Don't talk about ghostly affairs at night

  The entire Republican era, hundreds of millions of people lived in a state of insecurity, unable to fill their stomachs, with thousands of miles of poverty-stricken land, and mournful cries filling the fields. They fled to the northeast, went south to Southeast Asia, and escaped through the western border. Hundreds of millions of people were displaced. War, famine, epidemics, invasion, and massacre - this is my entire memory of the Republican era, a time when smoke and fire filled the skies, and disasters brought out all sorts of ghosts and monsters that had been hiding in silence. Strange and bizarre things happened one after another, and now, looking back, I am filled with emotion. When I have nothing to do, I recall these past events with my old partner, and they have been hidden in our hearts for nearly half a century. I'm afraid no one would believe us, so we've never dared to speak out.

  As people age, they tend to reminisce about the past. This person has experienced two dynasties and believes that seeing is believing, but hearing isn't always deceiving. There are many things in this world that science can't explain. One day, under an old tree at the village entrance, I pulled out a tobacco pouch and was surrounded by mischievous kids asking me to tell stories. They said my beard was full of tales, which wasn't false. Cornered by these youngsters, I took a puff of smoke and told them the story of the Yellow Mouse's petition for a title. The story went like this...

  In 1975, when it was still a production team, I put on the old yellow cow in the team early to plow the socialist land. With the plow on my shoulder, I went down to the lake (to work in the fields) to cultivate the land. At that time, I had endless energy, and when I arrived at the field, it was still dark. I sat down and smoked a pack of cigarettes, which were made from the yellow tobacco grown by the production team itself. The smoke was very strong, and after smoking a pack, my whole body felt extremely comfortable. After finishing the cigarette, I put on the old yellow cow and swung the big whip, cracking it in the air to let the old yellow cow plow the land. Actually, I felt that the cow was like a buddy, and although the whip cracked loudly, I couldn't bear to hit it on its body.

  At this time, the sky was almost bright, and I was tilling the land. Suddenly, I saw something running from afar. I took a glance and found out that it was none other than the big yellow weasel from the wolf's den. Nowadays, yellow weasels are rarely seen, but at that time, they were everywhere. Because of their ability to cultivate themselves, those gods and goddesses who descended into the world would often invite yellow weasel spirits.

  The little yellow weasel slowly ran closer, and I saw it riding on a large rabbit. The rabbit was about the same size as a dog, with a string of horsebells around its neck. The little yellow weasel rode on the back of the big rabbit, grasping tightly with its two small paws, running towards me. My heart thought that if only I had a gun, it would be great to shoot and kill the big rabbit directly, so that everyone in the production team could drink some meat soup and celebrate the New Year. But without any tools in my hand, dealing with this cunning thing was simply wishful thinking. So I continued to plow my land.

  Just as I had plowed half of the field, I heard a shrill voice behind me say: "Big brother, big brother, do you think I look like a human or like Huang Daxian?"

  I looked back and almost burst out laughing, only to see that the yellow weasel was standing on its hind legs, holding its head with its front paws, balancing a plate of dried cow dung on top of its head, supporting it with both paws, staring at me with its two green bean-like eyes, opening its small mouth and speaking to me from behind. As soon as I saw this, I understood that the yellow weasel was trying to ask for an offering. In rural areas many years ago, people would often see a yellow weasel balancing cow dung on its head, worshiping the stars and moon. The clever yellow weasel directly asked for an offering, following behind people at night and asking, "Do I look like a human or a god?" If you say it looks like a human, it might be reborn as a person; if you say it looks like a god, it might become a god.

  I don't bother with these things, so-called foxes and white willows and gray ones. I've experienced a lot, those who have attained the Tao and become immortals, whether good or bad, are no longer something we can control. So I didn't pay attention to that yellow mouse wolf, continued to swing my cow whip, shouting at the cow to move forward. I walked in front, and the yellow mouse wolf followed behind me, saying in a sharp voice: "Big brother big brother, take a rest, look at me, do I look like a human or a god?"

  I'm fed up with the weasel's nagging, the slogan of breaking the old and establishing the new, overthrowing the cow demons and snake gods is shouted every day on the radio. I slowly let my ox run at a slower speed, watching as my whip can hit the weasel. So I raised my whip, with lightning speed, and struck the weasel with a loud crack, shouting: "You're just like your grandma's head!"

  That yellow weasel was hit by my big whip and rolled around on the ground, I was about to strike a second time when the cow dung hat on its head flew off, it ran away, jumped onto a large rabbit's back in the ditch, and disappeared into thin air. Seeing that the yellow weasel had vanished, I continued plowing without giving this matter another thought.

