With Chen Yigen's introduction, Chen Defa met with some of his brothers one by one and reminisced about their youth together.
The group of old men seemed to have returned to their youth. They made fun of each other and talked about some ugly and interesting things in their childhood, which made old man Chen Defa laugh happily.
The old lady had lived in Qingfeng Village before, so she knew even more people. The old sisters, young sisters, and her relatives from her mother's side all came, and the old lady was so excited that she kept wiping away tears.
Even sisters Chen Shufen and Chen Shuqin were wiping their eyes. They had lived in Qingfeng Village at the time and still had some memories of it.
Actually, it’s a bit embarrassing to say that Qingfeng Village hasn’t changed much in the 35 years since liberation. It will take a few more years for Yuezhou’s rural areas to undergo a major transformation.
It was not until goods could truly flow freely that ordinary people dared to go to the city to make money and build small houses with the money.
Decades later, the "luxury houses" in rural Zhijiang Province became famous throughout the country.
The first thing to do when returning to the village is of course to worship the ancestors. This time Chen Xia paid for it and did not care about the good or bad consequences. He used the most grand ceremony of the tenth anniversary.
The so-called "Ten Great Sacrifices" refers to the clan's grand ancestor worship ceremony every ten years.
At this time, all descendants of the Chen family must rush back no matter where they are. Important matters are also decided at this clan meeting. If the descendants of the Chen family from other places have new younger generations, they must also enter them into the family tree on this day.
Therefore, the offerings for the "Ten Major Sacrifices" were quite large. The three animals were not something that ordinary people in that era could afford. These were whole cows, sheep, and pigs. In addition, other offerings were also piled up like mountains, and the amount of paper burned was countless.
This cost Chen Xia almost 3,000 yuan, which was almost his three-year salary. So after the rural clan forces were broken up, this could be said to be the only one in Yuezhou.
If it had happened 10 years earlier, all the Chen family members would have been arrested and forced to reclaim land from the seashore and undergo labor reform.
Chen Yigen also took the risk this time, but it was a big risk. After all, this was a feudal superstition.
The Chen family of Hong Kong knelt devoutly in the ancestral hall, formally recognizing their ancestors, and made an exception to include the names of Chen Shufen and Chen Shuqin in the family tree, as daughters were not originally included.
This is also the reason why Chen Defa is so fond of Chen Xia. In the eyes of the older generation, daughters have no status and do not even have basic human rights, as if only sons and grandsons are their biological children.
People in later generations may not understand the meaning of "returning to one's roots". For the elderly, it means that they can be buried in the ancestral tomb after death, be recognized by their ancestors, and enjoy the incense and sacrifices of future generations.
If one cannot recognize his ancestors, he will become a wandering ghost after death. This is an absolutely unbearable pain for the elderly who have very strong clan concepts.
As soon as the ancestor worship ceremony was over, Chen Defa was completely relieved.
He went home, really went home, and his soul will rest in peace after his death.
After leaving the ancestral hall, everyone went to the graves of Chen Xia’s great-grandfather and great-mother, where his deceased grandparents, parents were also buried together.
After Chen Xia became rich, he cleaned up the surrounding weeds and made some altars with cement, so it didn't look so desolate.
Unlike graves in northern China, graves in Yuezhou's rural areas don't use earthen mounds. Instead, they are built into rectangular boxes with bluestone slabs, placed in fields or on hills, and the coffin is placed inside before being sealed.
So in the 1980s and 1990s, you could see rows of rectangular stone tombs next to the villages, neatly arranged, which was very spectacular and very scary.
Chen Defa was lying on his parents' graves, touching each with one hand, with his head down for a long time without saying a word, as if he was whispering something to his parents.
Chen Yigen was telling him about what happened after he left. After all, Chen Xia had not experienced it, so he couldn't describe it very clearly.
After Chen Defa and his family escaped, Old Man and Old Lady Chen, who had sold their house, could only temporarily live in the ancestral hall with their youngest son and his family. Later, they built a few thatched houses before they finally settled down.
In order to prevent the Chen family from being implicated, Chen Defa's name was removed from the family tree in advance, and no one mentioned this person anymore, which also indirectly protected Chen Decai's family.
Because his family was poor and their land had been sold, Chen Decai could only do odd jobs. Later, after the land reform, he returned to the countryside. Only he and his wife worked to earn work points, but they had to support two elderly people and three children, and they could not even get enough to eat.
Chen Defa's parents could only hide their worries about their son's family deep in their hearts. Until their death, they could only whisper: "Defa, Defa."
Because Chen Decai's family was so poor, they couldn't even afford a coffin when the two old people died. It was the people of the same clan who pooled their money to buy a few bluestone slabs, wrapped them in a straw mat and buried them.
When Chen Defa heard about what happened after he passed away, especially when he heard that his parents didn't even have a coffin after they died, he started crying like a child.
"Dad, Mom, and brother, I'm so sorry for you. I made you suffer so much for me."
Chen Shufen and Chen Shuqin were also in tears. After all, their grandparents loved them very much when they were young, but in the end they couldn't even see them to the end of their lives.
What they could not have imagined was that after they left, life would be so difficult for their grandparents and uncle's family in Qingfeng's hometown.
At least for them, it was horrifying that the elderly could not even get enough to eat, and they felt so sad.
Even Dai Ning understood why his father-in-law insisted on leaving half of his property to Chen Xia's family. If Chen Xia's grandfather had not sold his house and land to raise enough money for the trip, his father-in-law's family would probably be in great danger.
After returning from the tomb-sweeping trip, Qingfeng Village was already bustling with activity. Chen Xia paid for a meal for the entire village. Of course, in name, it was Chen Defa who treated the entire village to a meal.
Uh, that sounds weird.
The Chen family has more happy events. Chen Shengrong, who played with fire and got an ectopic pregnancy, is finally going to marry Song Yulan, who changed back to her original surname.
Chen Defa was also very happy to be able to catch the wedding of the Chen family's children. He drank two more glasses of wine at the wedding that night and gave the two newlyweds a big red envelope of 500 yuan.
This made the surrounding villagers very envious. It was a 500 yuan red envelope. At that time, the villagers only received 1 or 2 yuan at most.
This made the two fathers-in-law, Chen Guoxian and Chen Guojian, so excited that they laughed foolishly. The people of Hong Kong are really generous. Together with Chen Xia, they are all super rich people. It seems that Chen Defa's family is about to make a fortune.
The people of Yuezhou are smart and can see the situation clearly. If they can't get close to their relatives in Hong Kong, they can just get close to Chen Xia.
They heard that Qingfeng Pharmaceutical Factory is going to expand production after the new year, so they will have to hire more workers, right?
Everyone is eager to try it out. Whoever enters the factory will be completely successful.
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