After passing through more than half of the villages, Wen Xu found that several families didn't even have gates, so he opened his mouth and asked, "Fifth brother, how many of them have gone out?" ”

"I moved away, now there is not even half of what I used to do, many of them have gone out to work, and the good ones have moved their homes, we used to have 100 families here, but now there are less than 40 families left......," Wen Shiqing said. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"The Hiromatsu family didn't move, right?" Wen Xu asked.

Guang Song and Wen Xu's age is about the same, seven years older than Wen Xu, although they are inferior in generation, but when they were young, they often ate and drank at Wen Xu's house, so the old house of Wen Xu's family was entrusted to Guang Song and Guang Song's daughter-in-law.

"Guangsong's family didn't move, but now his family is here alone with his mother-in-law to take care of the children, and both of them went out to work to earn money," Wen Shiqing said and arrived at the door of his house.

"Otherwise, you will live in our house tonight, the old mansion has not been inhabited for so many years, and I don't know if it can still live," Wen Shiqing invited.

Wen Xu said: "I'll go back and have a look first, if I can't live, I'll trouble you again!" ”

After saying that, Wen Xu and Wen Shiqing said hello, carrying their own gifts, carrying their big backpacks, and then continued to walk along the trail in memory with the imprint, walked across a small stone bridge, and reached the end of the village, across the end of the village, there are more than 300 meters away from the old house of Wen Xu's family, why is it so far away, because that place was originally a livestock shed in the village, didn't it use to be a commune before, and then it was distributed to Wen Xu's grandfather, and later Wen Xu's father made some money and directly knocked down the old mud house and built a brick house.

At the end of the village, the second house, Wen Xu walked to the door gently.

"Woohoo!" Before Wen Xu could speak, the dog in the yard immediately barked wildly.

Soon there was a sound of someone pushing the door in the courtyard and asking loudly, "Who!" ”

"I'm Wen Xu!" Thinking that this was Guangsong's mother-in-law, Wen Xu explained again: "The old house on the slope, I'll come back today to see"

"Oh, it's that Wen ......," the old lady thought for a moment, but she didn't remember Wen Xu's name.

"Warm and warm!"

"Yes, Wen Xu, you come back, I'll get you the key" The old lady went back to the house and took the key to the door.

"Here's what I brought you!" The most of the gifts that Wen Xu brought were for the Guangsong family, after all, they helped him look at the old mansion and confiscated the money, this little gift is also Wen Xu's meaning, at this time, it is not only those put in the car, but also Wen Xu's place in the space, large and small.

"How good is this!" The one who opened the door was an old lady in her sixties, and her kind body looked very tough.

The old lady was polite here, but soon a small head stretched out from under the boss's arm, and she looked at the colored bear in the pile of warm gifts in a daze, and shouted: "Big bear! ”

"Yuanbo, it's so big in a blink of an eye" The last time Wen Xu saw this little baby, he was still sucking, and now he wouldn't know him if he hadn't passed by at the door of the house.

"Are you Uncle Xu?" asked the little baby immediately.

"You know me?"

Xiao Yuanbo said: "Our family has a photo of you, and you said that the people on the slope are now left alone with Uncle Xu, and there is ...... besides you."

Before she finished speaking, the old lady slapped her grandson on the head: "Children can't speak."

"It's fine!" Wen Xu said with a smile, what the child said was the truth, and now his own house is not his own, so he put the gift directly to the door: "It's late, I won't go in, I'll come over tomorrow morning to say hello to you, now I'll go back first."

The old lady said: "Although I help dry a quilt and clean it from time to time, there has been no one living in the house for many years, or you will stay at home tonight!" I'll clean up the house for you tomorrow and go back!" Besides, there is still some grain dried by our family in the old house."

"It's okay, if I have a quilt, it's done" Wen Xu waved his hand at the old lady after hearing this, and walked to his old house with the key.

The bright moon hung in the sky, and the road was silver, and when she arrived at the door of the old house, Wen Xu tried to open the courtyard door with the key, and it seemed that the old lady was here to be more diligent, and with a click, the lock was opened!

Wen Xu pushed open the door, only to see a silver-white moonlight sprinkled in his small courtyard, an old jujube tree planted in the center of the courtyard, now only bare branches remain, compared with the old jujube tree in the image, it seems that even the branches are too bad, and the shadow of the tree in the courtyard has an indescribable loneliness.

Turning around and gently closing the courtyard door, Wen Xu came to the eyes of the old jujube tree, stretched out his hand and gently stroked its rough old bark, the skin was still as rough as before, and it was a little rubbing his hands.

According to my grandfather, this old jujube tree was planted by my grandfather when he was young, and it has been almost two hundred years now, and the trunk needs a half-adult hug to hug it, but it has long been fruitful, and it seems that he has never seen this old jujube tree hanging fruit in Wen Xu's memory.

The old people said that it was because the descendants hurt Yin Virtue that the old jujube trees planted by the ancestors refused to bear fruit for future generations to eat. The reason is that the old jujube tree was originally planted in the courtyard of the ancestral hall, and after liberation, everyone knows that in the crazy era, smashing the ancient temple and demolishing the old things, it is called breaking the four olds! The whole society was so destructive that even the bones of Emperor Wanli were dragged out of the underground palace and burned after criticism. Not to mention a small Wen family ancestral hall?

The ancestral hall of the Wen family, which has existed since the Ming Dynasty, was wiped out in the fire of the Red Guards, leaving only this old jujube tree, and since then, the old people have said that these people who burned the ancestral hall hurt Yin De, so this old jujube tree has never hung a fruit.

