he can't see our ears

I flipped through the book.

Lao Zhang told me: "There are only records in this manuscript, and there are no fancy stories. In fact, there are many such legends in my hometown. I heard them when I was young, but I didn't pay attention to them at that time."

Then, he told me one of the legends.

This time it is not a foreign legend, nor is it a straightforward record, but a story passed down from generation to generation in his hometown.

It is said that a long time ago, there was a village under this coastal county. The richest family in the village had a wedding. The eldest and young master got married and married a foreign wife.

The daughter-in-law had never seen the sea before, but after she got married, she wanted to see the sea whenever she had the chance.Both her natal family and her husband's family are in good conditions, and there are people at home to take care of her, so she doesn't need to do much work, so she has a lot of time to go to the sea every day.This family does not work in agriculture, but mainly in business. Under the circumstances at that time, they were relatively open-minded, so no one stopped the daughter-in-law.

One day, the daughter-in-law went out early to watch the sunrise over the sea, and then returned home quickly.

When she came back, she looked terrified and a little dazed.Her husband saw something was wrong and asked her, but she said nothing.

The husband was afraid that she would be bullied when she went out, so he found the maid who was brought by his wife as a dowry, and asked the maid to report what they did when they went out.

The servant girl told him that after watching the sunrise, they also saw some fishermen and pearl divers.Due to the need for work, these people are usually not fully clothed. For the ladies from outside, even seeing them from a distance is a bit too shocking.

But no matter how frightened he was, he wouldn't be so frightened?The young master asked the servant girl to continue talking.

The servant girl said that they were really surprised when they saw those people, but they were not too frightened.At this time, someone came out of the water, and it turned out to be a woman.

The woman held a small doll between her arms. The doll's body was gray-blue, like the color of a fish. Its body was as big as a kitten's. In comparison, its limbs and head were particularly slender, and it didn't look very cute.

The woman didn't get too close, and the servant girl guessed that she was a pearl diver, so she wasn't too surprised.The woman kept looking at the little daughter-in-law, gradually showing a look of surprise, and said "no, no" several times.

After finishing speaking, the woman shook her head, turned around and left.The servant girl thought this woman was a lunatic, and wanted to pull her master away quickly, but the young daughter-in-law chased the woman a few steps in a daze, and grabbed her wet arm.

Seeing this scene, the servant girl was a little frightened and didn't dare to stop her.

I saw the little daughter-in-law pulling the woman and shouting excitedly: "That's my child, I know her, I see her every day, this is my child, she was still calling mother in my arms yesterday!"

The woman pushed the little daughter-in-law away, and angrily reprimanded a few words, "No, no."

Only then did the servant girl pluck up her courage and went up to protect the young daughter-in-law. The young daughter-in-law was in a trance, as if she had just woken up from a dream, and she did not chase after that strange woman again.

The servant girl said that she saw the woman with the doll in her arms and jumped directly into the sea from the rocky beach.

After hearing the maid's description, the young master was also puzzled.He asked the maid to recall what the woman looked like and what she was wearing, and the maid was also very confused, she said she couldn't remember.

All I know is that I saw a woman at the time. The woman had long hair and was wet all over, but I couldn't describe what she looked like and what clothes she was wearing now.

It's like a picture in a dream, I only know that I have seen it, but I don't have the exact details.

The young master went to see his daughter-in-law again, and chatted with her for a long time.The daughter-in-law was calmer than when she first came back, she was able to speak well, and she also told about the strange woman she saw, but what she said about the doll was different from that of the maid.

In the daughter-in-law's description, when she saw the doll, she saw a white and fat baby, and a strong thought suddenly came to her mind: this baby was her child.

Thinking about it now, she herself finds it unbelievable. In fact, she didn't see the doll clearly at all, but strongly believed that it was her own child.

The husband couldn't figure out what was going on, so he went to discuss it with the elderly at home.The old man invited a doctor to see and found that the daughter-in-law was already pregnant.

In the end, both the doctor and the elderly believed that the young daughter-in-law was emotionally unstable because she was pregnant and her mother was weak.The woman she saw might be someone nearby, holding a clay doll or something.The daughter-in-law felt that the doll was her own child, probably because the fetus in the womb was connected to her mother and child. She didn't know that she had a child, but she could sense the child, so she had hallucinations when looking at the doll.

After such an analysis, everyone became happy. Unexpectedly, this experience was not only a bad omen, but also a happy event.

Although still no one knows who the pearl diver was, what she took, and what she meant by what she said.

After conceiving in October, the daughter-in-law successfully gave birth to a daughter.After a few days, when the girl was just able to crawl, one day the servant woman held her in the sun and basked in the sun. The servant girl felt a little drowsy, and when she woke up again, the girl disappeared.

The servant girl returned to the master's house crying, and the daughter-in-law was very anxious.Although other relatives in the family also helped to find her, they didn't pay much attention to finding her. The feudal ideology in the old society caused everyone to think that she was just a girl anyway. If the family wanted to raise her, then they should take good care of her. But if she really lost it, it's nothing to worry about. Big deal.

The daughter-in-law cried so much that her eyes were broken, and she went out to look for it herself every day.After searching for several days, she inadvertently walked to the place where she had seen the pearl-diversing girl, and saw a pearl-diversing girl walking up, holding a doll in her arms.

The daughter-in-law rushed over and grabbed the doll, still shouting that this is my child.This time, the pearl diver didn't say anything, and calmly handed the baby to her daughter-in-law.

The daughter was lost and found again.Although the relatives in the family don't care much about this little girl, it is a good thing if they can be found back, which shows that the life of the family is good, and their mother and daughter have a deep bond.

