With a bang, Sima Lan was about to die. Sima Lan was the head of the village, and he lived to be thirty-nine years old. When death fell on his head like a tile, he knew that death was coming as expected.He will leave this vivid world.In the deep folds of the Palou Mountains, death has favored the village of Sansurname since ancient times. Some people go out for three days, and when they come back, they may find that another person has passed away quietly.After going out for half a month or a month, if by chance no one died, I would be stunned for a while and look up at the western sky to see if the sun came out from there and whether it was blue or purple.Death is like rain pouring down on Sanxing Village all the year round, and the tombs are like mushrooms after the rain.The breath of new soil in the cemetery, deep red and bright, flows on the mountain ridges all year round from spring to summer, and from autumn to winter.This is the end of winter and early spring, and the willows at the bottom of the ditch are already adorned with drops of green air on the branches. The new branches of poplars, locust trees, and elms in the village, last year's new branches, are also faintly green this year.The village has humid heating.The sun on the mountain ridge is as thin as gold.Wake-up winter wheat hangs piece by piece on the hillside, swaying in the wind like green clouds falling to the ground.When the sprouts are green, it is the peak death season. Every year on this month and day, people with the surnames Lan, Du or Sima in the village will die as soon as their throats hurt like animals.When you die, you are buried.Once buried, it simply disappeared from the world.Except for Du Guaizi, the head of the village decades ago, no one in the village can live past the age of forty.Sima Lan was thirty-nine years old, and when it came to the world, it was his turn to die.Right now, he is measuring with his fifth younger brother Sima Lu and sixth younger Sima Hu in Sima's family grave with ropes, rowing left and right, counting with wooden sticks on the ground, and drawing a few white lines in the ground with white lime. , It was hard to squeeze out the three-room tomb of the three of their brothers.

This is a sunny side.The tombs flow from the top of the slope like cobblestones to the end of the slope, one wave after another, scattered according to the order of generations, the lonely one at the top is the untestable ancestor with the surname Sima, descending in sequence, the number of tombs doubles, They are the great-grandfather, grandfather, and grandfather they have never met, and their father, Sima, who raised them in and out of the door when they were young, and died brilliantly.On the lower left of the father are the eldest brother Sima Sen, the second brother Sima Lin, and the third brother Sima Mu who died on the same day when they lived to the age of fourteen, thirteen and twelve.None of the three elder brothers grew to a height of three feet and eight inches, but each of their graves took up half a room like adults.Now it was their younger brother's turn to plan his own tomb, so he jingled, and suddenly found that this wide top and bottom narrow cemetery could hardly accommodate the three of them to be buried in the ground no matter what.They all stood blankly beside the tombs of forest, forest, and wood, silent for a long time, staring at the cemetery where they could not be buried under their feet, as if they were staring at the small house that suddenly broke ground and found that they could not build a house, looked at each other, Sighing for a long time, the sixth younger brother Sima Hu gritted his teeth and kicked three times at the three cemeteries of Sen, Lin, and Mu from west to east, and said to the fourth brother Sima Lan, "Damn it, the eldest brother, the second brother, and the third brother took advantage of it." Now, Jugua? It's bigger than our cemetery.

Sima Lan didn't speak, and he and his fifth younger brother Sima Lu picked up the rope and stretched it several times in the open space, pinching their fingers and counting, the seven-foot tomb that a person must die, but the forest, forest, and wood took up the two-foot-five-foot space. The remaining one zhang eight feet seven inches, plus the must-have partition wall between the graves and the graves, still lacks six feet of land.Going forward, it is already the cemetery of Du's surname, and below it is a steep cliff ditch. Needless to say, their three tombs are not enough.I had to make do with three white-ash tomb frames on the ground of Zhangba.Sima Lan stood in a tomb frame to the west and said that this is where I should go.Point to the one in the middle and say, fifth, this is your home, and point to the one on the east side adjacent to the Du family cemetery, and say, sixth, that is your home.Sima Lan pointed out and divided the cemetery in this way, like pointing out several piles of worthless bean stalks, firewood or sweet potato seedlings to the villagers.The frame of the tomb shone bright white in the midday sun.The three brothers stood in their own narrow tomb frames, as if they were squeezed into a row of narrow rooms adjacent to each other. They felt melancholy about the narrowness of their respective tombs after death, and felt the white lines of the tomb frames like ropes around their necks.At this time, the sun was clear and thick, and in the boundless silence of the cemetery, it was like the sound of broken silver falling to the ground.On the opposite side of the beam, the wheat seedlings were glowing blue and purple, and the sunlight beat on the stiff wheat leaves.Sima Lan's brother-in-law, Du Bo, was hanging on the slope over there to herd sheep, and the sound of blue sheep bleating filled the entire mountain range.Du Bo enjoyed the sun in the blue bark, lay down on his back, and read a book of medicine.A "Huangdi Neijing".Afterwards, he sat up and stared endlessly at Brother Sima, who was fighting for the cemetery.

