The howling of the woman in the camp gradually faded, but Orange's heartbeat was getting faster.
She should leave this troubled place before Lao Ba finds out she's escaping! The fog will dissipate soon, making it easier to expose her target.
Thinking of this, Juzi became so nervous that he lost feeling in his hands and feet, and he couldn't move his whole body at all.
When she thought of the legend that the Valley of Lost Souls was the "Valley of Ghosts", she felt as if there really was a mysterious thing in the dark that was controlling her will, making it impossible for her to act according to her wishes at the critical moment.
Could this be the “ghost” in the Valley of Confusion that the women in the mountains talked about?
Juzi wiped the sweat off her face, casually pulled her hair back, gritted her teeth and tried to take a few steps. Immediately, the sound of dead branches and leaves breaking could be heard in the forest.
She was startled by the sound, and stopped immediately for fear that someone might hear her. She looked around for a while, and after confirming that there was no danger, she moved forward as quietly as possible.
She must not be discovered by the people in the camp! If she is caught again, she will be skinned alive...
Lao Ba's cruelty has left a deep shadow in Juzi's heart. Whenever she thinks of him, she can't help trembling like a little lamb thinking of the big bad wolf.
The forest was filled with a strange atmosphere, a unique atmosphere of the Lost Valley, which made Orange feel short of breath from time to time. Every few steps she took, she subconsciously touched her throat with her hand, as if to confirm whether her neck was strangled by someone from behind.
She remembered that she had the same feeling when she followed Xiaoduo in a few days ago.
At that time, she didn't know that she had strayed into a dead end. Xiaoduo was even more confused. She kept complaining to Juzi about the bad things at home. She said how her brother and sister-in-law abused her and didn't give her a penny to spend all year round; she said how her parents were partial to her and treated her as a burden and wished they could marry her off as soon as possible!
"I'm only eighteen!" Xiaoduo walked forward breathlessly, poking Juzi's arm with his hand: "Explain this to me, Sister Juzi! I'm only eighteen! They always say that I should get married, but I'm only eighteen, and I haven't had enough fun yet. If I marry someone, I will have to cook, work in the fields, and go up the mountains all day long, and there will be an extra thing to do, giving birth to a child, isn't that even more terrible?"
"You have to get married sooner or later. It's a woman's fate!" Juzi was a little annoyed by Xiaoduo's nagging, and she walked faster.
"But, if I'm going to get married, I have to find someone decent, right? You haven't seen the Song Laonian they found for me. He's such a loser that you'll feel sick for a year just by looking at him!" Xiaoduo followed closely behind Juzi, panting heavily and spitting.
Because she sweated too much, she had no saliva at all, so Xiaoduo could only make a dry spit to express the deep disgust in her heart.
Orange couldn't help but think about his own thoughts.
Like Xiaoduo, she was tired of the daily life she had to face. Her husband Dalong's "betrayal" of her was the most serious setback she had ever suffered. Although she was unwilling to believe those legends, "there is no smoke without fire", there must be some reasons behind these rumors.
What she couldn't stand the most was that someone in the village soon had his eyes on her. At night, all kinds of inexplicable noises would be heard from her low windows and doors.
These damn wild men! They think that Juzi is young and beautiful and can't stand it.
Juzi thought that the person who brought the news about Dalong had ulterior motives and had other intentions. But she couldn't help wondering: Why didn't this news come earlier or later, but exactly one year after he passed away?
Dalong was not a reliable guy! She recalled the rumors about him before they got married, saying that Dalong had slept with a widow, ran off to the woods with a girl, and did something shameful. But because she liked him at the time, Juzi could not .
When he left, he made all kinds of promises to her, but after only one year, he had completely forgotten her. Juzi felt a little regretful. It wasn't that she regretted marrying him, but that she regretted letting him go out on his own.
"Marry a man to provide you with clothes and food", but now, what else can she expect from him?
And who sent the unknown envelope on the windowsill this morning? Lao Ba was not at home, and Da Long was so far away, who else could it be? He wanted to buy her heart and body with money. Whoever this person was, he was too abominable...
The two women walked into the mountains, one chattering non-stop and the other with a heavy heart. By the time Orange felt something was wrong, they had already found themselves in this confusing valley!
She couldn't believe what she saw at the time, because when they came out of the village, they were clearly heading north, and the Valley of Confusion should be to the west of the village.
Juzi remembered that when the elders mentioned the Lost Soul Valley, they would point their hands toward the west of the village...
