1. Falling into the Devil's Cave
At the beginning of the last century, Wang Xiaosan was born in a place called Wangjia Town in Jiaodong Peninsula. The town is very big, and there are many merchants in the past. The Wang family has planted wheat fields while steamed buns with their own wheat noodles and sold them. The business has been smooth. That year, Wang Xiaosan married Erya, the most beautiful girl in the town. He personally carefully selected a pair of embroidered shoes with a thousand-layer sole for Erya in the shoe shop. The upper is green and a bright lotus embroidered on the front face. There is also a pair of mandarin ducks playing in the water, which are vivid and beautiful. Erya likes them so much that she holds her shoes in her arms and puts them on her face, which is so unhappy. A year later, Erya became pregnant and wanted to eat sour. Wang Xiaosan said, "You are waiting at home. After I sold the steamed buns, I will buy you a few kilograms of sour pears."
He was carrying the steamed buns and happily. After leaving the house, he never expected that he was caught by the Japanese on the street. He was stuffed into a tank truck with many arrested workers. The train was "bang bang" "After walking for more than ten days, I stopped at a small station outside the pass. As soon as the big iron door opened, a bitter cold wind was blowing towards me with snowflakes. The ragged workers couldn't help but shivered. Under the custody of the traitors and Japanese soldiers, he walked for a whole day in the bitter cold wind and finally arrived at a power plant dam under the construction by the Songhua River. Before he could rest for a while, he was driven away Go to the construction site.
It's like hell on earth. The workers live in a shed with air leakage on all sides and eat acorn noodles. They have to do fourteen or five hours of heavy work every day. Once the person falls down, the cruel head and the Japanese devils will die. It's a living thing, and you'll be thrown into the "popular pit". "0,000 people trap " is a large ditch not far from the construction site. Every night, countless wild wolves gather here to eat human flesh, and howling echoes in the valley. Wang Xiaosan missed his elderly parents day and night, and missed his wife who had just passed the door for a year. He often cried in tears. He said firmly in his heart, "I must escape and return to my hometown to reunite with my relatives!" However, the power grid around the dam construction site was tightly surrounded by artillery towers, and with heavy troops, it was harder to escape than climb to the sky. He tried several times, but not only failed, but almost lost his life.
Time passed year by year, and the workers on the construction site died one after another. The "masses pit" had been filled with bones, but new unjust souls were still added every day. Wang Xiaosan became ill after overwork, and a strong man had become thin. On this day, he struggled to push a truck of heavy stones on the dam. As he pushed, he felt that the eyes were dark and he fell down with a "thump", and all the stones were pressing on him. The workers rushed over and pulled him out of the pile of stones. Seeing that he was covered in blood and his breath was weak, they were about to carry him into the shed, several Japanese soldiers rushed over and howled loudly with bayonets. : "There are dead!" He forced two people to drag him away and threw him into the "popular pit".
2. Escape from death
The sun gradually set, a cold wind blew, and Wang Xiaosan woke up, feeling a burst of severe pain all over his body. All he saw were blurred flesh and blood, broken bones and limbs and limbs. Only then did he realize that he had been thrown into the "popular pit" as a dead person. At this time, he vaguely heard the howl of the wolf. He thought, I must leave immediately. "As soon as it gets dark, I will be eaten by wild wolves even if I don't die. I can't die, I must survive! Although he was very weak and had no strength at all, he still gritted his teeth and crawled forward hard on the pile of dead people. Before dark, he finally crawled out of the "popular pit".
A full moon rose, so bright and bright. Wang Xiaosan felt that he hadn't seen the moon for a long time and felt so kind. He ate some grass-roots bark, added a little strength to his body, and staggered. He stood up, afraid that he would be caught by the Japanese devils and then walked back, so he walked into the mountains.The primeval forest in Kanto covers the sky and the sun is boundless. Not long after, he lost his way. He walked for three days and three nights, but unexpectedly he turned back. When he was anxious and frustrated, he found a broken shack on the hillside. He walked over and stood outside and asked, "Is anyone?" An elderly man inside replied, "Who, come in." Wang Xiaosan pushed the door open When he entered, he fainted with a "plop".
