"Hadron… "
At this time, a shout came from behind the temple, and then an old man came out from the back, looking around anxiously. It was Uncle Sha Qiangzi!
When he saw us, he walked up to us quickly and asked, "Brother, have you seen my nephew?" The old man had a good memory and still remembered me.
Seeing his anxious look, I couldn't bear to lie to him, so I told him the truth: "I saw him walking towards the south last night. Didn't he come home this morning?"
"Last night? You were here last night?" the old man asked in surprise.
"Because we left something here yesterday, and when we came back to look for it, we found him walking towards the south while calling for dad." I told a lie to cover it up.
"Oh, where has this kid gone again?" The old man frowned and looked to the south.
I looked down at the ashes in front of the grave, and something occurred to me, so I asked him, "Uncle, did you see anyone visiting the grave just now?"
The old man was startled, followed my gaze to the grave, and shook his head in confusion: "No. It's strange, this is an ownerless grave, who would burn the paper?"
"Did this person have no friends in his life?" I asked.
The old man tilted his head and thought for a while before saying, "Yes, she was very close to a girl named Xiu'er from Xiping Village at the time, so maybe she was the one who came to visit the grave."
The Xiu'er he was talking about is now an old lady, but she still sounds so sweet.
I smiled and looked at the grave. I was particularly interested in the young woman who was educated in the countryside and wanted to know some of her past. So I pointed to a few big poplar trees in the north and said, "Uncle, it's very hot. Sit down and rest for a while before looking for Qiangzi. And tell us the story of the young woman who was educated in the countryside."
When Shen Bing heard the word "story", his eyes lit up and he said, "Yes, uncle, it's too hot, take a rest."
The old man looked towards the south and nodded, saying, "This child often disappears for two or three days, so we won't look for him anymore." Then he walked with us to the big poplar tree over there and found a clean place to sit down.
Speaking of the female educated youth, the old man thought for a long time. That happened in 1973, and it has been almost forty years now. He was only twenty-five years old at the time, and so many years have passed in the blink of an eye. The old man did not tell the story, but sighed with emotion first.
The female educated youth was called Yuan Jingfang. She was about twenty-one or twenty-two years old when she came to Shuiliu Village. She was pretty and popular. Everyone called her Xiaofang.
Well, this name is good. There is a girl in the village named Xiaofang. She is pretty and kind, with a pair of beautiful big eyes...
Although Xiaofang is a city girl and looks delicate and frail, she is very tenacious and never complains when working in the fields. She is also helpful and has a good relationship with people in the village. However, this girl is studying archaeology and likes to look for ancient tombs and cultural relics nearby.
In those days, no one paid attention to this, and even if they saw cultural relics, they were destroyed. For example, Yangxian Temple was originally a large-scale Beidi Temple, which enshrined the water god who was a combination of a snake and a turtle. The old man was very excited when he mentioned this, and I thought to myself, don’t you want to talk about it, don’t I know who Beidi is
The Beidi Temple was demolished during the Cultural Revolution, leaving behind a pile of ruins. Xiaofang often sneaked out of the village at night to dig for things in the ruins. It is said that she actually found a good thing, which is said to be a golden box hidden under the base of the statue. I don’t know who discovered this and told the village chief, so she was dragged out for criticism and labeled as a monster. The golden box was smashed and hung around her neck for public display.