27. The Best Brother in the World

There is no busy traffic in the city. In this quiet mountain village, all that can be heard is the chirping of sparrows in small groups, and the barking of a few domestic big yellow dogs when strangers pass by.

This is not a very affluent small village. You can see mostly small bungalows made of mud and bricks everywhere. Some of the houses are in poor condition. The walls of the houses are made of mud wrapped in cow dung. The roofs are covered with mud. With piles of straw and wooden sticks, they have to endure the trouble of leaking water in their homes during heavy rains.

There are racks set up in the yard in front of every house. Some are planting pumpkins, and some are planting luffa. The vines and fruits are all over the racks. There are also various fruits and vegetables growing nearby, which are lush and green, giving this shabby place a look. The old house adds a bit of vitality that is not found in the city.

What a beautiful place!

Yan Chu was holding a hiking stick and carrying a hiking bag half as big as him. He stood on the dirt path not far from the village with an incomprehensible expression.

"This little brother, why did you come to our village?"

An old man with white hair and a crutch looked at Yan Chu with a kind face, but with a little vigilance in his eyes.

This old man is not very tall, and has a stooped back. Standing not far from Yan Chu, he can barely reach the height of his chest. His face is full of wrinkles and age spots, the whites of his eyes are cloudy, and his teeth are slightly yellow. Wearing a white undershirt and big pants, he looks like an ordinary old man from a mountain village.

"Uncle, I plan to come to the mountain to watch the sunrise, but I don't know if there is anyone in our village who can let me stay for a night. I'll pay."

Yan Chu's current image is that of a tall, thin young man with black-framed eyes, who looks a bit frail. He carries a hiking bag and a hiking stick, looking like a standard mountaineer.

Wude Village is an extremely poor village and one of the country's key poverty alleviation targets. However, after all, the economy is so developed and science and technology are so advanced. Even such a poor village in the mountains and old forests has been connected with electricity. Of the more than thirty households, two households bought a small color TV. Every night, people who did not have TV at home would go to those two households to watch TV and watch the news. They also knew about the travel friends who often appeared in news reports. of.

"You're the only one?"

The old man bowed his waist and asked Yan Chu.

"Yes, it's just me." Yan Chu smiled, looking like a cheerful big boy, harmless to humans and animals.

"The weather has been bad these two days, especially it looks like it's going to rain tonight. I want to see the sunrise, but I'm afraid I won't succeed." Hearing that he was alone, the old man became much less wary of him.

Their village is relatively remote, but because it is deep in the mountains, sometimes a few city kids who have enough to eat and nothing to do will come to the mountains to explore.

Those people were generous, giving them one hundred yuan just for a night's stay, and thirty yuan for each meal. For mountain people whose per capita annual income was only two thousand yuan, it was a lot of extra money.

In the past, people in the mountains were wary of those traveling friends who came to the village, but as time went by, they discovered that they were really just here for fun. As a result, although the villagers would still stare at the strangers from time to time, they were not as cautious as before. All the vegetation is gone.

This old man only has one son in his family. The population is not large, so he renovated the two extra rooms in his house, painted plaster walls, and rented them out to city people who come to the mountains to play. Year-round, the income may be higher than their income. There is still plenty of land.

His son is already forty this year. Because the mountains are poor, girls from other villages are not willing to marry here. He has to save money for his son to buy a wife.

The wives bought by the Liu family and the Huang family in the village are good, and they have given birth to several grandchildren. Later, when he saves enough money, he will find Lai San, who sells wives to the Liu and Huang families, and buy one who has studied in college. Girl, I heard that the children of such a girl have good genes, that’s right.

The old man thought that he would be able to save enough money in a short time. He smiled kindly and looked at Yan Chu with softer eyes.

"Is it going to rain? There's no weather forecast?"

Yan Chu was like a young man who had just entered the society. He was very unsafe in doing things. He touched his nose and said, "Uncle, if not, I will stay in the village for a few more days. It can't stop raining."

"I came out just for the shooting day. Your village is too remote and too high. It took me nearly two hours to climb up the mountain. I was too lazy to go down and wait for the weather to be better before I came back up. Don't worry, I brought money. , Anyway, before I left, I told my parents that I would come to your village to collect information. The return date is uncertain, so they won’t be in a hurry. "

Yan Chu raised the camera hanging in front of his neck, looking like a fool and money comes quickly.

