They arrived at the cemetery in the evening.
The rain had completely stopped, the setting sun was bright, and the clouds that had not yet dispersed were dyed golden red.
This color also seeps into the light coming through the gaps in the clouds, and dissolves into the water droplets on the tips of the grass along with the light. Everything covered by it appears particularly gentle.
The rain washed everything pretty clean. Green grass surrounds the snow-white tombstones. The cemetery is halfway up the mountain, surrounded by verdant pines and cypresses. From here you can see the scattered buildings and main roads below.
The gravekeeper was already very familiar with Mingchi and came over to greet him.
This job requires me to work in a cemetery, which can be lonely, but I am also well-informed. I can always hear what people who come to visit the graves and pay their respects are talking about.
I heard that the Ren family was hurt this time, and everything that was supposed to fall fell and collapsed was cleaned up, and they went back to their old ways.
In the ten years since Mrs. Ren passed away, the company has made many decisions that deviated from her original development path. Although it looks prosperous, there have been many problems inside, and the old employees are becoming more and more wavering.
It is because of these reasons that this shock has caused great internal turmoil before the opponents can do anything.
This time, the family finally settled down and adjusted back to the main business and development path of ten years ago. The companies left by Mrs. Ren have found new life, and later unexpectedly there have been many more cooperation opportunities. They are gradually stabilizing and will probably recover in the future.
…
Ming Chi listened carefully and thanked him warmly, "Thank you for your help during this period of time."
He hadn't been there for more than two months, but the cemetery was well maintained and cleaned, with no signs of weeds around.
In summer, the grass and trees grow lushly and can form a vast field in just a few days. If it weren't for the help of the tomb keepers, it would not have been able to last so long relying only on the occasional visitors who came to visit and pay their respects.
The gravekeeper was already old, and when he heard him thank him, he just waved his hand.
"When you didn't come, I knew you must have met with something terrible or you were sick again."
The gravekeeper said, "In the past—" He paused and shook his head, "No more, no more, no more mentioning those things."
The owner of this cemetery has business dealings with the Ren family, and in the past, according to the instructions of the young Mr. Ren, they were not allowed to talk too much to the boy who always came to the cemetery. But even so, because the boy came here alone so many times in those years, it was inevitable that they became more and more familiar with each other.
The grave keeper also heard about what happened to Mingchi, and he has been worried about him ever since. Whenever he thinks of him, he will help clean up the tomb.
Today, he finally saw Mingchi coming to visit the grave, and he felt relieved and led Mingchi all the way up.
Ming Weiting was already waiting in front of the tomb.
He had originally planned to come ahead to tidy up the tombstone, so he arrived earlier than Mingchi, but the place was already quite tidy, so there was nothing left to do.
Hearing the voice, Ming Weiting turned around and met Ming Chi's gaze.
"Is someone here with you this time?" The gravekeeper looked at the figure standing in front of the tomb and was happy for him. "Are you here together?"
Mingchi curved his eyes, nodded slightly, and waved upwards.
Ming Weiting gestured to Ming Chi to wait there, and quickly walked down the stairs.
The gravekeeper took the initiative to move aside. He had been working here for many years, and even without being told, he could still vaguely guess many things: "You won't come here often in the future?"
Ming Chi nodded, steadied his cane, and leaned toward him: "Please take care of yourself."
"The old man is very healthy, his legs and feet are fine, you are the one who needs to take good care of your body."
The gravekeeper smiled and said, "Next time you come, jog all the way up, or I won't open the cemetery gate for you."
Mingchi put his cane behind his back, straightened his shoulders, and assured with a smile.
"I was worried that you wouldn't come, but I was also worried that you would come." The gravekeeper stopped joking, patted his arm, and said gently, "Finally, there is a suitable time."
"My dear child, the old friend is not in the grave."
The gravedigger said to him, "It's about time you stop tying yourself up here."
Ming Chi closed his eyes silently, then opened them again with clear eyes, and thanked him again.
