The fine snowflakes suddenly turned into a heavy blizzard, gradually enveloping the graves on the mountaintop in a profound silence. It offered a solemn solace to every departed soul here.
The two men hurriedly kowtowed a few times and left. Jiang Xi stood in front of the small grave, her head bowed in a daze.
And then what? She's gone? She's not dead yet.
Jiang Xi felt that she could even hear the little girl crying.
But after a while she couldn't hear it anymore, and suddenly the ringing started again, this time even louder than before.
So Jiang Xi's body continued to move forward uncontrollably, following the sound of the bell.
They passed through heavy snow, then through stone houses, and then through two mountains, finally stopping at a mountain river.
Several men were talking by the river. One of them, a young man wearing a black fur coat, said, "This is the chieftain's place. The Indian family drank the water from here and then got sick."
Before him, listening to him, was an old man, leaning on a cane, wearing a hat adorned with a fox's head.
The old man touched his cane and said with a pained expression, "Foolish, so foolish, Ah San is so foolish! It's been passed down from generation to generation, and every year we've told you that the raw water in these mountains is undrinkable."
He said "muddled" three times in a row, his emotions running high, which made the old man's face turn red.
Another older man advised, "Sigh, young people these days don't listen to any of this advice."
The old man continued, “I’ve always told you to drink the spring water from behind the house. Don’t drink water from outside. You never took it seriously. I think the wisdom of our ancestors, which has been passed down for centuries, is going to be ruined by this generation.”
As he spoke, he waved his hand and said, "That's enough, that's enough. Now we can only leave it to fate."
Looking at the snow-capped mountain in front of him, the old man sighed and said, "I don't know if my old bones can make it through this time."
These words were heartbreaking, and the young people nearby dared not respond.
Immediately afterwards, the scenery around Jiang Xi began to shift rapidly, until the speed became faster and faster, and Jiang Xi felt herself uncontrollably returning to the stone house.
Feeling a wave of suffocation, Jiang Xi suddenly sat up.
When he woke up, he found himself still in the stone house, with Yan Jing'an and Yan Zheng both sleeping in their respective beds.
Am I dreaming? Everything I just saw felt so real.
She looked up at the bell hanging on the wall. It was still there, untouched.
Her face felt cold, and when Jiang Xi reached out to touch it, she realized it was tears.
While I was still in a daze, I suddenly heard Yan Zheng's voice behind me: "What's wrong?"
Jiang Xi shook her head and said, "I want to hug you."
Yan Zheng said softly, "Come here."
His bed was wider and farther away from Yan Jing'an.
Jiang Xi put on her clothes and walked over. Yan Zheng lifted the blanket beside him, put his arm on the pillow, and Jiang Xi lay down with him.
His arm was very hard and not very comfortable, but Jiang Xi felt a strange sense of security.
Yan Zheng leaned his head closer, resting his chin on her forehead.
"Did you have a nightmare?"
Jiang Xi hummed in agreement, her eyes stinging, and said, "I dreamt of the little girl in that mural."
"The little girl? The one making pottery with the woman?"
Jiang Xi said with a slightly nasal tone, "I think so, that bell belongs to her."
Hearing this, Yan Zheng frowned. His worst fears had come true. He said in a deep voice, "Don't think too much about it. You're naturally sentimental and easily affected by these things."
Jiang Xi snuggled closer to him: "Besides feeling sad, I think she wanted to tell me something. In the dream, the bell took me to a river two mountains away from here. Their people said that the source of the plague was because someone drank the raw water there."
Hearing this, Yan Zheng's thoughts became clearer: "There are many wild animals in the mountains. Some of them die upstream in the river. The water downstream may look clear, but we don't know what kind of germs are in it. So it's generally not recommended to drink raw water when you're out. It's best to drink boiled water."
"It seems their ancestors knew this too, but there are always those who won't listen to advice."
Jiang Xi sighed, "Yeah, these people are really a handful."
Yan Zheng found her words cute and chuckled.
Jiang Xi then said, "After we move, could you come back to that cave with me again? I want to give that bell to that little girl."
These words sent chills down Yan Zheng's spine. He looked at Jiang Xi and asked, "Send it? Send it where?"
Seeing how nervous he was, Jiang Xi knew he had misunderstood, so she quickly said, "In the dream, the bell led me to the little girl's grave, which is their ancestral grave. It's on the mountaintop ahead. I reckon it should take us half a day to walk there."
Yan Zheng hissed, "It's so bizarre, I could even dream about it."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Xi immediately said, "Why don't we go and see for ourselves? I have a feeling she's trying to tell me something. Besides, I also heard the clan chief in my dream say that there's a mountain spring behind the house, but we don't know which house it is. We'll have to look for it again later."
Yan Zheng listened and said, "Okay, we'll go when we're done. I'll go to the cave with you first."
In fact, as a successor to socialism and a staunch materialist, Jiang Xi has never believed in ghosts or gods.
However, she also remembered many elders saying that some old objects carry energy. The more emotionally rich a person is, the more easily they are affected by this energy. For example, they might have dreams or hallucinations.
However, this does not necessarily mean that ghosts and gods exist in the world. Everything in the world is made up of energy, and everything has its own energy.
She wanted to say something more, but Yan Jing'an's dissatisfied voice came from another corner of the room.
"I said, next time, can you two talk during the day if you have anything to say?"
Yan Jing'an was woken up from his sleep and said in an unfriendly tone, "It's so late at night, I thought there were mice."
In the darkness, Jiang Xi's face flushed instantly. She snuggled closer to Yan Zheng's arm, and Yan Zheng chuckled, lowering his head to gently kiss her forehead.
He tightened his arms around her, holding her close, and whispered, "Sleep now, I'm holding you, so you won't dream."
The next morning, Yan Zheng woke up Jiang Xi, who was in his arms, first, and then woke up Yan Jing'an after she got up.
As usual, I cooked porridge in the morning, and Jiang Xi heated up some pickled vegetables. We ate a warm meal together.
We set off just as the sun was rising.
Jiang Xi, wearing a rabbit fur hat, sat on the cart, mainly because Yan Zheng and Yan Jing'an thought he was walking too slowly and was wasting time.
We decided to let her sit in the cart; the deer pulling her actually made us go faster.
Jiang Xi had no way to refute this, since her speed was indeed a bit of a hindrance. So she obediently got into the wooden cart.
Xiao Lu, who is usually impatient, knew that Jiang Xi was in the car. This time, however, he strictly adhered to the principle of "there are thousands of roads, but safety comes first" and chose the easiest route.
This touched Jiang Xi deeply. You see, when Xiao Lu pulls the cargo, it's usually a clattering, clanging symphony.
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