Chapter 39: Scattering flowers around the coffin (Part 2)

June 19, 2023Ai Hrist

He was reminded of bad memories, recalling the grievances he suffered when he was a child, and said angrily:

“Those people are also called relatives? How did they treat us after our parents died? Did they do anything for us? They are not afraid of being stabbed in the back by their parents after death, nor they are not afraid of retribution. What should I be afraid of!”

This is almost a disguised admission that he did something at the funeral.

“You!” Xiao Xi’s eyes widened in anger as she slapped him on the shoulder twice: “Didn’t we talk about it before, I said that we will never communicate with them again in the future, why are you so disobedient?!”

“If you still recognize me as a sister, tell me honestly what you have done, otherwise I will not treat you as a brother.”

Seeing his only family member getting angry, Xiao Cheng became anxious.

“I’ll say it, okay? Sister, don’t be angry.” He hesitated for a moment, looked at the camera, gritted his teeth, and said: “I know what I did was unethical. After the show was broadcast, netizens would scold me after I admit it, but today, I have to tear off the face of those people, and let the people of the whole country see what kind of wolf-hearted thing they are!”

From Xiao Cheng’s mouth, everyone heard a more detailed version of their childhood encounters.

It turns out that their family has four generations living under the same roof.

Their father had three brothers and a younger sister. There were five children in the previous generation. Their father was the only one of the five who left the mountain village and settled down in the county. At that time, their family conditions were the best. Usually, their relatives take care of them during New Year’s Day. Although their mother has some opinions about them, she didn’t stop them from communicating.

As for their grandparents, their grandfather was an only child. Their grandfather was the head of the whole family at that time.

After their parents had an accident, Xiao Xi was just turned nine years old, while Xiao Cheng was just six years old.

The two children had relatives and uncles, so it was impossible to send them to the orphanage. Their grandfather and grandmother called other members of the family to discuss how they would raise the two children together.

When they were helping them in the past, they said they were brothers. But now that their parents died, and heard that they have to raise them, these uncles and aunts began to shirk.

It just so happened that the person who killed their parents was a local factory owner. He went to the family and said that he was going to discuss it in private, and that he will pay a total of 200,000 yuan as compensation.

To the villagers of Huangtu, these 200,000 yuan more than ten years ago was a huge sum of money.

Although their grandfather insisted on calling the police, several uncles and the aunt in the family kept dissuading them, saying that their parents were dead, so they might as well ask for some compensation to raise the two children.

In the end, they came to their grandfather. The silent old man looked at the dilapidated courtyard and the sallow and emaciated grandchildren, and finally gave up.

Xiao Xi and Xiao Cheng were still ignorant, and their future was arranged just like that.

Several families agreed to use the compensation money to raise the children together and promised that the orphans left by the brothers would never suffer.

But in fact, the two children barely have food and clothing. While their cousins eat meat, they can only drink soup, and they have no pocket money or new clothes.

They also have to clean the house, feed chickens and geese, and be bullied and ridiculed by the juniors of various families.

One year later, the siblings even overheard one of their uncles say that there was a bachelor in the village who wanted Xiao Cheng to adopt him as his son and promised to give their family 50,000 yuan as an “adoption fee”.

They quarreled with this uncle and ran to their grandfather to expose the matter, saying that their siblings would never be separated.

Their grandfather was indeed very angry and disagreed, and scolded the uncle, but the situation of the two children has become even more difficult since then.

Whenever they asked for the cost of books, it was the most embarrassing time when their uncles and aunts would criticize and say that they secretly took money, and kept complaining about how much money it was to raise a child.

But what they saw was that a few uncles built a new house and bought new appliances with the money they “earned” from nowhere in just a few years.

The so-called “for their future” money left by their parents was also “borrowed” by the other grandchildren.

He felt sorry for his other grandchildren, so he acquiesced to these actions, but it chilled the hearts of the siblings.

When Xiao Xi graduated from high school, her grades were very good, and she could get into a very good university.

But when it was time to get tuition fees, their aunt in the family told her not to go to college, saying that she had already arranged a good marriage for her in the village.

The aunt said: “Do you think we can afford to pay? It is very conscientious to raise you and your brother so much. Don’t talk about the 200,000. What can these 200,000 do now? Besides, you are a girl, what’s the use of reading so many books, you will just get married in the end! Don’t think that the person I introduced to you is a graduate of a technical secondary degree, his family is rich. Even if you are young and good-looking, you are far beyond him… …”

After hearing this, Xiao Xi was so angry that she shed tears, and finally gritted her teeth and took her younger brother to leave the mountain village.

She worked part-time at a summer job and borrowed money from her former high school teacher, so she rented a small apartment to pay for her tuition.

In the past few years, most of her tuition fees and Xiao Cheng’s tuition fees have been earned from her part-time jobs and summer jobs.

Xiao Cheng was already choking on tears when he said this: “My sister and I have never eaten a few pieces of meat since we were young. We do all the work at home, but they still want to harm my sister! This kind of person is not worthy of being called relatives, I feel disgusted when I see them! Why should we go back and cry after they die?”

If it weren’t for those shameless uncles talking about their dead parents, saying that they were rebellious, dishonorable, and filial, and their parents would be scolded by their ancestors underground, they wouldn’t go back to attend any funeral.

Gu Zhisang said: “So you have always had resentment in your heart. You hated them. This hatred reached its peak the night before the burial and at the moment of ‘wrapping the coffin’.”

Xiao Cheng took a deep look at her, nodded, and said, “Yes, I think each of them is ridiculous and hateful!”

It turned out that in their mountain nest, there was another ritual during the “wound around the coffin”, which was to put a copper basin in front of the deceased’s coffin.

In the process of walking around the coffin, under the leadership of the Taoist Master, the juniors will throw real money into the basin while walking around.

It was said that this was to pray for the deceased to bless them with wealth in the ground.

The more you sprinkle money into the basin, the better their fortune will be. They also call it the ‘turning gold basin’.

Afterward, the Taoist Master will take 30% of the money in this ‘Golden Pot’ as a hard work fee, and the rest will be used as money for carrying the coffin for burial the next day, or for entertaining guests.  

Perhaps it was to show in front of most of the village that their family lives well and was rich, or they were filial to their grandfather.