It was indeed very cold outside. Although the old man in front of me was a stranger, these words made me immediately have a good impression of him. I even felt a little ashamed that I had lied to him before that I was a street worker. After walking in, the old man opened the door.
The light at the door.
In fact, it is similar to what I imagined. The conditions of this family are indeed not that good. As soon as I closed the door, it was a relatively long and narrow room. On my right side were several overlapping benches and a long table. On the table were piles of
There were some newspapers, and some flattened moon cake boxes, rice dumpling boxes, etc. placed together. Although there was a window at the end of this passage, there was not enough light. The walls on the left and right sides were painted at waist level.
The top part was dark green, but the top part was white, but it was heavily mottled, and it felt like a piece was missing in many places. When the light was turned on, I subconsciously looked up and saw that it was actually the most ordinary small incandescent chandelier, so I also saw the ceiling.
There is no so-called decorative ceiling now, but just prefabricated panels. There are spider webs on the sunken corners of the prefabricated panels.
Hu Zongren and I continued to walk in with the old man. The old man said to us, you have never been to our house, so you can just take a look. The situation is almost like this. So Hu Zongren raised his chin at me, meaning
You just need to go and take a look. In fact, this house is not small in terms of area. There are three rooms, but they are all very small. One of the rooms on my right is locked, so I have no reason to
When you open it, there are two rooms on the left. The one on the right has a large round table, a dining table, but there is no bench. There are only some miscellaneous items and a fruit basket on the table.
But the fruit basket contained a few balls of yarn and a yarn-made skewer. There was a short cabinet, a very old-fashioned kind, probably the style of the cabinet in the early days of liberation. The room on the left should be the old man's bedroom, but
I didn't go in, but walked straight towards the bright place. When I got there, I found a T-shape, with the kitchen and eating area on the left, the toilet on the right, and the one facing me that was transparent.
It was a seemingly huge cubicle enclosed by glass. There were some cage-like things stacked inside, but it was dusty and looked like it hadn't been used for a long time.
I had never seen such a cubicle before, so out of curiosity, I asked the old man, what is this place used for? He said that when he retired a few years ago, he liked to raise pigeons, and this place was originally a balcony.
So I modified it a little and made a pigeon nest. At most, I raised more than 100 pigeons. I nodded, then stepped back, and the old man took Hu Zongren and me to his own bedroom.
This bedroom is very small, and there is not enough light. There are no windows. The only light source is the door. Outside the door is a small balcony with bonsai rockeries. There are also some that have been washed or dried and confiscated.
Clothes. There is a carpentry bed on the side near the door. Different from those shaped beds, this bed looks more like the old beds I have seen in those ancient towns before. Of course, it is not that exquisite, just simple.
Wooden sticks and wooden boards were used to form a cover for the entire bed where the head of the bed extended. It should be used to hang mosquito nets in the summer. The old man asked us to sit on the sofa on one side. There was a gap between the sofa and the wall.
There are a few large rectangular iron sheets stuffed in it. We don’t know what they are used for. The TV is on our right hand side. It is still an old TV, but it is a color TV.
The old man also sat down on the wicker chair. There was a small table between him and us. It was not really a table, it was just a small square stool as a seat and a wooden board with a chess board from the Chu, He and Han realms painted on it.
It's just something on the table. The reason I say it's a table is because there's an ashtray and a teacup on it.
When I saw the ashtray, I knew that the old man smoked, so I quickly took out a cigarette and handed it to him and lit it for him. The old man said, I am very happy that you came to see me and Lao Zhang. After saying this, he
I turned my head to the left side of my body. There was a cabinet almost at chest height. There were drawers and glass panels under the cabinet, but the glass was still the same as in old-fashioned furniture, the kind that could be opened and closed by swiping left and right. Through the glass, I could see inside.
There were some things that looked like candy boxes or biscuit boxes, and on the counter top of the cabinet, there was a statue of Guanyin and an incense burner candlestick. Behind the candlestick was a black and white photo of an old man.
Needless to say, the one in this photo is naturally Zhang Ma. The old man said to the photo, "Old lady, the street sent people to see us, but the country still hasn't forgotten us. I'm very ashamed. In fact, I want to say that they probably
Forgot, I just lied to you. But now that the matter is over, I think that maybe the old man may not understand the truth, so I’d better save these words, why bother letting people worry. So I tugged on Hu Zongren’s clothes
Then we both stood up and bowed three times to Zhang Ma’s portrait.
