Chapter 210 A Grain of Sand in the Age of Dust

When the online car-hailing service was halfway through its journey, Zhu Yingning slowly remembered that she had not yet asked for leave.

Although the situation is not as severe as the lockdown in Wuhan, since there are also patients there, the travel procedures for public officials and medical staff like them who have frequent contact with patients and close contacts are still quite complicated.

But she couldn't wait until tomorrow morning to slowly apply for bereavement leave and cross-city travel procedures. Life waits for no one. According to Liu Guifang, Zhu Dashan probably won't survive the night. She could only leave first and complete the procedures when it was time to go to work tomorrow morning.

The drive to her hometown in the neighboring city took over an hour. The distance between each point was not far, but the winding mountain roads made the journey even longer. She kept glancing down at the time on her phone, anxious. She wanted to urge the driver to speed up, but she also knew that the mountain road was rugged and the driver was already driving at the maximum speed within a safe range. Any faster would be dangerous.

The phone was always silent. She was hoping that Liu Guifang would call her to report the situation so that she could know the current progress, but she was also afraid of receiving her call.

No news is the best news.

It was four in the morning when she arrived at the hospital in her hometown. The sky was still dark, but the hospital was as bright as day. Medical staff and patients came to see the doctor, shoulder to shoulder, in a hurry. Zhu Yingning stood at the gate. Everywhere she looked was the sign of the new coronavirus ward, marked with bright red letters and arrows. The end point pointed to the fever clinic, which was bright and strange like spurting blood, like a doomsday horror movie on TV.

She turned on her cell phone, swallowed, and called Zhu Jixiang.

"I'm here." She spoke, her voice dry and difficult, asking, "...Which ward is Dad in?"

There is one more question I dare not ask - how is he now?

I dare not ask whether he is alive or dead.

She was prepared to hear about the COVID-19 ward and was ready to deal with the worst-case scenario, but when Zhu Jixiang said it was at the emergency room door, she was still stunned.

"Emergency?!" Unexpectedly, she rushed towards the emergency room, the phone still pressed to her ear, and asked in astonishment, "Isn't this COVID-19?"

"No, it's a blood clot..." Zhu Jixiang's voice was both far and near, as if it came from a tunnel. There seemed to be the sound of the wind whimpering in the background. Zhu Yingning heard his intermittent voice, "He suddenly fell ill in the middle of the night... He was almost unconscious when he was sent to the hospital. If he had been rescued in time, he might have been saved, but... damn!"

He said a critically ill COVID-19 patient had arrived at the hospital that evening, and all staff were directed there. Many medical workers, fully armed, were also dispatched to the patient's source to disinfect and isolate close contacts. The situation was extremely chaotic. He dragged every passing doctor and nurse for help, but they all just brushed his arms away and told him to wait.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

How long should we wait?

After waiting for more than twenty minutes, Zhu Dashan completely lost consciousness. Liu Guifang knelt down in front of a passing nurse and kowtowed to her repeatedly, and the hospital reluctantly sent a doctor over.

He was rushed to the emergency room for half an hour.

"So what's the result now?!"

When she asked this question, she had already run to the emergency room corridor.

There was no need to ask about the outcome, as she had already seen the answer with her own eyes.

Zhu Dashan's hospital bed, covered with a white sheet, was wheeled to the emergency room entrance. The sound of wind she'd heard on the phone was Liu Guifang's wailing. Her mother knelt beside the bed, her head resting on the sheet, hammering the aluminum alloy nearly to pieces with her right hand. Zhu Jixiang stood behind her, his back against the wall.

Besides them, there were many other patients at the emergency room entrance, including parents holding their crying babies, sons supporting their frail old mothers, lovers leaning on each other, students huddled alone in a corner with pale faces, and a young pair of girls...it was bustling with people.

Zhu Yingning glanced at them one by one. She saw that everyone was wearing a mask, revealing only tired and dull eyes. Everyone's eyes fell on Liu Guifang with sympathy. There were occasional whispers, saying "What a sin" and "How pitiful", but more often there was the silence of facing death.

When a rabbit dies, the fox mourns; when the lips are gone, the teeth become cold.

