Encountering Human Traffickers

I am 96 years old this year. I have experienced warlord chaos, the Republic of China, the puppet Manchukuo, the People's Republic of China, all provinces in China from south to north and east to west, and secretly crossed the Yalu River to go to North Korea; secretly crossed the border line to go to the Soviet Union, now called Russia. I have been to Pianma on the China-Myanmar border, and if I take one more step, I will reach Myanmar; I have been to Friendship Pass on the China-Vietnam border, and sprinkled a pee in Vietnam. If I can live a few more years, I plan to go to the United States to have a look.

Recently I have nothing to do, so I will tell everyone my experiences in this life, in order to prevent everyone from being deceived.

The name I gave myself is "I am a liar and his ancestor", I don't know many words, let alone use a computer. It was my old friend who wrote this post, and the content was all told by me.

In my lifetime, I have done countless wrongs, deceiving people of all kinds for decades. Men, women, old people, children, officials, drivers, prostitutes, johns... Heaven has its retribution. I have been married several times in my life, but have not left a son or daughter, and now I am alone, without even a person to talk to.

Now, my daily thing is to sunbathe, with my hands in my sleeves, facing south, thinking about the journey I have taken in my life. I have tasted mountain delicacies and seafood, eaten coarse tea and plain meals; I have worn silks and satins, and coarse cloth and ragged clothes; I have slept with the daughter of a big family, and played with the chick of a brothel... I have walked a road that others cannot finish in several generations, but when I think of it in old age, everything is empty.

When I was a child, I heard the monk say: Color is emptiness, emptiness is color. I didn't understand what it meant at the time; now that I'm old, I finally understand.

If I have to talk about the scams I've experienced in my life, where should I start? Too many, too many to say.

Let's start with my private school.

That day was the second day of my eighth birthday, and the sun was burning vigorously, the leaves and grass under the sun were also curled up tiredly, looking listless. I also walked back home listlessly, with pain and loneliness in my heart. My classmates had already gone home, but I was detained in the classroom by the teacher because I memorized a sentence from Confucius incorrectly. This Confucius with white beard specially teased us children, a good sentence, he just wanted to make it so difficult to understand. But the teacher said that these difficult words were wise sayings. Cheating people?

Usually, there was a dejected stray dog squatting under the soapberry tree, but today, the dirty wild dog was gone, and two people stood under the soapberry tree, one tall and one short. The fragmented shadows of the leaves fell on their faces, making their faces look broken and weird.

"Did you get out of school, doggy?" the tall person asked me.

My confused gaze shifted from the tall person's face to the short person's face, and then back to the tall person's face. They both had the same smile on their faces, revealing the same sun-bleached teeth. My nickname was doggy, and although they called me by my nickname, I didn't recognize them and I didn't know if I should agree to them.

The short man stepped forward, still smiling, and said to me: "Your father asked us to pick you up. Your father's car was injured and now he is in the clinic, and your mother is taking care of him in the clinic. There is no one at home, all in the clinic."

I heard that my dad was injured and hospitalized. I was in a mess at once. I asked them: "How did my dad get hurt by the car?"

The tall man said, "Your dad came back from collecting rent outside. A carriage rushed in front of him and the horse was startled, so he knocked your dad down."

I heard them say that, so I no longer doubted. My family has hundreds of mu of land, which is rented to dozens of households in the vicinity. After the wheat harvest every year, my father has to go to these households to collect rent. Tears streaming down my face, I said, "I'm going to the hospital, I want to see my dad."

The short man raised his arm and said, "Your father wants to see you too. Let's go with us. There is a carriage over there." I followed the short man's finger and saw a carriage parked next to a sycamore tree dozens of meters away, and the horse pulling the carriage was tied to the trunk.

The short one tugged my arm and got on the cart, and the tall one drove in front. The bells of the horse rang all the way, heading towards the school. The school was in the town, and there was a clinic in the town, but the cart didn't stop in the town, but passed through the town and kept going.

I asked, "Isn't my dad injured? Isn't he in the clinic?"

The short man said, "Your dad is in the county hospital, not in the town clinic."

I suspected that the two of them were bad guys, so I shouted: "But you just said my dad was in the clinic... Stop, I want to go home!"

The smile on the dwarf's face suddenly disappeared, and he gnashed his teeth, his face fierce. He clenched his fist and hit my face with a slap. My cheek made a crisp sound, followed by a hot pain. I cried out, like broken glass, leaving a trail behind.

The tall man turned around and shouted, "Cry a hammer, plug this broken-mouthed mouth." The short man took out a dirty cloth from his pocket and stuffed it into my mouth. Then he tied my hands with a thin rope. My mouth couldn't make a sound, I struggled hard, and my arms were sore from the thin rope.

I don't understand, they were just smiling kindly a moment ago, how could they change so quickly? I felt extremely wronged and puzzled.

