On the table in the middle hall, there was a dark red box at this time, some simple offerings had been placed in front of him, incense and candles were burning, and there was an extra brazier on the floor.

With only one hand left, Luo Wenxin, who was covered with wind and frost on his face, squatted under the porch and smoked a cigarette, and when he saw me approaching, he stood up and looked at me, his eyes were complicated, and he looked at each other speechlessly.

Glancing at him blankly, I walked into the door with my feet up, came behind Sister Yun, and looked at the box on the table in a daze, my mind completely blank.

After a long time, I finally came back to my senses a little from the scene in front of me, and knelt down on my knees with a puff of holding the table legs, trembling all over, choking silently, and in pain.

Old man...... He's dead.

When I left, I was kind and could talk and laugh, but when I came back, I was left with a small box left, and I didn't even see the last side.

"I'm sorry, Xiao Nian, it's uncle's fault, blame me for not being able to accompany your master and let him come back alive with me."

The old man died at about 12:45 p.m. ten days ago, and he didn't walk peacefully, but he was peaceful. I had been living in a county town in Jiangxi for two days, and because the old man didn't want to see me too sad, he didn't let Luo Wenxin contact me.

So on the whole, the old man died in the hospital, not in the wilderness, no one knows.

And before closing his eyes forever, the old man even explained to Luo Wenxin, there is no need to inform me in a hurry, and there is no need to find a way to pull his body back to the provincial capital, just cremate it locally, find a cemetery to bury, and then bring back his relics and the news of his death and hand it to me. But after cremating the old man's body locally, Luo Wenxin thought about it and felt that he still couldn't fully follow his last words, so he carried the urn and relics on his back, traveled thousands of miles, and finally returned to the provincial capital before the Chinese New Year's Eve, more than half of which was on foot.

He originally wanted to walk the whole way, accompany the old man to walk the last section, and it was also the longest section of the road that the two had intersected for so long, in order to commemorate the friendship between the two that had entangled too many things, but he was already too old and his feet were not strong enough, and he couldn't walk back to the provincial capital in eight days just by walking, so he could only choose to take a ride in some places, and finally entered the house at the end of the news broadcast and the focus interview just began.

The bad news came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that people didn't have any psychological preparation at all!

It's not that I didn't think that the old man would die one day, although his body is still very strong, except for the occasional cold, and his stomach is not very good, there are almost no small problems with his body, not to mention that he can walk and jump freely, when it is really necessary, I may not be able to keep up with his rhythm when it explodes in a short time, but no matter what, after all, he is already this age, and if there is really something wrong or changed, the body collapses in minutes.

So it's not that I haven't thought that the old man will really grow old one day, so old that he can't eat or walk. Ordinary old people may have a cold and fever, and their bodies completely collapse and cannot recover, not to mention the old man who is destined not to be idle like ordinary old people, so there has always been, he will be unable to walk after returning from a certain trip, and he needs someone to take care of his food, clothing, sitting and sleeping, or suddenly receive it one day, he is injured and fell ill somewhere, and needs to rush over to take care of it urgently, and then take it back with psychological preparation.

And with the old man's temperament, if that day really comes, it is very likely that he will not let himself live in the world for too long, so correspondingly, I also know that once that day comes, I will probably not be able to do my filial piety for a long time, and I will not be able to repay much kindness, because I will not be able to keep him for too long.

But I never imagined that none of the above would happen.

Not to mention repaying the kindness and filial piety, I didn't even see the last face of the master and his old man, not only when he was dying, my only disciple could not accompany him to listen to the instructions, but I didn't even know when he died, until the urn entered the house, I received this unbearable bad news.

Alack! What a pain!

At the same time that my mind was blank, my parents, mothers and grandfathers also received the bad news that my master had passed away and the urn had just returned home at my hometown, and drove over from my hometown overnight, along with Manye and several of his own parents, the old village chief and branch secretary, Pan Changhong and Pan Guanghai. Looking at the small urn, and then thinking back to the old man in his hometown for more than half a year, the various impressions left on people, all sighed and sighed, full of regret.

The old man has a great kindness to my family and a great kindness to me for regeneration and cultivation, but from now on, he will never have the opportunity to repay me in the slightest, and he will not leave a word.

From now on, I don't have a Master anymore. That old man, who has a slight quirk by nature, has been fierce all his life, but has always been gentle to the world, can make me feel scared from the bone when he is strict with me, and is kinder than anyone else when he is kind, he can no longer blow his beard and roll his eyes at me, and if he wants to see Master again in the future, he can only dream back in the middle of the night.

For three whole days, I couldn't really recover from the fact that Master had passed away, and I knew that many people had come and talked a lot to some of them in these three days, but I didn't know who had come and what I had said. The whole person is like half asleep and half awake, most of the time there is only a mechanical and dazed instinct, remembering that he has done a lot under the guidance of someone who does not know who, but he does not remember what he did.

In the face of such a big matter, the matter of finding the whereabouts of the little daughter-in-law can only be completely put down for the time being. I only vaguely remember, it seems that I sent a message to her WeChat, telling her that the old man is no longer alive, I hope she can come back after seeing it, don't continue to hide, Sister Yun has also sent her similar messages several times, and it seems that she is angry, what to say to the mobile phone to know how to stop, the matter surnamed Tao has been completely resolved, and no one will be able to hurt you anymore, Li Nian dreams of you going home, a whole family is waiting for you to go home, and now his master is not there, it is the most vulnerable, When you need your company the most, if you don't know how to come back, you may regret it too late in the future.

However, even so, the little daughter-in-law, who has never been too far away, still hasn't come back.

