men, and they were heartbroken for a long time. Perhaps to avoid being reminded of those memories, they moved out that year. As for the one who went mad, if he were still alive, you would call him Uncle Zhao. Because his parents didn't want to take care of him, he secretly went to work in the south, and was cared for by the elderly in the family. After the two elderly people passed away, the couple never came back. Your Uncle Zhao lived by the homes of the villagers, and then we don't know how he disappeared. Someone said they found his shoes by the river, and everyone guessed that he might have accidentally fallen into the river and been swept away by the water."
"How can everyone be in such a terrible state!" Several people who were hearing this for the first time touched their skin and suddenly felt that the temperature on the mountain had dropped a few degrees.
"What about the injured ones?" someone asked curiously. Even Si Cheng pricked up his ears in curiosity.
"Speaking of these people, you should all know them." At this point, Uncle Bing kept everyone in suspense.
Who is it?
“Sun Zhixin from the Sun family, Yun Aman, the eldest brother of your third uncle, and Yunnan Yao, your uncle Yao.”
Hearing the first two didn't surprise anyone, but when they heard about Yunnan medicine, everyone was quite astonished.
"Isn't Uncle Yao a doctor? Shouldn't he know some basic first aid?" Yun Jianying asked.
“He was very young at the time and hadn’t studied medicine yet, so how could he know first aid? This incident was a huge blow to several families. Although they survived, they spent a long time seeing a psychologist in the hospital. Your Uncle Yao was a good student since he was a child. If this incident hadn’t happened, it would have affected his mental health, and he wouldn’t have stayed in this small mountain village as a village doctor.”
"Is it because after this incident, the village stopped allowing villagers to go up the mountain?"
Everyone kept asking questions, one after another, and Uncle Bing didn't get impatient at all; he patiently answered them all.
“The village didn’t specifically tell everyone not to go up the mountain, but for your generation, they stopped mentioning that there were orchards on the mountain and kept emphasizing that there were dangers on the mountain.”
"Yes! When I was little, whenever I ran towards the mountainside, my grandma would chase after me with a stick. I got beaten like that a few times, and I learned to avoid going towards the mountainside. I always thought there were wolves in our mountains." At this point, the young people all thought of the beatings from their elders.
“There are no wolves, but there used to be plenty of wild rabbits on the mountain. We used to go up the mountain to trap rabbits all the time. But ever since that incident, even without the adults forbidding us from going up the mountain, we don’t dare to go up the mountain ourselves.” Uncle Bing said, sounding a little hesitant as he recalled the past.
"You say there are many wild rabbits in the mountains, but we haven't encountered any after walking all day?" Yun Xun had always longed to hunt and had seen countless wilderness survival stories, so he could actually say a thing or two about setting traps.
"They've probably all hidden away; animals are the most sensitive."
Monkey then patted Yunxun on the shoulder with a smile: "If you want to talk about hunting, you should ask Brother Cheng. Back in the army, he was the best hunter in our company."
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