As dawn broke, Wang Lan, unable to stay in bed any longer, got up to boil water. Everyone else gradually got up as well. Lu Yunxing said he wanted to go to the mountains to take a look, but Wang Lan pointed her finger at him and scolded him.
With so many people going into the mountains, wild animals might be startled and run around in a panic. Qin Xiaozhou also stopped the second son from going, because who knows where the wild animals might run to? If they were unlucky enough to encounter them, they would be injured or killed.
The family was moving around the house when Wang Lan went to the river to pick water celery. In the distance, a fish owl flew over from the village to the east, calling out. Startled, she sat down in the river and rushed back, thinking, "Something bad is going to happen."
The village elders always believed in these things, which made Qin Xiaozhou uneasy. When the sun shone on the top of the western mountain, the man who had gone to look for someone came out of Qingzhugou and headed back into the village. When he passed by Lu Yan's house, Lu Yan wanted to go and see her, but Wang Lan grabbed her and closed the door, saying, "Why are you running? Stay home obediently."
Lu Yunfeng returned when the sun shone on the village. He was heading towards the eastern end of the village when Wang Lan handed him a red sash, telling him to go and ask.
Soon Lu Yunfeng entered the room wearing a red sash. His outer coat was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn't wearing it. Zhao Fen asked the second son to find him some clothes. "It's cold in the mountains. Why did you take off your clothes? Why don't you wear them properly?"
Lu Yunfeng looked at his younger siblings in the yard without saying a word. Wang Lan brought over a bowl of water and, seeing the red belt, understood what had happened. "Where did you find it?"
“We took the dog with us. As soon as we crossed that mountain pass, his son kept shouting, and the dog heard him and barked. We followed the barking and searched southwest. When we found him in the middle of the night, Uncle Wang Li was already dead. There was a deer hoof not far away. He must have run too far while chasing the deer, broken his leg, and then encountered a wild animal. The deer was eaten by the wild animal, leaving only its head.”
“That person must also be…” Wang Lan sighed, “Is Xishan so easy to get into? Back then, your grandfather and father were strong and healthy… Never mind, has the village chief gone yet?”
Lu Yunfeng drank a bowl of water and asked his second brother to find him a new set of tattered clothes. "I've already gone. I'm going to dig up a grave in Nanshan later."
Lu Yunfeng walked out of the courtyard and then came back. "Wild animals in the mountains will run away if they are frightened. Just let the chickens and ducks roam freely for the next couple of days, and don't let them get lost in Qingzhugou."
Everyone in the village was talking about it. "His legs were bitten off, and his intestines were spilling out. The people who went to find him took off their clothes, tied them together, and brought them back."
"Oh, that's terrible. The dog's thigh is gone too, and its toes were found quite a distance away. I heard that when Wang Li's son called out, the dog even answered. When everyone went to take a look, they found that half of the dog's belly was gone, and it was crawling quite a distance towards the village, probably trying to find someone."
"Xishan is really a place that eats people up; we really can't go there again."
"That's right, you could lose your life for pheasants or rabbits."
When Lu Yunfeng returned that evening, he said, "The village chief said the burial will take place tomorrow, and our clothes will be burned as well; we won't bring them back."
Wang Lan didn't feel bad about the clothes at all. Things that had been wrapped around a dead person should be burned clean and not touched. "I'll also bring three bowls of mixed noodles and some bamboo shoots tomorrow morning."
The mixed flour I bought a little over a month ago has been sitting untouched in the cupboard.
That's how it is in the countryside. When someone has a wedding, the host invites people based on their relationship to the family, either to help out or to be guests. As for funerals, apart from relatives, everyone in the village who wants to go will go to pay their respects, bringing some things from home, like rice, flour, and vegetables, to make a small impression and express their feelings.
After all, most people are born, grow up, and grow old in the same village. They see each other all the time for decades. Now that someone has passed away, no matter how things were before, people will always feel something and will go to pay their respects.
Early in the morning, Qin Xiaozhou went to the mountains to dig a basket of bamboo shoots, while Lu Yunfeng and Wang Lan carried the bamboo shoots on their backs and mixed flour on theirs to deliver them. There was a threshing ground north of Wangjia Village. The threshing ground had many uses. In late spring and autumn, it was used to dry wheat and thresh grain. At other times, it was used to hold weddings and funerals in the village. So there were several large thatched sheds next to the square, which contained stoves, large pots, bowls and chopsticks, as well as huge stone mills for milling rice and wheat.
Wang Li's family was poor and had just lost a husband. The funeral was simply a matter of feeding the people who helped at the threshing ground and feeding the people who came to see him off. No grand banquet was held.
Nanshan is mostly hilly, but the mountains are not high and the terrain is gentle, making it more popular than Xishan. Two or three miles south of the village is the ancestral burial hill, where the people of Wangjia Village are buried. Of course, the village is particular about not trespassing on graves. The ancestral burial hill is divided into several sections, with the Wang family being the largest, and the other outsiders each having their own section.
Around noon, the people of Wangjia Village went to Nanshan to send off the deceased. Qin Xiaozhou was washing clothes by the river behind the kitchen. Xiao Si needed several diapers changed every day, otherwise the child would be naked. Lu Yu also came along.
Lu Yan stood in the river, picking snails and looking around. "Sister-in-law, someone just died like that, just like Grandpa and Dad. They went to the mountains and they were gone."
Qin Xiaozhou turned the clothes inside out and rubbed them. "So, you have to be careful. Be careful in the mountains and rivers. Don't go into the river or mountains alone."
After this incident, Wang Lan forbade Lu Yunfeng from going into the mountains. The family stayed in the foothills until the end of February. The flowers in the orchards all over the mountains withered, and small green fruits grew under the tender leaves. The pheasant hatched seven chicks. The pheasant was not yet tamed and had to be kept in a cage. The chickens and ducks that were bought a month and a half ago had grown a lot, and the rooster had started to grow a tail.
The peppercorns are already as tall as a hand.
Behind the thatched shed, the hanging gourds, long beans, and cucumbers had already sprouted. Lu Yunfeng went to the gully to cut bamboo branches, sharpened them, and stuck them next to the seedlings. The gourd and bean seedlings would then climb up the trellis. Qin Xiaozhou picked through the vegetable seedlings, pulling out the dense and clump-like ones, twisting them at the root, and discarding the withered and unhealthy leaves. They would all be used to feed the chickens and ducks later, while the fresh ones would be kept to make soup or lean meat porridge, both of which would be delicious dishes.
The trellis for the gourds couldn't be just haphazardly stuck in the ground. Lu Yunfeng, taking advantage of his height, used an axe to hammer and firmly nail the trellis posts into the soil. Then, he used vines to secure the crossbars. Qin Xiaozhou held the crossbars for him. Lu Yunfeng worked very efficiently and quickly built the trellis. The trellis was only 1.65 meters high, designed to make it easier for the family members to harvest the gourds and beans.
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