Zhoujia Village, located in Tuying Town, more than 40 kilometers away from the southern suburbs of Fu City, is one of the most remote villages in Fu District, under the jurisdiction of Fu City.

The village is located in a large ravine, with only about 40 households and less than 200 people, and because most of the young people go out to work, only the old people and children remain in the village, and there are less than 100 people.

Due to the rapid development of urbanization, there are more and more villages like this. Usually, Zhoujia Village is like a dead and silent abandoned village, and only when it comes to weddings and funerals will the village be more lively.

The New Year is approaching, and several old people have walked in the village, and almost every day they can hear the sound of suona and see the funeral procession.

Early in the morning, in one of the innermost courtyards of the village, a few strong laborers are setting up a mourning shed outside the house, and through the old-fashioned glass windows, several elderly rural women can be seen "breaking filial piety" (a northern rural funeral custom in which white cloth is used to make filial piety clothes for funeral attendees).

In the hall outside, a coffin board was erected on two stools, on which the body of the old lady of the Zhou family was covered with a white cloth, and in the center of the white cloth was a cyan tile.

A missing clay basin was filled with paper ashes that had not yet been burned, and several women in filial piety clothes were crying and burning paper.

"Ying'er, don't cry, hurry up and call your cousin and ask where they are." Outside the door, a middle-aged man in his fifties walked in, also wearing heavy filial piety, but the white filial piety clothes were already stained with a lot of dust stains. He was tall and thin, as if only a skeleton of bones remained, his skin was rough and dark, and his eyeballs bulging out high were bloodshot, and he looked very tired.

Zhou Ying, who was kneeling in the hall to burn paper, heard her father's words and hurriedly got up, wiped her tears and said, "Got it, Dad, you should also hurry up and have a meal, there is porridge and pickles that were just fried yesterday on the table in the West House." ”

"You don't care about me, I'm not hungry, you go to the commissary at the entrance of the village to get two cigarettes after you make the call, and the account room says that the preparation is less, and it is a little insufficient."

"I see, Dad, I'll call first." Zhou Ying said, took out the phone and walked out of the hall, walked through the newly built spirit shed, came to the open space in the courtyard, and dialed her cousin Zhou Na's phone.

After a few rings on the other end of the phone, Zhou Na's voice came.

"Hello? Zhou Ying, you and the third uncle said that we were cleaning up, and we would drive over in a while. ”

"Oh, that's okay, Sister Na, my dad said to let you come over early, and you have to salute grandma in the morning, don't miss the hour." Zhou Ying reminded cautiously in her tone.

"Okay, got it, I'll hang up first."

Listening to Zhou Na's words on the other end of the phone without a trace of sadness, Zhou Ying was both angry and helpless. I glanced back at my grandmother who was lying in the hall, and there was a sadness in my eyes.

"How? Ying'er, did your third uncle come out of the house? Zhou Ying's father, Zhou Linge, walked out of the hall and asked while helping the people who built the funeral shed.

"Hit, they said they haven't come out yet, they're packing their things." Zhou Ying said, with a hint of anger in her tone.

Dad's phone call came very early, but the third uncle's family hasn't left yet, thinking that grandma favored their family the most when she was alive, Zhou Ying's heart is even more uncomfortable.

In the past few years that my grandmother has been sick in bed, she has lived in her house, relying on her father and mother to take care of her. Dad still has to go to the city to work, and most of the work he takes care of is done by his mother, but even so, it can't be worth the number of visits that the third uncle's family can count throughout the year, and the things that are not very valuable.

Of course, Zhou Ying knows what's going on in her heart, but it's her third uncle's family who has the best life, the third uncle has been the deputy director, the third aunt is also a retired teacher, and her cousin Zhou Na also works in the city's unit, holding an iron rice bowl. In contrast, her father Zhou Linge is a part-time worker at a construction site, and her mother is also a farmer at home, with a low family income and a difficult and poor life, which makes people look down on her.

It's just that outsiders look down on them, even relatives at home. Every time there is a New Year's holiday, the people who talk about it at the wine table are always his third uncle who has been the deputy director, and the second uncle who has made a fortune by raising pigs. Although her father Li Wenge is the eldest son in the family, he can only accompany the smiling face at the wine table, and is often ridiculed by them for pouring wine. What's even more hateful is that these two uncles, every time they see their father drinking too much, they make fun of him, and they have to talk about it as a joke for a long time afterwards.

