Tales from the Golden Platform Chapter 10

Finally, as the dark night came quietly, their energy was exhausted, and what was left was hesitation, frustration and confusion. Disappointment appeared unexpectedly in the demented expression, and sighs flowed endlessly between the cracked lips, piling up around him like white bones. They guessed, who did these bones in front of them belong to? How many years has it been buried? Why do they gather here, raising the terrifying atmosphere and suffocating whiteness out of the ground? ghost! Only the ancient souls that have been wandering for thousands of years know. They have insight into everything, and they, the ghosts, are the masters of the old bones everywhere. Suddenly, the skeletons piled up haphazardly by the gold diggers stood up neatly in the night, opened their fist-sized eyes, bared their white teeth, and smiled ferociously at the figure. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around in panic, only to find that every time there was a trembling laugh, there was a sudden flash of a strange and strange bright color. Gradually, there were more and more laughter, one after another. The gleaming fire colors formed a brilliant golden hell light, hanging on the gray golden stage. People could no longer stand still, so they tried to find open spaces where human bones were not piled up, huddled together, and shivered. But the barn people came from all directions and quickly hid in the stone kiln.

Around midnight, the golden platform where all things were dead suddenly echoed with the sound of rushing people. First, the bearded man who was the first to ascend the gold platform decisively led his people away. Then, thousands of gold maniacs evacuated, no longer dreaming of digging holes to pick out gold bumps. The hopes of the gold diggers can only be pinned on the green sand layer in the surrounding fields. They can only support the keel gold bed and use the holy water of the Jiling River to wash out the golden light bit by bit. The moon rolled away, the stars disappeared, and then the ghost laughter subsided and the light of hell was extinguished, the silence returned, and the breeze floated silently. But in the stone kiln on the west slope, the barn man was still sleeping soundly, rumbling and snoring.

As the night progressed, the stars and moon appeared again, floating lightly in the void. Theo Zhou, the most spiritual person in the barn, had his eyes opened by a bright light. He stared blankly at the top of the kiln, trying to remember the reason why he woke up. For a moment he touched the cotton padded clothes filled with pillows. Yes, that piece of gold weighing on my heart is still there. He felt relieved and licked the astringent roof of his mouth with his tongue, feeling thirsty and unable to urinate. He stood up and put on his cotton coat, looked towards the entrance of the kiln, and saw the golden light shining outside the kiln. The golden light wavered in, picked up his body and dragged him out. He came outside the kiln, blinked and searched for a while on the ground, and found that there was no flickering golden light. He unbuckled his pants and peed into the night. The sound of peeing was loud, and he finally felt that the surroundings were completely silent, and the traces of the gold diggers were nowhere to be seen, as if the original noisy scene was just a dream. He shuddered, realizing that it was starlight that was flashing at him and not golden light. But as soon as this thought came out, the distant stars suddenly approached him, shining brightly and dazzling the eyes. Gold! He almost shouted and walked over quickly. After walking for a long time, he still couldn't reach Jin Zi. He looked around and found that the surroundings were filled with white bones; he found that the stars were quickly moving away, the golden light disappeared, and the glowing ghosts were floating around. He trembled violently, turned around and walked back. After walking for about half an hour, he still didn't see the kiln entrance. He stood still, shocked to realize that he had been possessed and lost his way, and the fire in front of him told him that he seemed to be visiting a ghost's den. He was so frightened that he screamed for his mother, and then found that there was no mother in the mysterious ancient gold field, so he had to ask for help for his legs. My legs were so stiff that they didn't bend at all, like wooden stakes, pounding straight to the ground like stilts during the first month of my hometown. Ghosts hit the wall, ghosts stumbled, and countless ghost hands came out of the darkness to pull at him. He no longer dared to call his mother, but his father, God, ancestors, Guandi, God of Wealth, and Grandpa Chang'e who was looking down on him from the sky at this moment. The sky and the earth are not as loud as his screams, which make his voice smoke, and no grandpa comes to see him. The terror was so great that he sat down on the ground. A dark shadow came around from behind him and towered in front of him. He was so frightened that he was about to jump up, but the black shadow stretched out his hand to hold him down.

"What are you doing here?"

Theo Zhou felt that the voice was very familiar. He raised his head and took a closer look, only to realize that the person coming was Li Changjiu. He didn't expect that Li Jiujiu had been following him since he left the stone kiln.

"The stars are stuck to the ground. I think they are gold and I go get them."

"You can't be too greedy. You already have gold."

