I became beautiful by eating melons

The dusk was like spilled ink, spreading up along the valley.

The rusty iron teeth instantly pierced through the military boots, and the severe pain made him fall heavily to his knees in the pile of pine needles.

The flickering kerosene lights and barking dogs in the distant woods are getting closer and closer - those villagers who are stealing ore will never let go of outsiders who discover their secrets.

The edge of the iron clamp was clotted with dark brown, old blood, and it was unclear whether it came from an animal or a human.

As his consciousness began to fade, Jiang Chen vaguely heard the crisp sound of vines breaking, and someone was approaching quickly on the ferns.

When I opened my eyes again, it was already late at night.

The crackling of the campfire was mixed with the bitter aroma of herbs, and Jiang Chen found himself lying on a stone platform covered with dry ferns. His right ankle was wrapped in an indigo cloth with crushed herbs applied on it.

A huge figure was swaying on the rock wall. The man was grinding herbs in a stone mortar. His muscular forearms were exposed under his navy blue shirt, and there was an old centipede-shaped scar on the back of his neck.

"Drink when you wake up."

The coarse earthenware bowl was brought to my mouth, and the ginger soup mixed with the spicy taste of Panax notoginseng root rushed into my throat.

"Cough cough." Jiang Chen swallowed the medicine in a hurry, then he saw the other person clearly - a man about fifty years old, with half of his left ear missing and his knuckles covered with calluses, which were clearly the marks left by years of holding a pneumatic pick.

"You are not from the village below the mountain... why did you come up the mountain?"

The old man's voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken to anyone for a long time, and he had to pause after each sentence.

"How do you know I'm not from Changjia Village?"

Jiang Chen propped himself up and sat up, leaning against the cold stone wall. His handsome and gloomy face looked indifferent and ruthless.

"Hmph." The old man sneered. If someone with this appearance was from the village, he would definitely not be unknown.

But in the end he just said: "There is no room for two tigers in one mountain... People like you... Changlong can't tolerate you."

Jiang Chen leaned forward and raised his eyebrows slightly.

The old man's tone when he mentioned Chang Long was very natural, one could even say it was disgusted. With that tone, the relationship must not be simple.

"I haven't asked you yet." Jiang Chen glanced at the cave full of life, his eyes focused on a pile of iron traps piled in the corner of the cave:

"Who are you? Why did you save me?"

The old man sat by the campfire with his back to him, stirring the wooden sticks holding the meat. He did not answer Jiang Chen's question, but said, "As soon as the sun rises... get down the mountain as soon as possible. Remember... don't go west."

Before Jiang Chen went up the mountain, he heard Cheng Gang say that besides Changjia Village, there were two other villages on the west side of the mountain. If he was in danger, he could go down the mountain to the west to seek help.

But now the old man says don’t go west…

Jiang Chen tapped his fingers, "I can't go down the mountain tomorrow."

The old man looked over, impatience clearly visible on his dirty face.

"Just go down the mountain when I tell you to...what are you talking about!"

Jiang Chen lazily leaned against the mountain wall, took out the hawthorn pills made by his wife from his pocket, stuffed them into the old man's mouth when he wasn't paying attention, chewed them twice and swallowed them.

A warm current suddenly flowed into his cold body, and his calves, which had been smeared with herbs, became extremely itchy. Jiang Chen resisted the urge to scratch and suddenly laughed: "My wife is still on the mountain. I can't go down."

The old man paused as he flipped the stick and turned his head to look at the young man.

When talking about his wife, the young man's cold and sharp temperament subsided. The firelight illuminated his face, and his sharp features softened a little.

"Is your wife also abducted to the mountain?"

Noticing the "also" in the old man's sentence, Jiang Chen looked at him and asked, "Has anyone in your family been kidnapped?"

"No, but I've seen many people come here like you."

Jiang Chen thought of the mine and asked, "Where did they go in the end?"

The old man said nothing, and took a piece of firewood beside him and threw it into the fire. He noticed that the young man looked calm, without a trace of grief and anger about his wife being kidnapped, and said coldly: "Your wife was kidnapped... Are you not anxious?"

The wound healed rapidly, but the itching and burning pain did not ease at all.

Jiang Chen closed his eyes tightly, cold sweat rolled down his forehead, and his injured leg was stretched straight.

He tried his best to remain natural, and when he thought of his wife, a smile appeared on his face: "My wife wasn't kidnapped, she came to save people."

The old man sneered: "Woman? Save people?"

The two short sentences with an upward tone fully expressed the old man's disdain.

Jiang Chen straightened his lips and said, "Old man, do you look down on women?"

The old man remembered something, his brows suddenly turned cold, "I dare not look down on women."

He is where he is today because of a woman.

"Stop talking nonsense...you must go down the mountain tomorrow." The old man brought back the topic that had gone off track and emphasized it again with a cold face.

"As for your wife... tell me what she looks like... I'll help you find her."

Jiang Chen shook his head and said with a smile: "My wife doesn't need anyone to save her."

He tried hard not to let his wife come to rescue him, even if she didn't hold him back.

Jiang Chen didn't continue the topic. He looked at the old man and suddenly asked, "Old man, are you a miner?"

The old man's eyebrows turned cold, and his eyes looking at Jiang Chen suddenly became sharp.

With extremely agile speed, he picked up the arrow hanging on the wall of the cave, aimed at Jiang Chen and shouted: "Who are you?"

Even when being aimed at by an arrow, Jiang Chen's brows did not even move.

He said calmly, "Many people came down from this mountain, including me and many police officers."

"Public Security?" The old man loosened his hand on the bow and his dark eyes lit up.

"There is solid evidence of human trafficking in Changjia Village." Jiang Chen paused, stared at the old man and continued, "Now there is also the possibility of illegal mining."

The old man's hand on the bow completely loosened. After knowing Jiang Chen's identity, his hostility decreased greatly: "You are right... I am indeed a miner."

He hung the bow and arrow back on the cliff. The firelight cast shadows on the old man's wrinkled face.

"In the accident in 1972, the tunnel collapsed 80 meters." He opened his shirt, revealing the hideous scars on his waist and abdomen like twisted mineral veins. "Among the 36 brothers, I was the only one who survived because I was stuck in the ventilation shaft."

An owl hooted outside the cave.

The old man lifted up his messy hair that looked like weeds, revealing his left eye that was blinded by the explosion. "My eye was blinded by the detonator."

The upper palpebral muscle of the left eye was torn off, the eyelid drooped uncontrollably, and the gray-white eyeball was lifeless.

Seeing that the young man was not scared by his eye and didn't even show any strange expression on his face, the old man curled his lips and covered his left eye with his hair again.

Jiang Chen was not unfamiliar with such eyes. After all, he had been a miner in a black mine in his previous life. There were all kinds of deformed people in the underground mines, and he had long been accustomed to it.

The old man continued, "They thought I was dead in there too, so I took the opportunity to escape."

Jiang Chen tapped his fingers. From 72 to 80, the old man had been hiding in the mountains for eight years?

He thought so and asked.

The old man said calmly: "I have nowhere else to go except this mountain."

Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes, noticed that the old man did not tell the truth, and did not ask any further questions. He began to ask about the situation in the mine.

The old man saw what he meant and shook his head, saying, "The supervisors in the mine all have guns... Chang Long has taken in a lot of desperate criminals... They are all wanted criminals who have killed people and are guarding the mine... You can't get in by yourself."

"And..." The old man didn't say anything, his eyes fell on Jiang Chen's legs, his meaning was already very clear.