Xi Que was stunned, crying and laughing.

He grinned but did not dare to cry out in pain, took a stilt and smashed it on the ground, and scolded: "Which one has no heart and eyes to carry the stone to the bridge?" ”

"Didn't you say that every inch of land here is like your palm prints?" Xi Que asked quietly.

He stood up on stilts and said with a painful expression: "I forgot to tell you, people are always prone to fall in familiar places. ”

"Oh."

"Don't do that! I'm serious. When you are in an unfamiliar place, you will always be careful, and you will not fall down before you take a step when you see clearly. In familiar places, you remember where you can and where you can't, but who knows where there will be an extra stone, where there will be an extra pit? He stepped on the stilts again, and walked more carefully than before.

Xi Que kicked the stone away from behind him.

He added: "But people can't remember this when they don't wrestle." ”

Xi Que smiled.

He told Xi Que not to laugh and said, "What are you laughing at? Can't laugh! You have to cry, learn to cry like a cat, try to use crying when singing lamentations, sing Ma Xiucai's thoughts about her, and sing her thoughts about going home but don't dare. When she is moved by singing, we can take her back to Ma Xiucai's house. ”

"Good. I learned how cats cry, when did I start crying? ”

"It's okay now."

So, Xi Que sang a lamentation in a crying voice.

He interrupted Xi Que and said, "That's not how you sing. ”

Xi Que asked: "I used to sing like this, why didn't I sing like this?" ”

Singing lamentations is a certain exquisiteness, generally divided into time and when the funeral enters a certain substantive stage, a certain lamentation is sung, and each lamentation has its meaning, including "Falling Gas", "Rushing the Letter", "Entering the Coffin", "Offering Food", "Opening the Road", "Touring the City", "Crying Five Watches" and so on. As the name suggests, it is the lyrics to be sung during these times.

Later, my grandfather went to Xi Que's house to ask for advice, and Xi Que told my grandfather that the reason why he sang lamentations in a crying voice was not only because he was doing mourning, but also because he was doing mourning. Crying is equivalent to a conversation between a person in the yang world and a person in the underworld, and the yin and yang are separated, and the language is not understood, so they use crying to guide the way for the dead.

But the stranger didn't want him to attract Mr. Bai, who was carrying the soul of Xiaomi, in such a way.

He said: "You used to sing to the deceased, so naturally you have to have words, to talk about the deceased's life and afterlife. But Mr. Bai is a cat, and he won't be touched by these things. ”

"How do you sing that?" Xi Que is in trouble.

The stranger said, "Don't use words, just have tunes." ”

"Just tunes, no words? How do you sing it? Xi Que didn't sing like that. But after singing this night, his fame rose by leaps and bounds, not only within a radius of dozens of miles, but people from a radius of hundreds of miles came here to invite him to sing. This was thanks to the guidance of a stranger.

"Why are there words? There are words that bind the meaning to be expressed. You try. ”

Xi Que felt that he had a point, and he wanted to call Xiaomi's soul back, so he listened to him, touched the Adam's apple with his hand, and then cleared his throat and let out a strange cry.

As soon as this voice came out, his own hairs stood on end! It's so eerie!

The stranger was pleasantly surprised: "Yes! Right! That's it! That's it! It can be a little higher and sometimes a little lower! ”

So, Xi Que changed his voice to high and low, as if a cat's tail was flicked.

When my grandfather grew up, many people in Thrushcross Village still remember the grumbling cries that often sounded at night during that time, like a resentful woman, like a desperate cat, and like a lost child.

In fact, it is not so easy to find Mr. Bai.

That night, the stranger took Xi Que around Thrush Village several times, but he didn't see Mr. Bai at all.

Xi Que sang so much that his throat had a fishy sweet feeling.

The stranger calculated, and when the time had passed, he said to Xi Que: "It seems that I can't find them tonight." Let's go back first. Come back tomorrow night. ”

"Didn't you say you brought me to Mr. Bai? You don't know where it is after a long day? Xi Que said disappointedly.

He smirked, "I'm familiar with its whereabouts, but I don't know where it is at this time." Just like the stone on the old river bridge, I usually know that there are no stones there, but I expected it to be there tonight! What you know is in the past, and the past will not change. But what you have to understand is now, and now is going to change. ”

"You did it, and you told the truth." Xi Que couldn't hide his disappointment and said.

The hard work paid off, Xi Que cried for three nights, and finally had a harvest.

As the ugly hour of the third night was approaching, Xi Que and the stranger found Mr. Bai in the thorn bush near the mountain behind Thrush Village.

In the dark night, its white fur was very conspicuous, like a ball of moonlight leaking through some crevice.

Xi Que and the man discovered it almost at the same time.

