I once fished once in a deep pool in a mountain village. The scene was thrilling.
It was a small mountain village in southern Yunnan, surrounded by mountains and lush forests. In the rainy season, the dirt road that connects with the outside world becomes a dirt road, and the cars and horses are not passable. We went there to build a tobacco buying station and lived on a wooden building in a farmhouse. One day, drinking with the owner of the house, Dalin, talking about fishing, he pointed to the forest at the foot of the East Mountain outside the window and said that there was a deep pool in the forest, called shell pond, and there were big fish. But there was a black dragon in the pool, and few people dared to go fishing. Someone had seen the black dragon jump up, shatter his guts, and turn into madness. The people of the old village talked about the discoloration of the pond. Obayashi's words aroused my fishing addiction, but he tried to dissuade me. According to him, the pond has been around since his grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather. What used to be a sea is now a pool, still unfathomable. Standing at the edge of the pool, I felt the cold. There must be some monster hiding in it. He said he wouldn't lie to me and told me not to take risks.
Looking at Obayashi's serious look, I couldn't help but laugh. I cut a thinly knotted luohan bamboo next to the village, paired with a thick hook I carried with me, and brought a half-cooked red sweet potato, and in a drizzly weather, I walked alone to the east hill.
Out of the village, turn left and right in the middle of the rice field, and after an hour, you will reach the forest. The forest is littered with shell remains. 200 million years ago, it was the ancient sea of Yunnan, and these shells are not known to be left over from what era. There is a clear stream meandering out of the forest, the side of the stream is covered with grass and reeds, and the dark green moss slowly swings in the stream, and the stream flows into the rice fields on the edge of the forest.
I went up the creek to the edge of the pool. If I don't look at it, I can't help but inhale cold air when I look at it: the pool is so gloomy and miserable. It lies in a rocky hollow at the foot of the mountain, the size of a basketball court. Brown rocks hug the pool of water. The water of the pond flows out of an opening in the mountain stone and becomes a trickle of streams. There is a large banyan tree on the side of the mountain, which covers most of the pond surface. The ink of the pond is black but clear, and the black roots and stone caves in the water can be seen, and the bottom is not deep. Standing at the edge of the pool, I suddenly felt a chill attacking people. This pool is really a little scary.
I cut the sweet potatoes into one-centimeter squares, put them on a fishing hook, put a five-meter-long waterline, and threw them into the pool. But when I saw the peacock feathers floating into the water, I shook it to ten meters, and I couldn't stand up; Fifteen meters, the hook is still not finished. I couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat and feel frightened in my heart—it looked like there was no bottom. Put it again, the line is not enough, so I have to untie the lead wire pendant and catch the air hook.
After the rain passed, the sun came out. The golden light on the surface of the pool flashed, like countless golden snakes swimming. A few birdsong made the mountain forest more and more quiet, so quiet that it made people feel unusual. I squinted my eyes and looked at the slender and towering floats of red and white on the surface of the pool... After waiting for a long time, the float was still motionless. I was trying to close the line for bait, but I saw the floating slowly send it up. As soon as the rod is pumped, the feel is very heavy, and the pole tip bends and trembles sharply. Excitedly stabilizing the fishing rod, I swirled around several times, pulled out a black grunt and dragged it away from the edge of the pool to look closely, it turned out to be an old carp more than 50 centimeters long. I put the fish in a nylon net pocket and kept it in a stream. It turned out that there were really big fish in the pool, so I put on potato cubes, threw the hook into the pool, and held my breath and stared at the floating five meters away.
However, in about ten minutes, the float was submerged in the water again... Coming, I jerked up the rod, but I didn't move. Oops, the hook was probably hooked to the rock. Just as he was about to loosen the line, the line actually moved on its own and fell down in clusters. I tried to stabilize the rod, but in vain, the rod tip was quickly dragged into the water, no longer like fishing, but like tug-of-war. Fortunately, the rod was half cut and did not move. After a pause, the thread loosened, and I tightened my rod, feeling that the thread was still hanging from the water. As the line slowly draws circles in the pool, the water of the pool rises and falls, making a terrible humming sound; The water waves surged and bulged, and there were clearly huge objects rising, and the humming sound became more and more poignant, and even the branches and leaves of the big banyan tree were trembling... I suddenly realized that what was in the water was not something I had pulled up, it was rising automatically. I remembered what Obayashi said about the monster, throwing off the fishing rod like a poisonous snake, fleeing the shore of the pool quickly, and looking at the surface of the pool in horror from a high place...
The pool of water kept surging, only to hear the sound of "uproar", the water splashed, revealing a black ridge more than two meters long, I screamed in surprise - it was definitely not a fish, the ridge without fins was like a buffalo's back, swimming slowly on the surface of the water, splitting a triangular waterline. After a while, the ridge sank into the water again.
My heart beat so much that I could hear it, and I trembled as I approached the edge of the pond to watch: the fishing rod was gone, only the sunset shone on the surface of the pool, a brilliant; The pool is as flat as a mirror, as if nothing had happened...
I hurried away from this strange pool and haven't been there since. One day many years later, he met Dalin in the county seat and asked about the pond, saying that it had dried up. A few of the townspeople shot a water monster like a big four-legged snake and boiled it. Since then, the pond has dried up, and the field has become a dry field. The people in the village blamed them for killing the black dragon, and they used a hoe to settle accounts with these city people, which frightened them and ran back to the city overnight.