Zhangshu Commune and Qiantou Commune are connected by mountains and separated by a strip of water.
The car arrived at Huangtugang Brigade of Zhangshu Commune and finally entered a small village called Beihegou.
Beihegou Village is not big, with only about thirty to fifty households.
The driver drove the car directly to a house that looked unremarkable from the outside.
"You're lucky today. Based on my experience here so often, I don't think anyone of note will come today. There aren't even bicycles or ordinary people at the door. It all depends on whether he's willing to take your job."
Sure enough, there was not even a bicycle outside the door of this family's house.
This is good, it saves a lot of trouble.
When Wan Feng entered the yard, a middle-aged man came out to greet him.
Wan Feng briefly stated the purpose of his visit.
"You have to ask my father himself. Our opinion doesn't count." After saying that, he took Wan Feng into the east room of the house.
At the head of the kang, an old man in his sixties was squatting and smoking a pipe.
"Hello, old man!"
The gentleman glanced at Wan Feng, nodded slightly and said nothing.
"Visiting the ancestral grave? Has anything happened to your family in recent years?"
What I'm asking is that if nothing happens, you can't visit the cemetery.
"No, old sir. I'm not from here. This is my first time coming back to pay respect to my ancestors. I'd like to tidy up the ancestral graves as a sign of filial piety. I'd like to ask you to take a look at what I should be aware of."
As he spoke, Wan Feng gently placed a stack of money on the kang mat.
Mr. Huang took the opportunity to knock off the ashes from his cigarette and glanced at the stack of money imperceptibly. His eyelids twitched.
One thousand yuan! This was the largest business order he had ever received. Those officials usually gave a few dozen to a hundred yuan, and he remembered that the most he had received was three hundred yuan.
This young man, who looks young, spent a thousand! What does he do?
"Isn't it just about taking care of the ancestral graves? When do you want to do it?"
"The car is outside the door. If it's convenient for you, we can go now. The village of Gala in Qijiazi Brigade is about twenty miles away."
"Then you guys wait outside for a while while I clean up."
Wan Feng left the house and stood in the yard waiting for Mr. Huang to come out.
After more than ten minutes, the old man came out in high spirits, followed by a young man carrying a backpack.
Old Man Huang obviously knew the driver and nodded to him.
The car took half an hour to reach Gala Village.
"Old man, it's past ten o'clock now. Let's finish our meal before we go looking for places?"
"No, go take a look first, there's no rush to eat when you come back."
The Wanjia Cemetery is located right next to the river outside Gala Village, down a long slope not far from the river, with a pond in the front left.
There are three graves in the cemetery, sitting alone on the hillside.
Wan Shuiming led everyone here, and Mr. Huang frowned as soon as he arrived at the cemetery.
He walked around the cemetery twice, then looked at the terrain on both sides, and finally began to measure and calculate with tools such as a compass.
The whole process took more than an hour.
"Okay, let's go back and talk about it. It's too cold here."
When they returned to Wan Shuiming's house, Mr. Huang took off his shoes and got on the kang. Wan Shuiming took out the good cigarettes that Wan Feng had bought and served tea to entertain Mr. Huang and the driver.
The old man lit a cigarette and began to talk, starting with the layout of the cemetery and using a bunch of words that Wan Feng didn't understand.
Wan Feng knew that this was just a preliminary preparation, and he just needed to understand the last few key sentences that served as the conclusion.
After listing the favorable factors of the cemetery, the old man began to talk about the unfavorable factors.
"The pond by the river to the lower left of your ancestral tomb is a place that destroys your feng shui. Its location just breaks the acupuncture point for your family to produce scholars and wealthy people. It's best to fill it up and plant some pine and cypress trees on it. If you use soil to fill it, don't use soil within 30 meters of the ancestral tomb. It's best to get soil from other places. Once this pond is treated, your Wan family will produce wealthy and knowledgeable people, but don't count on becoming an official."
It’s not a big deal if he doesn’t become an official. Wan Feng himself doesn’t have much interest in officialdom, which is why he doesn’t like to deal with it.
"Old man, do we need to relocate? If we do, you have to choose a good place for us."
"Don't move. Your family's ancestral grave is actually in a good place. It's a place that guarantees safety. Your descendants will at least be safe from illness and disaster throughout their lives. Why move it when such a place can't even be found? Plant a pine tree on each side of the grave. Make sure they survive. Then build a base and erect two stone tablets in front of the grave."
Wan Feng believed the old man's words without a doubt. No one in their Wan family, no matter which branch or lineage, had ever suffered from a serious illness or disaster. If there was any, it was only a minor illness that could be cured with a few pills or a few injections.
The disaster that happened when he was reborn was probably the only accident that ever happened to the Wan family.
In this case, Wan Feng gave up the idea of moving the grave. Who doesn't want to stay away from hospitals for the rest of their lives, and it would be best if they never have to deal with hospitals in their entire life?
Wan Feng believes that no matter whether one is rich or poor, as long as one never has to deal with hospital police, has a few acres of land, a wife and children, and a warm bed at home, it is a perfect life.
What if a rich and powerful person has to deal with sick people every day? What if a powerful person ends up in jail?
Planting a tree in front of a grave is not a problem, but erecting a tombstone is a bit of a problem.
The key is that no one is making stone tablets yet. Where can we hire someone to carve them? It might take a few years before we can figure it out.
During lunch, Wan Feng and Wan Shuiming discussed the issue of filling the pond.
Originally it was a fish pond, but it was abandoned after being washed away several times during the flood season of the creek. Now it is a no-man's land in the team.
Wan Feng asked Wan Shuiming to take over the pond and hire a bulldozer to fill it up, and then plant trees on it according to his husband's instructions.
"That fish pond is over ten acres, so filling it in would be a huge undertaking."
"It's okay. You can just take care of it while I'm not here. Money is not a problem."
During the meal, Wan Feng asked the old man about some things to pay attention to when offering sacrifices to ancestors.
Since the grave site cannot be maintained for the time being, Wan Feng plans to offer sacrifices to his ancestors tomorrow and then go to Changchun to get some money for the New Year before returning home.
The old man promised Wan Feng that he would come to personally arrange and direct the ancestor worship tomorrow.
After dinner, Wan Feng asked the driver to take the old man home first, and then took Li Yong and He Xiao to Changtu County to buy some things for ancestor worship, as some things were not fully available in the previous commune.
Li Mingdou was left at home, and his task was to take Wan Feng's cousin to a small shop in the neighboring village to buy delicious food.
After the reform and opening up, some things that were originally destroyed as part of the "Four Olds" gradually appeared, such as burning incense, paper, carriages, horses, young boys and girls, etc.
The state turned a blind eye and did not interfere.
Wan Feng originally wanted to buy the three major sacrificial animals, but unfortunately he couldn't find any cow or sheep heads at the Changtu Farmers' Market, and a pig head alone was useless.
I had to settle for the next best thing and bought the three small animals: chicken, duck and fish.
After buying some incense and paper and preparing a complete set of offerings, I went home.
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