The funeral of the mute was held in a hurry. One is because he died accidentally, and the body was hurriedly buried without being carried into the house. Second, because he has no children and no daughters, the procedures for the filial son to send the coffin and run the horse and the filial daughter to cry the coffin and sit in the sedan chair are all omitted. So I didn't attend my dumb grandfather's funeral, and the first time I saw my mother ignore him, I didn't know that he had passed away.

Grandpa deliberately called a fake filial daughter to come to the sedan chair and cry. After the death of many elderly people who do not have daughters at home, the family will ask a daughter on leave to sit on a green cloth sedan chair carried by four people and cry. At that time, there were women who specialized in making money with this kind of thing, crying more realistically than their own daughters, calling for heaven and earth, as if they really wanted to embark on the road of no return to Huangquan with this old man who had never known him. Some biological daughters cried at the funeral, and others said that the daughter was hypocritical, but when this kind of fake daughter cried, the onlookers were brought to tears.

The woman who is the best at this kind of performance in the Thrush Village is named Xu Xiaoyun. She cries the most, and there is a word "laugh" in her name. There are many old people within a hundred miles of her, who are crying for funeral. Some families with daughters also invited her to cry to add a sad atmosphere to the funeral.

Daddy called for her to come and cry for the mute.

She respects her father very much, so she personally came to Thrush Village to apologize to her father, saying that she can't cry to the dumb. She didn't dare to be a fake daughter for someone who died and had no children and no daughters, for fear that the dead ghost would really treat her as a daughter and entangle her.

Grandpa never wanted to force others, so he had to give up.

The mute's funeral ended hastily.

My grandfather told me not to be afraid, saying that my dumb grandfather regarded me as his own grandson, so he watched me from the ridge. He didn't mean to scare me, but liked me as much as he did when he was alive.

But I was not angry at all, I had seen him many times before and was fine, and after learning that he had died, I had a high fever that night.

Daddy said I had a fever because I was frightened. In fact, it doesn't matter whether there is evil around you or not, the important thing is that your heart does not fluctuate and is not frightened.

My mother touched my forehead and said, "Don't be afraid of your dumb grandfather, your dumb grandfather won't hurt you, he will only protect you." ”

But when I was a child, how could I have such indifferent determination? I was still terrified, my fever getting worse and worse, and finally I was babbling gibberish.

Seeing me like this, my father got up in the middle of the night and went to the ridge near the back mountain, and after half a moment, my father returned to the house, walked to my bedside, touched my face, and said, "Don't be afraid. I've called your dumb grandfather away. He won't show up again. ”

"Really? Will the mute guild listen to you? I asked. It was just me and my dad in the room, and everyone else was asleep.

Grandma nodded, then leaned into my ear and said, "Don't let your mother and grandfather know about my wake up tonight." ”

"Hmm!" I replied.

After that night, I really didn't see my dumb grandfather again.

But when I went to my grandfather's house from that road again, I could still hear "Aba...... Abba ......" voice.

Once I helped my grandfather look after the cows. The cow lowered its head and ate the weeds on the edge of the ridge, and I sat on the cow's back. The cow walked in the direction of his grandfather's house while eating, and before he knew it, he had arrived at the place where he used to see his dumb grandfather. The ridges in that place were relatively high, and the oxen bowed their heads and knelt down to eat the green grass below.

The back of the cow suddenly became very steep, and I was unguarded when I sat on the back of the cow, and I couldn't stop slipping from top to bottom. I was afraid of falling into the muddy paddy field, so I rolled to the side and fell on the ridge in front of the ox.

Before I could get up, the ox stood up on its front feet and wanted to go on. And I was lying right in front of the cow.

The ox's feet had been lifted up and were about to stomp on my chest. The cow was more than two meters long and weighed more than a thousand pounds. If it had stepped on me, I would have broken several ribs and been trampled to death on the spot.

In fact, my grandfather has a very good set of cattle raising, and the cattle trained by my grandfather are very humane, and they can work obediently without whipping, and they can only eat wild grass without supervision, and they will not eat seedlings and rice without supervision, and shouting "wow" will make it immediately immobile. These skills were naturally learned from my grandfather.

I grabbed the hooves of the cow with both hands and shouted, "Wow-wow-wow-"

But the cow still trampled down, and had no intention of stopping. Then I remembered that my grandfather's previous cow was too old to work, so it was replaced by my grandfather last month. It hasn't been tuned yet, and it doesn't understand my instructions at all.

