In the evening, a woman came to the store. The green spire of the mountain turned over and the rain fell, and every street and alley of this foothill town was filled with rain and smoke. The smoke covered the night, and her shadow came out little by little, with a white jade shirt, an apricot yellow skirt, phoenix eyes and willow eyebrows, and pink peach lips. I sat up from my rocking chair and gave birth to a beautiful man!

"Little master......" She approached, and put a black lacquered iron box on the counter, "You can help me see, how much can it cost?"

It's an old foreign gun, rusty enough. I held it in my hand, but the chamber of the gun was blocked, and I couldn't open the magazine. "I'm sorry, I'm too old to take it. I met her burning gaze and gritted my teeth.

She didn't seem to hear it. His eyes turned, he turned around the scene in the store, and turned to the "Yidangfang" signboard dangling outside the store, and actually hid his lips and snickered: "The name of the brand that your grandfather took is really rough!"

I was momentarily stunned: "How do you know that my grandfather took it?"

"My great-grandmother said that. She smiled, her eyes cut, and the twilight was brightened, "She has a good relationship with your great-grandfather! Your grandfather Fang Lianghan and your father Fang Yuebo have all made trouble on my great-grandmother's lap!"

When I heard this, I felt my heart melt. Could it be that she is still a distant relative of mine? Why didn't I hear my dad say that I had such a beautiful sister?

Her eyes were still swirling, and she turned to the crooked-necked sycamore outside the house, and smiled again: "This is the sycamore, right?" Before I could respond, she continued, "There is also a sycamore tree in my hometown, which is a little taller than this one. Oh yes, little master, my name is Su Qing. Then she told me a story.

The sycamore tree that Su Qing knew, not far away was a large piece of Tianyang. The fields are full of soybeans, peppers and other grains, vegetables and fruits, and there are often women and children pickpockets who enter the fields to steal. The first time Su Qing went to the field to steal carrots, she was discovered by the foreigners. It was an early spring night, and the foreigner was a hare shaving vegetables, and a shuttle gun went over and hit Su Qing's ankle. Below the spring moon, they looked at each other, one with remorse and the other with teary eyes. Su Qing lived in the squatter shed built by the foreigners, gritted her teeth and asked the foreigners to bandage, change dressings, clean, and massage her. Shou Yang was born with a simple skin, dark complexion, and a smile with white teeth is chic, and this person is as sincere as his skin. He took care of Su Qing, and kept two or three jokes on his lips, which were used to change Su Qing's dressing and bandage, like a dose of painkiller, which relieved Su Qing's pain. Su Qing's original micro-words are indispensable, and it is inevitable that they will resent each other, and they have taken care of him for a long time, but they have relied on him. came and went like this, and unconsciously, Su Qing actually had some feelings. It's a pity that this sentiment is pitiful, the foreigner is already a wife in the room and the children are around the knees, even if the two have mutual affection, they have to pass on each other's eyebrows, which is difficult to express, let alone mention that each other is fulfilled.

"And then?" I asked her.

"Later, when I got better, I was gone. ”

"That's it?" I was disappointed.

Her gaze swirled again, as if she was telling someone else's story, abruptly speaking, with a beginning and no end. I calmed down and thought, too, a man who has already carried his family, I can pray for a good ending to such a story! "That's your great-grandfather, right? My great-grandmother used to talk to him, can I put incense on him?"

"Whatever you want!" The twilight was completely dark, and the streets were still covered with rain and smoke. I made flower tea and invited her to sit down and have tea. The tape recorder in the store played a song, which was Gao Shengmei's "Rolling Red Dust", and the song drifted into the smoke outside the store, and then returned when it was cold, and the room was full of moisture. "At first, you were casual / and the young me was casual / love in the red dust / just because of the hurried silence of life / think it was the fault of the world / or the cause and effect of the past life / all of life / and did not hesitate to exchange for the ......exchange of yin and yang in an instant"

Su Qing suddenly asked me, "Do you know how your great-grandfather died?"

I thought for a moment: "I can't stand the criticism and death." ”

"Oh?"

"Don't you know? My great-grandfather was also a foreigner. At that time, he was guarding the landlord's field, and at night he would squat on the edge of the field with his ancestral foreign gun. Later, after the land reform, he continued to be hired to guard the public field, but the foreign guns were too old to be used, so he had to use two or three loads of rice to find bandits in the mountains and exchange them for a new gun. With the new gun Shoutian, the old gun was forgotten, and I don't know where to lose.

Later, a cowherd brother in Wailiao came back from Nanyang, heard about it, and confessed that he had picked up the old foreign gun, secretly went to the pawnshop to make money, and went to Nanyang. My great-grandfather was beaten and tortured for more than ten years, but he survived, and the night when Brother Nachun confessed and restored his innocence, the old man died. I heard my grandfather say that before he died, his mouth was open, and he wanted to scold a foul word, but halfway through the scolding, he fell down, full of hatred and resentment, and he didn't have time to vomit it out. Isn't it ridiculous, you say?"

Su Qing was silent, and the burning candlelight in her eyes seemed to be dimmed. Great-grandfather Lingzhao raised a cold sandalwood smoke, she looked at the wisp of smoke, and sighed: "Thousands of people suffer in a thousand ways, and no one suffers the same." Isn't this a sad story? How do you find it ridiculous?"

