"Is it okay over there?" Qin Hong sent it over WeChat. She figured out that he had just gotten off work.

"Everything's fine."

"Are you still used to eating? Have plenty of time to rest. Nothing happened on the road, right? ”

"It's fine. You take care of yourself over there. ”

She closed her phone, and the dzi hanging from the edge swayed back and forth. She searched the Internet to find out who the owner of the tombstone she had just met was. She was wearing her old pajamas Yona had given her, the hem of which was dragged to the floor.

"You're back?" Yona knocked on the door and came in and saw her say, "What did you see when you went out?" ”

During the afternoon labor, Chen Ying recounted what she had seen and heard, and asked the two landlords about the cemetery. They were surprised to learn of her findings, but not surprised by her questions.

"There's a tombstone of Galen Bisen there, do you see that?" John asked, picking up a cigarette.

"I can't read Danish." Chen Ying replied with some embarrassment.

"Ah, yes, I always forget that." He said as he pulled over a plastic balcony chair and sat down, "She deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature." She lived in Africa as a young man and did not become a writer until she was fifty years old. Her work has also been selected for Chinese textbooks, and many Danes admire her. ”

"I always thought that the most popular writer for Danes was Hans Christian Andersen." Chen Ying said.

"I really don't understand why foreigners think that there is only Hans Christian Andersen in our country." John looked a little annoyed, "It's like every visitor likes to take pictures around the Little Mermaid – have you ever seen that sculpture?" Only half a person is just over a person tall. Can't they see that there are other good writers in this country? ”

"Maybe it's because Hans Christian Andersen writes fairy tales, and the audience is wider." Yona reminded him.

"yes, yes." John gave up arguing, "I love her Out of Africa. She envisions a parallel love that allows two people who admire each other to share their lives without being worn out by trivial matters such as possessions and housework. ”

"Is that the sentence on the tombstone you see like that?" As she spoke, Yona took out a small piece of paper and wrote a series of Danish words on it with a pencil.

"Sort of." Chen Ying carefully identified it, pointed to the end of the last sentence and said, "There seems to be a rather long word here." ”

"That's it." Yona said with a triumphant look, "I haven't seen her tombstone—though I know it's around here." I guess they'll have carved this sentence on her tombstone. ”

Then she jumped to her feet, snuffed out the cigarette butt in the ashtray, rushed into the house, searched back and forth on the wooden bookshelves near the television, and finally pulled out a book as thick as a dictionary. She hummed a song, her index finger moving briskly between the catalogs. A few minutes later, she found the answer she wanted, and pointed to a line of English for Chen Yingnian to read aloud:

"'When my flesh becomes light as a feather, fate can throw me away as the slightest thing.' ”

"I really like her words." She then showed the book to John and showed him the small lines.

"I still like Indian poetry." John pushed his reading glasses above his head, "Do you remember the passage that was shown to you this morning?" ”

Chen Ying said that she remembers the difficult book.

"I love Rabindranath Tagore's poems very much – it makes me feel like I'm living in a very wonderful world. To see where he was born, Yona and I went to India the year before last. We drove through Kashmir, and she was the only woman on the bus at the time, and I was glad to have hired a bodyguard for her. He continued, "Later we went to see the Taj Mahal and went to some remote villages. The people there enthusiastically prepare pilaf. You can see all kinds of religious sacrifices and totemic artifacts everywhere, and they coexist peacefully, so you won't feel awkward, but you will feel like you're in the world of gods. ”

"We saw a little Indian girl with such a small stone statue in the ground in front of her house." Yona gestured her hands half the height of her arm, "She prayed to the statue in her own way every day, showing her heart to it." ”

"The people there are having a hard time and the local conditions are poor. In some places, there is not even clean water. But the locals believe that what they are suffering now can light the way forward. So they endured it willingly and never complained. John said, putting on his asbestos gloves, "It's time to get to work." ”

They hold large scissors and prune the excess branches in their preferred way. The damp wind blew harder and harder, and the branches that had been piled up on the ground were scattered everywhere.

"It's going to rain!" Yona said.

"Call it a day!" John shouted at Chen Ying.

They quickly gathered the stinging branches and packed them into plastic bags. Bean-sized raindrops came in the wind and crackled along the cobblestone path. Two magpies flapped their wings and flew off the eaves and disappeared into the woods. By the time they had packed up all their tools and entered the house, the rain poured down with the sound of rolling thunder and clanged on the gas lamps placed by the windows. Pansies in giant conch shells stand out against the dark sky, huddled together to enjoy the rain. A trickle flowed from the edge of the Bird Pavilion, and Chen Ying vaguely saw a sparrow-like bird sheltering from the rain in the Pavilion.

As if she hadn't noticed this, Yona pinched the corners of her apron and walked towards the entrance, and in a moment a sturdy gray cat flew past her feet and rushed into the living room, hiding behind the couch.

"The neighbor's cat is here again. It seems to like it very much. Yona reached out to pull the cat out.

"Let's wait for the rain to stop before catching it." John said without looking back. He cut the cowpeas into pieces and boiled them in a pot while studying when the meat in the oven was fully cooked. Chen Ying was quietly peeling potatoes on the side. Rainwater trickled down the windows, down the windowsill and into a small well in the corner of the garden. The only apple tree stood alone by the well, hanging its leaves and waiting for the rain to clear.