surname teacher

Chapter 136 Young

In front of the Diaolou, beside the patio.

Hot camellia, rice cooked in an earthen pot and stove at home, and a small plate of sour fruit and shredded figs for appetizers exude a hot aroma.

The Dong people are always sour, and now that the New Year is approaching, which coincides with the arrival of traditional Chinese festivals, all kinds of hearty winter food at home can be taken out directly to entertain distant guests.

Jin Suoyang, whose face was so pale that he had no normal blood color, and whose feet were still tied with wooden planks and straps, was facing such a large table of sumptuous Dong cuisine.

But compared to his stomach that was so hungry that it felt a little painful, the psychological pressure caused by the white-haired old lady with an ant's head in front of him was obviously more troubled by the dazed eyes at the moment, and even a little cramped and nervous His.

蚍湖马, originally from the local dialect of the Miao and Dong in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, means an ant with a huge head and a human face with many legs.

It is said that they like to live in groups. They are kind-hearted but very timid. Because of their special living habits, they are usually far away from human beings. Therefore, most of the clansmen of this kind of group will choose to live together and live in small villages in the mountains and forests. The main carrier is passed down from generation to generation.

And according to the relevant records that Jin Suoyang himself read from the ancient books at home, about why they became ants, and why most of them were surnamed Fan, this actually involved a magical allusion many years ago.

①It is said that in the past there was an old man surnamed Fan in the mountains, who had a beautiful only daughter who had a beautiful singing voice. One day, a strong wind blew outside the house and the girl was blown away. The frightened old man hurriedly took a sickle and an ax to the mountain forest to look for it. .

At this time, a horse he had never seen before appeared and offered to help find the old man's daughter, but the condition was that the old man must betroth the daughter to him after that.

Because the situation at that time was really urgent, Old Man Fan agreed to Ma's request after thinking about it for a while.

But after the horse searched for a long time, and finally came back with the rescued daughter on its back, in the middle of the night, in order to prevent the only daughter from being taken back to the mountain by the horse to be a bride, the old man chose to lie asleep and lie on the tree. The dismounted horse was hacked to death with a sickle, and its hide was stripped off.

Once the horse died, the ridiculous marriage between the old man's daughter and the horse should have come to an end.

The strange thing about this is that no matter how the old man who killed the horse tried to hide it, the horse skin after the horse's death still appeared on the wall of his house, and even wrapped it around his daughter's body , not only turned the originally beautiful daughter into a female cicada that can only sleep above the woods regardless of day and night, even the originally outstanding and beautiful singing voice has become a shrill and noisy cicada.

This made Old Man Fan regret it, and within a few months he fell ill, and his daughter became a female cicada completely, and people around her began to call her Ma Niangzi, or Ma Jiao'e, Ma daughter-in-law.

What is even more amazing is that after October, this horse lady, who had never betrothed a man before as a human being, was inexplicably pregnant, and then gave birth to a litter with human faces in a nest on a tree. , a multi-legged giant ant baby, with a human face and a horse-shaped head, has as many legs as a cicada, and can fly.

Since then, ants have been called ants in western Hunan, which means strange-looking children born from the mating of a male horse and a female cicada. The local ants in Fan Village, regardless of gender, age, and age, still refer to horses and cicadas as It is the father and mother of my grandparents, which has been handed down to this day.

This story about cicadas and horses giving birth to ants is clearly recorded in most of the unofficial histories of the past dynasties. Although it is little known in modern times, it has a source.

But although the story of Ant Village has been recorded in the strange books of the past dynasties, outsiders accidentally entered the Ant Village, and a series of strange stories happened afterwards, which are often written by predecessors such as "Ji Hengzi".

But in today's modern society that has already abandoned most of the feudal ideology, few people still regard this kind of stories that scare children as true. In the mountains and forests, there will really be a group of gnats and horses whose appearance is incompatible with human beings.

