Why am I so sensitive to shrouds? Because I encountered a special incident. This incident can only be told when I was ten years old.

At that time, there were frequent power outages in rural areas, and many houses in the village did not have TVs, so during the off-season, the entertainment options were very limited. Occasionally, the village would come back to play acrobatics, shadow puppets, etc. At that time, the village would be lively.

It's like celebrating the New Year. But for most middle-aged and elderly people, they have a unique way to kill time, and that is "reading storytelling".

The so-called reading of storytelling means to find a storytelling book, such as "Hu Jia Jiang", "Xue Gang's Rebellion against the Tang Dynasty", "Xue Rengui's Conquest of the West", etc., and let a literate person read it, and others will listen to it with relish.

The place where storytelling is often read is an almost abandoned adobe house. Half of the house is a horse pen, and the other half is a floor made of wheat straw. The people who listen to storytelling are almost all old men, and there are usually only seven or eight people.

, some of them held stools by themselves, and some simply lay on the floor and listened.

Next to the floor, there is a coffin. In the past, in rural areas, families with elderly people at home had the tradition of stocking coffins in advance - but to be precise, they should be called "longevity coffins". In the adobe house where storytelling is read, there is a coffin.

A "longevity coffin" like that - no matter how it is called, it is just a coffin.

I have loved listening to stories since I was a child, so every time the storytelling was read, I almost always attended. Those old men saw that such a small child like me could sit there quietly and listen to the storytelling like them. At the beginning

It felt a little strange, but I got used to it later.

The person who is a more die-hard fan of listening to books than me is probably Mr. Wang.

Old Man Wang is in very poor health and suffers from asthma. When it is severe, he suffers from asthma in summer, let alone winter. Therefore, when listening to storytelling, in order to prevent his breathing from disturbing others, he always sits far away from others.

in the corner.

He has a very stubborn temper and rarely speaks, but when he does speak, he basically quarrels with others. I remember that I have never seen him speak politely to others, either to argue with others or to make others unable to stand up. Because he

He has such a weird temper and is withdrawn that he is very unpopular, and even his son doesn't bother to talk to him.

I remember that in the twelfth lunar month of that year, the weather was very cold, and the north wind was howling outside. Because the power grid in the village needed to be renovated, the electricity had to be cut off for half a month. The TV was unavailable, and there was no place for entertainment, so I had to go to that adobe house every day.

, went to listen to them read storytelling. During that time, more and more people listened to storytelling. At the most, there might be more than ten people, and the room was full.

For some reason, Grandpa Wang, the most die-hard book fan, did not come.

Later, I heard someone say that Grandpa Wang was very ill, and his only son went to work as a mason more than a hundred miles away, but his daughter-in-law was too lazy to care about him, and he was very unpopular, so there was no way he could do it.

No one went to visit him at home. However, some people seemed to say that Grandpa Wang was afraid that he would not survive that year.

However, something strange happened next.

In winter, the nights are long, so sometimes storytelling will not end until one or two in the morning. But after ten o'clock in the evening, people slowly begin to disperse, and by midnight, there may only be four or five people left. Then

The rest are definitely considered enthusiast-level "book lovers".

I am one of these enthusiasts.

I remember that that night, it was snowing heavily outside, and there were fewer and fewer people in the library. By about eleven o'clock, there were only about five or six people left.

There was only one candle lit in the room, and the man who was studying was sitting next to the dim candlelight, reading leisurely. Suddenly, the already somewhat tattered door was pushed open a crack, and a gust of cold wind blew into the room.

, the candle light jumped for a while, as if it was almost extinguished. The people sitting around the candle quickly covered it with their hands. At the same time, the eyes of the five or six people in the room were all focused on the person who came in. They didn’t need to look at the face, but looked at

That rickety, shambling figure knew he was Grandpa Wang.

One of them asked: "It turns out to be Uncle Wang. Who said you are very ill? Isn't that good?"

Grandpa Wang didn't seem to hear anything. He just moved his small bench numbly, step by step, to the corner that belonged to him, and then sat down and listened to the book as usual.

Everyone knew about his bad temper, so no one paid attention to him anymore, and then he started reading.

The closest one is me. Because I am young, my legs and feet are relatively flexible. I like to climb on top of the coffin, lie down on the coffin lid and listen to books. That position is very comfortable, and the coffin is sitting right next to Grandpa Wang.

That corner. In this simple bookstore, Grandpa Wang and I have relatively fixed positions, so I am very familiar with his unusually heavy breathing due to asthma.

I was a little sleepy at first, but when Grandpa Wang came in, a chill was brought into the house. My mind became clearer. When I peed outside, returned to the house, climbed on the coffin lid and continued listening to the book,

I suddenly realized something: Why couldn't I hear Grandpa Wang's iconic gasping sound?

With the distance between me and him, I can hear his breathing clearly even in the noisy daytime. Why can't I hear him in such a quiet night? Could it be that his asthma is cured?

By the dim candlelight, I secretly glanced at Grandpa Wang sitting in the corner, and suddenly found that his face was very different from usual - all the wrinkles on his face seemed to have relaxed, and he always had that kind of look on his face in the past.

The pained expression of being out of breath is now peaceful as never before, but he looks a little dazed.

A black dog that was lying next to me suddenly stood up, walked to the corner where Grandpa Wang was sitting, raised its hind legs, and peed on Grandpa Wang, but Grandpa Wang remained expressionless and sat there.

He didn't move. I quickly sat up and yelled at the dog, trying to scare it away so that Grandpa Wang wouldn't get peed on by the dog. When he heard me yelling, Uncle Baosheng who was studying stopped immediately, and several others sat around him.

Several listeners also turned to look at me and asked, "What's wrong?"

I quickly replied: "Is the big black dog peeing on Grandpa Wang?"

Uncle Baosheng asked: "Where is Grandpa Wang? Didn't this dog urinate on the wall?"

I also turned around and looked, and sure enough, there was no such thing as Grandpa Wang. The big black dog peed in the corner!

"Grandpa Wang was indeed sitting here just now, why did he leave so quickly?" I said.

"You must have been dreaming just now. Grandpa Wang is so ill. Why did you come back? I heard that you should go home and sleep quickly." Uncle Baosheng responded to me with a bit of disdain.

"He did come just now, you even greeted him, and he was sitting here," I defended, still unwilling to be outdone.

"This child is really sleepy. If any of you saw Grandpa Wang coming, ha, what a ghost." Four or five people laughed together.

I wasn't trying to defend myself, I just felt a fear I had never felt before.
Chapter completed!