Wu Yanxu's sight was fixed for a moment. He kept looking at the row of wind turbines and felt that the surrounding scenery was roughly the same as what he saw on the day he woke up.
After the car stopped, he got out and looked across, and saw that it was filled with densely packed graves.
What's going on? Did he just come out of the graveyard? Are all the people he's met over the past five years dead?
Isn’t this bullshit!
He and Tian had two sons, but he didn't believe this!
"Hey, why is it locked?" Gu Guangming pulled off the iron lock on the door. The wooden door painted with red paint looked mottled. The five or six bungalows in a row were all like this, low and dilapidated. They might be located at the foot of the grave mountain, so they had not been demolished.
"The years are peeling off the wall and I can see my childhood..." Yu Dahai actually hummed a song. He swayed his arms and walked towards the next few rooms while humming. Wu Yanxu also followed him. It didn't look like anyone was home. Only the door of one room was half open.
Yu Dahai shouted a few times at the top of his lungs, but no one answered.
Gu Guangming called his parents but they didn't answer. He called his aunt but the line was busy too. He came over and peeked into the room. "Maybe he's in the vegetable garden behind the house. I'll go ask."
He pushed the door open and went in, followed by Wu Yanxu and Yu Dahai.
The room was dimly lit, things were piled up in a disorderly manner, and there was a faint smell of fermented urine.
"How can people live in this house? It's inappropriate." Yu Dahai shook his head and muttered.
Wu Yanxu didn't say anything. Although the living conditions were indeed bad, a few decades ago, every household lived in a low-rise bungalow. This house was just not cleaned up. The owner was most likely an elderly person living alone.
She was indeed an old lady with all her teeth missing and hearing loss, hunched over, pulling weeds in the vegetable patch. Gu Guangming asked her questions for a long time, using his voice and gestures. She answered all sorts of questions, with a silly smile on her wrinkled face.
"The old lady is hard of hearing and can't explain clearly. Forget it, I'll go home and ask the neighbors." Gu Guangming led them out, and Yu Dahai said, "This old lady is over 80 years old, right? Doesn't she have any children? And the local government doesn't care?"
Gu Guangming pointed his chin towards a deserted courtyard across the street. "Across the street is the town's nursing home. The old lady eats there, but she doesn't eat for free. She grows a lot of vegetables herself and sends them all to the nursing home."
Wu Yanxu looked across at the barren hills, with weeds half a man's height, and only a lonely nursing home. He rubbed his chin and said, "What a jerk! They built this nursing home just to save trouble. Are they just going to throw the dead people onto the graves across the hill?"
Gu Guangming said, "That's right. The last time I came back, the lady downstairs was cursing me, saying that those idiots built the nursing home here just to save trouble. I'll give my parents another call. If they don't answer, I'll go back and check."
"Forget it. Maybe your grandfather went out for a stroll. He will be back soon. Let's go up the mountain and take a look." Wu Yanxu turned and pointed at the graveyard behind him. "Let's go see your great-grandmother's grave."
This cemetery was bought by the arsenal in Jinping Town, and all the people buried there are factory employees and their families. When they went up the mountain, Gu Guangming told them, "My great-grandmother used to be an employee of the factory, as did my parents and my aunt."
He turned around and gestured towards the nursing home across the street. "My grandfather told me that this was my great-grandfather's ancestral home during the Republic of China era. My great-great-grandfather was a big capitalist in the provincial capital during the Republic of China era and owned a tea factory. This mountain of graves was originally a tea plantation."
Yu Dahai nodded. "Many of the Flying Tigers are from wealthy and aristocratic families. So your family should have overseas connections, right?"
"Yes, but no one has ever come back, and no one has contacted us. My dad said my grandfather reported my great-grandmother, so we can't take the initiative to contact them. Besides, my grandfather's generation is already in their eighties or nineties even if they are still alive. I've never met them, so there's no point in contacting them."
"That's true." Wu Yanxu put his hands on his hips and looked at the wind power equipment on the opposite mountain. Standing on this side of the mountain and looking over, he confirmed that it was the same as what he saw when he came out of the cave on the day he woke up, but this grave mountain was different from what he saw then.
"Has the man in the photo never come here to look for your grandfather?" Wu Yanxu suddenly asked.
"Captain Wu, we're on a cemetery right now. Even though I don't believe in ghosts, your words make my hair stand on end."
"What are you afraid of with two of us old guys around?" Yu Dahai waved his hand. "Enough of the nonsense. Let's go. Lead the way. Let's go to your great-grandmother's grave. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I, an old brother, won't be able to prepare for the exam with peace of mind when I go back."
Gu Guangming led them to his great-grandmother's grave. The weeds were cleared clean, the grave well maintained, and bamboos planted on top. Wu Yanxu pulled up his trouser legs and squatted down to read the tombstone. "Born in September of the tenth year of the Republic of China, that would be 1921, the year the Communist Party of China was founded, right, Old Yu?"
"Yes, that's right." Gu Guangming, a young intellectual, replied before Yu Dahai.
"Oh, then it's a good year that your great-grandmother was born!" Yu Dahai laughed.
Wu Yanxu stood up, looked at the bamboo on the grave, and then walked around the grave for a while, "Xiao Gu, come and see, the grave has exploded!"
According to science, it is normal for grave mounds to crack due to years of wind and sun, but in Wu Yanxu's hometown, there is a superstitious belief that the souls of the dead will come out to cause trouble and harm the world.
"That's true. My grandfather has always maintained it well and would go up the mountain to check on it every now and then. How could it explode for no reason? This is strange. I'll call my dad and ask him."
Gu Guangming called, but his parents still didn't answer. He then called his aunt, who picked up. He learned that his grandfather had gone up the mountain a few days earlier and had seen his great-grandmother's grave burst. He had fallen ill since coming down the mountain, talking nonsense and having a high fever. His parents and aunt had taken him to the county hospital yesterday.
His aunt said that his grandfather is now unconscious, probably in the past two days, because he just went to work at the city police station, so his parents said not to disturb him for the time being and let him focus on his work.
It was such an unfortunate coincidence. Wu Yanxu said, "It's still early. Let's go to the county hospital. If my hypothesis is correct, and Grandma Wu in the photo is really your great-grandmother, maybe seeing the photo will wake your grandfather up. Let's go."
After the three of them descended the mountain, Wu Yanxu drove the car this time, while Gu Guangming sat in the passenger seat and gave him directions. On the way to the county town, he said, "I know. According to our saying, the deceased old man's grave exploded because the deceased's spirit came out to seek revenge and bring disaster to future generations. My grandfather must have been frightened."
"Hey, that's all feudal superstition. I don't believe in superstition." Yu Dahai took out a cigarette, then stuffed it back into his bag. He continued, "Besides, she's your grandfather's own mother. How could a mother harm her own son?"
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