Years passed like this, and this daughter-in-law gave birth to several children, both boys and girls.

Many years later, the eldest daughter was 16 years old, and she was also at the age of looking for a husband. She was smart and beautiful since she was a child, and many people were looking forward to marrying her.

In the end, she married into a family that was also in business.In the age when there was no convenient transportation, the distance between her husband's family and her mother's family was a bit far, but from a modern point of view, it was not so far, almost in the area of ​​City A.

On the day the eldest daughter returned home after getting married, her mother, the former daughter-in-law, told her the story of how she almost disappeared when she was a child.The eldest daughter didn't say anything after hearing this.

When it was time to go back to her husband's house, the eldest daughter passed a rocky promontory.

She looked at the headland and said she wanted to get closer, but she accidentally got too close and fell into the rough sea.

The reef sea is different from the sea with fine sandy beaches. People fall directly from the rocks, and the depth is unknown. They may also be stuck in the rocks, and most of them cannot be rescued.

The accompanying maids were frightened to death, so they rushed to find someone to save her.After a lot of tossing, after all, the person was not rescued.No one is alive, no corpse is dead.

The two families who have just become in-laws are very sad, but life still has to go on.

A few years later, the eldest daughter's younger brother also married a woman from a nearby county.

After the woman became pregnant, her mother-in-law, that is, the daughter-in-law in the previous article, always felt uneasy, so she told the woman not to go near the sea, and the woman agreed.

Later, the woman gave birth to a son, and the mother-in-law had a grandson.Before the whole family was happy, on a thunderstorm day, the baby disappeared amidst the noise of lightning, thunder and heavy rain.

When others were confused, only the mother-in-law seemed to understand something.

She immediately set off to the beach, and kept searching along the coast near the village, as long as there was a place where people could walk, she would search again.

Finally, she stopped on a beach and saw a figure swaying in the sea.

She walked over alone, with her feet in the water, and saw a person gradually walking out of the waves, walking towards her slowly.

The mother-in-law took a closer look and was horrified.

The person who came up from the waves was about the same height as her, with a bluish-gray body, a bloated torso, small hands and feet, a pointed and much longer head than a human's, and long hair hanging down behind his head.

The moment she saw this "person", her emotions returned to decades ago, when she was a young daughter-in-law.

At that time, she looked at the doll in the hands of the pearl diver, and thought in her heart that the doll was my child...

Now, the same voice sounded in her heart: This person is my daughter, I know her, I used to see her every day, this is my daughter, she used to call her mother in my arms...

The blue-gray "person" in front of her is her daughter who fell into the sea.

But she hasn't completely lost her mind yet, and she also wonders, how is this possible?This thing doesn't look human at all, why would I recognize her?

At this time, the blue-gray man raised his arm, and saw a small baby in his hand.The baby, wearing a silver collar and wrapped in a small satin quilt, was the mother-in-law's missing grandson.

The mother-in-law took the baby in a daze.

The gray-gray man turned around and walked back into the sea step by step.

Before the mother-in-law came back to her senses, her family members also arrived, just in time to see the mother-in-law sitting on the beach with the baby in her arms.

This child was hugged by the strange man in the sea, but his whole body was dry, even the quilt was not wet, it was inconceivable.

Back home, the baby was fine, but the mother-in-law couldn't speak, just like when she was a young daughter-in-law, she was in a trance and trembling all the time.The family asked a doctor to see it, but they couldn't see why.

After a few days, the mother-in-law calmed down a little and finally started talking.

The first thing she said was: I was wrong, I was wrong, this doll is not my daughter, this doll is not my grandson.

No matter who came to persuade her, no matter how she tried to persuade her, the mother-in-law just believed that this child was not her grandson.But if you ask her who he is, she can't answer.

From then on, she ran to the beach every day, calling her eldest daughter's baby name.

The family thought that she was yearning for her daughter, and she was frightened when her grandson disappeared, and she eventually got mad.

Lao Zhang finished the story.

After he finished speaking, he looked at me as if he wanted to see my reaction.

During the first half of his speech, I had already stopped turning the pages of the book, and the more I listened, the colder I felt.

I waited for a while before I said, "Is this story true or false? Didn't you scare me on purpose?"

I didn't believe him like this, but he was not in a hurry, he just smiled wryly.In fact, I also knew that I was deliberately "not trusting him".I assumed a position of disbelief.

Of course I don't believe it.How can I believe this?

Lao Zhang said: "In our place, the administrative division in the past was different from the present. At that time, the hometown village and the county seat were the same thing. City A was a little further away, but it also had a lot of contacts with us. But in the final analysis, we are all the same group. offspring of man."

I don't quite understand what he's trying to say.I tried to ask, "Well, so... you mean genetic disease or something?"

Lao Zhang did not answer me, but continued to say what he wanted to say: "In ancient times, in any area that relied on the sea to eat the sea, whether it was fishermen or pearl divers, people died in the sea every year. But with other The difference in the coastal areas is that the way of death and injury of our people is very strange. Some people encountered accidents in labor, and some people took the initiative to go to the sea. If you want to analyze the reasons, people generally say that they surrendered because of the hardship of life. Hai committed suicide, but I researched a lot of sources, and I know it's not the case. Among the locals who 'suicide', many people have something to do with that..."

Speaking of "that," he pointed to the manuscript I was holding.It is the manuscript that records many cases of missing children.

Lao Zhang said: "Not everyone will go to the sea. But among those who did go to the sea, as long as I can find out and trace back, they are all related to the family mentioned in the book."