At night, Shen Yu came back to rest, smelling of alcohol. Meng Tao asked, "How much did you drink? Are you drunk?"

Shen Yu leaned over to look at his son who was sleeping obediently, and kissed his wife: "I drank three bowls, do you think I am drunk? The wine tonight is good. My eldest cousin said he brought it back from Hongsong Town last time. There is a big winery over there. We can buy a batch of their wine then."

"Great, I'm going to make flower wine now. I've collected so many peach and chrysanthemum petals."

The cousin's wife brought in hot water. Shen Yu thanked her and took it. He washed his hands and face, turned off the lights and lay down. The couple quietly took turns to go into the space and take a spring water bath.

The next day, Captain Wang made the arrangements again. In the morning, the two cousins ​​accompanied Meng Tao and his party to the wild graves of He Lian, Guan Xiuzhi and her two sons.

Meng Zhehan held little Yunhai in his arms, Shen Yu and Xu Yulin used shovels to add some soil to the grave, Xu Yuting and Liu Jicheng helped to arrange the offerings, Meng Tao lit a stick of incense, prayed silently in her heart, and finally burned some yellow paper. Everyone bowed together to complete the worship.

On the way back, just like last year, it was just a light drizzle in the cloudy sky. The raindrops floated slowly and were blown away by the wind, so they didn't wet my clothes.

My second cousin's mother sighed, "Your mother and your grandmother have been looking forward to it for a year. You are here with your grandson in your arms. They can't bear to leave you. Why don't you stay for a few more days?"

Meng Tao smiled and said, "I just told my grandma and mom to follow me back to my hometown in Hongsong Town and then go to the capital. After they know the way, it will be very convenient to go back and forth."

"Yes, yes, yes! You can go wherever you want in the future. It's great, hahaha!" My second cousin's mother was also happy.

Meng Tao actually had an idea in her mind. She wanted to move He Lian and her son away and send them to Meng Shengli, so that their family could be reunited and it would be convenient for them to visit the graves in the future. But the current situation might not be easy to handle, and she would have to wait a few more years, so she didn't show it for the time being.

She tried to ask for her grandmother's and mother's opinions in front of their graves, asking them to give her some hints, telling them to make it rain if they wanted it to, and to make it windy if they didn't want it to.

I said it twice, and it rained each time. Let’s see next year. As the third time is the limit, if it still rains, then we will just make the decision.

At around three o'clock in the afternoon, Meng Tao and his group said goodbye to their relatives in Heilingzi Village and headed towards Hongsong Town in a jeep and a truck.

The other truck was driven by Ding Hao and Huang Zhi, who had taken a fork in the road halfway to take them to Hongsong Town.

Shen Yu, his wife, son and Xiao Wangcai were still sitting in the back of the truck, along with the brothers Zhu Chunlin and Zhu Chunjiang, and seven or eight sacks, which were local specialties sent by relatives from Heilingzi Village. Peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes, vermicelli, potatoes, dried mushrooms and black fungus were all good things. It was a real mixture of people and goods. Fortunately, there were no traffic police checks on the road.

We arrived at Hongsong Town at night and went to the guesthouse first. Ding Hao had made arrangements in advance. After dinner, everyone went to rest as they were all tired after a whole day's journey.

The next morning, when they got up and had breakfast, Shen Yumengtao and everyone discussed and decided that Zhu Chunlin and his brother would be enough to accompany them to the village. There was no need for so many people. It would feel more like going to a fight than visiting relatives.

The four brothers Xu and Liu can go looking for old traces and visit old friends on their own, while Ding Hao and Huang Yuan will randomly learn about the various production enterprises in the town and pay attention to the large winery in the town.

A beating is a small matter, but it would be terrible if there are old or sick relatives and something bad happens to them because of the anger.

So I'd better not go.

Shen Yu drove to the village with his wife, children and two cousins ​​from the Zhu family. As soon as they left the town, Zhu Chunlin shouted to stop the car. It turned out that he saw an oncoming carriage with two middle-aged men sitting in it, who were relatives of the He family.

Both sides stopped the car to meet each other. The middle-aged man whom Zhu Chunlin and Zhu Chunjiang called "uncle" was the brothers Zhao Fuguo and Zhao Fumin, who were from Hejia Village and were the two sons of Sister He Lian.

Meng Tao calls He Lian grandma, so she should call He Lian's eldest sister great aunt. As for Zhao Fuguo and Zhao Fuming... they should also be called cousins.

It is understood that of Grandma He Lian's brothers and sisters, only one sister and one sister are still alive, while there are seven or eight cousins ​​like Zhao Fuguo who are of the same generation as Guan Xiuzhi, and there are even more cousins ​​of the same generation as Meng Tao.

This doesn’t include the ones from Guanjia Village... Meng Tao has to get to know so many relatives and sort out all the relationships within two days, which is quite a challenge.

The two cousins ​​drove a horse-drawn carriage to the town early in the morning to see if their nieces had arrived. They unexpectedly met them on the way and were very happy. Zhao Fuguo immediately sat in the cab of the truck to lead the way and took the nephews home first. The elderly people at home were waiting for them and they would have a good chat when they got home.

Meng Tao finally saw her great aunt. The skinny, white-haired old lady was lying on the kang. She looked to be in her eighties or nineties, but her actual age was in her early seventies. She opened her unfocused eyes wide, tightly grasped Meng Tao's hand, and cried:

"My little Huahua, my darling grandson! It's my great aunt who is useless. I'm sorry for you... Meng Shengli is a good man. Your grandma said that she failed to protect Goudan, causing old Meng to be childless. So I'll give you to him, so that he will have someone to take care of you in your old age and see you to the end of your life... My great aunt can wait for you to come back. My great aunt will feel at ease and can die with her eyes closed!"

The great aunt was in great grief and cried loudly. Meng Tao couldn't stop crying either. The past had gone with the wind and bringing it up again would only add to the sadness. She could only comfort the old lady with kind words. The brothers Zhao Fuguo and Zhao Fumin and their wives also kept persuading her. The old lady slowly calmed down. She was too weak and had no energy left after crying. Before falling asleep, she told her son and daughter-in-law to take good care of her niece's family.

Shen Yu held little Yunhai in his arms, and sat in another room with Zhu Chunlin and Zhu Chunjiang, drinking water. The Zhao cousins ​​said that the old man had been ill for a long time, and the house smelled bad, so the little kid was too young to go in.

Meng Tao and her cousin who took care of the old lady learned that the old lady started to have blurred vision two years ago and then gradually lost her sight. The family was afraid that she would fall, so they would not let her go out. The old lady's health gradually weakened. Her children and grandchildren wanted to send her to the county hospital for treatment, but the old lady refused to go, saying that she only had so much time left and that she had to go when she was supposed to, and they didn't want to move her around.

Zhao Fuguo and his brothers asked the doctor from the village clinic to come and see them. The doctor came from a big hospital in the city and was quite capable. After the examination, he said that there was no serious illness, just some basic diseases that old people have, malnutrition, organ decline, and blindness, but he couldn't remember what the problem was. Anyway, if they could go to a big hospital for treatment, use good medicine, and eat good food, they could live longer.

But the old lady didn't want to go to the hospital. She scolded us even when we killed a chicken and stewed the meat, and she refused to eat. The family was helpless.

(End of this chapter)