The cold wind in the afternoon was a little bit stronger, making the glass windows whistle.
Today, every household in the village did not light a fire. There was no smoke floating above the kitchen, making the sky seem even bluer. There were no people strolling around on the streets. Except for what was happening in the yard of every household, everything around was very quiet.
Shen Anning and her younger brother and sister were half lying on the kang listening to the radio. Maybe the signal was not very good, so there was some crackling. Shen Zixi fell asleep soundly beside them with the sound.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The moment the explosion sounded, Shen Anning's first reaction was to turn around and lie down to cover Xixi's ears, but the little guy was still awakened and cried uncontrollably.
"Wow, wow, wow."
Sitting on the kang, you can feel the vibration, which makes Shen Anning a little panicked. He suppressed the trembling and fear in his heart, grabbed the small quilt on the bed and wrapped it around Xixi, patting her back with both hands, "Baby, Xixi, don't be afraid, Xixi, be good."
An Yu also hugged his sister An Xuan immediately. He looked at Shen An Ning, his face showing a calmness that suppressed his fear, "Sister."
"It's okay, it's okay. It should be coming from the mountain. Don't be afraid. It's not an earthquake. Judging from the sound, we shouldn't be very close." Shen Anning was unsure in her heart, but she didn't dare to show it in front of her younger brothers and sisters.
The two villages are in an uproar!
At the beginning, no one dared to open the door or show their head. To be honest, the impression left by war, bandits, and revolution was too deep. If there were elderly people at home, the first thing they would do was to let their families and children hide in the vegetable cellar.
Shen Anning just stayed on the kang with her younger brother, sister, and little niece. The four of them huddled in a corner, wrapped tightly in a large quilt. She didn't know what was going on outside, so she couldn't take any risks.
until
The village loudspeaker sounded.
Shen Anning had never felt that the village chief's voice could give people such a sense of security before!
"Everyone in the village, please pay attention. Pay attention."
"The explosion just now came from the mountain. There's currently no danger to our village or Gengjiatun, and no one's been injured. Everyone is fine. I'll let you know if there's any more. Okay, that's it."
As soon as the broadcast stopped, there was a knock on Shen Anning's courtyard door.
She put her niece in her sister's hands and said, "It's okay. I'll go check on her. You guys just stay on the kang and don't get down."
After putting on her clothes, Shen Anning trotted to open the gate. It was Aunt Sufen, Sister Qian Hui and Xu Hongxia.
"Aunt, Sister Qian Hui, Hongxia, you are here."
Shen Anning turned sideways and let a few people into the yard first.
Shen Anning looked at Xu Hongxia and Qian Hui. Their hair was messy and the buttons on their clothes were in the wrong place.
Geng Sufen patted her chest and whispered "Amitabha", "Oh, An Ning, I'm glad you're okay. An Yu, An Xuan, and Xi Xi are all okay."
"Auntie, they are all fine. Only Xixi was scared and cried by the explosion, but she is fine now."
Geng Sufen stood in the yard and looked at the three girls. "Okay, as long as everything is fine. I have to go to Gengjiatun to check. I don't know what's going on at my mother's house. If you have any questions, go find your accountant uncle next door."
Watching Aunt Sufen hurriedly crossing the bridge, Shen Anning walked forward to see her off. Standing at the side door, he saw his grandparents standing outside the house across the river. The old couple looked over here and waved vigorously in their direction.
After getting a response from his grandfather, Shen Anning went into the yard and bolted the door.
"Sister Hui, Hongxia, let's go inside quickly. Is everything okay at the educated youth center?"
"Nothing happened over there. We were all just lying on the kang chatting and sleeping when we got a big scare. It's nothing serious."
Shen Anning took out another quilt from the kang cabinet and asked Qian Hui and Xu Hongxia to lie down first.
After warming up on the kang for a while, Xu Hongxia was finally able to drink the hot water with her shivering mouth.
Looking at Shen Zixi who had recovered, Shen An Ning reached out and hugged her, filled a glass bottle with some warm water, and fed her to drink. She had just cried for so long and needed some nourishment.
Looking at the two children in the quilt beside them, Xu Hongxia took out two candies from her cotton-padded jacket pocket and handed them over, "An Xuan, were you scared just now?"
"A little bit, but since my elder sister and younger brother are protecting me, I'm not afraid anymore. Thank you, Sister Hongxia."
At this moment, in Gengjiatun, the clan leader’s home.
Several elderly men gathered in a room, and everyone looked a little solemn.
"Chief, tell me, should we send someone up there to take a look?"
An old man with white hair and beard sitting at the head of the group tapped his cane and opened his mouth, his voice full of vicissitudes of life saying, "Old Five, what are you talking about? Others don't understand how dangerous this mountain is, but don't we old people know it too?"
For a moment, the room was silent!
No one spoke anymore, only the puffing sound of the patriarch's pipe could be heard.
a long time.
The clan leader finally put down his pipe and opened his deep yet cloudy eyes, as if he had made a great decision: "Thirty years ago, all the hilltops here were controlled by Hu Zi. During those years, the villagers lived in fear."
"Later, the Japanese left, the Nationalist Army left, and although the Communist Party almost wiped out these bandits, there were still some that slipped through the net. We old people all know that the mountain next to Gengjiatun was not called Black Mountain a few decades ago. It was called Panlong Mountain. My grandfather said that there might be a large tomb on this mountain. It was dangerous, so the villagers only moved around in safe areas and never went deep into the mountains."
The patriarch's words made the old men present fall into deep thought. Eleven years ago, during the great famine, the villagers had thought about going into the mountains to make a living, but they had the life to go in but not the life to come out.
The clan leader looked at everyone's expressions and said nothing more. He had never told anyone the secret hidden in his heart. When the famine killed people, several grandchildren in the family could not bear it anymore. He had also been to Panlong Mountain and met a group of people carrying boxes of explosives. He recognized the logo on the box, even though he was still young at that time, but it was the weapon box given to Hu Zi by the National Army when they appointed him as an official in the 1930s.
He lay in the snow and didn't dare move all night. Only after the group of people came down the mountain empty-handed did he dare to pick up some of their leftover bones and go home.
If I'm not mistaken, today's explosion was set by those people back then. The deafening noise just now couldn't deceive anyone.
"Okay, don't say anything when you get home. Let Jing Hao and Cong Lin handle this matter."
A group of old men stayed in the house for nearly an hour, coming and leaving in a hurry.
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