At that moment, I thought I was finished, and I would be seriously injured if I didn't die.

Just as the cow's hooves were touching my clothes and about to step on my ribs, I suddenly heard a very poignant "Aba-"

That sound made me shiver and chill from head to toe!

The cow also trembled violently, as if it had suddenly been stabbed with a needle. It hurriedly put away its hooves, turned around and ran all the way down the ridge! When it was four or five meters away, one of the ox's front feet stepped on the loose soil at the edge of the ridge, and the ridge immediately collapsed. The cow lost its balance and rolled like a bucket into the muddy paddy field below. It rolled in the mud and continued to run forward, tossing the mud higher than a tree. That formation was not just a stab, it was a stab in the buttocks!

When I saw that the cow had run away, I hurried back to tell my grandfather, and I went with him to find the crazy cow.

My grandfather searched for several helpers together, but he searched all the nearby mountains and ponds but did not find cattle. The next day, someone found the cow more than 20 miles away from Thrush Village, and found Thrush Village to return the cow to my grandfather.

That sudden intimidation actually caused the buffalo to run wild for more than 20 miles.

I told my grandfather about the cause and effect of the incident, and he was silent for a while, and then said, "It seems that your grandfather knew that you would have an accident there, so he didn't drive your dumb grandfather away, so that he could save you once." ”

The cow didn't eat much grass for a long time after that, and it didn't have much strength to work. Grandpa covered the corners of the cow's eyes with a red cloth, and the cow gradually got better.

Once, my grandfather took me to the back garden to add soil to the crockpot of millet. I asked my grandfather: "Grandpa left millet here, does it also have the same effect as a dumb grandfather?" ”

Grandpa said, "If I could guess your father's mind, I would be better than your grandfather." I haven't learned a tenth of your grandfather's skills. ”

I asked again, "Did you learn those skills from your father?" "I knew that my grandfather had learned some skills from my father, and I took it for granted that my grandfather's skills had also been learned from his father.

Grandpa said, "No. Your grandfather turned out to be a Xiucai who read sage books, and he was a Xiucai at the age of twelve, which was rare at that time. Sage Kong once said that the son is silent, and the power is chaotic. It means that the reader should not talk about ghosts. So your dad didn't touch these things at all. ”

"Then why did he learn it later?" I asked.

"Hmm...... Many reasons. Grandpa said.

Grandpa's father was a grain official in the Qing Dynasty and was quite powerful. At first, the grain official hoped that his two sons would study hard, and in the future, they would be named on the gold list, and they would be like him in the official career and become an official and a minister. Fortunately, his two sons showed unusual talents when they were young, the eldest son was admitted to Xiucai at the age of fourteen, and he was admitted to the Houxiang examination; The youngest son is even better, and he was admitted to Xiucai at the age of twelve. Grandpa is eight years younger than his brother, but after being admitted to Xiucai, he is much more famous than his brother.

The grain officer was naturally complacent and loved these two promising sons very much.

At that time, being admitted to the Juren meant that he was qualified to be an official, but his grandfather's brother was obviously not satisfied with this, and he entered Beijing to participate in a more important examination in the second year after he was admitted to the Juren.

Unexpectedly, after entering Beijing, my father's brother got a severe cold, dizziness, and physical exhaustion. After hurriedly finishing the exam, he thought that he had failed the exam and missed the gold list, so he rushed home before the list was released.

The family didn't know about these things, and thought that Grandpa's brother would definitely be on the list and glorify the lintel.

At that time, the transportation was not developed, it was very difficult to enter Beijing to catch the exam, the road was very difficult, and my father's brother was seriously ill, and he couldn't walk on the way back, so he rested for a while.

Soon after, an official from the provincial capital came to Thrush Village, saying that his father's brother had won the second-class jinshi. What does Erjia Jinshi mean? The ancient Jinshi were divided into three grades, and there were only three of them, which were the well-known champions, Bangyan, and Tanhua; There are only seven in the second class, and there are exactly ten people in the first class; The rest is the top three, and there are more than two hundred.

When the grain officer heard the news, he was overjoyed, and everyone in his family was happy and thought it was glorious.

But two days later, the bad news came.

Grandpa's brother became sicker and sicker day by day on the way home, and when he arrived in Hankow, he died!