The lights in the emergency room were still on, and there were other patients being rescued inside. An aunt who looked to be in her fifties or sixties was waiting at the door. She paced back and forth, rubbing her hands, looking at the ceiling, and muttering prayers softly.

The parents holding the child looked very anxious. They stood up from time to time, looked around, and tried to stop every doctor who passed by.

Forget about the couple. No doctor was even available to allow Liu Guifang and her team to move the deceased to the morgue. The bed lay across the hallway outside the emergency room. The occasional medical staff who passed by trotted, their eyes dull from fatigue beneath their masks, bags visible under their eyes, and wrinkled eyelids. One doctor said hoarsely to another, "Go get some water first."

Zhu Yingning stood at the end of the corridor, watching the scene in front of her silently, not knowing who she should blame at this moment.

...Who can bring back the lost life?

The orderly human order is like a fragile illusion. A natural disaster, a man-made disaster, or even a war is enough to raze to the ground the order and stability carefully created by hundreds of millions of people.

In the face of life and death disasters, human beings are as insignificant as dust.

**

According to village custom, the remains of those who died outside the home could not be placed inside the house or in the ancestral hall, but could only be placed in a tent outside. This ancient custom was preserved to this day, so much so that when they brought Zhu Dashan's body back, they had to follow the old custom and build a makeshift tent using awning materials to store the body.

Liu Guifang was weeping so hard she couldn't do anything, but there were still many things that needed to be dealt with. Zhu Jixiang said the hospital must bear responsibility. They had failed to establish an emergency treatment channel for critically ill patients, resulting in patients in more critical conditions losing the opportunity for diagnosis and treatment. He would negotiate compensation from the hospital. If the hospital refused to accept responsibility, he would consider taking them to court.

"You just take charge of the funeral arrangements. Seeing how my mother is doing, I can only rely on you. Not to mention our grandma, she is a confused old lady and totally useless." He said to Zhu Yingning.

Zhu Yingning did not object. He stared at the coffee table in front of him in a daze, and nodded slightly after a while.

When Zhu Jixiang was about to leave, she called him, "Brother Xiang."

He was standing at the threshold and looked back when he heard the sound.

"No matter how much compensation you get..." She looked at him and said slowly, "After the funeral, give the money to Mom. She took care of Dad for so many years. It was not easy."

Zhu Jixiang's face was slightly blurred due to the backlight, and she couldn't see his expression. After a long time, Zhu Yingning heard him hum vaguely.

**

The town has a dedicated funeral team that handles funerals, but due to the explicit prohibition on gatherings during the epidemic, their operations are severely restricted, and they must obtain approval to provide funeral services. Village officials also came to their home to talk to Zhu Yingning, explaining that the situation is critical and that it is difficult for everyone. It is best to keep funerals simple and not gather too many villagers to avoid giving the virus an opportunity to spread.

"How to keep it simple?" she asked, looking straight at him.

The village party secretary sighed and said, "You can burn incense, but it's best to wear masks. You can have a funeral, but the funeral team and those involved must also wear masks at all times. The banquet after the funeral... this has to be canceled. I understand your family's feelings, but I really can't make the decision on this matter. Also, those who are out of town, especially those who have been to the epidemic area, the document says they must be quarantined for fourteen days before they can move around normally... Although it's cold now, your father can't be away for fourteen days. The most important thing is to bury him in peace. In fact, to put it bluntly... it's best for those who are out of town not to come back."

Seeing her stiff neck and no response for a long time, the branch secretary became more helpless: "Yingning, I've watched you grow up, and I understand how you feel, but this is the policy. We can't let more people be put in danger just because of a funeral, don't you agree?"

Before she could answer, Liu Guifang rushed out of the room, pinching the secretary's hand and howling, "Secretary! I don't care what the policy says, but you know our family situation. How many years has Dashan been bedridden? He's a useless person! I no longer expect him to open his eyes. The only thing I've thought of him these past few years is to give him a good funeral and a grand funeral when he's gone. Now that I can't give him a good funeral, you can't let us not even have a grand funeral—!? Huh?!"

She cried for several days, and every day, regardless of day or night, she stayed in front of the bamboo mat where Zhu Dashan's body was placed. When her tears were exhausted, her body seemed to have dried up as well, like a tree trunk that had all the moisture baked out by fire, becoming wrinkled. Even her voice sounded rough, dry, wrinkled and hoarse.

