Late at night, the wind was biting, the clouds were dense, and the pale snow buried everything in the wilderness, leaving only a few remaining monuments. What lay beneath them were probably the dead who had not yet been forgotten.
Today was supposed to be a good day, with thousands of families reunited and in harmony. Happy people were eating steaming meat dumplings dipped in vinegar and wrapped in coins, scrambling and laughing.
Today is of course a good day, so today, this man with a flashlight and a big bag braving the wind and snow in this barren grave seems particularly unusual.
"Damn, the car broke down, this damn place..."
He accidentally stepped into the snow pit with his expensive leather shoes, and the coldness on his feet made him curse again.
"Ayan is talking about this place..."
The man raised his head and looked at the vast white wilderness around him, "Remember...where did it come from?"
Ah, yes, three six three two.
3632 is actually easy to find. The man knew about this place before coming here. The feng shui here is not good. Generally, only people who don’t know many people, but who are not likely to be cremated as vagrants, will come here in the end.
So, just count forward from the edge.
Just like this, three, seven, four, eight.
He didn't care about the newly bought leather shoes on his feet. He trudged forward step by step on the snow like he had done when he was stealing coal when he was a child.
The snow that seeped into his shoes gradually melted due to his body temperature, turning into ice water and soaking into the wool socks that his wife had knitted for him for three days.
Although these socks are a bit bloated, he quite likes them thick, mainly because his seven-year-old daughter playfully sewed a little white rabbit that looks like a teapot on them. Every time he goes on a business trip, he sews them on When I was resting in the hotel, I saw the little white rabbit on the socks and felt like my heart melted.
"Isn't that what I found? Isn't that what I found?"
He finally found that person's grave among the snowdrifts covered with ice and snow. He swept away the wind and snow covering the stone tablet with his hands. After seeing the name on it, he finally put down the heavy-looking big stone with relief. bag.
"It's finally warm. It's finally warm."
The man leaned over, took a few steps back, and pulled out an open space in front of the stone monument. "Let me tell you that the country is now promoting environmental protection, and this bag is filled with good things."
Saying this to the heavy snow, he took out a lot of yellow paper from the bag. After placing the yellow paper on the newly cleared open space, he took out the windproof match. The fire was so easy to make in the wind and snow. It rose up under the grinding.
"Our company's latest research and development, high-tech paper money, is very powerful."
The man laughed twice and sat cross-legged on the snow. While adding paper to the fire, he took out the wine from the bag and the warm dumplings in the food box.
"It's stuffed with leeks and meat. The dean made it himself. I saw that you haven't eaten it for many years, so I brought it over for you to try."
"Well, you know, last time, just a few days ago, the dean won an award. I forgot the name of the award. It seemed quite long, but the dean was quite happy that day. After he came back, he held the trophy to show off every day. "
Sitting on the snow warming himself by the fire, the man sitting in front of the grave always felt that something was missing.
He opened the bottle cap, looked up at the dark clouds, and after taking a sip of the spicy white wine, he suddenly realized.
It's freezing cold today, so I need to eat something.
"Anyway, you don't like eating dumplings, so I'll try them for you. After all, we can't waste food, right?"
Opening the food box, the aroma of noodles that was warmer than the fire in front of him instantly filled the air. The man rummaged through the bag and found that he didn't have any chopsticks. He simply took off his gloves, grabbed one and threw it into his mouth.
"Yeah, delicious."
He ate very deliciously, "Ning Xi always said that the dean did not use sesame oil when making dumplings, but this year he finally did."
"Speaking of which, Ning Xi seems to have made a lot of money recently. Hasn't he been good-looking since he was a child? In the past two years, I had a friend who was a film maker. When he saw him, his eyes lit up and he couldn't say anything. Let him act."
"He thought he couldn't find a good job just after graduation, so he tried his best to get it. But don't tell me, people nowadays really only care about their appearance, so he appeared on TV for five minutes. That’s it, Best Supporting Actor.”
"He is doing very well now. He earns a lot every year. When we were having dinner just now, he told me that he wanted to set up a school in the courtyard and asked me to make arrangements."
"I didn't agree. Our hospital is already good enough, and the children are all good children. They can easily get into a good school in the city. There is no need to bother."
"Then, then there's Ning Lu. He's still that naive. He stays away from home all day long. His wife keeps calling me to complain."
"But there's nothing we can do." The man roasted the dumplings on the fire and wiped the oil from his mouth. "After all, it's normal for firefighters to be away from home."
"I just pity his child. He can't see his father a few times a year, just like the ones in our courtyard."
