Chapter 255

In the alley behind the Zhu Family Building, Ma Tianbao had built a cloth hut here, just high enough for a person to burrow in and sit.

A mat was spread in the cloth hut, and on it was Ma Gui, Ma Tianbao’s father.

He was already out of breath.

Two days ago, Ma Gui has been unable to eat or drink, the water fed into his mouth will flow out, can not swallow.

He was lying on the bed, could not open his eyes, Ma Tianbao and Ma aunt held his hand and shouted his name he did not respond.

Aunt Ma had long since dried up her tears, she touched Ma Gui’s face, which was so thin that it had lost its color, and said shakily, “Your father is dying, he’s going away.”

Mr. Su has not come back to live for a long time, only occasionally come back to change clothes, the second miss has also long mentioned to ask Ma Tianbao to go to school.

Ma Tianbao was very eager to go to school, he dreamed of it.

No matter what he can do in school now, even sweeping the floor, he is willing.

Auntie Ma knew what her son was thinking, and she was willing to follow him. No matter where she was, there was a need for workers, and she was able to clean or cook and do laundry without worrying about a job, and she would not drag her son down.

But she pulled Ma Tianbao back and said, “We can’t take your father to school again.”

Ma Gui could not live much longer.

Both Aunt Ma and Ma Tianbao could tell.

Since going to see the doctor recommended by Ms. Zhu, Ma Gui no longer had pain, but he was also weakening day by day. He went from a big man who could eat two big bowls of rice for every meal to a man who couldn’t even drink a bowl of porridge a day.

During the six months in Zhujialou, Ma Gui lived a good life. He did not have to suffer the wind and rain, can lie in bed; do not have to worry about his son every day, I do not know where to go to do what dirty work, tired work. They were together as a family of three, well fed and warmly clothed.

He slowly simmered until he came to the end of his life.

Aunt Ma told Ma Tianbao to go to the back alley and find a clean place, “Spread a mat, let’s move your father over, we can’t let him die in someone else’s house and add bad luck to them.”

Originally she wanted to take Ma Gui and move out at the end, letting him die outside, but Mr. Su insisted on keeping them there, and the situation outside was getting worse, so she dismissed the idea.

Ma Tianbao did not refute Auntie Ma, he now more and more understand the reason, in other words, “understand things”. He silently went to the back alley and found a place with higher ground, cleaned it up, first laid hay, then a mat, and finally set up a shed before carrying Ma Gui out.

Ma Tianbao and Auntie Ma waited outside for Ma Gui to breathe his last.

They waited for two days, Ma Gui has been in this state, Ma Aunt held his hand, said to him, “You go at ease, I’m quite good, my son is quite good, the university side still need him, my son will be filial piety to me in the future, wait for him to marry a wife, give birth to a child, I’m going to look for you, wait for you to pick me up downstairs, the two of us will go together. ”

Another day passed, and dusk arrived.

The golden sunlight gradually fell below the horizon like the first-born sun.

Aunt Ma held Ma Gui’s hand, reached out to touch his nose, and suddenly dropped a tear.

“Your father is gone.” She said woodenly, her forehead resting against Ma Gui’s hand, covering her mouth as she whimpered and cried, large teardrops rolling down, instantly wetting a patch of ground by the mat.

Ma Tianbao eyes sour, face do not know what expression, he seems to suddenly become a nothing will not be empty shell, there is something to empty him from inside to outside.

His father died.

Why was he still here?

He was a fool who knew nothing, a fool.

His father had expected so much of him, and he hadn’t fulfilled any of it. He left him here to die in peace.

Aunt Ma cried for a while and then held her tongue, she covered Ma Gui with another mat and said to Ma Tianbao: “Go and push out the car, let’s take your father out of the city and find a place to bury him.”

Ma Tianbao became a wooden fool who only obeyed, he woodenly went into the house, pushed out the bicycle, Aunt Ma and he bundled Ma Gui into the car wrapped in a quilt.

Aunt Ma kept talking non-stop, as if she was trying to fight something with her words and voice: “Buy a coffin when you get to the village, there should be a carpenter in the village, bring the money, and give your dad a good send off.”

Ma Tianbao would only do as he was told, as if the human soul had not yet returned to its place.

Auntie Ma chanted, “Oh yes, I need to make some food to take with me, it will take us until tomorrow to get there, so I can’t leave without food.”

She went back into the kitchen to poke and fire to cook, after a while did not see Ma Tianbao come in, she went out to see, he was still holding the car waiting for her.

Auntie Ma looked at the child’s dumb look, know that he can not accept that Ma Gui is dead, she sighed, said: “your father and then untie down, just put it outside, in any case, no one to steal him, you come in to help me cook, we ate and then go.”

Ma Tianbao to Ma Gui down again, but can not put his father alone in the alley, even if you help Ma aunt cooking, but also a moment to come out to take a look, as if his father is still alive, as if he will still need someone to help him pour water to catch the urinal.

