Chapter 73

A young man was walking on the path in the village.

He was dressed in a blue jacket, as if he hadn't seen the sun for a long time, and his skin was weak and pale. The body is also slender and thin, but his expression is calm and calm. He is clearly dressed in shabby clothes, and the path in the village is uneven, and there are even cow dung and chicken dung, but it just makes him feel like walking in the courtyard.

It was the time of spring plowing, and everyone was busy plowing the fields at the moment, and there were hardly any people on the road in the village. Occasionally, a woman who is doing work in the yard sees that person walking on the road from a distance, and only after a few fixed eyes does she recognize who it is.

"Dog, where is this going?"

Xue Tingxiang looked at the woman who was talking to him, and said with a smile: "Auntie, I'll just walk around."

It was just a casual remark, but the woman didn't say anything more to him, she turned to get something in the room, and the mother-in-law in the room asked her, "Third daughter-in-law, who were you talking to just now?"

"The dog of the second room of Xue Lianxing's family. Hey, mother, you are surprised. He just knocked on the door, but I didn't recognize him for a while. I always feel like a different person."

Her mother-in-law didn't take it seriously: "What can you become, but you can't change your body, I remember that kid has been ill recently."

The daughter-in-law said: "I see, maybe I plan to go to the back mountain." There is a mountain behind Yuqing Village, where all the dead villagers in the village are buried, and the Xue family's ancestral grave is also there.

Hearing this, her mother-in-law sighed: "Don't even mention it, it's a pity for the second child of the Xing family. Both of them are gone. It's a pity to leave a baby."

This is just gossip between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and while they were talking, Xue Tingxiang had already brought Heizi into the back mountain.

*

Houshan is called Houshan, the mountain behind Yuqing Village.

This mountain has no name, and the mountain is not high, but it is extremely deep. Anyway, so far, no villager has been able to walk back and forth from this deep mountain and old forest, most of them are activities outside the mountain.

The Xue family's ancestral grave was built on a small hill not far from the village. This Xue family is not only Xue Tingxiang's family, but the ancestors of the entire Xue clan are buried here.

On such a big hill, the lineage of the patriarch is in the middle, and the branches of the various families spread out. The lineage of Mr. Xue is at a place near the foot of the southwest mountain.

Because the couple in the second room died young, and Xue Qingsong died in an accident, they were buried at the edge.

When Xue Tingxiang arrived at the place, he began to pull the grass around the grave mound casually.

There were not many weeds, they had just been cleared during the Chinese New Year, so he gathered the grass at random and placed it on the ground, taking advantage of the opportunity and sat down in front of the grave.

A piece of mountainous land, two small graves, in front of each of the graves stood a small bluestone stele, on which the names of the second family and the couple were crudely written.

This monument was originally recruited to find someone to make it and set it up.

Nowadays, there are three kinds of people who cannot erect monuments after they die, those who die suddenly, die young, and have no heirs. Xue Qingsong belongs to violent death.

Although everyone doesn't say it, people who feel that they died suddenly have resentment after death, which is not conducive to the feng shui of the ancestor's grave, so no monument is erected. I also want him to forget who he is, so as not to cause trouble if he is ignorant.

But at the same time, there is another saying that after death without a monument, you will be a lonely ghost, who cannot stand the incense of future generations.

At the beginning, the funeral of the second wife was arranged by the Xue family, and they acquiesced to follow the old customs. At that time, Xue Tingxiang was still young and didn't understand these things at all, but Zhao'er understood.

She talked to Xue's family about erecting a monument, but was blocked, and Xue's family took turns to persuade her. Later, Zhao'er didn't tell anyone about it, and took the money to ask someone to make these two simple monuments and put them in front of the grave.

It was too late when Xue's family found out, and they couldn't tear down the stele in front of the villagers.

The villagers were also surprised when they saw the stele, but after thinking about how the Xue family's second child died, they could understand it.

Therefore, Xue Qingshan also gained a good reputation. He would rather risk his family's feng shui to erect a monument for his brother.

