Evaporation
This year's summer came suddenly and cruelly.
The sky is like a piece of faded denim, the world twists and trembles in the sweltering heat, and the incessant chirping of cicadas is the groan of plants.
Cheng Zhou sat in the room where the body lay in state, carefully copying the name written on the back of the gift envelope into his notebook.
His brows were furrowed, but his gaze, fixed on the paper, was unfocused.
Cheng Zhou and Hu Tong flew back to Jinshi, missing the opportunity to participate in the long-awaited landscape design project.
The morning before, he called his grandmother to try to persuade her not to turn off the air conditioner just because he was worried about the electricity bill, but no one answered. He called again near noon, but still no one answered.
Cheng Zhou felt uneasy and contacted Grandpa Li next door to check on the situation. Grandpa Li said the door was locked and no one answered when he knocked. He then contacted the staff at the courier point, who said that no one had gone to the courier point to use the air conditioning.
Just when I was feeling extremely confused, Grandpa Li called again, saying that Grandma Cheng had collapsed in the field.
The person was already dead.
Grandma Cheng went out under the scorching sun, and whether she slipped or suffered heatstroke, she fell into the dense, airless cornfield. Life, like water, was quickly absorbed by the parched earth, and then evaporated.
Did you call for help?
have no idea.
Was he still conscious after falling?
have no idea.
What does it feel like to have your internal organs gradually roasted?
have no idea.
There was only one thing Cheng Zhou was certain of.
He no longer has a maternal grandmother.
Cheng Zhou stared blankly at his notebook, not wanting to cry at all, but feeling very lost.
He rushed back overnight and, with the help of the Hu family, arranged his grandmother's funeral. How many hours did he not sleep? Another unknown.
Perhaps this is the meaning of funerals: to keep people mechanically busy, so they have no time to grieve.
"You're such a clever kid, hiding here keeping accounts!"
A cheerful voice suddenly rang out. Cheng Zhou looked up and saw a deeply lined face, feeling somewhat dazed.
I think I saw my grandmother.
Upon closer inspection, it no longer looks like it.
The person who arrived was wearing a loose-fitting light yellow floral suit, grinning to reveal a few oddly shaped teeth, and had sparse black hair tied into a small ponytail at the back of their head.
There was a sweet, cloying fragrance in the air, which Cheng Zhou had smelled when he dyed his hair.
"Hello."
He pretended not to smell the odor, acting as if nothing was amiss, but his eyes were filled with gratitude as he looked at the old man.
I'm grateful that she specially dyed her hair black to attend my grandmother's funeral.
Upon hearing this, the old lady smiled even more broadly.
"Hello, hello, college students are so polite! Here, here, this is my gift money, no need to remember it."
A hundred-yuan bill was slapped onto the notebook, and the old woman waved her hand and was about to leave.
Cheng Zhou stopped her: "You should still write it down, I need to return the favor on behalf of Grandma... She doesn't like owing favors..."
The old woman's smile froze, and Cheng Zhou felt a little guilty, realizing he had said the wrong thing.
The old man and the child stared at each other in a stalemate for a while.
Suddenly, footsteps came from outside.
The old woman sighed, moved her withered lips, and said, "Remember, my name is Li Shengying, the 'ying' with the grass radical, can you write it?"
"I can write it."
Cheng Zhou spoke with great certainty, but the pen tip pressed against the paper remained motionless for a long time. Only when ink beads formed did he hurriedly begin to write, resulting in somewhat sloppy handwriting.
The old woman peeked over to watch him write, muttering, "Write neatly, or I'll have to—oh well, never mind, mine isn't neat either..."
The footsteps grew closer, then suddenly turned into a clear, crisp call.
"Cheng Zhou!"
Hu Tong pushed open the door and greeted the unfamiliar old woman with a perfunctory but very enthusiastic greeting. He rested his hand on the table and spoke rapidly, "I'm going to buy groceries. Should I buy some snacks for the vigil, or some pickled vegetables to eat with rice, and maybe some porridge tonight? My mother asked me to ask for your opinion."
