Liu Lingzhong's Selected Short Stories Serialized (1194)

Grassland Wilderness(5)

Behind the mountain, next to the pine forest, the small river went two kilometers upstream, and in the fifties and sixties a dam was blocked, and the water was very deep and gloomy. When we were kids, we used to say about that place: "It's horrible." "Because there is a hairy dog path over the mountain, not far from the execution site where people were publicly shot in the past, we ran around to see the excitement. As a result, there were too many wild people all over the mountain, even more crowded than rushing to the scene, and I couldn't see it clearly at all. The water surface is gray and green, and the workers in the railway family area who have good water characteristics love to go, they say that they are cold and soaked in the water, piercing the bones, and often some people like to go fishing. When we were students, we went to send fertilizer to local vegetable farmers, and we also organized spring excursions to the river valley many times. The section above the barrage is high and densely forested, and there are many intricate holes, and the scenery is really good.

"Parents are not allowed to play in the barrage." I say.

Many years later, something big happened in that place, and someone discovered an old murder case. There was a lot of uproar, which was probably the age when she reported her disappearance fourteen years ago. The deceased was about 16 or 7 years old. Xiao Juntan's first girlfriend disappearance case was solved, and the public security officers scientifically proved that she was dead.

"Oh my God, it's your brother's girlfriend." The wife asked.

She didn't grow up in the town's railroad family area.

"I graduated from Normal University." She added.

"You've told me fifty times." I laughed.

"Like, I heard you say that the house in the Dead Man's Pond is still there."

"Of course." I replied to her proudly.

"When are you going to take me to see it?" The wife said.

"I really want to go, too." My daughter said, playing with blocks.

"You two are not crazy." I say.

"Daddy is crazy." The daughter didn't raise her head and said loudly.

Her body was dumped in a broad-leaved forest five kilometers away from her home, estimated to be about 30 meters deep and less than two meters in diameter. Some people rumored that it was a broken corpse. Fourteen years have passed since the incident and her disappearance, and in fact, her rotting flesh has long since become the belly of the insects. All she had left was bones. Even the snakeskin bag containing the corpse was completely rotten. The townspeople first mistakenly thought that the deceased had accidentally stumbled into it, and the hole was not on the side of the road, but it was far from the strange rocks in the cave, and I used to say that it could be developed into an underground park when I was a child. We even vaguely feel that the two holes are open, but we can't prove it. There was water in the shaft, and I suspect that the water flowed directly into the reservoir that could be seen around the corner. The corpse was not because the hole was too small and had to be dismembered and stuffed into it in five separate parts.

"Don't talk about it in front of your daughter." The wife shouted.

"I didn't listen at all." The daughter turned her head and said.

"She doesn't understand." I say.

"I've heard from other teachers at school."

Even when the body was found, he had been brutally dismembered into the main eleven pieces (forensic language), plus a mess of things that would be unrecognizable even if my best friend from my youth, Xiao Jun, was called. Her father, who was the deputy stationmaster of the station, had passed away for many years, and her stepmother and younger siblings were not directly related to her, so it was estimated that it took a lot of trouble for the forensic doctor to conduct a DNA test. Even if her father is the deputy stationmaster, the mother who raised her is still alive, in fact, she can't do it. The mystery on her body is slowly revealed.

"It's horrible." The wife said. She especially wanted to hear it. She loved writing novels as much as I did when I was a child, and she seemed to have published them.

An old woman in the railway family area recalled that the girl was really bitter, and she was actually brought back by her adoptive parents from the gate of the post office in the town. She was an abandoned baby, only three months old. The neighbor remembered that she had a fever when she brought the child back, and she was taken to the city to be rescued in a children's hospital for a week, and her life was finally saved, but she did not speak until she was five years old. The neighbors thought she was mute. Later, she learned to speak, and her adoptive mother took her to Heiyakou to make a vow. It was also this neighbor's old lady who accompanied their mother and daughter. It was only with these clues that the identity was finally proven. Xiao Jun said he had known about this.

"I thought Xiao Jun was the murderer." The wife said.

"Xiao Jun is afraid that he wants to say that he knows that his girlfriend is an adopted daughter."

"So, who is the murderer?" She asked suddenly.

After her disappearance (now said to be killed), Xiao Jun went to the station twice to look for her, and once I accompanied him, and drank with her father. Fourteen years later, Xiao Jun told me what would prove her identity, as well as the sheets and white quilt that wrapped her bones — her name was Chen Xiaoshang — and the goose-yellow ski shirt that Chen Xiaoshang had worn before I traveled to Sichuan with him, which he had bought for her. The bones were actually resting on the protruding rock steps fifteen meters from the vertical hole, ventilated, and relatively dry, most of the sheets and quilts were rotten in fourteen years, and the goose-yellow ski shirt was basically faded, blackened, and partially rotten, but the style Xiao Jun could still clearly recognize. He told me that on several occasions he had dreamed that his ex-girlfriend was wearing this dress that had the last piece of her body covered.

