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Chapter 75 Going to the Grave

The next day after arriving home, Lao Tan went to visit his father's grave.

As the old saying goes, descendants will continue to offer sacrifices, and those who die without dying will live longer.

People, never forget your ancestors.

Lao Tan's father is buried on the hillside where Shanzui and Harnao meet. Behind is a mountain of pine trees, in front is Nanshan, and in the distance is the Heichengzi River. In winter, the river has frozen, and it looks like a silver strip of light from a distance.

.

At the foot of the hillside is a brick factory. When Lao Tan was in high school, he worked here for a summer vacation, earning one dollar and fifty cents a day, which was very tiring. Those who took bricks out of the kiln earned more, three yuan a day. They were all naked.

The kiln is dry, the temperature in the kiln is high and the fire is scorching, and often when a load of bricks comes out, the whole body looks like it has been washed with water.

Lao Tan also wanted to enter the kiln and produce bricks, but the supervisor refused to let him go, saying that it was done by the old men and that the young man was not good at it.

Also working in the brick factory at that time was a female classmate of his from junior high school. The female classmate did not study well and did not enter high school. After graduating from junior high school, she worked at home as a farmer.

The father of a female classmate is nicknamed Wang Xiaoyan. He is the kind of person who likes to take advantage of others. Every year during the autumn harvest, he would go to other people’s fields and pluck a few ears of corn. There were not many, maybe five or six ears. Even if he said he was stealing, he wouldn’t be considered a thief.

It's quite disturbing to say that he wasn't stealing. This man is mean and weak. If you dare to attack him, he will lie on the ground and howl, saying that you have broken him and that he must go to the hospital for treatment. You don't have to go.

Just take some money.

To put it bluntly, they are just acting like scoundrels. Every village has one of these people. They are not very capable, they just do nothing and no one cares about them.

Wang Xiaoyan has two grown-up sons with worrying IQs. They talk to the common people like two tigers, and they are very natural. They are good at fighting. Sometimes Wang Xiaoyan is caught taking advantage of others, and he lies on the ground and makes fun of them.

If the two sons who come here take action immediately, people don't want to mess with these people who don't understand human language, so they will be in trouble.

So Wang Xiaoyan didn't look good, and no one in the camp bothered him.

He did have a good daughter, Lao Tan's junior high school classmate, who was very sensible and kind-hearted. She was not outstanding in appearance, but she was definitely not ugly. There was no aunt or lady in the camp who would not praise her.

Wang Xiaoyan often shows off his daughter, which is the only thing he can be proud of.

Old Tan's family had a piece of land next to Wang Xiaoyan's family. That year, Old Tan's family planted mung beans and Wang Xiaoyan's family planted soybeans.

During the autumn harvest, Lao Tan got up early every morning to pick mung beans in the field. After picking a woven bag, he put it in the mung bean field. Then he went to high school. After school, he went to the field to pick until dark, and then he carried two bags.

Green beans come home.

There was nothing he could do at that time. There were only two people in the family, Lao Tan and his mother. The fifth sister was studying in a normal school, so he had no choice but to work on the farm while going to school.

It was a little late to finish school that day, and it was almost dark when we arrived at the field. Lao Tan was going to go into the field to take out the bag of mung beans he picked in the morning and go home. When he was about to go into the field, he saw Wang Xiaoyan coming from his soybean field.

He came out carrying a bag inside.

When Lao Tan saw that it was his own bag, he went up and stopped Wang Xiaoyan.

Wang Xiaoyan and his two sons were cutting millet in the downhill field. After cutting the millet, he asked his two sons to load the truck. He first went to the soybean field to see if the soybeans should be sickled. When he walked to the middle of the soybean field, he found Old Tan's mung bean field.

There was a woven bag inside, so my greed for petty gains came to life.