I was stunned for a moment, and I didn't know what to answer: "Old things, like a mouthful of bagasse foam, tasteless to chew, it's a pity to abandon it, who can distinguish the bitter from the sweet? Who can distinguish the true from the false?" Outside, it seemed to be a light rainfall. I refilled the water and warmed up another pot of flower tea. Speaking of which, my great-grandfather also lamented that in his life, he could only repay a temporary debt. ”

When Su Qing heard this, the withered three-foot plum wadding in her eyes flew up again: "Oh?"

"His old foreign spear is going to kill people!" I drank tea, laughed and talked, "A girl, the family wealth is scattered, and she will be sold to the Qinglou." I escaped on the way, fled into the field guarded by my great-grandfather to dig wild vegetables, and was shot to death by my great-grandfather. At that time, he was so frightened that he rolled a roll of straw mats and buried people, and he didn't dare to say a word.

"The red restaurant lost a young prostitute, Xu made a gesture to look for it, but he couldn't find it, so he didn't take it seriously, so he hid the old man like this. Pity him for being condemned in his heart later, and he has always spit on himself for such misfortune, all because of the sin he committed when he was young!"

Su Qing stood up, and she walked leisurely to the door of the store. The rain fell tightly, hitting the sycamore leaves, drop by drop, and it made people feel cold.

"Speaking of this sin, my great-grandmother, Ling has something to say. ”

"Huh?"

She turned around slowly, and her eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of rain smoke: "A strange and ridiculous story, but a bit of a chatter, are you interested in listening?" I didn't have time to respond, but she had already started talking. "How can your great-grandfather be at ease when he killed someone? At night, he was tossing and turning, when he heard the door slamming. He opened the door, and standing outside the door was the woman he had mistakenly killed. She turned into a female ghost and came to find him! What is he looking for? No, no. She didn't want to be reincarnated, and she didn't want to be a lonely ghost, so she had to come to find his gun—his gun, which had a blood-stained aura, and that aura, was the nest that could nourish her soul.

"The female ghost is not evil, she knows that it is not easy to be in the world, and she has no revenge for her life. Your great-grandfather was full of remorse, and he knew the weight of his sin, and he was willing to pay the debt for the rest of his life. One man and one ghost settled down like this, and the female ghost clinged to the gun, and thus became inseparable from your great-grandfather. You say how illusory and empty the love between people and ghosts is? But then it was born! Ghosts are inseparable from people, and people fall in love with ghosts, and how many beautiful love affairs there are, who can tell clearly? Who can explain clearly!

"Did you really lose his old foreign gun? He didn't want to, he didn't dare. His female ghost was attached to the gun and handed it over, and Mo Dao was separated by yin and yang, and the two places were even more different, and it was difficult to see each other again. He was criticized and fought, how much pain and pain, but in order to steal a night of joy with a female ghost. ”

It's getting cold in the room. I looked at Su Qing opposite, and suddenly felt that her beautiful facial features were full of coldness. I wiped my eyes, and when I tried to look again, I felt that I couldn't see clearly. Her face seemed to fade, a little faded into the twilight of the rain and rain, leaving a white jade shirt and an apricot yellow skirt still sitting there leisurely. I screamed "wow", my whole body was cold, and I fell off the stool, shocked: "You...... You are ......"

"This Qinghuan, he has been stealing for more than thirty years. No matter how many beatings he received, he refused to hand over his gun. I couldn't stand it, I wanted to die, and I went to Huangquan with the female ghost. But his debts in the yang world have not been paid off, his old mother is dying, his wife is frail, and he has not half a corn in the pot, so how can he unload it! The female ghost followed him, secretly tasted the joys and sorrows of the world for more than 30 years, and was also tired. It's all about to be. Simply, she attached a Chun brother who had returned to his hometown, and through his mouth, she scooped up your great-grandfather from the bitter waters of more than thirty years.

"When the dust settled, your great-grandfather died, and the female ghost was gone. One ran to the underworld to report, and the other continued to stay in the yang world with the old foreign gun. How ridiculous, after 30 years, in the end it still can't cross the separation of yin and yang.

"You ask me, why didn't she go to the underworld to look for him? Why didn't he stay with her in the underworld? It's just that he didn't dare to see her, and she didn't want to see her—who knows! How many crazy men and women have been resentful throughout the ages, and which one of them has seen clearly?"

When I saw Su Qing's face emerge from the rainy night again, she was already standing by the counter, gently stroking the old rusty foreign gun, very slowly, as if she had been there for thousands of centuries. I struggled to move my upper body, and finally heard her voice as soft as smoke: "Now, I don't know how many decades have passed. Have you been reincarnated? Where are you now? Huh......

"This foreign gun, return it to you. I have to go. From then on, we don't owe each other. ”

Under her eyes, the warmth of early spring rain flowed, moistened into a pool of water, and an old foreign gun was reflected in the water, a black and white photo, in which an old man who had been dead for more than 50 years.

When she turned to leave, I tried to keep her: "Where are you going? It's still raining outside." ”

“...... When he died, it was raining. ”

“......”

"Sycamore tree, three more rain, not - the love is bitter. A leaf, a sound - the empty steps drip to the light. ”

Then, she was gone. I sat on the ground and looked at it in a trance, the old foreign gun on the counter, the bamboo incense in front of my great-grandfather's spirit, and the unwashed tea tray, everything was like a dream. Gao Shengmei's singing voice came from the radio, entangled in countless raindrops, swaying for a long time.

"It's easy to come and go, but it's hard to go

Decades of travel

It is easy to divide and gather, but it is difficult to gather

The eternal sorrow of love and hate

So you who don't want to go want to say goodbye to me who is gone

To this day, there are still faint whispers in the world that follow the legends of the two of us

There is a faint whisper in the rolling red dust, following the legend of the two of us."