Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

When we went there last night, the sky was overcast, so there was only northwest wind on the road. There were shadows of trees on both sides, and it was still a little scary.

If this is the case for ordinary people.

Tonight, perhaps because the wind had been blowing all day, it blew away the last few clouds, and the moon was bright and the stars were sparse. At midnight, the moon was at its zenith, and the whole earth seemed to be covered with a layer of dark gray gauze.

Yu Qiutang ran quickly forward following the shadows of the trees.

Because he was not familiar with the surrounding terrain, he did not dare to run into the ground even though there was a danger of being discovered.

With the experience of last night, they did not waste any time when they arrived tonight. They directly found a tall tree in the village and climbed to the top of the tree.

He looked ahead for a while but didn't see any signs.

His method of finding the target was very simple. He would find the only place with light in the dark village. That must be where the coal mine was.

Ordinary people go to bed early at this time, so it is impossible for the lights to still be on until 11 o'clock.

Moreover, the wattage of the light bulbs at this time is very small, generally only 15 watts, 25 watts, and 40 watts are rarely used.

更不用说60瓦、100瓦甚至更大的200和1000瓦等灯泡。15瓦和25瓦的灯泡在外面看根本没有什么光亮，也不可能照出这么远。

The lights used in coal mines are specially manufactured. Not only is their wattage basically around 1000 or 2000 watts, but their penetrating power is also stronger at night, making them very easy to distinguish.

Because the moon was too bright, he couldn't see any obvious light for a while, but he had no other choice but to wait. After waiting for more than an hour, his feet were numb from standing on the tree, and his hands were so frozen that he could hardly hold on to the tree trunk.

Of course, even so, he couldn't go directly into the village.

Through observation in the previous village, we found that once these people have to work at night, they will specially organize people to be on guard outside to patrol.

He was unfamiliar with the place and once he was discovered by the patrolmen, the news would leak out.

He might not be caught by these people, but they would be alerted and know that someone had sneaked into the village, so they would be on guard. He would not be able to fish in troubled waters, and it would be difficult for him to find useful clues.

Just as I was worrying, I suddenly heard a rumbling sound. I looked in the direction of the sound and found two bright lights slanting into the sky in the distance.

It turned out that a car was coming from a distance.

He looked at it for a while and then came up with a plan.

He jumped down from the tree, squatted carefully behind a tree, waited for a car to come, quickly climbed onto the car, pulled open the colorful cloth on the car and got in.

At this time, the cars were driving relatively slowly, and the roads in the village were not easy to drive on. They were wide and narrow, full of potholes, and the roads were not particularly straight, turning left and right.

Moreover, in this era, there were no street lights on either side of the road. And there was no light coming out of the village. It was like walking in complete darkness with few people around, and you couldn't see anything at all.

If you are not careful, you might think there is a road ahead, but end up driving into a field or a troglodyte.

Once it falls, the car will flip over at best, and if you are unlucky, the car will be destroyed and people will die. Therefore, drivers will not drive fast on such roads, and will be very careful, with safety as the top priority.

Yu Qiutang is very experienced in catching cars.

When he was a child, whenever he encountered a tractor or something like that on the way home from school, he and his friends would speed up to catch up with it, hold onto the rear handrails with both hands, and hang on the trunk of the vehicle like a bat, letting the vehicle tow them forward for a distance.

He got into the car and found a roll of oilcloth inside the colored strips of cloth, but it was rolled into a tube. It might be to prevent the coal from getting wet when it rains, so it needed to be covered with oilcloth.

He lay tightly behind the oilcloth, hiding his body, concentrating on sensing the direction, muttering numbers in his mouth. This way he could roughly calculate the distance and direction of the car. If something happened, he could quickly leave the danger when escaping.

This was also the experience he had accumulated from previous mountain climbing.

Sometimes he needs to explore some unknown places, such as caves or deep pits in the mountains, and he must be well prepared before entering.

