Chapter 6: The First Escape
Orange's whole body felt like a sieve and he fell to the ground, unable to move.
"Drug anesthesia", one of Lao Ba's various means of enslaving women, finally worked on Juzi, who was on guard against her in every possible way.
She hurriedly searched for the "opium gourd" she had secretly brought from the opium field before running away. There were only two left. She had to use them sparingly now, otherwise she would not be able to get home...
She put the black tobacco gourd into her mouth, just like a city child chewing a piece of sweet chocolate.
After squatting there and taking a breath, Orange finally struggled to stand up again.
Now, her steps were not as strong as before, but she was still moving forward. How come she was back to where she was just now? Juzi felt as if she would never get out of this vast expanse of dark red pine forest!
She sat down in the grass, gasping for breath.
There were dense pine trees everywhere, one after another. No sunlight could be seen, so there were no signs to identify the direction.
Although Juzi grew up in the mountains, she rarely went into the mountains. When she did, she always went with a group, so she didn't have to worry about remembering the way. She only knew that she could tell the direction by the lines and moss on the bark, and by the growth rings on the stumps. But these deep mountains and old forests had never been cut down for hundreds of years, so where did the stumps come from?
She looked at the tree trunks carefully. As they had not seen sunlight for many years, the old trees were all covered with thick moss, making it impossible to tell which was south and which was north.
Juzi's strength was almost exhausted, and she began to sob. She really wanted to cry out loud, but she didn't know how far she was from Lao Ba's shack, so she didn't dare to cry out loud.
I remember the first time she escaped from the camp, she was like this, sitting in the woods crying secretly. She had just been abused by Lao Ba that morning, and her body was covered with wounds. She felt pain every time she took a step, and she couldn't run far before she couldn't run anymore.
When Orange came out of Lao Ba's shack, he felt like he had escaped from the gates of hell.
It was already daybreak, and she staggered towards the shack, wanting to cry in front of them, but all the women in the shack were gone. They were working early in the morning in Lao Ba's medicinal herb field.
Every morning as soon as it was light, the mute would wake up the women one by one and go to work in the fields in the hour or two before breakfast.
Only then did Juzi realize that the large patches of plants with beautiful red flowers were the opium grown by Lao Ba, whose scientific name is poppy. After the beautiful red flowers bloomed, they had already produced light green tobacco gourds. Lao Ba planted dozens of acres of opium in Mihun Valley, and these women were his labor force.
He sent the opium grown by the women to nearby towns and sold it to drug dealers. Then, the drugs began to flow to villages around the primeval forest.
In these deep mountains with poor transportation, Lao Ba is replacing the functions of some drug producing areas in the south, using the most primitive method to provide the local area with this "stimulant" that has been banned for decades since before liberation but has never been banned.
It turns out that what Lao Ba was doing was illegal, growing opium and making drugs, which is a capital crime!
After realizing this, Juzi couldn't stay any longer, not even for a minute. She wanted to run away!
That night, the women who had worked all day were so tired that they fell down on the straw mats, groaning and rubbing their backs.
Orange faced the wall of the shack, thinking about how to escape.
At this time, the mute woman came in and gestured to Xiaoduo to go away. Juzi couldn't help shivering when she saw Xiaoduo just walk out of the shack.
Originally, she wanted to run away with Xiaoduo, because Xiaoduo had not been abused yet, and she wanted to save this girl and let her marry a good man. Besides, on the way home, the two of them could take care of each other.
But this time it's over, she is one step behind Lao Ba!
Soon the snoring of several women began to sound.
Juzi sneaked out of the door. She remembered that she was tripped by the harness set by Lao Ba when she was escaping in the morning, so now she had to take a detour.
The forest was as dark as the bottom of a pot, and waves of fog rushed towards us, choking us and making it difficult to breathe.
She had walked less than fifty meters when she heard a wolf howl not far away. She shuddered all over and stopped involuntarily.
If we continue like this, we will be fed to the wolves before dawn! She now understood why Lao Ba smoked opium leisurely all day long, so that those healthy women would bow down and listen to him and work for him.
Juzi was unwilling to go back like this, so she sat down in the woods and started crying. Poor girl, she didn't even dare to cry out loud, for she was afraid of alarming Lao Ba. But she couldn't even cry.
Later, Shadiuer's mother got up to pee and heard Juzi 's sobbing. She came over and pulled her back to the shack.
"Silly wife! In the dead of night, do you want to feed those hungry wolves with your own flesh?"
"I want to go home..."
"Go home? Forget about it! Live one day at a time. If Lao Ba is unhappy, you won't live a single day!"
"That old Ba...how dare he walk through the woods at any time of day or night?"
"Don't you know? The wolves on this mountain were all raised by Lao Ba using human flesh! When the wolves saw him, they kissed him!"
"Silly mother! What are you talking about? Look, you scared Juzi!" Dafeng was awakened and stopped Shadiu'er's mother from saying those shocking words in time. Juzi was so scared that she couldn't speak for a while.
