Chapter 7: Secrets in the Forest
The main activity of the women's life in the forest is to weed, loosen the soil and apply fertilizer in Lao Ba's large poppy fields.
Because the area was large and the labor force was limited, it took a week just to weed.
It took another five or six days to loosen the soil.
By the day of fertilizing, everyone was so tired that they could not move.
The so-called fertilizer is some black humus collected from the forest, mixed with human feces, urine and wolf dung, and fermented in a manure pit.
Due to the limited quantity, they must be used carefully and sparingly, like eye drops, and every pill must be used in the key places.
In the mountains, the mute woman never went to the fields. She only cooked and washed clothes. Only the other five women did the rough work.
On the day of applying fertilizer, one of the five women working in the fields was missing. Xiao Duotou had not returned from Lao Ba's "atonement" one night. The women knew that as long as Lao Ba didn't let them go, no one would be able to leave his shack.
It seems that Xiaoduo was "favored" by Lao Ba, and keeping her in the shack meant that she didn't have to work in the fields today.
With one less person working in the fields, the average workload per person naturally increased, and the women all felt a little heavy.
Dafeng had been craving for cigarettes for half the night, and finally the mute came out to bring her some cigarettes. She was still very weak, but she had been panting heavily since the morning, expressing her extreme dissatisfaction.
At the edge of the opium field, there was a manure pit covered with dry branches, with a pit of fermenting organic fertilizer in it.
Now we need to move away the dry branches that are sticking out, and then open the lid of the manure pit that is usually sealed.
Juzi and Xiaoduo went into the mountains later, and Xiaoduo was not there, so this dirty and tiring job naturally fell to Juzi.
She had never done this kind of work in her life. In Northeast China, as long as the men still had a breath, they would never let women do this kind of work, for fear of making their fragrant bodies stink.
But now...Juzi's nose felt a little sour, and she couldn't help but think of Dalong. At this moment, Dalong was so lovely and wanted to be missed. If he were here, how could he bear to let her suffer such an injustice?
Juzi used all his strength to insert the shovel in his hand into the hard shell of the pit. With a "bang", it felt like it was inserted into something hard like a stone.
She thought to herself, there are all kinds of things like this in this fertilizer pit, so she dug and dug out the shovel of manure.
A foul smell mixed with a strong methane gas surrounded the women like a group of wild wasps, stinging their delicate noses and faces red and choking them to the point of tears.
"Oh my god! Why does it stink so bad ?"
The women ran away in all directions with screams of surprise, frowning and holding their noses tightly. Juzi tried to hold back his vomiting and picked up the shovel. Suddenly, a pale bone popped out of the pit, standing straight up in the air.
"Oh my god, that's the thigh bone..." The women were too scared to speak loudly, and someone muttered in a whisper.
Orange's heart began to beat wildly. She couldn't decide whether to continue digging. There must be a dead body buried in the pit, otherwise why would there be such a strange smell? But she looked up at the women standing far away. No one could take over her job, so she had to bite the bullet and dig another shovel.
This time, the women saw clearly that another round skull had been dug out.
Although the women were deeply shocked, no one screamed. Fear had taken away their ability to react. They stared at the skeleton, each thinking about their own thoughts. Instead, they were so quiet that it made Orange feel palpitating.
Perhaps the stench from the dug pit had reached Lao Ba's shack, and the mute woman came hurriedly over. She snatched the shovel from Juzi's hand, shoveled the pile of dry soil beside the pit into the pit in one breath, and stirred it vigorously for a while.
Then she motioned for the women to come over and mix the soil and manure into dry crumbs like she had done. The women then came over tremblingly and mixed the soil into the manure pit together.
The mute woman pulled out the human bones, threw them far away into the grass in the woods, and then returned to the shack as if nothing had happened.
"This mute is so brave!" said Lan Zi.
"Humph! Maybe she was the one who buried the manure pit, otherwise why would she not care at all when she saw the human bones?" Shadiu'er's mother angrily spat on the ground, "Bah! This unlucky dead ghost, I don't know how he ran to this damn place to die?"
"This cesspool has been there for at least a year, right? That person must have died at least last year." Juzi felt strange.
"That's nothing strange. Lao Ba has been growing tobacco here for more than a year or two. I heard that animal fertilizers are particularly effective for tobacco. The tobacco grown here has a high yield and a different taste, so it can be sold at a good price!"
