A large river has wide waves, and the wind blows the fragrance of rice and flowers on both sides.
In Yunzhou, the longest river is Tongyang River. Starting from Jiugao Mountain in the north of Dongshan County, it goes all the way to the southwest, passing through the five counties of Dongshan, Dansheng, Zhengyang, Riyang and Yuxia, and flows into the sea.
When it first came out of the mountain pass, the Tongyang River was still a clear stream. It gradually flowed into the plains, nourishing thousands of households, irrigating tens of thousands of acres of fertile farmland, and turning it into ditches and sweeping away sand. By the time it reaches Yuxia County downstream, it has become a turbid and turbulent stream. of yellow water.
The county government of Yuxia County, Mucheng, is built on the bank of the Yellow River.
Twilight City is a famous city with a long history, with a history of nearly a thousand years. It has witnessed countless joys and sorrows, the changes of several dynasties, and all the changes in the world since the Woeful Moon.
Just a few decades ago, although Mucheng was already a county government, it was famous for its high city and deep pool. It was a military town, not a prosperous city, with a population of only 100,000.
Later, the evil disaster intensified and the wilderness became very dangerous. The government organized the migration of surrounding people into the city. Gradually, the inner city could no longer accommodate people, so they had to build more walls outside, and then built them again and again.
In the past few decades, Twilight City has built a triple city wall, with a population of more than one million inside and outside, with rows of houses and busy streets. It has become a veritable super city.
It's just that the expansion of Twilight City is mainly to the east, because to the west of the city are rolling hills, which are natural barriers for city defense, and there are also tombs where the ancestors of the people in the city rest for generations.
On one of the hillsides, there are many scattered graves. Most of these graves belong to a single family, with no family ancestral graves to bury. But most of them are from fairly well-to-do families, and their tombs are fairly neatly built, and the gang members have hired gravekeepers to guard them, so they don’t end up like poor men with nothing, wrapped in straw mats and stuffed into random graves.
Halfway up the slope, there is a grave where a husband and wife are buried together. Someone has just swept the grave. Flowers and fruits have been placed in front of the stone tablet, incense and candles have been burned, and there is a faint smell of fireworks. The tombstone had just been wiped, and the name of the tomb owner was clearly visible: "Xian Kao Tang Guangyi, first descendant Tan Le Tao".
The young man who had just been sitting in front of the grave quietly burning paper had now stood up. He finally spread the wine in his hand over the soil on the grave and walked silently along the overgrown mountain road to a small grave on the other side.
Not far away, a young man with a pale childlike complexion also looked at him silently, without moving closer. He looked at the young man's figure as if he were looking at a piece of scenery.
The young man came to the grave on the other side. The grave was much smaller. The grave was only three feet wide, which seemed not big enough to bury the coffin. There was only a two-foot-high wooden sign on the mound. No name was written on it, but only one sentence.
"The door is unlocked, making it easy to come in and out."
It’s just that the words used in this sentence are incomprehensible to most people.
The young man came to the grave, looked at the writing on the wooden sign, suddenly grinned, squatted down and dug the soil with his hands.
The young man watching from a distance was slightly startled when he saw this scene and said nothing.
At this time, someone next to him shouted: "Hey! Where did this little tomb robber come from? Xiangqing dared to dig graves openly in the daytime. You are too arrogant. You... you... aren't you that kid from Lao Tang's family?"
When the young man turned around, he saw a little old man with thinning hair coming towards him holding a walking stick. He looked kind-hearted as expected. He said with a sigh, "Uncle Zhao? It's me, Tang Zhao."
The old man, Uncle Zhao, looked carefully at the young man's face and exclaimed: "Yes, that's you, Tang Zhao. Although you have grown up after several years, you really can't recognize this appearance." Then he put the crutch down.
Tang Zhao smiled sheepishly. This Uncle Zhao was an old neighbor of his family. He was not a neighbor, nor was he familiar with him, but he could always meet him on the streets. To say that the meeting back then was very dull, I could have just nodded and passed.
After all these years, my mood has changed when I see acquaintances again. The intimacy I felt back then has increased tenfold. It's like seeing a relative. I greet you: "I haven't seen you for many years. How is your health? How is your family?"
Uncle Zhao said: "Hi, your health is fine. You see, he is strong. There is nothing wrong with the family. It's just that the kid at home is ineffective. He is very old and can't do anything. You said he has some potential. , How can I still go out to look at graves at such an old age?"
Having said this, he looked at Tang Zhao and saw his scholar's attire, and said, "Have you passed the examination and returned home in glory?"
Tang Zhao smiled and said: "No, I can't study well. I didn't even pass the exam. Look at me like this, how can I look like I've returned home in glory?"
Uncle Zhao looked disappointed and said: "You don't have any clothes, you just go back to your hometown? Hey, that's no fun. But you are still young, and it is normal for you to fail the exam at this age. I thought you had bright eyes and you were born blessed." He has a good appearance, is smart, and has a knack for studying. He will definitely be able to go to high school in the future."
He talked a lot, and before Tang Zhao spoke, he continued: "Don't blame me, if you went to a serious school, you should have obtained the honor a long time ago. I advise your father, even if he doesn't send you to the academy, he must find it for you. A serious master. Look at that teacher of yours. He speaks in a garrulous manner, has a weird accent, and always squints his eyes when looking at people. He doesn’t have a good heart at first glance. "
Tang Zhao was just being funny and did not share the same knowledge as the old man. He only said: "You have seen the wrong person. Teacher Chen has bad eyesight and is highly myopic, so he always squints when seeing things. He is not a bad person."
Old Man Zhao clicked his tongue and said, "So, you are still learning from him now?"
