That day, until the evening, the sailor's grandmother was still not found. Some people in the village talked about this matter, some people said that the sailor's grandmother was a fox fairy, and after catching fire, she turned into a white fox and jumped over the wall and ran away, and some people said that she was a fairy from heaven who descended to earth and was taken up to heaven by the gods. The village was filled with an aura of terror.

Three days later, Uncle Shiwa's family suddenly mourned. Like the old man in the village passed away in the past, Uncle Shiwa held a lively funeral for his mother for three days. During the three days, Yin and Yang, monks, and lamas burned and dipped together, recited Buddhist and Taoist rituals, and recited Chinese and Tibetan scriptures. Blind artists play suona to welcome condolences during the day, and play the huqin and sing persuasion books at night. The villagers in the village, the relatives and friends of the main family, come and go, in an endless stream, some send flags and accounts, some only burn a roll of paper money, some hold the coffin and cry, and some talk and laugh. There are also idle diners in ten miles and eight villages, wandering all day long, eating when there is food, drinking when there is wine, and doing work when there is work. The funeral house is the most lively place in the village. It has always been that way.

On the day of the funeral, Uncle Shiwa knelt in the middle of the road, holding the funeral basin with both hands, and smashed it with a "click", marking the departure of the funeral procession. Immediately, the ladies of the rear team began to wail.

The sailors walked in the front with flags, followed by Uncle Shi Wa and his cousins and nephews, each wearing a white filial piety hat, a white filial piety belt around his waist, and holding a mourning stick.

Followed by a group of children earning cigarettes, some carrying paper figures and paper horses, some holding wreaths, some holding longevity accounts, some of which read "The sound of the voice is like being", some of which wrote "Driving the crane to the west", and so on.

A young man in the middle of the village walks in the middle carrying a cypress coffin. What is inside, no one knows except Uncle Shiwa's family.

The coffin was followed by women who were holding each other and crying as they walked.

In the end, the villagers carrying shovels and heads in twos and threes formed a long line.

The team marched from west to east along Zhuangli Avenue, turning from the intersection behind my house to the alley up the hill, all the way up the hill. Wherever you pass, a large pile of wheat straw is lit at the door of each house, which is regarded as a road sacrifice. The whole Zhuangzi was shrouded in choking smoke.

I was also in the group of kids earning cigarettes, holding a big wreath. As the flow of people came to the field of the sailor's house on the mountain, there was already a large boxy grave pit, which had been dug two days before, and was surrounded by high mounds of earth. There is a large fire next to it, which burns burial goods.

I threw the wreath on the fire, went to the man in charge next to me, got two cigarettes, and called my companions to prepare to go down the mountain.

I accidentally raised my eyes and saw a figure on the opposite mountain beam. Leaning over, looking at this side from afar. Although it was a bit of a distance, I recognized it as Daddy at a glance.

Why was he standing there? Suddenly remembering that I hadn't seen him at the funeral for the past two days, and then thinking of the scene when I saw him on the morning of the fire, I had a lot of doubts in my heart.

As I pondered, I looked up again and saw that the ridge was empty.

Hallucinations, I thought to myself.

After the funeral of the sailor's family, the village slowly regained its calm. When people get together, they will whisper about the sailor's grandmother, and everyone is full of curiosity about what is in the coffin, but except for privately expressing doubts, no one will pursue it, let alone mention it in front of the sailor's parents.

I also asked the sailor, and he said that it was the middle of the night when he was buried, that he was asleep, and that his parents did not call him when he was hiding the coffin[note 1].

The mystery was like a stone thrown into a pond, which caused a stir at the time, but gradually calmed down as if it had never happened. But in my sensitive and neurotic heart, I have been buried with long-term troubles.

It's been a long time since Daddy has been here. When you think about it, it seems that I haven't seen him in the village.

