Chapter 0008 – The Old Mansion

Zhuang Rui’s feelings towards the old mansion are very complicated, in his vague memory, his father’s image and the old mansion are linked together, before the age of five, the memory is beautiful, snuggled up in his father’s arms, eating jujubes from the jujube tree in the yard of the old mansion, listening to his father tell Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, undoubtedly at that time Zhuang Rui is the happiest.

But after his father passed away, everything has changed, the large old mansion became lifeless, at the age of ten years old, after his mother divided into housing, they moved away from there, to the current residence, these years, Zhuang Rui rarely go to the old house, mainly because the heart does not want to face the father who has been dead for many years, the loss of his father in childhood, for many people, is an unbearable pain.

The old house is located at the foot of Yunlong Mountain, a famous scenic area in Pengcheng, in front of hundreds of meters is the Pengcheng Museum, which exhibits the Silver Wisps and Jade Clothes, attracting many domestic and foreign tourists come to visit every day.

Not far behind the old house on the hillock of Tobu, is the hero Xiang Yu after the destruction of Qin established himself as the hegemonic king of Western Chu, the capital of Pengcheng, constructed a series of platforms to watch the horse show, martial arts and military parade of the famous landscape of the Jockey Terrace, the history of it and Suzhou Garden, Nanjing, six dynasties of the stone carvings and as the three treasures of Jiangsu, but destroyed in the war, and can not be as well preserved as the above two landscapes.

History of the various dynasties in the theater on the site of a number of buildings, such as the head of the stage, the three righteous temple, the word of the famous eunuchs, Jukui Academy, shao cui mountain room and pavilion. With the passage of time, time change, the buildings of the past has been obliterated, after the renovation, play horse platform to majestic, heavy light colorful appearance reappeared in the world, childhood Zhuang Rui, often and some of the partners sneak into the inside to play and frolic.

Early the next morning, Zhuang Rui and brother-in-law rushed to the old house, but the rental car can only be parked at the intersection of the alley, Zhuang Rui and brother-in-law got out of the car, stepped on the thick snow to the old house.

Zhuang Rui family’s old house has three bungalows and a spacious yard, the yard in the middle of a tall jujube tree, jujube tree below a stone table and a few stone benches, remember when I was a child every summer, the family is sitting in the courtyard stone benches above the meal cool, now stone benches long time no one to sit on, the top is already full of moss.

Originally Zhuang mother to come here once a month to clean, now due to the imminent demolition, pack up things after not come again, spacious yard covered with weeds, outside the fence is written on a large “demolition” word, due to the year after the construction of this place will be moved, next to the households have moved away, in every place filled with the festive atmosphere, this place appears to be the New Year! At a time when everywhere is filled with the festive atmosphere of the New Year, this place seems a little desolate and lonely.

The middle of the house, is Zhuang Rui grandfather used to live, after his death, the house is empty, usually placed some miscellaneous objects, when I was a child Zhuang Rui always feel inside the eerie, never dared to go in, grew up after the old house to get less, but also have no interest in going in.

For this never met his grandfather, Zhuang Rui just from his mother’s mouth that his grandfather is a geologist, once after the liberation of Yunnan Burma area to work, also because of this reason, in that chaotic decade was vilified for collaborating with the enemy, was persecuted, but also involved Zhuang Rui’s grandmother, so that the two old people left the world early.

“Xiao Rui, it’s gray inside, don’t come in, I’ll move the stuff out, you just give a hand outside.”

Brother-in-law opened the door of the room in the middle house, what came to his face was full of dust, choking Zhuang Rui back and forth, coughing.

The reflection of the sunlight on the snow mapped into the house, vaguely visible in the corner of the room placed two rectangular wooden boxes of about one meter in size, the purpose of the two people this time is to move these two wooden boxes back home, the rest of some small objects have been brought back by Zhuang mother.

“It’s fine, I rarely even enter grandpa’s room, soon this house will be gone, go in and take a look! This box is big enough, hey, it’s really heavy, let’s two carry it out ……”

Zhuang Rui re-entered the house, moved up a corner of the box to try, into the hand feel heavy.

