In the 1960s, Xiao Xu, a Shanghai Zhiqing who had just turned 16, and several companions came to Guizhou to join the team and settled in a village in the Chishui and Xishui areas of northern Qianbei. It bordered Sichuan, which at that time still maintained its original style, and the rolling mountains were covered with wild forests, and the mountains were green and the river was clear, like a picture.
This natural environment makes Xiao Xu both excited and uneasy. The excitement was because Xiao Xu from the big city had never seen such a beautiful and spectacular scenery, and what was uneasy was that he would live in this wild desolate place in the future, and what kind of hardships and hardships he would encounter were difficult to predict.
After a period of adaptation, Xiao Xu and they integrated into the local life, working with the villagers and working in the fields. Because the intellectuals are from big cities and have a lot of knowledge, the villagers like to listen to them tell new things outside the mountains, so they get along more harmoniously.
At that time, the team planted a lot of sweet potatoes, and when summer came, the sweet potatoes were ripe, but the farmers' troubles also came, because there were many wild boars in the mountains, and they would come to spoil the sweet potato fields. During the day, everyone was working in the field, and the wild boar did not dare to come near, and at night, the wild boar came in droves. In order to drive away the wild boars, the production team sent young and middle-aged men from the village to take turns to keep vigil in the fields, and on this day it was Xiao Xu's turn. This was the first time that Xiao Xu had kept vigil alone in the wilderness surrounded by mountains, and he was a little nervous, because there were tigers and leopards and other beasts in the mountains at that time, and people and animals were often killed.
The villagers knew that Xiao Xu was afraid, so they told him not to be afraid, there were no tigers and leopards in the mountains near their village, because they had the protection of the mountain gods, and those beasts did not dare to come.
At that time, it was a revolutionary era that vigorously destroyed the "four olds", Xiao Xu grew up in the background of such an era, was a complete atheist, he did not believe in any gods and ghosts at all, so he thought that the so-called mountain gods were just the foolish superstitions of the villagers, how could they protect them? So he was fully prepared for the danger he might encounter, and when he went to the vigil, he took one of the fiercest dogs in the village, that is, a subordinate dog, which seemed to be unassuming, but could bite off a person's arm. He also inserted a sharp military thorn in his waist, which was the bayonet on the Japanese three-eight rifle, which was given to him for self-defense by an elder in the family who had fought in a war when he came to Guizhou, and the elder also gave Xiao Xu a military compass.
After a night of nothing, Xiao Xu completed his first vigil mission. After that, he kept vigil many times, and he never encountered a beast except for wild boars, foxes, and badgers. Gradually, he also found that no one in their village had indeed been attacked by a fierce beast, nor had he ever heard of a tiger or leopard breaking into the village to devour livestock, he believed that what the villagers said was true, there were no tigers here, of course, he did not think that this was related to the mountain god or anything, he felt that it was just that the territory of the tiger and leopard was not in this area, as to why there was no tiger and leopard here, he did not think about it.
In front of their village is a river with clear water, and beyond the river is a large area of primeval forest. But the villagers usually only pick some wild fruits and fungi at the edge of the forest, never go deeper, they say that there are miasmas and ghosts in the forest, they can't get out when they go in, only experienced hunters and medicine collectors dare to go in, but there are often people who encounter accidents. Therefore, although Xiao Xu was full of curiosity about the mysterious forest, they never dared to cross the thunder pool.
There is an old hunter in the village named Yang, his name is very strange, called Yang Serve, Xiao Xu has always called him Old Yang. Old Yang was more than fifty years old at that time, was a well-known hunter, when he was very young, he went into the mountains with adults to hunt, hundreds of miles of mountains and forests, he traveled all over, every mountain, every forest, he was familiar with. Xiao Xu likes to listen to Lao Yang tell the story of hunting, three days two ends to his home, Xiao Xu every time he visits his relatives back, he will always bring some milk sugar, chocolate and other rare things that are not available in the mountains to Lao Yang's grandson, Xiao Xu gave Lao Yang a gasoline lighter, and is regarded as a treasure by Lao Yang, hiding in the pocket of the chest all day, and taking it out when smoking dry cigarettes. In this way, the two became friends for a long time.