She thought again of the women who disappeared in the village year after year. Could it be that they were really fed to the wolves by Lao Ba?
"Juzi, stop thinking about running away. To tell you the truth, since we came in, no one can get out without Lao Ba leading the way. Haven't you heard of a Valley of Bewilderment? This place is the Valley of Bewilderment." Dafeng looked as if he had resigned himself to his fate.
"I know." Orange's throat seemed to be strangled by something, and her voice became thin and weak. Although she had a premonition, she still found it hard to accept once it was clear.
"Besides, being able to come in is a blessing we have earned through cultivation. This place is not a place that anyone can enter if they want to... If you continue to do this, you will ruin the important matter of cultivation, and then none of us will be able to go to heaven." Dafeng's words made Juzi feel a little confused. Did she still think that entering the Valley of Confusion was "a blessing in this life" as Lao Ba said?
Juzi felt that Dafeng was a really scary woman.
But she still wanted to know very much how these women got into this eerie and mysterious valley.
Several times, as soon as Juzi asked this question, Dafeng interrupted her.
Now she saw that Dafeng seemed very excited and talked a lot, so she took the opportunity to ask:
"When you followed Lao Ba in, what did he say to you?"
"What are you talking about? We just wanted to come here on our own!" Dafeng pouted and dismissed Juzi with one sentence. The other women seemed to be threatened by something, and no one dared to speak.
Then someone started crying. It was Lan Zi.
She followed Dafeng and Lao Ba into the mountains. Listening to her sobbing, Juzi guessed that she must have had some unspeakable difficulties when she first came in.
But in front of Dafeng, Lan Zi was always trembling like a mouse thrown in front of an old cat.
Juzi now understood that she and Dafeng and the others were not the same at all. She had entered the Valley of Bewilderment by mistake, while Dafeng and the others had been deceived and voluntarily followed Lao Ba into the mountains to "cultivate".
No wonder when Lao Ba was in the village, there were always young women running into his shabby little house! It turned out that they were bewitched by him...
Juzi recalled the legends about Lao Ba: that Lao Ba was "Guanyin who gives birth to children", that Lao Ba was a living Bodhisattva, that Lao Ba could make people regain their youth... In short, in the eyes of the Banpo villagers, Lao Ba was a reincarnated living god.
"Do you know that growing opium is illegal and punishable by death?" Juzi tried to use this sentence to stimulate them to talk more, but she failed again.
Juzi stared wide-eyed in the dark shack, trying to discern the expressions of Shadiuer's mother, Dafeng, and Lanzi. She tried her best to glimpse something from their facial expressions, but the faces of those women melted into the darkness, like ice cubes dropped into a hot pot, becoming increasingly blurred...
Xiaoduo's screams came from Lao Ba's shack, and Juzi couldn't help but shed tears again.
"Oh! What a sin! Xiaoduo is still a virgin." Shadiu'er's mother turned over on the bed, muttering.
"You'll get used to it. How can atonement be so easy? Lao Ba said that a woman's sins are so deep that she has to shed ninety-nine layers of skin before she can be reborn... Otherwise, she can't enter the gate of heaven." Dafeng always looks experienced and experienced. When she said this, the relaxed tone made Juzi wonder if it came from Dafeng's mouth. How did this woman who was quiet and honest in the village become like this now?
At this moment, Lan Zi, who had been silent all this time, spoke up: "If I hadn't listened to you, how could I have come to this hellish place? Dafeng, you fooled me so badly... You will definitely go to hell when you die!"
Da Feng was not annoyed at all, but replied very devoutly: "If you fail to cultivate, you will go to hell, right? That's why I do atonement every day according to Lao Ba's wishes! Who is like you, who is not sincere at all and always wants to go to heaven?"
"I don't want to go to heaven. I just want a thunderbolt to come one day and burn this damned Lost Soul Valley to ashes! When the time comes, I will go wherever I need to go, even if I don't want to! There is no need to practice cultivation at all."
"What a sin! If you can say such a thing, it means you haven't cultivated to the highest level yet. You still need to suffer more!"
"What's the point of suffering? It's better to die quickly...and who will die first? It won't be a good death!" Lan Zi suddenly looked ruthless and cursed with gritted teeth.
In the darkness, Juzi suddenly heard a series of "crackling" sounds, as if Dafeng had pounced on Lanzi.
Then, there was the sound of two people fighting and rapid breathing.
"Are you guys fighting among yourselves again? Before Lao Ba comes to kill you, you kill yourselves first!" Shadiu'er's mother shouted at the two women rolling in a ball in the dark with anger.
The two women struggled for a long time without a clear winner, then they slowly let go of each other's hands, returned to their own beds, and lay down, gasping for breath.
The shack was filled with the smell of gunpowder, and Orange was so scared that she stopped crying.
"I don't know what happened to my poor Shadiuer?" Shadiuer's mother muttered to herself and began to sigh.
The women were all thinking about their own things, and the shack was dead silent for a while.
