The Three-Life Stone

Looking at your face with my bag on my back

Said to go far away

Who still remembers that year when I pulled you aside and said

Love is always the same

It was two hours before Yu Le got home. After stretching lightly, he put his earphones and hairband in a small box and went to the bathroom to wash up.

The last sentence on Yu Le’s phone screen while he was lying on the bed was [Tuanzi, I’m home, are you there too?].

During the National Day in October, Yu Zhaozhao brought Shen Xingzhi to her hometown. There were not many people living here. Her parents had basically bought houses in other places, and only a few had built houses. If they wanted to play mahjong, they had to go to the next village.

Maybe she won't come back in a few years.

The red maples here are very beautiful in autumn. There is a piece of land planted with red maples in their village. It is the only way out of the village. The sunlight shining through the gaps in spring, summer, autumn and winter gives people different feelings.

Shen Xingzhi took her to see the places he had been to, and Yu Zhaozhao wanted to take Shen Xingzhi to the places she had been to.

Yu Zhaozhao stood on the cement ground in front of her home. The lotus pond at the door was lush. Yu Zhaozhao picked up lotus seeds with a bamboo pole. No matter when she was young or now, every time she came back and saw lotus seeds, she always wanted to pick them.

A large lotus leaf can be made into a hat and a cloak. She laughed and said that this was her favorite thing to do as a child. She took Yu Le to play like this when Yu Le was still young. But now it is really different from before. Yu Le is not very big and is not as real as a toy gun.

She said that this open space was very beautiful when it was still mud land. Although she could not remember what it looked like before, she vaguely remembered that there was a row of willow trees planted in the area near the pond, and there were stone steps in the middle at that time.

There are peach trees planted on both sides of the stairs. When the peach blossoms bloom in spring, she stays under the trees and feels the wind blowing the petals off.

She couldn't remember whether it was a peach, but she remembered that the peach was big, soft, sweet and delicious, and she loved eating it as a child.

I don't know when the row of poplar trees were cut down, and the peach trees were also cut down. It felt very novel to pave the road with stones, but the concrete floor blocked the childhood memories of playing around the poplar trees with my playmates. Only a persimmon tree is left at the back door.

Loofahs are planted around the persimmon trees. In summer, they will be covered with vines, bloom and bear fruit, adding a touch of green to this corner.

At that time, the family raised cattle. My grandfather's brother was called great-grandfather in my hometown. Great-grandfather had impaired eyesight and the living conditions were difficult. There was no money to treat the disease in the last era, so he could not see clearly when he was old, and there was always a layer of white fog in his eyes.

My great-grandfather never married in his life and adopted a daughter. He would lead the cow to the stalk at dawn in the morning and go to the stalk at sunset to lead the cow back to the hollow brick house. Even though his eyesight was not good, the old man never gave up.

With a bamboo crutch, you don't have to be afraid of going anywhere. When you walk through the fields and see birds flying by, you can even harvest a sumptuous dinner with a wave of the stick.

When he was a child, his parents treated his younger brother's grandchildren as their own family, giving them a few cents or even a dollar of pocket money from time to time. Yu Zhaozhao was a wild child who was left alone in the countryside by his parents, but with two grandfathers he could get pocket money from time to time.

The great-grandfather was very skillful and could weave hemp ropes. Every time Yu Zhaozhao weaved a hemp rope, she could get a huge sum of five yuan. They always told her to save the money, but she could not help but buy spicy strips, ice cream, instant noodles, and lollipops.

I can’t bear to buy potato chips and drinks, but I try them occasionally.

At that time, Yu Zhaozhao looked forward to the Chinese New Year the most, because during the Chinese New Year she would get new clothes, lucky money, and lots of delicious food.

Yu Zhaozhao and Shen Xingzhi walked on the stalk. Yu Zhaozhao told Shen Xingzhi that there used to be many houses on the left, and there was a vast world as far as the eye could see; there were many trees on the right, and she had caught snails in the small river below the right side.

In about ten years, she only came back twice. Ten years later, when she came back with Yu Le, she felt that her hometown had changed a lot.

I thought trees were permanent, and I had vague memories of running between trees and hugging them as a child. I expected that the old house would be razed to the ground after being abandoned for a long time, but I didn’t expect that the trees were gone too, and the downhill slopes on both sides have become lawns.