Maybe... this valley is just a little similar to the "Valley of Confusion" they talked about.
Juzi tried her best to comfort herself and finally managed to stand firmly on her feet, but she could not get rid of the feeling of an invisible hand strangling her neck.
Until the camp with two wooden huts appeared, until the old man who was called "the god descended from heaven" stood in front of them...
Juzi was originally reluctant to go into the mountains, as she had an instinctive aversion to Lao Ba.
This is the self-protection ability of beautiful women. They are born with good intuition. Because they are afraid of being hurt accidentally, they are naturally very sensitive to the outside world.
In Banpo Village, when the young men saw a beautiful woman like Juzi, they couldn't help but take advantage of her and say a few teasing words to her, but this made her feel annoyed but also secretly complacent.
Because she understood that those men must have been stimulated in some way, and she couldn't blame them.
But she was only afraid of men like Lao Ba, who appeared to be righteous on the surface, pretended to be calm in front of others, but stared at women with sinister eyes and ill intentions behind their backs.
So, even though everyone in the village was respectful to Lao Ba, Juzi never spoke a word to him.
She still remembered one time when her father accidentally stabbed his hand with a knife while slaughtering a pig, and the blood kept flowing. But when her mother asked her to go find Lao Ba, she refused to go, and finally sent her brother away.
Lao Ba came soon. He entered the yard and pretended to be serious when he saw Juzi, but she could clearly feel his yellow eyes roaming around her from time to time. This made Juzi feel more uncomfortable than being stung by a wasp, and she had to hide in places where he could not see her.
That day, her father insisted on keeping Lao Ba at home for dinner, and secretly told Juzi to have a few drinks with the guests. But when it was time for dinner, Juzi suddenly disappeared.
In Juzi's opinion, men like Lao Ba, who don't say anything but have dirty thoughts in their hearts, are the most terrible. They are worse than those annoying chatterboxes and rogues. Although they look shameless, they often don't plot against you behind your back, but do bad things to you in front of you, making you wary.
In Juzi's memory, Lao Ba would be away from home for a period of time every year. I wonder if he had any business to do or something else to do.
During these months every year, Lao Ba is not in Banpo Village most of the time. He only comes back occasionally to treat the sick people in the village, and then disappears again.
Coincidentally, during the days when Lao Ba went out this year, four women disappeared in the village one after another.
There are several theories in the village about the disappearance of women one after another.
One theory is that he was eaten by a blind bear.
In the early years, bears roamed around Banpo Village, and tigers and wolves were more numerous than the people in the village. Children, adults, livestock and poultry were often attacked by those hungry beasts. Although these animals have become increasingly rare in recent years, wolves and bears occasionally come down from the mountains at night to harass villagers, carry off pigs and sheep, and rob passers-by.
There is also a more sensational version, which says that he was kidnapped by "savages".
Juzi had heard Banpo villagers talk about a "monster taller than a human" more than once. It seemed to be a wild man. It was said that the creature was covered with dense long hair, with only two long and sharp fangs on his face, and he had a male thing bigger than a horse in heat, like a homemade cannon.
Some villagers with well-developed imaginations could not help but exaggerate the matter: "Just think about it, that guy has such a big thing, how could he easily let a woman go if he saw her?" The women who were listening to the discussion around them all turned pale with fear, while the men laughed as if they had gotten some bargain.
The third explanation, which is also recognized by most people, is "elopement".
Because the "tradition" of women eloping in Banpo Village has a long history.
It is said that the woman in the earliest family in this place eloped.
Banpo Village was too poor and life was hard. In the past few years, there were more than one cases of women running away from home and eloping with merchants who came into the mountains to buy mountain products.
These women often walk on the streets in the morning, twisting their waists and chatting and laughing with acquaintances they meet, but they are nowhere to be seen in the afternoon.
The family who lost their woman didn't want to let the "family shame" be known to the public, so they tried to cover it up at first, hesitating and refusing to admit it. But later, as time went on, they could no longer hide it from anyone.
The disappearance of the women was like a shot of stimulant into the lifeless Banpo Village. At first, everyone would make a fuss for a while and talk about it everywhere when they heard about such things.
However, later on, there were one or two women who despised the poor and loved the rich almost every year, and people got used to it. Think about it, who wouldn't want to live a good life? In Banpo Village, there was nothing to be desired, even a healthy man with "four eyes" was hard to find. Which woman would not be tempted by a "rich and handsome" foreign man?
