shepherd

I was surrounded by darkness that I couldn’t see. Next to me were bags of packed feed that were stacked half a person’s height. There was also an agricultural machine that hadn’t been started for a long time and I didn’t know its specific function. There was another person sitting on the agricultural machine. With a lighted cigarette in his hand, he asked me:

"what time is it?"

I say:

"3:17."

My clothes have long been wet with sweat, and the sweat on my forearms has flowed into streams. The surrounding is very hot. I took out a cigarette, squeezed the tobacco a little bit, and took it from the other person. I passed the lighter and ignited with a "snap". The dancing flame accompanied by the smell of dust around me relieved my tension a little. Hearing the sound of burning cigarette paper, in the dim vision, my mind slowly sorted out what happened in the past 20 days, and once again sorted out the development of the matter to the present.

About 20 days ago, it was the end of June in 2019, the summer vacation was about to begin, but for me who was a graduate student, I didn’t have the concept of a vacation. Due to the needs of the project, I was arranged by my tutor to work with my younger brother Lu Cheng went to Fuyuan Cattle Industry, located at the junction of Province A and Province J, to conduct a two-month on-site experiment. The purpose was to collect experimental data. According to the experiment plan, the daily work was very easy, and the cattle were fed regularly every day. Check the data at the time point, there is a lot of free time, my junior and I are secretly happy, this is right to be on vacation, not to mention the Fuyuan Niuye factory, the junior has practiced before, and is relatively familiar with the surrounding environment. Tell me, the environment here is good, there are vineyards and watermelon fields nearby, the quality is cheap, there are also large fields of corn nearby, and there are many ditches, where you can fish and touch lobsters, which made me grow up in the city since I was a child. Big people are looking forward to it.

After a few days of preparation, we set off for the cattle farm. Before leaving, some reagents were not easy to carry with us. After issuing the certificate, we asked the person in charge of the factory for the address to mail.Get on the train, put on headphones, and feel very relaxed.

After getting off the train and taking a taxi for a hundred dollars to the factory, there are patches of rice fields, corn fields, and some orchards along the way. Sure enough, as the younger brother said, there are many grape plantations. There is a small supermarket not far from the factory. My junior brother and I bought some daily necessities here. The electric kettle is a few dozen small, which is very cheap. I didn’t arrive. I asked the shop owner about the address we filled in before. The boss said that the things will be sent here, which is very convenient. I silently added a lot of points to this place in my heart. At least the environment is not as difficult as I imagined. I feel that the motherland is developing rapidly, and the logistics industry has opened up in such a small village.

It takes a few minutes to walk from the supermarket to the factory gate of Fuyuan Cattle Industry. The accommodation environment arranged for us in the factory is not bad. Although the bed board creaks when it is pressed on it, and the bottom has to be cushioned with cardboard boxes, but the air conditioner and wireless network They are all well-equipped, and they can take a hot bath at night. The house they live in is more than 100 meters away from the breeding area, and the air is relatively good and there is no peculiar smell.

On the first day of our arrival, we cleaned up the sundries in the room, cleaned it up, packed our luggage, prepared to familiarize ourselves with the situation in the factory, and went to the breeding area to select cattle for experiments.This factory is built on the edge of Muhu Village. We usually call it the outskirts of the countryside, that is, the outskirts of the countryside. But after the factory gate reaches the supermarket and then to the west, it is Muhu Village. To the east is a large area of ​​farmland, mainly corn. There are short edamame plants on the side of the road, and the leaves are covered with dust.There is also an elementary school next to the cattle farm, but it is summer vacation and there are no students in the school, but the horn still announces the time at 8:[-] every morning, and plays poetry recitation for half an hour in the afternoon. Tang poems such as "Compassion for Farmers" and "Thoughts in a Quiet Night" when we were young made us so noisy that we had to shout to communicate.

The experiment officially started two days later. Before coming here, I contacted the factory manager. The factory manager’s surname is Ma, and he is usually not in the factory area, but in the office area a few kilometers northwest of the farm. The factory manager asked us to contact Zhao Cong and Zhang Yi. The person is the veterinarian in the factory. After we met, my junior brother and I distributed cigarettes to them. Zhao Cong took the light. Zhang Yi said that he does not smoke, but he said that he has several bottles of good wine in the car, and we will have dinner at night. Take it out and drink it together.

