Uncle said that on the day of my grandfather's death, all men and women in the village, young and old, held up red paper umbrellas and lined up in front of my house, and the queue stretched all the way to the outside of the village.

Everyone was silent, and without exception, they used pig dung mixed with water to draw a bar on their foreheads.

Looking at it from a distance, the team seemed to be connected into a winding blood-red long snake, and what was even more unbelievable was that this long snake had been connected to the county seat five miles away.

The sister-in-law, who was shopping for things in the county town, saw this battle, and she couldn't hold back her tears.

Because she knew—

Daddy is gone.

That evening, the family gathered around his grandfather's coffin and sent him out of the house.

At the moment when the door of the mourning hall opened, the villagers guarding the village road immediately passed the red paper umbrellas in their hands to the people behind them, one by one in an orderly manner.

At the same time, their mouths were silently repeating the same sentence.

The second sister said that she could remember that sentence for a lifetime-

"Bloody withered hair, long-eyed mouth, good to go, don't look back..."

The red paper umbrellas were passed all the way to the highest black mountain outside the village, and they were all thrown into a huge iron pot prepared in advance, and the fire burned clean.

When the paper umbrellas were burned, everyone went backwards back to their homes, until the next day, before the sun came out, the usual lively village was empty, and it was as silent as death.

My grandfather has always been kind to people during his lifetime, and he is recognized as a kind old man, but he can still get such an "honor" after his death, mainly because of my grandmother.

I remember that my grandmother never spoke.

This non-speech does not mean that she is silent, but that I really haven't heard a word come out of her mouth.

But I always listened to my dad say that when my grandmother gave me the name "Wu Yan", she sat in the yard and read these two words countless times, and she laughed very happily.

When I was a child, I even thought she was a mute.

In particular, the small and strange scar around my grandmother's mouth strengthened my thoughts at that time.

Until this time, my grandfather passed away.

……

I was sitting in my office that afternoon and my dad called me.

When I heard the bad news of my grandfather's death, my heart sank, so I immediately filled out a leave slip and threw it on the leader's desk, and went straight to my hometown after leaving the unit.

In fact, until I was twelve years old, I lived with my grandparents, and I was very close to the second elder.

It was only when I was admitted to the city in junior high school that I had to move out of the compound.

In my memory, my grandfather's body has always been very strong, and I never expected him to leave so suddenly.

After a long journey, I finally arrived at my grandfather's house in the evening of the next day.

I came back relatively early, and there were only two people in the mourning hall at this time, my grandmother and uncle.

There is a portrait of my grandfather in the mourning hall, and two white candles in front of the statue are lit with flames, but the strange thing is that on the ground in the center of the mourning hall, there is a pair of scissors abruptly.

When my grandmother saw that I was back, she walked up to me with tears in her eyes and hugged me tightly.

"I miss him ......"

I was stunned, this was the first thing my grandmother had ever said to me in my twenty-seven years of life.

When I heard this, my grandmother and I hugged each other and cried together.

I know that the sky is falling and we are the same.

After that, I sat in the mourning hall and held my grandmother's hand with her, and we looked at the portrait of my grandfather, reminiscing about the moments when we lived together when we were children.

"Great nephew! Eat—"

Halfway through the words, the uncle who came out of the kitchen immediately covered his mouth, and his two eyes looked at his grandmother with some taboo.

Grandma raised her eyelids and glanced at Uncle with cloudy eyes, but did not speak.

Seeing that grandma didn't blame, the uncle's face looked like a child who had made a mistake, so he put down his hand and handed the noodles to me, "Oh, let's eat noodles." ”

I looked at the strange appearance of the uncle and laughed and joked with him: "What's the matter, uncle?" It's a steamed bun, why are you still choking on half of it? ”

The uncle shook his head with a smile and did not speak.

In fact, he didn't say that I knew that this was the rule of the family.

When I was a child, I noticed that my family members spoke very strangely, and they seemed to deliberately not say their own names.