Cheng Zhou pondered for a moment: "All—"
Hu Tong raised an eyebrow and interrupted, "You'd better not say anything!"
Cheng Zhou pursed her lips and blinked her misty eyes.
The old woman laughed and patted Hu Tong on the shoulder: "What does he know? Come on, I'll go with you and help you bargain!"
Hu Tong glanced at Cheng Zhou, then left with the old woman, still somewhat doubtful.
Funerals in the countryside are always more lively than weddings, with firecrackers going off from morning till night. The neighbor's dog keeps howling; it's no longer the big yellow dog that used to tilt its head and listen to people talk. Instead, it's a large, pure black dog, supposedly the great-grandson of the old yellow dog—whether it is or not, nobody knows, it's just something to talk about over tea.
In the air-conditioned living room, the coffee table was removed, and several round tables were temporarily set up. Covering them with plastic tablecloths turned them into dining tables, and removing the tablecloths turned them into mahjong tables, which was very practical.
"What's all that noise over there?" an old man asked his companion, picking at his ear.
His companion blinked his cloudy eyes and said nonchalantly, "Who knows? It's your turn to play, hurry up! Don't try to cheat!"
"oh……"
The old man pouted.
It wasn't that she was trying to renege on her promise; an argument had indeed broken out in the next room.
Accompanied by Grandma Li, Hu Tong finished purchasing ingredients and returned to the Cheng family home. Wandering around, he saw a geomancer writing a speech for a memorial service. Curious, he went over to take a peek—and unsurprisingly, he exploded in anger.
"What have you written?!" she shouted, pointing at the manuscript. "Aunt Xiaoyin is Grandma Cheng's own daughter, so why is she listed after this person in the order of her name?!"
Hu Tong stared at the name "Dear Son-in-Law Li X" on the paper, her eyes red with anger, her whole body trembling with rage. This was the first time she had ever heard of Cheng Zhou's father's name.
The geomancer glanced at her and waved his hand impatiently, "That's how it is. Don't cause trouble and disturb the old man's peace."
"I don't care what you do!" Hu Tong snapped, prying the man's hands off, snatching the manuscript, and crumpling it into a ball. "My mom also paid for this funeral. Put Aunt Xiaoyin's name first, or you're fired!"
She stood ramrod straight, chin held high, a bead of sweat rolling down her flushed face and pattering onto the floor.
"Hey—you!" the fortune teller exclaimed in surprise, pointing at Hu Tong's nose, "You're such a handful! You're just being difficult!"
Hu Tong was not intimidated at all: "Change it or not, if you don't change it, get out, and you have to refund the money. If you don't, I'll sue you! I don't believe you're the only one who knows how to hold a religious ceremony!"
The geomancer was too lazy to argue with her, so he turned to Cheng Zhou and Hu Jiale to reason with them, but to no avail. He then reluctantly rewrote his speech, moving Cheng Yin's name to the front.
“If it weren’t for the fact that Old Madam Cheng used to be a teacher at the village school, I would have quit,” he muttered reluctantly. “This is all your idea, so don’t blame me if anything goes wrong…”
Hu Tong asked in a drawn-out tone, "What's the problem? Did Cheng Zhou's father crawl out of the ground to find you and ask you to put his name first?"
"Hey!" The geomancer slammed his pen down. "You little girl, you have no sense of propriety at all!"
Seeing that he had the upper hand, Hu Tong smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry, he won't. You're the most skilled geomancer around here, what problem could possibly arise?"
The fortune teller rolled his eyes at her, picked up his pen, and let out a soft snort through his nose, "He was just saying he wanted to change people..."
"Just saying that out of anger, just saying that out of anger. You're so capable, it's really beneath you to argue with me," Hu Tong said with a fake smile.
