Tomb Keeper

Chapter 6 Colleagues in the Cemetery (1)

I can stay in Xitu Cemetery, which proves that I do have super strong psychological endurance and strong will.I think back when I joined the army, after three months of devil training, the head of the army was able to send me to the special forces unit, which means I took a fancy to my quality. As an ordinary reporter, but, what I am doing now, can an ordinary reporter do?

Now, Ye Zi and I are sitting in the main room.Yang Huzi took other people to the cemetery, Zhou's mother also went to Xihe Town to buy vegetables, the whole small building and yard seemed very empty.

Ye Zi said, let me introduce you to the work of the storage room.I got up and followed her into the small room on the side of the main room.She pointed to the two porcelain pots and a wooden box on the wooden shelf and said to me, these are the ashes of three people, and the family of the bereaved has kept them here for several days, because the date of burial has to be chosen, do you understand this?I could only nod my head half-understanding.She suddenly smiled strangely and said, do you want to see human ashes?Before I could answer, she had already lifted the lid of a porcelain jar. I could only move my face closer and saw a jar of gray-white bones of various shapes.She said, don't touch these things, they are all crispy, and they will fall apart when you touch them.I continued to nod, thinking this is nonsense, I would never touch these bones.She opened a folder on the table and said to me, look, there are registrations for the family members of the deceased, and when they come to collect the ashes for burial, the family members must sign here.After she finished speaking, she turned around again, pointed to half of the funeral supplies in the room, and said, these wax paper money, cannons, and spirit banners, etc., the price list is posted on the wall, and if someone buys it, you can just sell it according to the price.

After introducing the work of the storage room, Ye Zi and I went back to the main room and sat down.From the open door, you can see the entire yard and the gate, and the black cat is basking in the sun with its belly up on the steps.Ye Zi glanced at the courtyard gate and said, if someone comes to buy a cemetery, they have to take them to choose.The cemetery here is divided into two parts, the front mountain and the back mountain.You have to gradually become familiar with these.

Although Ye Zi talked as if she was doing something routine, her voice was pleasant and her eyes were clear.Especially when she opened the urn for me to see, I seemed to smell a fragrance.There is no such smell in the jar, I think the incense is wafting from her sleeve.The woman in the scarlet pajamas in the attic last night appeared in front of my eyes, and the leaf in front of me was already dressed up by a girl next door in a mountainous place.The combination of those two images made me dizzy, and every time I looked up at her, my heart skipped a beat, oh my god, I might be in love with her.

I asked, how long have you been here?She said it was more than a year.Where do you live?In the mountains, more than 100 miles away from here.She said that the mountains are very poor, and young people have come out to work.She also came out, but it was hard to find a job.Here, food and housing are in charge, and there is still a monthly salary of 800 yuan, which is not bad.I said you are not afraid here?She glanced at me and said, afraid?What are you afraid of, afraid of death, afraid of ghosts... She giggled as she spoke. The laughter was very lively and youthful, and I felt a vivid breath of life rushing towards my face.

Yes, I am in love with her.While she may have been a dignified woman who had died and possessed a country woman (goodness, how could I have judged that), that's what made her so magical.To tell the truth, a female reporter in a newspaper office has shown her kindness to me, but I am not interested in ordinary people and things, including love.

My eyes stayed on Ye Zi's face longer and longer, she seemed to notice something, she lowered her eyes and said, you want to become a monk just because your girlfriend died, there are not many such men.I felt a "thump" in my heart, I don't know if she affirmed me or reminded me not to change my mind.After a while, she asked, how long have you known each other?I said, very short, I fell in love with her the moment she died.After saying this, I saw a surprised light flash in Ye Zi's eyes, and she said, from this point of view, you and her are a bit like a ghost.I said "um", feeling that what she said was testing whether I could really fall in love with her, so I confessed that love can transcend life and death.

After saying this, I was also a little moved in my heart, but Ye Zi didn't answer.After a few minutes of silence, she suddenly yawned and said, I'm sleepy and want to go upstairs to sleep for a while.If anyone comes to work, you go upstairs and call me.

That's all.Yang Huzi once said that Ye Zi doesn't sleep at night and can't wake up during the day. It seems that this is her habit.

After Ye Zi went upstairs, the main room seemed a little more empty.There is incense smoke wafting from the incense bowl above the main room, and there is a solemn atmosphere in the air.Suddenly, I saw two people appearing at the gate of the courtyard. It was a peasant woman leading a little boy.They didn't step into the courtyard gate, but just looked in from the gate. The peasant woman bent down and pointed to the house in the courtyard to the child, as if talking about something.I immediately walked out, wanting to ask if they were going to buy a cemetery.However, when I just walked into the yard, the mother and son turned around and left.I quickly chased to the gate of the courtyard, and when I looked up, there was no one there.Outside the gate of the courtyard is a long stone ladder. I counted it when I came here, and there are 144 steps in total.Below the stone ladder is a large open space with weeds, which is used for parking for people who come to bury or do business.In any case, it is impossible for the mother and son to disappear here in such a short period of time.I stood blankly at the gate of the courtyard, feeling that I had fallen deeply into a place beyond the imagination of the world.

For some reason, I have been standing numbly at the gate of the courtyard, as if I could not move.There is a blank in my mind.After an unknown amount of time, Yang Huzi came up the stone steps step by step.I said, you are back, he nodded to me with his bearded chin, and then said cursingly, there was another tombstone broken in two in the cemetery.Damn it, I don’t know if someone damaged it, or the stone materials provided by the stonemason were too bad, so we had to make a new tombstone and replace it, otherwise, the management office would not be able to explain it if the family members saw it when they came to sweep the tomb.

After Yang Huzi said these words, he looked at me again and said, what's wrong with you, there is no blood on your face.I told him what happened at the gate of this courtyard just now.Yang Huzi was shocked. I haven't seen such a frightened expression on his face since I came here. However, he is an old gravekeeper after all. After walking through the yard, he has calmed down.He turned around and said to me who was walking behind him, it was nothing, they might have walked close to the side wall.People who live nearby sometimes come here to take a look.

After a while, Zhou's mother, who went to buy vegetables in Xihe Town, also came back.She was too fat, and she was sweating profusely when she walked, and even the clothes on her back were wet.Seeing that the sun was already at its peak, she made lunch immediately without taking a break.As soon as the meal was ready, Dumb and Poet Feng also came back from the cemetery. Yang Huzi asked, how is the situation in the back mountain?Poet Feng said in a very low voice that everything is normal.Zhou's mother had already arrived in the yard, she raised her head and called upstairs, Ye Zi, it's time to eat.Ye Zi came down from upstairs sleepily, and covered her forehead with her hands when she walked into the yard, saying that the sun was too dazzling.

There are three dishes for lunch, fried pork with bamboo shoots, boiled vegetables and braised pork blood.At the dinner table, I found out that Zhou Ma, Yang Huzi and I liked to eat the first two dishes, while Ye Zi, Dumb and Feng Shishi only ate pig blood.While eating the purple-red lump, they said it tasted so good, and even the gentle-looking leaves felt a little scrambled when they moved their chopsticks.The more I ate the meal, the more panicked I became, because I remembered the vampires in the movies. Of course those stories were fabricated, but the scene I saw was an inexplicable fact.

(End of this chapter)