The Vermilion Bird Works: Zhu Que Ji

  Zhu Que Ji Volume 1: County Town Opening Chapter

  April 15th, 1977, an ordinary day on the lunar calendar that couldn't be more ordinary.

  That day was fine and sunny, with no clouds for miles around. The sky was as blue as still water, and the whole of South China lay bathed in soft sunlight...

  At half past three in the afternoon, a white gas column condensed and appeared in the sky, slanting across the sky to draw an extremely long wound. Is it a white rainbow? But that's not a rainbow, but a slightly strange gas column. Some people on the ground had already noticed the celestial phenomenon above their heads, and they looked up one after another. Immediately, some self-proclaimed knowledgeable guys shouted: "What are you looking at? It's just a jet plane!"

  People on the ground can't see the source of the white air column. So they don't know how long the air column in the sky is, and it turns out that its starting point is thousands of miles away on the other side of the strait.

  Half an hour after the formation of the air column, Taipei's streets suddenly experienced a strong gust of wind, leaves rolled and fell from their branches, raindrops poured down, and motorcycles struggled to move forward on the slippery road.

  This month of this year, the island began to implement the regulations for the average land rights, and the local landlords had mixed feelings.

  The grass on the mountain outside the city is all bent towards the north, with sharp tips like swords, full of murderous intent. The hot springs in the mountains also seem to be affected by some kind of force, and the temperature is slowly rising. A middle-aged man with a half-bald head and a slightly fat belly suddenly shouted and rushed out of the hot spring. Fortunately, there were few people soaking in the hot spring at this time, but the administrator's eyes widened as he watched the scene of bubbles bursting rapidly from the water.

  A white air column swept over China, but the strange phenomenon below only appeared after a while. Along that mysterious trajectory, from Taipei, Fuzhou, Nanping, Nanchang, Jiujiang to Wuhan... torrential rains poured down, thunder and lightning flashed.

  The calm blue water in the strait began to become restless, waves suddenly rose and hit the fishing boat, making it shake constantly. However, no one noticed that there was a stowaway clinging to a wooden box, struggling to stay afloat in the sea.

  Chen Shuping was a math teacher at Jiujiang No. 2 Middle School, one of those who had just been rehabilitated. At this moment, he was leading his students in compulsory labor, listening to the loudspeaker broadcasting "Chairman Hua...", thinking about the two editorials published last month in People's Daily and Red Flag, this ordinary teacher couldn't help but smile. He stood on the riverbank, looking up at the strange clouds, his thick glasses reflecting his puzzled gaze, when suddenly a raindrop fell quietly onto his eyebrow.

  ……

  ……

  Meteorologists will be left speechless and bewildered, unable to comprehend how this cloud pillar suddenly appeared in the sky.

  Fortunately, the cloud pillar gradually fell into the sky and slowly dissipated, and everything on the ground also gradually returned to normal.

  And when the white cloud column finally dispersed in an instant, an explosion occurred outside a small city in the western Hubei mountainous area.

  The explosion site was a large pit, three meters deep and three meters wide. Nothing was found in the pit except for a large area of granite that had been scorched black at the bottom. After arriving on the scene, the military officer walked around the pit three times before reporting to his superiors that it was caused by ball lightning igniting the dynamite used by fishermen to catch fish.

  Then a lively education campaign against dangerous fishing was carried out locally, and various types of explosives were seized in large quantities, piled up into a small mountain on the playground of Chengguan County.

  But nobody noticed that two hundred meters outside the pit, there was an old scavenger who was now simmering a clear porridge with a black and dirty pot, while looking at the smelly and dirty bed with a face full of kindness.

  On the bed lay a baby, with a rosy complexion and sparkling eyes that were rolling around, looking pure and clean, lovely beyond compare.