Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Because he had two children, Yu Qiutang was worried that it would be too cold, so he drove very slowly on the way back.

It took him four or five hours to drive the two hundred miles.

When I got home, it was already past three in the morning.

He originally thought that everyone in the old pit courtyard had gone to sleep, and wanted to send his sister and nephew to the new courtyard, but then he thought that there would be too many people there at night, and it would be a mess, and there would be no place to sleep there.

After dawn, it is the most critical day. There are still many things to do and I am very tired.

It’s better to stay home and have a good sleep.

Only then did he take his eldest sister back to the troglodyte courtyard.

When the car drove up, we saw a light in the yard of the troglodyte courtyard. When we turned the corner and looked down, we were surprised to find a hurricane-proof lantern hanging on the pear tree in the yard, and my father was making a coffin in the yard with his clothes on.

Sure enough, when my father came to open the door, I saw frost on his eyebrows, which showed that he had not rested at night.

"father."

Yu Chunxing greeted him, got out of the car, and held Yu Dejin's arm, "Dad, what are you doing..."

"Xing is back."

Yu Dejin pulled his arm out of his daughter's hand, staggered back to the coffin, and continued.

Yu Chunxing glanced at Yu Qiutang and asked in a low voice: "Dad...why does he seem to have aged a lot?"

Yu Qiutang originally wanted to ask if there was any, but then he thought that it might be because he saw his father all day long that he didn’t feel anything.

My eldest sister hasn't been back for a long time, and her concept of my father is still stuck in a few years ago, so she was naturally surprised to see him.'

"I'm not young anymore. I'm over 50."

With the help of Yu Chunxing, the two children were put down. Yu Chunxing asked the children to call grandpa, but the children hid behind her and did not dare to go forward to see.

They are young and their only concept of their grandfather is from their mother's words.

Suddenly seeing a stranger, I didn't have any feelings.

I just felt a strange fear.

Yu Chunxing had no choice but to hold the children's hands and walk to their father's side, asking them to call him again. Only then did the two children cautiously call out, "Grandpa."

Yu Dejin raised his head, glanced at the two children, his eyes softened slightly, nodded and said, "Good boy, Dadong and Xiaodong have grown up."

He also said that it was cold outside and asked Yu Chunxing to take the children back to their room quickly to prevent their faces from getting frozen.

Yu Chunxing agreed, and under the guidance of Yu Qiutang, she temporarily rested in Yu Chunmei's room.

The kang was not very hot, so Yu Qiutang offered to help them heat it up, but Yu Chunxing said she would do it herself. She used to do this kind of work every day, and now that she was back at her parents' home, she couldn't treat herself as a guest.

Yu Qiutang did not refuse.

After settling Yu Chunxing and the two children, he hesitated, sighed, and came to his father.

Seeing his father planing a piece of wood, he reached out to take it, "Dad, let me help you."

Yu Dejin was slightly startled, and did not give it to him. "You have been walking all night, go in and rest. You still have a lot of things to do during the day."

"You've been busy all night, so you'll be free during the day, right?"

"I'm used to it," Yu Dejin said, without stopping his work. "We have to finish it quickly. Your fourth uncle will be buried the day after tomorrow morning, and we will definitely need a coffin then."

Yu Qiutang nodded. "In fact, we can buy a ready-made coffin from the coffin shop. The people are gone, and we still..."

"I can do it, why should I buy someone else's? He didn't do much when he was alive. If I don't do anything now, there will be nothing I can do for him in the future."

Yu Qiutang thought that people were like this.

When we were alive, we never paid attention to the relationship between each other. Maybe we always thought that we didn’t care about it anyway.

It's too late to regret until the person suddenly dies.

But the person is gone, so there is no point in thinking so much. The dead don’t know anyway. The living are just doing it for other living people to see and to comfort themselves.

"I'd better help you."

"You go to sleep, I can come."

"I'd better help you. You don't know how old you are. If you are exhausted at this critical moment, it will not only cause trouble to everyone. We are already busy enough."

Yu Dejin was not angry at being "teased" by his son. When Yu Qiutang took the plane from him again, he did not object. He just reminded him to be more careful and make sure to grind the surface smoothly.

There are many taboos in making coffins.

The coffin lid must be extremely flat, without any bumps. It is said that after a person dies, their eyes cannot see the ground, and even a small pothole may be a natural barrier that prevents them from passing through.

Yu Dejin watched from the side for a few minutes and found that Yu Qiutang was doing a good job, so he felt relieved and started to do other things.