This was especially true of her cousin, who, according to the custom of her hometown, was not allowed to sit at the main table, which was where the men drank. But every time she has a dinner at home during the Spring Festival, she is the only special case, and she can sit at the same table with the elders and men, just because she is the only one in the Zhou family's rooms who is "promising" and works in the city.

Zhou Ying still remembers that during the Spring Festival last year, Zhou Na came to their house, which seemed to be her most arrogant, driving a Mercedes-Benz, wearing a famous brand, and talking about her husband who was engaged in real estate in the city. Zhou Ying has also heard of the person named Zhou Jinping, don't look at the same surname as them, but they are a famous real estate boss in Fu City! Zhou Na married such a person, so naturally she was ruthless at home.

It's just that Zhou Ying looked down on that Zhou Jinping in her heart, and felt that she was far from her previous brother-in-law. Although Zhou Na kept claiming that she divorced her brother-in-law Xu Fuhai because she was tired of having sex with him, Zhou Ying knew in her heart that she had also gone to college, and she always had vision. His former brother-in-law Xu Fuhai is now much stronger than that Zhou Jinping! And she has long heard that her cousin has something in her life, and she is unclear with other men outside, maybe it was that her brother-in-law found out, and the two divorced.

Thinking of this, Zhou Ying felt a little upset for her brother-in-law Xu Fuhai. Although she and Xu Fuhai don't have much contact on weekdays, they meet several times a year when they meet at home for so many years. Unlike her cousin Zhou Na's arrogance and superiority, Xu Fuhai gave her the impression that she was always so polite and humble, and she was also very patient and loving to children. She still remembers when she was a child, when he took herself and several other children to play in the village ditches and fields, and the warm scenes were deeply imprinted in her heart, and still come to her mind from time to time.

"Ying'er, what are you stunned about, telling you to buy cigarettes, did you buy them?"

Behind her, she heard the voice of her father, Zhou Linge, pulling her thoughts back from her memories.

"Oh, no, I'm going to buy it." Zhou Ying dropped a sentence and walked quickly outside, and began to take off her filial piety clothes as she walked.

The old custom in the village is that people who wear filial piety on their bodies cannot enter other people's houses casually, because it will bring bad luck to others. Zhou Ying has been taught this since she was a child, so she is very conscious.

Watching Zhou Ying's figure disappear at the door, several middle-aged men who were building a spiritual shed also chatted with Zhou Linge.

"Old Zhou, Zhou Ying is almost twenty-four or five this year, have you found a partner?" Lu Dachun had a ten-yuan pack in his mouth and asked casually while driving a wooden stake for the spiritual shed bracket fixed on the ground.

"Looking for whom? This kid is stubborn, he has to go to graduate school and review at home every day. Zhou Linge snorted and said, but it was difficult to hide a sense of pride and show off in his voice.

"What kind of graduate student, didn't you read it on the Internet? Nowadays, college students and graduate students are everywhere, and their academic qualifications are not worth much, so if I want to say that I have to take the civil service exam, not to mention the stability of holding an iron rice bowl, I still have face outside. Lu Dachun said, threw the hammer in his hand aside, and took out a cigarette to refill himself.

"If you want me to say it's better to be your own boss! What can I do as a civil servant? What do you do with those thousands of dollars a month? If you buy a house in the city, you don't know it's going to be the Year of the Monkey! Zhou Lincai, the second eldest of the Zhou family, walked out of the hall, took out a box of hard Chinese from his pocket, took out one and smoked it himself, and said while smoking.

"It's good to be a big boss, Boss Zhou's pig farm last year made a lot of money." One of the villagers in the crowd who came to help quipped.

"Average, it's only one hundred and eighty. Last year's market was okay, but this year it is not, the price of pork has dropped sharply, and it is not profitable to lose money. Zhou Lincai waved his hand and said, but his red face showed a look of self-satisfaction.

