After doing this, the village head said: "Actually, before Wu Xiufen got married, we knew that her later wife, Zhang Qiang, who Wu Xiufen was going to marry at that time, had a short life. It's over. The old people said that he has a dead look on his face, and he won't live long."
I frowned, as if there were some unknown stories in it.
"And then?" I wondered what happened next.
The village head threw the cigarette butt on the ground, licked his chapped lips, and said to the few of us: "I was already an adult at that time. Zhang Qiang seems to have something wrong with his lungs, he is always coughing all day long, almost coughing up his lungs."
"So serious?" I said.
The village chief nodded and clapped his hands: "Yes, even ordinary people know that this person's health is not good, but Wu Xiufen doesn't seem to care. Later Zhang Qiang died of lung disease, what kind of cancer is it? I don't know either. Tell me, why would a rich and handsome woman marry a poor and sick man?"
I dragged my chin and didn't speak.
The village chief continued: "Someone also reminded Wu Xiufen that getting married is a lifetime thing, and this kind of thing should not be trifled with. Although Zhang Qiang belongs to our village, we can't watch a woman entrust her happiness to such a woman." People. But Wu Xiufen still wants to marry him, as if she has made up her mind. Tell me, is this strange."
"Weird." I nodded.
At this time, the wife of the village chief cooked some home-cooked dishes for us, and the rice soup buns were served one by one. After a day of running, I was really hungry. At this moment, the sky is also dark, and the distance is dark.
"Eat, let's tell you while we eat." The village chief waved his hand and asked us to eat.
Be polite a few times, if you are really hungry, you are not welcome. Each of us grabbed a steamed bun and ate while waiting for the village chief's next words.
The village head drank a few mouthfuls of rice soup, broke open a piece of steamed bun, and said while eating: "This is quite strange, but no one knows how the two of them got on so well. We have never seen each other before." Wu Xiufen, it seems that this Wu Xiufen appeared out of thin air. Let's just meet Wu Xiufen a few times, and she got married in a daze."
The village head swallowed the steamed buns, and said while eating the vegetables: "But marriage is always a good thing, no matter what, it seems that two people love each other. Marriage, no matter what wealth or family match Ah, it's good to be in love."
The village head's wife had finished the meal, and she was also sitting on the side at the moment, saying, "Hey, it's good that you still love each other like this, it's quite literary. Back then, it was also the arrangement of our marriage at home."
The village head glared at his wife, and said, "Here, other people can compare with us. This is fate! This is marriage, this is one in a thousand..."
It seems that the old couple is still very affectionate, and there is no shyness in showing their affection in front of us juniors.
The village chief smiled at his wife, and then said: "So I got married. After a few years of marriage, the man's parents passed away one after another. For the elderly, it is normal to reach a certain age. But, the two Kouzi has never had a child, and people in the village like to chew their tongues when they have nothing to do."
We listened and ate.
The village chief took a sip of the rice soup and said, "Some people say that Wu Xiufen just can't have children, and no one wants them, so she married Zhang Qiang. But say what you don't say, because you have no children."
"Later, Zhang Qiang died." The village chief said, "Later it was said that he died because of some lung problem. When she died, Wu Xiufen was only 30 years old. Later, there were also many bachelors who didn't care about Wu Xiufen's status." Second marriage, I want to marry her, after all Wu Xiufen is quite beautiful, but Wu Xiufen refused."
Sighing, the village chief said: "Later, there were also those old bachelors who were unwilling to be lonely who often went to Wu Xiufen, but Wu Xiufen didn't come out at home, and these people dispersed over time. It's been more than 30 years, this Wu Xiufen Xiufen is also in her 60s, but it has been more than 30 years, and Wu Xiufen would go to the mountain to burn yellow paper for Zhang Qiang every day."
"Every day?" I frowned, and asked solemnly: "Are you sure you are right, is it every day?"
The village head sighed, and then said: "It's every day. People who used to say this and that, make sarcastic remarks, and want to take advantage of others are looking for trouble. No one can do this kind of persistence. The old lady is really like a storm. Day, it's past six o'clock, and after eight o'clock, she probably has to go up the mountain again."
I looked at my watch, and sure enough it was half past six.
As he said that, the village head also kept silent, and concentrated on eating vegetables, and seemed to be a little touched and melancholy.
