After sending off my grandmother, there were only thirty acres of land, a large cart, and some calligraphy and paintings left at home. Just at that time, the government started to allocate land, and my family was classified as rich peasants, becoming a target for the poor and lower-middle peasants to unite against.

The property in my family was loaded onto three large carts and confiscated by the commune. Even so, due to Chen Junru's diligence and clever mind, life was still better than that of other families. One year in the twelfth lunar month, there was a heavy snow that was knee-deep. Chen Junru brought back a girl from outside using a large mule cart and directly placed her on my father's kang. This girl was my mother. My mother was brought here by my grandmother from Henan while begging for food, and she was on the verge of freezing and starving to death. After seeing her, Chen Junru brought her home. The following year, my mother gave birth to me. The year I was born happened to be when the atomic bomb exploded, and the whole country was rejoicing. So, Chen Junru named me Chen Yuan. Later, I asked why I wasn't named Chen Yuanzi; he said he heard my grandmother say that a one-character name is noble, and people in ancient times had one-character names, like Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and so on. My father looked down on my mother; he always criticized her for being uneducated, coming from a beggar background, and not knowing a single character, lacking manners. Gradually, my father began to treat my mother with cold violence. My father did nothing at home all day; he either gambled, drank, listened to opera, or found an immoral woman from Dongdiao's family to fool around with. According to familial hierarchy, that woman was my father's cousin, which means she was a cousin of my grandmother. This matter caused a lot of gossip and scandal. Once, my father was caught by Chen Junru from that woman's bed and was beaten up badly. Out of anger, he stole a bag of silver dollars hidden at home and gave it to his lover, Auntie, then ran away from home. Later, my father sent a letter home saying he had joined the army. Eventually, he died on the front line at Laoshan and became a martyr; the army sent back an urn and a military medal. At that time, I was already in my teens. My mother was only sixteen when she gave birth to me, and she was only in her thirties when she became a widow. Chen Junru knew that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep her.

My mother is now a plump and white little widow raised at my home, and there are too many people who are thinking of her, attracting wild men to visit all day long. This has caused a bad reputation. Chen Junru can't manage it either, often arguing with my mother. Chen Junru thought that he might as well send my mother to his uncle in Tangshan, who found her a railway worker, and she married him just like that. The railway worker gave Chen Junru a betrothal gift and then they never contacted each other again.

Since I can remember, Chen Junru would go out carrying a dung basket before dawn. In his words: 'Farmers, keep moving forward, picking up dung instead of firewood.' He always returned when the sun came out, by which time the dung basket was already full. In the spring of my fifteenth year, Chen Junru went out with the dung basket and was brought back by someone using a cart for the dead. He started to go crazy from that day and finally woke up a few days later. He said after he went out that day, a soldier pilot told him he would take him on a plane to find his son. He followed this pilot onto the plane, and after takeoff, the plane kept flying higher and higher until the houses on the ground looked like matchboxes. After flying like this for a while without reaching anywhere, he asked the pilot when he could see his son. The pilot, impatient, told him to wait patiently; it would be here soon. Chen Junru kept asking, and the pilot actually opened the plane's cabin door and jumped out. At that moment, Chen Junru panicked; he had never flown a plane, but he had driven a mule cart, so he just treated the plane like a mule cart, yelling 'giddyup' to go forward, 'ye' for a left turn, and 'wo' for a right turn. At first, the plane obeyed, but later it got startled and began to fly wildly, spinning Chen Junru around until he quickly fainted. When he woke up, he was already on his family's kang.

In the last six months of Chen Junru's life, he lived in a daze, telling me a lot about his past, especially repeatedly talking about his marriage to my grandmother, and recounting the two old ghosts he saw that night. He even remembered every detail of that big courtyard, especially when he spoke of the gold, his eyes would shine like gold. My ears got calluses from listening. At night, Chen Junru would talk to people in the room; even though I didn't want to listen from the opposite room, I could hear him the whole time, always talking by himself, but there were responses, which was quite eerie. Relatives in the village told me that Chen Junru had run into my grandmother, and he was chatting with her.

Later, Chen Junru cut down a prickly ash tree in the backyard, made a branch, and pasted a paper man on it, and even bought a wig to put on the paper man's head. Every day he used that ebony comb to comb the paper man's hair. He never went to sleep at night and could talk all night long. In the following month, he didn't eat anything, his neck swelled with a lump, and even drinking water was difficult. He spent a month on the kang, neither defecating nor urinating, and died cleanly on my family's warm kang. When I sorted through his belongings, there wasn't anything valuable left. The only two items remaining were that comb and that book (Geography of Wanshan).

