Deserted Village Apartments

Chapter 3 Prologue
In many of my novels, the stories are like the circular ruins described by Borges, with neither beginning nor end, and arbitrarily intercepting a point on the story track can open a secret secret door for you, leading to Another world of imagination...

However, if we want to tell this story, we must start from the spring of this year. In the fourth issue of "Sprout" magazine this year, my novella "Desolate Village" was published.

This 2-word novel tells such a story——

The barren village first appeared in one of my novels "Ghost Inn", which is a desolate mountain village in eastern Zhejiang, located between the sea and the cemetery.But in fact I have never been to a deserted village, because this place is purely a fiction of mine.I think if it wasn't for that book signing, the barren village would only exist in my imagination forever.

The book signing of "Ghost Inn" was held in the subway bookstore. It was a cold winter night. When the signing activity was about to end, I suddenly heard a slight sound of footsteps. I looked up and found a young The girl was standing in front of me—she was wearing a large ill-fitting sweater, the hem of which almost reached her knees, her long black hair was combed into a ponytail, and she looked like a female college student.

She had a pair of beautiful eyes, and there was an indescribable feeling in her eyes.This strange girl was a bit reserved, and asked me to sign for her, saying that her name was Xiaozhi, and she came from a place called Barren Village.

She is from a deserted village?I was stunned for a moment, because the deserted village was just a fictional scene in the novel, but she told me that the deserted village did have its own land, and it was between the sea and the cemetery.Although I couldn't believe it, I was still overwhelmed by her, and her lovely eyes were like a deer lost in the dark, so I couldn't help but have a certain affection for her.In an instant, I made a decision to ask Xiaozhi to take me to a deserted village to see what the fictional places in my novels look like in reality.

After waiting for several weeks, Xiaozhi finally agreed to my request and took me on the long-distance bus to the deserted village.Xiaozhi told me that the deserted village is located in Xileng Town, K City, on the eastern coast of Zhejiang Province. Eight hundred years ago, during the Jingkang Revolution in the Song Dynasty, the adherents of the Central Plains fled to this desolate coast to settle down, and the deserted village has existed since then.Xiaozhi was born and raised in a deserted village. Two years ago, she was admitted to a prestigious university in Shanghai, and now she just goes home for winter vacation.

After traveling back and forth, Xiaozhi and I finally arrived at the deserted village, which is indeed located between the sea and the cemetery, full of miserable mountains and cliffs, and time seems to have stopped here, still stuck in the desolate age hundreds of years ago.

At the entrance of the village stands a huge stone archway, engraved with the four characters "Zhenlie Yinyang".It is said that during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, a Jinshi came out of the barren village. In order to commend his mother, the emperor granted this chastity archway.

Xiaozhi took me into a deserted village, and came to an old house with three words on the door - "Jinshidi".It turns out that this is Xiaozhi's home, and the big arch at the entrance of the village was also given to her ancestors.

The old mansion of Jinshidi is dark and forbidding. There are several courtyards inside. The entrance hall is called "Ren Ai Tang", where a scroll portrait of an ancient man hangs.There are not many people in the big old house, only Xiaozhi's father still lives in it. He is a pale and thin middle-aged man. He calls himself Mr. Ouyang and speaks in a lukewarm tone, like a zombie of.

There are naturally no hotels in a place like a barren village. After nightfall, I can only spend the night in this old house.Xiaozhi held a kerosene lamp and led me to the Erjin yard. There was a room upstairs that had been closed for a long time.

I stepped into this ancient room carefully, but was surprised to find that there was an ancient screen in the room. This is a four-leaf vermilion lacquer screen, which should be an antique before the Qing Dynasty, but what surprised me even more was the painting on the screen. content--

The first painting is a man and a woman, they look at each other reluctantly, it seems to be a scene of couples or lovers parting; the second painting is still the woman, seems to be crying, standing in front of her is a monk , handing a flute to the woman's hand; the third painting is an interior, the woman is sitting alone on the bamboo mat, holding the flute to her lips in her hand, and a three-foot white silk is hung on the beam; The fan painting shows the man at the beginning, with a red lacquered coffin lying beside him. What's more frightening is that the coffin cover is open, and the man is also holding a flute in his hand.

Looking at the paintings on these screens, I couldn't help feeling horrified. Some strange black shadows swayed on the screens, as if the men in the paintings were really about to walk out of the screens.

