Chapter 18 18

30 In the morning we split up and went out to run errands.The master went to the funeral company to pick up the hearse.I went to the tailor shop on Changchun Road to pick up the filial piety clothes.When I went to the tailor shop, the proprietress said that there were still two pieces that were being made.I said that the funeral was going to be held today, and no matter what, I had to make it before noon.The proprietress promised to deliver within an hour, and she herself got on the locomotive to help make it.That tailor shop specializes in making filial piety shrouds, which are full of white cotton cloth. When the tailor cuts the cloth, the cloth is torn and cracked, making a harsh sound of tearing, and the cotton thread ends are flying everywhere, making people very uncomfortable. .I haven't been getting enough sleep for the past few days. I feel thirsty in my mouth and my head is very heavy.There is indescribable irritability in my heart.I remembered the dream last night again, in which Wang Kuilong eagerly waved those skinny hands.

I told the proprietress that I will come back to pick it up in an hour.I left the tailor shop and walked along Changchun Road to East Nanjing Road. I was looking for the old mansion of Wang Kuilong's father.Wang Kuilong took me home that night. I only remember that I was in an alley not far from Songjiang Road.After wandering around, I finally found the house with iron spikes on the iron gate in an alley on the third section of Nanjing East Road.I rang the bell, and an old porter came out. "Is Mr. Wang Kuilong at home?" I asked. The old concierge looked me up and down. "I need him urgently," I said.

"The young master went out early in the morning." The old concierge replied. "When will he be back?" I asked again. The old porter shook his head. "have no idea." Seeing me hesitate to go, he said again: "He went to see a friend at National Taiwan University Hospital. He has been going to the hospital every day for a while, and sometimes he comes back for lunch, and sometimes he doesn't come back. It's impossible to tell what happened to him." "So, can I leave a note?" I begged. The old concierge looked at me noncommittally.I squatted down, took out the address book, tore off a page, propped it on my knees, and wrote a few lines briefly on it, telling Wang Kuilong that Mr. Fu died of illness, and that today he was buried on the highest mountain in Liuzhangli Jile Cemetery.I handed the note to the old concierge, who turned away, staggered back to the door, and slammed the iron gate shut.

When I returned to the tailor shop on Changchun Road, I barely finished the last two mourning clothes.The proprietress folded six filial piety clothes together, tied them with a white filial piety belt, and asked me to take them away.Before the master came home, Xiaoyu steamed the steamed buns. He bought another plate of braised pork, cut it into slices, and boiled a pot of egg drop soup.We all help set the table and prepare lunch.Everyone didn't sleep well, all of them were blue-faced and white-lipped, and the mouse had a cold, whistling, and runny nose, and he didn't use a handkerchief to wipe it, the runny nose flowed out, and a wipe on the back of his hand counted.The master came back at noon. He said that today is an auspicious day, and there are many funerals.The hearses of several funeral companies were rented out in the morning.One family promised to open in the afternoon.We all sat down and ate the steamed buns. After we took away the bowls and chopsticks, everyone began to put on the filial piety clothes.There is only one size of filial piety, and it fits my body best. The mouse dress is too big, dragging to the instep, and the head is covered with hemp, which covers half of the face, and it drags and fumbles when walking.It's too short to wear on Ah Xiong's body, half of his arms are exposed outside, and the bottom only covers his knees.Dressed in sackcloth and mourning, we sat down around Mr. Fu's coffin and waited quietly until around three o'clock in the afternoon when the hearse arrived.Several of us carried the coffin together and carried Mr. Fu out of the door.

The Liuzhangli Bliss Cemetery can only be driven halfway up the mountain by car. To reach the top of the mountain, you have to walk a long section of winding mountain path, which stretches to the top of the mountain like a boa constrictor.There are tens of thousands of old tombs and new tombs in the Jile Cemetery, row after row along the hillside, crowded.In the entire arc-shaped valley, there are high and low tombstones, like a stone forest, dotted with green pines and cypresses.This is a vast and extremely dense and crowded cemetery.Because it was almost dusk, the funeral and worshipers had probably all returned, and the cemetery, which was full of people, was silent, shrouded in a boundless desolation.