The gravekeeper waved his hand, smiled as he watched the person coming down the steps, took the cane, held the young man's hand and walked slowly up the stairs, then he returned to the hut.
…
Mingchi held Mr. Shadow's hand.
When Ming Weiting walked in front of him, the street lights at the foot of the mountain suddenly lit up, and the lights dotted both sides of the main road and extended further away.
They looked at the street lights spreading into the distance for a while, and then walked towards them in the brilliant golden and pink sunset that filled half of the sky.
The two of them sat together in front of the grave and chatted with my aunt for a long time.
Mingchi said everything he wanted to say, even those words that he had originally planned to just repeat in his mind, he said them all out loud in one breath.
He was so proud that even his ears didn't turn red.
It was also the first time he discovered that Mr. Shadow could speak so many words in one breath.
"I wrote a draft." Mr. Shadow met his gaze and admitted, "I was very nervous and recited it many times."
Some people not only drafted, but also changed into formal clothes that made them look particularly reliable, steady and mature. If Mingchi hadn't stopped him, he would have even wanted to get a haircut.
Ming Chi couldn't help laughing, his chest felt hot again, and he held Mr. Ming's hand.
The stamp was later washed away by rain, so Mingchi found an opportunity to re-stamp it. This time it was clearer and more upright, and it landed on their overlapping palms.
"I'll carve a seal for the young master when we get back." Ming Weiting was holding his hand and promised his aunt, "Come carve a seal for me too."
Ming Chi had just become interested in seal carving today, and he was eager to try: "I'll do it myself."
He was not completely satisfied with the recovery of his right hand. He heard that operating a carving knife could stabilize the strength of the hand, so he was looking for an opportunity to try it.
"Young Master, do everything by yourself." Ming Weiting finally found an opportunity and sighed with his aunt, "Fortunately, I haven't learned how to drive a boat or dive yet."
Ming Chi actually laughed out loud this time. He knew Mr. Shadow wasn't serious, so he played along and said childishly, "That's right."
"This is Huo Miao who went out for a trip and came back." Ming Chi propped himself up with his arms and sat up straight, introducing himself ten years later to his aunt, "Very impressive."
Ming Weiting approved of this introduction and nodded: "Very impressive."
As they were talking, the cicadas chirped louder than usual after the rain. However, they did not sound noisy in the quiet evening breeze halfway up the mountain, but rather sounded particularly crisp because of the open environment.
"This is a cicada." Teacher Huo Miao taught Mr. Shadow from the sea, "It says cicada, cicada."
Ming Weiting temporarily shut down his knowledge reserves, cooperated with the class, and took over the conversation in a gentle voice: "I just know it."
Ming Chi smiled. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled longly, saying in a light voice, "Yes."
Just know it.
…
Just know it.
It would be better if I didn't know about those things. I only know that he went out for fun these two months and came back in better health and mood. He started playing the guitar again and painted a lot of new paintings.
They will go out next, go to farther places to play, see a wider world, and he will become more powerful.
...So he wanted to just do it for a few minutes, not too intensely.
One last time.
Ming Weiting seemed to have guessed what he was going to say. Without waiting for Ming Chi to speak, he ruffled his hair and said softly, "I'll go ask Uncle Lu when the car will arrive."
Mingchi narrowed his eyes and shook Mr. Shadow's hand vigorously.
Ming Weiting stood up and walked downstairs. He walked a long way and when he looked back, he saw Mingchi kneeling alone in front of the tomb with his forehead against the tombstone.
Ming Lu was standing in the distance. He had just chatted with the gravekeeper for a while. When he saw Ming Weiting, he walked over and said, "Sir."
Ming Weiting nodded: "It's okay."
Minglu didn't say anything more, but just followed him into the pine forest washed by the rain.
There was a thick layer of pine needles on the ground, which was very soft to step on, and there was a faint pine scent in the air.
The gravekeeper said that the child never cried or was sad when he was in the cemetery. There were a few times when he came with wounds all over his body, but he hid all the wounds so that they would not be discovered, and he always talked about happy things.