The old Yang family has been hunting for a living for generations, and the previous generations are good hunters who are famous for fighting tigers. Xiao Xu had seen a very large tiger tooth at his house, long and sharp, like a dagger, and Lao Yang said that this was the teeth of a big tiger that his grandfather had hit, and this tiger had more than four hundred pounds. At that time, this giant tiger ran rampant in several counties, biting and injuring many people, and several counties jointly recruited hunters to fight tigers, but these hunters not only failed to kill the tigers, but also killed and injured several people. In the end, Lao Yang's grandfather went out on horseback and circled this fierce tiger in the mountains for more than a month, and finally used their family's ancestral unique skills to eliminate this evil tiger. Afterwards, the county grandfather specially inscribed a plaque for his grandfather to show recognition, and this plaque was handed over after liberation.
Xiao Xu had always wanted to go into the forest to see, and once, he finally spoke to Old Yang, hoping that Old Yang could take him in when he was hunting. At first, Lao Yang hesitated, but later agreed, but asked Xiao Xu to follow him closely after entering the forest, and never pull away.
In this way, Lao Yang took Xiao Xu into the forest early the next morning. The forest is very dark, the ground is thick foliage, walking on it is like stepping on cotton, when the weather is clear, the sun shines through the dense canopy, the visibility in the forest is better, if it is cloudy, it is even darker, it is difficult to discern the direction.
They walked for half a day, and at about noon, the two came to a mountain pass, which was a particularly deep forest, Xiao Xu wanted to go in to see, but was drunk by Old Yang. He told Xiao Xu that this forest must not enter, and Xiao Xu asked why? Old Yang said that the mountain god lived in it, and if he disturbed him, there would be great trouble. Xiao Xu smiled and said, "There are any gods and immortals in the world, they are all nonsense." Old Yang listened to the shock and quickly interrupted Xiao Xu, warning him not to say anything blindly, while pulling Xiao Xu away from there in a hurry. Xiao Xu didn't say anything in his mouth, but in his heart he was still laughing at the superstitious thoughts of these peasants. Just thinking, he inadvertently glanced at the compass on his wrist and realized that it had failed! Only then did he realize that this mountain pass was indeed a little strange. On this day, they hit a few pheasants, picked a large pocket of mushrooms, and returned to the village before dusk. Lao Yang gave Xiao Xu a fat and large pheasant and asked him and the Zhiqing to fight tooth sacrifices, and at the same time, he once again specifically instructed him not to enter the mountain pass in the future.
Old Yang hunted and relied on a set of ancestral secret skills, including a spell, a musket, an iron bow and crossbow, and various rope-playing techniques. Because xiao Xu and Lao Yang's relationship was very close, Lao Yang even let Xiao Xu read the spell written on the yellow paper, but Xiao Xu didn't know any of the words on it. He asked Lao Yang, do you understand what is written on it? Lao Yang said that he did not know those words, but he knew what they meant, because this was passed down from generation to generation, but the content of it must not be said to outsiders, only passed on to his son, otherwise the family would suffer. Xiao Xu didn't ask when he heard it, but he felt in his heart that this was superstition, that is, a deceptive trick for making things up.
In the autumn of that year, a vicious leopard appeared in a neighboring county, often injuring the livestock of the production team, and a few days ago, a sheep herding child was seriously injured, thanks to the nearby villagers passing by to save their lives. This leopard made people panic, everyone did not dare to go to the ground to work, people wanted to get rid of this scourge, but it was very cunning, whether it was set or poisoned, it did not take the bait, helplessly, the production team sent people over the mountains and mountains, rushed to Xiao Xu's village, asked Lao Yang to help them remove the harm, Lao Yang gladly agreed. After Xiao Xu heard about it, he also wanted to go with it, but Old Yang hesitated. He said to Xiao Xu: "Baby, this life is not fun, it is not a lively, very dangerous mile, you go, I am afraid of hurting you!" However, Xiao Xu repeatedly insisted on going, and Old Yang had no choice but to agree, but he repeatedly dinged, and when he saw the leopard, he must not panic, and how to act must obey his command.
