Chapter 675 Arrangements are in order
He turned to look at Director Song, who silently took out a document from his briefcase. On the cover, the words "Special Funds for Grave Relocation and Resettlement" were clearly visible.
"There is one more thing I need to tell you all,"
Director Song suddenly stood up, and there was a hint of solemnity in his voice.
"Before he died, my father said that the thing he regretted most in his life was not erecting a monument for his teammate Lao Zhou."
"When Lao Zhou rescued my father, his fingernails scratched a bloody mark on his arm, which later grew into a birthmark."
"This time when we move the grave, I will carve the biggest tombstone for Old Zhou, and clearly record his story of saving people, so that my grandchildren's grandchildren will all know that we in the Great Northern Wilderness are not short of brains, and we are not short of conscience."
The atmosphere in the meeting hall finally calmed down. Aunt Li wiped her tears with her sleeve and said:
"If you could erect a monument for my little pillar, even if it says 'Son of Aunt Li'..."
Wang Jianguo quickly agreed and opened the notebook to make a few notes.
In the afterglow of the setting sun, he suddenly felt that the old people in front of him were no longer noisy villagers.
Rather, they are a group of relatives who buried their youth, blood and tears in the black soil. Isn’t their persistence another form of love for the Great Northern Wilderness?
"After the meeting, all families with relatives buried on the west slope should come to me to register."
He shook the pen in his hand.
"We will take photos of each grave and mark it, and record the entire process when we move the graves to ensure that no one is left behind."
"When smoke comes out of the brick factory, please go to the new cemetery and burn some incense for the old people. Let them see how bright the new houses are that we have built with the land they have protected!"
As the sun grew higher, Wang Jianguo squatted in the threshing ground and repeatedly sketched the design of the new cemetery with chalk.
On the distant western hillside, the evening breeze blew up the weeds, as if countless pairs of eyes were watching this land.
He touched the grave relocation plan in his pocket and suddenly remembered what Uncle Zhang had said:
"The soil of the Great Northern Wilderness can bury people, but it can also save people. As long as we keep our old friends in our hearts, anywhere is their home."
The group of tombstones in the sketch is clearly visible, and in front of each tombstone, there is a bunch of blooming wild chrysanthemums painted.
Zhao Shuzhuo's eyes fell on the spread-out sketch, and the moonlight shone diagonally across the pages of paper through the window lattice.
The shadows of the tombstones and memorial pavilions outlined in pencil were cast on Wang Jianguo's rolled-up sleeves.
He suddenly noticed that the second button of the other person's shirt was sewn particularly tightly, with the stitching forming a neat cross shape, unlike his own buttons which were always loose.
That was done by Wang Jianguo’s wife who stayed up late last night, and she also embroidered a wheat ear on the collar.
"This is the latest distribution map of the tombs."
Wang Jianguo's fingers traced the contour of Crescent Bay, his fingertips stained with a light pencil gray.
"The front row is for the reclamation team, the back row is for the villagers who have fled famine, and a three-meter-wide sacred road is left in the middle, with pine trees planted on both sides."
He suddenly took out a walnut-sized compass from his trouser pocket. The copper shell glowed warmly in the moonlight.
"I checked the location with Mr. Li this morning. All the tombstones face southeast, in the direction of our village's threshing ground."
Zhao Shuzhuo stroked the edge of the sketch, remembering that three days ago he was still worried about the funds for relocating the graves. He smoked in the office all night and even pressed a dent on the enamel pot.
And Wang Jianguo took him to the town's credit union yesterday and used his own oxen as collateral.
He managed to borrow 20,000 yuan - that was the only valuable item in his family, the old ox named "Tiedan" that he had raised for ten years.
"What Old Huang just said..."
Zhao Shuzhuo suddenly spoke, then paused hesitantly. Wang Jianguo looked up at him and found that his partner, with whom he had worked for less than a year, had a few strands of white hair on his temples and looked much older than when they first met three months ago.
"About tombstone engraving,"
Wang Jianguo took out a red cloth bag from the bottom of the drawer, which contained twenty-seven yellowed exercise books.
"These are inscriptions written by senior students from each village's primary school. The youngest was only nine years old. They said, 'We want to let the land reclamation grandfather know that we eat white flour buns every day.'"
Zhao Shuzhuo opened one of the books and saw a dried wild chrysanthemum in the childish handwriting:
"Dear Grandpa Zhou Dahai, Uncle Xiao Zhuzi, whom you saved, is now a major grain grower in our village. He harvested 20,000 kilograms of wheat last year."
His throat suddenly tightened, and he remembered that when he went to the Cheng family last week to deliver the compensation for the relocation of the grave, Old Mrs. Cheng stuffed two hot boiled eggs into his pocket and said,
"If Haizi's father were alive, he would be as stupid as you."
"You have to help me keep an eye on the day of the grave relocation."
Wang Jianguo suddenly stood up and took down his straw hat from the wall. There was a yellowed photo sewn into the brim of his hat - he and Uncle Zhang were standing next to a tractor when they were young, with endless wheat fields behind them.
"Old Zhou's urn will be placed in the middle of the first row. I specially had someone put a blue brick under the urn with the words 'Northeastern Wilderness Man' engraved on it."
His voice suddenly softened.
"Uncle Zhang always said that our generation is like the blue bricks in the Great Northern Wilderness, and we must lay them neatly at all times."
Zhao Shuzhuo stood up as well and saw that Wang Jianguo's trouser legs were still stained with grass debris from the grave relocation this morning.
Three days ago, this man knelt in the weeds on the west slope of the mountain, digging the soil of the grave bit by bit with his hands, for fear of damaging the bones inside.
When he found Uncle Zhang's remains, he suddenly took off his Zhongshan suit, carefully wrapped the skull, and said:
"We can't let the elderly suffer from the wind."
"You think better than I thought."
Zhao Shuzhuo suddenly reached out and patted Wang Jianguo's shoulder, which felt as solid as a blue brick.
"Last time when we were repairing the canal, I was only thinking about the deadline, but you insisted on leaving a 'fish passage' for each culvert. Now that I think about it, everything we do must leave a way out for future generations."
Wang Jianguo smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth - the tooth was missing when he fell from the beam while helping his fellow villager build a house last year.
He took out two bottles of Erguotou from the drawer and bit open the bottle caps with his teeth:
"When the cemetery is finished, we will take a bottle of wine to toast the old and young masters. Uncle Zhang loved to drink this when he was alive. He said, 'The smell of wine can float to the underworld, letting the old ghosts know that we, the people of the Great Northern Wilderness, live a tough life.'"
Outside the window, the moonlight was gently spreading over the western hillside. The weeds there had been neatly cleared, and in front of each grave was a brand new wooden plaque with the words "Tomb to be moved" written on it in cinnabar pen.
Zhao Shuzhuo suddenly remembered what Wang Jianguo often said:
"The soil of the Great Northern Wilderness cannot bury nameless souls."
Looking at the figure squatting on the ground modifying the sketch in front of him, he suddenly realized that the so-called calmness and sophistication meant only keeping the life and death of others, and their fortunes and misfortunes in his heart.
The two bottles of wine clinked together in the moonlight, making a crisp sound, which sounded very much like the sound of a shovel hitting blue bricks on the day of the grave relocation.
Wang Jianguo tilted his head back and took a sip. The wine flowed down his chin into his collar, but he was unaware of it and just stared at the memorial pavilion on the sketch.
His fingers gently traced the curve of the eaves - there, the names of all the pioneers of the Great Northern Wilderness would be engraved, whether famous or unknown.