Aunt Ma had gone through more and recovered faster, and more importantly, she still had a son, and she couldn’t leave her son alone.

She said, “Right, you give Mr. Su a call, we will be gone for at least seven or eight days this time, so we need to tell Mr. Su, lest he comes and can’t find anyone and can’t get in the door.”

Ma Tianbao then put down his chopsticks and went upstairs to make a call.

The call went to Mayor Feng’s house, and Su Chunjun came over to answer the phone, and once he heard the original reason, he sighed: “My condolences.” After hearing that the Ma family wanted to send Ma Gui out of the city for burial, he thought for a moment and said, “I don’t think so. Now that the city gates are closed, you can’t get out. Even if you do, it’s chaotic out there, and you won’t be able to find anyone to help you once you’re out of the city. This is not a time of peace.”

In times of peace, people in the village were willing to make money and help you dig up a grave for a funeral; now there’s no one out there anymore, and it’s unlikely that the yin and yang masters who specialize in this matter would stay in the village and wait for business. Ma’s family is now looking for the past, the most likely to encounter is robbery and fraud, rather than as they thought they could find a suitable place to find the master point digging graves.

Ma Tianbao’s mind has turned a little bit now, and he also understands. His mother is the Jin family underlings, all his life in the Jin family work, in fact, did not walk in the marketplace, this burial thing is also estimated to hear people say. What Mr. Su said now is right, they can not go out of the city now, go out also can not be done.

Ma Tianbao: “Mr. Su, please show a clear path, my father can’t keep stopping on the street.”

Su Chunjun: “In that case, I’ll go back tonight and write you a note. In fact, in Uncle Ma’s case, it’s best to send him to the Transformation Factory, and then you can take the ashes with you, and then send them to your hometown for burial later, wouldn’t that be better? But now the factory doesn’t accept ordinary people, so I’ll write you a note and you can go there again, but don’t send them there yourselves.”

The city was in a state of chaos, and the ordinary people had either run away or closed their homes tightly, not daring to stay outside at all. No one dared to venture out for any red or white ceremonies now.

In the past, the chemical factory was willing to accept the corpses sent by the ordinary people, but now this situation will definitely not dare to accept them, in case it is a murderer who poses as a victim and burns the corpses, what should we do? Now except for the gendarmerie to send the prisoner’s body, or the police station to send the beggar’s body they are willing to melt, is not going to melt the body of other places.

What if someone like the Ma family died at that moment?

That can only be casually thrown to the street a thing.

There’s no place to bury them in the city, and you can’t buy a coffin, so if you can’t get out of the city, you have to throw them on the street.

Every day, Su Chunjun can see the police station report how many abandoned corpses and babies they have picked up on the street today.

He has never talked about these things in Xiaohonglou.

The abandoned corpses may not all be normal deaths, there may also be homicides, murders, but the police department now has no time to care about these things, so they are all recorded as abandoned corpses, sent to the factory to be burned.

The abandoned babies will be sent to the orphanage. There is no way to find out where these children come from and who their parents are. Into the orphanage, there are people in the orphanage to worry about, the police department can not worry about it, Mayor Feng will not worry about this.

Then there are the children left on the street, they are not like babies, they see the police coming they will hide, they will run away, but before long the police may see their corpses on the street again.

When order begins to fail, the first to suffer are these most pitiful people.

Every time Su Chunjun saw the handwritten numbers on the report, it made his heart grow colder and harder. He held back his conscience and didn’t tell Yan Yan and the others in the Little Red House, knowing that if he did, Yan Yan would definitely find a way to help these abandoned babies.

But he couldn’t say it.

The abandoned babies were not just one or two, but hundreds, thousands, and in the future, tens of thousands.

This was by no means something that could be saved by the efforts of one person.

Rather, it is better to say that the general trend.

The Little Red House was a small peach garden, it was weak and unbearable.

He wanted to protect it, so he could only conceal it, no matter how long he could conceal it, no matter if he would end up being resented by Yan Yan, he wanted to protect her even more.

He spurned this self.

He felt that he was getting dirtier and dirtier.

Ma Tianbao put down the phone and went back to tell Aunt Ma, saying, “Mom, what do you think?”

Aunt Ma didn’t expect it to be so bad outside now, she didn’t know what to do, she just wanted to let Ma Gui into the ground, but she didn’t realize that even that had become a luxury.

She wiped a handful of tears from her eyes, swallowed the hard lump in her throat and said, “Okay, we’ll listen to Mr. Su, Mr. Su won’t harm us.”

But Su Chunjun had a temporary engagement and couldn’t come back, so he had to have his driver come over to deliver an approval note.

Driver Chen drove to the Zhu Family Building and knocked on the door. When he saw Ma Tianbao, he handed him the note and said, “Just take this note and go to the Institute of Humanization and let them open a single furnace for you to burn. Remember to bring a box for your father’s ashes.”

Ma Tianbao took the note to thank him, but Chen driver ignored him and turned around and left.