After dinner at the eldest sister's house, we returned to the fifth sister's house before dark.
Mother had already had dinner and burned the kang, so the room was warm.
"Have you been drinking?" Mother asked Lao Tan while sitting on the bed at the end of the kang.
"Well, drink less," Lao Tan replied.
"People are not allowed to drink alcohol while taking medicine. Alcohol is the antidote to the medicine," my mother said.
"Everyone is jumping around ------" Lao Tan said with a smile.
"Hey, I still want to drink. If you don't want to drink, why don't you drink it?" My mother complained: "Look at your physique. Not only is you fat, but you also have high blood pressure and stomach problems. How can you not drink that wine in the future?"
I won’t drink.”
Lao Tan agreed: "Well, I won't drink anymore."
The fifth sister over there said: "It's time for mom to lecture you."
Lao Tan smiled and said nothing, but he was happy in his heart - it is indeed a blessing for a man in his forties to be scolded by his mother.
"It's a busy day today. My second sister, my second brother-in-law, and Lanzhi are all here. Why don't we have a drink on this occasion?" The fifth brother-in-law spoke for Lao Tan.
The old lady said: "You two are really good. People go to the grave and come back after a long time. You two went there until dark. What you know is that you went drinking halfway. What you don't know is that you want to be left alone."
The fifth brother-in-law shrunk his neck and stopped talking. The fifth sister pointed her finger at him, which meant that he should speak less at this time to avoid getting into trouble.
Lao Tan snickered, moved closer to his mother, changed the subject, and said, "Mom, I plan to add to my dad's grave during the Qingming Festival."
Mother said: "Come on, it's time to add more." Then she said: "It proves that there are still descendants------"
Lao Tan asked: "Mom, do you have anything to say about adding a grave?"
"What's there to say? There's nothing to say. It's just that you can't take the soil in front of the grave, but pull it far away. Adding a grave is like building a house. The roof is tidied to avoid leakage and prevent wind and frost in snowy days." Mother.
explain.
"oh."
"In the past, wealthy families added graves every three years and repaired tombs every five years. I never heard the old saying that if a house in the shadow is grand and the house in the Yangtze is prosperous, the tomb will collapse and the grass will grow without descendants," my mother said.
"The yin house is grand and the yang house is prosperous, but the tomb collapses and the grass grows and there are no descendants." Lao Tan repeated, it was the first time he heard it, and he smacked his lips that this was the truth.
The old lady was a little tired from sitting, so she moved back, leaned against the quilt, and said slowly: "These are the things that people in the old generation paid attention to. Nowadays, people don't pay attention to these things and just live their own lives. Hong
Focus on making money. Those who are interested go to the graves during the New Year and burn two pieces of paper. Those who are careless don’t even know where their ancestors’ graves are. They have long since become a rat hole.”
Lao Tan smiled and said: "You don't need to know the ancestral graves, just know the graves of your parents."
"My parents are alive and taking good care of them, and they have everything they need without making them angry." Mother said.
Lao Tan was silent.
The old lady half-closed her eyes and said in a leisurely voice: "Your father is not lucky. He has been sick since he was young and has been growing into old age. But others are good. Don't look at the poor and difficult life of a sick family, but they are upright and have good conduct.
Duan, the good reputation of Yichuan is gone.
Back then, your old uncle was young and prosperous. He disliked your old concubine and wanted to divorce him. Neither your grandpa nor your uncle could say anything about it. Your father heard about the two temples that he went to in the dark, so he gave your old uncle a good meal.
He said, after that, your old uncle became honest and started living peacefully with your old lady.
That father of yours is fine, but his life is not getting better after his illness is taken care of - your dad has been talking nonsense all his life, but he is actually reasonable - you are fine, too, and you haven't done anything to embarrass him yet.
of------"
The old lady said that the fifth sister and the fifth brother-in-law looked at Lao Tan, and Lao Tan lowered his head.