After they rushed to the place where the leopards were infested, Old Yang first took Xiao Xu to survey the surrounding area for a day, and the next day, he began to act. He first chose a clearing in the forest and asked Xiao Xu to dig a pit with him, which was more than two meters deep. The soil layer in Guizhou was very thin, the ground was full of stones, and it took a whole day to dig this pit, and the two were exhausted. After going back, Lao Yang made a mechanism with a rope noose and bamboo, this rope noose is knotted in a special method passed down by the old Yang family, as long as the animal's claws are extended into the rope noose, and then retracted, it will be tightened, like wearing handcuffs, the animal will try to struggle when it finds that the claws are trapped, so it will touch the mechanism, the bamboo bullets, the rope connecting the rope noose is tightened, so the animal's claws are tightly pulled and cannot move. Early on the third day, Lao Yang found a very thick wooden plank and asked the village carpenter to dig a hole thicker than his arm in it. Then he and Xiao Xu led a sheep, carried the mechanism, carried the wooden plank to the edge of the pit, first drove the sheep into the pit, then firmly fixed the mechanism to the pit wall, and finally covered the wooden board on the pit, and then crucified the wooden board with the big iron nails of the rural house. When Lao Yang did all this, there were words in his mouth, and Xiao Xu knew that he was chanting the incantation, and he couldn't help but want to laugh, but he held back.
After the trap was set, Lao Yang retreated with Xiao Xu to a high slope in the distance, hiding behind a boulder, and he smeared the two people with the bird droppings he had prepared in advance to cover up the smell of people, and then began a long wait.
The sheep in the pit seemed to feel danger and kept wailing. Time was slowly flowing, seeing that the sun was already west, and there was no leopard to appear, Xiao Xu was a little anxious, but Old Xu signaled him to be quiet and not to move. At this moment, the sheep suddenly stopped barking, Xiao Xu was a little surprised, only to see Old Xu pointing to the forest path in front of him, Xiao Xu stared at it, only to see a colorful leopard appear! It was very cautious, stopping after two steps, raising its head to sniff the air, and constantly turning its ears to listen to the movement around it. Gradually, the leopard approached, it went to the wooden board covered with the hole, and soon the leopard found the sheep inside, it seemed to be very hungry, it seemed very anxious, the leopard turned back and forth on the board a few times, and then used its claws to probe the opening of the hole a few times, and then it slammed its claws into the hole to pick up the sheep, but its claws just reached in, and suddenly jumped backwards, but did not jump away, but suddenly lay on the board. Apparently, the leopard had touched the mechanism, its claws were pulled by the rope, and its body was dragged tightly against the plank, and although it struggled desperately, it was useless.
At this time, Lao Yang took up his musket, came out from behind the boulder, and walked toward the leopard, with Xiao Xu following closely behind him. When the leopard saw them, it immediately roared fiercely, its eyes glowing green, its teeth sharp, its bloody mouth open, and its maddening roar. Old Yang chanted the incantation while raising his gun to aim, and with a gunshot, the leopard was killed.
After the wounded leopard was removed, the members of the production team were very happy, and they finally breathed a sigh of relief, and they could work and herd sheep in the field with confidence. The village branch secretary took out the good wine that had been treasured for many years, personally invited Lao Yang and Xiao Xu, and during the banquet, the accountant of the production team who wrote a good handwritten word wrote four big characters on a big red paper, "Eliminating Harm for the People", and gave it to Lao Yang.
After Xiao Xu followed Lao Yang on hunting many times, he became more and more familiar with the mountainous terrain in this area, and his courage became bigger and bigger. But one thing that had always stimulated his curiosity was that the mysterious mountain pass where the mountain god lived was always attracting him, and he wanted to find out. One day, he told this idea to a few of his fellow intellectuals who had come to join the queue. Everyone is a flesh-and-blood young man, and they don't believe in any ghosts and gods, and when they listen to Xiao Xuyi, they are all energetic, and they want to take an adventure.
Xiao Xu knew that this matter could not be known to the villagers, so several Zhiqing quietly made preparations, and each of them hid a very sharpened wooden knife. They picked a sunny day and went into the woods early in the morning. Xiao Xu was already very familiar with there, and he led everyone to hurry up, and in less than half a day, he came to the mountain pass. Xiao Xu knew that the compass was useless there, so as soon as he entered, he used military thorns to make a notch on the trees along the way, and when he returned, as long as he followed the notch, he would not get lost. While making marks, he led everyone to the depths of the mountain pass. The forest here is dark and particularly dense, and the ground is a thick layer of humus, which will leave a clear footprint when you step on it.