"The more you talk, the more you don't get to blame." The wife said.

I listened with horror and my heart was pounding. Although I had never seen those stained sheets, quilts and goose-yellow ski shirts, it didn't take long after Chen Xiaoshang's disappearance to hear from Xiao Jun that there were few things missing from her family. There was a wide red and white sheet, and they used it as a curtain when they had sex, because they always felt that the original floral cloth curtain was too small to cover it. Xiao Jun remembered that she washed the sheets and put them on the bottom of the large cabinet. At that time, she didn't pay attention to it, thinking that she went to the small station to find her father, or went out to look for a job and took it away. Xiao Jun couldn't confirm the almost rotten sheets, but he confirmed the ski shirt to the police: "Yes, this dress will not be wrong." ”

"I didn't say anything else." He told me.

"I really don't dare to talk nonsense." She nodded in agreement.

Xiao Jun and I took the slow train home from Xiaozhan Station. The green train blew its whistle and shrieked into the tunnel, which was quite long. "In the end, we broke up." Xiao Jun said sadly.

In the carriages, the luggage racks were stuffed with large bags and small bags, quilts, and clothes, and the young peasants who went to other provinces and coastal cities to work were so crowded that they had to go to the toilets. In the car, we met Geng Jiaming, the oil thief and the egg, who had returned home from the work area, and more than a dozen workers in the public works section who were not part of our house in the dead man's pond. Most of them squeeze into the crew's lounge or go to the last rest car. From time to time, there were fights in the carriage, and there were almost fights, including the police who actually couldn't squeeze into the carriage at all. He didn't bother to care, unless someone died. The air in the car is often dreary. Xiao Jun sat by the window, next to him was Ding Laoqi and the thin man, and I sat opposite. I felt that the wind was blowing very strongly, and it was a little cold, so Xiao Jun lowered the window when he found out. Ding Laoqi and the thin man may be gambling at night, they are too tired, and they have repeatedly tightened their work clothes, they know that Xiao Jun's "wife" is running away with others, and they are in a bad mood, even if they are cold, they dare not talk about it. The train passed through the tunnel and the attendant didn't bother to turn on the lights, the black rumble, the carriage swayed, the people passing the bend were a little tilted, and the rhythmic sound of the clatter filled my ears to the brim. I think Xiao Jun, who usually not many people dare to provoke, is a little pitiful to be honest. He then rested his hand on the coffee table, his forehead resting on the back of his hand, and slept grogily. When he woke up from the nightmare, he looked up in a panic, his mind was uncertain, and his cheeks pressed out large red marks, and he looked like he was drunk.

I was just as surprised, he just took me away. Xiao Jun's father is actually a local worker, working at a grain station, and is a branch secretary. His mother is a railway worker, and she shares a unit with my mother, so we have the best relationship, and it may be better than my relationship with the boss. When he was studying, Xiao Jun's grades were poor, he couldn't read, and often told me that he would become a soldier when he grew up. We have always believed that Xiao Jun and his father probably had a way, but of course he didn't become a soldier later, went to the maintenance depot, and was fired. He went to the sea to do business. His son, who was brought up by Xiao Jun's mother, later studied in Tie No. 2 Middle School, and my wife happened to be Xiao Jun's son's homeroom teacher. He didn't tell me.

"That student is not easy to manage." My wife often comes home and complains to me, "He doesn't have a mother, and his father doesn't care." ”

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Born a little bad." She said suddenly.

"You are not allowed to talk about your students like that." Our daughter has just started kindergarten and is against her mother saying little brother.

"Everyone has experienced a period of youthful rebellion." I say.

I really didn't associate the boy my wife said with Xiao Jun.

"His grandmother is too old to take care of it." She said.

I said, "If you can't take care of him, then you can leave him alone!" ”

"Is it okay to go with the flow?" My wife looked at me in surprise.

The boy was caught stealing strawberries and was beaten, and I found out that his father was actually Xiao Jun. He actually said to the very helpless homeroom teacher, that is, my wife: "My dad and your husband are friends in the house of the dead man's pond since childhood. ”

"You actually have a friend." My wife laughed at me.

"I have it too. In the kindergarten class, the little handsome guy. ”

The daughter took her mother's words and said. I almost got angry.

"What a mess!" I yelled at them.

The little boy that the daughter said was Sun Rong's son.

"His father isn't your boss." My wife said.

I know that the boss was shot, and Sun Rong married someone else.

"The boss is the real murderer of Chen Xiaoshang."