The father and son began to work in silence.

It's still very cold.

Fortunately, the area around the troglodyte courtyard is high and the wind is unlikely to blow directly to the west, otherwise my hands would be so cold that I wouldn’t be able to hold the planer.

Yu Qiutang put his hands to his mouth and blew on them several times. Sometimes he felt frozen, but every time he saw that his father seemed like a robot, unable to feel the cold, and always did his work seriously.

Let him not have any temper.

It was around five o'clock, before daybreak, when the light in her father's room was turned on. Then Chen Meidi opened the door and came out, looking at the two people working outside. After a few seconds, she went in, put on her clothes, and walked towards the kitchen.

About half an hour later, Chen Meidi stood at the door and shouted, "Boss, I'll cook some noodles for you. Come and heat them up to warm your body. Qiutang... come along too."

“Put it aside for now and eat it later,” said Yu Dejin.

"How much time can you waste eating noodles? If you eat before working, you will have more energy and be more efficient."

Seeing that the two hadn't come over, Chen Meidi came over with the bowls in her hand. She first gave one bowl to Yu Dejin, and then brought another bowl to Yu Qiutang: "Here."

"I'm not hungry……"

"Just eat it if I give it to you. I, your stepmother, will poison your bowl, right?"

Yu Qiutang wanted to say something, but Yu Dejin said calmly, "Eat something."

Yu Qiutang saw no point in continuing to worry about it, so he nodded and put the noodles into his mouth in three or two bites.

My father over there also ate very quickly.

Soon they both finished eating.

Chen Meidi came over again and took the empty bowl back.

This episode did not affect the rhythm of the two people, and they continued working for another two or three hours.

Until he didn't realize it, a ray of sunlight suddenly shone down from the edge of the cliff, just shining on the decoration of the coffin and reflected into Yu Qiutang's eyes. He rubbed his eyes and found that it was dawn.

He stood up straight and rubbed his sore waist, but saw his father carving the board head, his back still strong, as if he was a statue.

Yu Qiutang thought that his father had been doing this for several days.

Perhaps when the wood was delivered, he quickly got down to work and never rested.

No wonder Chen Meidi got up in the middle of the night to make noodles for dinner.

Yu Qiutang felt that he was not as able to endure hardship as his father.

He thinks he is a very hardworking person and can endure a lot of hardships, but compared to his father, he is still far behind.

Fortunately, with the advancement of science and technology, people's living standards have improved. They don't necessarily have to rely on physical strength, but there are many ways to save energy. Otherwise, his life would not be better than his father's.

Praising hardship is undoubtedly a way of thinking that is inconsistent with the popular ideology in later generations, but in this era of underdeveloped scientific and technological civilization, apart from some ways to make money without any source of income, hard work may be the only way to change your life and live a happy life.

While his father went to the toilet, Yu Qiutang sat down against the wall to rest.

At this time Yu Qiushi came out and stood by the seepage pit to urinate. After he finished, he turned around and saw Yu Qiutang leaning against the window with a tired look on his face, so he walked over and squatted beside him.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"What do you say?"

Yu Qiutang said unhappily.

The same son, when he was the same age as Yu Qiushi, had to understand a lot of things and do a lot of work, but Yu Qiushi didn't like to work or study, he just wanted to play. The key is that he was spoiled by someone.

Yu Qiushi pointed at the coffin and said, "Dad is making it. He didn't ask you to do it."

"If you die, I will do it for you." Yu Qiutang didn't like Yu Qiushi's indifferent look.

When Fourth Uncle passed away, everyone was immersed in grief, except this guy, who seemed to not care.

"That's not necessary. If I die, just get me a rotten coffin and bury me in the ground. I'm already dead, why would I need such a nice coffin? Can I eat it?"

Yu Qiutang was slightly stunned. This child actually had such a view on life and death.

Also.

Perhaps it was because he did not take life and death seriously enough that he did such foolish things in his previous life.

He had been thinking that if his younger brother could be guided, he should give him some guidance.

After all, they are brothers.

That natural emotion made it impossible for him to ignore Yu Qiushi even though he clearly didn't like him.

He thought for a moment and said, "Maybe when people live, whether passively or actively, they carry the expectations and emotional sustenance of others."

"What? I don't understand."

"It's very simple. Let me ask you, do you feel sorry for your mother?"

"What's your mentality? You just know how to beat me every day." Yu Qiushi said unhappily.

Yu Qiutang looked at him.

Yu Qiushi felt a little weak, so he could only say helplessly, "I feel bad, okay?"