The other party compromised because most of the necessary preparations for the ceremony had already been made, and refunding the money now would be too much of a loss. Hu Tong understood this, but didn't point it out.
The older generation is very particular about these things, and she was afraid that if she went too far, Grandma Cheng would be unhappy... Would she?
Anyway, there is one person who will never be angry with her.
Hu Tong looked down at the neatly written name of Cheng Yin on the paper. A delicate face with a gentle smile appeared in his mind, somewhat like Grandma Cheng, but much younger.
"Our Tongtong is so amazing! Aunt Xiaoyin admires you so much!"
Wearing an oatmeal-colored sleeveless dress, Cheng Yin hugged Hu Tong in her arms, praising her for eating an extra bowl of rice. Her slightly curled long hair draped over her shoulders, and she gently scratched Hu Tong's cheek, tickling her and smelling a cool, clean, almost astringent scent.
"Tongtong doesn't like playing with Xiaozhou? That's okay, as long as you like playing with Aunt Xiaoyin, we're best friends, aren't we? Ah... Tongtong's best friend is Miaomiao, well, I don't care—say it, and Aunt Xiaoyin will take you to buy yummy treats—tell me, tell me, lying is okay too~"
The woman laughed and pinched Hu Tong's chubby cheeks. Cheng Zhou hugged his mother's leg, the little boy, as round as a snowball, and said in a soft voice, "My best friend is Mom."
Hu Tong said angrily, "You have other best friends in kindergarten, Cheng Zhou, you're lying, you can only eat the unhappy fruit with your mouth shut!"
"Don't cry, Tongtong, the power will be back on soon." The woman knelt down and wiped away Hu Tong's tears. The flickering candlelight painted her with a honey-colored glow, even the tips of her eyelashes were edged with gold. "What's shameful about being afraid of the dark? Our Tongtong isn't afraid of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet. Being afraid of the dark is already incredibly brave!"
Those images buried deep in her memory kept surfacing, and Hu Tong felt a lump in her throat, so she looked away from the paper.
More than a decade later, she and the deceased Cheng Yin are now roughly the same age.
But the affection and admiration in his heart remained unchanged.
Hu Tong sniffed, said some half-hearted nice things to the geomancer, and then hurriedly slipped out the door to avoid the crowd and find the big black dog next door to pass the time.
Those attending the funeral were all chatting and laughing, trying to dispel grief and comfort the bereaved family. What kind of behavior is it for her to cry first?
Hu Tong tossed the crumpled manuscript paper aside, ordering imperiously, "Xiao Hei, go! Pick it up!"
The big black dog glanced at her lazily, then plopped down and turned its head away.
Hu Tong picked up the crumpled paper himself, tore it to shreds, looked at the sleeping black dog, thought for a moment, and then went to the kitchen to steal a small piece of beef that hadn't been braised yet.
The aroma of meat wafted through the air.
The big black dog sat up abruptly, grinned, and its tail wagged behind it, leaving a blurry shadow.
"Little Black, do you know you're a snob?" Hu Tong said, blowing on the beef to cool it down before feeding it to the dog. The black dog licked her palm in gratitude.
"Hmph, you're a cute snob after all..."
Woof! The big black dog swallowed the piece of meat and barked contentedly.
The man and the dog squatted face to face, chatting in completely different languages.
Under the blazing sun, the abundant deep green foliage rolled down from the mountaintop to the foot of the mountain, threatening to infiltrate the houses.
Snap! A stalk of grass that was peeking out was suddenly trampled down.
Hu Tong's mood improved, and he jumped up, which made the black dog bark excitedly.
"Little Black, come and chase me!" she said, turning around and running a few steps, when she heard a whooshing sound behind her.
Hu Tong turned his head away and scratched his cheek awkwardly.
"Sorry, Xiao Hei, I forgot you were tied up."
The tethered Xiao Hei cursed loudly.
"Woof woof!"
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