Three days later, in the morning, Zhou Bin and his family were having breakfast at home.

Suddenly Zhou Jianshan came in with red eyes, and Zhou Bin immediately stood up to greet him: "Uncle Jianshan is here, come and sit down."

Zhou Jianshan shook his head and said, "No, I came here to tell you that my father is gone."

The people who were eating were all stunned. Zhou Bin immediately asked, "When did Third Grandpa leave?"

Zhou Jianshan said with a sad face: "It happened just an hour ago. When he woke up in the morning, he was able to sit up by himself. We were all very happy. He also explained some things to us and seemed to be in good spirits. But who would have thought that more than an hour later, he would not be able to do it."

Zhou Jianming stood up and comforted him: "Jianshan, it's good that he's gone. You don't have to suffer anymore."

Zhou Jianshan nodded: "Yes, my dad has been in so much pain all day, now he can have a good rest."

Zhou Bin also said: "Third Grandpa was an upright person all his life and worked hard for our village. Now that he has passed away, it can be said that his life is complete."

Zhou Jianshan nodded with satisfaction and turned around to notify other families.

In rural areas, when an older person dies, relatives and some villagers are generally notified. This is called reporting the death.

Zhou Jianshan will then go to each of his relatives' homes to notify them one by one, and then the relatives and villagers will come to help.

As Zhou Bin is the young man that Zhou Defu values most and also his grandson, it is naturally his responsibility.

He immediately plunged into busy preparations. In the countryside, this kind of funeral is the most complicated matter.

After a person dies, a fortune teller must be consulted immediately to determine the date of burial.

Zhou Defu's burial date was set for four days later, so everything had to be prepared in these four days.

You have to hire someone to dig the grave, which is called tomb hooping. At the same time, you also have to prepare coffins, shrouds and the like.

There are also banquets, bands, opera troupes, movies, and lanterns that need to be prepared for funerals, all of which must be contacted in advance.

Since Zhou Bin had a car, these things were taken care of by him and Zhou Jianshan.

After two days of running around, all these things were finally arranged.

Then they set up a tent in Zhou Defu's yard and prepared the banquet and other things.

The day soon came to the afternoon before the burial, which was the most solemn part of the entire funeral.

Because this day is the time when relatives and guests come to mourn, they usually prepare incense, candles, paper flowers, or wreaths.

Then the host family would send filial sons and a band, playing sad music, to greet them at the entrance of the village.

They call this process "welcoming guests".

At this time, relatives from all over the world arrive one after another, and then the banquet can begin.

This kind of banquet is called a buffet, with people eating in waves, and by the time everyone has finished eating, it is dark.

At this time, the evening memorial ceremony will officially begin, and the filial sons and daughters of the host family will wear mourning clothes and kneel in front of the coffin.

The mourning hall was a specially commissioned lantern mourning hall, decorated with various colorful lanterns and paintings, and inscribed with couplets expressing grief.

Funeral music was playing in the mourning hall, and a band played a song from time to time.

The guests must line up and pay their respects in front of the coffin according to a local ritual.

This ritual is very complicated, similar to the three kowtows and nine bows in ancient times.

Waves of guests came to the coffin to pay their respects, and filial sons and daughters knelt beside to express their gratitude and return the greetings.

This ceremony is usually very long and will not end until after 11 o'clock in the evening.

After the ceremony, the invited opera troupe began to perform, and the movie could finally start showing.

In the 1990s, everyone's spiritual life was still very poor.

Therefore, this kind of movie has great appeal to young people and children.

Many children came from other villages. They walked ten miles in one night just to watch a movie.

At this time, there were already a huge crowd of people gathered in front of the movie screen, and Zhou Bin also went over.

The projectionist skillfully clamped the film, then turned on the movie projector, and the two circles began to rotate.

A beam of light came out from the bulb of the movie projector and hit the white cloth directly, and a wonderful picture immediately appeared in front of everyone.

The children were very excited because the movie to be shown tonight was "Shaolin Temple", a very good martial arts film.

So as soon as the movie started, the crowd was already exclaiming in amazement.

Zhou Bin took a few glances, thought it was uninteresting, and decided to go back to sleep.

Because he was exhausted in the past few days, his eyes started to fight.

He looked into the distance and saw Li Nan and Xiaohua watching a movie intently, looking as focused as they could be.

Zhou Bin smiled, lit a cigarette, turned and left.

When I passed by the stage, a classic Qinqiang opera called "Yellow River Array" was being performed on the stage. It was a story from Fengshen, and Zhao Gongming was in it.

I saw my father and other old men sitting in the audience, watching the show intently, completely immersed in the whole plot.

Zhou Bin took a few glances and felt that the man was singing so hard that his head was about to burst.

He was not very interested in these operas, so he turned around and went to sleep.

As soon as he got home, Zhou Bin fell asleep immediately and fell asleep in less than a minute.

At around five o'clock the next morning, the loudspeaker in the funeral hall began broadcasting, asking everyone to hurry and prepare for dinner.

Zhou Bin and his family got up early, got dressed, and rushed over.

The breakfast was simple, consisting of a noodle soup, steamed buns and two side dishes.

After everyone finished eating, they began to pay tribute in front of the mourning hall, and then they began to wake the spirit.

At this time, many people carried the coffin and put it on the tractor, and then the tractor slowly moved forward towards the cemetery.

When they arrive at the grave, they burn wreaths, paper flowers and the like. Then filial sons and daughters cry and worship in front of the grave, and the coffin is slowly lowered into the grave by everyone.

Then the villagers started to shovel the soil with shovels and cover the grave.

There is another point here: the more people shoveling the soil, the higher the prestige of this person during his lifetime.

Today is the village chief's funeral, and every family in the village has come.

Zhou Bin and his father both participated in shoveling the soil to express their respect for the old village chief.

With everyone's concerted efforts, Zhou Defu's grave was soon piled up.

At this point the burial work is completed and everyone can go back.

At noon, everyone has to have a meal, and after the meal, the whole funeral is over.

Zhou Bin couldn't help feeling sad as he watched his third grandfather leave like this.

But birth, aging, sickness and death are the laws of life, and no matter how reluctant he is, there is nothing he can do.

Three days after the village chief's funeral, the villagers gathered together again. This time, they wanted to elect a new village chief to lead their village.

Zhou Bin already knew what everyone was thinking, but he was still a little nervous.

After all, today is the crucial moment to witness whether everyone recognizes him as a person, and he will shoulder greater responsibilities.