The qin and se are in harmony, all is calm and good (below)

  "Is he possessed by a ghost, Lin Jing? Are you too?"

  Lin Jing took a step back, her eyes fixed on her mother's fierce gaze, her teeth clenched in anger. She held the urn containing her husband's ashes tightly to her chest with one hand, while pointing at her only son with the other, her whole body trembling like autumn leaves. Lin Jing was afraid that if she spoke, her mother would lose control and drop the white porcelain urn on the ground, so she remained silent.

  "You're going to take his ashes there over my dead body!"

  Lin Jing sighed, within a few days, the two people closest to him in his life had unexpectedly used their own deaths to threaten him, and one of them had succeeded.

  The day he returned from G city, Lin Jiezhou's condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the evening. At dawn, Lin Jiezhou, who had been shaken his head by the doctor, miraculously woke up and called his son and wife to his bedside. With a clear mind that was rarely seen after illness, he carefully handed over all the family affairs, including real estate, stocks, deposits, and insurance, to his wife and children. He was a meticulous and logical person, and even at this moment, he remained so. Lin Jing squatted in front of his father's hospital bed, knowing that the man he had admired since childhood was approaching the end of his life.

  Lin Jiezhou's voice grew weaker and weaker, leaving only a faint gasping sound like a broken bellows. In the last moment, he could no longer speak, but his eyes refused to close, struggling to find Lin Jing's direction with his gaze.

  Lin Jing's mother couldn't hold back her tears at this time, she grabbed the hand of the man she had loved and resented, "Do you still want to say something, is there anything you can't let go of?" Lin Jiezhou didn't look at her, but instead looked at his son with an increasingly heavy breathing.

  Only Lin Jing understood this silent plea, and even he, who was normally rational and brave, couldn't help but feel his heart in disarray at this moment. On one hand, there was his father's last wish before passing away; on the other hand, there were his mother's tears. He avoided those eyes, burying his face in his palms. But he couldn't avoid the image in his mind - that woman standing in the dark corner, seemingly forever facing the direction of the sickroom, her outline too familiar in the darkness, gradually overlapping with another face in his heart.

  Why do we always have to pass half of our lives, and wait until there's no turning back, before realizing that the things we once discarded with our own hands can never be encountered again in later days. The faint breathing gradually weakened, Lin Jing raised her face, just meeting Lin Jiezhou's line of sight, both fame and fortune could be abandoned. Even the shell of his body could be abandoned, all for the sake of returning to the starting point, was it worth it? If this wasn't worth it, then what was? He suddenly felt a pang in his heart, in his father's final gaze he slowly nodded, he promised that he would definitely do it, no matter how difficult it was.

  Lin Jiezhou did not make it to the next morning. After his death, his unit held a grand memorial service for him. It is a Chinese custom to eulogize the dead, even if their final days were not glorious, death wipes the slate clean. After the memorial service, the body was sent for cremation, and on the third day after bringing back the ashes, Lin Jing decided to have an open and honest talk with his mother about this matter. His father was also her husband, she had the right to know everything, and his mother's intense reaction was also within his expectations.

  "Mom, everyone is gone, only a jar of ashes is left, what's the point of arguing?"

  "Ha! What am I fighting for? You think it's still about him at this point? When he was alive, his heart wasn't even here. What use is a person to me now? I'm fighting for one last breath of dignity, son! He can like that woman all he wants, but why did he marry me in the first place with such eagerness? If it weren't for Lin Jiezhou, I might have found someone who truly loved me. He says he's wasted half his life, what about my half-life then? Is mine not worth anything compared to his? He and that woman hid things from me so well, I treated her like a sister and her daughter like my own flesh and blood... only I was the biggest fool. Now you want me to let go? Why should I let go? Until death, he'll be chasing after his old dreams? Don't even think about it!"

  "I promised Dad and this is his last request. He was wrong to you and our family, but he's dead now, just pity him."

  "Who pities me? Lin Jing, don't think I don't know what you're thinking. Your dad is infatuated with that old fox spirit, and you're infatuated with that little one. You use this to curry favor with her, don't forget who gave birth to you!"

  Lin Jing felt a sharp pain in her head, "Mom, I can understand your resentment and sadness, but you also know that Dad's affair has nothing to do with Zheng Wei. It's normal for you to hate her, but what did she do wrong? The love and care you showed her when she was young wasn't fake, was it? She has her own life now, why should I try to please her? I'm doing this for you. Dad is gone, your days are still long, hating him won't change anything. When people die, they're like a lamp that's been extinguished, the ones who can't be freed are the living. You said you wasted half your life on him, do you want to continue wasting it? Let go of him, not for his sake, but for yours. You taught me when I was young, we should always make ourselves live well, no matter what."

  "How can I possibly live a good life from now on?" Lin's mother turned around and dodged her son's attempt to take back the urn, excitedly holding it high with both hands, "I'd rather smash it, no one will get what they want..."

  Lin Jing didn't fight with her anymore, and her tone was also calm and peaceful with a hint of fatigue. "You can smash it if that makes you feel better, but mom, will smashing it really make you feel better?"

  He watched his mother's expression change from excitement to hesitation, sorrow, and finally burst into loud sobs. This strong woman was hunched over in tears, like a lost child. "Lin Jing, I've lost everything."

