Volume 1 Memoirs Chapter 12 The Golden Coffin and the Grandmother
It's a novel story I've never heard before. When I heard my grandmother tell me, I thought my grandfather had gone into the grave and found something. But it turned out that they could no longer be found, and the five mountains and the tomb were gone.
When I said this, to tell the truth, I didn't even believe it when I was eight years old.
Five mountains that are so big, if you can't find them, you can't find them? How could that be. Nine times out of ten, this story was made up by my grandmother. And it's still boring, there's nothing good to hear.
For this reason, I was very angry, ignored my grandmother, and was ready to go home.
My grandmother was in a hurry, afraid that I would really leave, so she quickly took out five cents and bought me bread.
I was immediately happy, happily took the money and ran.
Five cents for two loaves of bread, one for me and one for my grandmother. My grandmother sometimes didn't eat it, or only half of it, and usually kept it for me.
When I came back, I was still thinking about whether my grandmother would want this bread.
Sure enough, my grandmother didn't eat the bread that day. And she grabbed the bread and watched me eat it.
When I finished eating, she suddenly pointed to the cage where my aunt kept rabbits on the mountainside. Then I was asked to go up and dig in the groove in the mountain wall behind the cage.
A large groove had been dug into the mountain wall, as if it had been dug a long time ago, and my aunt thought it was convenient, so she put the rabbit cage in the groove.
I'm already an old experience in climbing this slope, and I will go up after dividing two by two. Then, as my grandmother said, I dug in the soil behind the cage.
Sure enough, I didn't dig deep enough before I touched something. As soon as I shouted, my grandmother told me to dig it up.
I put both hands on it, dug a big hole in the back of the cage, and pulled out a lump of hard stuff covered in dirt.
Peeling off the top layer of dirt, a yellow metal block full of patterns and inlaid with green and red stones was revealed.
The story my grandmother had just told me flashed in my mind. So I quickly wiped the things off my hands, and sure enough, what I dug up was a small golden coffin!
Moreover, it was the little coffin in the story my grandmother had just told me. It turned out that my grandmother didn't lie to me at all. None of the stories I have ever told me have been false.
I don't know why my grandmother suddenly revealed the secret to me, and even showed me such an important thing.
And adhering to the principle of not looking at nothing, I held the small coffin and studied it.
The small golden coffin is the size of an adult's fist and three fists long. The whole body is gold, carved with strange patterns and lace. It is set with six thumb-sized turquoise gemstones, three rubies, and eighteen white little finger-sized gemstones.
And the cover is the cornice, on the edge of the upturned cornice, a small piece of jade block, carved with a symbol, very beautiful.
Under the coffin, sure enough, there were also inscriptions, and sure enough, I didn't know them. However, I was shocked when I saw these words. Because, in the dream I often have, the words on the cover pages of the three books, this is it!
When I saw these words, I hurriedly asked my grandmother if my grandfather had opened it.
Grandma shook her head and said no. At first, my grandfather believed in this small coffin very much, and offered it in the lobby, where no one was allowed to touch it, let alone open it. But then, for some reason, he suddenly hid.
Maybe it was the matter of the five mountains that spread, and I was afraid of trouble, so I hid it.
It wasn't until he died that he took out the small coffin and gave it to his grandmother. And my grandmother has never opened it, and has been hiding it with other belongings.
Later, when the revolution raided the house, my grandmother stuffed some jewelry rings into the cracks in the walls. And this small coffin was buried under the stove by her.
As soon as the house was gone, my grandmother took some other buried jewelry and small coffins to Pingxiang, that is, the place where my uncle lives now, found relatives here, borrowed the ground and buried them, and has been until now.
During this time, the jewels were taken up, exchanged for money, and divided between the uncle and the two aunts. My mom didn't have a job, because she went to Hunan with my dad.
Therefore, the little coffin has never been opened since it was discovered by my grandfather. The secret inside has not been leaked.
I couldn't help but get excited, holding a small coffin with some weight, and looking at my grandmother and smirking.
Grandma really dotes on you and me, and despite the fact that this is something that my grandfather believes in, she actually agreed to let me open it.
But despite my consent, I couldn't open the coffin. This small coffin, although there is a gap between the lid and the box, just can't be opened.
What antiques did I know at that time, what art did I know? Can't open it, right? Then I'll pry! I flipped through my uncle's tools and got started directly.
I don't know if this little coffin is really gold, I feel like I'm very rough, but I didn't leave a trace of it, let alone pry it open.
After a long time without any movement, as soon as his temper came up, he smashed directly to the ground. My grandmother was taken aback by me, but she didn't stop me. But even so, I didn't hurt it even a dozen times, not even a single gem was dropped, and there wasn't a crack in the jade block.
This quickly wore out my patience, and if I threw it away, I was out of business. Grabbing the bread, he sat next to his grandmother, and talked to her while eating, and forgot about it for a while.
However, when it was almost evening, when I was about to go home, my grandmother suddenly shoved this thing into my hand and asked me to take it back. Looking at her appearance, it seems that she still doesn't want me to tell others, not even my parents and sister. I don't know why, but I promised her to take it back and bury it at the foot of the back mountain.
Now that I think about it, my grandmother probably felt guilty that she couldn't give something to her mother at the beginning, and now she wants to make up for it, because it's also a golden artifact. And I was afraid that my uncle and other aunts would have opinions, so I didn't say anything about it yet.