Dafeng always likes to act as if she knows Lao Ba very well, as if this way she can stand out from the crowd.
Juzi felt a sudden shock in her heart, and her eyes widened: Oh my God! When autumn comes, will Lao Ba bury these women in the manure pit in the same way for use next year?
But Juzi didn't dare to express her concerns. She was afraid that the women would get angry and attract Lao Ba, which would cause trouble again.
The women squatted or knelt in the ridges of the fields, burying the precious fertilizer into the small holes they had just dug, one by one, and moving forward with difficulty.
Some of these women did not need to work in the fields when they were in Banpo Village, let alone such dirty work. But now, under the tyranny of Lao Ba, they had to compromise, hold their breath, and grab the disgusting "fertilizer" with their hands.
This is how Juzi was. When she was at home, Dalong took care of all the work on the farm by himself, and she seldom went to the farm. After Dalong left, he leased the farm to someone else, saying that it would allow her to live a comfortable life at home.
Now Juzi began to remember all the good things about Dalong. She really shouldn't have run into the mountains in anger just because she believed a rumor spread by others!
This is all Xiaoduo's fault! This damn girl must have been bewitched by Lao Ba's tricks...
Yes, Xiaoduo was called away by Lao Ba last night, and she hasn't come back yet. Could it be that she was really conquered and willingly stayed with Lao Ba to serve the devil?
When Juzi thought of how she was inhumanely tortured by Lao Ba, her heart immediately shrank into a ball. She wondered how Xiaoduo could endure the brutality of that beastly Lao Ba?
Suddenly, a scream came from the ground. It was Lan Zi. Then there was another cry:
"Help! Dafeng is going to kill someone!"
Juzi was startled, but she didn't know how to react. She was just standing there, and saw Shadiu'er's mother jump up from the furrow and run to the edge of the field, so she followed her stupidly.
Lan Zi's hair was a mess, her clothes were torn open, and there were several streaks of blood flashing on her white neck and chest.
Looking at Dafeng again, her eyes were bloodshot like a rabbit, she was panting loudly, staring at the person coming, and her ten fingers were still open, like eagle claws, ready to attack the target at any time.
"You're crazy, Dafeng! Why do you always kill people?" Shadiu'er's mother went up to check Lan Zi's injury and was about to turn back to teach Dafeng a lesson.
Suddenly, Dafeng pounced on her from behind, like a ferocious little leopard, grabbed her hair tightly, and pulled Shadiu'er's mother to the ground, where she fell with a loud "thump".
Juzi was terrified. She watched helplessly as Shadiu'er's mother and Dafeng rolled into a ball in the opium field, crushing the tobacco plants so hard that they rustled. She didn't know what to do.
She watched as Shadiuer's mother finally turned over from underneath and tightly grasped Dafeng's neck until Dafeng rolled her eyes and foam came out of her open mouth. Only then did she realize that someone was going to die...
"Let go! Let go quickly, someone's going to die!" Juzi screamed, but Shadiu'er's mother still refused to get off Dafeng. The words she squeezed out from between her teeth sounded almost like a madman:
"She always thinks she is the darling of Lao Ba. She doesn't like these people and always wants to kill them all to feel relieved! I must strangle her to death today, and see how she can still be so arrogant!"
Juzi stood aside, his hands scattered, not knowing where to start.
These poor women were actually fighting over a hideous old man! This was something that Juzi could never imagine.
Her mind was in turmoil: What methods did Lao Ba use to turn these originally kind women into devils?
"Everyone, get to work!" At some point, Lao Ba had already stood behind the women. With a commanding shout, he saved Da Feng.
Shadiuer's fucking hand loosened, and he slowly got up and shrank behind Juzi like a frost-bitten leaf.
Dafeng was struggling on the ground. When she came to her senses and saw Lao Ba, her eyes were immediately filled with water. But Lao Ba didn't even look at her. He turned around and walked back to the shack.
Dafeng was still sitting on the ground, with her long messy hair, her eyes mostly rolled up, staring at Lao Ba's back in a daze.
Shadiu'er's mother was busy buttoning up her torn clothes one by one. Lan Zi stood aside, looking at this and that nervously, not knowing what to do.
Juzi went back to the tobacco field first and continued to do her unfinished work. The women also slowly returned to their respective tobacco fields and continued to apply fertilizer.
Juzi quickly finished his work and went to help Shadiu'er's mother. The two worked side by side, row after row, without saying a word.