But I have had a feeling several times that she seems to have come back, and she is at home or outside the door, very realistic, just looking at me by my side, but I asked my family several times, confirmed several times, and all I got without exception was that she had not come back, and no one saw her answer. In my confusion, there was inevitably a little more confusion, and I couldn't figure out which was right between my feelings and their answers.

Of course, what everyone including me doesn't know is that in fact, my feeling is correct, the little daughter-in-law has really come back, and she has come back twice, but she didn't enter the gate of the courtyard.

On the nights of the 29th of the lunar month and the 30th of the Chinese New Year's Eve, between four and five o'clock, when everything was quiet and no one would notice, a young woman dressed in black, wearing a peaked cap and a mask, would appear in a narrow alley with no street lights diagonally opposite the courtyard, looking at the completely open gate and looking at the infinite sadness. This young woman is the little daughter-in-law I have been looking for for days without any success.

She really hasn't been far away, and she has always seen the messages we sent her, so she knows that the old man has passed away and only a box of ashes is left when he returns. When she came back for the first time on the 29th night, she did not leave the dark narrow alley the whole time, and kept looking at the gate of the courtyard in a daze, which lasted for more than 40 minutes before she wiped away her tears and turned around to leave on the other side of the alley.

On the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve, when she came for the second time, because most of the people had to accompany their families for the New Year, keeping Chinese New Year's Eve, in the early hours of the morning, except for my family, there were almost no outsiders, and it was not easy to be discovered, so after staying for ten minutes, she carefully walked out of the narrow alley, crossed the road to the gate, and when she was closest to me, she even went up to the gate, and she could see everything in the yard and my back kneeling in front of the old man's spirit.

But even so, she had no intention of going into the courtyard, returning to me, and accompanying me through this most difficult moment, or rather, she restrained the thought of returning to me, and after secretly watching the gate for about two minutes, she turned around and left in three steps, shedding countless tears along the way.

No one knows why she left so suddenly, even if she knew that Boss Tao, who was pestering her, had been resolved, and knew that I was the most difficult, the most heartbroken, and the most in need of companionship, even if everyone had returned to the gate, she was still unwilling to return home, and spent this time with me, and finally left the word "sorry" and left.

Even Yuan Jinzhu, who heard that the old man had passed away and rushed back from an unknown corner of Tibet overnight, and thought that he knew his little daughter-in-law better than me, couldn't figure out why this was at all, so she could only extinguish the cigarette butt after she turned to leave, and was just blocked from the yard by a few potted plants and wreaths, stood up from the corner that could not be seen outside the gate, and looked out of the gate with a sigh.

At the same time, outside the courtyard, Xiao Qinghe, the white-faced scholar, and Mr. Wu also looked at the sad and lonely figure who withdrew, with indescribable regret.

"No, I must go to my beautiful sister and ask why this is." Among the three, the white-faced scholar who should be the oldest and the youngest was the first to lose his breath, and said unwillingly, he was about to catch up and show up to ask for clarification, but he was stopped by Xiao Qinghe as soon as he moved.

"She hasn't figured out how to face Li Nian, facing everyone, including us, why do you have to force her to ...... at this time"

It wasn't until the early morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year that the old man's urn was sent to the Julongwan Cemetery in the western suburbs, and watching the tomb be sealed little by little, that he finally really got out of the dazed nature of these days, really realized what this fact meant, knelt in front of the tombstone, and really shed tears for the first time since seeing the old man's urn.

This year, it was completely gray and white, without any hint of color that could make people feel the slightest comfort.

After crying, it was about the same as before, but there was also a very different state between sober and dazed, looking at the black and white portrait of the old man on the tombstone in a daze, smoking cigarettes one after another.

When I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and came to my senses again, there was no one else around, only Yuan Jinzhu was left sitting on the stone opposite the narrow aisle, also smoking a stuffy cigarette and silently accompanying me.

And it wasn't until this time that I was really sober enough to realize that this guy had also rushed back from thousands of miles away.

"You say, are some people destined to be extraordinary, destined to be impossible for others to grasp for a lifetime, or even just to predict them? No matter how thoughtful you think you are and how well you prepare, when it comes time to actually leave, it will always be completely unexpected and catch you off guard, without any psychological preparation at all. ”

Yuan Jinzhu looked up at me, and after smoking and extinguishing most of the remaining cigarettes in his hand, he replied, "I don't know what to say." Of course, it's not that you can't answer, but you don't know what to say to understand. In short, in any case, since the old man is now in the ground, let's relax my heart. His old man is not an ordinary man like my old man, not one of those old men who start to wait for death when he reaches a certain age, and you and I are vulgar people who can't be vulgar anymore, and they want to use themselves to tie them up, and want to influence them to follow our minds, which is not supposed to be a thought, so I don't think there is anything wrong with the old man walking like this, at least at the last moment, he was not fettered by us ordinary people, and there are no us people to bother in his ears, which is good, not to wait for the old man to serve a handful of and urine before he dies, tossing people around to be able to get angry before calling filial piety, let the old man choose the way he wants is the greatest filial piety. ”

I smiled bitterly and didn't speak again, wanting to continue touching and smoking, only to find that there was no one left in the cigarette box, so I had to ask the guy in front of me who was always crooked.

"Smoke less, it's only been less than two hours, and you've already smoked a whole pack." Yuan Jinzhu looked at me and sighed lightly, but he didn't care about me at all for my health: "One hundred and one packs, it's expensive, according to your smoking method, how much money do you have to burn." "I said that, but after I took out one and lit it, and put one in each ear, I threw the whole bag at me.

"Help me." After lighting a cigarette and smoking half in silence, I said softly.