Tomb Keeper

Chapter 17 Reconciliation with the Village Chief (4)

The woman started talking about the child's past on the phone.At this time, I saw Zihua arguing with the staff at the counter.This time I plugged my other ear with my finger to keep my mind off the phone.In this way, the dispute between Zihua and the staff was almost a pantomime for me. I saw the staff return the receipt to Zihua, and Zihua threw the receipt into the counter again. curse.Two other staff came out of the counter and persuaded Zihua to the door.When Zihua was about to go out, she turned her head and yelled a few words, then left, and the post office returned to calm.

At this time, the woman on the phone was talking about her child's past.These things are of little value to me, it's all about how the child is obedient and sensible.The dispute in the post office just now disturbed my thinking, but now that it is quiet, my thinking quickly turns.I said, we take great care of your child's tomb, especially Yang Huzi, you know him, he also takes great care of this tomb.

I started to use firepower reconnaissance.After hearing my words, the other party surprisingly didn't react at all, and just let out a calm "oh".

This kind of calm is in contrast to the intense emotions during the call. What this means, I can't guess at the moment.I was about to chat with her for a while, but she said, well, the old man woke up from his afternoon nap, thank you for your concern.I'll meet and thank you when I come to visit the grave.After speaking, she hung up the phone.

I dreamed about the crash site again.I picked up the girl and couldn't resist brushing her long, messy hair before putting her in a body bag.Suddenly, the corner of the girl's bloody mouth was moving, and I immediately put my ear to her lips, and heard her saying intermittently, "You want to guard my grave."After speaking, she swallowed her last breath.I looked at her delicate face and found that the dead girl was Ye Zi.

I woke up.The first half of this dream is my real experience when I was a soldier, and the second half, when the girl spoke and turned into a leaf, is completely a dream creation.I stroked my chest on the dark bed, and realized that the reason why I had such a dream must have something to do with the purple flowers I saw in Xihe Town.Because Zihua told me that when Ye Zi stayed with her for the first time more than a year ago, she told Zihua that she was traveling.And the girl I picked up at the scene of the plane crash when I was a soldier was also dressed as a tourist.

Yesterday afternoon, when I came out from the town post office to look for purple flowers, I was not in the least afraid.This is because I have stayed in the graveyard for a long time, and I have become numb to the soul of life and death.I first crossed the street and asked the one-eyed owner of the small restaurant. The owner already recognized me and was naturally very enthusiastic.He said, there are three women named Zihua in this town, which one are you asking?I said the one who quarreled in the opposite post office just now.The one-eyed boss said, oh, I saw that this Zihua, surnamed Xie, opened a restaurant and hotel with her elder brother and sister-in-law in the west of the town.What, do you know her?I nodded yes, then stepped out the door and went straight to the west end of the town.I felt relieved for a while, because I understood what happened to the mourning hall I saw Zihua in this town.This purple flower is not that purple flower.However, I only met her in the car, why did she call the cemetery to find me in the middle of the night?
Sure enough, there is a restaurant at the west end of the town.The first floor and the ground floor of the house, the upstairs is probably the guest's room.I walked into the store, and a woman in an apron came up to me and said, what would you like to eat?I said I was looking for Zihua, and she sized me up, do you know each other?I say yes.She pointed to the back door and said that she was cooking in the backyard.

Zihua didn't recognize me right away.After I told what happened in the car, she suddenly realized.She told me to sit down, and said, brother, you have changed. The last time I saw you, your face was very rosy, but now there is no blood at all.Next, she was baffled that I was a grave keeper.She said, I asked you to stay in the town after seeing your girlfriend's tomb, why did you stay there, did Yang Huzi play some trick on you?You don't know, it's hard for them to recruit gravekeepers.Yang Huzi once came to the town and told us that he would give [-] yuan as an introduction fee to anyone who introduced him to a grave keeper.

I pretended to sigh heavily, imitating Poet Feng's thoughts and said, cough, after seeing my girlfriend's grave, I feel that life is boring, and I should stay in the graveyard to accompany her in my life.Yang Huzi and the others didn't play any tricks on me, I stayed there voluntarily.