"By the way, Ning Yu, did you know that she was released from prison?"
The snow is falling more and more, like a blurred dream, I don’t know when to stop or where to stop.
The man was silent.
He didn't know what to say, so he ate dumplings and drank wine. Like the old man at the entrance of the village, he stared at the photo on the stone tablet and pouted, looking happy and leisurely.
"us......"
"We have today, just, today is the winter solstice, do you know?"
"Just like in previous years, we put down what we were doing and took the whole family back to this small county to spend the winter solstice with the director."
"Speaking of which, you haven't been here since we grew up, right?"
"Now it's different from when we were young. When the dean makes dumplings, he doesn't have to go through all the troubles to ask for noodles or meat on credit. It's just a family, with the elders accompanying the elders and the younger ones with the younger ones, sitting in front of the small table. , eating snacks and chatting, slowly thousands of dumplings were made."
"It's good, no one is hungry."
"fine."
"..."
"I remember, in the past, we could only eat dumplings once a year. At that time, before now, the dean became busy because she didn't have many relatives and friends. We were also young at that time, so we could only help her suppress the pressure. Dough and so on, so we stood outside the kitchen, braving the heavy snow, standing by the door, lining up to make dough for the dean."
"The rules set by the dean are that one person can press twenty-five doughs. After pressing, go out and line up again. No one can be more, and no one can be less."
"Every time someone came in, we would be outside the door, counting the rolling pin, muttering one, two, three, four in a low voice, staring at the minced meat in the basin like wolves, going crazy, it was so fun."
"Once, Yan Yan secretly pressed two extra pieces of dough. Ning Xi noticed it with her sharp eyes, and then he complained, making Yan Yan cry."
"Oh my god, I still remember that scene. Yan was crying so hard that the whole world was shattered. The dean was scared until the end. If Ning Xi hadn't given her five dumplings, I think Yan would have cried for at least a whole day that day."
"Now, well, I won't mention it."
"Today's dolls are lazier than the other, just like the one in my family. Let alone making dumplings, I would be thankful that the teacher can save me from going to the office twice a week."
The dumplings in the lunch box were gone, and the man was full.
He put the lunch box back into the bag and took another swig of wine into his mouth.
"Oh, yes, smoke, and smoke."
"Did you see her last time? She asked me to come to this place."
"Yan, she's gone. She just finished making dumplings and left."
"Before she left, she told the dean that she was going to travel abroad and might not come back for several years."
"The dean didn't say anything and just asked her to make a few more calls."
"The dean is old and her heart condition has been bad in the past few years, so Yan and I didn't say anything to her. Don't worry. She hasn't seen you for a long time anyway. Even this plate of dumplings was brought by me secretly. Come here, I guess she may have forgotten you too."
Unknowingly, more than half of the three kilograms of liquor bought from Lao Li on the street was gone. Lao Li had been brewing spirits for more than 30 years, and even he, who always drank a lot, was a little dizzy.
"You...you said why are you so unlucky? You have been so unlucky since you were a child. You can get into all kinds of messy things, but those, those are all bad things. Tell me about you, how are you? So unlucky?"
He began to speak incoherently and nonsense, and the dark clouds in the sky slowly sank in his sight, just like the past that had been torn apart by resentment.
"You said that you have been the smartest among us since childhood. Why on earth are you?"
Infinite confusion rose as he drank more. He stoked the fire and kept thinking, "You were the one who said you were going to open that factory, but you didn't take any of the money you made; you were the one who encouraged me to buy that piece of land at a loss. Then when the tax was collected, I called you and asked where you were. You said that you were working as a student at a convenience store. You paid for the tuition fees for cigarettes, but you ended up going to high school a full year late. Tell me about you. Do you think it’s okay? Do you know what we are? You have been like a god since you were a child. You look similar and have a similar mentality. Tell me about you. Why do you think so?"
"We are all ordinary people, not as immortal as you. Why do you treat us as human beings?"
"Just live your own life and don't care about anyone else, okay?"
"What would you have done if you hadn't been lying down here and I hadn't made that phone call with Lao Huang?"
"Being a villain for the rest of your life? Taking the blame for Dongzi's death? Taking the blame for an accident? Will you refuse to say 'I'm right' even to the end of your life, even if you just say a word to defend yourself?"
"Why do you do that?"
"I should know, I should have known from the beginning. You couldn't have gotten that few points in the college entrance examination that year. Lao Huang is not the kind of good person who took the initiative to waive the rent for three years when he saw our difficulties. Lao Huang's son is also more I am not a smart person who can get into that university, I should know that, I am the first child to be taken in by the dean, I should know that."