"That's fine, but people in our village don't like taking pictures. If you want to take pictures of the sunrise, just wait until the weather gets better and go to the top of the mountain to take pictures. You are not allowed to tinker with that stuff in the village, otherwise you will be kicked out if you are discovered."

The old man smiled. Farmers have their own way of looking at the weather. Looking at today, it will rain heavily for two or three days in a row. In this way, including food expenses, he will have an extra income of four to five hundred. ah.

"Eh."

Yan Chu responded and followed the old man towards his house.

When leaving, he glanced at the big stone tablet at the entrance of the village. The three characters "Wude Village" written on it were clearly black, but in the slightly gloomy weather, they actually glowed faintly with red.

Five virtues - loyalty, filial piety, propriety, righteousness and benevolence

hehe!

*****

"Old Gentou, is the new young man who lives in your house okay?"

In the most luxurious courtyard with gray bricks and gray tiles in the village, several old people and a few young people from the village were sitting together, looking a little solemn.

"Except for eating, I haven't been out all night. I've been staring." Lao Gentou, the old man Yan Chu met when he first came to the village, said to the middle-aged man sitting opposite him.

"Well, please pay more attention. I don't know if it's because of the weather or something else these days. My eyelids keep twitching and I always feel uneasy."

The middle-aged man, Lin Youde, the head of Wude Village, stroked his forehead and said with a sad face.

He is surprisingly strong, 1.9 meters tall, covered in lumps and flesh, and looks like a very difficult person to mess with. In this village, he is not only the village chief, but also the village bully and the young man in the village. They all looked up to him, and because of him, the people in the other mountain villages did not dare to compete with them, allowing them to take advantage of them when dividing the mountain forest land.

Because of this, Lin Youde's prestige in the village is particularly high, no less than that of the elders of the clan.

"Brother, are you scared by that little bitch?"

Others are afraid of Lin Youde, but Lin Youde's younger brother is not necessarily afraid of him. Lin Youcai and his eldest brother look nothing like they were born from the same mother. His figure is extremely thin, and a big man is barely 1.6 meters tall. He is tall, with a sharp mouth and monkey cheeks, and a wretched look on his face.

In this village, Lin Youde is the big overlord, and Lin Youcai is the second overlord. Their brothers are twins. It is estimated that Lin Youde absorbed too many nutrients in his mother's womb, which caused Lin Youcai to almost not be fed several times when he was a child. The Lin family's mother often Tell the eldest son that he owes his brother this, and asks him to take good care of his brother in the future.

Lin Youde listened to his mother's words and loved his younger brother very much. No one could go beyond Lin Youcai. At this time, when his younger brother laughed at him, Lin Youde was not angry at all.

"Bah, I will be frightened by that little bitch, that is, she is too ignorant. All three sons of Old Zhang's family have slept with her. Why can't I sleep and dare to hit me? Damn it."

Lin Youde spat to the side, touched his face, which had just fallen off scabs and still had a white mark on it, and recalled what happened that day.

Their village is relatively poor, and few girls from other villages are willing to marry in. However, the older generation in the village are conservative and unwilling to let their sons and daughters-in-law go out to work for fear that they will never come back after leaving. Provide them with old age care.

Over time, the source of wives in the village was no longer through normal marriages, but through human traffickers outside, who bought wives back.

Usually a yellow-flowered daughter-in-law costs 30,000 yuan, and the one she has slept with is discounted to 25,000 yuan. The price for a better-looking girl, or a college student, is still higher. The most expensive daughter-in-law that has ever appeared in the village is the one that Lin Youde just mentioned. The daughter-in-law of the old Zhang family whom I mentioned before.

The Zhang family spent a lot of money to buy that girl, spending a full 50,000 yuan.

Originally, Lao Zhangtou was not willing to buy her. Their family had only saved more than 30,000 yuan in total. How could they afford such an expensive wife? Moreover, Lao Zhangtou has three sons. The eldest son is thirty-six this year. My son is thirty-three this year, and my younger son is the youngest, only twenty-one. I guess his mother was too old when she gave birth to him, and her brain was not working well. She drooled and had runny nose every day, and she just stared at the butt and breasts of other people’s wives. It’s weird. Disgusting.

