Chapter 539

The Martyrs Cemetery was as dilapidated and desolate as ever; in the autumn wind, withered grass was everywhere, and hidden among the high-rise buildings all around, it appeared even more small and shabby.

Along a narrow concrete road, I walked through the lush green bamboo. In the entire Martyrs Cemetery, only these few clumps of bamboo showed a trace of vitality.

My father's grave was near the wall, and outside the wall were buildings after buildings of commercial housing. Inside the wall was the world of the dead, and outside the wall was the noisy world of the living.

These buildings were all built during the Guan Peishan era; the first batch of people in Chunshan County to live in commercial housing were all in these few buildings.

Originally, there were only a few buildings around the cemetery, but in just over half a year, the entire cemetery was surrounded by high-rise buildings.

This is the living fighting for land with the dead! I thought to myself, why can't we living people let go of even this little bit of space? Why not let the people underground have a quiet world?

Seeing my father's grave from afar, my heart ached, and I almost shed tears.

Dad had intentionally or unintentionally told me before he died that he wanted to return to his hometown after he passed away. But I didn't know where Dad's hometown was; I only knew he was a Northerner, a genuine Northerner. Even in terms of diet, until he passed away, he still had typical differences from us.

Dad loved flour-based food his whole life; he had no interest in rice at all. But my mother was a Southerner, and I grew up eating rice, always treating flour-based food as a snack.

I failed to fulfill Dad's wish before he died, and my heart had been aching faintly for a long time.

Standing in front of Dad's grave, seeing his grave cleaned exceptionally well, without a single weed, I could even see traces of burned paper money on the ground.

Who could this be? I wondered. Chunshan County had no acquaintances of my father; although he had fought here, he never came back after leaving, and it was only after he passed away, under the insistence of my cousin, that he was buried in this land where he had once shed his hot blood.

I looked around, and there was no one. In the distance, someone on a high-rise building was singing. He obviously noticed me too, stopped singing, and leaned on the railing with interest to watch me.

I lit the incense, knelt on both knees in front of his grave, and burned paper money for him, one sheet at a time.

At this moment, my heart was exceptionally calm, without any distracting thoughts. It was as if Dad was sitting right in front of me, puffing on his cigarette, one puff at a time.

My mind was full of Dad's image: his laughter when he was happy, his anger when he was upset, and his cautious, bowing-and-scraping life.

The tears finally couldn't be held back and fell with a plop. They fell onto the pile of burning paper money, making a sizzling sound.

A gust of wind blew, rolling up the ash and spinning it around. My heart sank, and I whispered, "Dad, your son has come to see you."

Strangely, the rolled-up ash fell around Dad's tombstone and didn't move again.

It must be Dad who has come! I shouted in my heart, opening my eyes wide and looking everywhere, trying to see Dad's shadow. But I was disappointed; except for the rustling sound of the autumn wind blowing through the bamboo, the world seemed incomparably quiet.

The person watching me from the high-rise building lost interest and started singing again. The singing drifted over, and I heard it was the most popular Hong Kong and Taiwan song currently. He was singing in Cantonese, and it seemed to be quite standard.

I took out two cigarettes, lit one and stuck it in the soil in front of Dad's grave, lit one for myself, and sat down against the tombstone.

I wanted to sit with Dad! Just like Dad sat with me a few years ago.

When I graduated from school and returned, because there was no hope for the future, I began to feel disheartened. For a while, I even thought about lying on the tracks to end my own life. During that time, Dad would sit with me for a while every day, and we father and son would sit for hours without saying a word.

Dad would hand me a cigarette, and I would smoke it. My history of smoking, if traced back, was Dad's personal teaching and example.

The singing stopped, and I looked up; the person on the high-rise balcony was gone, and only a woman's underwear was fluttering like a flag.

"You're back?" A voice sounded, startling me.

Turning to look, Zhu Hua Yu was standing in front of me with a smile, holding a bouquet of fresh flowers, which she placed gently in front of my father's grave.

"It's you!" I stood up in surprise, so excited that I almost opened my arms to hug her.