Du Bo read it with his father Du Yan when he was young, and then read "The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic". Du Yan followed his father Du Guaizi to read, and then read "The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic".In any case, the Du family is a scholarly family in the village, a family of doctors and practitioners.Du Bo worked as a correspondent in the town government when he was independent, and was later promoted to a government clerk.Because Sanxing Village is a small natural village in the deepest part of the Palou Mountains, because the average age of the people in Sanxing Village has gradually been less than 40 years old in the past hundred years, and death is as common as sunrise and sunset, wind and rain. It is also common, so Sansurname Village is isolated from the world like an epidemic area.Du Bo is a villager with three surnames, and Du Bo was sent back from his hometown to become the link between the government and the village with three surnames.People in the village sometimes call him Du Lian.When Du Bo returned to the village, one was to herd sheep to make money, and the other was to make longevity soup.Du Bo's longevity medicine soup is mainly wolfberry, bright red ripe mulberry, asparagus, jujube paste, walnut kernel and chrysanthemum, sometimes with a little Chinese yam and black sesame.This prescription was formulated by Du Bo himself from the "Huangdi Neijing".Du Bo boiled a pot of red medicine soup every day, and he drank it himself and let his wife and children drink it.The medicine is bitter.After suffering the life of Sanxing Village, his daughter-in-law stopped drinking. "Even if the laryngitis dies tomorrow, I won't drink anymore." His wife is the seventh daughter of Lan Bai, and the youngest sister under Lan Sanjiu, who is under Lan Sanjiu. She stopped drinking, and her baby Du Liu followed her. drank.Dubuis drink.Du Bo has been drinking this prescription for fifteen years since the beginning of the combination, one dose in the morning and evening, one dose and two boils, unremittingly, just like insisting on going to herd sheep every day.Du Bo went to the sheep not to herd the sheep, but to go to the mountains to look for asparagus and black wild chrysanthemums that do not grow in the Ralou Mountains.The reason is to go to the mountain to lie in the sun in winter and read the "Huangdi Neijing" repeatedly, and lie in the air vent in summer and think about the prescriptions in "Huangdi Neijing".Du Bo has almost memorized the "Huangdi Neijing", but Du Bo still never tires of reading it.Du Bo never tires of reading about the Yishou Decoction that he has been drinking for fifteen years, but he doesn’t drink it often anymore, because his two uncles and elder brothers who have been drinking Yishou Decoction for more than ten years according to his prescription, respectively, at the beginning of this year March and April died, one lived to be 38 years old, and the other was 37 and a half years old.Needless to say, they all died of throat plugs.The death of the two uncles and elder brothers made Du Bo start to have cloudy doubts about the "Huangdi Neijing".Because of his doubts, Du Bo paid more attention to the death of the villagers like leaves falling in autumn and the various prescriptions for prolonging life in the "Huangdi Neijing".I began to believe that the village head, Sima Lan, led the villagers 80 miles away to the south of the county town to start building the 60-mile-long Lingyin Canal eighteen years ago. The water is more than five years old. The villagers and uncles drink and use Lingyin water. Maybe they won't cry and ask him: "Can I live for a few more days?" Gone sadly.Maybe Lingyin water can really make the villagers live longer to fifty, sixty, seventy or eighty years old, who knows.