"Don't you want to be a reporter? Don't you want to be a voice for those, like the dean, like us when we were young, who can't eat, and are still hungry and crying, to help them? A reporter?"
"Why do you, why do you think your future can be worth three years of rent? Why do you think that your future is worth three years of rent?"
"Why are you noble? Why do you think we need help more? Because you treat us as adults, as brothers and sisters, so you can just walk away with the reputation of a murderer after giving up your future for us?"
"Just leave without any problems?"
"At once..."
A gust of wind blew by, like a newly sharpened butcher's knife, so sharp and bone-piercing, piercing people's heart and lungs, making the confused but sad and angry drunk suddenly wake up.
"gone?"
It seems that Lao Li's past thirty years have been in vain.
He drank the rest of the wine, stood the empty bottle in front of the fire, and smiled helplessly.
As long as only he and Yan know this place.
Only he knows those things.
He was the eldest child. That year, the dean who had just been abandoned by her husband, the dean who had just lost his own flesh and blood, and who was not yet the dean, found himself on a snowy day like today.
On that day, he changed from a beggar that no one cared about to the eldest son of the Ning family and the eldest brother of the Ning family.
Therefore, everything was his fault, and it should be his fault.
His brothers and sisters are still dazzling stars, still heroes who save people from fire and water, still righteous knights, and still the most beautiful girls in the world.
Nothing will change, period.
Thinking like this, there was only one last thing left in the huge bag.
He took out the bottle of sweet sugar water, stood up, and walked to the stone monument buried in the snow.
He lowered his head again, leaned down, put on his gloves again, and planned to sweep away the snow in front of the stone monument.
In the warm room, the well-fed and well-fed children all took their own little benches and sat neatly in front of the white-haired old man, quietly listening to her story.
"Children, today, we will tell a story about big brother."
The old man smiled kindly and spoke slowly to the children around him.
There once was such a person in this world.
He was always there for his brothers and sisters, and always had a smile that could warm the heart.
The naughty sister longed for the knights who wielded swords in ancient times. After the rain, he went to the mountains alone, found the sword buried by the dragon and gave it to his sister.
The shy younger brother liked beautiful cloth and clothes. When the morning light came, he cut out the most dazzling red cloud in the sky and gave it to his younger brother.
The honest brother always lay by the window and looked expectantly at the police cars passing by on the street. He would gently pick up a few drops of dew from the green leaves and give the hero hidden in the dew to his brother.
Having said this, the old man paused for a moment, and when the children's expectant eyes became brighter, she continued.
"There is another, very bad, bad boy."
The bad boy always secretly went to Lao Li's house on the street to ask for a drink. When he found out by chance, he summoned a gust of wind and swept away all the wine given by Lao Li to the bad boy, leaving only sugar water mixed with honey.
"Okay, that's the end of today's story. Let's go to bed."
"Oh, let's talk about one more thing!"
"Go to bed quickly, we have classes tomorrow."
At the winter solstice, the family is harmonious and everything is prosperous.
After a busy day, a child can drink hot noodle soup as soon as he enters the house. He can pick out the fattest dumplings on the plate, dip them in vinegar, complain to his family about the helplessness at noon, and fall into silence and beauty in the spare time of a full meal. dreamland.
On the endless snowfield, the self-righteous drunk man knelt down slumped.
He had just dug out a wooden sword in the snow. The sword was full of scratches and looked crudely made, as if a child had carved it out one by one with a rusty stew knife.
He just dug out an old book in front of the stone tablet. There was a bookmark made of maple leaves in the book. The crimson treasure was more dazzling than the red clouds that lingered in the autumn. I don’t know which one even had enough windows. The little guy climbed up the tall maple tree and picked it.
He had just found a solid wood photo frame in the breeze. The fire-fighting hero in front of the photo frame had turned yellow, but the young soldier on the back of the photo frame was still carrying his weight.
If the family is harmonious, everything will be prosperous.
He was hysterical, he cried loudly, his heart was wrenching, he was devastated, he tremblingly placed the bottle of frighteningly sweet sugar water next to the photo frame, watching the extinguished ashes bury everything.
He struggled for a long time. When the dark clouds dispersed and the light blue moonlight reflected the surrounding snow in a warm color, the drunk man who could not wake up looked up at the clear sky and smiled numbly.
After the rain, the sun comes.
The wind blows and the dew condenses.
The smoke disappears and the clouds disperse.
The tomb sighs, and the heart is separated.