After all, before that, even Jin Suoyang himself, who was very keen on researching and collecting things in this area...was not very good at taking these things seriously.

But who would have thought that along with the magical adventure in the mountains last night, everything that seemed like a dream had happened to Young Master Jin.

And at present, it seems that not only is it as simple as meeting one, but it seems that today he happened to meet a group, or to put it another way... his whole body can be regarded as falling directly into the ant nest.

If this happened to any normal person in daily life, he would probably faint from the shock of these strange things that can scare people to death.

But for Jin Suoyang, who has always been slow in character, who does things a little slower than ordinary people, or calm in disguise, apart from the indescribable shock at the beginning, after he barely recovered, he started I feel a lot of doubts and curiosity about why I have encountered everything so far.

Could it be that what the mud doll who suddenly appeared and disappeared suddenly said was true... Maybe he himself is a teacher with a surname that he has never heard of before?

But how should he leave this place that is completely different from Dongshan in his impression now, and find the exit to return to the normal world?

When will that... the rooster who has an inextricable feud with his mother find him again, and completely put an end to the anger and hatred in his heart?

Is the gnats and horses in this village worthy of my trust?

These complex and difficult questions are clearly troubling the white-haired young man at this moment, but unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to probe afterwards, he did not find even the slightest bit of hostility towards him from Fan Xi in front of him. .

And now that this point has been mentioned, Jin Suoyang is particularly puzzled by these gnats and horses that he has seen for the first time. The characteristics of giant feet, human faces, and gregariousness seem to be similar to the gnats and horses described in the ghost stories. The horse's tense fit fit, but the fear of people avoiding the world was different from what he knew.

What made him feel even more unbelievable was that the ant old lady who suddenly appeared in front of him, as an ant creature completely different from him in appearance, had such an attitude towards a stranger who appeared here out of nowhere. Really surprisingly friendly.

Not only did he not drive him out of this small village because he didn't like humans by nature, but he even took the initiative to take him into his lair to recuperate his wounds, and even warmly gave him a lot of rich and delicious food.

And thinking of these strange and even unreasonable places, Jin Suoyang, who was sitting on the wooden building of Fan Xi's house and looked at the old ant lady who was entertaining him graciously, fell silent with some doubts.

After a long time, just when he was about to give up thinking about these questions for the time being, and was about to ask the old man in front of him about what happened last night, the white-haired young man with a limping leg and a lot of words himself sat on the small stool with some difficulty. Listening to the mother-in-law Fan Xi in front of him kindly speak to him in broken Mandarin,

"You must be wondering how you came to my house now, or why I am willing to take in a living person like you, right?"

"..."

"Look there for yourself, and see what's hanging on the wall over there."

Jin Suoyang, who had his head down, was taken aback by these words, and after a pause, he put down the bowls and chopsticks in his hand and nodded with the most basic courtesy, then raised his pale eyes and looked suspiciously at the wall behind him.

But the moment his eyes fell on the old wall, Jin Suoyang, who was obviously unprepared, was stunned for a moment, because no matter how he tried to confirm, this certain aspect was equipped with simple wires like those ordinary houses at the bottom of the mountain. and lighting equipment, but at the same time retaining ethnic characteristics, the small wooden building is still full of some more... interesting things.

For example, the black-and-white wedding photo on the wall of the small house belongs to a young and handsome Dong man and a horse girl.

"Your... husband is actually an ordinary person?"

Since waking up, this seemed to be the first time that the white-haired young man, as an ordinary human being, spoke to Fan Xi on his own initiative.

Maybe it was because he was too surprised, so his slightly wide-eyed earnest look looked a little dazed or rather earnest and clumsy and cute. Seeing this, Fan Xi couldn't help but laughed and nodded before turning back. sentence.