  In the evening, I returned home, exhausted from a day's work. After eating some wild vegetable buns, I went to sleep. Wild vegetable buns are perhaps something you haven't heard of - they're made by digging up wild vegetables in the fields, mixing them with sweet potato flour, and steaming them for food. This is still a good thing, as our great leader once said that we must grasp the issue of grain conservation tightly. We should allocate grain according to population, eat more when busy and less when idle, eat dry food when busy and half-dry, half-watery food when idle, supplementing with sweet potatoes, green vegetables, radishes, beans, and taro. This was also a helpless measure from the era of grain shortages.

  After eating, I had to move less, so digestion was slow. Listening to the radio play (at that time, we called radio "yangxi", and also "yanghuo", "yangpao", "yangyou" etc., now young people can't hear these words anymore), going to bed and sleeping until midnight, dreaming of gnawing pig's trotters, just getting excited, then hearing a sharp voice shouting: "Damn Yang Dabiao, get up for me. You ruined my good things in the morning, I won't let you go."

  At that time, I had a fiery temper. In the middle of the night, someone came to find me for no reason, so I sat up and cursed: "Which turtle grandson is idle and looking for trouble?"

  As soon as I finished speaking, I heard a cold laugh behind me. I quickly turned around and saw two bright green fireballs in the darkness, which seemed particularly dazzling. As I stared at those two balls of fire, I suddenly felt uneasy, as if I was being drawn to them and couldn't move or turn my head. At this moment, I noticed that there was a big road in front of me, and I felt a force pulling me forward, making me walk involuntarily towards the wall behind the door. Without realizing it, I picked up a rope and walked out, and when I reached the doorway, my heart suddenly skipped a beat. I thought to myself, "Could I have encountered something unclean?" As I was thinking this, another idea rose from the bottom of my heart: all these years, my old brothers had one by one passed away, and thinking about the experiences of this lifetime was like watching a play - living didn't seem to have any meaning, so why not just hang myself? But another thought stopped me from being misled. The two thoughts were suppressing each other in my mind, and before my eyes, those two ghostly fireballs continued to lead the way forward.

  My heart was in a state of turmoil, and I was on the verge of going mad. I recited a few lines of truth, and my rationality took over. I thought to myself, "You want me to die? Fine, I'll die for you." Although my eyes couldn't see, my hands could feel their way around. So, I used my hands to find the door latch and looped the rope through it. At that moment, I heard a shrill voice say: "Even if you manage to hang yourself from the door latch, you can still tie a knot and put your own neck in it."

  I heard this and thought I'd like to see what you're capable of, so I lay down on the ground and directly inserted my ankle into it. At that time, the shrill voice said: "No, no, it's the one with a head."

  It was probably the reason for its anxiety, and the two green fireballs in front of me suddenly went out. With the moonlight, I took a look, and it wasn't someone else, but that yellow weasel that I had hit earlier. It was gnashing its teeth and muttering to itself in human language. I thought to myself, "So it's you again! Today, I must give you another thrashing with my cattle whip!" So I muttered to myself: "Alright, alright, just spare your head, I'll listen to you."

  As I spoke, I reached behind the door with one hand to feel for my bullwhip, while stretching my toes into the rope with the other. Unexpectedly, that yellow weasel became even more anxious and said in a shrill voice: "No, no, not this head, it's that big head."

  I had already felt the cattle whip placed behind the door, my hand slowly preparing to exert force, and I said with a mouthful of words "Don't die, don't die, hanging yourself is still such a trouble."

  The yellow weasel child shouted in a hurry: "If you don't die, it's not good, quickly put your big head in."

  I saw the yellow weasel suddenly swing its big whip and lash out at me, cursing: "You damned thing, you think you can cheat me? You're still too inexperienced."

  With a crack of the whip, the yellow weasel let out a sharp cry and ran directly towards the outer courtyard. From then on, people who went to work early in the lower lake would hear a shrill voice crying in the area of the wolf's den, saying: "Huang Xiao Nao, anxious, anxious, all these years I've been fixing up this nest."

  I finished telling the story, and several little kids burst out laughing. I picked up my tobacco pouch and took a puff of smoke. At this point, someone said: "Grandpa, you have so many stories every day, why don't you write a book? If you write down those things, it will definitely cause a sensation."

  The person speaking was none other than the village's only university graduate, Dogzi. He too had grown up listening to my stories since he was a child. His one sentence made my heart uneasy, and I thought that if I didn't speak out now, I would have to take these things to my grave. This way, I would be letting down those brothers of mine who had passed away. So after much contemplation, I decided to write down all the past events.