Calculer - Chapitre 17
"Oh...oh," Li Xu quickly replied.
"Hurry...hurry up!" Da Kai also lost his composure for a moment.
"This is my baggage."
"Never mind, let's take it outside and divide it up."
You stepped on my foot.
Xu Chen stood at the door, looking at the chaotic scene of Gu Xing and the others, and burst into laughter. After finally managing to pack their things, they all rushed out the door. They hadn't gone far when they heard Chen Shou's voice from the rooftop: "Daughter~ ...
Looking back, Gu Xing saw Chen Shou standing on the rooftop, shouting at the top of his lungs. With each shout, Gu Xing couldn't help but tremble.
"Stop looking, let's go." Li Xu said and was about to leave without looking back. Just then, Chen Shou suddenly saw Yang Yi downstairs and climbed over the railing.
"Don't do anything stupid!" Zhang Da shouted at Chen Shou.
Before Zhang Da could finish speaking, Chen Shou shouted to Yang Yi, "Daughter! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" and jumped forward.
The girls present covered their faces with their hands, not daring to look anymore (except for Xu Chen). Gu Xing and the others saw Chen Shou fall straight to the ground and remain motionless.
Da Kai and Gu Xing mustered their courage and went to Chen Shou's side to take a look. They saw that Chen Shou was barely breathing and had lost consciousness. After considering for a while, Gu Xing and the others lifted Chen Shou back into the house and laid him flat on the ground.
"Forget it, why don't we go to the villages below and ask the villagers for help?" Gu Xing looked at the others, at this point there was no other way.
“But Old Man Chen said that the villagers down there are barbarians and not to be trifled with,” Li Xu said in a low voice.
Gu Xing frowned and said, "He's almost dead now. We have to find someone. No matter how barbaric they are, they wouldn't just stand by and watch someone die. Besides, Old Man Chen is clearly mentally unstable; we can't trust what he says."
After Gu Xing and his group settled Chen Shou in, they all went down the mountain and headed towards the village.
Upon entering the village, they discovered that it was actually quite wealthy, with almost all the houses being new. The villagers themselves didn't seem particularly special. After asking a few villagers, the group learned where the village chief lived. They met the village chief, a middle-aged man in his fifties with a slightly hunched back.
As soon as Gu Xing saw the village chief, he couldn't wait to tell him the whole story. As the village chief listened, his eyes lit up, and he called over a man named Hou Zhong, who then took Gu Xing and the others away.
Hou Zhong was a sturdy man who looked honest. He took Gu Xing and the others to his home, invited them to sit down, and served them some tea. Hou Zhong said to Gu Xing and the others, "Please sit for a while. I will take you to the city in a van. There is a bus station there."
After sitting for a while, Gu Xing asked about the background of that Chen Shou. Hou Zhong looked around seriously, said nothing, and just waved to Gu Xing. Gu Xing became even more curious and pressed him for details. Hou Zhong then stood up, walked to the door and looked out the window. Seeing that no one was around, he returned to Gu Xing and the others and began to tell them his story.
It turns out that long ago, Chen Shou's great-grandfather had already settled in this place. Chen Shou's ancestors started out by tomb raiding, so it has always been said that Chen Shou's family had a fortune of millions, gold and silver treasures. Gradually, the villagers spread the rumors more and more mysteriously, saying that Chen Shou's family had hidden mountains of gold and silver, which were inexhaustible. Everyone went crazy in order to find the treasure in Chen Shou's family.
Hou Zhong stood up again and looked out the window. Finding no one around, he whispered to Gu Xing and the others, "Some villagers have gone to the city, made money, and built houses, but they still refuse to give up Chen Shou's family's property. They're guarding this village. The village chief... the village chief and the others even arrested Chen Shou's daughter, hoping she would reveal the whereabouts of the treasure, and also hoping that Chen Shou would lose all hope and reveal the secret. But Chen Shou hasn't reacted and hasn't called the police. We think it's because Chen Shou's family's treasure was obtained through tomb raiding, and he's afraid to report it, so it's just been left unresolved."
Xu Chen smiled and asked Zhong, "So what about you? Aren't you tempted by those treasures?"
Gu Xing nudged Xu Chen hard, and Xu Chen frowned and looked at Gu Xing, shouting, "What are you doing?"
