My great-grandfather was a storyteller. When he was dying, he told us a story about him falling into a bandit’s den and drawing a “life and death lottery”.
He said that during the period of the Republic of China, there was a group of bandits in the depths of Yanshan who robbed houses. When the bandit leader kills someone, he has to draw a life and death lottery to see God’s will. If the “death” lottery is drawn, they will be forced to drink a bowl of brine to end their lives; if the “life” lottery is drawn, they will be given a bowl of hot soybean juice in accordance with God’s will, so that they can be released to life.
One day, great-grandfather was caught on the mountain. The twin brothers of the Li family are responsible for disposing of it. Blaming his bad luck, he drew the “death” lottery.
It just so happened that the two Li family brothers were a pair of “book lovers”, and before they were executed to drink the brine, they insisted on asking him to read a passage from the book. The great-grandfather loved storytelling all his life, so he agreed to the Li brothers and said a passage “The Twelve Widows of the Yang Family Conquer the West”. Great-grandfather has always been an authentic storyteller. Although it is a critical moment of life and death, he still speaks the book clearly and clearly. Hearing this, the Li brothers were dumbfounded and excited. But when he said that Marshal Yang Wenguang was trapped at the third pass and sent his generals to break through the siege and return to the court to move troops, he stopped abruptly, leaving a deadlock. Said: “If you want to know what will happen in the future, let’s listen to the decomposition of the next life.” Then, he took up the brine and was about to drink it. The Li family brothers were fascinated by what they heard, and thought, this is not bad, if the storyteller just drank the brine and died, what would happen to Yang Wenguang who was trapped at the third pass. For this reason, the Li family brothers grabbed the brine bowl and quietly let the great-grandfather go.
The Li family brothers released their lives privately, which violated the mountain regulations. The bandit leader wanted to execute one of the brothers. So he put a bowl of brine and a bowl of hot bean juice in front of them, saying that since they are first-milk compatriots, there is no need to draw lots to decide whether to live or die. Who will drink the brine and who will drink the soybean juice is up to them to decide. Anyway, just drink this bowl of brine and soybean juice.
Just when people stared at the Li family brothers with wide-eyed eyes, to see why they chose this bowl of brine and a bowl of hot soybean juice. The elder brother among the Li family brothers suddenly picked up the bowl of brine and drank it. But when he was halfway through drinking, the younger brother who reacted snatched the bowl away, raised his neck, and drank the remaining half bowl of brine. After that, the two of them evenly divided the bowl of hot soybean juice into two bowls, and each drank half a bowl.
At this point in the story, it was the time when the lives of the Li family brothers were at stake. Unexpectedly, my great-grandfather said: “If you want to know what will happen in the future, let’s listen to the decomposition of the next life.” Then Jiuquan smiled.
Later, my great-grandmother told us that if one of the Li family brothers drank brine and the other drank soybean juice, one of them would surely die. But the two of them rushed to drink the bowl of brine, and then drank soy juice. As soon as the brine in their stomachs was dissolved by the soy juice, both brothers survived naturally.