There was only one old man with gray hair in the room. The old man made a bowl of rice porridge and fed Wang Xiaosan. It took not long. Wang Xiaosan woke up and the old man asked him, "Child, where did you come from?" "Wang Xiaosan said: "I climbed out of the mass pit."
The old man was very surprised and said: "Climbed out of the mass pit? You are so lucky." Big, no one can climb out of the mass grave! The day before yesterday, a young wife from Shandong came to find her husband. She heard that her husband was thrown into the mass grave, so she went there to cry. I put it She helped her back and advised her to leave here as soon as possible, but last night she got up secretly to the crowd pit and cried. I went after her feet. I was still one step late. I was eaten by the wolf. I got a piece of embroidered shoes, it was pitiful!” After saying that, the old man showed a piece of embroidered shoes to Wang Xiaosan. Wang Xiaosan took the shoes and was shocked. He bought them for his wife. The lotus and the mandarin duck were still so real. He held the embroidered shoes and started crying, crying while muttering: "Erya, Erya Ya——”
”Child, who is Erya?” asked the old man.
"Eya, Erya are the Shandong woman eaten by a wild wolf. She is my wife..."
After hearing this, the old man couldn't help but burst into tears and cursed: "The little Japanese who is killed, always One day I will be retribution! Child, stop crying. It’s useless to cry to death in this year. You should plan and where to go next."
Wang Xiaosan wiped his red eyes and said, “ When I go home, I have my father, mother and children."
The old man sighed and said, "Your wife said, the Japanese devils burned your village, your father, your mother and your children were all killed by the Japanese devils' plane. Look, don't go back, Kanto Place Big, you can find a way out anywhere." ”
3. God blessed
Wang Xiaosan believed the old man's words and stayed in Guandong. He had done all the business of emitting, rushing gold, digging ginseng in the mountains and digging ginseng. No matter what he did, he Carefully tucked the embroidered shoe into his waist and never left him for a moment. That autumn, he went up the mountain with a few people to dig ginseng, but his luck was really bad. The group of people wandered around the old forest for more than half a month and only dug a few seedlings of "Erjiazi" because the food they brought was needed. After eating up, they had to go down the mountain. When he reached the hillside, Wang Xiaosan suddenly found that the embroidered shoes fell on the hill where he had just rested. He said to his friends, "You go first, I'll go back and find the embroidered shoes and then chase you." Others advised him, "Don't go back and look for it. Isn't it just an embroidered shoe? It's not worth a few cents." But Wang Xiaosan said: "That's not won. That's the only relic left to me by my wife. I can't throw it away. "As he said that, he insisted on turning around and running towards the mountain. The others had no choice but to tell him, "Hurry up, we'll wait for you by the river at the foot of the mountain."
The face of the child in the mountain changed. It changes. As soon as Wang Xiaosan returned to the mountain and found embroidered shoes under the big tree, the sky was filled with clouds, lightning and thunder, and then it started to rain heavily. He curled up in the tree hole, looking at the water curtains outside, frightened. The heavy rain fell to the ground for more than an hour, causing mountain torrents. The floods on the hillside rolled into the bottom of the mountain, and the world was filled with deafening roar.
After a long time, the heavy rain stopped and the flood receded. Wang Xiaosan staggered to chase other friends, but after he arrived at the foot of the mountain, the scene in front of him made him stunned. He saw that the place had just been looted by the flood and was washed out. The ravines are deep and the thick trees are tilted and tilted. How can those friends still have the shadows? After searching for a long time, I only found a broken iron pot.Wang Xiaosan shed tears and chose a place, dug the soil to make a fake grave, and kowtowed three times in a row, which was considered to say goodbye to the deceased. In front of the "grave", he held the embroidered shoes and said affectionately: "Erya, Erya, it is your spirit in heaven to bless me, otherwise, I will become a ghost on the road to the underworld." He pressed the embroidered shoes tightly on his chest. Up, he unknowingly fell asleep in a daze. In the dark, he saw Erya coming to his side and said, "Brother Wang, there are so many flowers over there, go and see it!" Pull him forward. Wang Xiaosan suddenly woke up and shouted loudly, "Erya, Erya..." What appeared in front of him was an empty mountain forest.
