Chapter 19 fourth quarter

In the winter of the second year after my aunt came to Ping'an County, one morning, my grandmother, who was exhausted by anxiety and illness, suddenly became refreshed. She spoke and said that she wanted to eat elbow noodles (饧面). Walk around the yard. The grandmother, who has been bedridden for a long time, seems to have some energy at last, and the whole family is happy for her. My father found out the meat coupons he had accumulated for half a year, and went to the butcher shop to buy a fat hind leg of pig.I went to the non-staple food store and bought two catties of candied dates that my grandmother usually likes to eat.Mother was busy all morning, she was in the kitchen sauce elbow, noodles, fried sunflower seeds, making the house like a festival.

Accompanied by her grandfather and aunt, her grandmother walked around the house. She was leaning on a cane, and the crutches struck the ground stiffened by the long winter. On the other side, from the living room to the side room, from the side room to the firewood room——like a newcomer, she looked around the yard with eyes full of novelty. At lunch, my mother placed a plate of thinly sliced, somewhat translucent sauced elbows in the center of the table, with a few side dishes around the plate: fried diced pork with potherb mustard, salted eggs, hot and sour cabbage, and dried spiced tofu.

Grandma ate a big bowl of elbow noodles.Grandma's teeth fell out one after another during the year she was seriously ill, and she swallowed the noodles whole.However, she had a very delicious lunch that day.She poured a thick marinade on the white and firm ramen, and she asked Luo Yang to peel a head of garlic for her as she never ate raw garlic before.Because she has no teeth, her mother crushed garlic into mashed garlic and placed it in front of her. The lunch that seemed a bit extravagant at that time made the whole family full of interest. The grandfather who hadn't drunk alcohol for many years let his father drink two cups of wine with him.While eating and chatting, everyone generally believed that grandma's illness was about to recover, and at most she would recover by the beginning of spring.

After lunch, my grandmother asked my mother to boil hot water and put a large wooden basin next to the stove. She didn't want her mother's help, so she sat in the wooden basin, took a bath, and put on clean clothes.Then she went back to the house where she and Royan lived, never came out again, and didn't eat dinner. At night, the clean and refreshed grandmother sat cross-legged on the kang, not moving or speaking.Her suddenly revived spirit gradually became fatigued during the meditation. The whole family came in to see grandma.Her mother brought her a pot of hot tea and a plate of fried sunflower seeds.However, the grandmother didn't pay attention to anyone, and didn't eat the food brought by her mother, but said that she was going to rest.The family had no choice but to retreat.Only Luo Yang was always by her grandmother's side.He ate the plate of sunflower seeds for her, but did not drink tea.The teapot gradually cooled down from steaming hot, and finally left cold on the table in the corner, just like the cold face of the grandmother.

When it was time to go to bed, Royan quieted down, nestled next to his grandmother, and slowly closed his eyes. But the grandmother regained her spirits. She stroked Luo Yang's head and said suddenly: "When I die, you will give me a cow's nose, remember?" Luo Yang suddenly opened his eyes wide, looked suspiciously at his grandmother's face suddenly glowing with anger, and nodded blankly. Grandma said again: "Tell your mother, you need to use leavened dough to make my Niubi, and then put a little white sugar. I don't want that kind of dead dough with saccharin."

Luo Yang still nodded blankly. Grandma let out a sigh of relief.She said softly: "I will save all the candied dates that your father respected me for you. You can eat them slowly in the future!" However, the little Luo Yang was so sleepy that he couldn't open his eyes, and his stomach was already full because of the big plate of fried sunflower seeds. At that time, he didn't want to eat candied dates at all. Grandma stopped talking and lay down next to Rojan who was already asleep. That night, grandma didn't take off her clothes or turn off the lights when she went to sleep.She was fully dressed and went to sleep, and the dim light shrouded her cold, sallow face and thin and stiff body, making the atmosphere a little frightening.But Luo Yang, who was entangled by drowsiness, fell asleep in his dream before he had time to be afraid. The dream at the beginning was fragmented and messy, and he couldn't piece together a complete picture; later he dreamed of the white snowy field And the grandmother wandering in the snowy field, a group of people in white clothes played a strange music behind the grandmother.Then Luo Yang woke up, as if awakened by the strange music.

Waking up in the middle of the night, Luo Yang saw his grandmother's head resting limply on the edge of the kang in the dimness and ignorance.After a jolt, he woke up completely, and then he boldly stretched out his hands and pushed the grandmother who was drooping on the edge of the kang.The grandmother with her eyes closed could only breathe out but not breathe in.Luo Yang was so frightened that he burst into tears. Later, whenever Luo Yang thought of the days when his grandmother lived with him, thought of her weak and shabby figure like a dead tree branch, thought of her protracted coughing and panting, he suddenly understood the reason why she moved into the east wing to live with him. The real intention.In the last days of her grandmother, she probably believed that only the five-year-old Luo Yang was her relative-the most reliable relative who would never leave her.It was Luo Yang who watched her stop breathing by his grandmother's side, and it could be regarded as his last filial piety to her.This should be exactly what grandma had in mind.

