According to the memory, I found the door of my house, and the familiar feeling returned. Many pictures of my childhood flashed in my mind, and there were Aunt Mei and my grandmother in each picture, sighing in my heart, is this called a thing or a person?

I noticed that the door of the next room was open, and I seemed to remember the surname of this family. Far memories aside, the recent time, I had a dream related to my grandmother, and it mentioned that I should go to Zhang Liuye's house next door to see if there were any extra dumpling leaves, and the relationship between the two families should be very good at that time, as if I helped Aunt Mei to handle my grandmother's future affairs later.

Looking around left and right, I saw that several families were poking their heads out, their eyes hesitant. Sheng Shiyao, who had been silent, spoke: "Come back at night, if you go in like this, others will think that you are burglarizing." "That's true, I don't have the key to my hometown, I can only pick the old-fashioned lock to get in, and no one in the village knows me, so I don't think I'm a thief.

So the two of them walked into the field, the smell of grass and earth mixed together, and the breeze was very pleasant. I walked in front and he was behind, not aimlessly, but I remember in my distant memory that there was a mound in front of my hometown, and a long river, which was said to lead to the canal, and the mound was the cemetery of the surrounding villagers. The old society still used burial, and after the death of the ancestors, they were directly carried to the mound for burial.

Although my childhood memories of my grandmother have blurred for some reason, I think that since my ancestors are buried there, I might be able to find something by taking this opportunity to take a trip.

After half an hour of walking, I arrived at the mound, and I couldn't help but be surprised, the mound that was originally full of tombstones became empty, and there were many stone monuments lying bustling, and it looked like it had been pushed down. Instead, the small tree has grown into a big tree.

After walking around, I gradually understood that many villagers should have moved their graves. Keeping pace with the times, everyone rushed to the city, and it would be very troublesome to rush back to the countryside and villages to worship their ancestors every year, and there were also clear regulations above that no more such burial cemeteries were allowed, so they moved their ancestral graves away from here.

Aunt Mei and I haven't been back for more than ten years, and I haven't heard Aunt Mei mention the matter of moving the grave, so it stands to reason that no one will move the ancestral grave of my grandmother's lineage. So I took a closer look at the stone monument that had been pushed to the ground, and finally found the clue after looking at more than a dozen pieces in a row.

There are three steles that fall to the ground side by side, two of which are surnamed Cheng, and the other one is surnamed He, but it is engraved at the place where the stele erected: Cheng Qingping. Obviously, this stele was erected by my grandmother, and I guessed that this might be my grandfather, and the other two were the ancestors of the family.

I don't understand, my grandmother married my grandfather, shouldn't the ancestors of the worship be the ancestors of my grandfather? How can there be a family of ancestors here? There is nothing in contemporary society, but my grandmother's era was an old society, and marrying in the past is equivalent to becoming a person from my grandfather's family. How is it possible to erect a monument to your ancestors in a cemetery? And I noticed that there was no deceased surnamed He next to me. This is really strange.

Remembering that Sheng Shiyao beside him had been silent, he turned around and wanted to ask him for his opinion, but found that he was not beside him, but standing by the river, staring at an extremely thick tree. I still have the impression that the tree was not able to be held by one person when I was a child, but now it is much thicker, and the tree is full of all kinds of vines, and some nameless flowers also grow on the trunk.

It was rumored that it was a crape myrtle tree, but it was never seen to bloom, and later the villagers thought it was a wild tree. I walked over and whispered to him and asked, "Is there something wrong with this tree?" ”

He shook his head, and when he turned his eyes, I unconsciously lowered my eyes a little, and after the events of last night, I became afraid to look at him. In order to divert his mind and express his doubts just now, he frowned after hearing this, walked to the stone tablet and looked at it, and said, "There are two possibilities that can be explained. ”

"Which two?"

"The first type, before the Cheng family, it was a big family, and your grandfather was a wealthy family, so the ancestors who naturally worshiped were Cheng family."

This statement is reasonable, but as far as I can remember, I didn't see that the family looked like a big family, I don't know if it declined later, and my grandfather's related things, I don't have any impression in my mind, I don't know if my grandmother never mentioned it, or if it was mentioned but I don't remember. After pondering for a while, he asked, "What about the second one?" ”

The corners of Sheng Shiyao's lips floated a shallow arc, and he said lightly: "Second, the person in this tablet engraved with your grandmother's name is not your grandfather at all, and the surname is likely to be your grandmother's husband's surname. ”

After listening to his analysis, I was very surprised, both possibilities can indeed explain the previous unreasonableness, but if it is the second one, who is this surname He? Why did his grandmother erect a monument for him and bury him with his ancestors?