Zhu Hua Yu placed the flowers and whispered, "Uncle, I've come to see you. Don't worry, I will accompany you; you won't be lonely."

A touch of sadness welled up in my heart, and I coughed and said, "In the blink of an eye, four years have passed."

Zhu Hua Yu looked at me and smiled; her smile appeared sincere and without a trace of impurity.

"I heard that someone from the province came to do research, but I didn't expect it to be you." Zhu Hua Yu said happily, "If I had found out you were back, I would definitely have gone to welcome you."

"Why would you want to welcome me?" I teased her.

"Because you are my boss." Zhu Hua Yu bent down, helped me brush the dust off my knees, and said, "Let's go, I'll take you to see someone."

"Who?"

"You'll know when you see them."

"Where?"

"Just follow me." Zhu Hua Yu took the lead and walked forward, and I had no choice but to follow her, looking back every few steps as I walked out.

"Hua Yu, you've been taking care of my father's grave, right?" I asked, wanting to clear up the doubts in my heart. Because I knew her father was the director of the Martyrs Cemetery Management Office, and even if he was investigated, the hat on his head hadn't been taken off.

"Not just me, but my dad and the others too." Zhu Hua Yu said without looking back, "Those resting here are all martyrs; without them, there wouldn't be our happiness today. They exchanged their lives for our peace today; if we let them suffer grievances again, our conscience wouldn't allow it."

I was moved once again. What a kind girl this is! I sighed, even feeling jealous of Huang Qishan, letting him have such a woman; it was a blessing cultivated over several lifetimes!

"Hua Yu, where is Qishan?" I asked.

"I don't know!" She answered very bluntly.

"You don't know?" I asked suspiciously, "You aren't together?"

"We haven't been together for a long time. He has gone to get promoted and make a fortune now, and I am just a small country girl, I don't have the blessing to enjoy it." She seemed to be talking about someone else's business, and I couldn't hear any trembling in her voice at all.

"What do you mean?" I became even more suspicious. Huang Qishan kept saying that Zhu Hua Yu was his favorite; how could they have parted ways in less than half a year since I left?

"Where did Qishan go?" I asked, a sense of displeasure rising in my heart.

"You don't know?" She stopped, stared at me with her bright eyes, and said, "Less than a month after you left, he was transferred to the Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department."

"Is that so?" I asked skeptically, "Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" Zhu Hua Yu laughed happily, "You are my boss, would I tell a lie?"

"So... you two..." I hesitated to speak.

"We broke up." Zhu Hua Yu said lightly.

My heart ached, and I couldn't think of any words to comfort her.

Zhu Hua Yu obviously saw my conflict and said with a smile, "You don't need to comfort me. Really! I think it's better that we broke up. Being with him before, I always felt a lot of pressure. Now I have no pressure at all, and I live very happily."

I had no choice but to smile with her, but my heart felt like it was being whipped, aching in waves.

Huang Qishan actually turned out to be this kind of person! I misjudged him! I cursed fiercely in my heart; when I catch you, I'll see if I don't peel your skin off!

After leaving the gate of the Martyrs Cemetery, the row of small bungalows by the gate was the office and living space of the management office.

I had been to this place several times, together with Zhu Hua Yu, looking for her father Zhu Shizhen's notebook.

There was a sound of chess pieces falling on the board in the bungalow; I followed Zhu Hua Yu and pushed the door in, and saw Zhu Shizhen sitting facing the door, holding a chess piece, his brows tightly knitted, eyes fixed on the chessboard, motionless.

Opposite him sat an old man with his back to the door, his hair gray and his back hunched, loudly urging Zhu Shizhen to make his move.

"No taking back moves! No taking back, think it through before you move!" He urged Zhu Shizhen, his words full of pride.

Zhu Hua Yu called out "Dad" and then called out "Uncle," saying, "Look, who's here?"

The old man with his back to me turned his head, and the moment I caught a glimpse of him, my heart gave a violent tug, aching so much I almost fainted.

It was old Secretary Liu!

He had aged so much he was unrecognizable; his face was full of wrinkles like a thousand-year-old tree, with layers upon layers of wrinkles, and in every fold, it seemed to contain deep emotion.