The branch secretary supported her and stamped his feet in embarrassment: "Look, Afang, what are you doing? This, this is not something I can decide!"

Liu Guifang raised her neck and started crying again.

She could no longer cry, and could only let out a hoarse, mocking howl: "My life is miserable! My whole family has a miserable life - how could we have to encounter such a thing? I think it's all over! It's all over!"

Seeing that she was so emotional, Zhu Yingning could only go forward and pull her up, forcibly pressing her on the sofa to calm her down.

The branch secretary straightened his clothes, sighed heavily, and said to Zhu Yingning, "Anyway, I've already said what I want to say. You're a civil servant yourself, and you know you have to follow the orders from above. I'm just a small village official, and even if I sympathize with you, I can't change anything. Sigh...you should persuade your mother and think it through."

After he left, Zhu Yingning poured Liu Guifang a glass of water.

Liu Guifang didn't drink, nor did she shout anymore. She looked at the scenery outside the door with a dull look in her eyes.

Zhu Yingning was speechless, not knowing what else to say or how to persuade her. She could only put the water in front of her, turned around and walked to the shed outside the house to continue guarding Zhu Dashan's body.

The burial date has not been set yet because we have to wait for the travel application of the town's funeral team to be approved. Fortunately, the weather is cold in winter and the body can be stored for a long time.

Thinking that he had to use this "fortunately" to comfort himself, Zhu Yingning was left with only a bitter smile and a feeling of powerlessness.

The weather forecast said there was an 80% chance of snow that night, and sure enough, at seven o'clock in the evening, snowflakes mixed with broken ice began to fall from the sky. Soon, a thin layer of snow accumulated on the wipers of the few cars in the village.

Under the shed, Zhu Yingning and Liu Guifang sat opposite each other, each wearing a coat. A stove sat between them, a handful of firewood burning. Liu Guifang remained dazed, her gaze fixed unfocused on a blade of grass on the ground, her eyes empty. Zhu Yingning was busy folding ingots and banknotes for the funeral.

This kind of money is made of crude straw paper, which is too rough to be used for wiping. It is not as good as the finely processed paper money outside, but it is better because it is made with the love of children. It is said that paper money folded by children themselves is more likely to be received by the deceased himself and is not likely to be snatched away by other ghosts in the underworld.

I picked up one full basket, and then another.

When they folded the third basket, Zhu Jixiang came back, shook off the snow water on the outside of his down jacket, burned incense as usual, and then sat next to Zhu Yingning and helped him fold paper money.

"How did the talk go?" she asked softly.

Zhu Jixiang rubbed his philtrum with the back of his fingers and said, "I met with the hospital director today. He said the hospital can only compensate for 50% of the liability at most. I asked him to give me a specific number, and he said 200,000 yuan. That's too little. Are you trying to fool a beggar?"

After cursing, he asked Zhu Yingning, "What do you think is a good amount to pay?"

Zhu Yingning used a long iron fork to poke the firewood in the stove, separating them so that the firewood in the middle could be exposed to more oxygen.

"I don't know," she said.

"You work in the government, so you should know these things best, right? I think it's at least 500,000, otherwise there's no point in talking about it." He yawned, put down the toilet paper, and said he wanted to go into the house to drink a glass of water first.

After Zhu Jixiang left, she and Liu Guifang were the only ones left at the bottom of the shed.

Liu Guifang finally raised her eyes from the weed that was nothing worth looking at, looked at her, and said hesitantly, "Ningning, Mom wants to ask you something."

She raised her cheek slightly in the firelight and asked softly, "Hmm?"

"You said..." Liu Guifang hammered her chest with her left fist. The force was light at first, but later it made her chest bang, as if her throat was blocked by something sticky. "When I was serving your father, I hoped he would die every day. I thought that if he died, I would be free. I could finally live a good life and not be trapped by his side all day, taking care of his excrement and urine. But you said, he is really dead now, why do I feel..."

Two lines of equally turbid tears suddenly rolled down her dry and dim eyes, and her hands fell limply on her knees. "Why do I feel... so uncomfortable?"

The snow fell quietly, and it started to get heavier and heavier. It melted into water when it hit the ground, and was soon covered by new white.

