In rural areas, wild kids like us didn't have many places to have fun. Rivers, rice fields, hills and those abandoned houses were our favorite playgrounds.

  Some people may say, why do these strange things always happen in rural areas? It's because the city is densely populated and has a strong yang energy. The city is brightly lit at night, shining like daylight, and those dirty things can only stay in some special places, such as hospitals, cemeteries, crematoriums, and other places where they can't stay.

  In the countryside, it's completely different. There are only a few households on the east side and a few on the west side, with people scattered all over the place. It's hard to gather any energy here, making it easy for those things to survive. At night, most people watch two episodes of TV dramas before going to bed early, because they have to get up at dawn the next day to work in the fields. So, adults usually don't let kids go out at night, and some timid women also lock their courtyard doors early.

  My father had a hunting rifle at that time, which was actually a homemade shotgun loaded with black gunpowder and steel balls. Although the accuracy wasn't very high, it could take down everything from small rabbits to large wild boars, so when I was young, I really ate a lot of these wild game meats.

  Dad's favorite hunting target is the Reeves's muntjac, a small deer with a pair of horns on its head, weighing around 20 kg. The meat tastes very fresh and delicious. However, this animal has a characteristic: it is timid and alert, and will not appear in places where people are active. Its sense of smell is extremely keen, making it difficult to hunt.

  At that time, there were many hunters in the village, mountain people, eight out of ten families had a shotgun, everyone knew that there was a yellow deer in a place but no one ever took action to shoot it, that place was just behind the temple on a small hillside.

  Why not go and fight? Because everyone says this is a yellow weasel, the yellow weasel rarely calls out, because once it does, it exposes its own position and makes it easy for hunters with earth dogs to track it down. Similarly, this yellow weasel also rarely calls out, but when it does, something big happens in the village.

  What's going on? Someone died!

  It's really effective, as soon as the hillside has a yellow oriole calling, it won't be long before someone in the village will have a funeral, so whenever the little mountain's yellow oriole calls, some elderly villagers are absolutely not going out, afraid that the next one to die is themselves.

  Although some people also wanted to get rid of it, there really wasn't anyone who dared to take action. Which family's wife would be willing for her husband to provoke such an evil thing just for a meal of yellow croaker?

  That year, my dad owed someone a favor, and that person loved to eat pheasant. My dad thought about getting one to send over, but after searching for a long time, he couldn't find any. Just then, the pheasants on the small hill started calling again.

  He took a deep breath and added another charge of gunpowder. We used to calculate the amount of gunpowder in small bamboo tubes, one tube was enough to shoot wild chickens or rabbits, two tubes could shoot pheasants, and three tubes had a very strong recoil, usually used to shoot wild boars.

  His father used three sticks of dynamite that day, wrapped them tightly with cloth strips and went to the place.

  Not long after climbing the mountain, he really saw it. The eyes of this beast would glow in the light of the headlamp at night, and hunters could usually see two red eyeballs. They called this "fire". Dad saw two fires in the bushes behind the temple from a distance, and he excitedly crept over quietly.

  The mortar needs to be close to hit accurately, the accuracy of this thing is really not flattering, the effective range is best controlled within thirty meters.

  It's strange to say, but Huang Qi, who is usually known for being cautious and timid, was standing there eating grass like a wooden stake today, without noticing the arrival of his father. When his father was about 20 meters away from the deer, he raised his gun, took aim, and pulled the trigger. After a faint "pop" sound, his father knew it was a misfire.

  This ancient firearm works differently from modern guns, relying on the most primitive method of using a firing pin to ignite a fuse, which then ignites the black powder in the barrel, and finally uses the power of the black powder to propel the bullet.

  The problem lies in this detonator, which is basically handmade, using a mixture of sulfur and saltpeter packed into a small iron plate, compressed and dried. When the firing pin strikes this iron plate with force, it will produce sparks to ignite the gunpowder in the chamber. If it doesn't ignite, it will result in a misfire.

  Dad saw that the yellow canary was still there, so he replaced it with a new bait line.

  Aim, fire, "bang", misfired again. Ah, Dad was getting anxious, quickly reloaded, but none of the dozen or so fuses on his body ignited.

  Looking back, that yellow calf wouldn't budge, just lingering in front of you. He hastily and quietly went down the mountain to go home and get a new fuse line. Just as he was coming down, he met one of my neighbors on the side of the road.

