My legs were clamped tightly, and my lower abdomen felt like it was about to burst.

The old father was still unhurriedly telling the story of the ghost fire, and he didn't stop at all to stand up and say, "It's dark, tell the babies to go to bed early", and then said goodbye and went out. Looking left and right, the eldest brother and the second sister looked like two wooden stakes on a small bench, and there was no sign of getting up to go to the toilet.

I looked at the soybean-sized kerosene lamp flame and jumped and jumped...... , Daddy's head shadow reflected on the newspaper wall also swayed up and down, left and right. Turning his head to look at the dark night outside the window, he imagined countless "ghost fires" like kerosene lamps floating in the darkness, and the last bit of courage in his heart to rush out of the door was completely extinguished.

That night, at the age of ten, I wet my pants in full view of everyone.

With the reprimand of his parents and the ridicule of his brothers and sisters, the old father got up calmly and said, "Baby, why are you like your father, you forget to go to the thatched house when you hear the story." You see, my pants were just changed yesterday. ”

After hearing this, Mom and Dad turned their anger into laughter. Although I knew that he was lying, I suddenly felt a lot more relaxed, just like a student who was punished for standing on the playground, and suddenly there were more people standing around, although I knew that they were members of the national flag squad who practiced military posture, but it also reduced the embarrassment of most people alone in the face of strange eyes from all directions.

"It's dark, tell the babies to go to bed early, and I'll go back. After the same closing remarks, I heard my mother bolting the door.

Since then, my perception of daddy has changed radically. I feel that he is no longer a cold and strange old man who can only visit the door and tell stories, but a living person with warmth.

Daddy was a widower, and he looked to be between fifty and sixty years old. No one can say how old he is, but he occasionally listens to the conversation between adults: "If you are a monkey person, you will be sixty years old at the beginning of spring, and if you don't have that thing, you will have great-grandchildren." Alas————!" "One moment it is said to be a monkey, and another time it is a rat, who knows what it is. Lately, it seems to be getting less and less energetic[note 1]. Alas————!"

Two long sighs, as if telling the life story of Daddy.

In the local dialect, Daddy is equivalent to Uncle in Mandarin. Except for the father's elder brother and male relatives of the same age as the father and older than the father, they can be called daddy, and there is no way to talk about seniority, and men who are similar in age to the father but older than the father, whether they are neighbors, friends, or strangers, can also be called daddy. But the premise of the second group of people calling dad is that they can't have too much father, and if they are obviously older than their father, they must be called father in order to show respect.

The exception to this is Daddy's title, although he is a grandfather in the village, the children and young people of the village call him Daddy.

I sometimes wonder why this is happening. Later, it was concluded that he had no wife, naturally no son, no son, no son, no grandson, no grandson, no one would be the first to call him grandpa, so he could only be a father forever.

Whether my assumption is correct or not, it is well known that he has no wife, no son, and no grandson. But I have always had a question, why when everyone scolds the sailors, they shout "Shiwa Suzhen Buddha Generation".

The ancients had ritual requirements and habits for His Holiness. The names of the elders cannot be called directly, cannot be written, and are not allowed to be spoken to the face. In this remote place on the border, although half of the history was under the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty, and half of the time was ruled by the Tubo Tuyuhun and other minority regimes, the Tang style and Han Yun were deeply rooted in the mountains and rivers, and spread among the people who were not Han for generations.

The custom of respecting His Holiness has developed here to the extreme. If you want to scold someone, the most vicious way is to call his father's name, or even his parents' names together. If that's not enough, add Grandpa's name.

The sailor is my little playmate, Shiwa is his father, and Su Zhen is his mother. There is another name that has nothing to do with sailors, and that is the Buddha generation, which is the name of the old father.

Daddy's surname is Qiu, according to the people of Zhuangli, her mother returned to her mother's house when she was pregnant, and on the way back from her mother's house, she passed through a lama temple and gave birth to her father at the gate of the temple. Local customs, children must be born with a godfather, and the dialect is to give the baby to so-and-so. On the same day, her mother gave her father to the living Buddha in the temple, that is, she recognized the living Buddha as her godfather, so she named it the Buddha generation.

When we shouted "Shiwa Suzhen Buddha Generation", the sailors were very angry every time, in addition to chasing and beating everyone, they also shouted the parents of the people who scolded him one by one. After that, everyone twisted into a ball. Ten minutes later, everyone was talking and laughing together, playing marbles, and making pictures, and the scolding and the scolded people didn't seem to care about what the three words of Buddha represented at all.

Daddy came every two or three days, and as soon as he came, the three children of our family moved the small bench and sat on the side of the chair he was sitting on, waiting patiently for him to chat with the adults in a dull manner.

When we finished talking about the ploughing, sowing, hoeing, and harvesting in the field, the oil, salt, sauce and vinegar in the city, and the news and old things in the village, the old man usually turned around and looked at the three of us little ones and said, "Oh, wow,...... ”。

Every time at this time, we would put our ears up and say, "Don't talk about ghosts, don't talk about ghosts." ”

Sometimes there are ghosts, sometimes there are none, but the protagonist is "me" every time. Sometimes my grandfather was here, and he would say from time to time, "I don't believe you ask your grandfather." My grandfather would just smile with the beard on his chin and not speak.

Ever since the pants-wetting incident, every time I told a story, my dad would say, "You three go to the hut." I didn't have to go outside alone, and I was silently grateful to him in my heart for that.

During the day, everyone still played with the sailors, and sometimes there were conflicts, and they still shouted "Shiwa Suzhen Buddha Generation". But my doubts didn't go away, they just gradually came out of my head less often.

Until one day.

It was just dawn, and I had just woken up from my sleep, and I heard a commotion on the road behind the house, as if something big had happened.

Note 1: Accumulation of strength is a northwestern dialect, which means obedient and good when describing children, capable when describing young people, and tough and healthy when describing the elderly.

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