Third watch

Lu Xiaolu, "Uh--too many houses, too few people, and--"

What else, Lu Xiaolu was nervous, he never expected that Zhong Yi, who had been ignoring his desire to study, would suddenly take an exam.

"Also, uh—I didn't see any of the children," Lu Xiaolu said cautiously.

Although Hongdeng Village is quiet, it is by no means deserted, but along the way, he has never seen a single child except for the peasant woman holding a suspected baby in her arms when he first entered the village.

Lu Xiaolu felt that this was even more strange than the size of the house.

This is a rural area with a lot of land. The villagers like to live in big houses. It’s great to build more bricks. But there is a small village in the village, why are there no children playing?

Zhong Yi glanced at Lu Xiaolu, but said nothing.

"Did I get the answer right?" Lu Xiaolu said anxiously.

Zhong Yi: "No."

Lu Xiaolu jumped up immediately: "Then you can accept me as an apprentice?"

Zhong Yi gave him a strange look: "Why?"

"You just clearly..."

"I just want you to talk about it." Zhong Yi smiled viciously: "If you didn't say that you got the answer right, I will accept you as an apprentice."

Lu Xiaolu: "..."

"Besides, you're still very early." Zhong Yi said in a low voice.

Just as Lu Xiaolu was about to refute, he suddenly felt his neck tremble, and he turned his head quickly.

Not far behind them, the windows of a farmer's house were closed tightly, but a piece of glass was broken, revealing a black hole.

Lu Xiaolu muttered: "Why do I feel that someone was there just now?"

Zhong Yi said: "Idiot, who told you to look back?"

Lu Xiaolu immediately shuddered: "Is there really someone here?!"

Zhong Yi said casually: "This village is full of people."

Lu Xiaolu turned his eyes back and looked at Zhong Yi in surprise.

Zhong Yi said, "Go back."

Lu Xiaolu hurriedly followed him: "We've only been out for a while now, and we're going back now?"

Zhong Yi sneered: "Don't you think you haven't been seen enough?"

Lu Xiaolu shuddered again and shut up.

It’s okay if Zhong Yi didn’t say anything, but once he said it, Lu Xiaolu felt that he was going crazy, and he always felt that someone was watching him all the way—making him always involuntarily observe the houses and corners along the road, for fear that there were people squatting in every corner. peek at him.

While not necessarily malicious, the inexplicable feeling was all the more unsettling.

And looking at it this way, Lu Xiaolu found another strange place.

Hongdeng Village does not seem to be poor. The houses are well built, spacious and have many windows.

Oddly enough, quite a few of the windows didn't seem to be able to be opened - some were just tightly closed or glued, while others were simply sealed roughly.

In Lu Xiaolu's perception, this is only done in houses that have been in disrepair for a long time and no one lives in them.

Lu Xiaolu felt that this was also a big doubt, and was about to tell Zhong Yi, but Zhong Yi winked at him and told him to shut up.

He looked up, only to find that they had already walked back to the village chief's house.

The wife of the village head is a fat woman, her figure contrasts sharply with his man's, and her attitude is a little warmer than that of the village head. She is standing at the door and looking around, and when she sees them, she says the bed is ready.

The village head's house is not small, and there is a yard. The room of the village head and his wife is on the first floor, and there are three rooms on the second floor. The other room was given to them.

Probably because there were four people, there were two beds in the room—a folded bamboo bed, barely squeezed out side by side with the wooden bed.

Because the four of Lu Xiaolu are all from "big cities", Zhou Jin may feel that he has a common language with them, and even chats with them endlessly during meals, and the conversation is full of boring complaints at home.

Village Chief Zhou seemed to be a different person, and he chatted with them, and tried to persuade them frequently, as if the person standing at the door and glaring at them in the afternoon was his twin brother.

However, Zhou Jin obviously resented his parents for forcing him to come back. As soon as the village chief spoke, he was not willing to talk, and only ate in a muffled voice.

The village chief's wife specially took the leftovers to feed Mr. Bai. Where did Mr. Bai eat these before, and ran away with a flick of his tail. Wang Xiaoming had to smooth things over by saying that he would go out to catch mice and eat them.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the words came out, the village chief's face changed, and he said in a muffled voice that they had better get the cat back before dark. Hongdeng Village is near the mountains, and wild animals often come into the village to steal food. It would be bad if they encountered it.

Ye Xun said in a harmonious voice: "We also met this cat halfway, and after feeding it with ham, it followed us. It's also used to being wild, so nothing will happen."

The village chief said: "This is not a joke. The cat can walk away, so you should not go out at night. Wolves have come into Hongdeng Village before. In recent years, there are few dogs in the village. It doesn't matter during the day, and you can't go out at night."

Lu Xiaolu said: "We have walked for so long, we wish we could die of sleep, we must not have the energy to play in the middle of the night, the cat will come back by itself during the day."

The village chief nodded and asked Zhou Jin to pour him wine. As soon as Zhou Jin put down his chopsticks, he said he had finished eating and went upstairs to watch a movie.

It wasn't until the door was closed that Wang Xiaoming took the little white dog out of the bag. Di Ting went with the situation and slept soundly wrapped in Wang Xiaoming's T-shirt.

Wang Xiaoming woke it up by shaking it, and prescribed two egg yolk pies for it, and the four of them sat around the bed to discuss.

"We got stuck in the village, what should we do next?" Wang Xiaoming said.

Di Ting swallowed an egg yolk pie in two or three bites: "Wait."

Wang Xiaoming: "..."