I haven't touched this golden coffin, or even forgotten about it. It wasn't until later, on the eve of moving back to Hunan, that I remembered my grandmother and remembered it.
After a month, my grandmother suddenly moved to my house, and lived in my sister's cubicle, sleeping with my sister.
My sister and I are very close to my grandmother, and we are by no means comparable to our cousins. During that time, I felt that my grandmother was a few years younger. During this time, my sister and I have eaten enough triangular bread and feel full of happiness. It was also my grandmother's last days.
In the second half of the year, autumn. When I got up one morning, I got out of bed happily and went into the cubicle to call my grandmother. Because the night before, my grandmother promised to give me money to buy bread this morning.
But when I got to the cubicle, I was stunned by what it was in.
A huge round boulder smashed through the wall of the shack and pressed against my sister's bed, only about ten centimeters away, and it hit my sister.
What's even more terrifying is that my sister and grandmother haven't woken up yet, and they don't know about this great danger.
I screamed in fright and woke my grandmother up first. My grandmother was sleeping with her sister in her arms, and when she opened her eyes, she was facing the big rock. I looked at her, and my face turned white.
Mom and Dad came later, and as soon as they entered the door of that compartment, they were all slammed.
The stone was rolled down from the mountain, and there was a clear trail of rolling off the rock wall of the back mountain. But when I got on the platform, there were no traces, so I don't know where the round boulder came from.
According to later generations, the rock must have fallen from a higher place on the mountain. Hearing this reminded me of the loud sound that erupted every once in a while on the waterfall in the mountains.
Such a loud sound, although the outside world could not hear it, but the shock could be transmitted, shaking some loose rocks on the mountain. Therefore, it is understandable that there are rockfalls.
Of course, this was my later speculation, and as for the real situation, I don't know.
All I know is that after the rockfall, my grandmother moved back to my uncle's house on the same day. In a few days, my grandmother became ill. And this disease is terminally ill.
It was almost only ten days, and my grandmother, who was still very strong, couldn't get up anymore, lying on the bed sickly, and it was very difficult to speak.
I didn't understand what was wrong with my grandmother at the time, but I thought I was scared by the falling rock, and I thought it would be fine in a few days.
Who knows, I saw her that day and she gave me five cents to buy bread. I happily came back with two loaves of bread, only to see my father, mother and uncle carrying my grandmother onto the tricycle that my father was driving.
At this time, my grandmother could no longer speak, and her eyes were blank. I walked over and put the bread in front of her, and she didn't react. It's only been a few minutes, and she smiled at me a few minutes ago and was able to pay me. A few minutes later, it turned out to be like that.
I remember it clearly, I cried on the spot, crying without a sound.
According to the local ethnic customs, the parents, the mothers and the little uncle wanted to transport the grandmother back to Shangshi's hometown and return to the ancestors. I didn't take another car back with my uncle, but followed my mother, sat next to my grandmother, and accompanied her back to Shangshi.
Seven days after returning to Shangshi, my grandmother passed away on a dark night.
I was woken up by my mother, the local custom, the death of a loved one, the descendants must start waiting by the side that night, to comfort the dead.
That night, there were a lot of people in my grandmother's room, my uncle, my mother, my aunt and aunt, several cousins, and blood relatives all present. My father and aunt were at the door of the room, all kneeling, all looking sad and heartbroken.
My grandmother lay on the bed, very peaceful, and walked without pain. Her hair was snow-white, and I swear, I've never seen an old man with piercing white hair like hers.
My sister and I cried so hard that my mother even fainted twice. A few hours later, when the aunt and aunt began to prepare for the funeral for their grandmother, they suddenly fainted from crying, and they may have remembered something about their grandmother when they were preparing something, which touched them.
Grandma's three daughters sewed an ingot pillow for her grandmother overnight, which was gray. Then all the relatives, including my father and aunt, had to grab a handful of all kinds of food and put it in.
Then my mother, who has the best relationship with my grandmother, put the pillow behind my grandmother's head.
At this time, I also found out that my grandmother's clothes had been changed, and she had changed into a set of all-black old-fashioned clothes, and her shoes were also black. At the same time, the eldest uncle and the younger uncle who were guarding the bedside had already changed into all-white filial piety clothes and knelt down, and officially began to wear linen and filial piety.
My mother handed me and my sister a set of filial piety clothes, and told us to kneel behind our cousins until dawn. And their daughters began to pack up their grandmother's belongings.
I just knelt like this, looking at my grandmother, who was sleeping peacefully, motionless, and my mind was full of the smile of the last time I saw my grandmother that day.
I also noticed that even my grandmother, who had changed her shroud, was always holding a triangular bread on her right hand. I was the last to buy this bread, but by then my grandmother was no longer conscious, and I don't know when she got it.
Later, my mother told me that a moment before my grandmother died, she suddenly woke up and said that she wanted to eat the bread I bought. Even when she died, she always remembered the last day I went to see her and bought her bread.
After the bread was handed to the grandmother, the grandmother grabbed the bread and smiled, and then just let her last breath go away.
This is also the reason why everyone did not take the bread, because of this bread, my grandmother walked without regrets and walked peacefully.
When my mother told me, I cried very much, and knelt in front of my grandmother's spirit for a long, long time, until I couldn't bear it anymore and fell asleep.