Zhu Yingning put down the iron fork and said softly, "Mom..."

"You've been living a hard life for a long time, and now you're finally going to live a good life, so you're not used to it." Zhu Jixiang came back after drinking some water, took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and sat back in his seat. He took the iron fork that Zhu Yingning had placed on the ground and continued to stir the pitifully small amount of firewood in the stove.

"Really?" Liu Guifang was still in a daze.

"I've heard people say that dying from a blood clot is the easiest. Unlike cancer or uremia, where you have to stay bedridden for years and suffer from pain, a blood clot... a blood clot is especially easy." Zhu Jixiang's voice choked for a second before he spoke louder, "Ah, then, the person is gone. It's a painless and peaceful death, without any suffering. How wonderful! Dad is enjoying his life."

He picked up a short piece of firewood from the basin and put it back in its place, laughing dryly, "Even if he comes back to blame someone, he'll only blame me. It was me... If we were in the hospital, I'd lied to them and said Dad had a fever and he'd be fine. If he'd gone to the fever clinic, maybe he could still have survived."

When you go to the hospital, the first thing the nurse on duty at the door does is ask the patient whether he or she has fever symptoms.

At that time, Liu Guifang was at a loss, and it was Zhu Jixiang who answered honestly: "No."

"Then go to the emergency room."

One sentence determined the entire subsequent direction.

It was quiet under the shed. Zhu Dashan's body was still covered under the white cloth. No one came to comfort Zhu Jixiang. Not Liu Guifang, not Zhu Yingning, and Zhu Jixiang himself didn't say anything - because no one was in the mood to speak.

Zhu Jixiang put down the iron fork and Liu Guifang took it over.

Zhu Yingning stared at the flames swaying left and right in front of him, wondering why everyone liked to fiddle with that iron fork?

The flames may be so fierce and the fire may surge that it can dry out your eye sockets.

**

Towards the end of the wake, Zhu Yingning stood up and said, "I'm going to go inside to see grandma."

The old lady now sleeps longer than a cat, and this has been going on for two years. She had seen a doctor before, and the doctor told them to go home and buy a coffin and be mentally prepared. Unexpectedly, two years later, the old lady showed no signs of decline, and could occasionally get up from the bed and walk around the house. The coffin prepared for her was first used by Zhu Dashan.

Zhu Yingning walked to the door of her house.

The door of their house is now the kind of subway door that has been eliminated in cities but is still commonly used in self-built houses in the village. After opening, it has to be pushed to both sides. It was fine when it was first installed, but it has rusted after a few years of use, and you always have to use some force to push it.

The door was open a gap the width of a person. Zhu Yingning thought Zhu Jixiang had just gone in to drink water and left the door unlocked, so she walked in without thinking. Before her left foot crossed the threshold, she heard the hurried footsteps and screams of her neighbor outside: "Ah! Ningning, go quickly! Go and see if that woman in the field is your old lady! Something terrible has happened!"

Her heart was like her left foot that had not yet stepped across the threshold, hanging in the air, as if tied with a bungee rope. Her heart sank heavily, then bounced back, waiting for the final judgment to cut the rope that was barely holding her heart.

The neighbor ran to inform Liu Guifang and Zhu Jixiang under the shed, and then the three of them followed the neighbor to a village road.

There were drainage ditches on both sides of the village road. The old lady was lying face down, with half of her body in the ditch and the other half outside the ditch. She was motionless and had no response.

"Ah! Ah... Why are you here... Why don't you stay at home... Oh my, oh my, this is too bad, this is too bad! Someone go and save him..." The neighbor huddled behind them, so scared that he could only half-close his eyes and glance out of the corners of his eyes.

There was limited lighting at night, and her voice was scattered in the darkness, like a ghost announcing a death.

Liu Guifang and Zhu Jixiang were so frightened that they didn't move. They just stared at the old lady who had lost her movement. The air seemed to be frozen, and the people seemed to be frozen too.

Finally, Zhu Yingning took the initiative to break the dead silence. He walked towards the old lady, slowly squatted beside her, and turned her heavy and fat body over.

She is dead.

Like frozen to death.

The dead and the living have different colors. The dead are stone-gray. Even people who have no funeral experience cannot confuse the dead and the living.