Now few people take bulky wooden box to store things, these two boxes should be left before the old objects, boxes on the skin of the baking paint has been some shedding, the box surface, but also carved some of the flowers and grasses, in the workmanship on the nose of the locks, hanging two iron locks.

Originally Zhuang Rui today also thought to go to the theater around, but see these two big boxes, completely out of the mind to play.

Boxes do not know what is loaded inside, really heavy enough, the two will be moved to the box on the car pulled home after, are out of a stinking sweat, but back home to learn a good news, next door to the house has basically no problem, the mother’s coworkers promised to go after the New Year for the transfer formalities, and the price is set at thirty-eight thousand, than the beginning of the price is lower than the price of a few thousand, which makes Zhuang Rui and Zhao Guodong are very happy! .

Zhao Guodong to help move boxes, on the leave, after all, soon to be the New Year, his own parents home there is a big mess of things, brother-in-law left, his mother to go to the old colleagues home to visit, home only left Zhuang Rui a person.

Looking at the two large boxes placed in his room, Zhuang Rui has a kind of impulse to open to see, after all, the previous memories are going to die with the demolition of the house, these elders left something, in the eyes of the younger generation becomes precious.

Zhuang Rui to the mother’s room drawer inside to find a few keys, try to open a little, really can open the two boxes, Zhuang Rui rejoice, and hastily lifted one of the boxes, found that all inside are some books, the book cover are some yellowing, visible these books are some years.

From the box carefully picked up a book, Zhuang Rui looked at the date of publication, found that it is actually Li Siguang original, 53 years edition of “Chinese geology”, turn it over, see a large number of fossilized organisms inside the pictures and maps, roughly looked at, Zhuang Rui carefully put the book back in the hands of the book, I believe that 53 of this version of the book, and now can only be found in some of the larger libraries.

Turned down the page, which are some geological disciplines of books, Zhuang Rui has no interest, opened another box, which is a tie of letters, and stacks of notebooks, in a corner of the box, actually placed four or five black, fist-sized stone.

“No wonder the box is so heavy, mother put a few stones inside for what!” Zhuang Rui was stunned in his heart and thought without complaining.

Casually picked up a letter to open, read a glance, Zhuang Rui suddenly froze, because the entire letter is written by the brush, and the last signature of the letter, actually is “Li Siguang” three words, Zhuang Rui hastened to carefully read up, the content of the letter is not long, should be the respected scientist to his grandfather’s reply, in the letter detailed Introduced the geological landscape of Yunnan, Guizhou and Burma, the words are very professional, Zhuang Rui has a lot of words and phrases can not read, but can already be sure that this is Li Siguang’s handwritten letter undoubtedly.

I did not think that grandpa actually know the great scientist that he has admired since childhood, which makes Zhuang Rui much more interested, so began to organize his grandfather’s letters, that a few black stones due to the obstruction, was taken out and thrown directly under the bed to go, if not for fear of trouble, Zhuang Rui will be thrown to the downstairs garbage heap to go.

Probably flipped through these letters, most of them are used by grandpa and some classmates and teachers to exchange professional correspondence, only read a small half, there is still a thick layer in the box, Zhuang Rui is a little impatient, because some of the terminology he reads is really a little difficult.

Put down the hand is looking at a letter, Zhuang Rui heart, if he uses the aura, it seems that do not need to open the envelope can also read ah! Thinking of this, Zhuang Rui gazed towards the bottom of the box, the green light flashed and the aura in his eyes escaped.

“Huh!”

Zhuang Rui suddenly cried out in surprise, because just as his eyes passed through the stack of letters and saw the bottom of the box, two scrolls came into view, what surprised him was that after that aura penetrated through the scrolls, there seemed to be an aura within the scrolls that merged inside the aura in his eyes, and then the aura returned back to his eyes on its own, and Zhuang Rui could clearly feel that the aura, which was originally thin with only one layer remaining, became much thicker.

Zhuang Rui felt that his eyes at the moment, as if they had just been dripped with eye drops, cool with a hint of sourness, Zhuang Rui slightly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the whole room seemed to have become much brighter.