After 60 years old, Lao Ma often likes to conceive of his funeral: where to do it, who will be in charge, who will invite and who must not come, who will write the elegiac couplet, what meat dishes to eat, how expensive wine to drink, which slope to bury, what tiles to use for the grave, how much does the coffin cost, and what objects are placed in the coffin...... For as long as he can remember, Lao Ma has been in contact with the death of people—neighbors, relatives, strangers, at least once a year, and by the time he is seventeen or eighteen years old, his knowledge of death is only at the level of a sumptuous feast.

After middle age, the death of his old parents and important relatives became a matter related to him and required a large banquet, and death meant hosting a banquet instead of eating a banquet for him.

Later, after passing middle age and entering old age, he kept sending away all kinds of people who were related to him and unrelated to him, so that he had long been numb to death and funeral, and felt that it was an inevitable event that had nothing to do with him, after all, Lao Ma was healthier, more capable, more optimistic and richer than his peers.

He turned seventy this year, and it wasn't until the sudden death of his beloved that he really began to think about death with his heart.

People's views on death essentially determine the height of his life, and the earlier the tentacle of death, the sooner the person becomes enlightened, but the myths and beliefs that have been passed down for thousands of years, and the customs and concepts inherited in the countryside have diluted and paralyzed the villagers' perception of death, and narrow-mindedness and ignorance have taken advantage of the situation to fan the flames, thus restricting the villagers' understanding and detachment from life, death and life.

Recently, Lao Ma, who has rubbed shoulders with death from time to time, often thinks about how strong a person must be in order to accept the death of his loved ones calmly or meet his own end calmly.

Imagine being too old to hold a cup, trembling to your feet, and so drowsy that you can't speak...... The youthful beauty and middle-aged decency are gone, the glitz and elegance of the past have lost their meaning, and in the end all that is left is a crumpled skin, a foul smell in the mouth, old dirt hidden in the fingernails, and an overnight patch of dough stuck to the chest...... The lover left first, the son suddenly left, the parents, brothers, and old buddies were long gone, so strong for seventy years, and finally left something that could be properly carried in his hands.

Lao Ma didn't have the strength and reason to maintain the stubbornness and reserve of the past, and he was not in the mood to regulate his future, he didn't want to let himself, a bad old man, become a matter of worrying about the people around him in his old age, but at the moment, he really didn't know how to live.

For Lao Ma, is it too late to ask about life and death? He wants to get rid of his past self, he is seventy years old, and he doesn't know if it's too late.

The sky was gray in the first lunar month, and the old horse leaned on the cement platform, holding a hookah and watching the orange-red sunset.