After my grandmother called me home in my dream, my spiritual energy revived

Chapter 2: Ancient Town in the Distant Mountains
Looking at the familiar mountains outside the car window, Song Miaozhu knew that they were already near Lingcheng.

Her family lives in Yuanshan Town, a small town below Lingcheng.

In the past two years, with the rapid development of tourism across the country, Yuanshan Town renovated and expanded several antique-style commercial streets and began to be called Yuanshan Ancient Town.

In the past, I had to change several buses to go home, but now I can take a tourist bus directly from the bus station next to the train station to the tourist center outside the town.

Song Miaozhu walked through the busy commercial street of the ancient town and headed north.

Her old house is at the northernmost end of the town, on Xiaozhu Mountain outside Yunwu Mountain. Beyond Xiaozhu Mountain is the Yunwu Mountain Nature Reserve.

The place is shrouded in clouds and fog all day long, and even the locals dare not go too deep into it.

Her home is on the hillside of Xiaozhu Mountain. There are scattered terraced fields in front of the house and a bamboo forest behind the house.

In the past, you could see the entire town below the mountain from the gate of the courtyard.

The further north you go, the more dilapidated the houses and roads become, the fewer tourists there are, and the more familiar faces you see.

Two old ladies sitting on the roadside eating melon seeds stared at her and chirped loudly.

"She looks familiar. She seems to be the girl from Anshou Paper Shop."

"Didn't Song go to college? I remember she was always the leader of the group!"

"Girl has grown up, she loves beauty!"

……

Song Miaozhu suppressed her laughter and greeted: "Grandma Du, Grandma Zhu, it's me!"

"Ah! It's really her!" Grandma Du slapped the old sister's thigh hard, causing Grandma Zhu to scream in pain: "I told you I wasn't mistaken! It's really Miss Song from Anshou Paper Shop."

"Yes, yes, yes! Be gentle, my old arms and legs can't stand your beating!" Grandma Zhu said unhappily.

"Song girl, is school on vacation?" Grandma Du asked with a smile.

"No. I missed home and came back to visit." Song Miaozhu said.

Grandma Du nodded. "It's good you're back! It's good you're back! In recent years, our town has been developing better and better, and more young people have returned... By the way, it's just right that you're back. Everyone knows your house isn't for sale, but someone came to see your shop the other day and wants to rent it out to open a food scam. I heard someone from the town government asked for your phone number..."

"What? That's an escape room!" Grandma Zhu corrected.

"Foraging Hood!"

"Escape the Room!"

……

The two old ladies quarreled and only had eyes for each other.

Song Miaozhu had no choice but to say goodbye to the two old ladies and continue walking home.

The last time I came back was during the Qingming Festival last year. The town was not so lively at that time.

Unexpectedly, even her old shop at the entrance of the alley, which is so remote that locals would miss it without noticing, is now wanted to be rented by someone to do business.

The old house is her roots, and she is not planning to sell it.

This shop is in a bad location and can only do funeral business for local people.

Originally, Song Miaozhu wanted to rent out the Anshou Paper Shop or even sell it, but no one was interested.

The guy who wanted to open an escape room called her, but she was suffering from a dream about her grandmother, who kept telling her to take over the shop and run it well. How could she dare rent it out? So she refused.

Seeing the current bustle in the town, Song Miaozhu really wants to go back to his hometown to inherit the ancestral shop.

However, with handmade paper money no longer as good as machine-printed paper money and burials being forced to be replaced by cremation, there is no future in continuing to run the traditional funeral business.
When my parents were still alive, the shop business was going from bad to worse.

When I returned from Qingming Festival last year, the only traditional funeral clothing shop left in the town also went bankrupt after Grandpa Li passed away.

The funeral clothing shop was right next to her family's Anshou Paper Shop.

Her shop is called Anshou, but no one in her family has ever lived to a ripe old age in peace and contentment.

Song Miaozhu thought the name wasn't good, and thought changing it to something else might be a good idea. She might make paper figurines, perhaps something tourists would appreciate. She made more than just paper figurines for the deceased.

The main thing is that Yuanshan Town is really peaceful!

There are mountains and water, and the scenery is beautiful.

It has developed and life in the town is convenient.

The most important thing is that the people are simple and honest and the neighborhood relations are harmonious.

The Song family has been a single-line family for three generations, and in her generation, she is the only girl, so she has no other relatives.

Under such circumstances, she lost both her parents in high school, but no one bullied her. The old house and shop at home were always in good condition and no one coveted them. Instead, she received help from many people in the town.

If it weren't for the fact that it's easier to make money in big cities and she still needs to make money to live, she wouldn't want to leave her hometown at all.

Song Miaozhu's wish has always been to make a lot of money and go back to her hometown to live a comfortable life.

Just as she was thinking, she suddenly smelled a familiar fragrance. Song Miaozhu looked up and smiled with nostalgia.

In the courtyard with white walls and black tiles on the mountain, the whole yard is covered with locust flowers.

The locust flowers at home are blooming!
From the yard to the old locust tree, they all existed since my great-grandmother's time.

After the development of tourism, the exterior walls of the old houses in the town were collectively painted white.

But now the wall has added traces of time.

There is no one at her house all year round, so the walls are more mottled.

The nearest house to hers is also 500 meters away.

The last section of the road leading home is almost occupied by plants, and it is obvious that no one has been here.

Song Miaozhu found a stick by the roadside and walked up while beating the grass.

When he arrived at the door, he took out the key and opened the brass lock.

The gate creaked open as she pushed it open.

After not being back for a year, little grass started to sprout in the cracks of the bluestone slabs in the yard.

"Looks like I'll be busy again this time!"

Song Miaozhu ignored them for the time being, put down the suitcase, and climbed up the old locust tree.

She wanted to see if there was a small tree hole in the old locust tree and whether there was really a key in the hole.

She had climbed this tree no less than a thousand times when she was a child, but she had never seen any tree hole!
But in the dream, her grandmother grabbed her ear, pointed at the old locust tree, and told her over and over again to remember to get the key.

"The shop key is clearly on my keychain along with the key to the old house. How can there be a shop key? This must be a dream with confusing logic and all sorts of nonsense..."

Song Miaozhu muttered to herself as she quickly climbed to the spot where Tai Nai was pointing in her dream. She pushed aside the scattered branches and dead leaves, her pupils constricted. "It really is there!"

There was indeed a small depression the size of a bowl, like a tree hole, and there was a small golden key in the hole.

It is shinier and more exquisite than the gold jewelry Zhou Moufu bought in the mall, and it looks very valuable at first glance.

It doesn't fit in with this small tree hole that is covered with dead branches and leaves and is even a little damp.

It doesn't look like it has been hidden here for a long time, but rather like it was put in not long ago.

Just put it in recently?

Who put it there? The dead grandmother?
Things are getting more and more mysterious.

Song Miaozhu's heart was pounding, but she was not too scared. After all, she came from a family with a long history of funeral industry. Even if she didn't plan to continue working in the funeral industry, she had developed courage since she was a child.

She reached out her hand and took out the golden key.

(End of this chapter)