Chi Cheng didn't close his eyes that whole night, and Tao Huainan was the same.
He stayed in the house for the first half of the night, and stayed with the old man in the yard after his death. There were people coming and going in the yard, some neighbors who heard the news came to give them a ride, and there were also shop owners and staff who helped to arrange funeral supplies. At first, Tao Huainan was locked in the car by Chi Cheng and was not allowed to come out. Later, Tao Xiaodong released him, and Tao Huainan didn't insist on going in. He didn't want Chi Cheng to worry about him.
Tao Huainan was standing by an unobtrusive wall, surrounded by noisy people, for a moment Tao Huainan suddenly recalled that time when he was a child. At that time, my brother had to keep a vigil for his parents, and there were people coming and going in the yard every day. Chi Cheng was a dirty child with no sense of existence, squatting at the base of the wall every day. At first Tao Huainan was afraid of him, but when he was no longer afraid, he squatted with him. At that time, it was the same as now, adults were busy with their own affairs, and blind and dirty children could find an open space without getting in the way.
Now the blind child is still standing like this, and the dirty child has grown into an adult who can handle things.
Chi Zhide wanted to bury the old man. Most of the old people in their place used to be buried in the ground. But it’s no longer possible. Without a cremation certificate, many follow-up matters will be very troublesome, so they still have to drag the old man to the county funeral home.
No matter how unreliable Chi Zhide was, he seemed busy like a serious person at this time. When the funeral home's car came to pick him up, Chi Zhide carried the door panel that had been removed and covered it with yellow cloth, and wept for a long time. It was already dawn, and the late autumn was freezing cold, coupled with sometimes exaggerated and sometimes mournful cries, it made people shiver involuntarily.
Chi Zhide's eyes were red, and when he lifted the door panel into the car, he called "Mom" a few times.
Tao Huainan's back was against the wall, and before following the car to leave, Chicheng walked towards him, took off the coat Tao Xiaodong gave him earlier, and put it on Tao Huainan: "Don't stick to the wall, it's cold."
"You wear it." Tao Huainan pushed the clothes back, "You are busy with your own business, don't worry about me."
Chi Cheng said to him: "Don't go later, you wait for me at my uncle's house."
Tao Huainan said, "I want to be with you."
Chi Cheng didn't want Tao Huainan to go to that kind of place. Believe it or not, I won't talk about superstitious things, but it is always a place that makes people depress when they go there, and it is cold. There are many people and things are complicated, Chi Cheng can't take care of him, and is afraid that he will bump into him.
So Chi Cheng pressed him into his arms and hugged him, whispering in his ear: "Here is also with me, I will be back soon."
Tao Huainan couldn't see him, so he could only raise his hand to touch his face and said, "Don't be sad."
Chi Cheng turned his back to the noisy crowd behind him, kissed him on the face, and said "Yes".
Chi Cheng has never experienced this kind of thing, he has no experience. He told Tao Huainan to come back soon, but he didn't come back for a day. The old man has to be kept in the ice coffin for a day, and can only be encoffined when he gets up early tomorrow, and he doesn't know about this in advance. Tao Xiaodong accompanied Chi Cheng over there, and Tao Huainan was taken home by his aunt in his hometown.
His aunt is very enthusiastic about him. Tao Xiaodong has taken care of their family a lot these years, giving them the house and land for free. He usually entrusts his uncle at home to take care of Grandma Chi Cheng, and of course he will also bring them a share.
Tao Huainan was thinking about Chi Cheng in his heart, so he didn't have much to say. But my aunt was afraid that he would not be able to entertain him well, so she would order some for Duan now and another for another. Tao Huainan couldn't eat much, and had to answer her questions from time to time.
The aunt has been lamenting that the children have grown so big, and occasionally sighed that the children of the Chi family are blessed and lucky.
Everyone in the village thought so, Tao Huainan couldn't see their eyes looking at Chi Cheng, but he had good ears, and he could hear other people's whispers.
Some people say that the child of the Chi family has a good life, and Tao Xiaodong picked him up to be the companion of his blind brother, even if it is worth serving a blind man for the rest of his life. Others refuted him, saying, what a lifetime, ten years in Hedong and ten years in Hexi, when Tao Xiaodong is old? At that time, those who have affection in their hearts can help take care of them, and those who don't have them in their hearts will care about those silly things.