But as the years passed, there seemed to be fewer and fewer happy things, so the child started singing with a guitar.
Many people come to the cemetery to seek comfort because their loved ones are no longer here and because the deceased are the most silent and unobjectionable listeners.
If we only talk about happy things here, there really is no place to talk about those wounds that have not healed yet and the sadness that is being suppressed layer by layer.
…
"That person from the Ren family." Minglu said, "The Ren family didn't expect him to do those things, so they came to apologize."
This is actually not surprising. The Ren family has a head of the family with a character like Mrs. Ren. Those people are not so confused as to distinguish between good and evil. After knowing the truth, they still choose to protect Ren Chenbai.
But sometimes, people whose emotions overwhelm their reason may hurt others or even indulge in evil because of this.
In the past, the Ren family always believed that Luo Zhi was an outsider after all, and Mrs. Ren’s death was related to him after all.
Ren Chenbai never admitted to anyone about the quarrel. From the perspective of the Ren family, they only knew that the accident happened when Mrs. Ren was preparing a gift for Luo Zhi.
Coupled with the gap caused by the dispute over the cemetery later, they took their anger out on Luo Zhi for the whole thing, believing that Luo Zhi should be more or less responsible for the matter, and no one ever corrected Ren Chenbai's thoughts.
Ming Weiting listened calmly and asked, "So?"
"That's all." Minglu said, "This is the explanation they gave."
Minglu said: "The young master doesn't remember those things."
The Ren family came to apologize because they discovered that the cooperation with those companies was a favor left by Luo Zhi.
Luo Zhi inherited the connections from Madam Ren, and he never just made them on his own. He also always shared them with the direct companies founded by Madam Ren. However, due to the existence of Ren Chenbai, Mrs. Ren's old subordinates did not dare to act rashly.
Now that everything is calm, these companies have new opportunities, and many people have picked themselves up and are no longer as lazy as they were when they were suppressed and marginalized in the past. Naturally, all those cooperation channels came in handy.
The old patriarch of the Ren family came back to take charge. He had once injured Luo Zhi with his crutch. This time he came to apologize in the rain. How much of it was because of his previous mistake, how much was to repay a favor, and how much was because of the Ming family? No one could tell.
Minglu simply got off the boat himself, listened to the old man's explanation, and then asked, "Do you know that Luo Zhi has disappeared in the shipwreck and has been declared dead?"
The old patriarch of the Ren family was stunned: "But——"
When he said this, he was suddenly choked by the rest of the words.
He slowly frowned, turned around and looked at the sea covered by cold mist.
"The Ming family doesn't have a tradition of doing things this way."
Minglu explained kindly: "We won't completely stop investigating just because we are protecting our own people and are afraid that they won't be able to bear the consequences."
"We are not going to simply put all the blame on a thirteen-year-old for ten years."
"He was a thirteen-year-old child," Minglu said. "He was sentenced to ten years by a family that was closest to him. This was the only crime he could not shirk."
Minglu personally led people to rebuild the Wanghai Villa. He knew how much had been changed inside, and how many of the gifts that Madam Ren had carefully prepared for the child she protected had been discarded at random and how many had been deliberately modified and erased.
With such a big family and so many properties, do you really have to compete with a child for the only home left to him by his elders?
Are there so many children in the Ren family that they can’t even live in the main house? Do they really have to occupy the living room on the second floor or live in a small house so far away?
Does the villa have to be repainted and all the graffiti on the walls removed? Should we move the car as well as possible as the garden needs to be expanded and the view is not wide enough?
Luo Zhi couldn't say anything. He only owed the Ren family, and he had no right to refuse these requests.
The child's personality was such that he would never refuse these requests.
The only request he had ever made was that he should not go to the Ren family or to the Seaview Villa again.
Luo Zhi didn’t know what disease he had. He hid all his sadness, suppressing it in a place where it would not be revealed even in a cemetery.
He just knew instinctively that he could no longer go to the Sea View Villa.
