Lingpeng Village.
Xiping County is a hundred miles west of the county town.
The whole village covers an area of about two square kilometers, and only twenty families live there. All twenty families make a living by herding sheep.
When we arrived here, we were greeted by the local village guard. It was the first time we saw cars coming from a big city, and so many of them came at once. The village guard was so frightened that he didn't know what to say.
The crowd was like stars over the moon, surrounding the two young men. Wherever the two young men went, guards with live ammunition followed them.
However, the village guard saw the princess of Xiping County and the county magistrate from the end of the crowd.
He vaguely knew the identities of these two people.
One should be Xun Shifei, the prime minister of the country.
And the other one is self-evident, that is Li Zhen, the president of Kyushu Academy of Sciences.
Thinking of this, the village security guard took a deep breath and even dared not take a breath.
After a moment, Li Zhen waved: "Come here."
The village guard's legs trembled like chaff, and he almost fell down several times. He walked to Li Zhen and said, "Ah..."
Li Zhen smiled, pointed at Lingpeng Village and asked, "Is there any industry in the village?"
"Ah? What industry? Industry?"
The village guardian looked confused.
At this time, Princess Qin of Xiping County quickly scolded: "Dean Li asked you, what do the people in Lingpeng Village do for a living? How do they make money?"
The village guardian thought for a long time and said: "I... this..."
Li Zhen frowned: "Is there anything inconvenient to say?"
"They, this...that. Herd sheep."
"Herding sheep?"
Li Zhen murmured, looked at the sun, and then at the bare ground: "It's still early. Why didn't you see any sheep all the way here? There aren't even sheep droppings or eggs on the ground."
The village guardian said: "It's herding sheep, it's just herding sheep."
"No crops?"
"Grow... yes, it's my family's seed."
Li Zhen saw that the village guardian was hesitant in speaking and couldn't make the main point, so his tone became cold: "Call someone who can speak clearly."
Princess Qin trembled when she heard this, and quickly scolded: "I told you to find someone who can speak eloquently. Go quickly."
The village protector trembled and almost cried: "I... I am nimble. I am the village protector, and I am nimble. Others in the village are uneducated, let alone unlucky."
Li Zhen frowned: "Let me ask you, are there no crops grown in the village?"
"I planted it. I said it was only planted in my family."
"Why is it that your family is the only one growing it? Can't other families support it?"
Li Zhen was a little angry and said something ironic.
Unexpectedly, the village guardian nodded seriously: "Yes."
As soon as he said this, the surroundings were quiet. Xun Shifei quickly asked: "What's going on with you guys? What do you mean your family is the only one growing it?"
The village guardian looked at these officials with a sad face and a worried look on his face, and said with a guilty conscience: "I can't bear to leave this family."
"What do you call this? What does it mean to be reluctant?"
"Rice seed, I need money."
"As you said, how much does rice seed cost?"
"In addition to rice seeds, cattle also cost money. Plowing the land also costs money. We also need to prevent pests and drought and floods, which all cost money."
Li Zhen was a little angry: "What kind of thinking do you have? Isn't farming just about fighting against the dryness of the sky? Only by overcoming these can we grow crops. You need money for this, and you need money for that. Why don't you just put the seeds away? Throw it in the ground and just wait for it to grow?”
The village security guard waved his hand quickly: "No, no. I mean, there are... a lot of old people in the village. The resources in the whole village are only enough for my family to farm, and other families are just herding sheep."
"What resources do you need for farming? Isn't it like your land can't grow crops?"
The village guardian looked aggrieved. He was not well educated and could not speak fluently: "I can only plow two acres of land by myself."
Everyone frowned slightly and asked someone to plow the ground? This is treating people like bullies. But it’s normal. Some people don’t have cattle and they do rely on people to plow their fields.
Li Zhen asked again: "What about others? You must be fifty years old, right? You can plow, but others can't?"
"No. There are many elderly people in our village. There are many children."
Li Zhen was stunned: "How many old people are there? How many are there?"
"All... all, except for children, I am the youngest in our village. There are thirty-two elderly people and four children in our village. Including me, there are thirty-seven people in the whole village."
"Where are the young people? Where are the laborers?"
"died."
The village guardian said calmly.
The expressions of the people around him became condensed, and the atmosphere turned cold in vain.
Li Zhen felt that the matter was not simple, and asked in a solemn voice: "Why are you dead? Are all the young people in the village dead?"
The village guardian nodded: "He is dead."
"fight?"
"no."
"How did you die if you weren't fighting?"
There was a hint of indifference in the eyes of the village protector: "Life in the city is better, so one by one went out to make a living, leaving the children and the elderly behind and never came back. It has been many years. The year before last, someone came back with a message They said some of them were dead. Then, we pretended that they were all dead."
"How did the person who brought the letter say he died?"
"Just say it's dead."
Li Zhen fell silent.
But everyone understood what the village guardian said in their hearts. There was no trace of sadness, only indifference. Therefore, this kind of 'death' should not really be dead. But he will never come back. If he doesn't come back, he is dead.
"Go and walk around the village. Anyone who is fine should stay where they are and don't disturb others."
"yes!"
Immediately, hundreds of people stayed where they were.
Only three or five high-ranking officials from Jincheng County and the princess from Xiping County followed. Including the guards, a total of more than ten or twenty people entered the village.
As soon as I entered Lingpeng Village, I clearly felt that it was different from other villages. Quiet, as quiet as death.
This doesn't look like a village on the plains at all, it almost looks like a ghost town.
On the yellow land in the distance, three children were wearing shabby adult clothes, their faces covered with snot and saliva, and they were scratching insects on the ground.
Seeing people coming from the village, the children were extremely indifferent and just watched calmly, with a look of expectation flashing in their eyes from time to time, or... a look of fear
Very complicated eyes.
Xun Shifei waved to a six-year-old baby: "Come here."
The doll glanced at Xun Shifei, got up and ran away with a groan.
The village security guard stepped forward and explained: "Erwazi is afraid of outsiders."
"Why are you afraid?"
"He thought they were outsiders who came to collect sheep. They all have feelings for the sheep they raise and don't understand the problems of living. So they are afraid that outsiders will come into the village and take the sheep away."
"Then why aren't these two afraid?"
"These are two brothers. Their sheep were sold last year."
Li Zhen frowned again: "Sold last year? Sold last year, what about this year?"
"Usually, one male and one female are kept for breeding. But last year, the grandfather of the two brothers went to the mountains to trap rabbits at night. Someone who hunted at night thought he was a wild boar and shot an arrow. After he shot the arrow, he found that it was a human and ran away at night. Then I invited a barefoot doctor from the county, treated his injuries, prolonged his life, and sold the sheep that were kept for breeding."
Xun Shifei was furious: "Have you caught that person? How can you think of him as a wild boar and shoot an arrow at him? What does the government do for food? This is already a violation of the law, why don't you arrest him?"
The village guard said with a grimace: "I reported it to the police. But his grandfather was shot by an arrow and he didn't know where he was. His mind was a little confused. I just remember that after being shot by an arrow, I heard someone say, 'I thought it was a wild boar.' He just ran away. I don’t know anything else, I don’t know what he looks like, so I can’t catch him.”
Xun Shifei sighed, touched his arms for a moment, then turned around and asked, "Is there any candy?"
sugar…
Several officials behind him touched their bodies and ran back. He ran outside the village and shouted hurriedly: "Sugar, sugar, who has sugar?"
After a while, someone brought the candy to Xun Shifei.
Xun Shifei walked up to the two brothers with the candy dangling and said with a smile: "Want to eat it?"
(End of chapter)