Xiegou Village, Yunfeng County.
The village is surrounded by mountains on three sides and looks isolated from the world, but if viewed from the air, the surrounding mountains look like a giant dragon lying on its back.
The entire village happens to be wrapped by a giant dragon. In Feng Shui, such a place is called Panlong Cave. Logically speaking, such a place should be home to a large number of talented people.
But in the past few years, there has never been a champion in the village, and no family has become rich and powerful. In fact, the life of the villagers can be said to be very miserable.
But everything seemed peaceful, until my birth broke everything.
The year I was born, it happened to be the first day of the Lunar New Year, and it was snowing lightly in the sky.
People say that auspicious snow heralds a good harvest, but my mother passed away due to dystocia.
This caused quite a stir in this somewhat backward, even somewhat isolated, small village.
Even the half-immortals in the village said that I was an ominous person and would definitely bring disaster to the village.
A large number of villagers came to my house holding torches, saying they wanted to sacrifice me to the mountain god.
If my family hadn't taught and educated people for generations, I would have really been thrown into the mountains by then.
I don’t know how my grandparents persuaded the villagers to retreat in the end, and my grandparents never mentioned it to me.
Maybe it was because of the prestige of my grandparents, or because they felt sorry for me without my mother. Anyway, after that, the villagers never thought of sacrificing me to the mountain god, and they even loved me very much.
At a young age, I could always get a full meal no matter where I went.
In that era when things were extremely scarce, I was probably the child who ate the most meat.
But everything took a huge turn when I was six years old.
Since my mother passed away, my father has become a different person.
Although there is no resentment towards me, it seems that there is no love.
My father gradually became a frequent visitor to the small wine shop in the village, drinking every day to relieve his sorrows. When I was six years old, my drunk father fell into the village fish pond and drowned.
An accident happened, and the demi-gods in the village claimed that my dead mother had kidnapped my father.
When I was six years old, I didn't understand this at all. I only vaguely remember my grandfather dragging me to Banxian's house and having a big fight with her.
This is the first time since I can remember that I have seen my grandfather so angry.
After my father passed away, although the villagers didn't say anything, their attitude towards me completely changed.
My grandparents no longer let me visit here and there. I stay at home every day except going to and from school.
Fortunately, I still have a playmate who I grew up with. He doesn't believe the nonsense told by adults and secretly comes to play with me every day.
Three years passed before I knew it, and it was my ninth birthday.
In just a few years, life in the village has improved a lot, and there have been more contacts with the outside world. It seems that the people in the village have gradually forgotten everything about me.
Grandpa and grandma's retirement salary has also increased. On this day, grandpa went to the county town to buy me a birthday cake regardless of what he said.
Although grandpa is over sixty years old, his body is still strong. He and grandma can fully handle the farm work in the fields as two strong laborers.
This is a good thing. These past few years have been peaceful and it is indeed worth taking this opportunity to celebrate.
Grandpa also borrowed the bicycle from the village chief’s house, but my grandma and I waited at home until dark and still didn’t see grandpa come back.
Grandma was anxious, and so was I. Although I was only nine years old, I was much more mature than my peers.
The village chief set off with the villagers, and my grandma and I followed the team.
The old torches were replaced by flashlights. Everyone followed the only dirt road in and out of the village and finally found Grandpa in a mountain stream.
Grandpa is dead, bitten by a poisonous snake. My birthday cake is still tied to the back seat of the bicycle and has been smashed into pieces.
I still can’t figure out how my grandfather was bitten to death by a poisonous snake while riding his bicycle. After that, I never had a birthday cake again.
But the bad luck that came to our door again seemed not to let our family go.
Grandpa was buried with great fanfare, and the whole village, young and old, came. As the only remaining male in the family, I walked in front holding my grandfather’s photo in both hands.
But it started raining heavily on the way back, and grandma slipped and broke one of her legs.
Since then, our family's life has completely changed, and the villagers have completely regarded me as a disaster. If my grandmother hadn't been alive, I might have been thrown into the mountains.