"What about our father?"

"Forget it."

"Where are the sisters?"

"This... counts as well."

"what about me?"

"you?"

Yu Qiushi seemed a little hesitant at this time, thought for a moment and said, "I don't know."

When Yu Qiutang heard this, he did not show any dissatisfaction, but instead smiled slightly.

This child, being able to say such things, at least shows that he still has one good quality that has not been completely destroyed, that is, honesty.

"What if I suddenly die?"

"How could you possibly die?"

Yu Qiushi answered quickly, his voice rising several decibels.

He barely thought about it before these words came out of his subconscious mind, and he didn't intend to say anything else to cover up his true meaning.

"Why not? Look at our fourth uncle. When he died, was there any sign? Nothing at all, right?"

"How can he be the same? He found it himself..."

Yu Qiutang covered his mouth with his hand.

Yu Qiushi also felt that his words were too rude and looked a little regretful.

"You're not my fourth uncle, you wouldn't do that."

Yu Qiutang nodded, "That's what you say, but God takes people away, either by this or that. What if there's an accident?"

"Accident?"

Yu Qiushi sat on the doorstep, chin in hand, lost in thought.

Until Yu Dejin came back and Yu Chunxing and the children got up, Yu Qiushi was still sitting on the doorstep watching the two of them making the coffin, without fully understanding this principle.

"Dad, what time will you be there?"

It was past 8 o'clock in the morning and Yu Qiutang could no longer continue working here as there was still a lot of work to do over there.

Yu Dejin looked at his men's coffins, thought for a moment and said, "In the afternoon, it will be almost done."

"Okay, then come over."

Yu Qiutang was about to leave with Yu Chunxing and the two children, but Yu Qiushi followed behind and said he would take him with him.

Yu Qiutang asked him if he had said before that he would not go to help, and Yu Qiushi said that he wanted to go and take a look again.

Yu Qiutang did not refuse either.

Everyone who has attended a loved one’s funeral will grow a lot.

Facing death, the inevitable destination for all, only by facing it squarely can we find the meaning and joy of life.

We brought them to the new hospital together.

As soon as I walked out of the alley, I heard melodious funeral music, echoing throughout the village.

The sound of suona is very penetrating, and the vast land of the Northwest adds infinite vitality to this instrument.

There is no need to go and ask specifically to find out who is having a funeral in the village. Just stand on any village road and listen carefully, and the wind will bring the sound of the suona over.

When Yu Qiutang's car drove to the south, he saw from afar a rope tied to a tall catalpa tree in front of his yard, with flags of various colors and shapes hanging on the rope.

Some are round, some are octagonal, some are several meters long, and some are very thick.

Blown by the northwest wind, they look like rising kites.

His car was parked in front of Yu Qiujiang's blacksmith shop.

This place has temporarily become a transit station for relatives today. Relatives from all over the place who come here will temporarily make adjustments before entering the funeral site.

The so-called adjustment is just wearing mourning shoes.

This is a very complicated process.

Generally speaking, filial piety here is divided into six levels, and the different levels of filial piety can be seen at a glance through the mourning clothes.

The first type is children and daughters-in-law, who are dressed in mourning clothes that drag on the ground for a long time.

Full body mourning is also called heavy mourning.

The mourning hat on the head should have a front brim that can be lowered to cover the eyes.

The mourning hat should be followed by a mourning belt that is at least two or three meters long.

The mourning gown is also very long, covering the feet directly, and the mourning shoes on the feet must be completely wrapped with white cloth.

From a distance, people in mourning appear to be completely covered in white.

Wherever this kind of person went that day, he received extra care, because everyone could see at a glance that he must be very sad because of the death of his loved one.

Apart from heavy mourning, the second best is half-life mourning.

That is, there is a mourning hat on the upper body, a mourning jacket on the upper body, and half of the white shoes are dyed at the bottom.

These people usually include brothers and sisters, sons-in-law, nephews, grandchildren, etc., who can also be considered relatives.

The third type is the mourning hat, which is worn by grandchildren and nephews.

The fourth category is red mourning clothes, which refers to great-grandsons.

The fifth class is yellow mourning clothes, for the sons of the great-grandsons...

There is also a last type, which is another white flower. This type is for elders, such as parents burying their children.

When someone dies, neighbors will prepare mourning clothes themselves, while for relatives from outside, someone will be arranged to distribute the mourning clothes, such as someone from the uncle's family.

The one who is in charge of distributing mourning clothes today is the third sister. (End of this chapter)