Lord of the Desert

Chapter 113 Rooted
For lunch on the first day of the new year, Asahiin ate very simple.

Because of Hong Fan, the big eater, there was almost nothing left of last night's sumptuous meal.

Fortunately, there are more than two catties of sacrificial meat brought back.

Aunt Liu made great efforts to make two meat dishes each from pork and mutton, together with winter stored cabbage, radish and freshly picked coriander, it was easy to prepare a table of delicacies.

With steamed buns, the five of them had lunch.

In the morning, the ancestors who can be included in the genealogy have all worshiped.

But Hong Fan also had a relative who had to visit.

The biological mother of the original owner of his body.

In my memory, Hong Fan's mother was buried in Taishan—because she was a concubine, she could neither be included in the genealogy nor be buried in the family tomb.

The distance was not close, and before midnight (two o'clock in the afternoon), the three of them had already gone out in the carriage that Mr. Tang had set up.

Originally, Bentley should be pulling the car, but Hong Fan wanted to use the red flag to call the car.

Out of the city to the southeast, there was no one on the road, making the air even colder.

Hong Fan sat in the car, looking forward blankly.

Taishan is still covered with snow.

After the peaks and edges of the mountain are softened, they look like continuous graves.

After more than an hour, the carriage stopped at the foot of a mountain.

The red flag is also left here - it is full of fangs and brute force, so naturally there is no need to worry about being stolen.

"This mountain is called Qingtou, and it also belongs to Taishan."

Aunt Liu introduced.

"At the beginning, I specifically asked a Taoist to pick it out. Sure enough, Feng Shui is very good!"

The three of them walked up the gentle slope for 400 meters, and then came to an open field at the southern foot of Qingtou Mountain.

Behind here is the raised main peak, and on the left and right are slightly lower hills.

The flat valley follows the foot of the mountain, and the view is surprisingly open.

Although there was snow accumulated, Aunt Liu found the place after a little discernment.

The soil bag is about two meters high, with snow on the top and bricks on the side.

On the front of the grave stands an uncarved stone slab with two columns of characters, one large and one small, engraved on it.

[The tomb of the Hong Lin family in Jinhai City. 】

[Hong Jianli. 】

"Madam, the young master and I are here to see you!"

Aunt Liu smiled, snatched the cloth bag from Tang Daguo, and signaled the latter to sweep the snow.

"This is Mr. Tang, a horse breeder. You have met him before, and now he is living with me..."

When I was young, the grave was cleaned up, exposing the frozen ground.

Only then did she take out all the things she had prepared for a long time.

Joss candles, yellow paper, paper money, ingots...

Hong Fan stepped forward to help.

"Auntie, where is my mother from? Why is there no name engraved on the tombstone?"

He inexplicably felt empty in his heart and had to say something.

"My wife is from a farm outside Jinhai City, and my parents are also from the Hong family."

Aunt Liu replied.

The "Hong family" here obviously does not refer to the surname Hong, but the people who "belong" to the Hong family.

"As for the name, Madam doesn't seem to have a name."

She paused for a while, and said after thinking about it.

"I only heard her natal family call her Ke'er."

"No name..."

Hong Fan was startled, but not too surprised.

During this period of time, he often heard that there were many bandits outside the cities of Liangzhou, and the lives of ordinary people were sad.

It is normal for the daughter of a poor farm slave to not have a name.

"Grandfather and grandmother are still there?"

Hong Fan asked again.

When he said this, he couldn't help but feel a little guilty—not all of the inherited memories were on the one hand, and on the other hand, he had never cared about these after traveling for almost a year.

"The young master may have forgotten that they all left three or four years ago."

Aunt Liu was slightly taken aback when she heard the words, and replied.

"The countryside is no better than the mansion. It is not bad for a farmer to live past sixty."

She continued, her tone was neither sad nor happy, just ordinary.

The joss sticks were lit, and the three of them bowed to each other.