Tang Zhao stopped smiling, glanced at the grave behind him, and said, "My master passed away four years ago. This is his grave."
Old man Zhao made a sound, and said with a sad expression: "It's gone? What a pity, he was a scholar after all. I remember he was much younger than me. How come he disappeared when he was so good? So you are here for me? Did he add dirt? I thought you were digging the grave."
Tang Zhao said: "I am digging his grave."
…
Ignoring Old Zhao's stunned look, Tang Zhao smiled and said: "The teacher asked me to bury him somewhere else before he died, but I was young and weak at the time and could not fulfill his last wish, so I had to bury him here first. Now that I have grown up, I will come back to help him move and bury him."
Old Man Zhao breathed a sigh of relief and said, "That's right. I'm just saying that you, a polite student, can do anything illegal? I remember that your house has been sold. Do you have a place to live now when you come back?" ? If not, you can stay at the uncle’s house.”
Tang Zhao thanked him: "Thank you for your kindness, I won't disturb you. I have something to do when I come back. That means I have time in these two or three days, so I can go back and meet my neighbors and so on. Just stay in an inn."
Old man Zhao said, "You've made a fortune if you can live in an inn. You don't want to return to your hometown in fine clothes? Hey, I said, you kid, don't want to take back your ancestral home, right? I'm telling you, it's not okay to cause trouble." I know how angry you young people are, and you are always thinking of retaliating with tit for tat. You are too young and don’t know how powerful they are. They are powerful..."
Tang Zhao smiled and said: "Uncle, have you listened to too many books? Firstly, the house was bought by my father, and it was not an ancestral home. Secondly, I took the initiative to sell the house at that time. Although it was sold at a low price, it was still considered because I was in a hurry. , I appreciated the fact that they gave me the money honestly at that time, and I didn’t have to pay for it. Don’t worry, I didn’t come here to fight.”
Seeing that Uncle Zhao breathed a sigh of relief again, Tang Zhao asked: "But you just said that this person is very powerful... I remember that my original house was sold to a shopkeeper along the street. Isn't it him now? What kind of powerful people live in it?" Was it requisitioned by the government?"
Uncle Zhao said: "You don't know. It's just a matter of being requisitioned by the government. If you ask the most, they won't give you anything. It's not dangerous to kick you out. Now your house has become some kind of 'tangguo', it's an evil spirit." What’s the name of the gang...the Five Poisons Club?”
Tang Zhao raised his eyebrows and thought to himself: What a coincidence?
After sending Uncle Zhao away, Tang Zhao dug out Mr. Chen's box.
Yes, Mr. Chen is in the box.
According to Mr. Chen's wish, he was cremated and put in an ordinary lacquer box.
Mr. Chen said it would be best to scatter his ashes into the sea.
Even Tang Zhao couldn't understand Mr. Chen's willingness to set things aside, but who asked him to mention it? If everyone is gone, how can one still disrespect the last wish?
It would be too difficult to just throw it into the sea. Yunzhou is far inland, thousands of miles away from the sea. Where can I see the sea? Tang Zhao has never seen the sea yet.
It's just that he hasn't seen it now, but he will see it sooner or later. He also looks forward to one day being able to visit Jieshi, view the sea, or even set sail. At that time, he will fulfill Mr. Chen's wish.
In fact, Tang Zhao occasionally thought that maybe the last place Mr. Chen wanted to go to was not the sea, but the hometown he could never go back to.
Tang Zhao's hometown is by the river. When looking down the upper reaches of the Tongyang River, it feels like seeing his hometown. Mr. Chen probably hopes that his hometown is across the vast sea. In that case, his ashes will drift with the tide and eventually return to his original hometown across the ocean.
After putting Mr. Chen away, Tang Zhao and Wei Se went down the mountain and entered Twilight City before the city gate closed at dusk.
After four years of not seeing each other, Twilight City is mostly the same as before, but there seem to be more people. Relocations continue, and there are still people fleeing. Temporary shacks can often be seen on the streets.
Tang Zhao and the others worked hard all the way and arrived much earlier than the agreed time. They still had two or three days to move around freely before the exam.
So Tang Zhao went to the inn with a familiar face and a dangerous look.
No way, he didn't have any relatives in Twilight City. It was his parents' generation who followed the relocation crowd into the city and lived in the second ring of city walls. As long as he had relatives, he wouldn't be homeless as soon as his parents left.
As for childhood friends and neighbors, of course there are them, but as soon as you enter the city and you have no time to settle in, is it too strange to meet the neighbors first?
As the saying goes, things have changed and people have changed. After being away from home for four years, there is no one in my hometown that I can't wait to see for a moment. It's no wonder that Tang Zhao doesn't understand "nostalgia" very well.
Fortunately, he was very familiar with Twilight City, especially the middle city with the second ring of city walls. He immediately found a cheap and clean inn, asked for two rooms, and went to bed early.
When Tang Zhao got up early the next morning, as soon as he opened the door, he saw a young man standing in the yard. He looked vaguely familiar. The four big men behind him were all big and round, and they looked like members of a family. There were several people in the surrounding corners guarding the doorways on all sides, preventing anyone from entering.
When these few people stood in the courtyard, it was like the King of Hell in a quiet street. The whole courtyard was completely silent, except for Tang Zhaohe and others in the dangerous room next to him.
Tang Zhao was startled and thought to himself: I don't look for trouble, so why would trouble come to me? Is it a creditor? I don't remember having any outstanding debts in Twilight City.
When the young man saw Tang Zhao, he bowed respectfully and said, "Mr. Tang, I came here to pay homage to you on the order of the owner of the village."