At night, Lao Tan slept next to his mother.
Outside the house, it was a rare sunny day, with a few stars and moon, no wind, and the bare branches outlined the quiet winter night in the mountain village.
Lao Tan didn't fall asleep. The warm fire bed beneath him was so comfortable that it was warmer than the bed, so much so that his arms and legs were stretched out outside the quilt.
He knew that his mother was talking about his father and himself that night.
This is the first time my mother has spoken about herself in nearly ten years.
Although the mother is old, she is not confused. Each of the six children is worried about her, saying that she is not worried, but she just does not show it.
Lao Tan recalled the scene when he decided to go out to work. It was the twelfth day of the first lunar month. After breakfast, he said to his mother: "Mom, I'm going to leave after the twelfth lunar month to work in the provincial capital."
The mother hesitated for a moment and said, "Well, before I leave, I'll go to your sisters' houses and tell them."
"Um------"
"It's the 21st of the Chinese New Year, so it's time for you to get engaged. Our family is poor and no one can help me. I, a lonely old woman, can't afford it. I can just go out and make a living. Maybe I can find a wife."
My mother's words were full of sadness and helplessness, and it was not the right thing to call her Lao Tan.
To be honest, he wouldn't go out to work even if he had the patience. The fifth sister has got married, and only he and his mother are left at home. He is gone, and his mother is alone, so she is worried------
what else can we do?
Poverty is like a mountain pressing down on me, but I am not willing to be poor forever. The only way in front of me is to work.
It's been twenty-three years since I left.
The youth is no longer the same, and my mother has gone from sixty-one to eighty-four. Time flies.
In the first few years of his working life, he didn't make much money, and he didn't get a wife like other children. His mother and sisters were all anxious and angry about his marriage.
What he was anxious about was not the marriage, but making money. After earning the money, he renovated the old house and built a spacious courtyard so that his mother could live in the big house and enjoy her old age in peace.
He thought this way and followed the plan. In a few years, the courtyard was built first, but when he was about to renovate the old house, his mother and sisters stopped him.
At that time, he was learning to be a chef in a restaurant. It was obvious that he could only develop in the city. No one in the countryside hired chefs. Since he was working in the city, there was no need to renovate the old house. He might as well save money to buy a house and take his mother home when the time came.
In the past.
Having said that, even if the old house is renovated, outsiders will see that the family is living a good life, and a matchmaker will come to find a wife. But what happens after getting married? Could it be that your wife can stay at home and serve you while you are outside?
Carefree?
To be honest, it's not realistic at all.
So he gave up renovating the old house and put talking about his wife on the agenda.
But he is poor. Although he earns money from working, the money is really not enough to support his wife.
I met several girls, but they all failed because of poverty.
Of course, there are also those who are not too poor and really want to spend the rest of their lives with him, but fate is so unpredictable, and Yue Lao's red thread also leads to the wrong person, which becomes a pity.
For example, the innocent and beautiful Xiao Yingzi (Part 1) was the first girl who walked into his heart, and finally left her hometown full of sadness.
Although he is nostalgic for Li Yanhua, who is from his hometown, he still hates her.
The one who was closest to success was Yaru, the girl he truly loved. In the end, her parents thought his family was poor and...
To be honest, Lin Yan didn't mind that he was poor, and she was five years younger than him, so she followed him without any regrets. The two of them didn't have a grand love affair or a luxurious wedding. They just came together like this.
Eight years.
Eighteen years, how many eighteen years are there in life?
In the darkness, Lao Tan turned over, and the phone on his pillow lit up, then vibrated.
He picked up his phone and opened WeChat. It was Lin Yan.
First is a photo.
His son, Jiaheng, had his arm in a cast across his neck and was smiling.
He was startled.
Then came the message from Lin Yan: Jiaheng's broken arm during training has been taken care of. It's nothing. It'll be fine in half a month. It won't affect playing. We just came back from the hospital.