Outsiders always like to speculate about other people's affairs based on their own assumptions, but Tao Huainan was not angry when he heard what they said.
In other people's mouths, he has been a drag since he was a child. When he was a child, he dragged his parents, then he dragged his brother, and now he drags Chicheng. I'm used to hearing it.
Chi Cheng didn't come back at night, so he called Tao Huainan.
Tao Huainan had just had dinner, and his aunt prepared a big table of food, Tao Huainan forced some, he was really not hungry. Chi Cheng said on the phone that he would not be coming back today and asked him to go to bed early.
Tao Huainan said, "Okay."
Chi Cheng said: "I'll let my brother go back later, he will accompany you."
"I don't need to accompany you. Brother, please accompany you. He doesn't feel at ease when he comes back." Tao Huainan sat on the kang, hugged his knees, and whispered to Chi Cheng, "Have you eaten yet?"
Chi Cheng said he ate it.
Everyone in the village has a large garden with vegetables and fruit trees, and there is a cowshed on the side of the garden. The old cousin drove the cows back one by one, passed under the window, and could hear the muffled "mooing" of the cows.
Tao Huainan faced the window, holding the phone in his hand, he could hear Chi Cheng's breathing over there.
Chi Cheng called him "kid".
Tao Huainan responded softly, saying "brother".
They didn't talk too much over the phone, they were not together now, but both of them felt very close to each other.
Tao Xiaodong asked the two of them for a few days off, and he wanted to wait until everything was over here before going back. Chicheng probably won't come back in the future, so he should give him a good ride.
Chi Cheng didn't say he had to go back, he was very cooperative all the time, he did everything he should do as a grandson.
Some people from the village also came with them. Usually, no matter whether the relationship is good or bad, the villagers will be there when something happens to someone's family. They often looked at Chi Zhide and then at Chi Cheng, and they could still see the resemblance between their eyebrows, but now Chi Cheng was completely different from the Chi family.
Chi Zhide was squatting in the empty space of the funeral parlor, smoking, and Chi Cheng had just finished making a phone call and went in. Tao Xiaodong walked by carrying a few bottles of water, and handed Chi Zhide a bottle as well.
Chi Zhide took it and stood by his feet without drinking.
He stopped Tao Xiaodong and said, "Let's chat for a while."
Tao Xiaodong glanced at him and asked, "Do you have anything to say?"
Maybe this meeting was because of a funeral, Chi Zhide always seemed a little depressed. His mother had just passed away, and even though he hadn't been back for years, he still looked a little sad right now.
Maybe no matter how rogue people are, they still have some humanity after all.
Tao Xiaodong stood next to him, and there was a small three-wheeler parked beside him. Tao Xiaodong leaned on the three-wheeler and looked down at Chi Zhide.
"I have never understood you," Chi Zhide said, squatting down while biting his cigarette, "It's not your son, what are you trying to do?"
Tao Xiaodong snorted lightly: "If you figured it out, it wouldn't be you."
"Damn me?" Chi Zhide also sneered, puffed out smoke and said, "Don't pretend to be a good person with me, I don't believe that if you don't have such a younger brother, you can pick up a child and go back. what?"
Tao Xiaodong didn't argue with him about this. Originally, this was what he wanted to do when he brought Chicheng back. But so many years have passed, no matter what they thought at the beginning, no one always thinks about those as they go about their lives.
Raising a kitten and puppy is tempting, let alone raising a big child. The three brothers of the Tao family are recognized as having a good relationship, and when it comes to Tao Xiaodong, they are absolutely frank and frank, and they have not lost anything to the Chi family.
"You don't have to be afraid that I will blackmail you, I don't have that kind of thought," Chi Zhide raised his eyelids to look at Tao Xiaodong, and handed him a cigarette, "It's amazing, who really raised him like that, I don't think he is at all now. It's like me and my dad, but it's kind of like you."
"You can't be fooled," Tao Xiaodong took his cigarette without smoking, and only bit the filter in his mouth, "I'm an adult."
"Fucking fast enough." Chi Zhide said with emotion.
There is really nothing to say between the two of them, Chi Zhide has been drinking for so many years, and his memory is very bad. He can't remember many things when he was a child, and he used to play together when he was a child, and he is already very vague about these things. Although Tao Xiaodong remembered, he had looked down on Chi Zhide since he was a child, and the two of them were never playmates.