The work in the first few days was relatively busy. Zhao Cong, Zhang Yi, and Dapeng, another worker in the factory, helped us a lot. They were very enthusiastic. They scattered some cigarettes and stuffed some money. They were very polite and busy Finally, it lightened a lot of workload for us. After the work was done, Dapeng said that if he wanted to help in the future, he could find them. My junior brother and I smiled and said no problem, no problem.At dinner at night, beef was burned in the factory. The quality and taste of the meat were very good. Zhao Cong said that the meat was from his own factory. The younger brother told me that the beef cattle raised in this cattle farm are called good ones. The meat is put outside It's selling very fast.

Halfway through the meal, the gatekeeper at the door also came to take a seat. Zhang Yi went to his motorcycle and brought the good wine he said. I was allergic to alcohol, so I declined and drank a small glass. It tasted good. Not much spicy feeling.I sat and watched them drinking and bragging. The employees in the factory are basically locals. Zhao Cong and Dapeng are younger, and their accents are not so strong. Zhang Yi and the gatekeeper are older. They speak dialect mixed with Mandarin. I had a hard time listening, and I couldn’t understand a few words. My junior is from province A, so I can understand some of them. After drinking a few glasses of wine, I chatted with them very enthusiastically. The fishing line came into my mind, my younger brother is a fishing enthusiast, and I can sit by the river from morning to night, saying that after today, I have nothing to do, and I can start fishing. I asked Zhao Cong if there was any fishing rod in the factory, and Zhao Cong said yes. Behind the door of the veterinary pharmacy.

After dinner, Zhang Yi got on his motorcycle and was about to go home. I said it was drunk driving. Zhang Yi smiled and said that this is not called drinking at all. Zhao Cong and Dapeng also said that Zhang Yi can drink very well, so there is nothing wrong with it , my junior and I went back to the room to play computer and prepare to rest, the junior was a little excited:

"I'm going to find a good place to go fishing tomorrow."

"Okay, there's not much to do anyway, I'm going to go around the neighborhood." After speaking, we each fell asleep.

In the dimness, I felt that I was in a field path, surrounded by corn, but I couldn’t see anything clearly due to the grayness. In the distance, there were two dim yellow lanterns that were very close, and then I heard someone talking to me in my dream. I said:

"It's eight o'clock, it's time for early reading."

I woke up in a daze, and looking back, I seemed to have had a dream, and I also dreamed of corn, but the content of the dream was quickly forgotten, and I didn't think much about it. Looking at the mobile phone, it was past 8 o'clock, so I quickly got up, washed and went to the cowshed to feed the cows.

After feeding the cattle, Junior Brother found a fishing rod from the veterinary pharmacy, cleaned off the cobwebs on it, and prepared to go fishing. I also left the factory area and prepared to go around. Go to the supermarket and get the stuff back.

When it was close to noon, I returned to the dormitory as soon as I entered the factory area with a few corns I stole from the nearby field and a courier from the supermarket. There was a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid needed for the experiment in the courier. The body of the bottle was hot due to the hot weather. I picked it up and put it under the air conditioner to blow it, and started peeling the few corns I brought back. Since I have no farming experience, the corns I brought back were basically unripe. At this time, the younger brother came back and saw the few corns I picked Corn, laughed and taunted me:

"This corn, I can use it for fishing, but eat it or forget it."

At noon, the aunt downstairs told us to have dinner, and my junior brother and I went down with the bowls and chopsticks. Today’s meal is not as rich as last night. There are only some cowpeas, and there are a lot of steamed buns in the plastic bags on the table. This place is northerly , I don’t eat a lot of rice, the main food is steamed buns, white flour steamed buns are very strong, my junior brother and I ate one and a half with cowpeas, washed the dishes and went upstairs.On the way, my brother told me that there are a lot of crucian carp in the pond here, and I can see a big soft-shelled turtle. The fishing line in the factory can’t catch it. He is going to find a way to get this soft-shelled turtle, not for eating, but just to prove it. With my superb fishing skills, I bought a set of tools on Taobao:

"When the thing arrives, I will let that bastard understand."