But who knows that the girl Lai San brought this time is the most beautiful girl. Her skin is whiter than tofu, her eyes are big and watery, which makes people look strange. The girl is quite young, she seems to be only ten years old. She looks like she is six or seven years old, but it doesn't matter. A girl of this age can already give birth to a child in the village.

Many families in the village who wanted to buy a daughter-in-law were interested in that girl, but Lai San's asking price was too high. Later, the three sons of Lao Zhang's family wanted the girl life and death, saying that their family was poor and they would probably have no money to marry their boss. They bought a wife for the second and third brothers. Why don’t the three brothers just want a wife.

The daughter was so good-looking that they recognized her even if they were co-wives.

Lao Zhangtou thought that it was the same thing. After all, they were all his sons, and the children were all his grandsons, so he gritted his teeth and spent a lot of money. The remaining more than 10,000 yuan was borrowed from Lin Youde.

Lin Youde also liked that girl. When he lent money to Lao Zhang's family, his only requirement was that after their three sons slept with the girl, they would sleep with him as well. In this case, he would agree to lend money.

Lao Zhangtou discussed it with his three sons and agreed.

People in the village didn't know what the girl's name was. The girl was stubborn. After being sold to the village by the kidnappers, she said nothing except begging them to let her go and that her family would give them a lot of money. Later they found out that they He won't let her go, just to eliminate the pain and curse.

They called her Zhang's daughter-in-law. On the wedding day, the girl was tied up. Her screams were so shrill that the whole village heard them. She screamed all night long until later, her voice gradually became hoarse and could no longer be heard.

The wives who were bought in the village all came here like this. For the villagers, they were used to it. As long as they gave birth to a child, they would take root in the village. And it was not just their village, many villages at the foot of the mountain married women. Families who cannot afford a daughter-in-law will always look for acquaintances to buy them. In such a small and isolated county, everyone has relatives and friends, and everyone knows very well about buying a daughter-in-law. If the daughter-in-law bought by someone runs away, everyone will know it. Help recruit people.

As long as we guard the county station, sooner or later we will be able to find the person.

When they were found, they were beaten up. As the women failed to escape again and again, they became more and more numb.

More than three months ago, Lin Youde went to Zhangtou's house the day after his son got married. Zhangtou didn't dare to default on his debt, so he asked his son to send the girl over. Who knew that when he saw his wife again, she was already a cold corpse.

Lin Youde said that the girl scratched his face and scratched it. He was angry and pushed her. Who knew that her head hit the cabinet on the kang, blood flowed all over the floor, and she died immediately.

The wife they bought at a high price was gone. Zhangtou and his three sons would definitely not accept it, but Lin Youde was the local tyrant in the village. Finally, they discussed that when Lai San came next time, Lin Youde would help them buy a wife, of course not the best one, and they didn't have to pay back the money they borrowed before.

The Zhang family admitted the loss, and that night a group of men threw the girl's body into the mountains. There were wolves in their mountains, and they let the animals chew the body into pieces, and then pretended that the newly bought wife ran away and was attacked by livestock.

Only they knew that Lin Youde had killed someone.

The old root head and his family didn't know about it, and they just thought that the girl died after running into the mountains after being slept with by Lin Youde. After listening to Lin Youcai and Lin Youde's jokes, they just smiled.

"Let him go as soon as possible. After a while, Lai San will deliver new goods."

Lin Youde didn't believe in ghosts and gods. If there were ghosts, the women who committed suicide after buying them in the early years would come to seek revenge on them. Now their village is still alive and well.

In the final analysis, the girl didn't know what was good. It was not a good thing to be slept with by several people, and she deserved to die for being pretentious.

"Don't worry, Lai San won't take people up the mountain on a rainy day. The young man came to see the sunrise. Once the weather cleared up, he left after taking pictures and didn't run into Lai San."

The old man smiled very honestly, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

The people around him also smiled. Lai San's arrival meant that there was a new daughter-in-law in the village. It wouldn't be long before the daughter-in-law had grandchildren. The incense in the village was passed down from generation to generation. After they died, they would have the face to meet their ancestors.