The four women who disappeared this year illustrate this point:
The first person to disappear was Erzhuzi's wife, a strong, fair-skinned woman, tall, and with a graceful gait. Unfortunately, after marrying the lame and stupid Erzhuzi, she began to take drugs, hang herself, and tried to commit suicide several times.
But that woman was lucky and she tried to commit suicide several times but failed.
After that, I never heard her speak again. Everyone said that she became mute because of the poison she drank.
The mute woman would visit Lao Ba every now and then. It seemed that she was very concerned about what kind of life she would be reborn into in the next life.
Although Erzhuzi was stupid, he obeyed the mute woman in everything. He accompanied his wife to the mountains every day to pick wild fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms. Every year, the couple earned some money by selling wild delicacies, and they lived a decent life.
For this reason, Sha Erzhuzi always smiles when he sees people, but Juzi has never seen a smile on the mute's face.
The most strange thing is that since the disappearance of the mute, Erzhuzi has also disappeared.
Later, it was Shadiuer's mother who disappeared.
This is a young woman in the village who gave birth to three stupid children in a row. No one remembers her name. It is only because her eldest son Sha Diu'er always creates some ridiculous things in the village all day long that he is well-known in the village. His parents have always been called "Sha Diu'er's father" and "Sha Diu'er's mother" by people.
Shadiuer's father is a man with low IQ but strong jealousy. Every day when he sees someone, the first thing he says is, "Have you seen our Shadiuer's mother?"
A man who regards watching over his wife as his "top priority" all day long is definitely a loser.
Sure enough, in addition to being busy going up the mountain and down the field, Shadiuer's mother also had to run to Lao Ba all day long. It was not for any other reason, but because she firmly believed in Lao Ba's theory of "being reborn in the next life" and being able to escape from suffering, she became Lao Ba's loyal believer.
Next are Dafeng and Lan Zi.
Dafeng is the youngest wife in the village. She has been married for only a few months. Her husband Wufu is a second-rate guy who does nothing but eat, drink and gamble.
Just because Dafeng was pretty, she was going to be picky when she reached the age of marriage. But the masculinity in Banpo Village has been getting weaker and weaker in recent years, and the men are looking worse and worse.
Dafeng had always felt bad that the most handsome Dalong in the village was picked by Juzi last year. In order to compete with Juzi, she specially picked Wufu, the most handsome man in the village.
But the five blessings are not as useful as a man. Dafeng has to take care of all the food, drink, defecation and urination at home. She is so tired that she often runs to Lao Ba's small house to ask for divination to see if her family's future will be better?
Lanzi was a thin and petite woman. Ever since her husband went to the mountains to collect ginseng and disappeared, she had been stupid and silly, not saying a word to anyone. But recently she had been following Dafeng very closely. Whenever Dafeng went to Lao Ba's place, she would ask Lanzi to go with her. When the two of them came back from Lao Ba's place, one was in high spirits, while the other was still silent.
In fact, for a woman of Lan Zi's age, it would be easy to remarry if she lost her husband.
But since her husband was only missing, no one could find him alive or dead. The custom in Banpo Village was that if you didn't find the body, you couldn't conclude that the person was dead.
So even though the man hasn't returned for two or three years, no one in the village has dared to propose marriage to Lan Zi's family.
No one understands the inner pain of Lan Zi, a widow. Perhaps only Lao Ba knows a little about it.
These four women disappeared because their lives were not what they wanted. In this situation, if a foreign man passed by their door, they would follow him like crazy as long as they gave him a glance! Even if they went out to try their luck, it was better than living a lazy life in Banpo Village and waiting to die!
Normally, it was not uncommon for women in Banpo Village to elope. But it had never happened before, four of them ran away at once! This could not but cause panic in the hearts of the people in Banpo Village.
"Are the savages coming again?"
"Didn't you see anything?"
"I heard from Dafeng's father that on the night Dafeng went missing, the wild man circled around his yard for several times."
"Don't listen to his nonsense! He is afraid that it would be too embarrassing for his girl to run away with a strange man, so he lied to save face."
"Don't disbelieve me, I saw the wild man's footprints, my god! One of them is half a meter long!"
"Yes, I see that guy is big, he can carry four women at once and run very fast..."
…
After several women disappeared, people discovered that Lao Ba was no longer in the village.
Of course, no one connected the two events together. The people of Banpo Village were not good at thinking. They never took things around them seriously and thought about them. Therefore, they were indifferent to the disappearance of women every year and just let it go.
This year was no different. After the four women in Banpo Village disappeared, no one took it seriously. They just talked about it over a few words while burping and then went about their business.