Zihua's eye circles turned red immediately, and she said, there are not many men like you left.She went on to talk about her husband who was working outside, and at first he sent some money back, and even bought clothes in the city and sent them to her, but then there was no news.It has been more than two years and there is no news.My sister-in-law guessed that he was hooked by a woman outside.Alas, women these days are getting worse than the other, I hate them to death.It would be best to get all these bad women to you to be grave guards.

Zihua's hatred for women shocked me.I suddenly thought of Zihua. Not only did she know Zihua, but she also spoke like a friend.I said, Ye Zi, our gravekeeper, is not a bad woman.

Zi Hua immediately stuck out her tongue, leaned close to me and said in a low voice, Ye Zi is a person possessed by ghosts, don't talk about her casually.She came here, we all treat her well, just to not provoke her.

I shook my head at Zihua, expressing that I didn't understand what she said.

Zihua said, more than a year ago, in the middle of the night, we had closed the door, and a woman knocked on the door suddenly and said she wanted to stay. This person was Ye Zi.The next day Ye Zi came downstairs for dinner, and Zi Hua chatted with her, and she said that she was traveling.Zihua said that we have nothing interesting here.Ye Zi said that she likes this kind of small town.But the strange thing is that Ye Zi stayed here for three nights, and she didn't go around town every day, except when she came downstairs to eat, she stayed in the room for the rest of the time.Zihua went into the house to check, but she only chatted with Zihua.When she heard that Zihua was illiterate, she wondered how could you be illiterate at such a young age.Zihua said that when she was a child, her family favored boys over girls and never sent her to school.Ye Zi taught her to write her name.On the third night, I saw Ye Zi in the room before going to bed, but early the next morning, the room was empty. I think Ye Zi left before dawn.Both Zihua and her elder brother and sister-in-law were puzzled and terrified by this person.Especially after knowing that she has been a gravekeeper on the cemetery not far from here, when Zihua came to town again, Zihua had no choice but to receive her respectfully.

Zihua's narration brought me one step closer to figuring out Ye Zi's real experience.At least, my judgment that she didn't come out of the mountains to work is correct.

Zihua was sorting a large basket of wild vegetables while talking.She said that wild vegetables are the most popular among customers now.I asked what this wild vegetable was called, and she said it was called yellow mustard.Do you see, the whiskers on the tip of this vegetable are yellow.There is also a kind with purple-red beards, so it cannot be eaten because it is poisonous.Although people will not die if they eat it, they will become stupid.

I said "oh", knowing that there is such a danger hidden in wild vegetables.I suddenly remembered that Zihua called me in the cemetery in the middle of the night, so I asked her, but she said in surprise, how is that possible?I wouldn't make that kind of call.I'm skeptical about Zihua's denial. Only ghosts know what happened to that phone call.

After chatting for about half an hour, Zihua suddenly realized and asked, are you here today for dinner or for accommodation?

Only then did I realize that my motivation for coming here was really puzzling, so I hurriedly said, I will definitely come for food or accommodation when needed in the future.I came here today because I just saw you arguing with someone at the post office. I don't know what happened, so I came here to care.

Zihua said, you are a kind person.The people at the post office are so unreasonable.I took the package slip from my husband to pick up the package and they just wouldn't pick it up for me.Did you see those women at the counter of the post office, well-dressed, but very bad.

I wondered, how could they not pick up the package for you?Show me the package slip.

Zihua took out the receipt from her pocket and handed it to me. I saw that it was not a package receipt, but a receipt for electricity bill payment.

I said, this is not...

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, Zihua took my words and said loudly, what's wrong?You also said no, you all lied to me, is there any fair person in Xihe Town?
Zihua's voice alarmed the outside, the woman wearing a white apron walked into the backyard, she said to Zihua, sister, what's wrong with you?Yelling at guests.

Then I said to the woman, sister-in-law, her parcel list...

The woman said don't say it, don't say it, and winked at me to imply that I avoided it.

Zihua was still angry, pointed at me and said, you go, you are in the same group as the post office.