When he was about to deny it, he saw Li Changjiu raised his hands, and between his hands was a stone glowing with green light. The stone fell. He screamed and fell to the ground. Li Changjiu rushed to him and hurriedly took off his cotton-padded clothes. The night before dawn becomes darker and darker, just like people's black desires. The piece of gold was transferred from the dead Theo Zhou to Li Changjiu's arms. Li Changjiu suddenly felt extremely nervous and jumped up and ran away. His face seemed to be quickly reshaped by something, and humiliation and fear were firmly embedded in his eyes.

It was already bright when the donkey girl opened the door. The sun rolled along the Jiling River and suddenly rolled up to the top of the mountain in the distance. The sun slanted in, illuminating the fir tree opposite with its golden light. Also covered in golden light was the man with sleeves under the tree.

She stared at him in shock, and after a while she blinked her eyelids and found that he had walked up to her. She then straightened her face, with a hint of sadness in her eyes, and asked him coldly what he was doing. He hesitated for a long time before saying, "I'll wait outside for you to get up."

She gave him a watery glance.

"Sister, hehe, it's mine." He couldn't help but use his teeth to stretch out the evil laughter from his chest, and said, "Your man said, I am your man."

She didn't understand and looked up in panic at the way he came: "You still want to be beaten?"

He smiled naively: "Sister..."

"What to do?"

"Is there water? I'm thirsty." He wanted to talk after entering the house.

She hesitated for a moment, then turned to pour the water.

He slipped in quietly, but was kicked out by a girl carrying a bowl of water. He felt his forehead was hot, and when he touched it, his palms were wet and greasy, and beads of sweat fell down. He took the bowl and drank a few mouthfuls, sweating even more. He grasped the cuffs with his fingers. He raised his arm to wipe it, and saw her handing over a hand towel without saying a word. He caught it, took a closer look, forgot to wipe his sweat, and stupidly called out again: "Sister..."

"What are you doing?" She picked up the bowl, glared at him angrily, turned around and entered the room, took out two steamed buns and stuffed them to him like a beggar, "Take them back and eat them!"

He understood that she didn't want him to enter this warm house, so he looked into her eyes to see if there was anything else there, a hint of regret or a look of silent agreement. Nothing, nothing, empty, with the brightness and openness of the wilderness.

"Leave quickly! You will be in trouble if you don't leave." She said, "Women are worthless, it's more important to dig for gold!"

"You are mine, no matter how worthless you are, you are still mine."

"I have a man." She said, sighed softly, turned around and closed the door gently.

The brother in the barn stood in despair, and found that the plain floral handkerchief was still clutched in his hand, and he hurriedly stretched his fingers, for fear that the oil and sweat on his hands would stain it. He put it on his face and smelled it. The fragrant warmth hit his nostrils and lungs, just like the donkey girl's breasts he imagined. He smelled it and couldn't help but push the door open and peek inside. He was so focused that he didn't notice any strange changes, so he was pushed into the threshold from behind and knocked to the ground. Someone held him down, and then someone threw a quilt over and covered him for a moment. He wanted to lift it off, but the four corners of the quilt seemed to be riveted and couldn't be lifted.

"Who?" he asked in surprise, but he heard a deep and hoarse voice asking him as if it was squeezed out of the wall: "Barn man, do you want to die or live?"

He felt that his chest was constricted and he just wanted to breathe out without saying anything. The voice continued: "If you want to live, just stand up. If you want to die, jump. The stick is above your head. The harder you jump, the better."

He was so frightened that his hair stood up, his heart rushed toward his throat violently, and with a roar, he threw off the quilt and the person on top of him. He stood up and ran. He tripped over something soft before taking two steps, and fell to the ground. The injured hand, which was healing, happened to be pressed under his ribs, causing him to howl loudly in pain. .

He was blinded again. He heard a girl's scream, as if she was beaten again because of him, and as if she was begging those who came to intercept him not to be too cruel to him. He lay on the ground in a daze, as if he were an inanimate stone, left alone by time and all things in a blind spot where the sun could not reach, and could never return to the human world.

"Barn Man, if you want to live, trade gold for your life."

When he heard that the voice belonged to Bruno Zhang, he didn't want to say or do anything, as if he was bound to die.

At this time he heard the girl talking:

"He didn't have gold. His gold was robbed. I saw it with my own eyes."

The quilt was thrown off, and Bruno Zhang pulled him up and yelled at him: "Robbed him? Who? Say it! I am trustworthy. As long as you tell me, you can live."

