Mi Yang stood there and didn't dare to move. He looked at the flower pot, thinking that Mi Hong was concerned about it, and quickly explained: "Grandpa, I just wanted to go home quickly, I didn't mean to bump into you."
Mi Hong looked grim, and strode over, picked up Mi Yang with both hands and hurriedly took him out, saying sternly as he walked, "You are not allowed to leave here in the future, do you hear me?"
Mi Yang said: "But..."
Mi Hong raised his voice and said, "No buts!"
Mi Yang fell silent and was half-carried and half-held by Mi Hong. All the way to the small courtyard of his home, Mi Hong did not put him down. He let him sit on a small stool beside the stone pool outside, took off the small shoes on his feet himself, scooped water with a ladle and rinsed his feet a few times, frowned and said, "Sit here and don't move. Your dad will carry you back to the house later." After that, he took the pair of shoes that Mi Yang had just worn and left.
Mi Yang sat and waited for a while, and heard footsteps. He thought it was Mi Zehai coming back, so he looked up and saw that it was Mi Hong who had gone back. The old man came over and handed Mi Yang a grasshopper cage made of straw, saying, "Take this and play with it. Don't go into the side roads anymore."
When Mi Yang took it, he was stunned for a moment. Something was shaking inside. Mi Yang was startled and thought there was a real insect inside. He picked it up and saw that it was a grass katydid, lush green with long antennae, just like a living one. When Mi Yang looked up again, Mi Hong had already put on his clothes and went back to the main room silently.
Mi Yang looked down at the katydid cage. He was afraid of insects and originally thought that only his parents knew about it, but he didn't expect that his grandfather also knew about it and kept it in mind.
Mi Yang was playing with the katydid cage, waiting obediently for Mi Zehai to come pick him up. Not long after, Mi Zehai came over. He had already learned what happened from Mi Hong. After coming over, he rubbed his son's hair to comfort him and said to him, "Yangyang, from now on, you are not allowed to go to the path behind our house where the flower pots are placed, understand?"
Mi Yang didn't quite understand and said, "But Grandpa went there too. I saw it all. He usually takes this path on purpose."
Yonezawa Kaido: "Well, he's the only one in the family who can walk."
Mi Yang looked up at Mi Zehai and frowned slightly.
Yonezawa Kai said, "Your grandfather didn't let you go to that place because it was for your own good, because there were medicine residues buried on the road there. The older generation said that if you step on the medicine residues left by a patient, you will be infected with the disease, and the disease will be transferred from the original person to the person who stepped on the residues."
"Then grandpa also..." Mi Yang paused, looked up at the main hall with a complicated expression, and suddenly realized that the old man with a weird temper did it on purpose, and deliberately stepped on it alone, as if he wanted to pass all the old lady's illness on himself and use his own life to make up for hers.
Yonezawa touched his head and sighed, "But this is not allowed either. Your grandfather has been doing this for many years. He has been doing this since I can remember."
Mi Yang scratched the katydid cage with his hand, feeling a little upset: "Grandpa took my shoes."
Mi Zehai sat down, hugged him and said, "Yes, this is for your own good. You will know after spending more time with them. In fact, your grandfather is a very good person, and so is your grandmother. They are both good people." He coaxed his son. Perhaps these words were too sentimental. In order to divert his attention, Mi Zehai lowered his head to look at the katydid cage in his hand and asked, "Is this given to you by your grandfather? I used to play with this when I was a child."
Mi Yang asked: "Did Grandpa make this for you too?"
Yonezawa Kai said: "Yes, there is one every summer. When I take them out to play, they don't know how much they envy me. Your grandfather is very skillful with his hands. You are like him in this aspect in our family. By the way, don't you want to learn to repair books? You can ask your grandfather in the future. He knows a lot of things and can definitely help you."
Mi Yang found it very novel.