He went over and saw that they were picked mung beans. He knew clearly that Lao Tan had picked them and put them in the field, but there was no one in the field, so he just took them. When Lao Tan found out, he thought they were stolen by others, but he didn't think so.

Think of yourself.

Unexpectedly, he was cornered by Lao Tan.

Who is Wang Xiaoyan? Of course he doesn’t admit it. Not only does he not admit it, he also says it belongs to his family.

At this time, several villagers who were preparing to go home gathered around them. It seemed that even Wang Xiaoyan knew what was going on, but they did not come forward, fearing that Wang Xiaoyan would be a scapegoat and stand aside to watch the fun.

Old Tan got angry, took the bag from Wang Xiaoyan's hand, grabbed a handful of mung beans and said, "Why are mung beans growing in your soybean field? What a fool?"

The surrounding villagers burst into laughter.

Wang Xiaoyan couldn't stand it anymore, his face turned red with shame, he went up and pounced on Lao Tan. Lao Tan knew what he was like, so he couldn't touch him.

He threw himself down in the soybean field.

The moment Wang Xiaoyan fell to the ground, he shouted in a very expressive manner: "The boy from the Old Tan family hit someone -" His tragic and desolate cry echoed through the dusk of the evening.

Coincidentally, his two sons happened to be driving the millet cart up. Seeing their father falling into the soybean field in a panic, they stopped the cart without saying a word, and started fighting with Old Tan when they got up.

Lao Tan was no match for two big and thick old men. He was quickly beaten until his nose was bruised, his face was swollen and his mouth was bleeding.

All of a sudden, Lao Tan's bloodshed was aroused.

Looking back now, Lao Tan only remembers that his eyes were bloodshot and he looked like a ferocious wolf. I don't know how the battle ended. Anyway, it was Wang Xiaoyan's two sons lying on the ground groaning, and blood was dripping from his arms.

With red eyes, he asked Wang Xiaoyan if the mung beans were his.

That was the first time Wang Xiaoyan didn't blackmail someone.

Wang Xiaoyan's daughter was indeed different from Wang Xiaoyan. The next day she went to Lao Tan's house to apologize to Lao Tan and even gave her a basket of eggs. Lao Tan still remembered all this.

When he was working in the brick factory, his female classmate was very kind to him. When he was loading adobe bricks, he was given less time to load them and she also helped him unload them.

Later, Lao Tan went out to work. When he came home, he heard from his mother that his female classmate got married and gave birth to a fat boy.

Now all these have become memories. Times have changed, and today's female classmates should be like me, having reached middle age and become women.

Lao Tan came to his father's grave.

The entire tomb was covered with snow, with only half of the bricks covering the tombstone exposed. The light earthy color was very conspicuous.

Put the burning paper in front of the grave, pull out the grave paper from the inside, go up to the grave and press it. Then go to the elm tree next to it and fold a tree branch. Break off the excess branches and trim them into a tree stick more than one meter long.

Draw a big circle around the tomb.

There was snow on the ground, so I had to squat down and light the burning paper.

The paper money burned, melting a small piece of snow in front of the grave, revealing the withered yellow grass. The withered grass quickly burned and mixed with the paper ashes, leaving a black ash trail.

Bundles of paper money were burned, and the firelight heated the small space in front of the grave.

The snow slowly melted around the place where the paper was burned ------

"Dad, I came to see you. I haven't been here for two years. It's a bit unfilial. My family is very good. My mother is staying at my fifth sister's house and is in good health. You don't have to worry about it. I am now in the provincial capital, and I still cook for others.

I bought a house, everything is fine."

------

Old Tan knelt in front of his father's grave, burning paper and mumbling.

None of us know whether our deceased relatives are alive in another world, or whether they have really reincarnated and have been reincarnated. However, as individuals of life, they indeed no longer exist, leaving the living with deep sorrow.

Maybe there really is the underworld and the Bull-headed Horse Noodles, the Naihe Bridge and Meng Po, and that bowl of Meng Po soup. Maybe there really are people who reincarnate into this world with the memories of their previous lives, and experience three lives and ten miles of peach blossoms, looking for destiny.

