On the morning of July 3rd, the final exam of our class, the first test of Chinese and the second test of mathematics, the teacher had just sent down the test papers that smelled of ink, and there was the sound of firecrackers in the village, and someone outside was discussing:

"The old man of the Liu family is gone, more than ninety, I'm afraid he won't come back to life this time!"

"It's not certain, after all, he's been resurrected twice. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ“

"If you can come back to life this time, you are really an immortal."

”……“

Liu Liyang's old ears are very deaf, and it is said that he can't hear the thunder, but he is very kind, he has a long cigarette stick, and he always smiles and doesn't like to talk. Once I went to his house with Hu Hansan and Liu Deyong, and he met him at home, and gave me a piece of yellow chunks, which made Hu Hansan jealous.

Unexpectedly, this time it was only a few days old, and the person was gone. Alas! How nice it would be if this man could live forever......

I sighed in my heart, gathered my thoughts, and began to work on the question seriously.

Finally finished the exam, I handed in the papers, and I was relaxed for a while, and I could finally play happily for two months without going to school. After the bell rang, the teacher accepted the test papers, announced that the day of receiving the notice would be over, and the semester's study was over.

I don't know if my mother is at home. According to the habits of the village, whenever someone in the team dies, the male and female laborers of the production team must go to the filial piety family to help. Maybe my mother was already at Secretary Liu's house at this time.

"Packing" (note) is a big deal, and someone needs to help you. According to custom, the first thing is to wipe the body of the deceased and collect the funeral, and sacrifice wine into the coffin. After the date of the funeral is determined, send someone to report to the homes of relatives and friends everywhere. After the cemetery is determined, it is necessary to send people to dig the grave in the mountain. And the family should also arrange for special people to receive the villagers, relatives and friends who come to mourn. In the kitchen alone, several people are required to help prepare three meals of tea and rice every day.

According to the rules, whenever there is a funeral, the main family must invite a prestigious elder with his own surname to be in charge of the funeral, and all the work is done by the person in charge. He assigned and arranged for the people in the village to help manage it, and the men, women and children of the filial family did not have to do everything in person, but only fulfilled their filial piety in the end and accompanied the deceased on their last journey in the funeral hall. And, of course, paying for supplies.

Therefore, the more solemn the funeral, the more people need help, and when the team is not enough, they have to ask for someone from the neighboring team. Of course, helping is voluntary, and the main family is only responsible for the meal, and there is no salary for the work.

The most lively time in the village is the funeral, there are many people and many events, and the time is long. Generally speaking, the deceased must be at home for at least three days before leaving the funeral. Sometimes the days are not right, and there are five days, seven days or even longer. This is something that no other happy event can match.

When passing by the compound of Secretary Liu's house, there was a cry coming from inside. I watched a number of classmates with schoolbags gathered at the gate of the courtyard and stretched their necks to look in, and the three eagles and Zhou Papi were also squeezing in. I was about to go up, Zeng Qinghu, the father of the three eagles, came out of it with bamboo branches to drive away, and saw the three eagles shouting and scolding, waving the branches and about to pump them on the head, and the big guys scattered in a hurry.

I think it should be that the deceased Old Man Liu has not yet entered the coffin, so he quickly slipped away from the side. It is customary to strictly prohibit children from entering the coffin before the deceased is put into the coffin. The main reason is that the undead will scare the child and cause unnecessary trouble.

From time to time, there are large white clouds drifting in the blue sky, and the sun is a little lazy, but not violent, although it is nearly noon, there is a mountain breeze coming slowly, but it is not sultry.

Under the big locust tree in front of the oil mill next to him, Gui Xinliang sat on a wooden chair to enjoy the shade, staring at the courtyard of the Liu family with one eye, his face was expressionless, he couldn't see the joys and sorrows, and the old black dog lay at his feet and squinted and dozed off.

I called out "Daddy Gui", and he seemed to be distracted and didn't hear, didn't pay attention to me, didn't look at me, and I didn't say anything more, and hurried past him.

The door was open, and I walked into the kitchen and saw no one. When I lifted the lid of the pot, there was only a little leftover rice in the pot, and I called my mother twice, but I didn't hear my mother answer. walked into the house with a schoolbag, but saw her sister Xiaojing sitting on the table, and the two little girls with Ou Yujiao were hurriedly cleaning up the comic books that were turned over all over the table.