Xi Que continued to sing a lamentation without words, such as resentment, such as admiration, such as crying, singing so that the people who fell asleep in the thrush village dreamed of the separation of their previous lives, and sang so that the people who did not sleep remembered the people of the past.

But he didn't know what to do next.

It was the stranger who was no longer a stranger who secretly pulled his sleeve and led him in the direction of Ma Xiucai's house.

Xi Que came back to his senses and followed the man back while singing. They didn't dare to walk too fast, for fear that Mr. Bai wouldn't follow, and they didn't dare to walk too slowly, for fear that the time had passed.

Fortunately, Mr. Bai finally came out of the thorn bush, and he looked at Xi Que who was singing a lamentation without words with a little dementia, and tears overflowed from his eyes.

Xi Que had heard that cats cry and cows cry. He had only seen the cow crying when the owner killed the cow, but he had never seen the cat cry with his own eyes. When he saw it this time, he found that the way the cat cried was more pitiful than the way the cow cried. When the cow cries, it just sheds dry tears, and the long face of the cow has no expression. And when the cat cries, its whiskers tremble, and its mouth is shaped like that of a wronged child.

My grandfather said that dogs can cry, pigs can cry, wolves can cry, and many, many creatures can cry.

But I've never seen any of these creatures cry.

Grandpa later asked Xi Que why he was able to touch Mr. Bai with a lament without words and ask him to follow him.

Xi Que said that before people learn to use words and write, the souls of all living beings rely on emotions to communicate. When people learn to choose words and make sentences, it is easier for people to communicate with each other, but there is a gap between them and other living beings. Therefore, if you want to communicate with other beings, you have to get rid of those words and go back to the basics.

This was actually his understanding of what the stranger said.

But Xi Que also said that in fact, Mr. Bai was not brought back to Ma Xiucai's house by him. Mr. Bai originally wanted to go to Ma Xiucai's house, but he couldn't go back like this. And he acted as such a factor.

Grandpa didn't understand what he meant.

He said, "Many things that have been lost have never been lost." What is truly lost cannot be recovered. ”

He may have been influenced by the stranger when he spoke.

Mr. Bai didn't think about leaving, Xiaomi's soul didn't think about leaving, maybe they all thought about taking the initiative to come back, but they lacked an opportunity.

And this opportunity was provided by Xi Que.

Xi Que's lamentation is like an invisible thread, undulating and waving in the night sky. One end of the line is here with Xi Que, and the other end is with Mr. Bai. Xi Que "bridged" Mr. Bai step by step towards the Ma family's old house.

Xi Que walked through the small alleyway, jumped over the small drainage ditch, bypassed the big stone pier, and finally came to the front of the Ma family's old house.

The stranger was afraid that he would break off, and urged softly: "Keep singing, keep singing." ”

In the middle of the night, someone heard the singing getting closer, so they turned on the lights and leaned over the window to look out.

It's the same with Daddy.

He heard Xi Que's singing and entered the village, so he approved his clothes and came to see.

With a "squeak", Daddy opened the door and let in the moonlight outside. He couldn't help but raise his head slightly and take a deep breath into the moon. The lament of the inaudible words still lingered in his ears, and his heart swelled as if it were filled with water. He remembered that he hadn't smoked sunlight and moonlight for a long time, so he tried to inhale it.

With this inhalation, he tasted the bitter taste of moonlight, like bitter gourd.

He didn't give up smoking because he tasted bitter. He continued to suck like a hungry baby.

Xi Que's singing is getting closer and closer.

Grandpa listened to the song and felt that the bitterness was getting stronger and stronger. His heart suddenly cleared! Moonshine has no bitter taste, but it is the bitterness in this song that infects the moonlight and makes it bitter.

Xi Que's singing has come closer.

Daddy suddenly opened his eyes and saw a person standing in front of him.

That person was too familiar to him, too familiar to be more familiar.

Grandpa's eyes were moist, and tears overflowed involuntarily, like a river bursting its banks, like a gushing spring.

The man on the other side also had moist eyes, and then burst into tears. She looked at her grandfather as she looked at her.

"You're finally back...... Daddy wanted to say this, but something seemed to be stuck in his throat, and he couldn't say a word.

He saw the throat of the person on the other side stir, but he didn't say a word.

Then, Grandpa felt the singing in his ears fade away, the moonlight faded, and the distant paper-cut mountains and trees melted into the farther night. The moon overhead was clearer, like a wellhead. The wellhead was too high and too high to reach. Beyond that wellhead, there should be a better world.

In this world, only he and that person are left.

"Millet ......" Daddy finally squeezed two words out of his throat.

But as soon as these two words were spoken, Xiaomi was gone. There was only one white cat on the opposite side.

Meow ......

"It turned out to be you, Mr. Bai." Grandpa rubbed his eyes, just now he saw Mr. Bai as Xiaomi.