monument

Chapter 1 Monument ([-])

My grandfather was a stonemason, or more precisely, a stele carver.

Many people know about Fengshui masters and fortune tellers, but it may be the first time that the stele carver has heard of it. After all, he is a craftsman with a mediocre mouth and not so famous.

As long as the first two mention it, everyone knows that there are five disadvantages and three shortcomings, and the person who carves the stele is much better. At most, there is no male in the family.

My mother is the youngest in the family, with two older sisters and one older brother.

I heard from my mother that my grandfather learned the craft from a lonely old man on the mountain. After several months of learning, when my grandfather returned from his studies, my uncle was stoned to death that afternoon.

After my uncle died, there was no male in my grandfather’s family, so I left my second daughter and recruited a son-in-law, that is, my second uncle.

Within a year, my second aunt became pregnant and gave birth to a pair of twins. Unfortunately, the male fetus in the twins was stillborn.

I heard from my mother that my second aunt cried for several days and lost weight. This is why my second cousin named her only daughter Shuangmeier.

For our two children, the older one is called Da Shuang'er, and the younger one is called Xiao Shuang'er.

I was born in 95, and my dad's hometown is close to my grandpa's house, so I went to my grandpa's house to play during the holidays, and became my grandpa's favorite granddaughter.

During my summer vacation when I was 3 years old, a young couple approached my grandfather.

The man is tall and handsome, and the woman is delicate and beautiful, but they all look sad, but I don't care, my attention is attracted by the bags in their hands.

Generally, people who come to my grandfather for business will bring a lot of delicious food, and most of these delicious food also enter my stomach.

At the time I thought they were goodies in the bag.

"Old Pan, what about eating?"

It was the village party secretary who brought them here, and it happened to be meal time, and my grandparents and I were having dinner.

"Yeah, have you eaten? Have some?" Grandpa was kind to others, standing up and beckoning them to eat together.

The village party secretary waved his hands again and again, directly stated his intention of coming, and pointed to the couple behind him.

As soon as grandpa looked over, the couple knelt on the ground, and the sound of the kneecaps touching the ground was real.

"What is this for! It's been too long! Get up!"

Grandpa hurriedly pulled the two of them up, and grandma followed suit.

While they weren't paying attention, I walked off the table, moved aside, and hooked the tonic bags they brought.

The bag was placed on the stool, and when it was hooked, it fell over, and the contents inside fell out, bright red, scattered in bundles all over the floor.

Everyone was stunned for a moment.

The village party secretary had also seen the big scene, he smiled and smoothed things over, and then packed back stacks of red notes.

Grandpa was silent for a while, and agreed to them.

The husband and wife bowed excitedly, left their contact information, and agreed on a time and address before they left.

Colorful supplement bags were left on the stool.

As soon as they left, grandma began to scold, "Isn't it enough to feed you for a day? Look at the family who carved a monument after the child died? Can this be done? You will be punished!"

I don’t know if it’s only our side that has this custom. Children who die young have the purest souls and cannot engrave steles, which will make them linger in the world and prevent them from reincarnating properly.

It was only later that I inherited my grandfather’s mantle that I realized that the inscription on the stele is also an inscription for the dead, and the tombstone is a door leading to the Hall of Yama.

After death, the soul does not leave immediately, but has to wait for seven days. On the seventh day, the soul will wake up, but it will forget the things in life, and will not remember until seeing the tombstone, and then go home to see the family. People take one last look, and then go to Yan Luo Hall through the tombstone, which is called the first seven among the people.

But children who died prematurely are special. A stele is engraved on the child who died prematurely. After the child goes home and reads it, if he feels happy in his heart, he may be reborn in this family.

It's just that no one can guarantee whether the reincarnation is fate or debt.

"I've been engraving it for decades, so there's nothing wrong with it? Retribution? What kind of retribution can there be? What's wrong? Do you think that what happened back then is my retribution?"

Pan Xiangqian was my uncle who died. He was only 16 years old when he died.

Hearing this, grandma fell silent. She silently packed up the dishes and went back to the kitchen, her back looking a little lonely.

It must be thinking of my uncle being sad.

Early the next morning, before dawn, my grandfather took his tools and went out.

Five days later, grandpa came back, but he was carried back.

"Sister-in-law, we also went to the city hospital. Let's bring him back. It's hopeless." The village party secretary also had a guilty expression on his face.

I was still carving a stele on the mountain, but who knew that I fell down when I was going down the mountain. The place didn't look very high, so how could I have a cerebral hemorrhage?

I watched grandpa lying on the bed with his eyes closed tightly, his face turned black and red, and his lips were pale.

The two aunts took my mother to wipe away tears.

Grandma was the calmest one, and immediately asked my cousin to ride a motorcycle to find a man named Liao Laosan in the next village.

After Liao Lao San came over, he just lifted my grandfather's eyelids and asked my grandmother to prepare a big cock, and then removed the Sanqing stone statue enshrined in the main room, leaving only an empty wall and the incense burner on the stage, He himself walked into a guest room and came out in a gray robe.

Everyone stood outside the main room, and I took advantage of the small size to walk up to grandma's arm and the gate, and watched that Liao Laosan was dancing around with a copper coin sword in the main room as if he was drunk.

Although there are steps under his feet that I can't understand, they are full of wind every step of the way.

After walking for a while, he grabbed the big rooster on the ground like a gust of wind, broke its neck, and poured all the chicken blood into the white porcelain bowl next to it.

Turning around, he picked up the most beautiful feather on the rooster's tail with the copper sword, stained the blood in the bowl, and stuck it to the empty wall where the stone statue of Sanqing was originally enshrined.

"You feed him this bowl of chicken blood."

Grandma took the bowl of chicken blood and went to the back room.

"Aren't you afraid?" Liao Laosan patted my head with a smile.

"What's so scary about killing a chicken?"

I was not afraid of tigers when I was a newborn calf. I didn’t know that Liao Laosan was doing something wrong. He exchanged my grandfather’s life with a big rooster. Thirteen years have passed, and the feather of the big rooster is still firmly stuck to the wall.

The day after drinking the chicken blood, my grandfather woke up, but only half of his body could move.

Uncle Liao said that his life was saved, but Grandpa's body will no longer be as strong as before, let alone engrave a stele.

From then on, my grandfather washed his hands in the golden basin and lived a life of raising chickens and ducks every day.

In the spring 14 years later, another person approached my grandfather and asked him to come out of the mountain to carve a stele for the soul.

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(End of this chapter)