"Then it's better to find a net to catch it."

"There is a bad network in the factory. I will find some teaching videos and learn how to make it myself."

For the next week, we fed the cows every day, and the rest of the time I stayed in the room and played computer games. The junior brother went out fishing with fishing gear, and every time I came back, I asked him where your bastard was, and he hated him. Damn this bastard is really difficult to deal with.

During the period, there was a manager surnamed Wang who would bring some white buns to the factory every few days. By the way, he would overhaul the circuit in the factory and help with some work. I saw Manager Wang on the employee list in the office area. There was a very literary His name is Wang Mulin, and the names of Zhao Cong and Zhang Yi are very prominent. Looking at the black and fat man, wearing dirty work clothes, he can't imagine that his name sounds so cultured.

One day when we were smoking downstairs, Zhao Cong told us:

"Don't underestimate Manager Wang. His brush calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting are very good." Our dormitory is on the second floor, and there is a big office on the first floor. There is a painting on the wall of the office that was painted by Manager Wang. I went to see it. At a glance, it is a very magnificent landscape painting, with strange rocks, pine trees, mountain streams and birds, and a shepherd boy riding a cow on the mountain road. The painting is very vivid and lifelike, and it seems to be a very level work. It is also very beautifully written. There is a photo on the desk, which is the way Manager Wang splashed ink at that time. I secretly admired it, but suddenly I remembered that there was a note pasted on the door of the toilet at the end of our dormitory. , using a brush to write the four characters "No shit". When I read it for the first time, I still thought that these words were written like calligraphy. I thought it was also Manager Wang's calligraphy. The huge contrast made me almost laugh out loud.

Manager Wang occasionally eats with us, and every time he has to drink with Zhao Cong and Zhang Yi and the others, but Manager Wang's drinking capacity is obviously not as good as that of Zhao Cong and the others, so Zhang Yi has to drive him back every time But I can't understand their dialect at all, and I can't drink alcohol. Usually, I eat with my head covered, and then find an excuse to leave the stage first, and let the younger brother drink with them and brag about it. Looking back, I was playing black games with me while relaying the story to me in Mandarin. After listening to it for a few days, I understood some dialects a little bit. I can add a few words.

Soon half a month passed, and we gradually became acquainted with the people in the factory, and we did some work step by step every day. In my free time, my junior still competed with the bastard. I played computer games in the room, and occasionally went out to see my junior. Fishing, a beef cow was slaughtered in the factory. Manager Wang came to the factory and was responsible for the slaughter. My junior brother and I also went to help. The quality of the meat is still the same.

Everyone at the table ate heartily, pushing and changing glasses. This time, I didn't drink any wine, and I just cared about eating meat.In addition to a teddy dog ​​named "Second Pao" raised by the cooking aunt, there are also several cats in the factory. Every day, I can hear the aunt yelling "Second Pao" and "Second Pao" with a local accent. I thought the dog was called "Apple" the first time I heard it. I thought it was quite foreign, so I took an English name and turned around to complain to my junior brother:

"This dog is so ugly it's called Apple?"

"What apple?" The younger brother didn't know why,

"Apple, apple." The younger brother laughed wildly for a moment and said that the dog was called "Second Pao". I gave a long "oh", which was reasonable and unexpected.

Among these cats, there is a female white cat and several kittens. The female cat looks like she is breastfeeding, and her ribs are clearly visible. The kittens also look malnourished, probably because of the smell. I picked up a piece of beef liver, crushed it and threw it in the yard. The white cat saw me from afar and saw that I had no other movements. He pinched a small piece of beef and threw it over. After eating, the white cat meowed twice and ran away into the grass.

When I turned around and asked, the people in the factory said that they didn't specially raise the cat, and usually dumped the leftovers in the grass next to it, which was regarded as feeding.After dinner, I asked my junior brother:

"Can you catch fish every day?"

"That's not true, every day is a connecting rod." The younger brother pretended to reply,

"What about the fish?"

