As soon as Brother Yaozi said this, the few people who were laughing in the tent immediately fell silent.
We were originally still secretly celebrating the hard-won opportunity to rest, but suddenly this happened. We looked at each other in bewilderment for a while, and felt somewhat uneasy.
"I say, one moment they are sure it is a person, and the next moment they say it is not a person, is it really a person?"
Lao Bai muttered in a low voice. There was only a layer of rags blocking the way, so there was no need to think too much about the sound insulation, but the doubt on his face was clear: "Can you have better eyesight than Mr. Zhang and Xinya? Who are these two? You are just a mud leg, a bandit in the old society, don't be a seduce the army here."
Brother Yaozi took a deep breath, and rarely argued with Lao Bai, and only said: "In terms of eyesight, I am definitely not as good as them, but I, Yaozi, came from the underworld, and I can still see the difference between eyebrows and eyes. Anyway, I feel something is wrong. Let's talk about it again. Even if Eryatou and my uncle have good eyesight, there will always be times when they make mistakes. Don't forget that Jingzhe has something on him that they can't see where it is!"
When he said these words, his brows were furrowed, and his hand holding the Nepalese army knife tightened and loosened from time to time. It was obvious that he was nervous and had a strong desire to attack, and he was constantly restraining himself.
Seeing that he did not seem to be pretending, my master pondered for a moment and asked: "These people are already very pitiful. It can be seen that they should have really survived the Japanese invasion of China. It is not easy to survive. Without real evidence, it is better for us not to use weapons rashly!"
"Don't worry, uncle. Although I am a gangster, I am not a person who kills innocent people indiscriminately. I know it in my heart."
Brother Yaozi gritted his teeth and said in a low voice: "Since you want to know the truth, I will show you!"
After that, he quietly touched the side of the tent and lifted the rag slightly upward with the Nepalese army knife.
What came into our eyes was a pair of severely twisted and somewhat festering feet.
This foot was obviously just bound.
People nowadays probably have no impression of foot binding, a bad custom in the old society, but I heard from my grandmother that this kind of work is completely cruel to women. When women are seven or eight years old, their feet are tightly bound. When they grow up, their foot bones will be completely deformed. Some girls have early foot development. In order to achieve the so-called "three-inch golden lotus" effect, their foot bones will even be broken alive. Some girls can't stand it and will secretly untie the foot binding cloth. There is almost blood pus in the gaps between their fingers, which are already smelly. Sometimes the blood will penetrate the foot binding cloth.
The feet in front of me are obviously not long after being bound. Blood stains can still be seen on the outside of the dirty foot binding cloth.
I have some impression of the owner of these feet. She is a little girl sitting in a daze between two tents. Her facial features are delicate, but she is too dirty and her clothes are very tattered, just like Huang Bo sitting at the head of the village and smiling foolishly in "Bullfighting".
In order to avoid being discovered, Brother Yaozi quickly put down the rag curtain and whispered, "You all saw it, right?"
"So that's what you're talking about?"
Zhang Xinya frowned and said, "It's true that foot binding has long ceased to exist outside, but don't forget that these people fled here during the old society and have not had contact with the outside world for decades. They still have the old society's ideas in their heads. The morbid aesthetic of three-inch golden lotus has not been corrected. It's normal for children here to still have bound feet."
"It's not this, it's... that pair of shoes!"
Brother Yaozi whispered, "Women with bound feet can't wear normal shoes. They can only wear shoes with small feet, or shoes that expose the instep, but... didn't you notice that the girl's shoes were too old? They were so rotten that they were obviously worn for decades. The soles were worn out several times, and they were pressed and sewn with cloth... If she really had just had her feet bound, she should have worn these shoes for only a few days!!"
"You mean, this girl didn't just have her feet bound?"
My master thought for a moment and understood what Brother Yaozi was talking about: "You suspect... that the people in this village ate black mustard seeds and turned into Shiyi?! This girl looks young, but she has actually lived for eighty or ninety years, because when swallowing black mustard seeds, everything on her body will instantly stop, including wounds, age, appearance, etc.!"
"Yes, yes, that's what I mean!"
Brother Yaozi scratched his head: "You also said that the Water King chooses his concubines once every hundred years, but it takes a long time for a dragon lady to give birth, and some may take decades. If there is really a Water King here, there may be more than one dragon lady. If we can capture them, they may be able to catch them too!!"
"That doesn't make sense. Did you drop a dragon lady to death and leave a psychological shadow? All you think about is Shiyi."