Du Bo wrapped the "Huangdi Neijing" in a cloth, drove the sheep, and started walking towards Sima's family grave. Brother Sima was still full of worries. They were still standing in their own tomb frames, looking at the ancestral tomb surnamed Sima, which was so wide that one side of the hillside was full of tombs, and saw that the tombs on each floor were sparse and clear. It was their turn. But the tomb is so crowded that people's shoulders hurt and their throats are tight.Sima Hu measured the width of his own tomb with his hands, and then measured the width of his fifth brother Sima Lu's tomb.He found that Wu Ge's graveyard was three inches wider than his.He said, fifth brother, your house occupies half a foot of my land.

Sima Lu said, "It belongs to me and your sister-in-law." Sima Hu stared: "My wife died in three days and two days, won't she be buried with me?" Sima Lu said: "Sixth brother, you and your wife are both small, and your sister-in-law and I are taller than you." Sima Hu suddenly became angry, kicked up a handful of loess and landed on Fifth Brother, saying what's wrong with the little guy?Not human anymore?The eldest brother, the second brother and the third brother add up to less than eight feet high, and none of the three of them is serious about marrying a wife. Isn’t it all spacious and spacious? Why don’t we dig them out and bury them in a pit, and put our graves Spacious?Sima Hu shouted angrily, walking while talking, his bloody voice hit the ground in the sunlight.When passing by the three graves of Sen, Lin, and Mu, he kicked three times on the three graves, as if his cemetery was not big enough because their cemetery was too big. Back to the fourth brother Sima Lan When in front of him, he still spattered and said, "fourth brother, please speak. If you nod your head, I will dig out the bones of the eldest brother, the second brother, and the third brother and bury them in a pit."

Sima Lan remained silent. Sima Hu turned his head: "Fifth brother, do you agree?" Before Sima Lu opened his mouth to reply, Sima Lan suddenly raised his hands and dropped them, and slapped Sima Hu's face with a silvery white slap. With a crack, a resounding crack opened in the open space of the cemetery.Sima Lu was stunned for a moment.Sima Hu covered his face with his hands, his eyes were stiff and straight, like dry wood.His lips were trembling, and the corners of his mouth were filled with green branches of resentment, like a bunch of grapes being picked and hung up, and the tears in his eyes were as cloudy as if they were about to burst the water of a pond.Looking over from the pool of water, one can see the hatred in his eyes, which are suppressed by his bluestone-like eye masks.The cemetery was extremely quiet, and the grave grass sprouted under the feet, drilled out of the ground and collided with last year's withered grass.The footsteps of villagers swaying in the distance resounded lonelyly, and then sounded lonelyly again.Sima Hu said, fourth brother, you are dying, so I won't quarrel with you.You are the fourth child, but in fact you are also the eldest, and the head of the village with the third surname. I will listen to you all my life like a donkey, and I will still listen to you before you die.Tell me, what if the cemetery is not enough?You can't live a short life, and you won't have half a tomb when you die.

Sima Lan said: "You can dig two tombs in this Zhangba cemetery. I, Sima Lan, don't want tombs anymore." After saying this, he turned and left.He stepped down in front of the graves of the three elder brothers Sen, Lin, and Mu, stood there for a while, and then walked through the gap between the graves, as if walking along a path in the forest. His tall body suddenly shortened. A section of the door-like shoulders also arched softly and slightly.The sunlight on his shoulders was like flowing water, and the loess and dead grass kicked up under his feet made a dull sound in the air, and then fell under his feet again.

Sima Lu and Sima Hu didn't know what to do.When they watched Sima Lan walk to the center of the cemetery, they called four brothers together, saying how can there be no cemetery after death, our living brothers, can you decide the size of the cemetery when you die first?But when Sima Lan heard this, he neither responded nor turned his head, and just walked forward on his own.So the deer and the tiger followed from behind, repeating what they had said, and when they crossed the cemetery to catch up with the fourth brother, they saw Du Bo driving the flock standing on the beam road, so they all stood down and let Dozens of sheep wandered around them.