Hou Zhong then laughed and said, "I lost my parents when I was young. Later, I went to the city to live with relatives and found a good job. I often go back to the village to visit. I don't want these things that don't belong to me."
Fearing that Xu Chen might say something inappropriate again, Gu Xing asked Hou Zhong, "What's wrong with Chen Shou's daughter now? Is she dead?"
"No, they're still being held at the village chief's house. I wasn't planning on getting involved, but I have a feeling something's going to happen today, so I'd better get you out of town as soon as possible and then go to the police station."
"Why don't we rescue Chen Shou's daughter first?" Da Kai stood up, looking imposing in front of Fang Yi.
Hou Zhong thought for a moment and then nodded: "Alright, there's usually no one guarding it. Come with me."
Gu Xing and the others followed Hou Zhong, leaving Fang Yi, Xiao Hui, and Yang Yi in Hou Zhong's car. When they arrived at the village chief's house, there seemed to be no one there, only a few children. Hou Zhong looked around and asked the children where the village chief had gone.
"They went to Old Chen's house to dig for treasure."
Hou Zhong patted the children's heads, took out several tens of yuan from his bag and gave them some. He then said to one of them, "Here's some candy for you. Don't tell your dad I was here. Come on, go play somewhere else."
The children left excitedly as soon as they received the money. Hou Zhong led Gu Xing and the others into the house and into the kitchen. There was a lot of straw in the kitchen for cooking. Hou Zhong moved a pile aside, revealing a large hole in the ground with a ladder leading down. Hou Zhong and Gu Xing went down one after another, but Xu Chen stayed on top and refused to come down. Gu Xing ignored her and went into the dirty and damp hole.
Upon entering, some light shone through, and the room was relatively well-ventilated. In the center, a girl sat on a pile of dry grass. Yang Mian peered at the girl through the dim light and realized that she only bore a slight resemblance to Yang Yi.
The woman started crying, and Hou Zhong quickly said, "Chen Fang, we're here to rescue you, don't make a fuss."
The woman named Chen Fang stopped crying. When Gu Xing got closer to take a closer look, he saw that her hands and feet were handcuffed. At this moment, Hou Zhong whispered to Gu Xing, "I'll go upstairs and get some tools. We can get her out of here quickly." After saying that, he went upstairs.
Gu Xing and the others comforted Chen Fang in the cave. Not long after, Hou Zhong returned with tools and began to work on the iron shackles on Chen Fang's hands and feet.
On the other hand, the village chief, accompanied by several people, arrived at Chen Shou's house. Chen Shou was already awake, sitting at the table drinking tea and panting heavily. When he saw the village chief enter, he stood up nervously.
The village chief said with a smile, "I heard you fell from the building. Are you alright? You can't be hurt."
"I'm fine, get out of here."
Seeing that there was no need for further polite words, the village chief cut to the chase: "I won't say any more to you. Quickly hand over your ill-gotten gains; they belong to our village."
“I said no, and I mean no. It’s you who should hand over my daughter.”
The village chief sneered, "Heh, if you want your daughter, hand over that treasure, how about it?"
"I would rather die than hand it over."
Immediately, the village chief glared at Chen Shou with a ferocious expression and said through gritted teeth, "Hurry up and hand it over, you're going to die soon anyway, and you won't be able to take it with you to your coffin."
Chen Shou ignored him and quietly drank his tea.
The village chief couldn't help but yell, his facial features contorting into a ferocious grimace, his face flushed a dark red, and he shouted, "Tell me, tell me now!" He walked up to Chen Shou, grabbed his neck, and started pulling on it. Chen Shou struggled, but the men the village chief had brought also came to help. Chen Shou was no match for them and was knocked unconscious by the village chief with an ashtray.
The village chief calmed down and said to the villagers he had brought, "Let's search this place."
"Didn't we search for this before?"
“Before, we were afraid he would call the police, so we searched secretly. Now, we don’t care about that anymore. Just search properly.”
The village chief gave the order, and everyone searched carefully. They searched for a long time but found nothing. The village chief walked back and forth in the house, thinking of a solution. Suddenly, he went to the wall and gently tapped it with a wooden stick. He noticed that the sound was different in one place, so he called over a few people, picked up some large stones, and smashed them against the wall. Miraculously, the wall was broken open.