"Mrs. Ren and the young master have the same temperament. They can't find the problem with Ren Chenbai, and they can't understand those ideas at all. Things happened, and they can't figure out why."
Ming Lu looked at him and said gently, "Old sir, we are of similar age and have seen people and things for most of our lives."
"Ren Chenbai lent the villa to the Luo family, allowing them to accompany Mrs. Luo to recuperate there and use the Wanghai Villa at will."
Minglu asked: "You really didn't notice anything wrong?"
The old patriarch of the Ren family said nothing, his old hands clenched his cane, and he stood there in silence.
"The Ren family doesn't owe him anything. He is just Madam Ren's child. The Ren family has no obligation to take care of him, so we have never dealt with your family."
Minglu said slowly, "But there's no need to apologize."
Luo Zhi has been repaying the Ren family for taking him in by using the connections that Madam Ren left him. Now those connections have indeed come in handy, and have become the Ren family's only hope in this turmoil.
So far, neither owes the other anything.
This is Ren Shuangmei's family, and it is the direct company founded by Ren Shuangmei. Of course, the Ming family will not interfere.
If the Ren family can continue to maintain the development path originally set by Ren Shuangmei and treat these companies well, they will never ask about anything concerning this family again.
"My young master doesn't remember these things. He doesn't know who you are." Ming Lu said, "The child who knows what you did is the one who will call you grandpa."
The old patriarch of the Ren family suddenly trembled violently.
His breathing became rapid, as if he was remembering something from the past. He was stunned for a long time and then slowly lowered his head.
...the child who calls grandpa.
The ten-year-old child was brought back to the Ren family by Ren Shuangmei. He was so nervous that his whole body was hot and he called his grandfather, aunt, and uncle in a low voice.
They called the child Little Flame and gently touched his head.
When the hand fell, the child stood stiffly, shaking all over.
"He grew up so fast. In those three years he became more stable, more courageous, and more able to handle any situation calmly."
The butler of the Ming family was about the same age as him, and spoke at a steady pace, as if expressing his own thoughts: "It was so fast that it made people feel that he should be responsible for everything like an adult. Angry, wronged, excluded, alienated... He can bear anything."
"After that period of time, I actually regretted it. I shouldn't have gotten angry with a child and taken things so far."
"But it would be too embarrassing to say that. Let's wait a little longer."
"It's okay, just wait a little longer."
Minglu looked at the sea and said, "One day in the future, I will invite him to my house for a simple meal. It's time to let go of what happened in the past."
The old patriarch of the Ren family tightly grasped his cane, stood still, and remained silent.
Everything the other party said was correct, so he couldn't say anything.
There will never be such a day again.
The child who could call grandpa is no longer here, sleeping where Shuangmei originally wanted to sleep.
On the day the child was brought to see them, he heard them call him Little Flame just like Frost Plum did. He was filled with panic and surprise, and his eyes lit up as if he was brought back home.
…
In the end, Mr. Ren did not bother Mingchi again.
He left behind one of Ren Shuangmei's relics - when they held the funeral, they were so angry with Luo Zhi that they didn't let the child get any of Ren Shuangmei's belongings.
When Minglu returned to the boat, the old patriarch of the Ren family was still standing motionless on the beach, looking at the sea covered by mist.
Mrs. Ren was impatient to wear those unnecessary and cumbersome accessories. She seldom wore earrings, and the earrings she often wore were small, delicate and unique. The relic was a platinum earring in the shape of a strong and refreshing plum branch.
"It just so happens that the progress there is very fast. As soon as the designer saw this, he adjusted the original design."
The jewelry craftsmen were on the boat. Minglu arrived a little later to pick up the newly made pendant. "If you find the right time, sir, give it to the young master."
Ming Weiting took the velvet-lined box and opened it to take a look.
The earring was not modified in any way, except that the pin on the back was removed and it was carefully polished to make it smooth. It is already small enough, and it doesn't look out of place when embedded in the pendant.
