"Top, shall we go fish together? Today we'll get a turtle to make soup."
As I spoke, I took a basket from the warehouse and carried it on my back, along with a blowgun and arrows.
It had already finished feeding the grasshoppers in its hand. Top squeaked and followed me down the ladder.
When we arrived at the lake, I didn't rush to collect the fish. Instead, I raised my blowpipe and aimed at a moorhen. It had been a long time since I'd hunted, so I wanted to test my skills.
With a whoosh, an arrow flew out of the blowgun. A splash immediately rose on the water's surface, and the water chicken, hit by the arrow, thrashed about for a couple of moments before falling still.
I pulled the moorhen to the shore and put it in my basket. Today I can make a turtle and chicken soup. That's great.
After killing that water chicken, I didn't attack again. My food reserves are now quite substantial, enough to last until next spring.
Top and I were planning to collect the fish and then go home to cook. Just as we finished collecting the fish and were about to leave, Top screamed in terror.
Aside from that encounter with the leopard, I haven't heard Top scream so terrified since I came here. I was focused on unhooking my fish at the time, so I don't know what it saw.
When I looked again in the direction Top was pointing nervously, I saw a rather large wave rippling out from a point about a hundred meters from the lake shore.
At first, I didn't take it seriously, thinking it was just a big fish leaping out of the water.
I've seen fish over a meter long leap high out of the water before; these large fish, weighing over a hundred pounds, do make quite a commotion.
I chuckled and patted Top on the shoulder, telling it not to be afraid; it was just a rather large fish and posed no threat to us.
My confidence in my common sense made me completely disregard this matter.
I've visited this lake many times, so I can rule out the possibility of crocodiles. Crocodiles, like snakes, are cold-blooded reptiles, and they also need to bask in the sun to obtain heat and regulate their body temperature.
What animals could be more dangerous than the tigers and jackals on that mountain to the east?
Top and I went home and cooked as usual. Now, when I have nothing to do, I like to roast some chestnuts and pine nuts, and the monkeys come over to me to ask for some when they smell the aroma.
I'm not a stingy person. These things are, in a sense, the fruits of their labor. I just took advantage of the situation and tricked them into giving them to me.
After these monkeys became familiar with me, they would often come over to my place to freeload. I was quite happy to have these neighbors, since under Top's leadership, no monkey had ever raided my warehouse.
Sometimes I'd stir-fry a big plate of pine nuts and chestnuts, and the monkeys would react just like the old men I used to see watching open-air movies at the village entrance when I was a kid.
One by one, the monkeys, some sitting and some standing, stared longingly at the roasted nuts in my hand. At that moment, I would act like the old lady selling melon seeds next to the rural school when I was a child, sharing a handful of pine nuts and chestnuts with each monkey.
They didn't run away, they just chattered away, banging on the roasted nuts in their hands. They wouldn't leave until they'd eaten all the roasted nuts I'd made.
Thinking back to my childhood, it was truly wonderful. Back then, there were no cell phones, no television, and we often didn't even have enough to eat, but everyone, adults and children alike, always had smiles on their faces.
We didn't have electronic toys, so we made spinning tops, matchstick guns, jumped ropes, and played hide-and-seek. Back then, a few kids in the village and I could play with one spinning top until we were completely exhausted, not wanting to go home.
Later, as times progressed, I noticed that adults smiled less and less, and their brows furrowed more and more.
Even though the times are changing and everything is moving in a positive direction, why are they becoming increasingly unhappy?
Later, as I grew up, I came to understand why societal progress didn't make us happy, but instead brought us more anxiety.
The faster the times develop, the greater the amount of information entering rural areas becomes.
Many novel things entered people's field of vision and attracted their attention. For example, the earliest television set was the most popular darling of the era.
I remember one family in our area had some money and gritted their teeth to buy a black and white television. Back then, televisions weren't the kind of thing that requires payment now.
In the countryside back then, black and white televisions were received by attaching an antenna to a tall bamboo pole. Sometimes, if the signal was bad, someone had to adjust the position of the antenna.
Back then, it was a rare thing for a family to have a television set. People from the whole village would come to that family's house with torches to watch TV, and the already small house would be packed with people, three layers deep.
In the end, the host family smiled helplessly and shook their heads, and had no choice but to take the TV out every evening and place it in the rice drying area of the village committee.
The men were shirtless, revealing their tanned skin, and the children sat barefoot by the well and on tree stumps.
The elderly and women were fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans to cool off while staring intently at the television, as if the people on screen would step out of the screen at any moment.
I only reluctantly helped the homeowner move the TV back after it stopped showing a small screen.
Later, everyone worked day and night, all wanting to own a television set. At this moment, it seemed to fulfill Lao Tzu's saying: "Rare goods are often imitated by people."
With everyone owning a television, neighbors stopped visiting each other as frequently. Everyone was engrossed in new things, and the lively atmosphere of the past was gone.
Then came the advent of mobile phones, which completely ousted the television, a childhood favorite. More and more dazzling things appeared before people's eyes, and more and more desires awaited people to pursue.
Gradually, the originally simple and honest folk customs have been eroded by various desires, and people have become more and more focused on economic changes while neglecting the relationships between people.
Sometimes, they would even fight each other with hoes over trivial matters.
This seems to confirm another saying of Lao Tzu: "The alternation of yin and yang is called the Tao."
The economy has developed, but human nature has also become increasingly terrifying along with it. The simplicity of the past has long been buried, and people have become accustomed to a new life of duplicity and hypocrisy.
This is why we often feel that the present is not as good as the days of the past.
If we compare economic development to something positive and upward, then the degeneration of humanity is the price we pay for something negative and downward.
I feel like I've returned to the simple, innocent days of my childhood. These monkeys are like the villagers who didn't have so many desires. I just wonder if they'll become the next batch of monkeys on Mount Emei...
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