"Yeah, this is a photo of my grandfather and I at the bottom of the mountain when we were young... It was the end of the 80s in China... He was the eldest in the family, because the family exceeded the one-child policy, younger siblings Too many people who couldn’t afford enough to eat simply joined our Ant Village. The only thing we took in this life was this wedding photo. I rescued him in the mountains, and he was willing to marry me. Of course, he didn’t want to do it again. He didn't leave me... He even taught me my human language... So I'm one of the few in Fan Village who doesn't hate people, so you really don't have to worry too much..."

The kind-hearted ant old lady said so and looked at the old photo thoughtfully. She didn't seem to mind sharing her youth with this old-fashioned, white-haired young man with a righteous look between her brows. story.

But noticing that Jin Suoyang still had some doubts and puzzles on his face, the old lady with tentacles on her head thought about it for a while and then thumped her legs and feet, which became more and more immobile as she got older, and spoke with some difficulty road,

"... But speaking of it, young man, where did you come from before? Why did you fall into the Dragon King River in the winter just like that last night? I think the wounds on your body and face are probably caused by accidents. Something bad happened, right? If it wasn’t for Ah Bao and the others who happened to pick up your things and ran into those old children who cannibalize you, your life would have been in jeopardy yesterday..."

"I... I originally came from another city under the mountain, not very close to Dongshan, because my mother asked me to come to Dongshan to help her fulfill a wish, so about a week ago... I came here... But after coming here, I found that she seemed to have some special connection with a man named Rooster Lang on this mountain, and after waking up again in the mountain last night, I encountered a little accident."

"Accident? It refers to those old boys who are annoying to death under Gong Jilang and pretend to be ghosts all day long, right?"

"Yes, at first it was really some white-haired, human-speaking dwarves who were chasing me... Then something else happened, and I was killed by the yellow tiger's majesty my mother left ...then I was pushed by an old boy from the place called Chicken Coop Rock to the frozen river below..."

"Huh? Chicken coop rock? From that... so high? You... just fell straight down? Or just broke a leg?"

Because he was too surprised in his heart, Fan Xi, who was shaking the tentacles on the top of his head, couldn't help but raised his voice, and he also felt that this matter was always unusual, and Jin Suoyang, who was frowning, carefully recalled what happened at that time Scene still shook his head and said slowly,

"No... When I fell, I vaguely saw a blue dragon appearing... But I didn't see what he looked like... I just remembered that his upper body should be human, with blue scales and a dragon tail. It glows in the water, and there seems to be a silver bracelet on the front paw, which looks like a patterned bracelet...something..."

"...Then did you see a man or a woman?"

"It should... be a man."

"That's right, I like to wear things like silver ornaments on my body, and I still live in the Dragon King River. It seems that he is the one... There is indeed a Dragon King in our mountain, but few people have seen him. He He also doesn't like to show his face in front of people, even us cockroaches have hardly seen his true face."

"Lord Dragon?"

When Fan Xi said this, Jin Suoyang suddenly remembered the oil painting that the county magistrate Shi said in Dongshan County that he had never dared to finish, and the aged Fan Xi felt his doubts, and followed suit. head replied,

"That's right, the dragon kings who have transformed from snakes to dragons, and then from dragons to dragons, they naturally like shiny things, they like to be clean, and although they have bad tempers, they are emotional and tolerant towards people... But I heard that few people can do it anymore. I saw it in a normal river outside... As the old saying goes, if an ordinary person sees a dragon in the river, his family will soon be blessed with great wealth, so a dragon is also equivalent to a river god in a region, but as part of the management of human order They are demigods, but they cannot be easily known by others, otherwise they will bring disaster to themselves..."

"Why did he bring trouble on himself?"

"Because no matter whether a person is a god or a ghost, there are bad habits of greed or greed. Everything on the Dragon King is priceless treasure, which is easy to be missed by others. On the other hand, longevity is one of the characteristics of dragons. But once a person stays on land for a long time and never returns to the river, he will die of old age, so the dragon god doesn't like to stay in the world for various reasons, and he can't show his face in front of humans casually. This is our local A secret I know well..."

"..."