If the hole is shallow, you can use a rope to hang down, but if it is a valley or a deeper cave, you need to use numbers to calculate the distance.

A person's pace is relatively stable and the speed is also constant. As long as you remember the number of seconds, you can roughly judge how far you have traveled.

This is not a particularly advanced skill. It requires practice to become proficient. With regular practice, anyone can do this.

It felt like the car had been driving for about 5 minutes. He read the number to more than 270. The speed of the car in the village was about 20 kilometers per hour, which means it had traveled less than two kilometers.

Yu Qiutang discovered through the oil-painted cloth that it seemed to be much brighter outside, and estimated that the car was almost reaching its destination and might stop at any time.

He quietly crawled out from the oil paint cloth and looked forward. Sure enough, he found two rays of light coming out in front of him, which should be the entrance to the coal mine.

He found the right opportunity to jump off the car, used the trees on both sides as cover, and quietly tried to follow the car and sneak into the coal mine.

This is what he did last night, and he was going to do the same tonight. Just then, a man was about to take a shit. He unbuttoned his pants and was about to squat down when Yu Qiutang placed his dagger on his throat.

The man was frightened and quickly pulled up his pants. He subconsciously opened his mouth to shout, but Yu Qiutang quickly covered his mouth and dragged him directly into the sorghum field next to him.

The main crops here are sorghum and corn.

In autumn, after the sorghum heads are cut off, the sorghum stalks will be left in the ground to grow for a while, and then dug up after they are completely dry.

This is relatively easier. Otherwise, digging with moisture in it would be very heavy and difficult.

It just so happened that this sorghum field provided convenience for Yu Qiutang.

He pulled the man in, and without any courtesy, he hit the man on the head with his elbow, knocking him to the ground, then squatted down and stared at the man coldly.

The dagger in his hand looked particularly cold under the moonlight, and the man dared not shout anymore.

"Don't make a sound. Answer whatever I ask. If you say one more word, this day next year will be the anniversary of your death. Do you understand?!"

The man wanted to nod, but because he was lying on the ground, he could only blink desperately.

"I know, I know. I will never shout. Please spare my life, I am just a pick-up man. I don't have much money. You can't get anything from me. Please let me go. I will never tell anyone that you are here. Please let me go. I really have nothing."

"Don't talk so much nonsense. Didn't you understand what I said? You should answer what I asked you. If I didn't ask you, don't talk nonsense. My patience is limited. This won't happen again. Do you hear me?"

Yu Qiutang did not treat this person well.

She is just like that. She is always kind to good people, and has a good attitude and temper towards them. She will never even say a bad word to them.

However, he could be very disgusted with those with bad morals and didn't care about what they said. It was impossible for someone who could be a contact person in such a coal mine to be a good person.

Truly good and honest people might be locked up inside and not be able to see what’s outside at all.

These people are accomplices of the evil, relying on the power of their superiors. They probably show off their power to the poor people all the time. Now when they see him in this state, even though he hasn't done anything, they are scared to death and beg for mercy. They even want to kneel down and kowtow to him immediately.

This kind of person couldn't be a good person, so he had no patience with him and only treated him as a tool to seek information.

When the man heard Yu Qiutang's voice becoming increasingly gloomy, he was so frightened that he dared not speak any more.

"I know, I know. I will be honest. You can ask whatever you want. I will tell you the truth as long as I know it."

"Well, you'd better not think about lying to me. I'll be around here all the time. If what I ask you tonight is not true, then I'm sorry, but I'm a vindictive person and I will never let go of those who don't learn to respect others."

The man secretly groaned in his heart.

You know you should respect others, but the way you act doesn't mean you respect me.

However, this is just something I can think about in my mind.

He just came out to smoke a cigarette and take a shit, who could have thought that he would encounter such a disaster?

He had already mastered the skills of being servile and able to read people's faces in the coal mine, which were just right for him to use on Yu Qiutang.

He knew something. In this place, every once in a while, a voice would inexplicably disappear.