At this time, the howling of wolves sounded behind the shack, like an old wolf, its cry was weak and full of vicissitudes of life.
"Oh my god, if Juzi had run away just now, he would have been torn to pieces by this old wolf!" Shadiu'er's mother said with lingering fear, "Listen! This big guy can definitely eat even a pig!"
Juzi huddled tightly on the straw mat, listening to Shadiuer's mother's words, and was almost surrounded by despair. But her heart was not dead.
Suddenly, a strange noise came from Dafeng's bed, as if someone was rolling around, mixed with painful groans.
"Silly mother, listen quickly: what happened to Dafeng?" Juzi asked in surprise.
"Don't worry about her, she's craving for cigarettes." Lan Zi answered indifferently.
"What? She... is addicted to smoking?" Juzi felt a chill down her spine. After hearing Lan Zi's words and Dafeng's struggling, she felt her heart suddenly tighten into a ball and her body couldn't help but spasm.
Juzi suddenly remembered the scene last night when Lao Ba handed her the pipe before torturing her. She suddenly understood, oh my god, Lao Ba was using such vicious means to deal with women... She felt a flash of gold in front of her eyes...
"Give me a cigarette...Give me a cigarette quickly..." Dafeng's painful howls blended with the howling of wolves, sounding creepy.
"You know that Lao Ba has a rule that you can only smoke once a day, so just bear with it..." Sha Diu'er's mother muttered to Da Feng and sighed, "I've told you before, Lao Ba would let you ruin his precious opium for nothing? Who told you to have such a heavy smoking habit?"
"Old Eight...mute...fuck your ancestors! Hurry up and bring me a cigarette...I'm going to die..." Dafeng screamed hysterically, and her feet smashed the straw mat with a loud bang.
The howling of wolves also joined in the fun, becoming louder and louder.
Juzi's grandmother lived to be over seventy years old. Regardless of whether she died of illness or not, in a place like Banpo Village where life expectancy is limited, it can be considered a "natural death".
People called this kind of funeral a "happy funeral". On the third day, the whole village ate a meal of tofu rice, carried the old lady out and buried her on an east-facing hillside. This was considered a complete success.
Only Juzi's mother was distressed. Juzi risked her life to save her grandmother and went into the deep mountains and forests. Now she was still unknown whether she was dead or alive, but her grandmother didn't wait for her granddaughter to come back to save her! What kind of account was this? It was so confusing...
The whole family of Juzi buried the old lady, cried for a while, and then slowly walked back home.
As Juzi's mother walked, she leaned on her hand and looked towards the hill behind the village. She hoped that Juzi and Xiaoduo would suddenly appear there, but after looking for a long time, she found nothing.
It was dusk in Banpo Village. The sun, like a drunk, was lying on the western hilltop. It seemed unable to hold on any longer and slid down involuntarily. It disappeared in a moment.
The surroundings of the village immediately fell into a dark twilight.
Juzi's mother was originally in a heavy mood, her steps were hesitant, and she slowly fell behind the men. But at this moment, she suddenly felt a little chilly in the mountains, her heart was numb, and her back was chilled, so she quickened her pace to catch up with the funeral procession, but the group seemed to be walking very fast, and she couldn't catch up no matter how hard she tried.
Just as Juzi's mother was about to call out "Goudan, wait for mom!", she suddenly saw her own big black dog rushing out from the woods behind her, dragging something from its mouth. It whooshed past her and headed straight for Banpo Village in the twilight.
It was already dark when the group entered the village.
Orange's mother hurriedly carried firewood to cook, and several neighbors who helped dig the burial pit also wanted to have a meal at home in the evening.
In Banpo Village, the height and size of a family's firewood pile often show whether the family is prosperous or not. Juzi's firewood pile is relatively high and large.
When grandma was alive, she would take Goudan and sometimes Juzi with her to the hills near the village to collect firewood every now and then. So Juzi's firewood pile was different from those of other families where only men collected firewood, and it seemed as if the men in this family were particularly capable.
Mother Juzi walked around the house and went to the pile of firewood at the back to pick up some firewood.
As she walked, she thought about the scene when the old lady was alive, bending over and carrying firewood from the mountain home step by step. From now on, this pile of firewood would probably never be so tall again.
In the darkness, she vaguely saw that there was a bit of mess under the firewood pile, so she picked up a stick and scraped the scattered firewood together.
With a "wooooooooooo", a black shadow jumped out of the firewood pile and ran away. She could tell that it was the big black dog at home. It seemed to be chewing something delicious and was suddenly disturbed. It left with a bit of reluctance.
Mother Orange bent down and grabbed some broken firewood from the pile and put it in her arms.
When she grabbed the third handful, she suddenly let out a suppressed scream. The things she grabbed in her hands made her feel strange. They were slippery and soft, and gave off a strong fishy smell.
She couldn't help but let go, threw the thing away, and then shouted for help.
"What's going on?" Juzi's father rushed over after hearing the noise and shone the flashlight. He saw Juzi's mother standing there blankly. At her feet was half of a human arm with a hand attached.
