The fat man and I obviously shared the same desire as we watched and listened to the coffin. But after a few minutes, there was no movement from inside.
At this moment, the fat man lit a cigarette and stared at the coffin, saying, "Is this beauty inside really not going to give Fat Man any face? Fine, kid, open the coffin!"
I nervously used the crowbar to pry around the coffin, but opening the coffin was a technical task I knew nothing about. The fat man pushed me out of the way, saying, "I must be blind for letting you assist. Get lost." He flicked away his cigarette butt. This fat man really shouldn't talk. In three sentences, he had destroyed the charismatic image he had built up.
The fat man took the crowbar, found a corner of the coffin, and skillfully probed inside. Having read several tomb-robbing novels, I couldn't help but wonder if the fat man had been a tomb robber before.
As the fat man inserted the crowbar into the crevices, the red coffin remained motionless. That moment felt like the calm before the storm.
"Stop!" I suddenly heard a shout, which turned out to be from my uncle. His sudden shout startled me, and the fat man, causing the crowbar to fall to the ground.
"Lin Baqian, why are you shouting like a fool? Do you not realize that it could scare someone to death?" The fat man raged at my uncle.
"Liu Fatso, look at the sky! Look at the sky!" My uncle pointed to the sky, looking worried.
Not understanding, the fat man angrily gazed up at the sky, causing everyone present to do the same. The black clouds that had covered the sky during the ghostly night walk were slowly dispersing, and the starlight and moonlight began to slowly sprinkle onto the ground. This should have been auspicious, but after the black clouds dissipated, the moon in the sky seemed out of place.
The moon was growing bigger and longer, then before our eyes, it split into two moons at a lightning speed.
"F**k!" The fat man shouted and started to run. His plump figure moved as swiftly as the wind as he ran back to the village. The villagers were initially dumbfounded, and after seeing the fat man flee, it took them several seconds to react.
"Village chief, what's happening?" "Village chief, what should we do now?" Everyone began asking Lin Sanshui, the departure of the fat man had left him flustered. He looked at me, and I looked at my uncle. It was a chain reaction.
"Everyone, go home now. Do not go out no matter what noise you hear tonight!" At this point, my uncle walked over and shouted at the villagers.
"Aren't you the second uncle who came from Xiaofan's house?" Many people were not familiar with my uncle, and his words were not taken seriously. I quickly nodded to Lin Sanshui and said, "Uncle Sanshui, let's follow my uncle's instructions."
"Listen to me now! Do as I say! Go home immediately! Hurry!" Lin Sanshui promptly ordered.
Just as Lin Sanshui finished speaking, the mud sculptures on the other side suddenly started making banging noises. I turned to see that the red paper charms pasted on their foreheads were all spontaneously igniting. However, the panicked crowd paid no attention to the strange behavior of the ancestral mud sculptures. When their lives were at stake, who had the time to care about anything else?
"You guys go too! Hurry!" My uncle urged us, looking at the chaos of the remaining battlefield with only me and the policewoman left.
"What about you?" I asked my uncle. Two moons appearing in the sky could herald a new unsolved mystery in the world?
At such a critical moment, I couldn't believe that my mind could wander, and I couldn't help but wonder if a child born today would be recorded in history as being born under this peculiar celestial phenomenon?
"I'll be fine. You leave," my uncle said solemnly.
At this moment, Aunt Jiuliang was calmer than I was. She grabbed my hand and said, "You'll just be a nuisance here. Let's go!" Then she handed her gun to my uncle, saying, "Use this for protection."
This further explained the policewoman's status, having the authority to carry a gun and dare to entrust it to someone else. Other police officers wouldn’t dare to do this.
My uncle smiled and shook his head, saying, "I don't need this. It's useless."
Jiuliang didn't say anything more and directly led me to run back towards the village entrance. As I ran, I glanced back at my uncle, who stood with his head held high, watching the twin moons in the sky. Bathed in moonlight, the red coffin beside him and a calm man himself exuded a mysterious charm.
This was the aura of a true master, a real master.
"That fat man is unreliable. How could he run away at a time like this?" I cursed.
"Each person makes a natural choice in difficult times. Lin Village, relatively speaking, is more simple. Having been outside, you know things are even more chaotic. You should understand that," policewoman Jiuliang said.