Xiaozhi told me the story painted on this ancient screen——

During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there lived a young couple in a barren village. The wife's name was Yanzhi.At that time, there were often Japanese pirates, and Yan Zhi's husband was forcibly conscripted into the army and forced to fight against the Japanese pirates in other provinces.Before leaving, her husband made an agreement with Yanzhi: on the Double Ninth Festival three years later, he will definitely return home to meet her. If they can't meet by then, the two of them will die together on the night of Double Ninth Festival.Three years later, the Double Ninth Festival is approaching, but there is still no news of her husband who is far away.Yan Zhi was waiting at the entrance of the village every day, when she suddenly met a wandering dervish, who gave her a flute and told her to play it on the night of Double Ninth Festival, and her husband would return as promised.On the night of Double Ninth Festival, Yanzhi blew the flute, and when the sad flute ended, her husband actually returned to the door of the house.Overjoyed, she took off the armor for her husband, and gently served him to sleep.After spending a few blissful evenings together, the husband suddenly disappeared.Soon, Yanzhi heard that her husband had already died in battle on the night of Double Ninth Festival.It turned out that on the night of the Double Ninth Festival, her husband was fighting thousands of miles away, deliberately rushing to the front of the team, and was shot to death by the enemy's random arrows.He died in battle, but in fact he died for love, fulfilling the agreement with his wife with his death.His soul flies across thousands of mountains and rivers, just to return to his hometown, a deserted village. At this moment, Yanzhi just plays the mysterious flute, and the melodious sound of the flute just guides her husband's ghost home.

After hearing this story, I couldn't help breaking out in a cold sweat.Xiaozhi left in a hurry, and I fell asleep on the wooden couch, not wanting to wake up again in the middle of the night.

In the middle of the night, I walked out of the room and found a ray of candlelight in the room next door.Suppressing the fear in my heart, I secretly looked into the next window—on an old dresser, a candle was lit, and the dim candlelight illuminated a woman in white clothes, but I couldn't see her face, only to see that she was combing her long black hair.

I immediately thought of an image from a classic horror movie, and I was so scared that my legs gave out and I had to flee to my room and spend the night curled up.

This is my first night in the deserted village.

The next day, Xiaozhi took me to look around the deserted village. It really was a poor place, with desolate mountains and black sea, which immediately reminded me of "Jamaica Inn".

Xiaozhi always has that expression, it seems that when she is never happy, she always looks at the sea in a daze.Seeing her staring at the sea, I suddenly had some kind of impulse in my heart, but I still resisted it.

In the afternoon in Xiaozhi’s room, I saw a framed photo on the desk with a black and white photo of Xiaozhi embedded in it. In the photo, she was very charming, but her eyes were slightly melancholy.

But Xiaozhi said that the person in this photo died long ago.It turned out that this was a photo of Xiaozhi's mother, and their mother and daughter looked so much alike.Xiaozhi said quietly that when she was very young, her mother died of illness, and she died of illness in the building where I live now.Her father brought her up alone, and she can only see her mother's appearance from the photos.

At twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, I suddenly heard a flute sound, which seemed to come from the mountain behind.

The sound of the flute in the dark night made my heart skip a beat, I hurried out of Jinshidi, and followed the sound of the flute to find the flute player on the mountain.

It turns out that the flute player is Xiaozhi's father, Mr. Ouyang.I was very curious about this weird behavior of running to the mountains to play the flute in the middle of the night, and the flute in his hand was also very special. He said that this flute was hundreds of years old.

I was even more surprised, presumably this flute must have a story.Sure enough, Mr. Ouyang told me that this flute is the mysterious flute played by Rouge back then, and Rouge has another version——

In a deserted village hundreds of years ago, Yanzhi blew the flute on the night of Double Ninth Festival to meet her husband's ghost.Three months later, she found out that she was pregnant.This is a miracle. The child in her womb is the seed sown after the return of her husband Hun Xi who died in the battle.People in the deserted village began to suspect that she had cheated on her, but Yanzhi insisted that she was innocent. In order to keep the child in her womb, Yanzhi suffered a lot, and she was pregnant for ten months, and finally gave birth to her son.Rouge's mother and son suffered discrimination and humiliation, and she raised the child by herself.More than ten years later, Yan Zhi finally died of overwork, but her son studied extremely hard, and later he was named on the gold list and became a student of the emperor.The story of Yanzhi spread to the emperor's ears, and the emperor was also moved by this story, so he granted a chastity archway to commend Yanzhi's virtue.