When I walked out of the restaurant, I thought, Zihua's husband hadn't heard from her for two years, and Zihua hoped that he was confused, but it was nothing, after a while, she would be sober.

I went back to the cemetery.Lying on the bed at night, thinking of Zi Hua, thinking of Ye Zi, who spent three nights inexplicably upstairs in that restaurant more than a year ago, the eve before he came to be a gravekeeper; thinking of the weeping mother, the child's grave, and Yang Huzi's fear , my mind was in turmoil.There are many things in the world that you think are simple when you don’t explore them, but if you want to go deep into them, or even go back to the source, you will find that your courage and intelligence are actually very limited.

I fell asleep in a daze, and then had a dream about the scene of the plane crash.After waking up, I lay in a trance in the dark for a while. Suddenly, there was a strong knock on the courtyard door.

Maybe the knock on the door was too urgent, so I instinctively ran downstairs, and when I was standing in the yard, I suddenly remembered Yang Huzi's warning: Never open the door if someone knocks at night.

I was at a loss, and Ye Zi had already run downstairs.Immediately afterwards, Poet Feng and the mute also came to the yard.Zhou's mother opened the door, but she just stood at the door and did not go into the yard.

The knocking on the door didn't stop, and there was a roar of "open the door, open the door".In the dark, the leaf is already close to me, and I think she seems to be trembling.I suddenly had the courage, and shouted loudly to the door, who is it?The voice outside the door replied, save someone quickly!We work in a cement prefabrication plant, and someone had an accident on the cemetery.

I was hesitating when Ye Zi walked over and opened the courtyard door, obviously she was not afraid all of a sudden.

Several people stood outside the door.One of them said, "Qiangwazi in our factory was calling for help on the cemetery just now, and we called him at the foot of the mountain, but he didn't respond again.We want to go up the mountain to see it, but we are not familiar with the situation on the mountain, so we would like to ask you to lead the way.

Ye Zi said helplessly, let's go, I will take you there.It seems that Ye Zi really has no fear of the graveyard.I took a step forward and said, I will go too.

A group of people marched up the mountain, and several beams of flashlights intersected among the graves, like searchlights.While walking, a young man with a crew cut was talking about the reason for this disaster.

It turned out that since the second brother Luo went to sleep on the grave in the middle of the night, the young people in the factory started talking about it.Whoever dares to go, I will give him a bonus of [-] yuan as the factory manager.So, Qiang Wazi went to the graveyard tonight.In order to prove that he was indeed staying on the cemetery, we observed at the foot of the mountain, and agreed that every once in a while, he had to flash the flashlight to the foot of the mountain a few times.Everything was normal at first, but then the flashlight didn't light up all the time, and later, he heard the voice of him yelling for help floating in the wind.We were anxious to call him at the foot of the mountain, but there was no movement on the mountain after that.

What happened that night made my hair stand on end.When we found Qiangwazi in a cemetery, he was unconscious. After shaking and shouting for a long time, he woke up. In the flashlight, I saw that there was no blood on his face. He said, Like Director Luo, he drank a lot of wine before going up the mountain.After going up the mountain, I started to flash the flashlight down the mountain, and then fell asleep.In a daze, he felt that his nose was itching badly, so he instinctively shook his hand in front of his face and rubbed his nose.However, the nose soon began to itch again.He opened his eyes and saw a child of seven or eight squatting beside him, scratching his nostrils with a blade of grass.At that moment, before Qiang Wazi fully woke up, he asked, who are you?The child's hands stopped moving immediately in the air, his whole body was stiff, there was no blackness in his eyes, but the whites of his eyes, and the corners of both mouths were bleeding at the same time... After Qiang Wazi yelled for help, he didn't know anything .

After coming down from the mountain that night, I suffered from insomnia.It was morning when I got up the next day, and when I went downstairs, I saw Second Brother Luo sitting face to face with Ye Zi in the main room.Seeing me coming in, Brother Luo got up to greet me and said, I am here to apologize on behalf of the factory.Sorry to disturb you last night.

(End of this chapter)