Xiao Hai sat upright, looking at some empty place in the air with a pair of tearful eyes, and the whole person seemed to be half dead, and his soul was gone.

I anxiously stroked her chest and patted her back and tried to force water into her mouth, but it didn't work, she really felt like she had lost her soul, and she didn't respond.

As soon as my throat tightened, I cried out, calling her name and patting her on the back.

There was a time when the slap was too heavy, and she finally reacted, choking a few times, her eyes closed, and tears flowed down the ground.

I watched desolately, quietly relieved, and she was alive anyway.

Then I suddenly noticed that there was something wrong with her hand holding the cigarette stick, as if there was something else in her hand besides the cigarette stick, so I went to break her fingers. Although she squeezed it tightly, she couldn't stand my strength, and she broke it open with a break of two or two, and there was a crumpled ball of paper in her palm, and ......

There is also a whitebait.

A whitebait......

The things in Xiaohai's hand were given to her by the wine master when she went to the wine master's house to inquire about her father's past.

Just like Xiaohai guessed before, before her mother died of a serious illness, because she was young, she entrusted several important things to the wine master, and asked him to hand them over to her when the child grew up.

Originally, it was entrusted to the wine master for safekeeping, a total of four things: a letter, an old cigarette stick, a silverfish tied to the cigarette stick with a red rope, and a bronze ancient tripod - the earth mother tripod that she pointed out in the photo she took from Xia Dongyi's house in Bai Yafeng before.

Xiaohai went to the wine master's house today to solemnly ask about her father, and the wine master handed over the things to her according to her mother's dying instructions.

But there are only three left.

Because the wine master was in the most difficult economic years, in fact, it was the second year of Xiaohai's mother's death, so he sold the Earth Mother Ding and used that money to get through the difficulties of the whole family, because he was too ashamed, so he helped Xiaohai as much as possible for more than ten years, took care of her life, paid her tuition and living expenses to find a job for her, etc. But the wine master's family didn't know that there was a story about the sale of the land mother Ding, and they didn't understand the wine master's behavior of paying to take care of a child who was hated by most people in the village, and muttered for many years, because he was an elder, and the younger generations in the family couldn't say anything about him, so they could only grit their teeth and hate Xiaohai, and look at her horizontally and vertically, no matter where they met, they had to say a few harsh words to her, and they also made up some untrue words to exclude her with other people in the village. All in all, Xiaohai's situation in the village is so difficult that it has a lot to do with this matter.

It's really a very unjust grievance.

I inquired about the news from Panjiayuan in Beijing before, and the bronze earth mother tripod is hidden in the elixir of immortality! Three for one set, one set is priceless!

And this cigarette stick, Xiao Hai said that it was her father's belongings, and she carried it with her wherever she went, never leaving her. She even remembered that the day her father finally left home, he seemed to be sitting in the yard and carefully wiping the cigarette stick, and she sat next to her and held her head to watch, and the whitebait hanging on the cigarette stick was very beautiful when it shook and swayed. I had forgotten this scene before, and when I saw the cigarette stick, I remembered it again in a trance. The wine master just told her that the cigarette stick was sent back to her mother with a letter after her father disappeared for more than half a year.

The letter was written to Xiaohai's mother, and it should have been kept well before, but it was crumpled by Xiaohai all the way. Paved and straightened, there are only a few lines of words, which roughly means that he still has a wife and son in his hometown, and he has been out for so long, it is time to go back, and he will not return to Huaqiao Town in the future.

The payment is to repair Chang'an.

The date was a month and a half after he left home.

The postmark on the envelope is Qianzhou City.

After I had read it all up, up, down, and down, I felt a pang of panic and sorrow in my heart, and I felt that the real situation was probably the worst I had ever imagined.

Because the handwriting of this letter is not Uncle Xiu's at all.

Xiaohai may have received too much information at once, suffered too much blow, and didn't notice the handwriting problem, but I know Uncle Xiu's handwriting too well, it is definitely a good handwriting, vigorous and powerful, and the pen is sharp, and you can see at a glance that it is a man's font. But the handwriting of the letter is most likely the hand of a woman, and although there have been some disguised changes, it is still recognizable at a glance.

I thought about it and decided to tell Xiaohai about the situation slowly. I couldn't think of what kind of person would pretend to be Xiaohai's father and write such a decisive parting letter to his wife for a while, but I knew very well in my heart that it would definitely not be a good reason.

It's just the worst reason.

I sat with her on Xiaohai's shoulders for several hours, no one spoke, just sat quietly, quietly, quietly, until the sun went down, until the sky was dark, until Bai Yafeng's relaxed and happy footsteps sounded on the path outside the courtyard, until he happily pushed the courtyard door and couldn't push it in, scolded me and then kicked in and shouted loudly: "Oh, I'll go, what about people?" Where are they all dead? ”

Xiao Hai's tears fell on the back of my hand, and one drop was heavy, burning my whole soul.

