The old man looked to be at least seventy years old. He was wearing a starched military coat, and the sleeves of the coat were black and shiny.
"It's a nice cigarette. Let's take one."
"Here, let me order some for you."
The old man immediately covered the lighter with his hand.
"Huh...it's such a nice smoke..."
"How long have you been here, uncle?"
"me?"
The old man smiled and said: "I have been here for almost fifty years. I have been working in Ermian since I was a teenager."
"Hey," I said, then you are really a veteran employee.
The old man held a cigarette in his mouth, waved his hand and said with a smile: "You don't dare to say anything, elders. Anyway, when the chairman of Ermian sees me, he has to give me a cigarette and call me Mr. Xing."
"sharp."
"Hey, uncle," I pointed to a large piece of wasteland and said, "We are going to bury people there later, you know, right?"
"I know, the deputy director told us to leave it alone, but..."
"But what?" I asked.
The old man pointed to the wasteland, "But the feng shui of this place is not good. Old Man Bai is buried here. It seems that he has something else on his mind..."
"Uncle, do you know Mr. Bai?"
"Nonsense, he also worked in Ermian back then. How could I not know him?" the old man said: "But after that incident happened, he resigned and went into business. Later, he did well and built a business over there in Nanshan.
A large auditorium.”
I asked: "Uncle, what do you mean by that thing...? Do you know why Mr. Bai wanted to bury himself here?"
The old man flicked the ashes of his cigarette coquettishly.
"I have already told you, I have been in Ermian for fifty years! There is nothing in Ermian that I don't know about! You go outside and find out who I am, Master Xing of Ermian."
"Have you seen the dying pear tree?" the old man pointed at it and said.
"I saw it, what happened?"
He looked at the pear tree quietly, with the cigarette in his mouth burning to the butt, as if he was remembering the past decades ago.
"Why......"
The old man sighed heavily and said: "49 years ago, Wang Xiaoqin from our factory hanged himself on that pear tree."
"The director of the factory at that time was Wang Xinggui, who has died long ago. During the steel-making operation, someone reported Wang Xiaoqin, Tang Xin, and Bai Tingli to steal scrap metal. After Wang Xiaoqin was caught, he issued a loudspeaker to criticize. At that time, the entire Ermian,
People say behind their backs that they are thieves and their hands and feet are dirty."
My heart skipped a beat.
The word "scrap iron" caught my attention.
The old man recalled: "The scrap iron the factory bought from Hanzhong at that time lost more than 700 kilograms. I had never seen it before. I heard people said it looked like a big iron Buddha. Wang Xinggui's wife was the director of the Work Style Committee, so she forced Wang Xiaoqin to do it.
Hand over the stolen scrap metal."
I frowned and interjected: "Is it because of this that Wang Xiaoqin was forced to hang himself?"
"No, that's not the main thing."
"Later, rumors spread in the factory that Bai Tingli secretly made a report and reported the matter. I don't know whether this rumor is true or not."
"Wang Xiaoqin was stimulated by the successive blows. I remember that one night in the twelfth month of 1958, she hanged herself under a pear tree with her feet dangling in the air. I was fetching hot water in the water room in the North District and was waiting for me.
When I ran over to take a look, the person had already been taken down, and only a noose was left on the pear tree."
"Do you know why that wasteland remains unused?"
I shook my head.
The old man said: "In the third year after Wang Xiaoqin's death, the factory planned to build a toilet there, but a worker died while digging the foundation. The cause of death was myocardial infarction. In 1971, the factory built another toilet, and another person died."
"Later, some timid female workers in Ermian said that when they were fetching water at night, they saw Wang Xiaoqin himself under the pear tree. They said that Wang Xiaoqin was wearing the same clothes as when she died, with her tongue sticking out, and walking in circles around the pear tree at night."
"There have been many rumors. People in Ermian say that there are living people living here in the dormitory and dead people living there in the pear tree."
"And where we stand now."
"It's this factory road that separates in the middle."