"So even if you saw him, don't tell anyone other than me, otherwise... it would be bad if you offended the gods, but since the Dragon Lord chose to come forward to save you this time, it means that you have nothing to do with that rooster. He may be planning to intervene in the catastrophe between Lang, so you should stay here with peace of mind during this period of time. Even if the Dragon King does not protect you, Fan Village, where I live, is not just a few crazy old people. Where kids break in."

"...Well, thank you."

These unheard of things made Jin Suoyang frown in surprise for a while, but he still nodded earnestly with Fan Xi's advice in mind, probably because he could see that the white-haired young man really had no bad intentions. It was indeed more straightforward, Fan Xi, who was sitting in front of him, thought about it and added with a smile,

"But to be honest, besides our kind Dragon Lord, you have to thank another person..."

"Ok?"

"If Yang Hua's father hadn't just returned home for the holiday last night, we might not have taken the initiative to take in a living person of unknown origin..."

"..."

"You had already passed out at that time, and you probably didn't know that he saved you. The money for helping find the barefoot doctor last night was actually paid by Yang Hua's father for you, and it was he who brought you from the river to him himself. I came back... Oh, so I said, my family's Abao was too naughty to pick up such a precious thing from you, we should have apologized to you..."

Noticed that "Yanghua's father" appeared frequently in Fan Xi's mouth from the beginning. Jin Suoyang, who was not familiar with the local dialect, didn't quite understand it at first, but now he had to follow after he understood it. I'm obsessed with this other 'savior'.

And from the lines in the old lady's words, it can be inferred that Yang Hua's father should also live in a certain family in Fan Village. After successfully being rescued from the river, Jin Suoyang, who had a vague feeling that he might have found another key person who directly witnessed the Gongjilang incident last night, thought about it and asked hesitantly,

"So that Yang Hua's father who helped save me by the river and paid for my medical bills...does he actually live near here?"

"That's right, his house is behind the dry well of our house, the small wooden building with the old swallow's nest in front of the door... You will definitely have a chance to see him in the future, he usually takes a daughter with him He lives in our village, but he is a living person just like you, and he usually makes a living by touching river beads by the river. Most of the other people in our village really didn’t like living people coming in, but since more than 20 years ago, After Yang Hua's father came, he not only helped to wire the house, but also took everyone to clean up the river and plant the land. Everyone felt that people are good, and gradually they began to get used to getting along with people..."

"...Is he a living person? And he has been here for almost twenty years?"

Maybe it was because I didn't expect to meet a living person like myself around Fan Village, where there seemed to be no normal people everywhere. From the age, I guessed that it was an old senior who was obviously old, so the whole person Jin Suoyang was stunned for a moment, thought for a while, and chose to continue to question Fan Xi, which was very rare.

And hearing him ask himself this, Fan Xi, who also squinted his eyes and recalled carefully, the tentacles on the top of his head and brown eyes also glowed with light.

"That's right, he looked very young when he came here. I remember that the ID card he left at Fan Peng's house for household registration seemed to say...he was born in 1986... I don't know if I remember correctly, The name should be two Chinese characters that I have never seen before, but everyone has been used to it for so many years, just Yang Hua’s father, Yang Hua’s father called him this way... It’s just that my old woman can’t read Chinese characters clearly, so I don’t know it until now. Know how to pronounce the two characters of his name, and what does it mean..."

"..."

Having said that, Fan Xi also casually picked up a piece of soft firewood from the firewood pile and pinched it on his ant's feet. After raising his head and thinking for a while, the aged gnat and horse came under Jin Suoyang's suspicious gaze. , bent down and slowly wrote these two crooked Chinese characters on the ground, but inexplicably giving people a special feeling.

【Gentiana. 】

The author has something to say: ①Basically from the "Shan Hai Jing", I edited it myself, and added some folk stories about the origin of ants in our local dialect. Baidu is not used, because in this article, apart from the origin of the surname, I wrote Most of the things are not even available on Baidu haha