But one night, people suddenly heard Shadiu'er's father beating his children at home. It seemed that Shadiu'er was not the only one being beaten. The shrill cries of several silly children shocked the whole village. People then remembered to say:
"Oh my, this woman is really weird. She left three stupid kids behind and followed them. Doesn't she miss her kids?"
"That woman is so kind, I never thought she could run away with someone!"
"I don't believe it if Dafeng ran away with someone, but if Lanzi ran away with someone, it does make sense..."
That night, Juzi's 78-year-old grandmother suddenly trembled all over and had a high fever. The whole family searched everywhere and tried all the folk remedies they could, but the old lady's symptoms became more and more frightening.
It seems that the wheel of life in Banpo Village cannot function normally without Lao Ba.
It was at this time that Juzi suddenly decided to leave home and follow Xiaoduo into the mountains to find Lao Ba.
Goudan raised his two hands stained with purple blood like a Japanese surrendering soldier. When he saw his mother running towards him, he opened his mouth wide and started crying.
"Oh my God! How come you didn't see the knife in the basket? Did you grab the knife?" Mother Juzi cried out of heartache. She grabbed her son's hand and was about to lick the blood on it with her tongue. In the mountain valley where there is a shortage of medical care and medicine, there is a set of emergency remedies.
But then she immediately vomited loudly: "Ugh...Oh my God, why does it stink so bad?"
Only then did she realize that the blood on her son's hands was not his own. She picked up a stick from the ground and carefully turned over the contents of the basket, only to find that the wild vegetables and mushrooms were stuck together by a sticky substance.
"Where did you pick up this wicker basket?" She was absent-minded when she was delivering the oranges just now, and didn't care that her son picked up a basket.
Only now did she realize that the origin of this basket was not simple.
Gou Dan'er was obviously frightened by his mother's fierce voice and immediately stammered: "I... I was... in the forest... in the north end of the mountain."
"My little ancestor, why did you pick up such an unlucky thing when you could pick something else?" Orange's mother pulled her son's hand as if she had seen a poisonous snake, and carefully avoided the wicker basket lying on the ground: "Hurry up and wash your hands for me!"
"Mmm...wow..." Goudan was frightened by his mother's series of expressions and actions. He ran to wash his hands crying.
The quarrel between the mother and daughter alarmed the neighbors, and a group of people gathered in the courtyard in a short time. There are many idle people in Banpo Village who like to watch the fun and also like to "participate in politics" in other people's family affairs.
Someone came up to take a look at the basket and was surprised: "Huh? This seems to belong to Erzhuzi's... Yes! It's Erzhuzi's. I've borrowed this basket several times!"
As he spoke, the man pointed to a red cloth strip tied to the basket beam. Usually, villagers like to tie a cloth strip of any color on their own shovels, pickaxes, baskets and other tools as a symbol to distinguish their own things from others.
Orange's mother took a closer look and saw that it was indeed the mute woman who had such a red flowered dress, which she had worn all spring this year. This strip of cloth was obviously the leftover material from that dress.
"Erzhuzi hasn't been seen for several days. It seems that he went to pick mushrooms with his wife. He entered the mountains and never came back."
People were talking about it, and Erzhuzi's father, with snow-white hair, suddenly pushed through the crowd and stuck his head in: "Where is it? Let me see..."
With his dim eyes, he approached the basket and looked at it for a long time. Then he stood up in a daze: "Did you pick up this basket on the back hill? Then where is Erzhuzi? He threw the wicker basket on the hill, but where is he?"
This question stumped everyone present. They looked at each other, and finally focused their attention on Goudan, as if this mentally retarded kid knew the secret. Goudan felt uncomfortable being stared at by everyone, and kept hiding behind his mother.
"Zhu Zi! Where have you been? Were you harmed by that little bitch? Ah? Why didn't you tell daddy when you went out? Zhu Zi..." The old man picked up the wicker basket, slung it on his arm, squeezed out of the crowd while muttering, walked out of the yard by himself, and walked tremblingly towards the woods on the mountain.
Soon, his back was lost in the woods, and people could only hear his long voice echoing in the mountains: "Erzhuzi! Zhuzi..."
No one was able to speak, and for a moment, everyone was stunned.
At this moment, I heard Orange's mother scream "Aiya!", and the people who were about to scatter suddenly turned back...
They were just a little surprised when they saw the stunned woman.
But when they saw the brown paper envelope that fell at the woman's feet, they were shocked: a thick stack of RMB appeared in the envelope...