Chapter 274 The wolf is coming

A long time ago, there was a child who was herding sheep in the mountains.

One day, the farmers at the foot of the mountain heard him shouting "A wolf is coming" on the mountain, so they all ran up with hoes and sickles to kill the wolf. However, they didn't even see the shadow of the wolf, so they scolded him angrily.

The next day, he shouted "wolf is coming" again, and the farmers rushed to help him fight the wolf, but they didn't see the wolf again. On the third day, when he shouted "wolf is coming" again, the farmers who didn't believe him at all ignored him, so he and his sheep were eaten by the wolf.

Recently, Chu Dapeng has often thought of this story.

He didn't read much and didn't understand any profound truths, but he knew this fairy tale. Chu Jian would tell her sister Chu Xin some simple stories every weekend when she was at home. He listened to this story and he still remembered what Chu Jian said to Chu Xin at that time: "This story tells us that we should be honest and trustworthy and never lie."

At that time, Chu Dapeng thought the story was childish and a trick to tease children, but later he changed his mind and became confused because he knew that before a wolf pack launched a large-scale attack, there would always be one or two wolves that would conduct a tentative attack and quickly run away at the slightest sign of trouble. This means that when the farmers ran up the first two times, the wolves might have been scared away, and the shepherd boy did not lie at all.

The child was speechless until he was eaten by the wolf.

Now, Chu Dapeng has this feeling.

Xiao Lijun from the Municipal Sports Lottery Center is the wolf, and the people watching and laughing at him are the farmers. He has no way to defend himself. Perhaps, only if he is eaten by the wolf or jumps off the roof, he will not be a swindler.

Chu Dapeng didn't dare to jump.

After enduring the scorching sun for a long time, he finally climbed down from the violently shaking billboard, and his laughter naturally became louder, as if no matter how hot the sun was, it could not penetrate the malice in the world. No one believed him, not even his wife, his daughter, his brother Zhang Liushun who stayed with him all day, and his relatives and friends who took advantage of him. They just asked him to confess, and they kept saying, "Dapeng, don't be confused anymore! Be an innocent person."

Innocent people!
Haha~ Chu Dapeng doesn’t want to struggle anymore.

Then be an innocent person in their eyes.

But since then, he did not follow Zhang Lao to Yunxi Village. It was just that Zhang Lao missed him so much that he came to Hongshan Lane to find him several times, and tried his best to persuade him to go to the countryside to work. However, Chu Dapeng was no longer willing to listen to those big truths, nor was he willing to live for those big truths. It was just that when he was sober, he was really miserable, and his mind was full of lottery tickets. At this time, the benefits of alcohol were revealed. The wine flowed through his limbs all day long, and he lived a life of drunkenness and dreams. He no longer had those troubles. Otherwise, he would go to the mahjong hall to numb himself.

The mahjong hall was not a good place to live in peace. Ever since Zhang Yunqi arranged a job for Chu Dapeng, he became a transporter of agricultural materials for the Yunxi Village Crop Professional Planting Cooperative. Since then, he rarely went there because he had a serious job. Now he is back to his old job. Whenever he arrives at the mahjong hall, all the gamblers look at him and smile. Some of them shout, "Chu Dapeng, I haven't seen you for a long time! I heard that you won the lottery?"

Chu Dapeng did not answer. He found a seat and sat down. He only said to his card friends: "Play cards! Play cards! I have money." Then he took out three or five crumpled Big Unity banknotes and slapped them in front of the card table.

Someone deliberately shouted loudly: "Your lottery ticket must be a fake!"

Chu Dapeng opened his eyes wide and said, "It's none of your fucking business!"

The man laughed: "It's none of my business, but I heard that you forged lottery tickets to commit fraud, and the day before yesterday you ran to the city sports lottery center and jumped off the building, causing a sensation in the city. Why didn't you jump then?"

Chu Dapeng's face turned red and he argued, "I just climbed down the pole. Why would I jump off the building? That's nonsense... The lottery ticket is real, I didn't cheat anyone... I want my own money, how can it be considered a scam?" He then continued to say things like "Xiao Lijun is a wolf who eats people without leaving any bones!" and "Those beasts are worse than pigs and dogs!", which made everyone laugh.