Suddenly thinking of something, I overturned Sheng Shiyao's opinion, "No, it can't be the second type, do you remember Chen Bing?" When I fell into the Soul City with him, he once said that he knew his grandmother in his early years, and he didn't say whether he had a relationship or not, but when they met, his grandmother was called Cheng Qingping, and those things should have happened before his grandmother got married, and she was not married to her grandfather at that time, so the surname Cheng must be her grandmother's real surname. ”

"It's unreasonable to dwell on these, you can't see it just from this stone tablet, if you want to know, go to the village to find an old man and ask."

As soon as he said this, he realized that it was getting late, and when he walked back to the village from here, it was almost dark. From a distance, judging from the lights, there are only about a dozen households living in the village, and most of the houses are empty.

We walked to the door of the old house, and without much effort, we picked open the old-fashioned lock, and when we pushed the door open, a thick smell of dust dispersed in the air. Because I didn't live for a long time, it was naturally impossible to turn on the electricity again, so I prepared a flashlight and a dry radio light when I came.

The old house is divided into a front and back garden, the front room is the kitchen and hall, and the back room is the bedroom, which is divided into two rooms. With my intuition, I found my grandmother's room, and the first thing I saw was an old wooden bed, strictly speaking, an ancient wooden bed, a wooden bed of the Republic Dynasty. It is mainly hollow carving, the lintel has a double layer, carved with flowers, grasses, fish and insects, and the bed legs are erected by four pillars, which are connected with the lintel of the bed. This is consistent with my vague impression and the dream I had last time.

And what I wanted to see was not the wooden bed, but the wall where my grandmother knelt down, and in my dream I saw a painting on the wall. From my grandmother's self-muttering prayers, I heard that this hanging painting should be a portrait of an ancestor or something. In addition, in the last moment before Sheng Shiyao pulled me out of this dream, I saw my grandmother straighten up and stretch out her hand to take something.

When I entered the back room, I was not afraid of the light shining outside, so I turned on the lamp, carried it in my hand and walked inside. When I got to the wall, I couldn't help but be stunned, the wall was bare, how could I paint the scroll? I thought I was mistaken, and I went to look at the other wall, and it was the same, but I didn't give up, so I went around to the back of the bed to look for it, but I still found nothing.

Suddenly, Sheng Shiyao said in front of the bed: "Don't look for it, the painting you said has been taken away." ”

I walked back to him quickly, and saw him raise his head and focus his flashlight on a certain point in the wall, where there was a small hole, and when I turned my head, I immediately realized that it was the wall nail on which the painting was hung, and someone got up later and took the painting away.

Could it be Aunt May? If this is a portrait of an ancestor of the family, why did Aunt Mei take it down and take it away? I couldn't help but feel depressed, and I felt that I couldn't get rid of the mystery no matter what happened.

Sheng Shiyao glanced at me, and Liang Sheng admonished: "Xiaoxiao, setting the right mentality is the first thing you need to do now, it should be simplified, but you are simple and complex, so that the mystery will only get bigger and bigger, and you will get into a dead end." ”

He's right, I'm at a dead end, and there's no way out. Confused, he asked him, "Then how should I analyze this matter now?" ”

"Just look at the surface, your grandmother got up and reached forward, probably to get the painting, and then destroy or hide it. If it is destroyed, why should she destroy it, and if it is hidden, then look in the house and where it will be hidden. Judging from your grandmother's hint that you would come to your hometown, even if it wasn't for this painting, there should be some secret hidden in this house. ”

Look straight at him, eyes unblinking. After a while, when he saw that I hadn't moved, he frowned and asked, "Why are you looking at me all the time?" Only then did I come to my senses, looked away, and thought sullenly: Why did things become clear as soon as I analyzed them to him, and I thought that my brain was spinning in place. He really didn't mistake me, because he was affected by recent events, he was wary of Aunt Mei, and whenever he had anything, he thought of her, so I walked into a dead end.

Now that I had deduced those possibilities, I didn't hesitate, put down the bag on my back, and began to search the house. Although the house is not big, the search project is still quite huge, I can't uncover the floor tiles piece by piece, and it is impossible to tear down the walls, so I can only target my grandmother's room first, under the bed, in the cabinet, in the corner, and the loose floor tiles have been carefully rummaged through, and there is no gain, but I have made myself dusty.

Looking back at Sheng Shiyao, he was idle, just leaning on the porch and watching me busy alone, his eyes were as deep as promised, and he didn't know what he was thinking. From last night to tonight, I tossed for a day and a night, and I felt tired, but ......

Suddenly, he said, "Xiaoxiao, come here." ”

I was used to being obedient to him, and without much thought I walked up to him, my wrist cold, and his fingertips resting on my pulse. After a while, he let go, and from the look on his face it should not be anything unusual, but I still asked, "You are not the one I and you...... After that, will my soul energy be eaten away by you? Why don't I have any symptoms at all? ”

As he said, wasn't my breath weak and unconscious last time?