"In the village, we are all so close to each other, but how come we turn against each other in the mountains?" Juzi sighed, "I never thought this mountain valley would be so scary..."
“…”
"How is my grandma now? She had a high fever when I left. I wanted to go back and treat her as soon as I found Lao Ba..."
Shadiuer's mother suddenly sniffed: "I don't know if my Shadiuer has grown taller. He doesn't sleep well at night and falls to the ground every few days..."
"Didn't you tell your family when you left?" asked Juzi.
"That day I went up the mountain alone to pick mushrooms. I walked a little too far and ended up at a mountain pass. Just as I was about to go back, I ran into Lao Ba. He got me into a grass nest and made trouble for me. Later, he asked me to go with him into the mountains to grow tobacco. He said that if I didn't listen to him, he would go back to the village and spread my scandal..."
"What should I do after I finish growing the tobacco?"
"He said that if I redeemed myself in the autumn, he would let me go home. ... Now I understand that the matter of Lao Bazhong opium cannot be known to outsiders. Even if he doesn't kill me, he will not let me go back to Banpo Village."
"So what are you going to do next?"
"I only ask Lao Ba to leave me a way out, even if I have to live in the mountains for the rest of my life and grow tobacco for him every summer... I am willing to do that."
"This big mountain valley is not a place for people to stay. Good people would become stupid..." Orange murmured absentmindedly.
"But the arm can't twist the thigh. What can I do as a woman?"
"Let me think of a good idea, and then we can go back to Banpo Village together!"
"Oh my God, keep your voice down. If others hear it and tell Lao Ba..." Shadiu'er's mother was so scared that she looked around and then quickly lowered her head to work, no longer paying attention to Juzi.
While applying fertilizer, Juzi looked towards Lao Ba's shack. She guessed that Xiao Duo had finally gotten what she wanted. Once she was in Lao Ba's arms, she would never go back to Banpo Village.
I never thought such a little girl would be so fooled by the old man Lao Ba's tricks! Even a wife like Juzi couldn't stand the torture of Lao Ba's inhumane tricks. How could Xiaoduo, a girl, endure it?
Maybe Lao Ba was only so vicious to Juzi? Maybe she had completely offended Lao Ba when she was in Banpo Village, and now Lao Ba was asking her for a debt?
Thinking of this, Juzi felt that there was only one way to survive, and that was to escape!
After Juzi and Xiaoduo left, strange things happened one after another in the village: Ever since seeing the wicker basket containing the "blood vegetable", Erzhuzi's father went into the mountains to look for his son and has not returned until now.
Then, the big black dog of Juzi's family brought back another human arm. The people of Banpo Village, who had been indifferent for many years, were stimulated as never before and were in a state of panic these days.
Xiaoduo's father had gone to see Juzi's father last night to discuss going into the mountains to look for the two children. But Juzi's father was too sad because of his mother's death and had fallen ill. Now, he had no choice but to lie on the kang and wait for Juzi to find Lao Ba and come back.
Xiaoduo's mother has been running to Juzi's house these days in a daze. Every time she enters the courtyard, she says:
"Juzi's mother, I had a nightmare again last night. It said Xiaoduo came back and she was standing outside the window. No matter how I called her, she wouldn't come into the house. What do you think happened? Did something happen to the child?" As she spoke, the woman wiped away her tears.
"Why do you always have the same dream? Are you just imagining things?" Juzi's mother thought Xiaoduo's mother was a little weird. Is it possible to have such a dream? The same dream every day? Impossible.
"Isn't it? I keep having the same dream. It's like the child came to me in my dream."
"Nonsense." Juzi's mother said this, but her heart couldn't help but jump a few times for no apparent reason. She was thinking, why is Juzi not making any noise? It's really strange. I heard that the wild man came out again. Could it be that the wild man kidnapped the two girls? Juzi's mother shuddered involuntarily.
It was past ten o'clock when the sun finally passed over the mountain peak east of the village and slowly climbed up to the treetops. Orange's mother sat in the yard, turning over mushrooms and looking up at the mountain behind her. Her face was pale, and her eyes were dark. From a distance, her eyes looked like two black holes...
On the night of the old lady's funeral, the human arm that the big black dog brought back kept shaking in front of her eyes. She thought it was a bad omen, telling her that Juzi would be in great danger if she went into the mountains.