Lao Bai curled his lips and said, "These people have been trapped here for many years. They are using only the things they brought in before. Besides, how much belongings could ordinary people in the old society have? They only have a few pots and pans and a few rags. Where can you expect this girl to find new shoes? Maybe she is wearing what her mother left behind!"
This makes sense.
Brother Yaozi glared, sat down on the ground, spread his hands and said, "Oh, I can't explain it, but I just feel something is wrong. I feel uneasy and uncomfortable all over. Everything seems reasonable, but there is something wrong. I have had this feeling before, and every time something fatal happened, such as... when I was a child."
Everyone knows Brother Yaozi's past. When he mentions his childhood, he must be talking about the time when his head was chopped off.
Now, even Lao Bai is not mean.
"This is a serious matter. We should be careful."
My master finally made this decision.
If there were a bunch of big zongzi or ghosts in front of us, we would have killed them if they dared to kill us. But now it is different. There are 20 or 30 people in front of us. They are all human beings. We are not bandits who kill without blinking an eye. It is impossible for us to kill them just because of Brother Yaozi's unreliable judgment, right?
For a while, none of us had the mood to laugh and laugh. We sat in the tent with sad faces.
Not long after, there was a faint fragrance from outside.
I could smell it, it was the smell of barbecue.
Although I didn't feel hungry after eating Long Po Niang, I hadn't eaten anything hot for several days, and this fragrance still aroused my greed.
A middle-aged woman in her thirties or forties lifted the curtain and came in. Behind her followed a dirty little boy, who looked about twelve or thirteen years old, which was a lively age, but the child had no expression on his face and followed his mother closely.
The middle-aged woman was holding a bumpy porcelain plate with a few black roasted fish in it. She put the plate in front of us and said with a smile: "My mother-in-law said that you must have been hungry for a long time. We don't have anything delicious here. You can eat this to fill your stomach first."
Lao Bai had been swallowing his saliva when he saw the roasted fish on the plate. However, when I saw the steam coming out of the fish, a flash of inspiration flashed through my mind, but there was no abnormality on my face. I just smiled and asked: "Sister-in-law, what do you use to make fire and cook? Moreover, I see that the roasted fish is sprinkled with salt. Do you still have salt?"
"Hey, although there is no sunlight here, there are all the necessary things."
The middle-aged woman smiled and said: "Not far from us, there is a strange forest. I don't know what kind of plants they are. They are like vines. They can survive without light and bloom and bear fruit every now and then. We saw that the thing was dry, so we broke it back and used it as firewood.
After passing the forest and walking a little further, there are all kinds of strange stones. There are even mountain salts in the cracks of those stones. We live on these things.
You guys try it quickly. It's definitely not as good as outside, but at least it's enough to eat. "
Her answer seemed to be without any omissions, but it sounded a little different to me.
The conditions here are simple, just like camping. When we came here, we didn't find any stoves. If we want to make a fire, we can only make it on the ground.
There are 20 or 30 people. Cooking with fire is indispensable every day, not to mention heating. Over the years, black marks will definitely be left on the ground.
However, when I came here, I roughly looked here, and there was no trace of burning at all!
At first, I thought they had been living a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood, but now suddenly there are roasted fish. Isn't this strange?
I kind of agree with Brother Yaozi's opinion. I didn't dare to touch those fish at all, but if I say that I will turn my face because of this discovery, I really can't do it.
My master and his men probably wouldn't do it just because of this. When it comes to killing people, it's better to make a thousand mistakes than to kill one in vain! !
My mind was spinning fast, thinking about what to do. Seeing the woman saying a few words and preparing to leave, my eyes just fell on the child.
If...
If I really want to confirm whether these people are Shi Yi, I'm afraid... there is only one way!
In a flash, I had an idea. I laughed at the woman, immediately picked up a grilled fish from the plate, and handed it directly to the child: "Here, have one!"
The child immediately stepped back a little, and a trace of disgust flashed in his eyes.
I pretended not to see it, thinking that the child was a little shy, and directly reached out to pull the child.
The child immediately stepped back, but my hand was faster, grabbing the child's waistband, but I used a lot of force in my hand, pulling it hard, and I was determined to tear his clothes.
If he was a human, we could be completely relieved. It was just an accident, and the child would not be hurt. We could laugh it off afterwards, and everyone would be fine. There would be no conflict. After all, I gave the child food out of "good intentions"...
I was calculating in my mind, and my hands were not vague at all. The child's clothes were torn and tattered, and had long been rubbish. How could they withstand such violent pulling? With a "swish", the waistband of the pants was immediately torn to pieces by me.
The pants in the old society were very large, and the waistband was torn by me. The boy's pants immediately fell down with a "crash"...
Below... bare!!!