Beipai Tomb Raiders Notes

Chapter 572: First Visit to Jiang Village

Following the route guided by the old man, we soon found the reservoir at the foot of the mountain.

It is called a reservoir, but it is more like a large earth pit. The water in the pit is very dirty and dark green. After I walked a few steps, I saw a big toad lying on a stone.

"This road is too narrow, and there really is no way for a car to get in."

"Let's go, Brother Yu. Lock the car. It's only a few miles away. We'll be there in half an hour."

Hiking along the path, I saw bushes and weeds growing on both sides of the path that were almost as tall as a person.

"There is someone here." Brother Yu noticed the footprints on the ground.

"Maybe they're going up the mountain to pick tea. The old man just said that March and April are the tea picking season."

Brother Yu looked around, nodded and said, "Let's go."

Now the clues in hand point to the person named "Jiang Shouxin" on the tombstone. This person may be from Jiang Village, and Jiang Village seems to be related to those mysterious murals. If there are still people living in the village, perhaps some useful information can be found out.

Half an hour later, I saw Jiang Village hidden at the foot of the mountain from afar.

From a distance, the village looks a bit dilapidated, with only dozens of houses, and the exterior walls of the houses are painted milky white, which looks like the architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s.

As I walked into the village, I noticed that the smooth stone slabs under my feet were polished from tea garden stones. This shows that this place was prosperous decades ago, otherwise there wouldn't be so many tea garden stones used to pave the road.

The doors of the white houses in the village were closed, and most of them were locked. The locks looked rusty when viewed closely, and some even had collapsed roofs.

"Look, Brother Yu."

"What are you looking at?"

"Look at the eaves. The carvings on the wooden beams are Chiwen, just like the pattern on the silver bottle."

"Why, this thing can't be carved?"

I shook my head. "Before the Qing Dynasty, ordinary people wouldn't have dared to use this kind of decoration on their houses. After the Republic of China, there wasn't much attention paid to it. I estimate these houses are at least seventy years old."

Brother Yu pointed to the northwest corner of the white house and said, "There used to be one there, too. It looks like someone broke it off."

"It wasn't broken, it was sawed off. Look how neat the cut is," I said.

"Why are you sawing this thing off?"

"What else can I do? Sell them. These can be considered as auspicious wooden carvings from the Republic of China. Judging by the material, they are painted camphor wood. A complete one can sell for two hundred yuan."

I did the same thing when I was a child. I sneaked into the deserted old houses in the village and cut off the carvings on people's wooden windows with a hacksaw. I saved a lot of them and finally sold them for a total of seven yuan. One time, a neighbor saw me and told my grandmother, and she beat me up.

Especially those who go to the countryside to collect land and things, they like to sneak into old houses that have been abandoned for many years. They often pry open the doors and sneak in when no one is paying attention and take away some old things. However, there are basically no valuable things left in the old houses in the countryside. There are only some broken baskets, broken bowls, broken oil lamps, some stone carvings and brick carvings, and copper coins hammered into the beams with nails. Those can still be worth some money.

He walked to a larger house and stopped.

I looked up and said, "This family must have been a wealthy family in the village in the past, or they were landlords. Let's go in and take a look."

"Brother Fish?"

"What are you looking at?"

Brother Yu turned around and frowned, "I seemed to see someone sitting at the door just now, but he disappeared in the blink of an eye."

"where?"

Brother Yu pointed.

"There's a pile of firewood at the door. Did you mistake the pile of firewood for a person sitting there?"

"Give me two minutes, I'll go take a look and be right back."

After saying this, Brother Yu ran over.

A few minutes later he came back and shook his head at me.

The door in front of us was locked. Brother Yu wanted to kick it open, but I stopped him and told him not to cause trouble.

After climbing in, I leaned on the window and looked inside.

I can't see clearly, there is a thick layer of dust.

After wiping the dust off the glass, I saw at a glance that there was an octagonal table in the inner room. On both sides of the table were a pair of blue and white porcelain vases with dragon patterns and a pink and white hat stand, on which was even an old round leather felt hat.

I took a few steps back to run up, then kicked the door open.

"cough!"

The dust was so thick that people couldn't help coughing.

"The old hat."

"Is this bottle an antique, Yunfeng? It has a dragon pattern painted on it."

