(iv)

The next day, the Zhong family was busy.

The eldest brother Zhong Danian received a message from Tunzi and heard that his younger brother was not dead, so he was overjoyed and asked for leave from the cement factory in the county town to go home to visit. When the brothers met, there were endless stories of the past, crying and laughing.

The sister-in-law and the parents in the village, the husband and wife, and the beautiful women with flourishing children and grandchildren were busy making bedding and pillows for the newlyweds. Zhao led his three granddaughters to make paste, cut flower paper, pasted a new roof, new wallpaper and new window paper for the small grass house, and pasted the word double happiness in red, and the cottage suddenly brightened up and was full of joy.

Three days later, Zhong Shulin and Li Chunhua both knelt at Bai's feet and worshiped the church and became relatives.

On the night of the cave room, the candle shadow flickered. Zhong Shulin took off his tunic coat, rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, washed his face with water, wiped it clean with a towel, hesitated again and again, and gently uncovered the bride's red hijab. The bride's hair was coiled, a red silk flower was inserted, and a white and clean little round face looked much more vivid than during the day, with some coquettishness and shyness, which was a bit like Fang Zihui back then.

Zhong Shulin's blood suddenly surged, and he took the bride into his arms. The two young beings worked hard to complete an expedition through mountains and rivers, and they mustered up the courage to actively march to the deep sea again and again, climbing to the peak, and again and again encountered resistance to no avail.

He married a stone girl! It was only a few years later that he saw the odd term in a book. They are not destined to become a real husband and wife, and they are not destined to have children of their own. He had no way to tell anyone about his suffering, including his mother, Zhao. Neither did she, full of inferiority complex and guilt for him.

After getting married, Zhong Shulin only lived at home for three days, and said that there were still many things to deal with at work, leaving his new daughter-in-law to go back to the city alone. In the past three days, he did one thing, that is, he asked Li Chunhua to cut off her long braids and cut them into a neat short hair.

Half a year after returning to the city, Zhong Shulin applied for a three-room small bungalow and took Zhao and Li Chunhua to Qingshan City. Li Chunhua didn't have a job for a while, so she was idle at home, tidying up and cooking for three people.

A year later, the old lady Zhao suddenly fell ill. I asked a doctor, but I didn't see anything about it, I just said that I was old and all kinds of organs in my body had failed. Zhao's rice is getting less and less day by day, and his spirit is not as good as day by day. In fact, at that time, Zhao just looked at his white hair and wrinkled face, and he was only in his early sixties. Zhong Shulin and Li Chunhua both sighed, and said behind their backs that their mother had not eaten anything good or worn anything good in her life, she was really tired, because she was reluctant to give up her second son, so she barely supported it and did not fall, her son came back, she also entered the city, her spirit relaxed, and the person collapsed all of a sudden.

Before his death, Zhao took the hands of Zhong Shulin and his wife, and said intermittently, give birth to a fat boy as soon as possible - to our old - Zhong family - to connect the incense, watched the two children nod their heads again and again with tears in their eyes, and then slowly closed their eyes and left this world peacefully, leaving a hard-working couple who she created with her own hands to struggle hard in this world.