Seeing me enter the house, Ou Yujiao smiled timidly and didn't say anything, but her sister grinned and said:

"I showed it to Sister Yujiao, you won't come back after waiting for you for a long time, and your aunt is waiting for you to eat!"

I put down my bag and asked:

"Where's my mother?"

"My mother went to Secretary Liu's house, and that old man died. My mother asked us to go to my aunt's place for dinner at noon, and she came back in the evening to cook for us. “

My sister squeaked like a magpie, I hugged her off the table, put a comic book in the drawer and said to Ou Yujiao:

"You can take what you see."

Ou Yujiao and I have also known each other these days, she is in the second grade of primary school in the town, and her mother has already completed the final exam when she brought her. She shook her head and said:

"Sister still has a lot of copies there, let's get them after reading them."

After eating at my mother's place, I used the excuse that I wanted to pull a basket of pigweed back early, and I took my sister and Yujiao to see the excitement in the afternoon. Ignoring Sister Meiyu's dissatisfaction that I didn't play chess with her, she ran home with a cigarette.

I carried the basket as far as possible to avoid the eyes of others, and climbed up the mountainside like a thief. I go almost every day these days, and the baby weasel is different from day to day, and the amount of food is a little bigger. The day before yesterday, I brought a rice ball, and the little ones ate quite happily, so I don't have to worry about their food anymore. When time is tight, bring a little leftovers, and catch a few loach fish in the creek when you have time, so that it will be much easier.

Every time I went, two little furry creatures crawled on top of me, clingy to their feet like little paparazzi. Moreover, yesterday I found out that they had teeth, which made me very excited, but unlike us humans, they came out first with the upper front teeth, shallow, white, this one is the same, hard and a little dull pain when sucking my fingers.

I teased the little guy in the stone cave for a while and then came out, closed the hole and walked down, over the rock next to the spring only a few steps down, suddenly there was a "Wang" two dog barks below, I involuntarily "ah" sound, trembling all over, stopped, stunned in place.

On the slope below about ten meters away from me, Gui Xinliang's father Gui was carrying a small basket, holding a firewood knife in one hand and a stick in the other, panting, staring at me with some surprise with one eye. The old black dog stuck out his tongue at his feet, snorting and panting, and wagged his tail a few times when he saw that it was me.

Because the rocks protruding from the fountain blocked my view, I couldn't see the situation below at all, and the sudden sight of people scared my heart to pound, and I almost sat on the ground. It's over, I don't know if he found out about my secret.

I settled down and said, "Daddy Gui, why did you climb to this top?" “

"I haven't come out for a long time, while it's not too hot today, come out for a walk, and take a look at the graves of their mothers by the way, I'm old, cough cough, no, I can't crawl......" Daddy Gui gasped.

"Grave? Whose grave? There's no grave on it! "I didn't react at all.

"Of course, there are no graves in this ravine, over there, on the slope a little past that." He pointed to a cedar forest on the hillside.

The forest is not very far from here, and it is only a few dozen meters horizontally, but the grass is deep and dense. I really don't know there's a grave in that place.

"Ahem, I'm so old that I'm dying, I can't lift my legs and feet, I can't climb or crawl, cough, did you cut this road?"

I nodded and said, "I cut it." “

"There used to be a few pieces of soil on the top of this ditch, but then it was deserted, and few people came up, and the road was also eaten by firewood and grass, so it was difficult to walk, and it was laborious every time it came up. Hey, by the way, you even cut out the road like this, you should come here, this deserted halfway up the mountain, you are full of nothing to do? What do you climb up to here? “

Gui Xinliang held a stick in one hand and pulled the bushes on the side with the other, and moved two steps to the side with some difficulty.

I guess he didn't find out my secret below, and he let go of his heart. I scratched my scalp and lied:

"Didn't my sister treat her leg at Uncle Liang's house? She always wants to eat crabs, the crabs in this ditch are big and numerous, others don't come to catch them, I have come to catch them many times and I can't catch them, and there are a lot of pigweed growing on both sides of this ditch, tender and tender, pigs love to eat, you see, I don't want to go down the ditch, while pulling the pigweed to catch crabs. “

I shook the basket in my hand. Gui Xinliang looked at me suspiciously, I smiled and said:

"The water on it is sweet and cold, and every time I come, I have to drink water on it and sit on it for a while."