With a loud noise, Marshall Shi next to Bruno Zhang knocked a birch stick onto a bench. The stool immediately split. Brother Carter trembled all over and shouted: "Let me go!"

Bruno Zhang let go. But Marshall Shi raised the stick, ready to smash it down at any time. The barn brother looked at the big stick, then looked at the donkey girl who was staring at him eagerly, and lowered his head in grief and indignation.

"Tell me! Who is the person who robbed you of your gold?" Donkey Girl asked him almost pleadingly. This voice made Brother Gugang no longer strong, and said sadly: "Let me go, and I will get the gold from Theo Zhou."

As soon as he finished speaking, the big stick in Marshall Shi's hand fell. Brother Carter felt darkness in front of his eyes, and he staggered to the ground. Another flurry of punches and kicks followed. He passed out. Bruno Zhang had people drag him outside the door and into the fir forest. They took off his clothes and hung him upside down with a rope. They thought of Lian Xi, how Lian Xi died, and how the barn man's shopkeeper Jin should die. Afterwards, they hurried towards the Golden Platform. In the rush, they overlooked an important issue: as long as there are people, there will be kindness. Donkey girls are kind. As soon as they left, she dived into the fir forest.

At dawn, the barn people gathered on the terrace, talking in surprise about the silent disappearance of other gold diggers overnight. Theo Zhou also disappeared. Li Changjiu volunteered and took a few people to look for him. They found Theo Zhou's body about a mile away from Golden Terrace. They concluded that Theo Zhou was beaten to death by gold diggers, and there was no need to explore why he died. Maybe he said the wrong thing or farted wrongly, which made people angry. There were so many people, noisy, and they were all rough guys who were particularly angry because they didn't find gold. Killing a person was like throwing up a handful of dust, and no one cared. They buried Theo Zhou on the spot and returned to the golden platform. Just then, the people from Weizi appeared.

When the crowd bypassed the sight of the barn man and emerged from the south side of the golden platform, the barn man's subconscious move was to pick up the guy and run towards the top of the golden platform. Hundreds of people stood in several rows on top of the uneven platform. The strong men were at the front, the older ones were in the middle, and the young men with hairless mouths behind them. They carried shovels, hoe and wooden sticks and faced the outside world in unison. The people in the crowd climbed up in dense numbers, shouting, thinking that their heart-breaking shouts would frighten the people in the barn so that they would faint and run away, but they did not expect that the other party would fight back.

The fight started. Clothes were torn, blood and flesh were flying everywhere, shouts and screams were mixed together, and the shadow of death followed closely behind everyone. After a while, the crowd retreated like a stream of water, until they retreated to Bruno Zhang who was supervising the battle on the slope. Bruno Zhang looked at them coldly and pointed the shovel in his hand towards the ground. He did not expect that this attack would fail. According to his assumption, after the barn brother was blocked by the donkey sister, these barn people who had lost their golden shopkeeper would no longer be able to gather together to mount a violent resistance. There was a mark of shame on his face and the muscles of restraining murder were spasming. He shouted loudly and prepared to organize a second attack.

[Slaughter the sheep, slaughter the sheep,

Beating dogs and slaughtering sheep,

Chase the sparrows, chase the sparrows,

I've driven you into your mother's arms. 】

The shouts broke out again, and the people surrounding the area rushed forward with murderous intent. The result was the same as last time, they all retreated. But Bruno Zhang's goal was achieved. He sent Marshall Shi and a few strong men to drag the two barn men away from the crowd along the slope, but they did not drag them down immediately. A group of barn men rushed to the rescue. At this time, the people around the area swarmed forward again under the leadership of Bruno Zhang, and the cold light of the shovel shone strangely with a buzzing sound. The people in the barn were about to rush down and fight. With a bang, a human head fell in front of their feet, and then another one, and blood flew up and splashed on their faces. The heads were thrown at them by stones - the two barn men who were dragged away did not wait for their companions to rescue them. The head falling to the ground was a warning to others. The barn man suddenly felt a little frightened. After a moment's hesitation, the opponent's shovel had already flown in front of him. Li Jiujiu shrank his head and retreated first. In his panic, he did not forget to cover the front of his cotton-padded coat with his hands. It seemed that the people around him were here for the piece of gold on his body. If one person loses, many people will follow. The barn people push each other and huddle together, retreating steadily. When they took a deep breath and stopped to touch the scars on their bodies and faces, they found that they had retreated to the slope. They looked around in fear and dispossession, looking for a way out and hope, but what they found was their golden shopkeeper.