Then Aunt Liu knelt down in front of the tomb and lit the yellow paper with a candle.

It wasn't long before the flames lit up, her eyes were already red and she was chattering non-stop.

Listen carefully, it probably means that the young master is promising and has become a star king, but it's a pity you didn't see this, madam.

Hong Fan also knelt down beside him, trying to retrieve the inherited memories.

But he still couldn't remember Hong Lin's face. He only remembered that she still had a kind of fragile and gentle beauty when she was dying of illness.

That beauty has nothing to do with color, it is the mother's inseparable and endless attachment and concern for her child.

In the end, the traverser had no choice but to kowtow a few times honestly, expressing his gratitude for borrowing his son's identity.

The yellow paper was burned out quickly, and Aunt Liu began to burn the ingots that she had spent a long time folding.

"We moved to Asahiyuan, and life is very good now."

"There are two new servants in the courtyard, named Tao Hong and Liu Lu."

"Your servants have heard that the family has already discussed that you will be moved to the family tomb and added to the family tree!"

"It's all because of the young master."

"You can't even imagine that this matter was first brought up by the eldest lady..."

Hong Fan knelt aside, staring blankly at the snow-covered pines and cypresses and the white clouds in the sky.

He couldn't help but think of his parents in another world.

Maybe it's also the first day of the new year, maybe it's also a certain cemetery, or maybe it's also a cement grave of this size.

The only difference is that he lay in the grave turned into ashes, and two white-haired men burned paper outside.

Hong Fan resisted the wetness in his eyes, tried hard to think, to outline the picture of the past.

But after doing his best, what filled his heart was actually at a loss.

Childhood, school, work...

Most of the memories about the previous life have faded unconsciously.

Vividly in the purpose, but it is the past year.

Eat with Aunt Liu by the moonlight;

Defeat Jiang Youde on Anning Street;
Take a bath with Hong Fu in the well;

Counter charge in the sand sea;
Flying down from the cliff on Mount Tai;

The battle in Redduo Mountain...

It's only been nine months since time travel, but what happened is too substantial and profound.

The fire faded.

The wind rolled up the ashesy yellow paper ingots into the air.

Big Tang, who was kneeling on the other side, smiled and said loudly.

"The ashes are carried away by the wind, and they will go all the way to the sky; this means that the lady has received all the things we sent!"

Aunt Liu also laughed.

Hong Fan nodded numbly and stood up.

He looked at his aunt who kowtowed again after murmuring a few words, and Mr. Tang who was kneeling beside him, and suddenly had a thought in his heart.

[I am already a Dahua native, a member of the Hong clan of Dahua Jinhai City...]

[I became Hong Fan, and I can never go back. 】

Thinking about it, the ups and downs in my heart surged at the same time, reconciling the most intense sorrow and joy.

For the first time since crossing, he couldn't control his emotions, and he didn't want to control his emotions anymore, so he was forced to turn around and walk away.

To be a stranger in a foreign country alone, think of love every time during the festive season.

On the rock, Hong Fan stood with his fists clenched, his cheeks wet by the heat.

At this time, the mountain wind was blowing very strongly, but it avoided his tears.

After a long time.

The sacrificial fire was extinguished, leaving only a smoldering dark red on the paper ashes.

Aunt Liu and Mr. Tang packed up their things and got up, and when they turned around, they saw the young master standing alone on the top of the rock.

Standing extremely steady, looking very far.

Like a drifting seed, it has taken root in this land.

PS: These chapters are a bit more everyday and not in line with the traditional fantasy style.

But in fact, writing this kind of content requires adjusting emotions and crafting language, which takes a lot of effort.

Since the title of the first volume of this book is a stranger in a foreign land, the process of Hong Fan forming a bond with his second hometown as a time traveler is the meaning of the title, and it is the more important one among several main lines.

Readers who like to watch martial arts battles, pretending to be aggressive, please wait a moment, and immediately enter the next big plot.

(End of this chapter)