Sometimes after school, I would go to my father's door to see it. Inside the dilapidated gate and low walls, three adobe tile houses are black and lifeless. This house is the oldest house in the village, and it is said that it was left by the grandfather of the old father, and it should be more than 100 years old. The doors and windows were closed, but the doors were half-hidden and unlocked. Several times, I wanted to go in and see if my father was there, but every time I didn't have the courage. Because in Daddy's story, such old houses are basically related to ghosts.

My confusion deepened. I thought of the Sixth Master.

Finally one day, I found an opportunity to ask the sixth master.

"Sixth Master, do you know what happened to the Buddha on behalf of the old father?"

"There's nothing I don't know about him. You're a doll, why are you asking this?"

"You said he was a rapist last time, what the hell is going on, tell me about it!"

"That's not good! Don't ask about the Gawa people. Well————, unless you practice martial arts with me. Last time I asked you to practice with your brother, you just didn't come. In terms of body, your brother is a piece of material, but he has a stupid brain and is not as smart as you. If you practice with me, you will definitely be better than him. ”

Before, the sixth master came to my house and asked me and my brother to practice martial arts with him, and my father agreed. But I thought that I would have to practice all day and suffer all day on Sunday, and I couldn't read my favorite books at home or play with my friends, so I refused on the spot. This matter was not less than counted by my father, saying that I was unproductive and couldn't endure hardship.

Today, since I asked for the sixth master, I had to reluctantly agree for the sake of strong curiosity.

"Well, this Sunday, I'll come with my brother. ”

The sixth master, who is often said by the sixth grandmother to be not doing the right thing, listened to me, he was as happy as a monkey and picked up a date, and danced and roared for a while before telling me about the old things about my father.

It turned out that the father and the sailor's grandmother had grown up playing together since childhood, and they were childhood sweethearts.

That year, the two were in their twenties, and their love began to blossom, and they fell in love with each other. Later, it was discovered by the mother of the sailor's grandmother, who strongly objected to the two of them being together, and locked the sailor's grandmother in the house and did not let them go out.

One day, Daddy climbed up on the roof of Grandma Sailor's house, uncovered the tiles, lowered the rope, and pulled Grandma Sailor up. The two fled into the mountains together.

Half a month later, Daddy went home alone. When he returned home, he became dumbfounded and did not speak.

The mother of the sailor's grandmother came to the door and cried and asked him to hand over the sailor's grandmother, and he stood in the courtyard, admitting and scolding, without saying a word.

The last complaint of the sailor's grandmother sued the father to the county government, charging him with abduction and rape and murder. He was arrested by the police on the same day.

It is said that the next day, the county governor Lilu personally interrogated him, and the court did not say a word. Let him confess his guilt, and let him draw a prisoner, and he will draw a prisoner. In the end, the death sentence was imposed.

It can be regarded as a big father's fate, before the execution, he caught up with the surrender of Japan, and Commissar Chiang pardoned the world. Daddy's death sentence was commuted to twenty years in prison.

Four years later, when the People's Liberation Army attacked the county seat, the shells blew down the prison walls, and the old father and more than 100 prisoners inside escaped.

During the war, the city gate was not opened, and the old father hid in a courtyard where no one was around, and after five days, he heard the sound of guns outside, and then fled back home from the west gate.

And the sailor's grandmother also returned to the village a month after her father returned from the mountains. But what happened to the two in the mountains is also not a word.

Two days later, the sailor's grandmother's mother was introduced to the sailor's grandmother's forty-year-old sailor's grandfather, who had not yet taken a daughter-in-law. Eight months later, the father who gave birth to a sailor, ———— Shiwa.

And what the two people experienced from entering the mountain to leaving the mountain one month apart, how the sailor's grandmother lived alone in the mountain, and many unexplained strange things in between, no one knows. These mysteries, like heavy stones, weigh on the hearts of everyone in the village, but they are tightly locked in the mouths of two people.

Note 1: Covering the coffin is the last time the family opens the coffin to see the deceased before the funeral.

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