As I spoke, I walked down quickly, put down the basket, took the wood knife in his hand, and helped him to say:

"It's a bit steep to go over there, it's not easy to walk, I'll go with you."

"That's a problem for you. Will it delay you from doing things? “

I shook my head and said, "No, it's still early, wait until I go down the edge of this ditch, and I'll soon be able to fill a basket of hogweed." “

People in the mountains have been accustomed to climbing mountains since they were young, and Daddy Gui is actually quite powerful in his seventies, so he doesn't need my help at all. I just took a firewood knife in front to help him cut off some branches and wattles that blocked the way, and the black dog came and went, and from time to time raised his hind legs to pee as a mark, and soon arrived at the edge of the cedar forest, and Daddy Gui pointed to a piece of depression below and said:

"Oh, right there, this firewood and grass are growing fast and blocking it."

I was a little short, much shorter than the firewood and grass around me, and it was only when I got to the front that I saw the mound that was jutting out of the hollow. The grave bag is not big, it can be seen that there are some years, there is no tombstone on the grave, the paper flowers inserted in the grave during the Qingming Festival have faded and fallen, the shrubs and trees that have been cut down around have many new branches, a few ferns that encroach on the tomb are verdant and green, the mountain breeze blows, and the comb-like leaves gently shake.

"Who's buried here? Daddy Gui, why don't you bury yourself on the ancestral mountain, and you are the only one buried here? “

I asked curiously, Daddy Gui, who was cleaning the area around the grave with a firewood knife.

"Here, there is a mother and son buried, more than 40 years, they are dead, the mother is in her twenties, the son has not yet been born, can not enter the ancestral mountain, can only find a random place to bury it......"

As he spoke, Father Gui had cleared the area around the grave, took out three small bowls from the basket and placed them in front of the grave, which contained a small piece of pork, a small piece of dried fish, and three eggs, and then took out three small wine cups, chopsticks, and a small half bottle of rice wine, and finally took out a stack of paper money and incense candles, and lit them with matches and burned them on the grave.

The paper money is on the ground, the flames are whirring and high, and they are burned out in a flash, leaving a small pile of paper ashes, at this time a gust of mountain wind blows, and the paper ashes rise with the wind, gather into a ball, rotate and rise from the grave, until one person is more than one person before it scatters and flies into the air.

For the grave, in fact, I have always been afraid, usually alone do not dare to go to the place where there is a grave, after learning the things that Nan Daddy passed to me, I am much bolder, although this time is not the scorching sun when the sky is cloudy and sunny, after all, it is still the afternoon in the daylight, the yang is booming, plus there is Gui Daddy, the black dog is also by my side, I am not afraid at all, standing aside and quietly watching him.

I just didn't understand who was buried in this, I was too young to hear anything about him decades ago.

Father Gui sat on the grave, watched the paper ashes fly away, unscrewed the wine bottle, poured the wine into the small wine cup, and muttered:

"Guixiang, I know you're unwilling, the red man is on the side, don't scare him. It's just that I'm incompetent, it's been more than 40 years, and I haven't been able to avenge your mother, but God has eyes after all, he has died and lived twice, and now he finally waits for the old ghost to die. I don't lie to you this time, he doesn't want to come back to life again, come, let's have three cups together and be happy. “

Daddy Gui picked up the small wine cup, poured two glasses on the grave, and poured one into his mouth, and after three times, I saw that the wine bottle was also empty.

"Now I can rest assured that I can accompany you two cubs, this is also the last time I will come to see you, or it won't be long before I will be buried next to this, and no one can break us apart......"

I saw a large tear flowing from his one eye, slowly sliding down his cheek and hanging on his chin for a long time.

After a long while, Daddy Gui put the dishes and chopsticks into the basket, took out his cigarette pouch, rolled a trumpet in his mouth, stood up and said to me:

"Red lady, you are a good man, you are polite and courteous, you have filial piety, you never dislike me, an ugly lonely old man, no wonder Meng Butcher and Liangshui Master are willing to accept you as an apprentice. To tell the truth, people are weak, the world is sinister, I have experienced too much in my life, my heart has died early, there are some things I wanted to bring into the coffin, but since you took the initiative to accompany me here just now, I changed my mind, our grandson and grandson are also fateful, go, while there is no one on this mountain, let's go and sit under the shade of the trees over there, listen to me tell you about the past first......"

Note: Packer: local dialect, which means to treat funerals and do funerals.