Walking along, Xiao Xu suddenly saw that there were several large footprints on the ground, this kind of footprints, not like those of tigers and leopards, nor herbivores, looked very much like the footprints of bears, but these footprints were too big, was there such a huge bear here? Xiao Xu muttered a little. The further you go, the more big footprints there are, and it seems that there are several big bears in this forest. Xiao Xu beckoned everyone to be careful, there were bears nearby, and everyone was nervous when they listened, and they gathered their spirits and prepared to deal with the bears that might suddenly appear.
Xiao Xu walked in the front, every few trees, he wanted to use the military thorn to carve, came to a tree where the two people hugged thick, he held up the military thorn just to carve, but found that there were deep paw prints on the trunk, the position of the paw prints was as high as five or six meters, and then looked down, there were the footprints of the big bear paw under the tree. Xiao Xu couldn't help but be secretly shocked, which showed that this bear stood up five or six meters high! What kind of bear is this? Xiao Xu has seen northeast brown bears and polar bears in Shanghai's Western Suburbs Park, but it is not so big, is there a super giant bear hidden in the forest of Guizhou?
Seeing that Xiao Xu was a little stunned, everyone gathered under the tree, looked at the paw prints, and the young people looked at each other. Suddenly, a Zhiqing found some hairs on the ground, picked it up and looked at it, the hair was gray-black, flat, thick and hard, Xiao Xu looked at it, and felt that this was simply not hair, but a slender scale. At this time, everyone felt a little scared, and felt that they could not go inside anymore, if they really met that terrible bear, they would be dead, so Xiao Xu decided to go back. However, just as he was about to turn around, he heard a low roar coming from the depths of the forest, like rolling thunder, directly hitting the hearts of everyone, and several people involuntarily weakened their legs and could not take a step. Xiao Xu followed Lao Yang hunting, many times close to the tiger's whistle, he can be sure that this is not a tiger, is this the sound of the big bear, but the bear's cry does not seem to be like this! Immediately after, there were heavy footsteps inside, and the dead branches and rotten leaves on the ground were shaken slightly. Everyone was frightened, fortunately, after Xiao Xu followed Lao Yang many times of hunting, he had already tempered his courage, at this time he did not panic, and used gestures to direct everyone to hide behind the tree, the trees here are thousands of years of giant trees, completely able to block people.
The footsteps gradually approached, and soon, more than thirty meters ahead, a huge figure appeared in the dark woods, looking like a bear walking upright. Xiao Xu hid behind a large tree, he fixed his eyes on it, and couldn't help but take a breath of cold air. I saw that the bear's body was huge, and the claws on the two forefoots were long and curved, like iron hooks. Xiao Xu had seen the forefoot of a brown bear in the zoo, and although it also had long claws, it was far from being comparable to this bear.
The bear was getting closer and closer, and although Xiao Xu was very frightened, he still tried to keep calm, and he found that the bear looked a little strange, because its head was too small compared to its huge body, and the brown bear he had seen before had a big head.
At this time, the giant bear was only more than ten meters away from him, Xiao Xu saw his eyes that were glowing yellow-green light, and also saw that it had two exposed fangs, especially to Xiao Xu's shock, it was this bear's mouth that stretched out a long, blood-red tongue, rolling around like a snake's letter. Xiao Xu was already desperate at this time, he was cold, and he was holding the military thorn tightly in his hand, ready to go up and fight when the giant bear found him. Fortunately, they were in the downwind at the time, the giant bear did not smell their breath, and the bear's eyesight did not seem to be very good, so it did not find them, only to see it scratch a few times on a tree with its claws, and then turned around as if to walk away. Just when Xiao Xu felt that he could escape the disaster, the bear suddenly turned back and issued a huge roar towards their hiding place, Xiao Xu felt that his ears were almost deafened, followed by a wave of air, blowing the leaves down.
Just when Xiao Xu thought that he would undoubtedly die, the giant bear left after roaring. Its heavy footsteps faded away until there was no movement. Xiao Xu ran out from behind the tree, only to see that the few Zhiqing were all blue in the face, trembling and unable to speak. Xiao Xu fixed his mind, immediately led everyone, looking for the mark left when he came in, and crawled out of this terrible mountain pass with a rolling belt, everyone gasped for half a day before regaining consciousness, in order not to let the villagers see the clues, they forced themselves to calm down and returned to the Zhiqing station.