Suddenly, the walls shimmered with golden light, and the village chief and the others were unable to open their eyes for a moment.
"Oh! We found it, haha!" Several villagers shouted happily.
The village chief's face was contorted, and he kept laughing strangely: "Found it, hee hee, found it!"
The village chief and his group recklessly carried the gold and silver treasures out of the cave and out of the house. The village chief also rushed into the cave in ecstasy, took a lot of gold bars, and then walked out of the house. Suddenly, Chen Shou chased after them from the house and tackled the village chief.
"This is mine, you can't take it away!" Chen Shou's eyes widened as he struggled with the village chief, whose pupils also dilated, and he went into a frenzy. The two tumbled and rolled until they tumbled down the ravine. The villagers who were carrying the treasure nearby ignored them, continuing to move the treasure, shouting and excitedly.
When they returned to the village, the village erupted in excitement. After decades of anticipation, their dream had finally come true. Hundreds of villagers lost their minds and rushed to Chen Shou's house on the mountainside to take the treasure.
Chen Fang was also rescued by Hou Zhong and the others, but she saw that everyone in the village, regardless of age or gender, was running around shouting, "Wow, haha, hee... we're rich!"
"Wow... Haha... Hee hee"
The cries irritated Chen Fang, causing her pupils to dilate as she yelled, "Those are my things! Give them back to me! Don't move them!"
Chen Fang rushed into the crowd like a madwoman and followed the villagers up the mountain. Hou Zhong and Gu Xing looked at each other and decided to follow.
Along the way, gold and silver utensils were everywhere, leaving Gu Xing and his companions dumbfounded. When they reached the mountain path halfway up the mountain, they saw Chen Shou standing in the middle of the road, holding a wood-chopping knife and shouting, "Don't take them! Don't take them! Those are mine!"
Although Chen Shou looked to be over seventy years old, he wielded the woodcutter's knife with surprising strength. His mouth opened wider than a washbasin as he roared and shouted.
Gu Xing and the others dared not go any further and stopped. They saw the villagers around them carrying things back and forth. Their eyes were no longer black pupils, but only whites, and they had completely lost consciousness.
After shouting for a while, Chen Shou picked up a machete and started hacking away. After the villagers were cut down, they seemed to get up as if nothing had happened. Chen Shou continued to hack at the villagers who were passing by. Blood splattered on the ground, staining a large area of land red, but the gold and silver jewelry were made to shine even brighter.
At this moment, the village chief also climbed out of the ravine onto the road, spitting blood, his eyes only showing the whites, and a tree branch stuck in his chest. He crawled to the middle of the road and grinned maliciously as he picked up the gold and silver jewelry on the ground, shouting, "Mine, gold, mine... hahaha."
The village chief, picking up gold bars along the way, crawled to Chen Shou's feet. Chen Shou, having just killed two villagers, turned around and saw the village chief picking up the gold bars. He kicked the village chief, knocking him to the ground, but the chief got up again and picked up the gold bars. Chen Shou said viciously, "Those are mine! Let go of those things!" With that, Chen Shou raised his machete and swung it at the village chief's head.
The village chief's head trembled slightly, but the excited expression on his face did not disappear, and his hands were still picking up the treasures on the ground.
Gu Xing and the others didn't want to watch any longer, so they said to Hou Zhong, "Let's hurry out of the city and call for help."
Hou Zhong's eyes never left the gold bars on the ground; he simply nodded. As Gu Xing watched him with concern, he saw Chen Fang rushing down the mountain, carrying a large pile of gold bars in her hands.
Chen Shou saw her, raised his wood-chopping knife and roared, "Daughter, where are you taking my things? Put them down right now!"
Chen Fang glared at Chen Shou menacingly: "No, these things are not yours, they are mine. After you die, I will inherit them, right? It's just a matter of getting them into my hands as quickly as possible."
"Damn it, bullshit, waah..." Chen Shou rushed towards Chen Fang.
Chen Fang's eyes widened, looking terrifying. She watched as Chen Shou rushed to within a few meters of her, and with her right hand, she drew a knife, scattering gold bars all over the ground. Chen Shou, seeing the knife in Chen Fang's hand, was not frightened and still rushed over. Chen Fang immediately headed up the mountain.