The platinum plum branches are pure white and vigorous, corresponding to half of the pavilion eaves, firmly protecting the small piece of polished photochromic glass.
A pigeon blood red diamond was carefully embedded in the center of the glass. It was finely cut and refracted light brightly and warmly, like a burning flame.
Ming Weiting thanked him, turned around and walked up the stairs.
For the first time, Mingchi allowed himself to cry freely in front of the grave.
He knew that his aunt would be proud of him and would never worry about him again, so he could cry without worrying about it, because everything would be fine after crying.
Mingchi felt so good when he cried.
He wiped his tears with his sleeve in a cowardly manner, but when he thought that his aunt would come to scratch his nose, he couldn't help but pursing his lips.
His face felt a little hot, so Mingchi pressed his forehead against the stele. Still feeling it was not enough, he pressed his cheek against it as well.
He took several deep breaths and rehearsed it many times before he finally had the confidence. However, he still had to open his mouth several times before he could say, "Mom."
"Mom." Ming Chi whispered, "Let's go play."
…no matter how many times this sentence has been silently repeated. He himself didn't expect that it would be so painful and pleasurable when he said it out loud.
Mingchi is familiar with every tree in the cemetery and has chatted with every one of them.
He now wanted to tell every tree that he wanted to take his mother out to play.
When he heard the footsteps, Mingchi knew who it was as soon as he heard it. He pursed his lips and looked up with bright eyes.
Ming Weiting walked up to him, held his hand, and returned his precious glass to him.
Ming Chi was stunned for a moment and looked at the palm of his hand.
…
They probably all have a lot to say.
There were so many that he didn't know how to describe them all, so Ming Weiting brought the pendant up directly, so even though Ming Chi didn't remember many things, he recognized what it was at a glance.
Ming Chi took a deep breath. It took him a moment to come back to his senses and find his mouth and voice. "Oh no."
Mingchi rubbed his eyes vigorously twice, lowered his head, and looked at the pendant that had come back to life with him.
"It's terrible."
He strictly controlled his hands and body, but his voice was still a little unstable: "It was planned that I would only cry for three minutes."
Ming Weiting put his hands behind his neck, lowered his head, and looked straight into his eyes.
Ming Chi pursed his lips, spread his palm over, and said softly, "Sir."
Ming Weiting kissed the pendant lightly on his palm, and then Ming Chi bent down and kissed it as well. He looked up with a hot heart and found that this time Mr. Ming's earlobe seemed to be slightly red.
Ming Weiting touched his hair, picked up the pendant, and helped him put it on carefully.
The tiny buckle snapped shut behind his neck, and the piece of glass slid in along his collar, pressing against his chest with the warmth of two people's palms.
"It's okay." Ming Weiting touched his ear and said softly, "Big flame."
Ming Chi lowered his eyelashes, pursed his lips and smiled: "Yes, a big flame."
Ming Weiting held Ming Chi's neck, asked him to raise his eyes, and shook his head gently.
Ming Chi was slightly startled and blinked at him.
Ming Weiting stroked his hair: "Little friend."
Ming Chi's chest rose and fell silently.
He suddenly slammed hard into Mr. Shadow's arms.
He stretched out his hand and hugged Ming Weiting tightly without saying a word, with such force that his whole body was shaking slightly.
Mingchi wanted to speak, but for a few seconds, he couldn't make any sound - but it didn't matter.
It doesn't matter at all, they are so in sync.
Mr. Shadow tightened his arms, and the hand firmly protected his shoulders and back.
Mingchi closed his eyes.
Their hearts were beating wildly in their chests. The pendant was so good, so beautiful, and so hot.
The pendant followed him to every home he took with him.
They take every family to surf, sail, dive, watch the sunrise and sunset, and be captains.
He then went back and bought another car, which was exactly the same as the original one.
He was very familiar with driving. He took Mr. Shadow to go racing, for a ride, over mountains and across rivers, to the other side of the world.
"Mother."
He heard Mr. Shadow say to his aunt, "Flame, take us out to play."
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