Then she quickly wiped away her tears with her sleeves and stood up to turn on the light, Bai Yafeng had just stepped into the threshold of the hall, the light suddenly turned on, startled, took a step back, and scolded with a frightened face: "Oh, I'll go, why don't you squeak at home, two big living people pretend to be ghosts?!" ”

He was carrying things in both hands, seven or eight plastic bags containing disposable lunch boxes, which were packed back from the town's restaurant. Xiao Hai walked over to pick it up, and I found that she had already put away the cigarette stick and the letter after only a few steps in the dark just now.

We have the same idea on this matter, no matter what, we can't pull Bai Yafeng into the water, even if we know that his father can't get out of the relationship, we have to try to leave him alone.

It is necessary to let some kind people have a normal life, otherwise, there is still no need for this world to exist.

After eating, I didn't have the heart to look for any more organs, so I beckoned them to sleep early, Bai Yafeng's business was not finished, and I had to stay in the town for a day.

Lying on the bed, Xiaohai asked me in the dark if I had found anything after searching at home all day. I said no, I didn't find anything strange.

She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly closed again. I asked her if there were any other agencies that hadn't told me.

She was silent for several minutes before she spoke, "I'll talk about it tomorrow." ”

It seems that there is a real thing, but I didn't find it after looking for a day, so it can be seen that this thing is an esoteric ancient science, not smart, and it must be supported by a strict theoretical foundation. Xiaohai is Uncle Xiu's biological daughter, so it's not surprising that she can crack it.

As soon as Bai Yafeng went out the next day, Xiaohai went back to the bedroom and opened the box where the clothes were placed in the corner, took out all the clothes in it and put them on the bed, and beckoned me to carefully carry the box to the door of the hall and lay it under the bright sun.

It is an old-fashioned box, the camphor wood plate is nailed up smoothly, the face is the aroma of the old camphor wood, the plate is polished very smooth, the corners are antique fancy copper wrapping corners and padlocks, on several lacquers, it looks thick and heavy and extremely plain, there is no carving and no symbols engraved.

Xiaohai put the box on its side and told me to hold it steady, and then she reached inside and groped a little bit on the side wall of the bottom plate, and soon, there was a soft snap, touching a certain mechanism, and the bottom plate of the box was lifted up half a centimeter. Xiao Hai inserted his nails into the crack and hooked it hard, and the bottom plate was lifted like a lid, it turned out to be a mezzanine, and there was a bottom plate underneath.

There are a lot of patterns carved on the ground below, which are very clear under the sun, and the first thing engraved in the center is the shape of the birthmark that Xiaohai and Uncle Xiu have, like a sickle. And then there is a row of bizarre symbols that look like the oldest hieroglyphs.

Those symbols are too familiar.

At least a few of them are familiar.

Because on the inside of this gold bracelet that I wear on my left wrist, there are several similar graphic symbols engraved on it. Uncle Xiu gave it to me as a birthday present, and on the day I asked him what it meant, and he said it was my birthday. I asked him if birthdays shouldn't be numbers, how could this be. He looked at me tenderly and smiled, pinched my nose gently, and said that because you are a princess, the birthday is also special.

This bracelet has been worn on the hand for so many years, and it can be seen from time to time, and it has long been strange, but now I suddenly saw a similar symbol in another place again, and then recalled the words of Uncle Xiu in the past, it was inevitable that I was a little frightened.

We tried to use our mobile phones to take pictures of the patterns and symbols carved on the bottom plate, but because the notch and the color of the plate were too close, it was difficult to shoot clearly, and finally Xiaohai went to the village committee to ask for a few large pieces of white paper, and got a few pieces of charcoal from the kitchen of a household that had not closed the door.

Originally, we could have dismantled the box and pulled out the entire bottom plate and brought it back, but after all, it was built by Uncle Xiu, and no one could bear it.

And what I thought in my heart was that if Uncle Xiu was gone, these would be his relics, and there was only a good keeping of them, so there was no reason to dismantle them.

I think that Xiaohai has more or less such thoughts in his heart.

After finishing this, it was already afternoon, and Bai Yafeng's work was all over, so we packed up our things and rushed to Qianzhou, without saying hello to anyone.

Originally, I had respect for the wine master, and I thought that I would visit him at home no matter what, and thank him for taking care of Xiaohai for so many years, but now it is obviously not necessary, and the earth mother that he sold has something deeper than the meaning of money, and now there is no way to pursue it. It was difficult for him to sell the heirloom of the Xiaohai family to make it difficult for him to take care of her out of guilt, but he caused the hatred of the family towards Xiaohai, so that she could hardly live well in this village, it was so bad that she didn't want to see him.