After he disappeared, no one dared to ask.

Anyone who asks will be tortured or attacked.

So, everyone speculated that those who disappeared might have been killed.

In this place, life is quite difficult for everyone.

Whether it is digging coal in the mine or being a lackey like them, it is actually not easy and each has its own difficulties.

It's just that they are relatively freer and can run out of the mine and get some fresh air outside.

Once some people are put in, it is really hard for them to see the sun outside. They may be tossed in there like this. Then they fill up a small hole and seal it up, and the person disappears from then on.

Of course, he had only heard about these things for the time being. He had not seen them for real, but there is no smoke without fire. If this matter was not true, why would they do everything they could to prohibit the spread of these things?
Now he just wanted to tell Yu Qiutang everything honestly so that Yu Qiutang would let him go instead of killing him in this sorghum field.

A person of his status would be abandoned like a dog even if he died, and would have no value at all.

He can't rely on anyone and can only use his own unique and only ability to resolve the situation.

"Let me ask you. Are you from this coal mine?"

"Yes, yes. I work in this coal mine."

"How many years have you been working here? What exactly do you do? Are you familiar with the people inside? How many people are there in this coal mine?"

"I have been working here for more than six years, less than seven years. Well, the job is very simple. I just told you and you saw it. Every night there are trucks coming to pick up coal. I am responsible for supervising, contacting and loading the coal onto the trucks.

Because the foreman was my uncle, I was given this relatively easy job. There were probably more than 100 people inside, but I don't know exactly how many.

Because they keep coming in and out. Some people also move back and forth between other villages, so um, it's not very clear. But if you ask me if I am familiar with the people here.

Well... it's okay. As long as they are relatively stable and have worked for a few years, I can generally recognize them. Even if I can't pronounce some of them, we all know that they are our people in the coal mine when we meet. "

This person answered more questions than Yu Qiutang asked and spoke in great detail. It seemed that he told Yu Qiutang everything he knew and he even learned to express himself freely.

"Let me ask you, is there a person named Yu Chunsheng on your side?"

When Yu Qiutang learned that this person was the nephew of a foreman here, the problem became much simpler. Knowing his identity was equivalent to catching him, and the credibility of this person's words would be higher.

So, in order to save time, he went straight to the point and asked his brother's name without any hesitation.

"Yu Chunsheng?" The man was confused after hearing this. "It seems there is no such person. At least, among the people I have heard of, I have never heard of his name."

Yu Qiutang was not in a hurry.

This person does not know his brother's name.

Not an entirely bad thing.

If my brother is temporarily unable to get away and is just trying to get by, then he probably wouldn't use his real name, since identity cards didn't exist in that era anyway.

Many people who work in other places also get a note or a letter of introduction from the village committee or town to represent their identity.

However, working in this kind of coal mine does not require such strictness. In fact, many of these people were deceived into coming here unwillingly, so their identities are even more difficult to figure out.

"Let me ask you again, I heard that the coal mine here collapsed some time ago. Is it true? Why do you continue to operate it here?"

"It did collapse, but it only left a hole. It doesn't matter. We have it collapse several times a year. If it collapses here, we can just change the location and dig a new hole. It won't take long.

Places like ours are not like the big coal mines in Liukou Town. They pay attention to everything and also consider the safety of the miners. It's different here. Everything is based on the requirement of digging more coal.

As for whether the mine is safe and whether people will get into trouble, that depends on fate. If fate takes you away, there is nothing you can do about it, right?"

"From what you said, the things inside haven't changed, but the position of the cave entrance has changed?"

"That's right. We weren't too far from the collapsed area. We can move anything here as long as we have some core people.

As for the few people who were pressed down in front, they can only blame themselves for being unlucky. Earning this money is not very safe in the first place.

If you want to get this high salary, you must take greater risks, right?
It is much safer to dig food and grow crops outside, but you can't make money. What can you do?"

(End of this chapter)