It was because of Chi Cheng that the two of them had something to do with each other, but it didn't count. So I can't talk about anything, I have nothing to say.
Tao Xiaodong was not in a hurry to go back, the air inside was bad and cold. He simply sent a wechat to Tang Suoyan for a while, relying on his mistress. Tang Suoyan had just arrived home from get off work at this time, and was chatting with Tao Xiaodong while cooking.
"The relationship between them is pretty good?" Chi Zhide asked.
Tao Xiaodong's eyes fell on the phone, without raising his eyes, he just asked, "Who?"
"Chiku and your brother."
"Chi Cheng." Tao Xiaodong corrected him, and then said, "The two of them have always been good."
"You changed your name?" Chi Zhide smiled mockingly, "Why didn't you change your surname too?"
Tao Xiaodong ignored him, and was still typing on the phone.
"I saw them kissing in the morning." Chi Zhide was tired from squatting, and sat back on the ground, heaved a sigh of relief and changed his position, "Or am I wrong?"
Tao Xiaodong moved his eyes from the phone to his face, stared at him for two seconds and said, "You are wrong."
"They hugged each other all the time in the house yesterday, they are really fucking close."
After Tao Xiaodong returned the message, he picked up his cell phone, and Chi Zhide said, "It's a boy who has to go back to your house."
Chi Zhide really didn't mean anything else when he said this, and he didn't think too much about it. The two boys could have nothing to do, it was just that they felt that the children in the city were sticky enough.
He didn't have any other intentions to mention this to Tao Xiaodong, so he had to chat for a while without anything to say.
Tao Xiaodong stopped chatting with him and went in with a bag of water. Chi Cheng was sitting on a chair in the room, Tao Xiaodong gave him water, Chi Cheng said: "You go back brother, Tao Huainan can't do it by himself."
Tao Xiaodong patted his head, put his palm on the back of his head, stroked it back and forth twice, and said, "He's fine, don't worry about him."
Chi Cheng said again: "You didn't sleep last night, don't stay up."
Tao Xiaodong sat next to him, leaned his head on Chi Cheng's shoulder, closed his eyes and said, "Brother will accompany you."
Tao Huainan spent the night there by himself, lying stiffly all night, and he didn't fall asleep much. Brother and Chi Cheng were not there, Tao Huainan would definitely not be able to sleep in such a strange place, and he was worried about Chi Cheng.
Chi Cheng came back the next morning. He was encoffined early in the morning, took the ashes and dragged him all the way back. It was past nine o'clock when he came back.
Tao Xiaodong drove there by himself, and there were only the two of them in the car. Chi Zhide and the others went straight back to Chi's house, and they went to the uncle's house first.
The uncle's son was wearing a coat and was about to herd cattle. When he saw the two of them coming back, he unexpectedly called Tao Xiaodong "Brother".
Chi Cheng went straight into the house to look for Tao Huainan, Tao Huainan had already heard the two of them coming back, and was sitting on the edge of the kang turning his head towards the door. As soon as Chi Cheng opened the door and came in, he saw Tao Huainan's clothes were neatly dressed, with a bunch of hair sticking out, and he frowned slightly. Chi Cheng walked over, Tao Huainan raised his arm.
Chi Cheng leaned over and hugged him, Tao Huainan smelled faintly of firewood, and Chi Cheng squeezed Tao Huainan's neck with one hand.
"Hurry up!" Tao Huainan patted him on the shoulder, "I want to go to the bathroom, hurry up!"
Chi Cheng understood almost instantly that Tao Huainan must have never been there, frowned, and carried him down.
My uncle’s house is still the dry toilet in the past, and the simple wooden toilet can’t be flushed, so it will be directly used as fertilizer. Tao Huainan couldn't go to this kind of toilet without taking Tao Huainan by himself.
"Have you been holding it back?" Chi Cheng stood behind Tao Huainan and asked him with a frown.
"No, I found a wall in the garden outside after dark last night." Tao Huainan was still a little embarrassed, and said "Hey", "During dawn, my cousin has been walking back and forth outside, auntie Always come out."
Chi Cheng said to him: "You care so much, isn't it uncomfortable to hold back?"
"I thought you'd be back soon anyway." Tao Huainan tilted his head, still smiling, "Wait for you to bring me here."