I said, "This pair of blue and white open-mouthed vases with dragon patterns from the late Qing Dynasty are not of high quality and worth very little. However, this famille rose hat box is quite nice, with good color, and it could be from the mid-Qing Dynasty."

This felt hat looks okay from a distance, but when you look closely you can see that it is very old and has a hole in it, probably caused by a mouse.

I frowned and said, "That's not right. If the original owner moved to another place, there's no reason why they wouldn't take these things with them."

Brother Yu grabbed the hat and asked, "How much is it worth?"

I glanced down again and said, "A pair of open bottles is about fifteen hundred yuan, and this hat box is about twenty thousand yuan. There's no point in not taking these things that already have owners, and it's just too much trouble to carry them."

Walk into the inner room and look around.

It was in a dilapidated state, with the bed still covered with the old-fashioned mat, which was covered with rat droppings.

Brother Yu came in and said, "I heard from the old man just now that most of the villagers moved out overnight. It seems that this family was the same. Because they left in such a hurry, they didn't have time to take a lot of things with them. Yunfeng, is this related to the flood that year? Everyone was busy escaping, so they left in a hurry."

"Brother Yu, the terrain here is high, the floodwaters won't reach here."

Brother Yu analyzed, "Not necessarily. You and I now know that the water won't reach this far. People at that time couldn't predict the direction of the flood. If they could have known, so many people wouldn't have died."

I nodded and said yes.

Brother Yu's analysis makes sense. Judging from the timeline, these old houses were probably abandoned in the 1950s and 1960s, and the flood discharge that formed Qiandao Lake also happened in those two years.

After searching for a while, it was dark before they knew it.

I checked my phone and there was no signal.

"Yunfeng, don't you think this place is creepy?"

“A little.”

After dark, the exterior walls of these old houses appear even paler.

This lifeless black and white color contrast can easily cause people to feel depressed and uneasy nervously. If you can't imagine it, you can rewatch the old movie "The Corpse in the Mountain Village". The houses in the village where the protagonist went in the movie were of this style.

"Brother Yu, are you scared?"

"How is that possible! We diggers would be afraid of this? I'm just expressing my feelings."

After saying that, Brother Yu took out his cell phone and took several photos of the old houses around him, and said he would take a look at them when he got back.

I laughed and said, "It's the same everywhere. If there's no human presence for a long time, then negative energy will definitely grow."

Brother Yu was holding up his phone and suddenly froze.

I turned and frowned.

I saw a white house halfway up the mountain. There was a person standing at the door with an oil lamp in his hand. The person's face could not be seen clearly due to the distance, but judging from the white hair and hunched back, it should be an old lady.

There are actually some people there, I don’t know if they are tea pickers or indigenous people.

"Hey! Grandma!!"

I waved at him and shouted.

As soon as I finished shouting, I suddenly saw the white-haired old lady's head falling off!

I saw it clearly, not at all dazzled! A person who was standing perfectly still suddenly had his neck bent and his head instantly fell off and rolled to the ground.

Brother Yu ran away!

I immediately ran after him!

There was no time to think, we both ran all the way without stopping for even a second!

The journey that should have taken half an hour was completed in ten minutes.

They ran all the way to the edge of the reservoir. Brother Yu held onto the hood of the car, panting and asking, "Yun... Yunfeng, why are you running?"

"I...I fucking followed you."

Brother Yu panted and asked, "You...you saw it too?"

I nodded.

"What...what happened? Why did that person's head suddenly fall off?"

"Are you dazzled?" I said.

"How is that possible! I'm dazzled, and you're dazzled too? Your nickname is Divine Eye Peak, how could you be dazzled?"

I slowed down and said, "Brother Yu, look at you, you're so jumpy. That's probably a scarecrow, used to scare birds."

Brother Yu nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, it's a scarecrow. There is a tea plantation on the mountain nearby. It may be used to prevent birds from destroying it."

Get in the car and close the door.

Start the engine and reverse.

Brother Yu stepped on the accelerator and drove towards the main road.

He held the steering wheel with an expressionless face, and I didn't say anything either.

In fact, I know it very well.

The white-haired old lady was clearly holding an oil lamp in her hand, so it couldn't be a scarecrow.