The little white dog leaned against the pillow, and crossed his legs: "The paper horse can't be wrong. Wang Dazhuang and Zhong Tieniu must have been here. It's just that the time is not up, and you need to find the specific place."

Lu Xiaolu said: "Are we still looking for an excuse to live? This village is weird, and I always feel that someone is spying on us."

Wang Xiaoming: "Peeping?"

He told Wang Xiaoming and Ye Xun about going out with Zhong Yi today.

"If you want to talk about strange things, we also have them here." Wang Xiaoming said.

They chatted with Zhou Jin all afternoon today, Zhou Jin was a careless person, he was very relieved to ask what he asked and what to say.

Zhou Jin said that he used to have an older brother who got married in another place when he went out to work, and he hadn't come back for more than ten years. The village chief went out to look for him and said he was missing.

But Zhou Jin felt that his parents did not recognize the son—because his brother married a foreign woman.

Red Lantern Village is quite xenophobic. This xenophobia is not reflected in the attitude towards foreigners, but in the blood relationship.

It is said that a large family surnamed Zhou hid and moved in Hongdeng Village hundreds of years ago. After a long time, the population increased, and it gradually became Hongdeng Village.For a long period of time, Hongdeng Village had no contact with the outside world, and it was all intermarriage within the clan. This situation has only gradually changed in modern times.

That's why the village head let Zhou Jin's cousin get married, because in the eyes of the elders in the village, intermarriage between close relatives is not a big deal, and the ancestors also came here in this way-and they think that the Zhou family is a big family in ancient times, and they are older than others. It has to be a little higher, so I don't think much of people with other surnames joining in, so after so many years, there are not many people with other surnames in the village.

It’s just that the young people don’t think so. One reason is that more people have gone out to work in recent years, and their horizons have been opened. Naturally, they don’t want to be confined to this village, because there are many girls outside.

The second is that today is not the era when people could not read a single character. Hongdeng Village received government support before and built a village school. The children in the village can read and write. Culture, everyone knows that close relatives cannot get married, and they are not willing to listen to the arrangements of the elders.

Zhou Jin’s elder brother was like this. After going out, he ignored his family’s opposition and insisted on marrying a migrant worker girl from other places. When he got married, he brought his sister-in-law back. As a result, the village chief forced the girl away and locked up Zhou Jin’s elder brother. at home.

Later, it was a thief from the village who cut the lock with pliers. His elder brother went out to the mountain overnight. It is said that he ran away with his sister-in-law and never came back. At that time, Zhou Jin was not yet ten years old.

Probably because of this, the village head attaches great importance to Zhou Jin, his son, and follows him in everything. The tough attitude that forced him to break up with his girlfriend this time is rare. go home.

"There have been villages and tribes that adopted inbreeding because of xenophobia since ancient times, so it's not particularly strange," Ye Xun said.

"But there is one thing." Zhong Yi said: "I think the actual population of this Red Lantern Village is probably more than what can be seen."

For a while, the other three were silent for a moment.

"What does this mean?" Wang Xiaoming asked.

Lu Xiaolu said slowly: "If you go out today, you will definitely feel this way."

Wang Xiaoming saw Lu Xiaolu take a breath, with an expression of extreme suspicion and unwillingness to believe it.

"I think there are still some 'invisible people' in this red light village."

The weird attitude of the village chief and other villagers obviously made them feel wrong, and Zhong Yi and Lu Xiaolu's trip today deepened this impression.

Lu Xiaolu has a very keen sense of sight. Once he realized it, he, like Zhong Yi, found that there were many people hiding in the house and peeking at them along the way.

He even used the phone screen as a rearview mirror, and once saw a figure flash past the window.

"Is there some disease?" Wang Xiaoming said: "If you don't go out, is it albinism or something? The light is too strong and your eyes can't stand it, so stay at home."

"If the intermarriage of close relatives in the previous generations was very common in Hongdeng Village, the probability of genetic diseases is also very high." Ye Xun also said: "In this case, it is also possible that there is a common disease in the village."

A few people were thoughtful, Lu Xiaolu thought about it, and suddenly said "ah".

All three looked at him, Lu Xiaolu scratched his head: "I want to pee."

Wang Xiaoming complained: "You are so troublesome."

Lu Xiaolu gave him a white look: "This village is troublesome. Where is the toilet built outside the house..."

"This is the case in many rural areas." Wang Xiaoming used the flashlight app in his mobile phone to help him out: "People here are used to it, and they can see without using light."

The old man also told them not to go out at night, but it turned out that they had to come out in the dark.

The toilet of the village chief's house is next to the vegetable field, and a small shed was built, presumably to accumulate fertilizer.

Wang Xiaoming stood outside waiting for Lu Xiaolu boredly, and suddenly heard rustling noises from the fence outside the vegetable field. He thought it was Mrs. Bai, and when he took a light, he found a dark figure standing outside the fence.

Wang Xiaoming snorted, took two steps forward, and found that he was a child with disheveled hair, about five or six years old.

"Who are you?" Wang Xiaoming asked.

The kid took a step back and didn't speak.

Lu Xiaolu also came out, saw Wang Xiaoming, and took a photo with his mobile phone: "Who are you talking to?"

The light of one mobile phone is not bright enough, and the two beams of light seem to be much brighter - Lu Xiaolu just hit the light on the face of a child, but the child didn't respond at all. When the two of them looked carefully, Qi Qi was almost horrified call out.

I saw that there was nothing on the child's face where the eyes should be. From a distance, it seemed that he had a huge and smooth forehead. Under the forehead was a nose and mouth. His hair was disheveled, and he just stood there.