Annual Ceremony

Chapter 36 Great Heat (Part )

After leaving Jilin, the Wang family headed south.

Traveling during the Great Heat season, the further south you go, the hotter it gets. Even if you want to travel faster, the horses can't handle it.

Moreover, the Wang brothers were concerned about their mother's old age. They could not travel day and night as they had done when they came here. When they were tired, they just stayed in the carriage.

Along the way, the Wang brothers served their mother wholeheartedly, whether it was carefully arranging travel and meals or taking care of the old woman's emotions - the former thing the two brothers always did impeccably, but the latter thing was often reversed. Whenever Wang Xichen and Wang Xirui mentioned their father, they always felt uncontrollable grief in their hearts, and in the end it was the emotionally stable old lady who comforted the two sons who were crying bitterly.

After crying like this for about four or five times, the two brothers were able to slowly suppress their outward sadness.

Wang Yuan's personality is more optimistic than most people nowadays. Apart from shedding tears twice at the beginning, he never cried again. But he is not an emotional person. On the contrary, he has been trying to pull everyone out of this haze, especially always trying to make his second sister happy.

At night, the Wang family stayed in an inn in a small county. The room was stuffy and hot. Tao'er fanned the old lady with a palm-leaf fan, while the Wang brothers sat beside her and talked to their mother.

Zhenyi was making tea when she heard her eldest brother's voice outside: "Second sister, come out and see, there is something good!"

Hearing this, Zhenyi looked out the door curiously. Mother Zhuo came in and took the tea bowl from Zhenyi's hand with a smile: "I wonder what treasure the eldest master has found. Miss, go and take a look."

After getting her grandmother's permission, Zhenyi hurried out of the guest room.

Orange, who was dozing off on a bench, jumped down and followed cautiously - wary that Wang Yuan had bad intentions and might cook up something to scare Zhenyi.

"Second sister, look!" Wang Yuan brought Zhenyi to the path beside the inn and pointed to the dense grass on the side of the road.

Zhenyi looked over, her eyes lit up by the floating glow, and she said in surprise, "It's Xiaozhu."

Xiaozhu is also called ying, which is another name for firefly.

Orange rarely saw this, so he immediately jumped into the grass and raised his two front paws to catch fireflies. As Orange jumped in the grass, more and more fireflies flew up.

Wang Yuan picked up a small wooden stick with great interest, squatted down, poked and lifted up a layer of dead grass under the bushes, and a large number of fireflies suddenly floated out, filling the sky with fireflies, like a sea of ​​stars. Wang Yuan lifted up a few more piles of dead grass, and each time more fireflies flew out. Orange was running around and it was hard to keep up. Wang Yuan threw away the wooden stick, clapped his hands and stood up, saying, "They say that fireflies are transformed from rotten grass, it's really true!"

Zhenyi also reached out to catch them, but always missed. After hearing what her elder brother said, she seriously corrected him, "Although it is also said in the 'Collection of Explanations of the Seventy-two Seasons of the Lunar Calendar' that 'the Great Heat, the first season, rotten grass turns into fireflies' - this is a misunderstanding of our ancestors. In fact, fireflies are fireflies, but the eggs of fireflies are attached to the dead grass. They hatch during the Great Heat, so fireflies can be seen during the Great Heat."

Wang Yuan was surprised to hear this and exclaimed: "In just four years, my second sister has become so knowledgeable. She is truly a rare genius in the world!"

Zhenyi was no longer a child, so she could tell that her elder brother was exaggerating and flattering her. She couldn't help but laugh, and subconsciously said, "All of this was taught by my great grandfather—"

The countless fireflies floating in front of her eyes seemed to stop for a moment, and the smile on Zhenyi's face also stopped, and her mood was the same.

Many times, Zhenyi felt that she had listened to the advice, accepted many principles about life and death, and had truly let go of her grandfather's departure, but this kind of loss and sadness always suddenly appeared.

When she was reading or doing homework, if she encountered something she couldn't figure out, she would subconsciously think, why not write it down first, and then ask her grandfather for help when he comes back;
Whenever I see something new and interesting on the way, I always subconsciously turn my head to look for my father;
When I was resting and falling asleep in the inn, if I suddenly heard an old man coughing in the next room, I would immediately open my eyes, thinking that my grandfather was coughing again, and sometimes I would even get up, put on my clothes and go out;

The last time they stopped in a tea shed, her father was discussing medical knowledge with a practitioner. When she heard the man mention a good remedy for curing lung disease, she subconsciously became happy and hurriedly called out "Father". Her father turned around to look at her, but she lowered her head.

With all these things happening, Zhenyi always needs a while to react and remember the fact that her grandfather has passed away.

Habit always precedes reason, so sadness and melancholy have a lag, like rain that lasts for a long time, even if the rain stops, the wet marks remain.

Zhenyi tried to coexist and reconcile with all these guilty consciences, to face them instead of avoiding them, but this really requires a lot of courage.

Whenever Zhenyi wiped her tears silently, she felt that she still had a long way to go in cultivating her courage.

Orange could always smell Zhenyi's sadness. Every time Zhenyi quietly wiped her tears, a furry ball would rub her wet palms.

　(I went to celebrate the birthday of my motherland on National Day and was lazy for two days)
A short chapter, I'll update it later.

　
(End of this chapter)