After the town disappeared from sight, the tall man jumped off the carriage and removed the bell from the horse's neck. With a whip, the carriage drove away silently and quickly. I don't know where they are taking me, and I don't know if my parents will be worried if I don't come home.

I struggled hard and my whole body was in pain. Later, seeing that it was futile, I stopped struggling. After turning a mountain pass, the carriage slowed down, the road became narrower, and the slope became steeper. I saw mountains on both sides, and a few cypress trees grew stubbornly in the cracks. The cypresses were dense and low, like a brush. A group of crows rested beside the cypresses, their croaking hollow and echoing in the empty valley, making people shudder.

Later, the carriage could no longer move, the short man pushed me off the carriage and jumped off with me. I fell heavily on the stone pile, and the sharp edges of the stones hurt me painfully. The tall man turned the carriage and drove down the mountain lightly.

The short man took out two pairs of straw shoes from his waist, put on one himself, and put the other on my feet. I looked at this special straw shoe, which was small in front and large in back, stepped on the ground, just opposite the footprint. In this way, even if there is someone chasing behind, they will mistakenly think that we came down from the mountain and got on the carriage.

At that time, I was very young and did not know why they dragged me here.

The short man dragged me up the mountain road, and finally came to a cave. The cave was dark and terrible, and there was a stinky smell of urine, which made me shiver several times. Suddenly from the hot sun to the dark cave, I felt like I had suddenly fallen into an ice cellar.

The dwarf pulled a tattered cloth out of my mouth, and my crying finally broke out. The dwarf contemptuously looked at me and said, "Cry, just cry. No one can hear you here, how long do you want to cry?"

Since no one can hear it, what's the point of me crying? I sobbed and my throat was like a clam. The bumpy ride and the fright along the way made my body close to fainting. Later, I was tired and lay down in the cave and fell asleep.

When I woke up, I saw that the sun was about to set, and the afterglow of the setting sun gave the mountainside a golden layer. In addition to the dwarf in the cave, there was another man with a goatee. When the man with a goatee saw that I had woken up, he said, "What a melon baby, it's so late, and you can still sleep." His voice was clanging and he sounded like he was knocking a broken bell in my ear.

The bearded man and the short man sat on the ground, between them a stone with a whole roast chicken on it. The short man tore off a piece and put it in his mouth, crunching; the bearded man also tore off a piece and put it in his mouth, and the chicken oil flowed down his cheeks. I hadn't eaten all day, my stomach was rumbling, and my intestines twisted into braids. Watching them eat and drink, the smell of chicken drifted into my nostrils, my saliva almost flowing out, I quickly swallowed it down, my throat making a gurgling sound.

The short man looked at me and said, "Do you want to eat? Have a hammer."

The bearded man said, "Give him something to eat, if he starves to death, it will be a waste of effort."

The short man threw the chicken bones he had gnawed at my feet and said, "Eat this."

I know being short is an insult to me. When my dad feeds the dog, he feeds it like this. My dad will also say to the dog, "Eat quickly and roll away." Being short is like treating me like a dog. But I was so hungry that I couldn't help but walk over, pick it up and put it in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed the chicken bones.

After they finished eating the roast chicken, they opened a jar of liquor. The smell of liquor wandered in the cave, making me dizzy. I heard the short man ask Big Beard: "Have you sent the letter?"

Big Beard said, "Sent, probably reading the letter now."

The short man asked again, "How much did you take?"

Big Beard said, "One thousand dollars, no less."

The short man said, "Wang Xigui has money. If it were me, at least three thousand dollars."

Wang Xigui is my dad's nickname. My dad values money more than his life in this lifetime. People say that every copper plate is strung on his rib, and his family has tens of thousands of assets, but he eats steamed buns and pickles for every meal, not only does he do this, but also requires the whole family to eat like this. I don't know why they mentioned my dad, why they mentioned something like a thousand dollars or three thousand dollars, and what they sent my dad. My dad probably doesn't know them, otherwise they wouldn't hit me, nor let me chew on chicken bones.

Sun set down the mountain, the cave quickly became dark. The dwarf took out the rope and tied me to a stone pillar. I struggled hard, and the dwarf raised his arm and gave me a slap on the ear, scolding: "If you don't obey, I'll throw you down the valley to feed the wolves!"

Listen to the dwarf to feed me to the wolf, I scared, no longer struggling.

The Big Beard and the dwarf talked about something I couldn't understand. They seemed to be talking about a woman, talking about her skin and body, and they laughed dryly like a wild duck while talking.

Suddenly, an unusually sad cry came from outside the cave. The voice was low and thick, with a sharp voice in between, as if a spear pierced a shield. The beard said, "There's a wolf!" The dwarf took two steps back, and I saw his thin body trembling like a withered branch in the wind. I was also scared.

The Big Beard said, "Feed him to his aunt, really have wolves!"