Whether this is the case or not, Wen Xu doesn't know, as for whether the old jujube tree didn't bear fruit after the ancestral hall was destroyed, Wen Xu doesn't know, anyway, the old man in the village said so, and Wen Xu, who was wearing open crotch pants at that time, also listened to it.

There are many memories of the old jujube tree, the deepest is that one night, Wen Xu's sleeping was pulled out of the quilt and pulled into the yard, just under this old jujube tree, a large number of people surrounded him, and soon someone put a white hat on his head, and then someone stuffed a reed-tied stick, wrapped in white paper, and some white paper was cut out of strips of flocculent, Wen Xu knew what this thing was: crying mourning stick!

When he went out with it, Wen Xu was confused, and then he followed the instructions of the adults step by step, waiting until the black and white photos of his parents were put in the frame, and Wen Xu knew what was going on.

The second time was the death of my grandfather, when I had already gone to high school, I could already be a family, with the help of my uncle and nephews of the same age, I sent my grandfather away for the last time, and my grandfather's black coffin was also transported out of the hall, through the door of this old jujube tree, just like my parents back then.

It can be said that this jujube tree has witnessed the joys and sorrows of Wen Xu for more than 20 years.

Gently patting the old jujube tree, Wen Xu raised his feet to the door of the hall, took out a flashlight from the space, opened the door to take a photo, found that it was not locked, and directly pushed the door open, heard a squeak, the doorpost rubbed in the stone doorpost nest made of a sound, and the black hall appeared in front of Wen Xu's eyes.

He took the flashlight and shone it on the top of his head, and soon found the light switch rope.

Children living in the city probably have never seen this kind of switch, a round black plastic box pulled out of a plastic rope, a pull is open and then pull is closed!

With a slight pull, the lamp in the hall turned on, saying that it was on, but Wen Xu still didn't get used to it, because the brightness of the lamp was not much better than that of a candle, and it flickered from time to time.

It's not a haunting, it's an unstable voltage in the village. Besides, it's still his own old house, even if it's haunted, Wen Xu is not afraid, but he started a single seedling from the generation of his grandfather, and five generations of single transmission, if the ancestor kills himself, who will give them branches.

After taking a turn in the hall, I saw that there were indeed a lot of plaques in the hall, which were round bamboo baskets made of shallow and shallow, which were used to dry grain. After looking at the things drying in the plaque, it turned out to be white dried sweet potatoes, Wen Xu touched a piece of dried sweet potatoes, gently broke a piece with his hand and put it in his mouth, and chewed it slowly.

It's the taste of childhood! It's a little hard, but when chewed, it's a little sweet, not only sweet, but also a little dry.

This thing is made by cutting sweet potatoes into pieces and drying them in the sun, and in the countryside they used to put some in the rice when cooking porridge, and it is not easy to be full when the porridge is drunk, even if it is temporarily full, a few bubbles of urine and the stomach is empty again, so the farmers used to use this thing to deceive the stomach.

Facing the door of the hall is a large table placed against the wall, more than two meters long and more than fifty centimeters, this thing is not kept for eating or anything, this thing is kept for putting things, now there is a pair of inferior vases on the table, a vase is also inserted in a feather duster and a quilted shot, there are several glass frames hanging on the wall above the table, there are photos inside, all of them are photos of Wen Xu's family, from the toothless grandfather to Wen Xu who is sitting on the bench with a small Ding Ding exposed, A small black and white photo records the family, next to a few large photo frames are family photos, one is the grandfather holding Wen Xu, next to the grandfather and grandmother sitting, the parents are standing behind, and the other is Wen Xu sitting on his grandfather's lap, behind the parents are also standing, the other is a group photo of the grandfather and grandson, Wen Xu when he was a teenager holding his grandfather with a rickety back and standing under the old jujube tree.

Wen Xu stretched out his hand, gently wiped the frame, and saw that there was some dust on it, so he picked up a feather duster and gently swept it on the frame, thought for a while, took off these frames, found water and a towel to wipe the frame, and then carefully placed it in the space.

I looked at several rooms, and the general furnishings were no different from when I left, but because I hadn't lived in it for a long time, there were a lot of cracks on the wall, and the original white ash on the wall also fell off in some places, revealing the bricks inside. On the four-legged box shelf, there are several old wooden boxes, the copper water swept on the inferior iron sheet has peeled off and is not a look, and even the keyhole on it has rusted, but fortunately, the box has not been locked, and the box is opened with a gentle lift.

There are a few quilts inside, open another box is two big red quilts, the red quilt surface is embroidered with the pattern of dragon and phoenix Chengxiang, this is the grandfather prepared for himself when he was dying, said that the daughter-in-law was laid on the bed on the day, the last time he came back, Wen Xu brought that kind of vacuum bag, and kept the two quilts like this. There was nothing in the third box except a small box that took up half of it, and the box was locked, Wen Xu took out the key on his body, opened the box, and it was full of gadgets, which were things that Wen Xu had when he was a child, what marbles, paper squares, and small pistols or something, all of them were full of memories when he held them in his hands.

In the old house, I touched and looked there, and when Wen Xu spread out the quilt and lay on the bed, it was already half past one in the middle of the night, lying in the childhood room, sleeping on the bed he had slept on for more than ten years, but Wen Xu couldn't sleep, with his eyes open and his hands behind his head looking at the black beam roof.

The quilt has not been used for a long time, and it seems that it has been dried from time to time, but there is a smell of mothballs on it just taken out, which is a little pungent, and there is indeed some peculiar smell in the room. Wen Xu, who was tossing and turning, finally got into the space and lay directly in the small hut, and then quickly fell asleep.