  Lin Jing hugged her mother's shoulder, letting her lean on herself to vent, "You still have me." After holding the urn of his father's ashes in his hands again, he let out a long sigh.

  Wuyuan, this place was actually visited by Lin Jing long ago. In his middle school days, he had gone with classmates to see the rapeseed flowers in full bloom on a sunny spring day in March. It was beautiful, but at that time it didn't leave a deep impression on him. What really made him remember this place was when Zheng Wei mentioned going together to see the old locust tree. He didn't tell her he had been to Wuyuan before, not wanting to ruin her initial surprise. But what he hadn't expected was that when he stood under the old locust tree again, she was no longer by his side.

  "Do you like this tree? It's considered our village's guardian deity. If you're willing, I can tell you a story about it."

  Lin Jing heard the sound and turned his head, looking at the young girl who had been following him since he entered the village, asking if he needed a tour guide. She was also a persistent person. Even though he repeatedly emphasized that he knew the way, she didn't give up on persuading him.

  "Sorry, I don't like listening to stories." Lin Jing smiled at her. She didn't get annoyed either, and stood not far away, smiling silently, no longer making a sound.

  Lin Jing opened the ceramic vase in her hand and tilted its body. The wind quickly swept away the dust. Past events, gone with the smoke, nothing more than that.

  He stood under the tree until sunset, and the tour guide girl came back and forth. She had a big bunch of tourist souvenirs in her hand.

  "This place means so much to you, don't you really need to bring something back?"

  Lin Jing shook his head, "Some things don't need to be remembered." He continued in the face of the girl's slightly disappointed expression. "Although I don't want souvenirs, I do need a clean place to stay for a few days."

  The girl smiled with surprise, "Then you're really lucky, there isn't a cleaner and more comfortable family hotel than mine within several miles."

  Lin Jing stayed with her father in Wuyuan for seven days, and the distance to their home was still quite far. However, the landlord was very enthusiastic and considerate, and the place was relatively clean. On the seventh day, they coincided with the "May Day" Golden Week, when there were not too many tourists in Wuyuan, but enough to keep Xiangyuan busy from dawn till dusk. When Lin Jing left, she handed over the rent for the past few days to Xiangyuan's younger sister. However, a little girl named Xiangyao refused to accept it, saying "Who dares to take Xiangyuan's money? You should hand it over to her personally. She will definitely be back at noon."

  Lin Jing told Xiang Yao that if her sister came back, she could find him under the old locust tree at the village entrance. Then he would bring his luggage back to the tree and bid farewell to his father in the empty space. However, he heard an echo coming from the other side of the mountain far away.

  "...Give me back... Give me back..."

  "Get rich... Get rich..."

  One of the voices he could distinguish as coming from afar, but what about the other voice? Lin Jing felt that her heart was like this echo, reverberating endlessly in the mountain valleys.

  After a while, he saw Xiang Yuan under the tree, and didn't know if it was because she had just come down from the mountain, but there were fine beads of sweat on her young face.

  "Are you leaving? Can't stay for a few more days?"

  Lin Jing handed over the house payment to Xiang Yuan's face, "There are a lot of tourists today, aren't there?"

  He carefully counted the money twice, then carefully put it in his pocket, and only then smiled and said, "It seems that this tree is particularly meaningful to you city people. Today another girl came, she scattered ashes, and you buried things."

  Lin Jing stared at the newly dug soil under the tree for a long time without speaking. Xiang Yuan, with her sharp mind, quickly sensed something and walked up to Lin Jing with her hands behind her back. She said regretfully, "Since she ran all the way here to bury it under the tree, it must be something very important. So I accepted 50 yuan from her and promised to guard these treasures well for her."

  Lin Jing quietly stuffed a whole red bill into Xiang Yuan's hand, and he silently accepted the money. Then, with incredible speed, he produced a small iron shovel. He easily flipped open the still-loosened soil, brushed off the floating dust on the glass jar with his hand, and opened the thing wrapped in waterproof plastic paper. The familiar book that had been lost and found countless times in his dreams fell out. He opened "Andersen's Fairy Tales" to page 32 and saw, unsurprisingly, a few crooked pen-written characters - "Yu Mian Xiao Fei Long Cang Shu".

  This was the birthday gift given to the invincible Jade-Faced Little Flying Dragon on his 18th birthday, and it became his most treasured collection. At the age of 24, he lost it, and he thought that maybe one day he could find it again, but never thought it would be in the dusty earth.

  "Hey, hey, are you okay?" Wei asked, seeing that he had been keeping his head down.

  "Where is she?"

  "He just moved into my house and seems to be planning to leave only after tomorrow. Do you know him, is he...?"

  Lin Jing put the thing wrapped in plastic paper back into the sealed can and buried it again. In the end, he took the money that Wang Yuan handed over to him along with the shovel, and was taken aback for a moment.

  "Consider this money as payment for you seeing nothing."

  "My 'I didn't see anything' isn't worth this much, but I also don't have any change to give you."

  Lin Jing said: "The extra one will be counted as her room and board, just treat her as a friend of yours, accompany her well for these two days."

  That day, Lin Jing returned home and received a recruitment notice from the G City Procuratorate. At night, under the orange-red lamp, he flipped through the long-lost "Andersen's Fairy Tales" page by page. When he closed the book, he said to it, "Why don't we be companions."