Chapter Forty-six: Mourning for Grandma

  After your grandmother was captured, she suffered cruel torture but remained steadfast. After being detained for a month, she was secretly executed by the Japanese puppet army, and the execution ground was on that riverbank. More than 30 New Fourth Army soldiers or underground Communist Party members were also killed with her.

  Ms. Yao carried me out of the back door in a hurry and returned to her parents' home, claiming that I was her own child. Ms. Yao was illiterate and had bound feet, she took care of me until the day of liberation five years later.

  After liberation, people became masters of their own homes and the country welcomed a new era. But for Yao's family, the nightmare had just begun.

  In the spring of 1949, his hometown was liberated, and Zheng Keming became a regimental commander in the Liberation Army. He returned home in glory. However, when he arrived at his own home, he was shocked to see that Yao had brought with her a nine-year-old boy. He turned around and left immediately, causing his parents and in-laws who came to welcome him back to tremble with fear.

  Although Yao had applied to the government and restored my status as a martyr's child, Yao was also rewarded by the government for this. Although four elderly people and relatives in the family testified that I was indeed an orphan adopted by Yao during difficult times, he still could not accept Yao, let alone me.

  It turned out that after your grandfather Lin Ziqiao died in battle, the news of your grandmother being captured and killed by the enemy while on a mission soon reached your grandfather's old unit. Soon there was another piece of news: Lin Xue'er had met with disaster at the same time as her son.

  Although the news was proven wrong due to my and Yao's appearance, it was after all something that happened a few years ago. He simply couldn't believe that in such a critical situation where the enemy had already broken in, the weak and feeble Yao would be able to bring me out of there calmly through the back door.

  He neither refuted nor accepted the explanation made by Yao to him, and in his heart, he did not acknowledge that I was the son of Lin Ziqiao and Lin Xue'er. I remember very clearly that when Yao saw that he was about to return to the team, she absolutely refused to accept her and me, and in desperation, she said things that a woman of that era could not say.

  I remember that it was the eve of the great army's departure to the south, and Mrs. Yao knelt down beside him and said, "You suspect me, I can prove my innocence with death. But if I die, what about this child? Are you willing to let him go to a military school and become an orphan? He has already lost his parents, and he is weak in body, I don't want him to lose another mother. It's actually very simple to prove my innocence... after all these years of marriage, you have never touched me, and I am still a virgin..."

  However, before she could finish speaking, Zheng Keming, who was already furious and flustered, had stormed out of the room.

  He soon followed the army south and, as a military officer, stayed in the provincial capital. In 1951, he voluntarily dissolved his marriage with Yao and re-established his family with a young woman from a good family in the provincial capital who was a university student at the National Provincial Capital University. Moreover, this young woman later gave birth to two sons and two daughters for him, a total of four children.

  Ms. Yao was a young widow who brought me up with great difficulty.

  She never remarried, and she treated me as her own son. The family fortunes of both the Yaos and my father's side declined rapidly, and her life was one that you can hardly imagine, so difficult and desolate. She had no special skills, no education, and having been bound at a young age, she couldn't do heavy labor. All she could do was work in a street factory gluing matchboxes, which barely supported the two of us.

  She was good-looking and came from a wealthy family, so it wouldn't be hard for her to remarry. Someone had come to propose marriage on behalf of their son, and her parents also hoped she would remarry. However, she refused every time. It wasn't until I grew up that I understood, Zheng Kemin made her fearful and desperate towards men, she was afraid to find another man like him, making me suffer again.

  The government found our difficulties and specially arranged for her to work in the county government canteen, so we barely survived. But she, due to years of depression and overwork, became increasingly ill.

  During the Three Years of Natural Disasters, she fell seriously ill, her whole body swollen, and once fell down, never to get up again. She finally died in early 1962. After burying my foster mother who was as kind to me as a mountain, I quickly found myself in an even more desperate situation.

  Although as a martyr's child, I received much care from the people's government, however after Yao's death, I became an orphan again and my body was always weak, unable to do physical labor.

  Actually, when I and my foster mother fell into difficulties, your grandfather Lin Ziqiao's comrades never forgot us. When I was in a desperate situation, they also reached out to me, actively coordinating to arrange for me to work at the Binhai Farm as a general manager. At that time, the farm was still a labor reform farm, relatively relaxed, and it really suited me. That's where I met your mother.

  But later I myself proposed to be transferred to the place where my mother sacrificed, and I would accept any job. So later I came to school, first as a gatekeeper, also worked in the cafeteria, and finally came to the campus factory. After I started working at the school, your current grandfather Zheng Keming had twice sent people to contact me, wanting to transfer me to work in the provincial city.

  I know that for him, it was just a matter of lifting his hand. But the years of suffering, my foster mother's miserable death, made me unable to forget, and I couldn't forgive his indifference and ruthlessness. Moreover, at this time, your mom and I were already married, so I resolutely gave up.

  "I didn't want to bring these things into my coffin, I originally wanted to wait until you grew up to tell you. Telling you all this is in the hope that you will remember, you and Xiao Yu are both descendants of martyrs, you must cherish and help each other. You should be like Grandpa and Grandma, no matter how bitter or poor, you must strive to live with your head held high."

  "So you named me Lin Xue just to commemorate my grandmother, right?"

  Lin Xue was completely unable to control her emotions during the long narrative, and tears kept falling. After Lin Gong finished speaking for a while, she finally stood up, walked to the water pool outside, washed her face, and then said to Lin Gong, "Big brother, I want to burn paper for Grandma and Yao Grandma tomorrow."

  The next day was the weekend.