Zhu Yingning knew clearly in her heart that her grandmother was dead.

But she still reached out her hand in vain, probed under her nose, listened to her heartbeat, then found the center of the old woman's chest, folded her hands, and began CPR.

She had received relevant training while volunteering in college, and she remembered that CPR required 100-120 compressions per minute, and the compressions had to be deep enough, otherwise it would be useless. She counted, pressing deeply down again and again, shouting behind her: "Call 120!"

Snowflakes were flying in the winter night, but she was sweating profusely.

01, 02, 03...

As she counted the cycles one after another, Zhu Yingning gradually lost count of how many she had done. She only knew that by the end her arms were numb, her shoulders and neck were sore, and her abdomen was as hard as iron from excessive tension. The cold air she inhaled was like broken glass piercing her lungs. She was pulled up from behind, and she didn't know who told her to stop, because the person was already dead, and to let her go with dignity.

The old lady died on the village road. Strictly speaking, she died outside the house instead of inside. As a rule, she could not be brought into the ancestral hall. However, when the villagers saw that two people had died in their family, they probably felt sorry for them. Even the most old-fashioned and conservative people said, "Okay, then you can just put the old lady in the ancestral hall."

Two bodies, one inside the house and one outside.

No one will ever know why she got out of bed alone that night, pushed open the heavy iron gate and came to the village road.

What was she trying to do? The truth had been lost in the snow. Villagers said mother and child were connected by heart. The old woman must have sensed her son's passing, so she suddenly struggled to get up in the middle of the night, wanting to find him.

Who knows?

Poor thing.

**

Since the village party secretary repeatedly stressed the need to keep things simple and reduce gatherings, Zhu Dashan and the old lady's funerals were held on the same day.

The funeral team finally got the application. When Zhu Yingning told them the situation, they said that one person could sing, two people could sing, it didn't matter, as long as they got together and did it.

An auspicious day was chosen, just three days later, and the rest was easy. The burial place for the old lady was chosen early in the morning, next to Zhu Yingning's grandfather who had passed away early. There were enough gold ingots because Zhu Yingning had lost a lot of money in the past few days. The problem was the coffin - it was used by Zhu Dashan, and now there was still a shortage of one, so they had to buy one temporarily from the funeral home.

The funeral home sent a special car to deliver the coffin. Liu Guifang touched the material of the coffin and said that the material was not good, but they had to make do with it.

After deciding on a coffin, hiring someone to decorate the body, and burning various incense sticks, Zhu Yingning remained awake for two days and two nights, running around, looking for people, and performing various rituals. The day before the funeral, she finally managed to finish all the tasks, told Liu Guifang that she needed to rest, and then left.

Liu Guifang was distracted and just nodded, not caring.

At night, Zhu Jixiang came back from the hospital. He kicked the shoe cabinet as soon as he entered the house and said that after all the trouble, the damn hospital was only willing to pay 220,000 yuan, and told him that if the compensation was higher, they would see him in court.

After he finished cursing, he said, "I have to discuss this with my sister! Where's my sister?" He turned and asked Liu Guifang.

Liu Guifang was in a daze. After thinking for a moment, she hesitated and said, "She went out."

"Where did you go?"

"have no idea."

"The funeral is tomorrow morning. It's past ten o'clock in the evening now. Where can she go?!" Zhu Jixiang was very anxious. He lowered his head and decided to call Zhu Yingning. However, when he dialed the number, Zhu Yingning's cell phone rang in the house.

He followed the sound and found that Zhu Yingning had left her cell phone in the bedroom. She didn't bring her cell phone with her.

Liu Guifang then realized something was wrong. She walked over timidly and asked Zhu Jixiang helplessly, "Where's your sister?"

"How should I know?!" He was so annoyed that he couldn't help but yell at Liu Guifang, then scratched his hair in frustration, "...Okay, I'll go look outside, maybe it's in someone else's house."

As soon as he finished speaking, there were two knocks on the iron door.

Liu Guifang and Zhu Jixiang exchanged a glance: "Is it your sister who is here?"

Zhu Jixiang went to open the door. The door was half-open with a small gap in the middle. He pulled the door open with force. When he looked up and saw the uninvited guest outside, he was stunned.