With various thoughts spinning in his mind, Xue Tingxiang took out a piece of cloth from his arms and slowly wiped the tombstone.

The words on it were still written by him, and the strokes are immature, but after all, people can still tell what is written on it.

...

Today is the anniversary of Mr. Zheng's death. Zheng Hu brought his two sons to the grave to worship.

The country people are not so particular, they just prepared some steamed buns, wine and meat, and the father and son burned the paper money in front of the grave, so let's forget about it.

Zheng Hu had always had a deep relationship with his father, so he was inevitably depressed, so he let his two sons go back first, while he sat in front of the grave, smoking a pipe and talking to his father.

After talking for a while, he stood up and planned to go back.

There was still work waiting to be done in the field, and Zheng Hu didn't want to waste time, so he decided to take a shortcut. When he passed near Xue Lianxing's ancestral grave, he suddenly heard someone crying.

There are graves on the two nearby hills, one is of the surname Xue, and the other is of the surname Zheng. This kind of festive day is not like Zheng Hu's on the anniversary of the death of an elder in the family, but no one would come to this kind of place.

In particular, there may be a lot of dead people buried here, the trees are dense, and sometimes the sky and day are gloomy. Hearing this strange sound under such circumstances, Zheng Hu was so frightened that his hair stood on end and his legs went limp.

After all, he had lived for decades. He listened intently and calmly, and it took him a while to understand that it was a boy's voice.

Thinking about who's grave was here, he bravely walked closer, bypassed a big tree, and saw a young man in blue clothes sitting in front of the grave from a distance.

Next to it was a big black dog wagging its tail.

It's the dog of the second room of Xue Lianxing's family.

Only then did Zheng Hu heave a sigh of relief, and the voice came into his ears again: "...Father, what do you think I should do? Uncle wants to send brother Juncai to the school in town, I thought I could do the same." Go... But my aunt came to the house a few days ago, but she told me to let Brother Juncai, before..."

The young man's voice was full of hesitation and bewilderment, Zheng Hu did not expect to hear the secret affairs of the Xue family in such a place. He was so surprised that the pipe in his hand dropped without realizing it. He didn't realize it until his foot was hit by the pipe, picked up the pipe in a hurry and left.

He didn't know that after he left, the lonely and helpless boy in his eyes stopped crying.

In the past few days, Xue Tingxiang has been thinking hard, trying to find a suitable opportunity, and somehow he thought of Zheng Hu.

Zheng Hu's father, Mr. Zheng, died during the spring plowing. It was not a happy funeral, but an accident. He was accidentally squeezed to the foot of the field by his own cattle and fell to his death.

The ridge was not very tall, and countless villagers fell off the ridge every year, and Mr. Zheng died unluckily. At the beginning, this incident was widely circulated in the village, so Xue Tingxiang remembered it very clearly.

Since it was the anniversary of the father's death, the son Zheng Hu would definitely come to visit the grave, and Zheng Hu used to like to take shortcuts, so he would definitely pass by this area, so who else is more suitable than him.

The most important thing is that Yuqing Village doesn't seem big, but Xue and Zheng's surnames have always been different from each other. Zheng Hu's uncle is Li Zheng, and if he knows it, Zheng Lizheng will know it too.

Xue Tingxiang didn't stay any longer, and quickly returned home with Heizi the same way.

The yard was still silent, he found a twig and put it in front of the door, and sat there quietly basking in the sun, thinking about Zhao'er who went to the town.

*

Zheng Hu hurried all the way, without even returning home, he went to Zheng Lizheng's house.

Zheng Li is the Lizheng of Yuqing Village and the head of the Zheng clan. Naturally, the family's house is the only one in Yuqing Village. If it can be compared with it, it is the house of Patriarch Xue's family.

Yishui's green brick and tile-roofed house, and the courtyard walls are also made of green bricks. The most conspicuous thing is the ancestral hall of the Zheng family on the front, but this ancestral hall will not be opened until a certain time. The two black doors The paulownia gate is closed all year round.