His eyes were dim, a completely different person from the one in Suxi Township back then. The Secretary Liu Quan of those years walked with the wind, and every time he opened his mouth, it was like thunder. Among the thousands of people in Suxi Township, he was the only authority.

I called out excitedly, "Old Secretary!"

Liu Quan didn't seem to have come to his senses yet, looking me up and down for a long time, and asked hesitantly, "Are you Xiao Chen?"

I quickly replied, "That's right, I am Chen Feng."

I almost rushed up to hold his hands, shaking them hard, feeling the strength that his hands had once passed to me.

Liu Quan's hands were not as strong as they were back then, appearing powerless. He pulled me and asked, "How did you come?"

My heart was full of words, but I didn't know where to start.

It was Zhu Shizhen who broke the silence, "Sit down and talk, standing is tiring."

Only then did I greet him, while a question arose in my heart: they were old enemies, how could they be playing chess together?

"Hua Yu, go and make a few dishes, I'll have a few drinks with your Uncle Liu." Zhu Shizhen instructed his daughter, "Cut some of the cured meat your mom pickled."

After arranging for his daughter, he turned to me and said, "Xiao Chen, let's drink together."

I couldn't refuse and quickly nodded in agreement. But the doubts in my heart were still tangled.

I looked around the room; the room was kept very clean, with a bed, a table, and Zhu Shizhen sitting in a wheelchair. His legs were broken, and he would only be able to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Zhu Shizhen saw me looking around the room and smiled faintly, "It was all cleaned up by Hua Yu, not bad, right?"

I thought to myself, Zhu Shizhen left his post after being interviewed by the Discipline Inspection Commission, how did he come back? And he was still living in the original room, with the original furnishings, and the original air.

Liu Quan seemed to see my thoughts; he sighed and said, "Old Zhu is a person who lives for a breath his whole life. Isn't that so? After all that, he is innocent, but he has suffered enough."

Only then did I learn from his narrative that after I left, Secretary Liu Qimeng had cleared his name.

The house Zhu Shizhen used to live in was given to him by Guan Peishan; now he had returned the house to Guan Peishan and was wholeheartedly living in the Martyrs Cemetery, guarding the martyrs sleeping here.

I couldn't help but feel emotional, feeling that the changes in the world really had the speed of lightning and fire. It was overwhelming and left no place for peace.

After her father returned to the Martyrs Cemetery, Zhu Hua Yu had been by his side the whole time. No wonder even Yu Wei didn't know where she had gone.

Zhu Shizhen didn't smoke as usual, while Liu Quan, like me, couldn't live without cigarettes his whole life.

After smoking two cigarettes, Zhu Hua Yu's dishes were served on the table.

Three meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and one soup, all with great color, aroma, and taste, were placed on the table, making one drool.

It was the usual Yuntou Daqu; as soon as I smelled the wine, I felt especially close to it.

Old Secretary Liu poured the wine himself, filling them one by one. Even in front of Zhu Hua Yu, a glass was poured.

Zhu Hua Yu was from Suxi Township, and there were no women in Suxi Township who didn't drink.

After one glass, Liu Quan sighed, "In our lives, we fight and fight, but in the end, we look back and find it's for nothing; I don't understand, what are we all fighting for?"

Zhu Shizhen smiled, "Old Liu, do you really not understand or are you pretending not to? You say I'm fighting for a breath, aren't you also fighting for a breath? People, a breath might cost them their lives. Actually, this breath, swallowing it slowly, is better than holding it in and feeling uncomfortable."

Liu Quan laughed heartily, patted the table, and said, "Old Zhu, it's not that I'm talking about you, if it weren't for seeing that you old guy are inconvenient now, I wouldn't bother coming over to play chess with you every day."

Zhu Shizhen followed with a smile, "Old thing, try not coming. You've already retired, besides playing a few games of chess with me, can you go dancing with that group of old ladies?"

The two old men laughed happily; these two enemies of more than ten years, as their lives were coming to an end, suddenly understood that living is not just for a breath.