In the days that followed, they asked more and more questions, but Chu Dapeng suddenly changed his temper and stopped arguing angrily. When he didn't have wine to drink, he always looked depressed and uneasy, with a layer of gray on his face. He didn't say anything and just played cards. When he had wine to drink, his face was numb and indifferent. If those gamblers pestered him and asked, "Dapeng, did you win the prize by cheating in the lottery?"

The drunken Chu Dapeng kept nodding his head: "Yes, yes, I won the lottery by playing a fake lottery, hehe! It was the special prize, 80,000 cash and a brand new Santana! Brother Dapeng, you are awesome, right?"

This remark once again caused everyone to laugh. The drunk Chu Dapeng also laughed. He even thought that he was a swindler. Oh! That's right. Thinking about all the things he had done before, he was a real swindler. Thinking of this, he felt relaxed all over, as if he had used his past sins to wash away his heart that was now wandering between being a good person and a gangster. He drank well, played cards well, and even had good luck. He won all the way!

However, he gambled all day and all night, played cards and drank all night long, and never went home. His body was in a mess. His hair was unkempt, his mouth smelled fishy, ​​and his scarlet eyes had dark bags under them, making him look like a tuberculosis patient.

The mahjong parlor owner was kind-hearted, and perhaps out of concern for someone’s life, he advised Chu Dapeng to go home and rest before coming back. But Chu Dapeng didn’t want to listen and kept yelling, “I have plenty of money!”

Until this Friday, when the first encounter appeared here.

She came to see Chu Dapeng after school.

The mahjong players in the mahjong parlor all knew her. She was Chu Dapeng's daughter. She was very pretty and her grades were also very good. If there was a golden phoenix in Hongshan Lane, it would be this girl. But they were also surprised that Chu Dapeng, a lazy man who died without a burial, could have raised such an outstanding girl. However, this girl probably looked down on people from such places. After entering the room, she walked directly to Chu Dapeng without saying a word, stared at his dark, thin and unrecognizable face, and said, "My mother asked you to go home."

Chu Dapeng only glanced at Chu Jian, then focused on the cards in his hand, shouting at his friends to continue playing cards, as if he had ignored his daughter's words. But in the end, he still said to the air: "Go home! Don't come here again!"

Seeing him like this, Chu Jian did not try to persuade him, but reached out to grab his card and threw it directly on the ground. Chu Dapeng was so angry that he punched the card table! Then he stood up and wanted to hit Chu Jian. Chu Jian stared at him and said, "You hit me."

Chu Dapeng raised his arms high and then gently put them down.

Seeing how cowardly he was, his fellow card-playing friends nearby started laughing again, saying things like "Dapeng is such a coward" and "He doesn't even dare to teach his own child a lesson".

Chu Dapeng blushed and cursed, "What a joke!" He quickly pulled Chu Jian out of the door, stared at her for a few seconds, and said in a gentle voice, "I'll be back later, I will definitely be back, you go back first, don't come to this kind of place again, there is no good person here."

After saying that, Chu Dapeng turned around and was about to leave. However, he hesitated after taking just two steps, as if he had something on his mind. After a while, he turned around again, came close to Chu Jian, and asked in a low voice, "Tell me, if a person does something bad, will he be unworthy of being a human being for the rest of his life?"

I was stunned when I first saw it.

At this time, Chu Dapeng had already waved his hands, and his dark face showed dejection. Then, he took out two wrinkled big unity notes from his pocket and stuffed them into Chu Jian's hands: "You go to school, I'll go home soon." After a pause, he said: "You should study hard, and don't bother with people like me." As soon as he said this, he seemed to be very anxious, and went into the mahjong hall without looking back.

It was not until late at night that Chu Dapeng, who had been playing mahjong to the point of forgetting to eat and sleep, walked out of the mahjong hall again, drunk. He didn't know when his daughter left, but he never wanted her to come. He bought a bottle of Zhijiang Daqu at a roadside store, and didn't want anything to fill his stomach, so he just drank it while rushing home.

When they reached the intersection of a three-way road in Hongshan Lane, there was an uphill road of about 100 meters. The road was a bit steep and there were no lights. Chu Dapeng, who hadn't slept for two days, had a hard time walking. He also drank a lot of wine, so his heart was beating wildly and his whole body was covered in sweat. So he sat down on the ground, gasped for a while, looked up at the sky, and in the silent and deserted night, he saw a sky full of twinkling stars. It seemed that there were countless lottery tickets, sheep, farmers and wolves in the light!
He picked up the bottle and drank the wine in big gulps. The spicy feeling stabbed into his throat and stomach like a knife. His whole body was hot and his mind was blurry. He fell directly to the cold ground. All the worries in his heart and the lottery ticket floating in the sky suddenly disappeared.