And not only can't you bring your own family's name, but you can't even call it, to be exact, you can't use any referring words and words.

What Wu Yan, the eldest nephew, you, and him, all can't work.

Just like the scene just now, the uncle covered his mouth after calling his eldest nephew, knowing that he had made a mistake, and he was especially afraid that his grandmother would look at her angrily, and finally swallowed the three words of the eldest nephew.

This strange situation is not accidental, because in my not-so-vivid childhood memories, similar things have happened many times.

What I remember the most was one year when the whole family gathered at my grandparents' house to celebrate the Chinese New Year's Eve.

At the dinner table, I listened to my two cousins telling me jokes, shouting excitedly, and knocking the bowl desperately with chopsticks.

My father's old drunkard took half a glass of white wine in his stomach, glared at me fiercely, and then raised his hand and slapped the table: "Wu Yan! Knock the bowl with chopsticks and beware of asking for rice later! ”

He said this to educate me, but the moment he said it, the whole family was stupid!

My grandmother sighed and took out a black wooden stick from the back room, and raised it above her head to smash my father's mouth!

I was just over ten years old at the time, and I had never seen my always kind grandmother be so fierce, and the chopsticks in my hand immediately fell to the ground, and I was trembling with fright.

The whole family was also frightened, and they all gathered around to persuade my grandmother, saying that the third child had no door in his mouth after drinking, and he was definitely not cursing the child, so don't be angry!

When I was older, my mom told me that if I hadn't tried so hard to stop me, my mom would have knocked my dad to the ground!

I also remember what happened after that, and then my dad knelt in the yard at the door with a mouthful of water in his mouth until the rooster crowed on the first day of the new year, and my grandmother reluctantly spared him.

To this day, I still remember it vividly.

After eating the noodles, I chatted with my uncle for a while and then received a call from my father, saying that he and my mother had bought tickets for tomorrow and that they would not arrive until noon.

My grandmother went back to her room after eating, and my uncle and I sat bored until nine o'clock.

Uncle said that my two cousins would not arrive until tomorrow, so I should be alone tonight, but my grandmother was worried that I would be afraid, so she ordered him to accompany me in advance.

The time flickered to more than eleven o'clock in the evening, and the courtyard outside the door of the mourning hall was quiet.

My ass was numb, so I got up and wandered around the room.

"Tired?" Uncle asked me while smoking a cigarette.

I shook my head, "I'm not tired, it's just that my butt is numb, just walk a little." ”

With that, I snapped and kicked something.

Hurriedly looked down and saw that what I had just kicked was the old iron scissors that had been placed in the middle of the mourning hall, and at this moment the scissors had been accidentally kicked to the gate.

Uncle turned his head a little nervously to look at his grandmother's door, then went to the kitchen to get a pair of chopsticks and ran to the gate to clip the scissors back, and put them in the middle of the mourning hall again.

I was watching a monkey show on the side: "What's the matter, uncle, what do you mean by these scissors?" ”

Uncle hurriedly motioned for me to speak quietly, and then leaned over and whispered: "I don't know, but don't move, there are too many rules at home, just remember it, try not to figure out why." ”

Since the topic has begun, I can just ask, "Uncle, can't you bring your family with you when you talk in our house?" ”

Uncle looked at me in surprise, the cigarette in his hand fell to the ground, and he nodded lightly after a while.

I continued, "Why?" ”

The uncle wanted to speak and stopped, with a tangled face. "It's not that Uncle doesn't say it, I really don't know the Tao here."

Seeing that my expression was really a little disappointed, the uncle struggled in his heart for a while, and finally made up his mind to grit his teeth, "I'll ask again tomorrow." ”

After speaking, Uncle made a gesture of two in front of me.

"What? Two? "I look a little blind.

Uncle shook his head and gestured hard in front of me, my mind turned, and finally reacted: "You let me ask the second uncle?!" ”

"Yes!"