Chapter 31 grandmother's season

The zong leaves hanging on the lintel have already turned gray-brown.The wind rustled the bundle of zong leaves, much like the sound of rain.It was really raining, and the rain swept across the village alleys whitely, weaving a net in front of my house, and the bundle of zong leaves rustled again, like the wind.Grandma sat on the threshold, watching the rainwater fall from the eaves like a cascade, pooled on the stone road, and flowed away in a hurry.I don't know how many times it has rained since autumn, and the village is dripping with water and steaming with mist.Baiyang Lake, five miles away from the village, has high tide from morning to night, and the sound of the tide crosses the empty yellow sand beach and cornfield and echoes in our village.Grandma has been listening to that voice.

Grandmother had been deaf long before, but that fall she said she heard everything.Every morning, she was awakened by the sound of rain and tide, and she said to her mother who was lighting a fire by the stove, "Feng Yingzi, I'm leaving today." Grandma sits on the threshold every day listening to the rain with a peaceful and serene expression.The bundle of zong leaves swayed slightly on the gate rail, and was wet by the rain, so it stopped ringing.That was last fall.Last fall was my grandmother's deathbed.Our family remembers those rainy days. In spring, my grandmother was still sitting on the open space at the back door making zongzi.There is a big wooden basin for bathing filled with clear water, soaking the green zong leaves that have just been cut from the reed field by the lake, and the cool fragrance is everywhere in front and back of my house.I walked over and put my hand into the wooden basin, and was scolded by my grandmother, she didn't want people to mess up the neatly stacked green zong leaves.People in the Baiyang Lake area make "little foot rice dumplings", which are probably the most beautiful and delicious rice dumplings in the world.Grandma put the snow-white glutinous rice in four zong leaves, nested it into the shape of a small foot, stuffed it tightly, and tied it with red and green flower threads.There was a zongzi hanging around my neck. I looked down at the zongzi, left and right, and found that the zongzi made by my grandmother was getting bigger every year, fragrant and heavy.Grandma walked through the criss-crossed village alleys with a bamboo basket, and went to pick green zong leaves by the Baiyang Lake five miles away.I follow her.We stood on the yellow sand by the lake and looked at the reeds everywhere, then waded through a shallow water barefoot and walked into the southernmost reeds.Grandma likes the zong leaves here.

"There is a little green snake in this water, I have seen it before." Grandma said. "Aren't you afraid?" I saw my grandmother stepping on a piece of dark water. "Little green snakes don't bite people. In the water that little green snakes swim through, the long reeds are sweet." Grandma picked the green zong leaves of Baiyang Lake, and looked down at the lake water below her from time to time. The shadow of the blue jacket was shattered.Once she looked down at the shadow, and suddenly the reed leaf she was holding fell off.Grandma stood trembling in the lake and told me she had just seen Grandpa's face.She said she was not dazzled, and that was indeed my grandfather. "The old guy came and pulled me away." Grandma said to herself facing the lake.When she smiled, her face became much older, that kind of smile was both desolate and gratifying.I remember my grandmother's hair was white that spring.She often went to the lake alone for a long time.She nearly chopped off the leaves of one reed.She stood barefoot in the cold lake water, looked down at the water, and said she saw the old guy's face again, and people who surfed the Internet on the lake saw my grandmother talking, laughing and crying in the water, and said Maybe her eyes really saw something.

The family guessed that grandma saw the little green snake swimming through the water.My grandfather was a snake. When he was my age, everyone in the village called him Little Snake.He married my grandmother at the age of seventeen, and my grandmother became "the little snake's family". Around the Dragon Boat Festival last year, my grandmother sat on the open space at the back door and kept making zongzi, almost piled up into a mountain of zongzi.No one tried to dissuade her.Grandmother was nearly seventy years old, but she was not stupid, and she never did a single stupid thing until she died.

"Little Snake used to be the best at eating zongzi, and he could eat eight in a meal." One day, the old birthday man from the west of the village walked past my door and saw bundles of zongzi leaves on the lintel, so he said to my parents. One of the parents was weaving bamboo baskets and the other was chopping firewood. They smiled at the old man without saying anything.My grandfather also died in the fall.Died in a place called Stone Wharf in a foreign land.No one in the village under the age of fifty has seen him, including my parents.It is said that he left five days after his wedding and never came back.No one can know the reason. Grandma lives in the old house he left behind and keeps silent about grandpa.For many years, people in the village still call my grandmother "from the little snake's family".One year, Old Shou Ye followed the rice boat up the river and came to a wharf in Hubei, where he met my grandfather.He was playing the piano and singing for a blind woman on the stone steps of the pier.Grandfather was not excited to see acquaintances in the village in a foreign land.He left behind the blind woman and the crowd of onlookers, and followed the old man on the rice boat.He helped the villagers unload the rice bags on the boat, and took the old man into a small hotel.That was the time my grandfather ate eight zongzi after drinking. "You go back, your son will run away all over the village." The old man said. "I won't go back." Grandfather drank Baigan and his face was flushed, shaking his head and said, "I won't go back after I come out." Later, my grandfather gave his erhu to the people on the rice seller's boat to take home.Everyone stood on the boat going east and waved to him.I saw my grandfather standing motionless on a protruding stone on the bank, with thick morning fog rolling around him.It's foggy there.The erhu left by my grandfather hangs on the beam of our house.