I started flipping through the pictures in this (Geography of Wanshan) before I could even read. Once I learned to read, I began to look at the obscure and difficult ancient texts inside. To be honest, at that time, I was confused while reading it, and it wasn't until later that I realized it was a book about feng shui.

Some of my childhood friends went to join the army, and some went to school. I had to support myself, barely finishing junior high school, then went with the production team to repair the river. I met Wang Hu while repairing the river. Wang Hu is from Beijing, with the nickname Huzi. His background was poor, coming from a capitalist family. His family, in order to give him a better future, sent him to live with a poor farmer uncle in Luan County, relocating his household registration there, making Wang Hu a proud poor farmer. Wang Hu was still young back then, but as he grew older, he gradually realized that being a poor farmer was not popular anymore; now everyone was starting to admire the ten-thousand-yuan households. While repairing the river, Wang Hu and I carried a big basket together, lifting river sand from the riverbed to the riverbank, our shoulders bruised and bleeding, just to earn that day’s 1.8 yuan wage. Over time, Wang Hu and I became familiar with each other. During lunch, Wang Hu complained, 'Do you think it's unfair? If I hadn't been sent to the countryside back then, I would have a house in the capital by now. My family has been rehabilitated, and we got a house allocated according to our household registration. My siblings have all found jobs, some as teachers and some as workers. I'm the only one here repairing the river, I'm even more wronged than Dou E.' I said, 'I'm a brick in socialism, wherever I'm needed, I will move there. Your awareness is a problem.' Wang Hu said, 'I think I'm suited to be a soldier defending the country, standing on the country's borders, doing my duty for the people. Or I could be a train driver; why am I just repairing rivers here? There are so many people repairing rivers, they don't need me, I’m more suitable for a challenging position. My burning red heart is eager to contribute more to the country and the people, do you understand?!' I laughed and said, 'Why don't you just move your household registration back?' 'Moving my household registration isn't that easy; I was sent to my uncle's through the formal procedures of the revolutionary committee. It's easy to transfer from an urban household to a rural one, but transferring from rural to urban is impossible to think about. I went from being a capitalist to a poor farmer, and I was only happy for a few years, now the trend has changed again, and capitalists are in vogue again. Why can’t I change back? Who can give me justice!' Saying this, Wang Hu angrily jabbed the shovel into the riverbed, but it didn’t go in, and there was a loud sound.

Wang Hu and I were both stunned for a moment. Wang Hu used the shovel to scrape a couple of times, and surprisingly a purple-black wooden board appeared at the bottom of the river. Both Wang Hu and I were curious, starting to use the shovel to clear away the river sand on top, unexpectedly the wooden board became larger and larger until we finally uncovered something like a box. Wang Hu looked around and whispered, 'Old Chen, don't make a sound.' Saying this, he began to bury it. I didn't know what he was doing, but judging by Wang Hu’s expression, it seemed to be a secret. After burying it, Wang Hu put his arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, 'Old Chen, don't let anyone know.' 'What’s in this box? Let’s dig it out and take a look!' I said curiously. Wang Hu whispered, 'This is a coffin.' I thought for a moment, saying, 'No way, a coffin can't be this small.' 'It’s vertical; this is a coffin washed down from the mountain.' Wang Hu whispered, 'I looked at it; this coffin is made of high-quality ebony, lacquered nine times, and it has floral and bird patterns on it, clearly made for a young lady or grandmother from a wealthy family; it could very well be a coffin of a princess from the Qing Dynasty. There must be something valuable inside.' I was half convinced and said, 'No way.'

Just then, the team leader came over and asked what we were mumbling about instead of working. Wang Hu immediately covered his stomach and said it hurt, unable to hold it in, asking me to hold his cotton coat to cover him. At that time, he unbuttoned his pants and squatted down here to relieve himself. The big girls nearby all hid far away, and some married women began to curse him and throw dirt clods at him. However, this method worked; until dark, no one came to interrupt Wang Hu and me, safely guarding the secret of this coffin.

Our accommodation was in Dalonggou, three miles away. After a day of work, I fell asleep immediately. I was sleeping soundly when I dreamed that a pair of claws reached over and grabbed my head. I was startled awake, and at that moment a hand covered my mouth and said, 'Old Chen, it's me, Huzi.' I sat up and softly cursed around the cotton quilt, 'What the hell is wrong with you? It's late at night, why aren’t you sleeping?' 'Get up, come with me.' Huzi used a flashlight to shine on the clothes on the kang, casually throwing my sweater to me and saying, 'Opportunities are fleeting; this chance won't come again, Old Chen. After tonight, maybe we will be rich. Hurry and put on your sweater, oh my god, you’re wearing your sweater inside out…' #特朗普希望尽快结束对伊朗战争 #美伊和谈陷僵局 $BTC $BNB $人生K线