This is probably the first living person we have seen since we dug up this tomb.
However, this living person puts more pressure on us than the dead!
Because this is a place where there should be no living people. According to our speculation, this underground cave stretches for hundreds of kilometers, and the only exit is near Guancen Mountain, or even the main peak of Guancen Mountain, Luya Mountain, because that is the real source of the Fen River.
Looking at this person in front of me, she is very old, with gray hair, at least 70 or 80 years old, and her physical strength is not enough to support her to walk here.
"I'll go up and ask."
I hesitated for a moment and said, "She speaks the dialect of my hometown..."
"Okay."
My master nodded and said, "Be careful, she... looks a little weird."
Brother Yaozi was probably worried that I would make a mistake, so he followed me silently with a Nepalese military knife.
"Oh my god, this bastard is killing people."
The old woman by the stream was completely panicked when she saw Brother Yaozi's shining knife. She didn't even want the bucket and turned around to run away.
Unfortunately, she was still a little old after all, so I caught up with her and stopped her: "Auntie, we are not trying to hurt you, don't run away."
The old woman probably calmed down a little after hearing that I spoke with the same accent as her. She was short and looked up at me. Her skin was sickly pale, and even her pupils were faintly white, as if covered with a layer of white beauty contact lenses. She had a strong body odor, like the smell of old oil, and her clothes were also very strange. She wore a cotton coat with a slanted collar and buttons from the old society. It was shiny and black, and I don't know how many years it hadn't been washed. There were a lot of patches on the clothes, and even so, the cotton was still exposed in many places. The shoes on her feet were also the old cotton shoes, and the shoes were very small, only the length of a palm, but the uppers were high and bulged, obviously because of foot binding.
However, this is indeed a living person, but he looks worse than a beggar, and the clothes on his body are probably worn for decades...
The old woman stared at me for a long time, and probably finally confirmed that I had no ill intentions, and breathed a sigh of relief: "This damn thing scared me to death, I thought it was the Japanese..."
She opened her mouth and closed her mouth "damn it", but this seems to be a catchphrase in our hometown, and she is quite familiar. After confirming that I am not a threat, she touched my dirty clothes with a curious look on her face: "This dress is good, the green Yinyin family, wearing it with squinting eyes, it is a good young man, but it looks like a Japanese."
My master and others saw that I was chatting happily with the old woman, and at this time they also let down their guard and came over.
Lao Bai saw that the old woman's words were interesting, and asked her with a shameless face if he was a good young man.
The old woman looked at me with squinting eyes for a long time, and said that a wide face and a big face would be fine.
Lao Bai obviously didn't like the adjective "wide face" and kept silent with a dark face.
"Why did you come here?"
The old woman talked for a long time and finally focused on the main business: "Were you also driven in by the Japanese?"
"Where did the Japanese come from?"
Zhang Xinya smiled and said: "Auntie, are you confused? The Japanese have been driven out for seventy or eighty years!"
"This damn..."
The old woman's face choked and she muttered to herself: "I have lived here for seventy or eighty years?"
I asked the old woman how old she was. She scratched her head and said that she had forgotten. There was no sun here, so she couldn't count the days...
The situation seemed a bit weird. In the eyes of the old woman, our group became weirdos. In her words, we were dressed like foreign devils. I couldn't help it, so I pulled the old woman to ask what was going on.
The old woman told me that she came here when she was very young. Her hometown is in Shenchi, which is very close to my hometown, only 34 kilometers away.
When the Japanese invaded, this area could be said to be the hardest hit area, because it is close to Guancen Mountain and between the two important military passes of Ningwu Pass and Pianguan on the Great Wall. The Eighth Route Army was extremely active and the Japanese stationed many troops here.
"I was still very young at that time, and I remember running away every day..."
The old woman sighed and said, "As soon as we heard gunshots and cannons, the whole family rushed out. A lot of ordinary people mixed together and hid in the mountains. Behind them were the Eighth Route Army. They fought with the Japanese while running, and the Japanese were chasing them at the end. When we hid in the mountains for a day or two, there were dead people everywhere. They were all the Eighth Route Army and ordinary people. It was rare to see Japanese. At that time, many families kept dogs. When people ran away, no one took care of the dogs, and they all ran out to eat the corpses. They were so chewed that they were unbearable to watch..."
Recalling these, the old woman still had a lingering fear on her face. These shadows could not be erased even by time.
Obviously, the Anti-Japanese War she witnessed was completely different from the Anti-Japanese dramas on TV. The Japanese killed people every day, and the ancestors were completely resisting with mountains of corpses and seas of blood. It was not that they turned around and fled after being beaten for eight years after the Japanese came.
The old woman also said that her mother was killed by the Japanese. Once the Japanese came suddenly, and they didn't have time to run. They broke into their house directly. It was winter at that time. The Japanese sat on the pot cover as soon as they entered the door, and said it was hot and comfortable. When they took the rice from the family before leaving, her mother hesitated for a moment and was immediately stabbed to death with a bayonet.
They came here because they really had no choice. The people in the village discussed it and went into the mountains with their families. At that time, no one could see hope. They didn't even dare to think about defeating the Japanese. They were all thinking about saving their lives. After entering Guancen Mountain, they accidentally discovered this underground cave, so they just went in and never went out again.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of food and drink here. In the place where the underground river diverts and becomes shallow, there are many fish and shrimps in the stream, and there are some edible fungi growing next to the wet stones. They survived by relying on these things.
This sounds like a fairy tale, but thinking about our struggle in despair, it seems not impossible. People always have a strong desire to survive in despair.
"This damn, he is busy talking about these things, and he hasn't asked you if you have eaten. If you haven't eaten, come to our place to eat a bite."
The old woman's face has a little more smile: "There is no war outside, I have to go back and tell them quickly, and I will definitely go outside if I can."
At this time, the guards in our hearts were also put down. After a discussion, we decided to go to the old woman's place for a short rest, mainly because we consumed too much physical strength and really needed a safe place to recuperate.
"But forget about food."
My master smiled and said: "Seeing that you are not very well-off, we will lend you a meal. We have hands and feet. We will come out to get some food and then pay you back."
"Yeah, it's up to you!"
The old woman smiled and responded, and Brother Yaozi was very perceptive and immediately helped her carry the wooden barrel.
The place where the old woman lived was not far from here. It took a few turns to get there.
In fact, this was a stranded area in the center of the underground cave. The so-called house was just four wooden sticks stuck in the ground, and then covered with rags. It was not even a tent, and it was so simple that it was outrageous.
There were about seven or eight tents like this.
After we arrived, we found that there were many children and young people here.
The old woman said that there were at least fifty or sixty families who fled here, but unfortunately many people could not survive. Some died of illness, some died of starvation, and only these seven or eight families were left. Year after year, the young men and women who survived got married. Now, these seven or eight families are almost relatives...
I roughly counted them. There were probably less than thirty people here, young and old.
Our arrival had a great impact on this small world that had been isolated from the world for decades. A group of people were full of doubts on their faces, but after the old woman gave a general idea, everyone's face was obviously filled with smiles.
Finally, the old woman arranged us into one of the tents. There was a damp and sour smell in the air. I don't know how they have lived there for decades.
"Wait a moment."
The old woman smiled and said, "I'll ask them to get some food quickly."
After that, she left in a hurry.
However, as soon as the old woman left, Brother Yaozi suddenly stood up, frowned, and said in a deep voice: "Brothers, we seem to have fallen into a pit. Something is wrong here. I think... they are not human at all!!"