  "What's going on?" the neighbor asked my dad.

  "My dad said: 'There's a muntjac on the mountain, I fired over ten shots but none of them went off. This can't be going to get the fuse.'"

  That man listened to Zhang's boastful words and thought, "Is my dad crazy? Everyone knows that the musk deer here can't be beaten," so he said, "Isn't it said that this is a clever musk deer that can't be beaten?"

  My father is a man who cares about his reputation, when others said so, he didn't leave, afraid of being laughed at for being timid, so he said: "Laughable, I've caught eight or nine raccoons, what time can this thing become a spirit? Wait until tomorrow to come to my house and eat meat."

  That neighbor is a greedy guy, as soon as he heard there was game to eat, he immediately said: "Like this, you wait on the mountain, don't let it run away, I'll go back and ask Little Yi's mom to send you some fishing line."

  My dad thought about it and figured it was reasonable, so he went back up to guard the sheep again. When he took a look, that guy hadn't even moved from his original spot.

  Soon, my mother received the news and didn't feel at ease leaving me alone at home in the middle of the night, so she found a flashlight and took me with her.

  The small hill behind the temple is not easy to walk, it's full of thorns, and I'm even more inconvenient. My mom then instructed me to just wait for her by the side of the road, she'll go up to deliver something and come down.

  At that time, there were no streetlights on both sides of the road, and there were no households within a radius of 400 meters around this place. I was obedient and squatted on the ground watching my mother go up.

  I stood at the gate of the temple, the courtyard's big gate had been taken away by someone to burn as firewood in some year, I was still familiar with this area, and that night's moonlight was also bright, illuminating the ground white and clean, almost like daytime.

  My mom went up for a while, but didn't come down. In fact, later I heard that even my mom was sweating that night, because none of the new fuses worked, it was as if they had seen a ghost. The yellow fuse just stuck there motionless, and my dad almost used a gun to shoot it in the head, but the gun wouldn't fire.

  This old temple is just a playground for me. Seeing that my mom didn't come down, I went in. Why? Because the other day when we were playing marbles here, we lost several and couldn't find them. I thought about going in to take a look. At that time, three marbles could be bought for one dime, they were precious.

  After searching around, I still didn't find anything interesting. My mom hadn't come down yet, so I just played by myself. I took out two marbles from my pocket and started playing in the big courtyard, talking to myself while I played. Kids like me always enjoy entertaining themselves.

  One of the marbles was thrown by me with force, and it rolled into one of the closed doors.

  This is my treasure, how can I bear to part with it?

  The door was on the west side of the house, and it was tightly closed with a lock on top. There was a gap of about two fingers wide at the bottom, through which the marble had rolled in.

  I pushed hard several times, but the door didn't budge. I then kicked it with my foot. A child's strength is too limited, and apart from shaking off some dust, it was of no use at all. I got a bit flustered and found a few fist-sized stones in the courtyard to smash the window.

  This window was also made of wood, although the wood was good, but after all, it had been neglected for many years. After three stones passed through, I really smashed out a hole the size of a baseball.

  I was eager to know where my marble had gone, so I found some broken wooden boards in the yard and piled them up underneath, then climbed up on top of them and peered into the hole with my feet tucked under me.

  Inside was pitch black, nothing could be seen. When I was about to give up, I heard the sound of children's laughter coming from inside.

  I thought to myself that someone must have taken my marbles inside, not only didn't return them to me, but also locked the door, so I said in a childish voice: "Who stole my marbles?"

  It's obvious that there won't be anyone here because this lock is on the outside, so naturally no one will come to answer my question.

  But my ears clearly heard a child laughing happily inside, along with one or two women's giggles, and more importantly, I heard the rolling sound of my glass marbles on the ground.

  I think I've been bullied, my favorite marble was taken away, and on the spot, I cried and scolded: "You little thieves, you have no shame, you stole my things, I'm going to tell my dad!"

  I cried as I walked out of the temple.

  Not yet out of the courtyard, I heard a gunshot from the small hill above, and my heart immediately sank: You want to rob me? My dad has a gun!

  After a while, the two of them came down from the mountain, without any game in their hands. Instead, Dad had a gloomy face and kept repeating to Mom: "Tonight is really terrible, it's really terrible..."

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