At this time, a motorcycle suddenly passed by. There were no lights on the street and the road was pitch black. When it got closer, the driver found a person lying in the middle of the road. He was startled and quickly turned the steering wheel to avoid the person.

The man riding the motorcycle was a young man. He was so angry that he stopped his motorcycle and spat a mouthful of thick phlegm at Chu Dapeng: "Where did this drunkard come from? He is looking for death!"

Chu Dapeng wiped the thick phlegm off his face, then looked at the motorcycle with drunken eyes that was revving away. After a while, he threw away the empty bottle, supported himself on the ground with his hands and feet, and staggered to get up.

A loud "bang" was heard!
At the uphill intersection of the third road, a van came speeding and hit Chu Dapeng without any warning.

Then, a black shadow rushed into the sky, and with a dull thud, fell on the road a few meters away.

About ten seconds later, a young man got out of the van. His legs and feet were trembling and his face was pale. He walked to Chu Dapeng tremblingly. He looked at Chu Dapeng lying on the ground, his body curled up, and his whole body was covered with sticky blood. He was so scared that his tongue was tied: "Are you okay?"

"No, no, it's okay..."

"Big brother, wait a minute! I'll call the emergency number and send you to the hospital!"

The driver sobered up a little when he saw that the man was still breathing. There was no surveillance at the scene, so he didn't dare to disrupt the scene and drove the man directly to the hospital. He immediately ran to the nearby telephone booth to call the police and dial 120 emergency number, then hurried back, reached out and slowly turned Chu Dapeng's curled body over to lie on his back, held up his head with his left hand, and let his lower back rest on the ground.

At this time, he found that bright red blood was constantly flowing out of Chu Dapeng's abdomen, and the entire road beneath him was dyed black and red. He was completely shocked: "I, I have already called the emergency number, big, big brother, hold on! Hold on! It's okay, nothing will happen..."

"Driver..." At this time, Chu Dapeng actually raised his blood-stained hand with difficulty towards the panic-stricken driver.

"Brother, hold on! You can't die! What will I do if you die?" The driver stretched out a hand and held Chu Dapeng's hand. He was so scared that he was about to cry: "Brother, is there something wrong with you? Don't scare me..."

"You, you, tell me, if a person makes a mistake, does that mean he can no longer be a human being for the rest of his life?"

"Brother, what are you talking about? Don't let your imagination run wild. You can't be a good person for the rest of your life. It doesn't matter if you made a mistake. You can turn over a new leaf and start a new life. Isn't it said that a prodigal son who returns is worth more than gold?" The confused young driver didn't understand Chu Dapeng's words at all. He just thought that he was unconscious after being hit, so he answered like this. But at this moment, Chu Dapeng's face, which was pale due to excessive blood loss, showed an indescribable smile: "You, you listen to me..."

"Brother, what did you say?"

Chu Dapeng's voice was already very weak. The young driver quickly leaned over and listened, and only then did he hear him say intermittently: "No, I don't blame you. I, I have a daughter, her name is Chu Jian, she is the top student in the second grade of the city's No. 1 Middle School. You, you find her, tell her that I... I'm sorry to her and her daughter, please, find, you must find, her..."

The young driver's heart seemed to have fallen into the abyss, and his voice was filled with tears of fear: "Brother, dear brother! You should tell your daughter this yourself. Your daughter is still a high school student. You must not let her lose her father at such a young age! You have to hold on, the ambulance will be here soon, it will be here soon! It's okay, nothing will happen, believe me, you have to hold on! Your daughter has such good grades, she is the first in the No. 1 Middle School in the city. She must be a candidate for Tsinghua University or Peking University. You will be able to enjoy your life soon! You have to hold on even for her..."

Chu Dapeng seemed to have completely deafened the driver’s voice. He lay on the cold ground with his limbs spread out, facing the sky dotted with stars. His face was as white as paper, and only his trembling mouth was still opening and closing: “Also, the lottery is real, but, but don’t, don’t want it anymore. We ordinary people can’t fight, can’t fight… Ok, study hard, take good care of mom and, and sister…”

******
(End of this chapter)