As long as I can remember, the erhu has been hung high above the heads of the family.I don't know why grandma hangs it so high, no one can figure it out.Sometimes when I look up at the roof and see the erhu, I feel that my grandfather is looking at his former home in the snake skin tube.One year before Chinese New Year, my mother set up a ladder and dusted around the roof of the old house.She wanted to find a cloth to wipe the erhu, but suddenly she heard the terrified voice of the grandmother below: "Feng Yingzi, don't touch it." "I'll wipe it clean," the mother said over her shoulder.

"Don't rub it." Grandma said stubbornly, staring at my mother's hand with unspeakable pain in her eyes.Mother bowed her head and thought for a while, then came down.Since then, I have never touched the erhu on the beam.The gray erhu froze in the air. Last autumn was not a good season, and the endless rain was unusual.My grandmother sat on the threshold and stared at the old zong leaves on the lintel, which were shaking in the wind and rain.Grandma seemed to realize something. She smiled at every villager who walked past the house, and her eyes were filled with continuous rain.The sound of the tide came from the yellow beach of Baiyang Lake, and she became uneasy in the sound of the tide, holding her breath, and an ominous flush appeared on her withered and yellow face.

"I can't survive this winter." I heard my father say to my mother.The mother said to the visiting relatives.The relatives who visited said the same.That day my parents went to the fields to collect yams.It was still raining, and the Shijiao Road in front of the door was quiet, and no one passed by for a long time.I saw my grandmother leaning against the wooden door and closing her eyes, with a mysterious and distant expression on her face.I went over and shook her thin body lightly, but she didn't move, I was panting nervously, and suddenly she smiled, but her eyes were still tightly closed. "I'm not dead. You silly boy," she said.

It was that rainy afternoon when my grandmother asked me to remove the erhu from the beam for the first time.Just like I used to go to the back door vegetable garden to pull shallots.But when I approached the erhu on the ladder, my heart couldn't stop beating wildly.After dusting off for many years, I hold the erhu left by my grandfather in my chest.The erhu glowed a rare red light in the darkness of the rainy day.My palms are very hot, sweating, and I always feel that the snakeskin tube of the erhu is also hot, and there is an elf playing tricks.I have never seen this kind of Zishanmu Erhu.The piano tube is so big, the snake skin should be from a python.Touch the two piano pillars, the piano pillars are warped, like the strong buffalo horns in the pond.I was in a trance, and I heard my grandmother's heavy snorting around me.It was still raining outside the window. "Did you see his face just now?" Grandma asked me.A girlish blush appeared on her face, and her expression was still leisurely and mysterious.I shake my head.Perhaps when I reached out to pick up the erhu, my grandfather's face once appeared in the darkness under the beams of the house.But I didn't find out, I didn't see my grandfather. "You silly boy, the erhu is yours after I die." Grandma said, her eyes closed as she recalled something, and the blush on her face became deeper and deeper, "That old ghost came to my dream every day to play the violin, and played it so well. It sounds good."

For a moment, I felt Zishanmu erhu restless in my arms, and heard a strange sound coming out of the snakeskin qin tube, passing over the heads of my grandmother and me, and walking through the vast rain and fog.I grabbed the horsetail bow.The bow is quite light, but there seems to be a force to bounce my hand back.My hands couldn't hold it anymore, and I suddenly felt flustered like never before. "You silly boy, why don't you play it." The grandmother became anxious, she opened her eyes suddenly, and stared at the erhu with a painful expression.I saw my grandmother's old face reflected on the rosewood.The rain slanted past the door.In the sound of rain came the sound of footsteps from the villagers.They came back from harvesting the yams.My parents appeared at the door with muddy legs.The red light from the rosewood erhu dazzled their eyes.One of my father and my mother stood in the door, and the other was holding the door frame, looking at me and grandma strangely.

