Su Mingde was covered with a white cloth.

He lay quietly on the stroller, a section of his wrist showing.

According to regulations, death row inmates are not allowed to have any funeral ceremonies.

When the forensic doctor handed over the documents, the four red characters "Immediate Cremation" were stamped on them.

"Send directly to the crematorium after signing."

Su Jianguo held the pen, hesitated for a moment, and finally signed his name heavily.

The moment the white cloth was lifted, Su Mingfu suddenly turned around, bumped into the wall, and retched.

Su Jianguo reached out and stroked Su Mingde's eyes, those eyes, even in death, remained wide open.

The bullet entered through the back of his head, leaving only a purplish-blue dent on his forehead.

"dad..."

Su Mingfu cried out, his voice trembling with tears.

Su Jianguo did not reply.

After the body was identified, Su Mingde's body was quickly transported to the crematorium.

The crematorium's chimneys continuously spewed out black smoke.

When the staff handed over the urn, Su Jianguo noticed that there were still ashes of the previous deceased stuck to the bottom of the urn.

He took off his coat and carefully wrapped it up.

When I got home, the crying started instantly.

Wang Xiulan collapsed on the floor of the main room, clutching a blue cotton-padded jacket tightly in her arms.

That was Su Mingde's high school uniform.

Her mother-in-law was feeding her a calming soup, which dripped down her chin and onto the floor.

"My lord... let me see my son..."

Wang Xiulan's fingers trembled as she lifted the cotton cloth covering the urn.

When the small wooden box was fully revealed before her eyes, her breath suddenly stopped.

The three black characters "Su Mingde" on the box lid were deeply imprinted in her eyes.

My son!!

A heart-wrenching scream burst from her throat.

Su Jianguo reacted quickly and caught his wife's swaying body, but then felt her entire weight suddenly press down on him.

Wang Xiulan's eyes were still wide open, tears streaming down her face, but she had lost consciousness and collapsed limply into her husband's arms.

"Xiulan! Xiulan!"

Su Jianguo slapped his wife's cheek, which was ice-cold to the touch.

My parents-in-law also rushed over.

Su Mingfu stood helplessly to the side, tears silently streaming down his face.

Su Yufen and Su Yuzhen hugged each other and sobbed, their suppressed cries echoing throughout the main room.

"Stop crying, everyone!"

Su Jianguo suddenly roared, his voice booming throughout the room.

Everyone was stunned by the sudden roar, and even the sobbing stopped abruptly.

"The person is already gone, what's the use of crying?"

He bent down, picked up his wife, and strode into the inner room.

Wang Xiulan's body was frighteningly light, as if the grief of the past few days had drained most of her life force.

Su Jianguo carefully placed her on the kang (a heated brick bed), pulled the quilt over her, then stood by the kang and quietly looked at his wife's pale face for a while before turning around and walking out of the room.

Su Jianguo walked to the tree in the yard, took out a crumpled pack of Daqianmen cigarettes from his pocket, and lit one.

The pungent aroma of burning tobacco filled his lungs, and he tilted his head back to exhale a puff of white smoke, watching it slowly dissipate in the cold air.

Su Jianguo didn't sleep a wink that night.

He sat on a chair in the main room, smoking one cigarette after another until the cigarette pack was empty.

At four in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, dressed, and gently pushed open the door to the inner room.

Wang Xiulan was still unconscious, her breathing weak but steady.

Su Jianguo took the urn from the cabinet, carefully wrapped it in a black cloth, and then quietly left the room.

Despite the biting cold wind, Su Jianguo held the urn tightly to his chest, grabbed a hoe from home, and rode his bicycle toward Sujiatun.

There were almost no pedestrians on the road, only the occasional early morning bus with its dim yellow headlights.

Two hours later, Su Jianguo arrived at the ancestral cemetery in Sujiatun.

This is a small hillside located at the west end of the village, with graves arranged in a staggered manner, each with a simple stone tablet in front of it.

According to custom, someone who died like that shouldn't be buried in the ancestral graveyard.

Su Jianguo had no choice but to first acquire a small plot of land next to his ancestral graves.

Take out a hoe and start digging a hole.

The frozen soil is as hard as iron; when you hit it with a hoe, you can only leave a shallow mark.

Su Jianguo took off his cotton-padded coat, leaving him in only a thin sweater, and dug while sweating profusely.

Sweat streamed down his forehead, quickly turning icy cold in the wind, but he was oblivious, continuing to swing his hoe again and again.

"When you were little, you loved coming with me to visit graves."

Su Jianguo dug while speaking in a low voice.

"They always ask me what happens when people die, whether they become ghosts, and I say I don't know."

He gave a wry smile.

"Now you know first."

The pit was dug, and Su Jianguo carefully placed the urn inside.

His fingers lingered on the lid of the box for a moment, gently tracing the three words.

"Next life..."

His voice choked, and he took a deep breath before continuing.

"May you be reborn into a good family in your next life and be a good person."

They covered it with handfuls of soil, and soon the small wooden box disappeared from sight.

Su Jianguo moved a flat stone from the side and used it as a tombstone.

He didn't carve any words; he simply used a small knife he carried with him to make a deep mark on the stone.

After doing all this, Su Jianguo took out a bottle of baijiu and two small wine glasses from his pocket.

He poured two full glasses, placing one in front of the stone and holding the other himself.

"Let's have a drink, just the two of us."

His voice trembled as he downed the wine in his glass.

The sun was already high in the sky, and its rays shone on the newly built mound.

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