After sitting down, Hu Zongren asked the old man, "We only knew that Zhang Ma passed away before we came here, but we don't know the reason for her death. If you can accept it, can you tell us? Because when we came here,
, I met a few neighbors in your building on the road, and they told us some things that we thought were very unscientific.
Hu Zongren, a metaphysician, said to a somewhat confused old man that this was unscientific. This was a very unscientific thing in itself. Who knew that after hearing what Hu Zongren said, the old man actually snorted and said, these neighbors are
Didn't you say that my wife was killed by someone? Someone was burning incense downstairs, which caused my wife, who was in good health, to suddenly die like this, right? Hu Zongren said repeatedly that it was.
, I think that when he and I were making trouble together this afternoon, the old man in front of me actually knew about the taboos and rumors among the neighbors. The old man went on to say, don’t listen to their nonsense, my wife has always
She was a very kind person. She worshiped Buddha and had a good temperament, so she would not be killed. She lost her balance and fell off the bed because she got up late at night. She died of a stroke. It was at night when she died. I found out
It was already morning. When he said this, the old man started to feel a little sad, but at his age, many things have actually been looked away. Sadness is sad, but he will not cry, so
This kind of pain of losing my wife, in my opinion, the sadness has turned into a kind of sadness.
But I still don’t understand. It’s normal for old people to wake up at night, but they usually don’t sleep as deeply as us young people. They should wake up more easily. No matter how thin the mother is, she can’t say anything.
It must have weighed dozens of kilograms. At night, everything was quiet, and the slightest movement was easily noticed. Besides, one of the couple fell to the ground. How could the other not know about it at the time and only find the body in the morning?
With this question, I asked the old man, and he said that the couple had actually been sleeping in separate rooms for many years. At their age, this is the case in many families. So this room was originally the room where Zhang Ma slept.
But the uncle’s own room was the one with the door locked. I said with enlightenment, so Zhang Ma died of a stroke. The cause of her death actually had nothing to do with ghosts and gods, and belonged to the body itself.
It was caused by illness and accident. So what was the reason why Zhang's mother could not transcend after her death? Although she did not become an evil ghost, she became a ghost wandering around? In addition, Zhang's mother was a worshiper of Buddha.
, it is supposed to be more open-minded and easy to think about, but this makes me a little confused.
Hu Zongren continued to ask the old man, was there anything that Zhang Ma couldn't let go of during her lifetime, such as the unfulfilled wishes that you two had agreed upon? The old man smiled lightly and said, "We are already old, let's go."
I can’t walk either. I’m content with just wandering around for a while. What else can I wish for? My biggest wish is to live in good health for a few more years and have our children come back to see us more often.
Children! Is it because of the relationship between children? So I asked additionally, old man, how many of your children are not around? The old man shook his head and said, there are three children in total. The eldest and second are both daughters. After they get married,
Although they often come back to see us, they also have families and children, and their energy is limited, so we usually come back every three to five weekends to have a meal together and get together during the New Year and holidays. The third is the youngest son and is quite busy at work.
He is also the first official in the family, so he comes back less often. Sometimes he leaves soon after he comes back. Every time, my son brings himself a lot of good cigarettes and wine, moon cakes and rice dumplings. We two old people,
How can we finish eating? Why don’t we just call the children back to eat together every three days?
The old man had a smile on his face when he talked about his children. It seemed that although he missed his children, he fully understood them. And from his words, it seemed that the children were very filial and did not feel like they would not visit the elderly for a long time. So
I asked the old man again, did Zhang Ma have any favorite things or things during her lifetime? Also, Zhang Ma was cremated, right? The old man nodded and said that she had many hobbies and would get up early every morning.
I practice swordplay in the park, and after that I go shopping for food and cook at home. In the afternoon I also like to watch Huangmei Opera and wear a sweater. After that, the old man pointed to the sweater he was wearing that was a bit tattered but had been repaired many times and still had some threads.
, the one I am wearing, the one worn by the children, was knitted by my wife herself. I have worn it for many years, and I am used to it, but I am not used to it if I don’t wear it.