At such a young age, I had to silently support everything. Fortunately, there were still many former students of my grandparents in the village, so I didn’t have to worry about the fields.
But I did all the laundry, cooking and taking care of grandma at home.
I never saw my grandma cry after my grandpa left, but I could always hear whimpering coming from her room at night.
I am very afraid that my relatives will pass away one after another, and I am afraid that my grandma will hate me.
But grandma was kinder to me. Half a year later, grandma's leg healed. However, due to the medical conditions at the time, the root cause of the disease remained, and grandma was lame.
I study hard, I want to leave this place, I want to take my grandma to a big city to see her legs.
I was admitted to the best junior high school in the county. In fact, with my grades, I could go to the city, but I didn't worry about leaving my grandma alone.
When I was thirteen years old, there was an earthquake in the village.
After receiving the news, I got on my bicycle and hurried to the village, but what I saw in front of me was completely different from what I imagined.
I didn't see the houses falling down, nor did I see people crying and shouting. Even the villagers who were walking around me were overjoyed.
It turned out that some ancient tombs in the mountains collapsed. The son of Aunt Zhang's family at the head of the village went into the mountains to collect herbs and found the treasure. He actually sold the money and bought a car.
In those days, what was the concept of a car? That is face, the face of eight generations of ancestors.
The villagers went crazy. They all dropped what they were doing and rushed into the old forest.
I wanted to go too, but my grandma refused to let me go into the mountain, as if I would really be eaten by the mountain god.
The villagers who entered the mountain one after another did find a lot of treasures. Seeing that every household became rich, I was actually tempted.
Even some villagers who were superstitious about the mountain god couldn't help but go into the mountain with envy. You can imagine how crazy everyone was at that time.
But something happened after all.
I was reading in the yard that day. When I looked up, I saw what looked like a black cloud on the top of the mountain in the distance, but it didn't look like a cloud because it looked a bit ethereal.
In order to verify what I saw, I also asked a few playmates, but they said I was talking nonsense and there was no such thing as a black cloud.
Later I learned that that thing is called evil spirit. The heavier and bigger the evil spirit is, the more powerful the thing there is, and this thing is invisible to ordinary people.
Not long after I saw the black clouds, lightning and thunder began in the sky, and it started to rain heavily.
The fish pond in the village suddenly looked like boiling water, huge bubbles rolled on the water, and the fish in the fish pond turned white belly one after another.
There were many villagers who entered the mountain that day, but when they came out, there were a few missing, and three of them were completely crazy.
The half-immortal came out to speak. If he went into the mountain to hunt for treasure, he would offend the mountain god, so he could not go into the mountain again.
Everyone knew that they were scared and finally calmed down for a few days.
But I don’t know who leaked the news that there is a treasure in our village.
The news spread quickly, and many outsiders came to the village one after another, and they even purchased the treasures directly from the villagers.
Seeing that the lumps of dirt in their hands had been replaced by wads of banknotes, the villagers became red-eyed one by one. They completely stopped working in the fields, no longer afraid of going crazy and disappearing, and plunged into the old forest again.
Among these foreigners, I was particularly impressed by one person. He looked to be in his forties.
The clothes are very simple, and he is obviously not very old, but he gives people an air of immortality.
I was impressed by him mainly because he lived in our house.
Because more and more foreigners are coming, food and accommodation have become a problem. I don’t know who took the initiative and started to receive foreigners.
Firstly, it solves the problem of food and accommodation for foreigners. Secondly, it can also earn a small amount of food and accommodation expenses from foreigners.
Then a wave of people appeared at the entrance of the village, just like those soliciting customers at the entrance of the hotel now.
But this foreigner didn't go to anyone's house and came directly to our house.
Grandma was so hospitable that she didn't ask for his money, so he stayed there shamelessly. However, he still had a conscience and would help my family with some farm work.
I often couldn't find him. Once I followed him quietly and watched him enter the mountain, but I didn't see him bring anything out.
I have seen him help our villager out. The villager's face was pale and his steps were staggering, as if he had encountered something terrible.