Du Bo said, "Have you seen the cemetery?" Sima Lan said, "It's my turn." Du Bo held his medicine book between his hands and turned his eyes to the deer and tiger behind him, sizing them up, like looking at two strangers asking for directions, his dark eyes slipped over their black coats, crackling. His voice remained on their coats and faces.I knew that your cemetery was not enough, Du Bo said, you two brothers competed with the village head for the cemetery, are you still the village head's younger brother?Du Bo moved his gaze upwards again, to their faces, and said that if you are still the brothers of the village chief, you should go to the city to sell the skin once, and let him go to the hospital for an operation, which might make him live another year and a half In fact, it can keep him alive and lead Lingyin Water to the village to end his heart disease.Of course, Dubo said again, if you weren't his brother, you would have watched him die with a crash.

Dubo is already thirty-seven and a half years old.Du Bo understands Chinese medicine.Du Bo is also a perennial clerk who travels to and from the village.Although Du Bo is not in charge of the village's affairs in every detail like Sima Lan, but Du Bo is a symbol of the culture and policies of Sanxing Village, and anyone who is sick has to go to him, and anyone who has a Chinese New Year couplet has to go to him Write.Du Bo went to the village that year, and came back to say that the village made the responsibility for the land go to each household, and the land was distributed to each household overnight.Once Du Bo said that he could do some business during the slack season, and many families shipped walnuts and red dates to the town for sale.In the village, if Sima Lan was the emperor, Du Bo would be the prime minister.If Sima Lan was a general, Du Bo would be his military adviser.They worked together in perfect harmony, and Sima Lan married Du Bo's younger sister, Du Zhucui. Many times, the villagers could see that Du Bo opened his mouth and said what Sima Lan was thinking.Right now, when Du Bo looked at the deer and tiger and spoke, his voice gradually softened, as if he was discussing with them, or begging them for their brother Sima Lan.After hearing this, Sima Lu and Sima Hu turned their eyes to Sima Lan's face.They saw their elder brother Sima Lan looking at them in the same way.At the cemetery, Sima Lan's red and angry eyes were gone, and now his face was as gray and desolate as the cemetery, his eyes withered and withered, like decayed weeds thirsting for sunlight and rain in winter.There was a black spot of rice grains crawling on the collar of his jacket where the cotton was exposed, maybe it was a lice, maybe it was a small flying insect that came out of its nest in the warm sun, its footsteps were like the shadows of wheat shells flying slowly on the ground. shift.Sima Lu stared at the crawling little black dot, and called out, brother, you really don't want to die?Said that if you don't want to die, I will go to the city to sell the leg skin once and send you to the hospital, but I am afraid that if the money is spent, people will die quickly instead. I said that in the past few years, there have been a few houses and land in the village. Have you had an operation? After the operation, you will lose your life and wealth within three months, and you will regret it even more.Sima Lan remained silent, the grayness on his face was still heavy and thick.Du Bo slipped his gaze away from that face, and said, Hu, brother and brother, come to the world to see flowers, and a dead horse should be treated as a living horse. Besides, people say that the county hospital has new machines, although they are more expensive. But it is specially prepared for our operation.So, Sima Lu remained silent.Sima Hu glanced at the flock, then at Du Bo, and slapped his eyes on Sima Lan's face like a ruler. Staring at that face was like looking at a page of a book he didn't know. When the words fell to the ground, he grumbled and said angrily, "If you don't want to die, fourth brother, you should have said so, why bother to lead us to the cemetery for a long time.Isn’t it just going to Jiaohuoyuan? Cut off a piece of leg skin and sell it. I have no good skin on my left leg and there is a piece the size of a handkerchief on my right leg. No, slap me for the graveyard, it seems that Brother Wu and I gave you throat disease, we forced you to die, isn't it just cutting a piece of leather on your right leg and selling it. Sima Hu said: "Can we sell the skins tomorrow?" Sima Lan was silent for a long time. He turned around in the thick gray silence and followed the white flock towards the village.The noon smoke from the kitchens in the village was already rising slowly, and the fragrance of the world rushed into his nostrils.It was at this moment that that earth-shattering thought rang out again in his mind like a city wall was collapsing, and the bloody curtain of tragedy in the world opened with clouds and sun rising.