Although they later found out that the arm belonged to a man after careful identification, since a grown man was eaten by a wild beast, it would be extremely dangerous for two girls to walk around in this mountain where they had lived for several lifetimes but still had no idea of its temper.
When the old lady was alive, Juzi was her grandmother's darling, and she, as a mother, didn't worry much. But now that the old lady was buried, she suddenly realized that she had always been worried about Juzi, but she just didn't have the opportunity to express it before.
Juzi has always been strong-willed and has the same personality as her. When she was seven or eight years old, she began to help the adults with the big and small things at home. Since she married into Dalong's small shabby house, she has been a widow waiting for the man who went out to "earn food" to come back with money.
But Dalong was a child who lost his parents when he was young and grew up eating at many people's homes. He had no rules at all. He left for a year without a single letter or a single sign of him.
Orange is a child with such a miserable life!
The strong wind in the village last month was a big challenge for Juzi! In just a few days, the child became so thin that only two big eyes were left.
She always felt that Juzi went into the mountains this time not entirely for her grandmother, but actually because she was angry with Dalong! She was usually so annoyed with that bachelor Lao Ba that she would hide away from him when she saw him. Now she suddenly wanted to go into the mountains to find him. If it wasn't for her grandmother, how could it not be because she was angry?
But what good can come of this act of anger? The kid might not care about his life if he gets angry. If he accidentally runs into that damned Lost Soul Valley, it would be a real death!
In this family, the old ones died, the young ones were useless, and the man in his fifties could no longer work. If Juzi was gone, she really didn't know what she would do when she was old and unable to move.
And the envelope that Juzi gave her, where did the money inside come from? After being poor all her life, it was really frightening to suddenly see so much money of unknown origin! If the money was not clean, it might cause trouble! Cheng Daku came that night with bad intentions.
The woman felt that she could no longer bear all these frightening things.
What made her most distressed whenever she thought about it was that since that day when Goudan picked up the bloody basket of wild vegetables, he had been running to the woods at the north end of the village all day long.
It seemed as if the bloody wicker basket had hooked his soul.
Mother Orange was lazily fiddling with the black dried mushrooms in her hands, but her eyes never left the hilltop north of the village.
That mysterious place in the mountain has swallowed up many people over the years, as if there were man-eating monsters inside.
Orange's mother subconsciously stopped, her mouth half open, staring blankly at the old forest that looked black in the distance, distracted by her own thoughts...
"Water, water..." The patient on the kang in the room groaned for a long time before Orange's mother suddenly woke up. She hurriedly dropped the work in her hands and ran inside. A full basket of mushrooms was scraped onto the ground by her clothes and scattered everywhere.
It was already past lunchtime, but Juzi's mother was still sitting on the kang, staring at the sick man in a daze. What should she do? Juzi's grandmother had just died, and her father was sick again. Disaster was like a vengeful owl, staring at her broken family in the face of the storm.
At this moment, no one knew where Goudan had gone. The child had not even come home on time for meals recently, as if he had really lost his soul. Thinking of this, she felt a little worried, so she stood up, walked out of the yard, and went to the village entrance to call Goudan.
The ravine where Banpo Village is located is surrounded by mountains. If you shout at the entrance of the village, your voice will spread to several hills. When I was a child, I would run back home from the woods to eat and sleep every day, listening to my parents' shouts.
As soon as Juzi's mother reached the entrance of the village, she suddenly felt that something was wrong in the village: the courtyard gates and house doors of every house were wide open, but there was no one in the courtyard or the house. The dark house doors were empty, as if they had been robbed.
Her heart suddenly started beating for no reason, and she thought, where are the people? Why is there no one?
Mother Orange hesitated and did not dare to move forward.
She tried her best to mobilize her mind, which had been a little slow at the moment, but she couldn't figure out what was going on in the situation before her.
She stood on the small path in the middle of the village, looked up at the sky, the sun was high in the sky; then she looked down at the land, the chickens, ducks, geese and pigs in the pen were still there; then she looked again, oh, there was not even a dog in the entire village.
Where is Dahei? Did he go with Goudan? Other people's dogs must have gone with their owners. Yes!
Only then did Orange's mother remember to look at the surrounding mountains.
This was not a big deal, but her heart couldn't stop beating wildly again: Oh my God, why are there so many people on the North Hill? What are they doing in that damn place?
In Juzi's mother's memory, only a few ginseng-picking old men and a few restless young people in the village dared to go to that place.
Something big must have happened!