The dirt and sand road was paved with stones last time, but when Yu Zhaozhao returned to his hometown from another place, it had become a cement road with a fence with reflective lights for warning.

Further ahead there is a small temple, and the path below the temple is where her great-grandfather often grazed cattle.

Yu Zhaozhao had never thought about bringing people to visit these places, nor had she ever thought that someone would accompany her to review these things.

They walked towards the river. There was only one small fish in Yu Le's bucket, and two big fish in the other bucket.

Shen Xingzhi patted Yu Le on the shoulder: "Stinky boy, I told you that you still need to practice."

"You're so loud that you scared the fish away." Yu Le was startled and looked at the two people who had just come back from fishing. He seemed to notice that Yu Zhaozhao was in a bad mood and asked Shen Xingzhi in a low voice, "What's wrong with my mother?"

Shen Xingzhi said quietly without turning back, "I miss your great grandfather and great grandmother."

Yu Le looked at the fishing rod and murmured softly: "Old lady..."

Regardless of whether they were great grandfather or great grandmother, Yu Zhaozhao's family members collectively called them Madam or Old Lady. Yu Le's eyes welled up as he looked at the fishing rod.

"Old lady, when I grow up I will buy you lots and lots of gold."

"Mom, how can that old lady with poor eyesight go to heaven? I want to go there too."

"Is the old lady in this little house? Why can't I see him?"

All the memories are forgotten, but how can we really forget them? Some memories are just something we like to hide.

Shen Xingzhi hugged Yu Zhaozhao who was in a daze.

Yu Zhaozhao came back to her senses and picked wild flowers nearby. Some of her memories were becoming increasingly blurred. She still remembered that her grandmother once took her to the vegetable garden, and she used these flowers to role-play while her grandmother was working.

She still remembered her grandmother taking her to the fields to identify their family's fields and some graves that had been there a long time ago.

She was planting rice in the field when a leech stuck to her calf. When she lifted her leg she started to cry loudly. Her grandmother slapped the leech away. There were some smaller leeches on the ridge of the field. That night she had a dream in which her whole body was covered with leeches.

Nowadays, the fields have long been contracted out, and the elderly no longer have to work hard to plant and harvest, as everything is done by artificial intelligence.

As for the cemeteries in the fields, she had never been there again and it was unknown whether they had been flattened. Perhaps even her parents did not remember those places.

It was the first time that Shen Xingzhi heard Yu Zhaozhao tell him so much about her past. The pasts of both of them seemed to have come together until their current intersection.

"Xingzhi, do you know how I felt that my grandma and her family had grown old when I came back that time?"

"Because of these changes?"

"When I was a child, my grandma also liked to eat spicy noodles. When I acted like a spoiled child and asked her to buy spicy noodles and popsicles, she would also eat them. At that time, there were small orange-flavored popsicles, which my grandma liked to buy the most. In my memory, these noodles of the old lady were very cute. Even when she told you that these were junk food, she would still try a few bites."

"and then?"

A bitter smile appeared on Yu Zhaozhao's lips. He looked up, blinked, and took a deep breath. "When I came back that time, I was already a kid who didn't need pocket money, so I would buy a lot of snacks for myself, including ice cream and spicy strips. But my grandparents didn't like to eat them. They usually hate waste, but they just took a bite and stopped eating.

I know that some people may think that those things should not be given to the elderly, but that's not what I mean. You know, meat like barbecued fried chicken legs, the elderly who have suffered a lot still cherish meat very much, but they only eat two bites.

I'm not asking them to eat junk food, but the contrast between ten years ago and now, you know? It's just... it's just..."

Shen Xingzhi hugged Yu Zhaozhao, who didn't know how to describe it but was afraid that Yu Zhaozhao would misunderstand him, so he tried to find words to explain it. He put his chin close to Yu Zhaozhao's ear and said, "I know, I understand. You don't have to worry."

"Although the appearance of the elderly has not changed much, some details always tell me that grandpa and grandma have grown old. Even the cane that my great grandfather used before he died was no longer a bamboo cane, but a cane with wheels. I don't regret bringing Yu Le back that time. If I hadn't come back, maybe I would have come back directly to the next funeral.

At least now I have been with them in their last years, which is better than just cherishing them in the past.”

The changes in the village can at most reflect the progress of the times, but the warmth or coldness of human nature must be perceived by oneself.