"The fish are not big, so I just catch them for fun and put them in the bucket, and release them before I come back." I asked my junior to keep one or two after fishing every day.

"You want to feed the cat?"

"Yes."

The younger brother patted his chest:

"No problem. Apart from crucian carp, there are many small white stripes here, which can be used to feed the fish."

Sleeping that night, I dreamed that I was standing on the path again in a trance. This time the cornfields on both sides were much clearer, but it was still a gray mist, and there were still two dim yellow lanterns in the distance. I walked towards the lanterns. After walking a distance, I saw a figure with my back turned to me. I stepped forward in three steps and two steps forward. The figure turned around and it was my younger brother. My younger brother mechanically opened his mouth and said to me:

"It's eight o'clock, it's time for early reading."

Well, I was woken up again by the punctual time report in elementary school. I sat up and shook my head and recalled the dream I just had. It’s not surprising that I had the same content twice in my dream. Later, whenever I dreamed of a specific part, I could even realize that I was dreaming in the dream, so I woke up, and my junior came in with a toothbrush and towel, and I also got up quickly to feed the cows, and when I left the room, I listened to There were two slight meows upstairs, and I thought about going up to have a look after feeding the cows.

After finishing the work in the morning, the younger brother picked up the fishing gear and set out to fish as usual. Before leaving, he gave me a guarantee:

"I promise to let those cats have a good time today."

I went back to my room and put on my socks to change my shoes. Usually when I enter the cattle farm, I wear slippers and drag them barefoot. This time when I went upstairs, I saw that the stairs were full of building materials and sundries. I thought I should wear shoes. It will be troublesome if I step on nails or broken glass, and I am extremely afraid of snakes. No one goes to the upstairs all year round, and it is very shady, so there are some snakes, insects, rats and ants. Thinking of this, I picked it up He took off the broom at the door, turned on his phone's flashlight and went upstairs.

Bypassing the bottles and cans and the scattered wooden building materials on the stairs, I came to the third floor. It is not accurate to say that it is the third floor. This floor is only two-thirds of the height of the two floors downstairs, and there is no ceiling. I can see It is built of red bricks, supported by several wooden beams, the ground is covered with thick dust, messy garbage, and a dilapidated baby carriage with a plastic doll's head in front of it. I took a picture of it with a flashlight When I passed by, I was so frightened that I shuddered, and used a broom to push the stroller aside. There were some stone slabs and round hotel table boards against the wall, and there were spider webs everywhere.

I used a broom to clean up the cobwebs that blocked the road, and I looked around with a flashlight. When I found a corner, the cat’s eyes reflected two green dots, allowing me to see the source of the meow. It was a half-sized white cat. I chopped the ground with my foot, the kitten ran down the stairs, and I was about to go downstairs, when I turned my head and went downstairs, I saw a small cloth bag on the ground where the white cat was squatting just now, and it came closer to look at me I found that this cloth bag does not seem to be abandoned here, because there is not much dust on the surface, and it looks quite exquisite, with some patterns embroidered on the bag.

I moved it with a broom, and the dust under the cloth bag was similar to other places, which confirmed that it was put down later. I remembered a lot of movies I watched, and my first reaction was that this place is so inconsistent with a beautiful The cloth bag, this is not a witchcraft bag, I have watched so many movies and TV shows with ghosts and ghosts, and today I came across it personally?

I'm very conflicted, move it, I'm afraid I'll be like those dead people in the movie because of curiosity put myself into it, don't move, this thing looks very strange, I comfort myself:

"Curiosity killed the cat, not the man."

In the end, I decided to use a broom to sweep the bag all the way down the stairs and into the room. In order to conceal people's eyes and ears, I used the broom to slap it on the ground to cover up the path swept by the bag.Looking at the cloth bag on the floor of the room, I took a pair of latex gloves for experiments and put it on, and picked up the cloth bag. It was flannelette, and a bull’s head was embroidered with gold thread. The workmanship looked good, and the cloth bag was collected with a rope. mouth, I carefully opened the cloth bag, thinking:

"Broken, it's not really a witchcraft bag."