It turns out that the chastity archway at the entrance of the village is for Yanzhi, and the Jinshi Building is also built by Yanzhi's son. Mr. Ouyang and Xiaozhi are both descendants of Yanzhi—the descendants of ghosts?I didn't dare to use my imagination anymore, so I had to go back to Jinshidi alone.

Suddenly, a white shadow flashed across the yard, and her back was illuminated by the kerosene lamp. It was the woman who combed her hair next to me in the middle of the night last night.When I rushed up to grab her, I realized she was Twig.But she didn't say anything, as if she was sleepwalking, she ran away without a trace in the blink of an eye.

On the third day of my visit to the deserted village, I finally couldn't bear it anymore. I thought the trip to the deserted village would be romantic and interesting, but now it was extremely frightening.Before leaving the deserted village, I bid farewell to Mr. Ouyang and Xiaozhi, and they didn't try to keep me, but there seemed to be something hidden in their words.I looked at Xiaozhi at the gate of Jinshi University, even though we just met by chance in a few days, her lovely eyes made me feel a little sour in my heart, I didn't know what to say, I could only say decisively left the deserted village.

I finally returned to Sereng Town, but instead of going back to Shanghai immediately, I found the local cultural curator and asked him about the legend of rouge in the deserted village.The director of the cultural center told me that 20 years ago, there was an ancient tomb of the Ming Dynasty near the barren village, which was robbed by tomb robbers.It was Mr. Ouyang who reported the case at that time, and the archaeological team immediately rushed to carry out rescue excavations, and found two skeletons of a man and a woman buried in the ancient tomb, and a relatively well-preserved epitaph, which recorded the life story of the owner of the tomb.

It turned out that Yan Zhi and her husband were buried in this ancient tomb. The epitaph said: During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the southeast Japanese plague was serious, and Ouyang An, a man from a deserted village, was forcibly conscripted into the army. On the Double Ninth Festival, they must return to their hometown for reunion, otherwise they will both die in love.Three years later, the Double Ninth Festival came, and Ouyang An was still fighting thousands of miles away. He knew that he could no longer fulfill the agreement, so he decided to seek death on the battlefield to die for his love.In the battle on the night of Double Ninth Festival, Ouyang An was at the forefront of the team, and fell to the ground with several arrows in his body.But he was only seriously injured and fell into a coma, and then he came back to life. When he returned to his hometown in the deserted village a few months later, he found that his wife had hanged herself on the night of Double Ninth Festival.Ouyang An was so sad that he wanted to see his wife again, so he secretly dug up the grave and opened his wife's coffin, only to find that the body was intact and there was a flute beside him.Therefore, Ouyang An carried his wife's coffin home. Every year around the Double Ninth Festival and the Spring Festival, he would play the flute taken out of the coffin in the middle of the night.One winter night a few years later, Ouyang An blew the flute again, and his wife actually woke up from the coffin.Ouyang An was ecstatic and fed her porridge every day, which finally restored his wife's health.The resurrected wife was still young and beautiful. They lived a peaceful life and even gave birth to a son.Later, his son won the Jinshi examination and ranked among the best in the palace examination in the capital. The emperor was also moved when he heard the story, so he granted a chastity memorial archway.

After listening to this version of Rouge's story, I can hardly contain myself anymore, so is the story told by Xiaozhi and Mr. Ouyang true or false?But now the story is written on the epitaph, and graves don't lie.Suddenly, I felt that I had fallen into an abyss like Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon".

What else is hidden in Ouyang's family in the deserted village?
In an instant, I made a decision - go back to the deserted village immediately, and must unravel this secret.

On this cold winter night, when I walked back to the deserted village through the steep hillside, I suddenly heard a strange flute sound.But at this moment, nothing could stop me. I rushed to Jinshidi, and found that there was a faint light on the small building where I lived.

I rushed up immediately and walked into the house where I lived, only to find that Xiaozhi was wearing white clothes, staring blankly at the paintings on the screen.Her complexion was so pale, a pair of black eyes were staring faintly ahead, and she still looked like sleepwalking.I spoke to her loudly, but she didn't respond, and finally turned around slowly and said, "The soul is back?"

