Chapter 678: Working Together
Someone's palm-leaf fan was gently waving, bringing with it the scent of locust flowers.
Uncle Huang touched the red cloth on his cane and suddenly asked in a low voice:
"Then... Can you plant an apple tree when you visit the grave during the Qingming Festival? I love sweet apples all my life."
Director Song smiled, took out a half-broken pencil from his pocket, and drew a crooked garden on the back of the notebook:
"We will plant more than just apple trees. We will also plant pine trees and roses. We will leave half a meter of land on each grave and plant whatever we want."
He looked up at the starry sky, and there was a warmth in his voice.
"When our cemetery is built, the children will come back to visit the graves without having to step on mud. They can also sit on the stone benches to take a break and chat with the elders..."
The night wind lifted up Brother Li’s trouser legs, revealing a faint scar on his ankle—it was caused by a wild jujube thorn when he visited his father’s grave last year.
He suddenly stood up and knocked his pipe against the sole of his shoe, making a loud noise:
"Count me in! I'll go to the quarry and move stones tomorrow for free!"
Aunt Zhang stuffed the palm-leaf fan into her waist:
"I have two paulownia trees at home, which are perfect for making urns. After all, they are made from our own wood, so it's free!"
Xiao Shunzi slid down from the tree, holding a firefly in his hand:
"I signed up to be a cemetery caretaker! I come to water the plants after school every day!"
Grandpa Huang looked at the starry sky and suddenly knocked on the stone table with his cane:
"Director Song, when I am a hundred years old, bury me under the old elm tree in the southeast corner of the cemetery."
His wrinkled face relaxed.
"When I was young, I used to weave baskets under that tree. When the kids come to visit the grave, they can look up and see the old locust tree. How familiar it is..."
At this time, a dog from an unknown family barked twice in the distance, and locust tree leaves fell into Director Song's enamel tub. A few points of moonlight floated on the water, like a handful of silver coins scattered.
The stool under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village still had the residual warmth of midday. Director Song took off his straw hat and fanned himself twice. The sweat beads on his forehead flowed along the wrinkles into the coarse cloth collar.
He took out the yellowed drawing from his canvas bag and flattened the corners with a paperweight. The outline of the west slope on the drawing was circled again and again with red pen, like a fresh scar.
"Fellow villagers, please take a look at this picture first,"
He tapped the mass grave marker with the tip of his pencil.
"This piece of land with weeds taller than people may look scary, but in my eyes, it is a treasure land that can produce gold."
Aunt Zhang's hand holding the embroidery frame paused in mid-air, the needle still holding a half-finished peony:
"Director, the graves of three generations of our ancestors are buried there. Although there is no proper tombstone, will our ancestors agree to it being turned into a brick factory for no reason?"
Before he finished speaking, Uncle Li's pipe hit the stone table with a "bang", and the copper pipe bowl shook:
"Two years ago, my kid drove a tractor past there and the wheels got stuck in the grave hole! If we start digging up the bricks, who knows what we'll find. It's a sin!"
Director Song suddenly stood up, his trouser legs sweeping over the purslane at his feet. His Adam's apple rolled on his tanned neck:
"Do you know the kiln of Director Liu in town? The brick factory in the neighboring village produces 20,000 bricks a day. Why can't our village have one?"
"The mass grave on the west slope is called a cemetery, but it doesn't even have a proper boundary marker. It has been abandoned for decades and should have been cleaned up long ago."
He took out a neatly folded document from his pocket, with a piece of dry foxtail grass sandwiched between the pages.
"I went to the township three times and the county seat four times, and finally submitted the plan of 'relocating graves and building a garden'. Guess what? The city approved it!"
Mr. Huang's tobacco pouch slipped from his waist, and the dark red tobacco spilled onto the bluestone slabs. The old man trembled as he held onto the stone table, his cloudy eyes suddenly lit up:
"Director, are you serious? Can the government allocate money for us to build a cemetery?"
Director Song squatted down and helped the old man pick up his purse. He rubbed the spicy smell of tobacco on his fingertips:
“Not only money, but also policies!”
He unfolded the document and ran his index finger across the densely packed lines.
"According to regulations, if we occupy collective land to build factories, the company must pay us 3,000 yuan per mu for seedlings. We have allocated 20 mu of land on the west slope of the mountain to build a brick factory, and this money alone is 60,000 yuan!"
Brother Li's rolled-up trousers suddenly hit the stone table with his knees, startling a few ants that were enjoying the cool air.
"Then our ancestral tomb..."
Director Song fished out a red book from the bottom of his canvas bag. On the cover were the words "Funeral Management Regulations" embossed in gold:
"There are rules for moving graves. Each household pays 300 yuan for the moving fee. The new cemetery will erect a unified tombstone with the date of birth and death engraved on it. Free flower baskets will be sent on Qingming Festival."
He suddenly lowered his voice, as if to speak in private.
"I've been to the county cemetery. A tombstone sells for 8,000 yuan. We can ask a stonemason in town to make it. The cost price is 800 yuan. The extra money will be put into the brick factory's account."
At this time, Widow Wang came out from the shadows with her arms folded, the silver bracelet on her wrist gleaming with tiny gleams:
"Director, let me be frank. If the brick factory makes money, will it really invest in the cemetery? Don't buy cars and build office buildings, and we ordinary people won't even be able to see a blade of grass."
Director Song suddenly pulled out a crumpled account book from his pocket and flipped to the last page:
"I checked the accounts with the accountant yesterday. The brick factory budget is 300,000 yuan. I have listed the 'cemetery special project' separately. For every brick sold, I will take 5 cents from it."
He pointed to the four words "Special funds for special purposes" written in red on the account book.
"When the time comes, we will elect five villagers to serve as supervisors, and we will post a notice at the entrance of the village committee on how each sum of money will be spent."
Grandpa Huang suddenly knocked on the cemetery planning area on the blueprint with his crutch. There were neat rows of tombstones drawn in pencil, and in front of each tombstone was a small square marked "planting area."
"director,"
The old man's Adam's apple rolled up and down.
"When my wife passed away, she didn't even bother to build a thin coffin. She was just wrapped in a blue sheet and buried..."
Director Song reached out and pressed the old man's trembling shoulders. He could feel the jagged bones in his palms:
"Don't worry, uncle. When the graves are moved, I will bring my colleagues from the Civil Affairs Office with me to put up cement markers for each grave."
"When the cemetery is finished, we'll build a decent tomb for Aunt with blue bricks and plant a rose in front of it. Didn't you say that this was her favorite flower when she was alive?"
Dusk was spreading over the brick kiln in the distance, and the firelight from the kiln made Director Song's face flicker. He took out a half-broken piece of chalk and drew a cross-section of the brick factory on the stone table:
"This is the crushing workshop, this is the rotary kiln, this is the brick outlet..."
Chalk dust fell into the cracked lines of his hands.
"In the first year, we will produce 5 million bricks. If we make 20 cents per brick, we can earn 1 million."
"Take out 200,000 yuan to build the cemetery's walls, pave the stone road, and buy ten automatic watering machines - in the future, you won't have to carry buckets up the hill to visit the graves."
Uncle Li suddenly poked the "office area" on the blueprint with his pipe:
"What is this row of tiled houses used for?"
Director Song smiled with wrinkles all over his face:
"That's for the tomb keepers. When the time comes, we'll select a thoughtful villager to live in it, and pay him 2,000 yuan a month to be responsible for trimming the flowers and trees and cleaning the shrine path."