This night, Xiao Xu couldn't sleep, the terrible scene of the day had been haunting his eyes, what kind of bear did he encounter? How can it be so huge, so fierce? He vaguely felt that it might not be a bear, but an animal he did not know, and if so, what kind of animal was it? Moreover, Xiao Xu felt that the animals had probably already discovered them, otherwise, how could they roar at them? But if they were discovered, why didn't the animals attack? These two questions later plagued him all his life, but he never got an answer.
After this adventure, Xiao Xu has a new understanding of the villagers' legends about the mountain gods, he realized that this is not superstition, but a reflection of the real phenomenon, those giant bears in the mountain pass, that is, the mountain gods, it is because of their existence, the tiger and leopard will be far away from this place, the production and life of the local villagers will not be threatened by the beast, in this sense, those bears are their protective gods.
Xiao Xu no longer thought that Lao Yang's ancestral spells were superstitious wastes that fooled people, he felt that this spell was probably a hunting secret recorded with some special symbol, including the local mountain and river geography map, as well as the methods and techniques for dealing with various prey, otherwise, how could Lao Yang know all about the labyrinth-like terrain around hundreds of miles? Where did he learn his mastery of making various organs? How could he have understood the habits and behavioral characteristics of various animals so clearly? The answer to all this should be in that spell.
In 1979, Xiao Xu ended more than ten years of team life, and returned to Shanghai, and later in the small talk with friends, he also mentioned his encounter many times, but everyone felt that Xiao Xu was overly frightened and dim light in the forest, resulting in visual deviations, and even hallucinations, he should see an ordinary black bear, but Xiao Xu insisted that although he was afraid, he was sober and would never be wrong. Only one middle school biology teacher listened to Xiao Xu's narration and put forward a different view, he felt that if Xiao Xu was not mistaken, the animal might be a land sloth, it was a giant beast that even saber-toothed tigers were afraid of, and the tiger and leopard naturally did not dare to come to its territory to move around, which coincided with xiao Xu's situation where there were no tigers and leopards around their village. However, what the teacher could not explain was that the earth sloth lived in the Americas, and it was extinct ten thousand years ago, and there was no such animal in the history of Asia, if that animal was really a land sloth, how did they run to the forests of Guizhou?
As he grew older, Xiao Xu's insight became more and more extensive, and as a result, he had more and more questions about what he saw when he joined the queue. When he first saw the tiger teeth as long as a dagger in Lao Yang's home, he was only amazed that the tiger's teeth were too powerful, but then he felt that something was wrong, the tiger's canine teeth were generally about 15 centimeters, but the tiger teeth were almost twice the length of this, even if Lao Yang said that the tiger had more than four hundred pounds, but even the tiger of this size did not have such long canine teeth, so he judged that the tiger was a tiger species that was still unknown. In fact, according to historical records, there have indeed been many strange tigers in the history of Guizhou that have now disappeared.
According to the "Zunyi Fu Zhi", "There are many tigers in Zunyi Province, and there are four kinds. The zebra tiger and the Changhu tiger have the same literary quality; the yellow-haired tiger has no black text and is particularly vicious; the coated tiger has a long coat like a coat, and the sword and arrow cannot enter; and the Zhuhu is the most vicious, eating thirty-seven people in two days in the village of Suiyang, and the catcher roars into the mountain, and the pawn cannot be caused, and its hair is red like orangutan felt. ”
The descriptions of these tigers are official records of local records, not literati notes and folklore, and are highly credible. Today's tiger fur is striped, but the records actually have a striped fur "spotted tiger", if this tiger really existed at that time, then it is likely to be considered to be a long-extinct dragon tiger; "no black" yellow hair tiger should be the golden tiger that can still be seen today, may also be the legendary "mountain yellow", and this "mountain yellow", is described as a long fangs, like a saber-toothed tiger; as for the long-haired tiger and the red-haired vermilion tiger, people today have never heard of it. Not to mention having seen it. Sadly, the tigers in these records have become extinct before they have been studied.
In the past few decades, the appearance of various places has undergone tremendous changes, is the original forest in the area where Xiao Xu was in the queue still there? Does the "mountain god" still live in it? Had Lao Yang's hunting spell been passed on to his children and grandchildren? Xiao Xu has always wanted to find an opportunity to see that magical land again, but unfortunately, he is usually busy with work, has not had time, he had planned to retire and then go, however, he died of illness at the age of 61, his wish was not realized, and his doubts became a mystery that was difficult to solve.
The pictures are from online public channels, the copyright belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, it will be deleted immediately