Staring at the black filial piety sleeve on Lotus's arm, I was silent for a moment and then asked her, "At home, something happened?" ”

She nodded: "My mother passed away." ”

I sighed, Lotus's face was very calm, there was a funeral shop at home but it was still operating as usual, the children were playing behind her, and his husband was not there. I stood for a while and left.

In the afternoon of the same day, I went to the staff dormitory of the Hongqi Locomotive Factory again.

It's still that building, and I saw a few wreaths under the corridor below from a distance, and there was no big pendulum mourning hall as I imagined, and the people around me just glanced at it and left.

I knocked on the door on the sixth floor, and it was Lotus's husband who opened it for me.

Seeing that it was me, he was a little surprised, but invited me in.

Because the living room is too small, the mourning hall can only be set up in Li Wenjuan's bedroom, which is not large, and the body is placed on a straw mat on the ground.

This time, I finally saw Li Wenjuan's face clearly, she was very thin, her cheekbones were prominent, and her eye sockets were deeply sunken.

Li Wenjuan's husband brought me brown sugar water for me to drink, this is a local custom, and going to the funeral home will be considered an unlucky event, so the host will prepare a bowl of brown sugar water, saying that drinking it has the function of driving away disasters and avoiding disasters.

I took the brown sugar water and took out a white envelope for him, and he took it and said thank you.

After drinking the brown sugar water, I asked Li Wenjuan's husband, "What about the old man?" Why aren't the others there? ”

Li Wenjuan's husband was tidying up things, and when he heard me say this, he raised his eyes and looked at me: "Boss Song, how do you know my father-in-law?" ”

I knew I had slipped my tongue, the last time I was here, the couple didn't know, and I lied to Fang Fang to celebrate his birthday even by name.

So, just as I was thinking about how to come back, at this moment, I heard the other party say this sentence: "My father-in-law passed away last year, terminal cancer." ”

Hearing this, I looked at him in a daze for a long time, and at the same time felt a chill in my vest.

Fang Qingsheng passed away last year, but a week ago, when I followed Lotus home, it was Fang Qingsheng who he said had passed away to open the door for me.

At that time, Fang Qingsheng didn't look strange at all, and we talked for a long time and didn't see that there was something wrong with him.

Moreover, when I followed Fang Qingsheng to the door of the cancer hospital to burn paper that night, I saw him squatting on the ground with a long shadow next to him.

If Fang Qingsheng is a ghost, then where did that shadow come from?

I thought about it for a while, and said with some regret: "I have rented a house here before, and I have met with Lao Fang a few times, and he takes good care of me, so I asked him, but I didn't expect him to pass away." ”

After that, I looked at Li Wenjuan's posthumous portrait, the black and white photo in the frame, and smiled at me.

A pair of white candles are burning left and right, the flames are very long, standing next to Li Wenjuan, I don't feel cold, the temperature outside today is about the same as last time, but the feeling I feel in this room is completely different.

Fang Lianhua's husband was about to say something, when the phone rang.

He took the phone, it seemed that it was Lotus's wife calling, it should be something happened at the store, and Lotus's husband was full of anxiety.

Seeing his anxious look, I said, "Otherwise, I'll stay and help you guard the mourning hall, and you can go and come back quickly!" ”

Presumably, what happened over there was very urgent, and Lotus's husband didn't refuse much, so he went out.

I sat where he had just sat and looked fixedly at the corpse lying on the ground, the sky outside was a little dark, there was no light in the room, and the candle flame was flickering on Li Wenjuan's man, like a dried corpse.

Just then, I heard a noise coming from the kitchen, like cooking on a fire, and the whining of a range hood.

Standing up, I followed the voice and walked out.

Sure enough, I saw that the light in the kitchen was on, and through the glass, I saw a person fiddling with a spatula inside, and the stove was hot, it should be stir-frying.

The man in charge, so busy that he didn't notice me at all, and after standing in the doorway for a while, I gently pushed the door and walked in.

Sure enough, it was Fang Qingsheng.

At this moment, the flavor of the pot turned over is very fragrant, the meat inside is fat and thin, and the oil is yellow and crystal clear under the cover of the sauce one by one.

Hearing that someone came in, Fang Qingsheng turned around and saw that it was me, and said with a smile at me: "Wait a minute, the dish will be ready soon, Xiao Chen, you can be regarded as catching up, I will fry this raw salt and fried meat, the craftsmanship is a must, and ordinary people can't eat it!" ”

I nodded and stood aside when I heard another voice behind me.

Outside the kitchen door, another woman stood.

Just by looking at her, I knew that she was a ghost, but looking at her appearance, it was not Li Wenjuan sleeping in it, but another woman, who looked a little like a lotus.

Fang Qingsheng paused when he saw him. I saw two tears rolling out of his eyes at once.

"Coming back?" Lao Fang's voice was a little choked.

The woman didn't speak, just smiled and nodded. She looked very young, she looked only in her thirties, she had good skin, and her eyes were crooked when she smiled.

Then the old man said to the woman outside the door: "You wait, the dish will be ready immediately, and you will be able to eat it soon." ”

The woman nodded again, sat down at the table next to her, put her hair behind her ears, and sat quietly at the table with a calm expression.

The old man stir-fried the vegetables unhurriedly, he put the torn lotus white into the pot, and a few more spatulas got up, this lotus white fried meat, full of color and fragrance.

With the dish, the old party beckoned me over: "Come on, come on, try my craft, I haven't done it for many years, and I don't know if it's still that taste!" ”

So saying, he went out of the kitchen and put the dish in front of the woman.

The woman smiled and picked up the chopsticks and took a bite, Fang Qingsheng immediately asked nervously, "What's the matter?" What does it taste like? ”

The woman said: "It's very good, it's exactly the same as what I ate before, it hasn't changed." ”

Hearing what the other party said, Fang Qingsheng breathed a heavy sigh of relief: "If it's delicious, eat more, I use all pork belly, one layer is fat and one layer is thin, and it is very tender." ”

Speaking of this, the old man handed me a pair of chopsticks again: "Xiao Chen, you can also taste it, try the taste of this dish." ”

I said okay, and I took a piece of meat and ate it.

This dish looks a lot like back-to-the-pot meat, but compared to it, there is a big difference, back-to-the-pot meat is boiled and then thinly sliced and fried, so most of them are two-knife butt meat.

The salt-fried meat is fried directly with raw meat, and the taste is delicate, so most of the materials are selected as fine pork belly.

The woman next to me put down her chopsticks, stared at me for a while, and said, "Young man, I've been dead for so many years, and you're the first person you can see me?" ”