But after listening to the village chief's narration, I did feel a little strange. It's not a problem for a man to marry a woman, but the problem lies in the strangeness of this marriage. Although Wu Xiufen is from the old city of Dongxing City, she can't Not from Xingdong Village, and the small Moulin Rouge factory is not located in Xingdong Village.
A woman, with a lot of money, came to a place where she didn't know others, and others didn't know herself, and married a man who might not have met many times. And everyone knows that this man probably won't be alive for a few years. Then there should be some special purpose or reason for Wu Xiufen to marry such a person.
But, what is the reason
After finishing the meal quietly, it was already seven o'clock. At this moment, the sky has completely dimmed. Sitting in the yard and looking up, the sky is still gray, only a few shining stars are blinking. The spring night was a little bit cold, and the village chief and his wife started to pack up their things.
I made an agreement with the village head, I am afraid that I will spend the night at the village head's house tonight, and the village head agreed very briskly. There is nothing lacking in the village, and there are many rooms.
We went out and waited in the pile of firewood near the gate of the grandmother's house, waiting for the grandmother to come out to burn paper.
Time passed minute by minute, and the villagers gradually turned off the lights. There are no street lights on the small roads in the village, and the surroundings are completely dark. We can't turn on the lights, and we can only feel that time has become extremely slow at this moment. I don't know how long I waited, but I heard a "squeak".
We all cheered up.
Wu Xiufen's wooden door was opened, and Wu Xiufen came out holding a stack of yellow things. She closed the wooden door without locking it, as if she was not worried that someone would go in and steal something. Wu Xiufen looked around and saw that there was still no one there, so she walked up the mountain behind the village.
Gu Chen gave us a gesture to signal us to follow. Gu Chen is a first-class master in tracking.
We were about ten meters away from Wu Xiufen, and we stepped slowly, for fear of making any noise.
But at this time, there was a sound of matches rubbing against each other in the darkness, and after a while, Wu Xiufen's hand was lit with fire. The flames were not big. It seemed that Wu Xiufen did not ignite all the yellow papers, but several pieces of paper. As he walked forward, he threw up the half-burned yellow paper.
The yellow paper spun a few times in the air, then slowly fell to the ground and went out.
While Wu Xiufen walked forward, she was still chanting some words that we couldn't understand or understand, as if she was chanting some spell.
We followed Wu Xiufen and saw Wu Xiufen burning yellow paper and walking slowly in the dark.
In the extremely quiet late night, every household was ready to go to bed, and the surroundings were pitch black at this moment. The cold wind in early spring blows from time to time, making people shiver from time to time. The flying yellow paper was blown everywhere, like will-o'-the-wisps flying in the air, darting around.
An old man in a black coat is holding a handful of yellow paper in his hands, chanting scripture-like words in his mouth, and the "woo-woo" sound as the cold wind blows the branches, as if someone whispered in your ear Like a whisper, it seems that there are such voices in all directions.
The old man walks very fast, with quick small steps. While spreading yellow paper, the old man used yellow paper for lighting. Her route is the mountain behind the village, and at this moment, she has come to the foot of the mountain.
He stood at the foot of the mountain for a moment, the flame flickered on her hand, casting her shadow behind her, like a demon with teeth and claws. The few of us followed behind, all holding our breath, the old man paused for a few minutes, and scattered a lot of yellow paper on the road before continuing to move forward.
We also followed the old man to the mountain.
But the old man took out a stack of black paper from his pocket and started to light it.
We have never seen the custom of burning black paper, so we don't know what Wu Xiufen is doing.
The more we watched, the more we felt something was wrong, because at the last moment, Wu Xiufen had already knelt down, and she was sobbing and walking forward while kneeling like this, murmuring something in her mouth.
And our hearts fluctuated up and down following Wu Xiufen's weird behavior.
What exactly is this Wu Xiufen doing? And in these thirty years, has Wu Xiufen been doing this all the time
The three of us looked at each other. Under the extremely dim light, we saw confusion and a trace of fear in each other's eyes.
Finally, Wu Xiufen stopped her body.
We looked, and there was a tombstone in front of us, but we couldn't make out what was written on it.
Wu Xiufen hugged the tombstone, seeming to say something.
I looked forward, but accidentally broke a branch.
There was a crisp sound of "pop".