The six of us helped the spirit up the mountain, separated into two rows on the left and right.On the left is the master, with Wu Min in the middle, and Ah Hung Tsai at the back of the coffin.Xiaoyu on the right is in the lead, the mouse is in second, and I am the last support.The six of us, dressed in snow-white filial piety clothes, bent down together, lifted the heavy black coffin of Mr. Fu, and carried it to our shoulders.The trail from the middle of the mountain to the top of the mountain is quite steep, and the stone steps are rugged and fluctuating.The steps of the six of us must be consistent so as not to bump left and right.We set our feet very cautiously, step by step, and climbed up the mountain with Mr. Fu's coffin on our shoulders.The higher we went up, the steeper the slope, and the steeper the inclination of the coffin. A Xiongzai and I stayed behind, and the weight on our shoulders became heavier and heavier, gradually pressing down. My cheek pressed tightly against the rough coffin, The shoulder blades were already aching from the pressure, and sweat began to emerge from the head and back.We crawled for a long time, and only halfway through the climb, everyone began to feel a little bit exhausted. We crawled silently, and we could hear each other's panting.Suddenly, my right foot slipped, and I stepped on a loose stone under my foot. I staggered, and my right leg bent and knelt down.Then the whole coffin pressed down on my left shoulder and slid down towards me. I felt a pain in my shoulder, as if the bottom of the coffin was embedded in my flesh. If you don't stop, the whole person will fall backwards.In my panic, I ignored the pain and used my shoulders to push up against the sliding coffin.Fortunately, Ah Xiongzai had great strength, supported the tail of the coffin with both hands, and slowly lifted the coffin.I struggled, exhausted all my strength, and finally stood up, but my entire left shoulder was already numb from the pain.We stood together, waiting for everyone to breathe a sigh of relief, and set off again, step by step, slowly and arduously, escorting the coffin of Mr. Fu to the top of the mountain.We carefully unloaded the coffin from our shoulders and put it on the ground, and everyone began to wipe the sweat from their faces.I reached into my shirt and touched the left shoulder blade. I felt that the shoulder socket was sticky and wet. When I pulled it out, I found that my hand was stained with blood, and the flesh on my shoulder had been worn out. Only then did I start to feel the pain in my shoulder. There were spasms and sharp pains when I pulled and pulled.

The cemetery on the top of the mountain was relatively deserted, with only a few piles of graves here and there, and some wastelands were covered with foxtails as tall as a person, with white flocs growing all the time.Mr. Fu's tomb was indeed covered. It was a stone coffin of blue-gray terrazzo, half buried in the ground.Immediately next to it was an old tomb, the outer stones had turned black, but the vegetation on the tomb was trimmed neatly.I went closer and saw the inscription on the tombstone "The Tomb of Fu Wei, Second Lieutenant of the Army", and the date was "born in the 21st year of the Republic of China and died in the 47th year of the Republic of China".

The setting sun in the winter of December was already slanting towards the west, and it was about to fall on the top of the mountain. It was red like a drop of blood, dyed all over the mountains and plains, and the red smoke was billowing.The foxtail on the top of the mountain seemed to have just been soaked in a red dye vat, and the white filial piety clothes on us also glowed with sunset light.A mountain breeze blew up from the top, blowing the filial piety clothes on us coolly.We rested for a while, opened the lid of the stone coffin, and the six of us worked together to put Mr. Fu's coffin into the stone coffin. Just as we sealed the tomb of Mr. Fu, there was a burst of excitement on the stone steps of the mountain path. With the sound of footsteps, a person appeared suddenly.Wang Kuilong arrived in time. He was wearing a black suit and tie, holding a large bunch of white chrysanthemums the size of a fist on his chest, totaling about twenty branches.He probably climbed the mountain in a hurry, and he was panting heavily.His face was blue, and his piercing eyes were burning like two balls of black fire.Seeing the coffin of Mr. Fu lying in the stone coffin, he took a few steps forward, bent down, and gently placed the bouquet of white chrysanthemums in front of the tomb, then stood up, bowed his head silently, looking at the stone coffin Mr. Li Fu's coffin, staring at it silently for more than ten minutes.Suddenly, with a plop, his tall and bony body fell to his knees in front of Mr. Fu's tomb. He prostrated all over his body, touched his forehead to the ground, and began to cry loudly.His high shoulders twitched violently, louder and more ferocious.His howling became more and more high-pitched, more and more stern, and it was not like the cry of a human being. It was like a badly injured beast facing the sky at the mouth of a dark cave in the deepest and deepest night. The last cry of unbearable pain came.The huge crimson sunset was just setting on the top of the mountain, illuminating Wang Kuilong's body like blood.Wang Kuilong's earth-shattering mournful cry, followed by Xihui's blood waves, rushed down to the foot of the mountain, stirring one after another in the valley with thousands of tombs and hundreds of mounds.So the six of us, led by the master, also—Qi Bai knelt down one after another in the shadow of the bloody sunset.