No - her voice was not Twigs'!

The dim kerosene lamp shone on her eyes and hair, as well as the white nightgown, like an ancient person walking out of a screen.

Only then did I realize that she wasn't Xiaozhi at all!
Feeling a pang of fear, I took a big step back and asked, "Who the hell are you?"

"She is Xiaozhi's mother." At some point, Mr. Ouyang appeared behind me and answered me coldly. He still held the mysterious flute in his hand and said, "You shouldn't have seen it. s things."

How is this going?I clearly remember that Xiaozhi told me that her mother died long ago.

Mr. Ouyang said quietly: "20 years ago, not long after Xiaozhi was born, I went on a business trip for a long time. When I returned home, Xiaozhi's mother had already died of illness. I was so sad that I didn't want to live alone in the In this world. Soon, the tomb of our Ouyang family ancestor was stolen, and I saw the epitaph—the story of the ancestor gave me great inspiration. I believe that as long as you follow the method recorded in the epitaph, Xiaozhi Mom will definitely come back to me. So, I often run to the mountains in the middle of the night to play this flute, do you know the magic of this flute? It can bring the person you love back to you - yes, she comes back gone."

I remembered the photo of her mother in Xiaozhi’s room again, she was exactly the same as Xiaozhi, no wonder I mistook her for Xiaozhi.At this moment, I looked at the ghost couple in front of me. The young and beautiful wife raised her head and looked at her emaciated and old husband—he loved her deeply, no matter whether she was dead or alive, even if she was a ghost and a ghost. After that, he also longed for his loved one to come home.

My heart was also sour: "Where is Xiaozhi? Where is she?"

Mr. Ouyang's eyes suddenly widened, and he pointed behind me with his finger.

The moment I was about to turn around, I heard another flute sound, and the darkness immediately covered me until I lost all feeling...

When I woke up, it was already the next morning, and I was still lying in this room, and there was no one in the huge Jinshi Hall. I searched all the rooms, and only saw a thin layer of dust. It seems that no one has lived in it for a long time.

I speculated and rushed out of Jinshidi, went straight to the head of the deserted village, and asked them about the situation of Ouyang's family.

The village chief's answer made me shudder. He said that Mr. Ouyang had died a long time ago. He died of cancer three years ago, and he died in Jinshidi.And Mr. Ouyang's wife died of illness at home when Mr. Ouyang went to work in other places 20 years ago.

As for Xiaozhi, the village chief sighed and said, "This girl is very smart and was admitted to a university in Shanghai. It's a pity that she had an accident on the subway in Shanghai a year ago, and she just passed away like this."

Hearing this, my spirit almost collapsed. If the family of three in Jinshi Dili would have died long ago—then who are the Xiaozhi and Mr. Ouyang I saw?
But I dare not tell all these things, I am afraid that the villagers will lock me up as a mental patient.I can't stay in the deserted village anymore, maybe this place just belongs to another era, the strange stories in the thread-bound books.

Xiaozhi—I thought of her softly in my heart, but my body hurriedly left the deserted village.At the entrance of the village stands the chastity archway bestowed by the emperor, like a huge tombstone.

When I returned to Shanghai, I asked a friend who worked in the subway company.He told me that in the winter of a year ago, at the subway station where I signed books, there was a major accident: when the subway train was about to enter the station, a 20-year-old female college student stumbled and fell off the platform. He was run over by a train on the spot.

The female college student's name is Ouyang Xiaozhi.

The original text is more than 2 characters long, and due to space limitations, I can only briefly introduce it.

In this rainy spring, after the publication of the novella "Desolate Village", it immediately attracted a lot of controversy, and there were also many comments on the Internet.I didn't expect so many readers and students to be deeply immersed in the world in the deserted village. It seems that there is a fulcrum in this 2-word novel, which inadvertently triggered a soft place in their hearts.

However, it is more about the readers' guesses about the place "Desolate Village".In more than a month, I received many emails, most of which asked about several unsolved mysteries in "Desolate Village", but I'm sorry that I didn't answer them one by one, because I wanted to know the answer myself at that time.

However, what I never expected was that one day in early May, some uninvited guests knocked on my door.

(End of this chapter)