However, at this moment, he heard the 号号号 's cry: "Brother Wang - Brother Wang -" The person who was putting the mountain said that there were ginseng in the places where there were ginseng, and Wang Xiaosan stood up suddenly. He chased after the place where the Bangmai bird was chirping. After chasing two hills, the Bangmai bird's chirping stopped abruptly. He stopped his steps and felt his eyes lit up. The fiery red ginseng flowers were in the grass. Shining, one, two, three... He shouted loudly with excitement: "Bangmao!" The answer to him was the echo of the mountains: "Bangmao-- "
4. Life and Death Reunion
Wang Xiaosan bought three small houses in the "old shipyard" in the ancient city by the Songhua River with the money of selling ginseng. He had no skills and could make steamed buns. This is a traditional skill inherited from his parents. So I opened a steamed bun shop, with the front and back kitchen, and I was selling it while I was working. Unexpectedly, this white, big and cool Shandong steamed bun is very popular here, and the supply is in short supply. I couldn't get busy alone, so he hired him again. A young man, he made it in the kitchen, and the young man sold it in the front, and the two of them were busy all day long.
One day, Wang Xiaosan was kneading his head and kneading the dough. The young man selling steamed buns in front ran over and said, "Shopkeeper, a beggar came outside." Wang Xiaosan said without raising his head, "Give him a steamed bun and send him away. "The next day, the young man ran away and said, "That beggar is here again." Wang Xiaosan said, "Then give him another steamed bun." On the third day, when the guy closed, the young man found that there was one under the counter Embroidered shoes, curiously said, "Shopkeeper, how interesting it is. Whose woman threw an embroidered shoes here." She was about to sweep away, but Wang Xiaosan came over and picked up the embroidered shoes and wiped them with her sleeves. After rubbing, the lotus and mandarin ducks are lifelike. Isn’t this Erya’s other embroidered shoe? Why did it appear here? Could it be that Erya is still alive? He asked hurriedly, "Did you see who threw the shoes here?" The young man thought for a while and said, "It might be the beggar who threw them away. She came again just now, stood here for a while and left. "
" That beggar is a woman?"
" Yes, it's a woman."
" Where did she go?"
The young man pointed to the distance of the street.
Wang Xiaosan threw down his house and chased him far away like crazy. He chased him to a corner. He saw a woman with torn clothes and messy hair. She was not someone else, but her wife, whom he had been thinking about day and night. Ya, they stood opposite each other and asked almost at the same time: "Are you a human or a ghost?" After that, no one cared about whether it was a human or a ghost, and they hugged each other tightly, mixed emotions and burst into tears...
A loving couple, after the disaster of separation from life and death, reunited strangely, and a pair of broken-up embroidered shoes were dependent on each other.
Wang Xiaosan said with infinite emotion: "That kind-hearted old man went to the crowd to find you, thinking you were eaten by a wild wolf, so he only picked up one embroidered shoe. I kept that embroidered shoe with me at all times. He was spiritual, saved my life, and even dug up ginseng." Erya told him with sob that day that in the "million-sized pit", just as a group of wild wolves rushed towards her, someone was thrown away again. When she came in, the wild wolf moved her target to the new corpse. She rolled and crawled out of the "popular pit" and threw an embroidered shoe into the "popular pit" in panic.In the following years, she begged along the street, but kept hiding the remaining embroidered shoe on her body, treating it as the only relative who was with her. Once, I encountered a gun battle on the way to beg for food. A stray bullet hit her, but was blocked by the "thousand-layer sole" of the embroidered shoes. Wang Xiaosan took Erya's embroidered shoe and saw that there was indeed an unbreakable hole in the sole of the shoe.
It turned out that Erya was very hungry that day and suddenly smelled a familiar smell. It was the smell of Wang's steamed buns. She thought it was an hallucination, but she still followed that smell and looked after it. After many years, she again She ate steamed buns with the unique flavor of the Wang family, but she still couldn't believe that Wang Xiaosan was still alive, so she secretly put the embroidered shoes under the counter...
■Zhang Guoxin
selected from "Folk Stories"