"If you want me to say, it's not as good as finding a rich object, just one step. Look at the girl of the old Zheng family in our village, they found a big boss in the imperial capital, and I heard that there are hundreds of millions of dollars in the family! When they returned to the village two days ago, what was the name of the car they drove? I don't remember it again, it is said that it will cost more than two million! Lu Dachun said while smoking a cigarette, and his eyes swept over Zhou Lincai from time to time when he spoke.

Seeing that there was a faint hint of unhappiness on his face, Lu Dachun continued: "Just the girl of the old Zheng family, she looks like a firewood stick, can she compare with our Zhou Ying?" But you can inquire about the nearby ten miles and eight villages, in terms of appearance and figure, Zhou Ying said that it ranks second, I think which of them dares to say that it ranks first? Lao Zhou, I said that you should also give the girl a snack, don't just think about working every day, why is it important to have a child's lifelong event? Right. ”

Lu Dachun's words seemed to have found a suitable topic for everyone at the scene, and for a while, even a few rural women who were surrounding there to help also gathered around, talking nonsense, competing to introduce Zhou Ying to the object.

"His third brother, I know that there is a young man who works in the government of the town, and his family is rich, and I heard that there are two houses in the city."

"The big man next door to our village who is engaged in farmhouse, I heard that he just got divorced some time ago, and that guy has money!"

"I know a ......"

……

Listening to these people's gossip, Zhou Linge was a little upset when he heard it. His daughters are twenty-four years old, and marriage has always been a big stone in his heart. Every time I asked her, she didn't give her an accurate word, saying that she was still young and didn't want to think about it now. But she is not in a hurry, Zhou Linge is in a hurry. In his opinion, although his own girl is good and handsome, he can't stand this age and grow up year by year, and several children have been born in the village as big as her, how can he not be anxious?

But it's useless to be in a hurry, this girl has listened to them for everything since she was a child, just this stubborn and stubborn, no one can say that it's not good, she has an idea.

Zhou Linge listened to them chatting for a while, found an excuse to make a mistake, and went into the house to work again.

The old mother lived to be more than eighty years old before leaving, and it can be regarded as the end of her life. After serving in bed and under bed for so many years, my heart has been exhausted. On this day, although Zhou Linge was sad and sad in his heart, at his age, he had already seen these things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Cortana, you call Fuhai and inform him of your grandmother's death. When your grandmother was alive, she always praised him for being good and good, and she was good to him. I thought he would have been able to come over if he had known the news. I remember what Dad said to you, you have to keep your temper a little bit, and play the emotional card with Fuhaiduo! Zhou Linsheng said to his daughter Zhou Na.

When he received the news of his mother's death, there was no sadness on his face. After living in the city for so many years, seeing her every year is only a few times during the New Year's holidays, and her mother, who is getting older and frail, has gradually become a symbol in his impression.

In Lao Zhou's house, he has the best life in this room, living in the city, he is still a small leader, all of this makes him have an inexplicable sense of superiority, looking at the two brothers and the old mother who are still in the village, they are all unconsciously with a sense of overlooking.

Although he had already received the call, Zhou Linsheng was not in a hurry, as soon as he thought of the dilapidated yard in the old family, he didn't want to go, so he calculated the time, it was better to wait for him to go for a while, everything was almost busy, and when the time came, he would put incense on the old lady and burn some paper.

At this moment, what he thinks about the most in his heart is how to repair the relationship between his daughter and Xu Fuhai as soon as possible, which is a major matter related to their old Zhou family's prosperity!

As a result, thinking about it, Zhou Linsheng linked these two things together.

has been with this uncle for so many years, Zhou Linsheng knows him very well, and he also knows in his heart that his family has not treated him well for so many years, and he must have resentment in his heart. But if there is one person in the entire Lao Zhou family who can make him care in his heart, it is estimated that it is the old lady of his own family.

Every time he went to the village for a party, the old lady was full of praise for him, praised him whenever he met people, and was especially willing to chat and talk to him. Zhou Linyu was sure that after Xu Fuhai learned the news, he would definitely not be indifferent.

Hearing her father's words, although Zhou Na was a little reluctant, she still took out her mobile phone and dialed Xu Fuhai.

"Hello? Xu Fuhai, I will inform you of something, my milk is gone, we are going to Zhoujia Village to mourn now, will you go? ”