When we reached the village entrance, we found that the people who had just come back were all standing there quietly. What new event had occurred that they couldn’t go home?
I gripped the crowbar tightly, and the policewoman held the gun as we cautiously approached the village entrance. As we drew closer, we heard opera singing, a familiar sound of Peking opera.
Ah…
The ice wheel spins at the beginning,
I see the Jade Rabbit.
The Jade Rabbit rises again in the early east,
That ice wheel is leaving the island,
The universe is exceptionally bright,
The bright moon is high in the sky,
Just like Chang'e leaving the Moon Palace,
It's just like Chang'e leaving the Moon Palace,
And she's actually singing "The Drunken Beauty"!
The voice is so distant, as if it's going to make people drunk. My heart sank all at once. Peking opera, the flower-drum face! I immediately thought of the image of my father that I saw at the window!
Could it be that the strange things happening in the village are because of my father?!! This is what worries me the most, and it's also the scene I least want to see!
I pushed through the crowd and found that at this moment, the people in the crowd were all in a daze, as if they had lost their souls, and also as if they were intoxicated by the long and delicate flower-drum tune. Jiu Liang and I squeezed in and finally saw what was happening inside.
Fatty was standing at the front of the line, holding a peach wood sword in his hand, looking at the field as if facing a great enemy.
At the village entrance, a bizarre scene, like a stage, and the main characters in the play are actually my father and mother.
A long table, with two red candles swaying in the wind.
I always thought that the one singing the Peking opera flower-drum tune that mysterious night would be my father who was possessed, but now I see that at this moment, the one wearing a gorgeous flower-drum qipao is actually my mother. She lightly twirls her orchid fingers, her feet glide on the ground, taking small steps, her face beautifully painted with breathtaking and colorful makeup.
Her delicate lips gently open and close, and from those lips painted with pink rouge, came a voice that was so bewitching.
At this moment, my father was sitting on a long bench. He was wearing a gray robe that I had never seen him wear before.
It was only now that I realized that my father, who didn't carry a hoe, exuded the elegant and scholarly aura that was so captivating. Only when he wore these clothes did he deserve his name.
Lin Yutang.
Now he was sitting on the bench, with his eyes closed, a two-string fiddle on his lap. He was intoxicated as he played the two-string fiddle, complementing mother's voice.
The sound of the two-string fiddle was ancient and rustic.
Mother's singing voice was full and mellow.
"Mom, Dad!" I wanted to call out, but at that moment, Fatty stopped me and whispered, "Don't disturb them."
No one in the crowd made a sound, and we watched mother and father, in this stunning performance. The atmosphere was very oppressive. Mother held a jug of wine, graceful and slender, so beautiful that one dared not look directly at her, as she sat in father's arms.
Coquettishly, she sang, "Emperor, drink to your heart's content."
Father stopped playing the two-string fiddle, ignoring everyone present. He smiled at mother in his arms, and in their eyes, each had a world of their own, in which only the other's figure existed.
Mother raised the jug of wine high.
Father opened his mouth.
The jug tilted, wine flowed into his throat, intoxicating himself.
Father was like a spirited and intoxicated romantic genius, taking out a hairpin from his heart, gently and tenderly entwining it in mother's full head of black hair.
At the end of the song, Fatty was still on guard, but mother was already standing up. After the performance, she returned to her previous calmness, quietly standing behind father.
Father took out a white cloth and gently wiped the two-string fiddle, gently as if wiping the face of a lover.
When everything was done, father stood up. The long robe fluttered lightly in the breeze. Father himself was so dashing and there was an uncountable amount of charm to him.
He walked over to my side and patted my head.
"The Lin family always has to lose someone, to repay your grandfather's debt, but it won't be you," father said with a smile.
My tears broke out instantly.
He wiped away my tears and said, "When I handed you the rifle, you became an adult, a man. Shedding blood is always better than shedding tears."
"Take care of your mother," father said.
After speaking, he parted the crowd and slowly walked towards the ancestral tomb.
He never looked back from start to finish.
I was held tightly by Fatty, mouth agape, but unable to utter a single word.
Finally, when his figure disappeared into the night, I struggled to squeeze out a word:
"Dad."
The harmonious music between him and my mother was something I heard for the first time.
But it was unmistakably a swan song.