  Yu Songyuan rode his bike to the street to buy incense, offerings and other things after breakfast. At 9 o'clock in the morning, he followed Lin Gong along the embankment towards the upper reaches of Guanhe River. After walking for several kilometers, they entered the confluence of Guanhe River and Tangxiang River. Lin Gong walked down the river embankment and into a willow forest on an alluvial fan, coming to a relatively flat grassland. Lin Gong faced the river embankment and arranged the offerings, pouring wine into two bowls, then solemnly knelt down, followed by Lin Xue, and Yu Songyuan also hurriedly knelt down.

  Lin Gong lit incense sticks and bowed towards the sky before holding them in his hands and saying in a low voice:

  "Mom, your son has come to visit you again, bringing some food and money for you. More than 40 years ago, you and dad sacrificed yourselves for the country, leaving a young son all alone in this world. Today, I've brought our granddaughter and her husband to visit you. Mom, may your spirit in heaven bless our children with peace and safety throughout their lives. Mom, though the heavens are vast, your noble spirit is not far away; please rest in peace with dad. My children and I will live well and come to visit you every year..."

  The frail and sickly Lin Gong, as if crying and complaining, couldn't express his endless nostalgia for his father and mother, and the tears he had accumulated over a decade. He inserted incense into the ground, then respectfully kowtowed four times. Lin Xue and Yu Songyuan followed him, also kowtowing four times to their grandmother and the martyrs!

  Lin Gong lit the fire paper again, and Yu Songyuan slowly scattered the spirit money towards the flames. The black smoke rushed upwards, bursting out of the bushes and rushing towards the sky.

  Lin Xue asked: "Big, is grandma leaving from here?"

  Lin Gong nodded, "This is where your grandmother made the ultimate sacrifice. This was a execution ground for the Japanese puppet army back then. From March 1939 when it was occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945, over a thousand Communist Party members, New Fourth Army soldiers and anti-Japanese civilians were killed here."

  After the sacrifice, the three of them walked downstream along the riverbank for about four or five kilometers and arrived at the county town. Here was another tributary of the irrigation canal, called Fei Huang River. At the confluence of the irrigation canal and the Fei Huang River, there were large tracts of forest on the riverbank and a large area of wasteland below, which was originally a chaotic cemetery.

  Lin Gong led them in and soon found the tomb of Yao's wife, on which was written "The Tomb of Virtuous Wife Yao". Lin Gong first placed the offerings, lit the incense sticks and inserted them into the ground, then led Lin Xue to kneel down respectfully. Yu Songyuan also knelt down and kowtowed four times to pay his respects to Yao's wife.

  Lin Gong lit the fire paper, Lin Xue helped to burn the money with a wooden stick, and said: "Grandma, thank you for saving my life that year. From then on, you are also my own grandma. Every year, I will come to visit you and bring you money flowers..."

  Yu Songyuan had already refilled the grave and dug a new mound on top under Lin Xue's father-daughter duo's paper-making skills.

  After Lin Gong returned home, Lin Xue was unable to sleep that night, her emotions in turmoil. Yu Songyuan accompanied her as she sat on the wooden bridge, with Da Jiang sitting quietly beside them. The three of them listened to the endless roar of the waves and gazed out at the dark river surface.

  Suddenly, Lin Xue asked, "Yu Ge, I'm a little afraid to imagine. If we lived in their time, do you think we would also be like them, fighting against the devils, without fear of sacrifice?" Then, she said quietly, "They just left like that, without even leaving behind a grave."

  Yu Songyuan said, "Girl, the people have not forgotten them. The revolutionary martyrs' monument in our county's cemetery also records their immortal achievements!" Seeing Lin Xue's sad and sorrowful appearance, he added with a sympathetic tone, "I know what you're thinking. When conditions permit in the future, I will definitely erect a special monument at your grandmother's martyrdom site."

  To make her happy, he hugged her shoulders and said, "You may not know that today during the day I wanted to tell you, your grandmother's place of martyrdom is exactly where I caught the big snake and raccoon dog with Da Jiang. When I was poor and down on my luck, it was your grandmother's spirit in heaven who protected me."

  Lin Xue was shocked and asked, "How is it possible? You're deceiving me again. At that time, you didn't even know me."

  As they knew each other's birth, Yu Songyuan and Lin Xue became even closer. They cherished and appreciated each other, and loved each other dearly. However, perhaps what would be hard for modern young people to understand is that despite their deep love for each other, it only went as far as holding hands, hugging, and lightly kissing each other's lips - they didn't know the modern concept of "French kissing".

  People who take the college entrance examination and those who are already in love feel the same way, always feeling that the days pass quickly. In the blink of an eye, May with its peach blossoms and green willows has arrived. By the riverbank and in the forest, the grass and trees are lush, and clusters of purple wisteria and wild roses are densely packed, full of life and vitality.

  In May, the north of Jiangsu had already entered the rainy season. From late May to early June, there were several intermittent thunderstorms. That night, lightning flashed and thunder boomed, with heavy rain pouring down. At midnight, a few loud claps of thunder woke Yu Songfan up, and the continuous thunder made even him, who was normally fearless, feel waves of fear.

  Suddenly, amidst the sound of rain, a panicked knocking on the door and Lin Xue's crying and shouting voice were clearly heard: "Yu Ge, quickly open the door!" Yu Songyuan hastily got up to open the door. Just then, a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, and in the continuous thunder, a huge fireball fell from the sky and landed under a large locust tree in front of the pool, exploding with a deafening crash, snapping the tree trunk and sending it crashing down with a loud rumble.

  Lin Xue let out a terrified shriek and flung herself into Yu Song's arms, her hands covering her ears as she trembled all over. The general also rushed in, making low whining noises, seemingly frightened as well.