Mantra

Chapter 120

The next day, just after the sun came out, I threw a crock pot for the old squad leader, and while weeping, I followed the funeral procession and headed straight for the "ancestral grave".

Along the way, the white sails were fluttering, the sun and the moon were shining brightly, and I couldn't describe the painful and desolate environment.It seems that there are only me and Zhao Haikun crying in the world.

In this weak cry, I only mourned the death of the old squad leader from the bottom of my heart, and I was also disappointed by the withering of the Zhao family.

Another abbot of the Wu Zang Temple went, and another incense line that had been passed down for hundreds of years was cut off.

Is this the general trend of the times, or a trick of fate...

My old squad leader is a conscientious cook and a good person.He is the most honest cook and the most honest man. He has been fulfilling the rules of the Confucius Temple and practicing the cooking skills of a saint throughout his life.

But why don't good people get good rewards?Why do good people have twists and turns in their funerals after they die... don't they die well?
He has served in the army and served the society all his life, and he has done nothing wrong... But why does he have to enter this "outside graveyard" where only the wicked and dead can enter?
People are sinister or God has no eyes!

...In grief and anger, I cried even harder. This is the first time since I left the army that I cried heart-piercingly...

In this solemnity, it was not until the funeral procession lowered the coffin, buried the earth, and let off the firecrackers that I gradually calmed down my emotions under the comfort of my friends.

After kowtowing, I looked sadly at the small tomb of my old squad leader, accompanied by relatives of the Zhao family and my comrades-in-arms and friends.

A person... coming from the soil and going to the soil is the best destination.

Thinking of this, I felt a bit of comfort in my heart.

When the ceremony was over, we slowly left this lonely and quiet "outer cemetery" of Zhao's family under my step and three turns.

When I came in, I was so busy crying, until now when I went out, I didn't have the heart to take a look at the cemetery "dedicated to burying sinners".

As Zhao Haikun said, this cemetery is not big, and there are only a dozen vaguely identifiable tombs.

It seems that the Zhao family has been very law-abiding for hundreds of years.

Among the tombs, weeds grew everywhere, apparently neglected for many years.

The tombstone in this cemetery is also very interesting, and the content he engraved is exactly the same as what Zhao Haikun said, such as "unfilial son..." "bad son so-and-so"

This is the first time I have seen such a tombstone.

Out of curiosity, I watched as I walked.

As I was walking, my steps suddenly stopped in front of a tombstone.

I raised my eyes and stared at the inscription, feeling very strange.

Because this tombstone is very special.

The reason why I think this tombstone is very special is because... I can't see a single word on it.

In other words, this is a "monument without characters".

The knowledge in this wordless stele is too big.

In history, wordless monuments are not uncommon. Many famous emperors have left "wordless monuments" for themselves after their death. Among them, the most famous "wordless monument" belongs to the empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty.

When I was in school, I heard the story of the tombstone and her heroine, because the teacher told it very vividly, so I still remember it vividly.

As the only female emperor in China's orthodox dynasty, Wu Zetian had a legendary and complicated life, and her evaluations were also very polarized.

People who like her say that she knows people well and makes good use of them, and that she can make the country safe and secure, and that she is the master of the world.Those who hated her said that she was cruel and evil, used torture to disrupt the government, and was a seductress who disrupted the country.

In short, the evaluation of her in history is swaying between these extreme poles, which makes people worry about it.

After all... this woman is both an emperor and a queen, a wise king and a tyrant.She doted on her daughter, but killed her son.

She is a combination of contradictions.

Maybe he was also aware of his embarrassing historical position after his death. The Emperor Wu Zhou left a stone tablet without words.

It seems to be showing everyone that the empress is tired, and she doesn't want to say anything... about me, take your time to guess!
I feel that the wordless stele is a naked mockery of the talkers of later generations.

From Wu Zetian's wordless stele, I infer that this kind of stele is often not as simple as it looks on the surface, it has many extended meanings in it, and there are many buried stories behind it.

And the owner of the wordless stele in front of me must have an unspeakable story...

Zhao Haikun saw that I stopped, so he stopped Gui Yuxiu who was pushing him behind him.

He sat in a row with me, also looking at the wordless stele and the small tomb.

After a long sigh, he said to me: "The one buried here... is the last patriarch of the Zhao family."

"Why is there nothing inscribed on his tablet?"

Zhao Haikun shook his head and said: "This is a national sinner! His evil deeds are beyond expression! He doesn't deserve to leave his name at all."

After hearing Zhao Haikun's words, I suddenly realized: "Oh! I remembered. He is the patriarch who burned down the Zhao family building, right?"

But I remembered it, because my old squad leader told me about this person before his death.

The old squad leader said that the Zhao family building was still very prosperous in the Republic of China, but just before the Japanese army entered the Central Plains in [-], a head of the Zhao family met a Japanese spy named Onishu Qianmaru in spite of the world.

And that interview started the Zhao family's "genocide mode" that lasted for more than half a century.

At that time, the patriarch left the man in the Zhao family's ancient building and chatted for three days.

But on the night of the third day, the members of the Zhao family discovered to their astonishment that the ancient building of the Zhao family, which stood in the Ming and Qing dynasties for more than 500 years, caught fire. Went to most of Zhaojialou Village.

Under this blow, the Zhao family building completely declined.The descendants of the Zhao family in the past also left their hometown and wandered around.

And all of this is a good thing left by the head of the Zhao family whose tombstone is blank.

Looking at the tombstone without a word, I couldn't help but feel sad.At the same time, he subconsciously asked Zhao Haikun, "Didn't you find out the truth of what happened back then? Then what is the purpose of the spies looking for him?"

Zhao Haikun shook his head and said: "There is no clue. We only know that the Japanese are looking for something in Zhaojialou, but we don't know what they are looking for."

Zhao Haikun told me that the reason why they knew this was because of the strange behavior of the Japanese back then.

According to Zhao Deguang, Zhao Haikun's father, after the fall of southern Shandong during the Anti-Japanese War, soldiers from a Japanese squadron rushed straight to Zhaojialou.

That Bingfeng was different from the troops that occasionally passed by during the melee of warlords in the past. They were clearly aimed at the Zhao family building, and the Japanese were well prepared, even bringing engineering soldiers and drilling equipment.

Zhaojialou was originally a small village, so how could it stand up to the Japanese.So the Zhao family chose to avoid the disaster, but the whole family fled into Yimeng Mountain, and the blow was not insignificant.

After the Japanese arrived, they demolished houses and graves in Zhaojialou. They worked hard for three days without knowing what they were doing.

On the third day, the clansmen who went to the village to visit the news came back and told everyone that the Japanese had a strange disease, killed more than a dozen soldiers, and had to retreat.

"Strange disease?!" I was surprised and said, "Unaccustomed to the environment? Is it cholera?"

(End of this chapter)