Chapter 2

Seeing that this time the great effort to nurture the venomous worm had been in vain, Zhang Lisheng’s face showed a look of despair. The incantation he had barely managed to recite could no longer be sustained, and with a slight slip of his tongue, it abruptly broke off.

As soon as the incantation broke, a force of backlash spread through the young man’s body, causing his face to contort and his teeth to bleed. At this moment, the accumulated disappointment in Zhang Lisheng’s heart, which had built up over many years, was ten times more unbearable than the physical pain.

Seeing the centipede crawl toward him again, the young man’s face showed a terrifyingly violent expression, and he roared, “A hundred drops of essence blood! You’ve taken a hundred drops of my essence blood today and still won’t listen to me. You want me to die, you want me to die!”

Others have mothers, but I don’t;

Others’ fathers dote on their children, but my father has never said a kind word to me;

Others can go to town to play, but I can only stay in this old house and feed you this venomous worm three times a day...

The more he spoke, the sadder he became, and in the end, he lost his mind, grabbing the centipede and tearing and biting it wildly, venting the indescribable sorrow in his heart. It wasn’t until a series of urgent and forceful knocks on the door that he was pulled back to reality.

Coming to his senses, the young man looked at the nearly lifeless centipede in his hand and his face showed a look of utter horror. But the pounding on the door, accompanied by the shouts of “Mountain worm, quick, open the door, you damn brat, something big has happened...” left him no time to tend to the venomous worm. He hurriedly threw it into a corner behind the door and struggled to open the wooden door.

Outside the door stood a long-faced middle-aged man in a cheap black suit, holding his head according to the custom of the Miao people. He was the deputy village chief of Guawo Village, Tao Lelin.

Although he was just the deputy village chief, Tao Lelin treated the Zhang family differently from ordinary villagers. As a grassroots cadre and a former soldier, he was not afraid of any ghosts or spirits.

Seeing the young man appear before him, covered in mud, Tao Lelin shouted, “You little brat, did you take a bath in the mud?”

“Quick, something big has happened to your father. He’s in the county hospital. You must come with me.”

Saying this, he grabbed the young man and ran hurriedly out of the village.

After being pulled by Tao Lelin for a while, Zhang Lisheng finally came to his senses and said dazedly, “Uncle Lelin, I, I, I need to lock the door.”

“Lock the door? What’s there to lock? What valuable things do you have in your house? Besides, who in the village would dare to steal from the Zhang family?” The middle-aged man shouted, out of breath, “Your father was hit by a car in the county town. The police called the village and said to get to the hospital quickly. We can’t afford to waste any time.”

As they talked, they arrived at a green Wuzheng four-wheeled truck at the village entrance.

By this time, many villagers had gathered at the village entrance to watch the commotion. Seeing the young man arrive, they quickly helped him into the truck.

Then, two or three dozen young villagers, eager for trouble, shouted, “Damn it, do they still want the central government’s ethnic policies? How dare they hit one of us from Guawo Village?”

“Exactly, no way. If they don’t give us an explanation, we’ll take it to Beijing.” They climbed onto the back of the truck, turning it into a sardine can.

Seeing the dense crowd in the back of the truck through the rearview mirror, the young driver, who was sitting next to Zhang Lisheng, stammered, “Uncle Lelin, this is a truck. The back can’t carry people. We’ll be fined and the truck will be impounded in the county town.”

Knowing that most of the young villagers in the back were just looking for trouble and hoping to take advantage of the situation in the city, but this was not the time to stop them, and as a village chief and party secretary, he couldn’t afford to offend these troublemakers, Tao Lelin said with a grim face, “If something like this happens, which traffic police officer would dare to check you? The country would be in trouble. You young fool, hurry up, we can’t waste any time.”

The driver thought about it and agreed. He glanced at the bewildered, skinny young man and sighed, starting the truck.

He sensed that there was more to Uncle Lelin’s words, and it seemed that the young man’s father was in grave danger. At such a time, it was a good deed to let the father and son meet one last time, even if the father was a feared man.

Thinking this, the driver unconsciously stepped on the gas.

The truck drove on the road to the county town. The solid asphalt road, though old and somewhat bumpy, was still relatively smooth.

To say that the transportation conditions in Guawo Village had greatly improved, one reason was that during the founding war of the New China, a legendary Sichuan army general from this area had risen to become the Minister of Transportation and built a dirt road for his hometown.

The second reason was the provincial government’s “Village-to-Village” project, which widened the original road and turned the single lane into a double lane.

Moreover, after being approved as a natural ecological folk tourism area, a new tourist route from the county town to Guawo Village was reportedly about to be constructed.

Zhang Lisheng sat in the passenger seat of the truck, staring out the window at the dense, lush primeval forest passing by. His expression was numb, and he barely noticed as the scenery outside the window gradually changed from the forest to a small town and then to the bustling streets of the county town.

The truck stopped at the entrance of the county central hospital. The driver honked the horn a few times in vain, but the pedestrians blocking the motor lane paid no attention, instead drawing the attention of a traffic police officer directing traffic.

A pot-bellied traffic police officer in a police uniform and a white and green fluorescent jacket whispered to his colleague, then ran a few steps to the truck’s window, gave a limp salute, and knocked on the glass, saying in a heavily accented Mandarin, “Driver’s license, vehicle registration. How dare you use a truck like a bus? Don’t you care about your life?”

The driver inwardly cursed his bad luck, habitually smiled, and took out the prepared driver’s license and vehicle registration, offering a cigarette. Just as he was about to explain, someone in the back of the truck shouted, “Our Zhang family’s father in Guawo Village was hit by a car in the city. How is it that we, his fellow villagers, don’t care about our lives when we come to see him?”

“I don’t like the way you talk, officer. Do you think the Miao people are easy to bully? Are you protecting them?”

In areas with a concentration of ethnic minorities, public security and law enforcement officers must be clear-headed. While the mountain people are usually docile and easy to manage, once more than ten of them gather, it’s best not to provoke them.

Especially in cases involving traffic accidents, things can quickly escalate into ethnic conflicts, which could be a big deal. Even a county traffic police deputy captain with little political clout could be in trouble, let alone the county or city mayor.

Thinking this, the fat police officer subconsciously looked at the sign at the nearby wholesale market that read, “Developing ecological tourism benefits the country, the people, and the county; promoting ethnic harmony benefits you, me, and everyone.” Without even checking the truck’s documents, he returned them to the driver, forcing a smile, and said in a local dialect, “I’m just responsible for your safety. We’ve lived in the same county for generations. Who isn’t a fellow villager? Don’t talk nonsense. If you have an emergency, I’ll help clear the traffic. Hurry up, hurry up.”

Saying this, he turned and began to direct traffic for the truck.

“Tsk, tsk, the quality of the police has really improved with the development of the tourism area.” Watching the busy back