Faced with the death of their grandmother, the whole family did not show too much grief. They seemed to have expected this day.The next step is to conduct the funeral in a well-regulated and orderly manner. Grandma's funeral was held in a grand manner in the county at that time. The mother changed the grandmother, who was still soft, into a shroud, which consisted of a blue silk jacket and silk trousers and a pair of black soft-soled cloth shoes, and then the two funeral directors lifted her up and put her flat into a red coffin painted with gold, and gave it to her. She was covered with a golden silk quilt trimmed with white.Against the backdrop of those ornate shrouds, the dead grandmother looked much more dignified than she had in life.

Grandma's shroud was sewed by my mother, and she has been handling these things since the day grandma was sick and bedridden.In those days, my mother was spinning needles and threads in her hands while muttering words: "Wearing silk and wearing silk, the sons and grandchildren are thick; spreading gold and silver, and the generations are endless." Two sentences.An elderly grandma who came to help put another copper coin in her mouth and covered her face with a white silk handkerchief.Finally, the lid of the coffin was sealed, and the grandmother walked into a secret world that no one else could know.

Grandmother's coffin was parked in the main room for seven days and seven nights.There is a mourning hall right in front of the hall, and on both sides of the mourning hall are boys and girls tied with tin foil, gold and silver buckets, and money trees.A sacrificial shed was set up in the courtyard outside the main room, and there were three square tables in the sacrificial shed, which were filled with various sacrifices: big steamed buns in the shape of ox heads, fragrant oily fruits and You Saner, various dishes, and There was a lamb that had just been slaughtered, and wine was indispensable.

Grandfather invited five of the most famous masters of ceremonies and a band in the county, as well as many relatives, friends and neighbors. They all came and went in and out of the yard solemnly, making arrangements for the last major event in her life for grandma. The band played music and the master of ceremonies sang.Grandpa and aunt greet the guests.Father, mother and Luo Yang stood in front of the grandmother's spirit tablet and kowtowed to everyone who came to express their condolences.The cumbersome procedures were carried out solemnly and solemnly.In the early morning of the seventh day, my grandmother's red and gold-painted coffin was carried by four strong men to the Gobi Desert outside the county seat.Walking in the front were three masters of ceremonies. They all had white beards and hair. They seemed to be very old, but they were wearing dark red robes and blue robes respectively. They looked a little weird.The master of ceremonies in a red robe was named Da Bin, and he was holding a red lacquered wooden tray, inside which were several big steamed buns in the shape of a bull's head, each with a red dot on the forehead of the cow.That's what the grandmother said to Royan before she died.The two masters of ceremonies in blue robes also brought red lacquer trays, but Luo Yang couldn't remember what kind of things were contained in them.The three masters of ceremonies walked in front and muttered words, and no one could hear what they were muttering.The funeral procession followed. The family members wore white filial robes, and the neighbors or relatives wore white or other light-colored jackets.The other two masters of ceremonies walking on both sides of the team kept throwing Mingqian in the shape of copper coins. The white money, the white funeral procession, and the grandmother's coffin slowly drifting forward as if entrusted in the white clouds. The tomb was dug in advance.As soon as the grandmother's coffin was carried to the place, it was put into the tomb, and several strong men filled the tomb with soil.The coffin was quickly buried, and the soil continued to fill up, and finally piled up into a bun-shaped tomb. A pre-cut granite tombstone stands in front of my grandmother's grave. The tombstone was commissioned by my grandfather, and complicated patterns were chiseled around it. The words on the tombstone were nothing but my grandmother's birthday and death.For many years, Luo Yang couldn't understand that when his grandfather set up such a monument for his grandmother, he didn't know whether he had nothing to say to his grandmother, or he couldn't say anything. Only the tombstones of the birthday and death date stand on the grave of the grandmother, and that is the grandmother's forever home.That home can shelter the grandmother in another life from the wind and snow, right? At the end of the funeral, the master of ceremonies placed a bull-head-shaped steamed bun in front of the tombstone, and the sacrificial text and other ignitable offerings were burned in front of the tomb.All the mourners followed the master of ceremonies who sang the prayers, and some were weeping softly. Chanting is a ritual.Crying is also a ritual.The last sobs dedicated to the dead seemed so sad and lingering, echoing and lingering in the wilderness. After the ceremony, the mourners walked away in silent procession.The children next door met a candied haws seller on the way, and they all smiled happily, and they all returned to the county with bright red hawthorn fruit and candied haws. My aunt's cry was real crying. She cried for a long time in front of her grandmother's grave, her hair was disheveled, her face was pale, and her eyes were red and swollen.Grandfather has been crying with her all the time, and when she finished crying, he stopped crying, and the two went home together with their arms, and folded the white mourning clothes and put them in the closet. After burying the grandmother, the mother found a black carved sandalwood box from her belongings.Opening the box, there was a red brocade cloth bag inside, wrapped layer by layer, it was the turquoise jade bracelet that Luo Yang had seen before.Everyone could see that the jade bracelet left by the grandmother was exactly the same as the one worn by the aunt, and they were originally a pair.According to the grandfather's wishes, the mother, as the heir, collected the grandmother's jade bracelet.