Destined lover.

Those are all legends.

We recall our deceased relatives, pay our respects at the graves, and even hope that our deceased relatives will come back to life and enjoy a family together------

Maybe, the paper money that burned, drifted, and finally turned into ashes can really be received by relatives in another world. For the time being, we think that we can receive it and wish them a happy life there.

The paper money was burned, and the fly ash was scattered in the air, leaving a pile of paper ashes in front of the grave.

Lao Tan used a tree stick to pull the paper ashes back and forth. After seeing that there were no sparks inside, he put the tree stick aside with confidence. When going to the grave to burn paper, you must pay attention to fire prevention. There is a pine tree ten meters behind the grave. If it catches fire, it will not be a trivial matter.

After waiting for a while, the slight mountain breeze blew away the paper ashes on the ground, and after making sure that there were no sparks, Old Tan respectfully knelt on the snow in front of the grave and kowtowed to his father three times, then stood up and said to the grave:

"Let's go, dad. I'll see you next time when I come back."

After saying that, he turned around and didn't leave in a hurry. He took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit one, took a long puff, and looked at the brick factory below and several households next to the brick factory.

He remembered that there used to be only one family here, but now there are several more families. They must be wealthy families, because the land here is very expensive.

Lao Tan began to walk slowly down the mountain.

The trail was full of snow. It was hard to go up the mountain, and even harder to go down. You had to step on the footrests of the mountain to go down.

Ten minutes later, we came to the road in front of the brick factory. There was a canteen next to it. When we arrived, our nephew Lan Jun asked him to wait for him at the canteen after visiting the grave while he went to the town to buy vegetables.

Lan Jun hadn't come back yet and it was quite cold outside, so Lao Tan walked into the canteen.

There was a stove burning in the middle of the room, and three men were smoking and chatting around the stove. Standing at the counter was an attractive woman in her forties, also smoking.

The three men looked at Lao Tan, and when they saw that they didn't recognize him, they turned around and chatted on their own.

The woman was very enthusiastic and asked Lao Tan: "Are you buying something?"

Lao Tan came to the counter and said, "Buy a pack of cigarettes."

"What cigarette?"

"The Great Hall of the People."

The woman took out a box of Great Hall of the People and handed it to Old Tan. Old Tan paid and then lit one for himself - the smell of cigarettes was too strong in the room, so he smoked one to top it off.

"Why do you look familiar?" the woman asked.

Old Tan smiled and couldn't help but take a look at the woman. The woman was slightly fat, wearing makeup, her hair was permed in a big wave, her eyelashes were fake, her breasts were plump, and she had a red mole the size of a rice grain at the corner of her mouth.

This red mole reminded Lao Tan of someone ------

"Your surname is Tan, right?" The woman obviously recognized Lao Tan.

"Who are you--"

"Wang Yanli, don't remember? A junior high school classmate."

In a dramatic scene, the woman is Wang Xiaoyan’s daughter and Lao Tan’s classmate.

We haven’t seen each other for nearly twenty years. If we were walking on the street, we wouldn’t recognize him at all.

Lao Tan did not expect to meet Wang Yanli here and was very excited. Wang Yanli also did not expect that this was Lao Tan and was very surprised.

So the two old classmates started chatting affectionately.

Through chatting, I learned that Wang Yanli was married to a mine worker. Her husband died in a roof-falling accident. Lao Tan seemed to have heard her mother mention this, but she didn’t care about it at the time. The mine lost a sum of money, and in order to take care of her family, she made an exception.

A small shop was opened on the side of the road.

Now the child is in high school and is taken care of by her grandparents. She runs the canteen by herself to make ends meet.

The two chatted for a while, and Lan Jun drove up, so Lao Tan took his leave.

This chapter has been completed!
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