Mi Zehai smiled and said, "Not only that, your grandfather also took me to cook. The roasted corn at that time was not as clean as it is now. But I also like to eat the freshly harvested tender corn. It was roasted until it was black, and my mouth would be full of ash after a few bites. Your grandmother wouldn't let me, saying that it would make me sick easily. So the two of us would hide away and eat secretly." Mi Zehai looked at the little katydid cage and missed it very much. He talked a lot more than usual.
Mi Yang had never heard of these things before, and wanted to ask more questions, but suddenly he heard the sound of a three-stringed lute. He looked back and asked curiously, "Who is playing the lute?"
Yonezawa Kaidao: "Your grandfather."
Mi Yang was even more surprised: "Grandpa can play the piano? I thought the piano in our house was just for decoration."
Yizehai smiled and said, "Of course. When your grandma sang opera in the past, many people would wait in line to listen. Your grandpa would play the piano for her. As long as your grandma started to sing, he would play any instrument he got his hands on, and the best one was this sanxian. When I was a child, I could still hear your grandma singing opera. She sang very beautifully." Yizehai said, then shook his head and sighed, "It's a pity that she fell ill later and didn't sing for many years."
The sound of a shamisen came from the courtyard. Yonezawa Hai held his son and whispered something. He looked back at the courtyard that he was most familiar with when he was a child, his eyes full of nostalgia.
In the room, Mi Hong was playing the sanxian with a serious expression, but he would habitually look up at his wife.
The old lady smiled and said, "You're wrong again. It's too high here. It's always hard for me to sing up there. Please play it lower next time."
Mi Hong also laughed and nodded, "Okay."
Mi Hong took the zither to cheer the old lady up. The old lady was in good spirits and hummed a few lines, but soon she started coughing. Mi Hong didn't allow her to sing anymore, so he played the sanxian for her and then hummed himself.
Surprisingly, he sang quite well.
"In an instant, all seven emotions were lost, and I understood the bitterness and tears soaked my clothes." Mi Hong lowered his head and plucked the strings of the zither. His fierce face did not have too clear edges and corners in the dim light. He looked a little vicissitudes with his lowered eyebrows and eyes. He continued to sing: "I only thought that wealth and honor were set in life, but who knew that life could be clear in a few moments. I used to be spoiled and willful in the past, and even now I don't believe in the past! This is also a lesson from God. He taught me to accept the remaining hatred, stop being spoiled, and reform myself, change my temperament, stop lingering on the past, turn back from the sea of suffering, and realize the cause of the orchid early."
The strings of the zither plucked and made a "clang" sound. Mi Hong felt bitter and forced a smile, saying, "Let's not sing "The Unicorn Bag" anymore. This is not good."
The old lady nodded and said casually, "Okay."
Mi Hongqin slowed down the tune and quickly changed to another lyric: "The ice wheel left the island, and the world was exceptionally bright. The bright moon was in the sky, just like Chang'e leaving the Moon Palace. The moon was cold and I wanted to win the laurel..."
The old lady looked at him and laughed, "What are you singing? There is no such sentence as this."
Mi Hong stopped playing the zither and looked at her, saying, "The best pieces you sang at the time were "The Golden Penis Lock" and "The Drunken Concubine". I was so absorbed in listening to you and looking at you that I was stunned. The person next to me woke me up. That person asked me a question. He asked me if I knew what 'The Moon Palace Wins the Golden Osmanthus Branch' meant. I thought about it for a long time after I went back home, and then I realized that he was insulting me. The Moon Palace and the Golden Osmanthus were both made to be unreachable. He was trying to tell me that the small osmanthus branches in the theater were 'unattainable'. But who could have known that I would win the Golden Osmanthus Branch in the Moon Palace in the end..."
He hummed a few more lines, his eyes wrinkled with smile, and he stopped plucking the strings and slowly placed his hand on his wife's hand, calling the old lady's name in a low voice, "Guizhi, if you stay with me more, I will enjoy two more days of blessing, okay?"