The erhu is still leaning against my chest.I finally didn't play the erhu left by my grandfather.It was a few days before my grandmother passed away.Later, when people in the village found out about this, they all said that I was ignorant.Said that I would let my grandmother listen to the erhu that day no matter what.I am uncomfortable.I can't play the erhu. When the last heavy rain fell in autumn, my mother found out from the box my grandmother's old clothes. It was sewn by my grandmother a few years ago, and the color was as red and bright as the sun.I have seen several dead old people in the village, and they chose bright colors for their last clothes, which probably makes sense.Mother hung the old red clothes in her room, and the dimly lit room was filled with strong red light.Mother said it was to suppress evil spirits.The color red can ward off evil spirits. Later, my mother opened a black lacquered wooden box that my grandmother had locked all the year round. The wooden box was empty. There was a flash of panic in my mother's eyes, and she hurried to the back door. "No more." The mother said to the father who was weaving the bamboo baskets. "What's gone?" "That golden lock," said my mother. "She showed it to me when I got married. And if you don't want hers, why is she hiding it?" My father was silent for a while, then came to my grandmother and gently woke her from her lethargy. "Mom, where is your golden lock?" "It's gone, it's gone a long time ago." Grandma was still awake at that moment, and she looked at her father's face steadily. "Mom, we don't want it, I'll let you take it away." Mother said. "If I don't take it away, what would you do with the golden lock when you die?" Grandma smiled sincerely after she finished speaking, it was the last smile in her life.Laughing so mysteriously, people will never forget it.My parents gazed at her wrinkled and age-spotted face.I froze for a long time, waiting for her to tell me something.But Grandma closed her eyes, said nothing, and her smile faded.Standing there, my father suddenly trembled uncontrollably. He pushed his mother on the back and said hoarsely, "Let's go." The two of them tiptoed and left gently.Grandma continued her dream in the continuous sound of rain.My grandmother lived in poverty all her life and left nothing of value to the family. Even the only golden lock disappeared inexplicably.Only bundles of old zong leaves are still hanging on the lintel of my house, rustling. In the long autumn, I went in and out under the old zong leaves left by my grandmother, and I could always smell the fragrance of reeds by the Baiyang Lake. This fragrance was soaked in the grandmother's season in spring.I expect that on the Dragon Boat Festival every year, my grandmother will still extend her warm hands to me, and hang the "small foot rice dumpling" tied tightly with red thread around my neck.I hung this rice dumpling and stepped out of the house, walked through the village alleys, and passed by the Baiyang Lake area like a swallow.Through spring and autumn, even in the world outside Baiyang Lake, grandma's zongzi will leave an eternal fragrance.Grandma's grave is by Baiyang Lake.A delicate yellow jasmine grows on the grave.There is no grass, the grass has not grown yet. When I went to sweep the tomb in Qingming, my mother brought tin foil and paper money, and I took another winter jasmine, but my father carried the erhu left by his grandfather in his arms.From the very beginning, I felt the strange atmosphere.Along the way, I asked my father with my eyes from time to time, but I dared not speak.My father walked on the path by the lake where weeds reached his knees, and he often looked up at the clear blue sky in April, with a solemn and gloomy expression.It happened after the funeral.At that time, the paper money on the grave had not been burned out, and when the lake wind blew, the paper money flew up with sparks, like black butterflies flying in the air.I saw my father knelt down slowly towards the grave of my grandmother, and put the rosewood erhu on the grave. The fire on the grave suddenly dimmed, and then a group of maple leaf-like flames sprang up again. My grandfather's Zishan wood erhu was lit. I stared blankly and fearfully at the erhu lying in the flames, and at my father's solemn face reddened by the flames. His eyes were filled with the strange shadow of the rosewood erhu.I suddenly recalled the way my father looked up at the beams of the house for many years, the kind of eyes that I couldn't understand, and how many years he had been entangled with the erhu left by his grandfather. But why burn my grandfather's erhu? Why burn my grandfather's erhu?Father is still kneeling in front of the grave.There was a look of relief on the mother's face, but tears welled up in her eyes.My grandmother is under the grave, she should have seen the maple leaf-like flame in the bottomless darkness.The lake wind came out of the reeds and bumped into the empty beach.The fire before us will not be extinguished for a long time.In the silence, we heard the dull roar of the erhu being swallowed by the flames, as if some living thing was hitting hard in the piano tube. "Is it your father's voice?" Mother's voice trembled. "No, it's mother's voice." Father replied solemnly. When the snake skin qin tube made a crisp cracking sound, I first saw the shiny golden things rolling out of the qin tube.The thing passed over the fire, passed over my parents, and landed at my feet.That was my grandmother's golden lock.Until now, I have not been able to explain a lot of what happened at home.Let me tell you, my hometown is in a village by Baiyang Lake. There are my father and mother in my hometown. They live in two tile-roofed houses handed down from their ancestors.My grandmother is dead, and my grandfather was away a long, long time ago.