Gu Xing urged Hou Zhong, "Hurry up, before too many people die, let's go and call for help."
Hou Zhong took a deep breath, looking at the treasure on the ground, still hesitant. Gu Xing pulled him forcefully, and Hou Zhong suddenly broke free from Gu Xing, picked up a few gold bars, put them in a bag, and shouted to Gu Xing, "Alright, let's go."
The group returned to Hou Zhong's van, and it was only with great difficulty that twelve people managed to sit down. Hou Zhong then hurriedly started the car. Gu Xing and the others saw the villagers outside and cheered and shouted continuously.
"This is terrifying," Yang Mian said, looking around.
Yang Yi and the other women, who hadn't gone up the mountain with Gu Xing and hadn't witnessed the terrifying scene, asked curiously, "What was so terrifying? What happened?"
There was a moment of silence in the car; everyone fell silent.
Seeing that no one spoke up, Xu Chen began, "We just went up the mountain and met Old Man Chen and the village chief..."
"Shut up!" Gu Xing yelled at Xu Chen.
Xu Chen turned his head to the other side and stopped talking.
At this moment, everyone looked back with heavy hearts. In the distant village, the villagers continued to shout, and even the children were running around frantically.
As the car drove further and further away from the village, Gu Xing breathed a sigh of relief and slumped into his seat.
Suddenly, the car screeched to a halt, and the people inside fell off their seats due to inertia. Just as Hou Zhong was about to get out of the car to check, he heard Yang Yi shout "Ah!" Turning around, he saw Chen Shou dragging the car and yelling, "Give me back my things! Give me back my things!"
Gu Xing was in the back seat, separated from Chen Shou by only a window. He saw Chen Shou screaming and roaring hysterically, with a knife stuck in his left chest.
Hou Zhong kept accelerating, but Chen Shou still held the car tightly, his shouts drowning out all other sounds. Seeing this, Xu Chen couldn't help but laugh, while everyone looked at him in confusion.
"Haha...ha..." Xu Chen laughed louder and louder.
Gu Xing grabbed her arm: "What are you laughing at?"
Xu Chen suddenly stopped laughing and looked at Gu Xing expressionlessly: "This is what it means to burn one's life for any purpose, to make one's life shine like a fire."
As soon as Xu Chen finished speaking, Chen Shou seemed to go even crazier. He kept dragging the car backward. When Hou Zhong saw that there was no other way, he stopped the car and got out. When Chen Shou saw that Hou Zhong had gotten out of the car, he stopped and rushed to Hou Zhong to snatch back the gold bars on his body.
"The women should all stay in the car and not come out," Gu Xing instructed, then looked at Xu Chen before leading the others out of the car.
At this moment, Chen Shou and Hou Zhong tugged at each other for a bit, and the gold bars fell out. Although Chen Shou was over seventy years old, he pushed Hou Zhong to the ground, bent down, and picked up the gold bars. Suddenly, a "crack" was heard, like the sound of a tree branch breaking. Hou Zhong took an axe from the cart and stood behind Chen Shou. Chen Shou could no longer stand up; his body was bent at a ninety-degree angle from the back halfway down, but his hands were still picking up the gold bars. By this time, Yang Yi and the other girls in the cart had already fainted. Xu Chen, however, stared at everything that was happening. Hou Zhong swung the axe down again, and blood flowed everywhere. Chen Shou lay in a pool of blood, his eyes wide open, staring at the gold bars on the ground, still alive.
"Gold, my gold!" Hou Zhong put down his axe and hurriedly picked up the glittering gold bars from the blood.
Hou Zhong wiped the gold bars with his clothes, stared at them for a while, and slowly turned his head to look at Gu Xing and the others.
"Heh," Hou Zhong grinned and said, "I don't know why, I don't know."
As Hou Zhong spoke, he stood up, picked up an axe, and said, "I'm sorry, these gold bars, and... all the village's treasures, are now mine."
At this moment, Hou Zhong's face contorted, and Gu Xing and the others looked at him in disbelief.
"Gu Xing, Zhang Da, everyone get in the car quickly," Yang Mian suddenly said.