The old lady leaned back on the wooden bed and laughed, saying softly, "Hey, I heard it."
The old lady was in good spirits and had a gentle expression. When Mi Hong played and sang, she listened attentively, occasionally humming along, but more often she looked at her husband with a faint smile on her lips.
Every time she told Mi Hong that she was feeling better, but her body, which had dragged on for so many years, was like a candle in the wind, flickering a few times in the wind, but the bean-sized flame held on again and again. She lived with difficulty, using her best efforts.
But no matter what, she inevitably continued to weaken.
Mi Hong was anxious and took on the task of decocting the medicine alone. However, he was old and one time when he was decocting the medicine, he accidentally fell asleep. When he woke up, he found that the medicine juice in the pot was almost dry, with a pungent smell. Mi Hong hurriedly took it down and barely brewed out half a bowl of it. It was so black that it was undrinkable.
His eyes were red, and he wiped away his tears in the kitchen, poured out the medicine and boiled it again.
It is unlucky to boil Chinese medicine dry. Mi Hong seemed to have a premonition of something and took better care of it. He refused to leave the courtyard or the old lady's side.
During this time, the old lady was smiling all the time, but Mi Hong was often frightened. Sometimes he choked several times while squatting in the kitchen to boil medicine. Mi Yang saw him once. He came in to get something. After seeing that Mi Hong did not dodge, he got a little bolder and went up to comfort him: "Grandpa, are you worried about the medicine drying up? That's okay. The bad ones don't work, but the good ones do. This one is accurate."
Mi Hong shook his head and said hoarsely, "No, I feel sorry for the hardship she has had in her life."
After saying this, he looked at his bubbling medicine casserole, brewed the medicine himself, and brought it to the old lady.
But the old lady didn't drink the bowl of medicine.
She had been taking medicine for most of her life, and she had never looked so good in a day. Her face was rosy, and she looked much younger and energetic. She was sitting there, having changed into a new set of clothes. When she saw Mi Hong bringing in medicine, she smiled and said to him, "Put down the medicine, I won't drink it anymore. You sit down, I want to talk to you."
Mi Hong's tears were already rolling down his cheeks. He shook his head and refused: "Guizhi, let's drink the medicine first. I beg you, I beg you..."
The old lady said to him, "I am leaving now. Please help me look after the children."
Her voice was soft and she sighed as she spoke. She looked at her husband with reluctance in her eyes: "You wanted to adopt a child to our family because of me, and I am the same."
"You have been as stubborn as a bull all your life. You never listen to anyone. If it hadn't been for me... Well, it's all in the past. Let's not talk about it. I've always been in poor health and I can't leave you a child. I was thinking, when I leave one day, how can I keep you? There must be a 'home'. Generations of children and grandchildren grow up in this home, become successful and leave, and go to other places to sprout, bloom and bear fruit. I can't see it, so you help me watch over it."
"A burden? How can such a good son and such a well-behaved grandson become a burden?"
"I don't care, Mi Hong, just promise me."
"Promise me you'll stay alive."
"Otherwise, I won't wait for you when I get there..."
…
The old lady told him a lot, her eyes were too pleading, Mi Hong had only been soft-hearted to her in his life, and had never refused her anything, she sat there holding his hand, begging him to live - no matter how reluctant he was, he still managed to utter one word from his throat: "Hey."
After receiving his promise, the old lady relaxed. She smiled and said, "I'm a little tired. I want to sleep for a while."
Mi Hong helped her lie down, half-knelt beside the bed, held her hand tightly and called her name softly, one by one, from soft to loud, from fast to slow, but the warmth in his hand still faded away little by little.
Mi Hong knelt there in tears, coughed up a mouthful of blood, his eyes red and he said hoarsely: "Guizhi - ah -"
In the past, I won the golden laurel in the moon palace.
Jin Gui passed away.
Cannot be pursued.