It took us more than half an hour to reset all the ancient books we had just moved from the bookshelf.
After finishing this work, we both felt exhausted, probably because we didn't get much sleep last night.
"The porridge may be cold." Xiangyu raised his head and said to me who was sweating profusely.
"It's okay. I happen to have a dry tongue and mouth right now, so it would be perfect to drink some warm porridge."
I feel that the hard work of climbing up and touching the ground just now, coupled with the profuse sweating, made your worries in my heart disappear a lot.
After I learned that my grandma had passed away last night and just now, the tightness that had been blocking my chest finally opened up a small gap, allowing me to breathe a little more freely.
I don’t know if it was intentional or something, but I seemed to have forgotten the friction I had with Xiang Yu in the underground parking lot of the city museum in the morning, and the two of us finally resumed talking and laughing again.
We walked into the kitchen and sat on both sides of the Eight Immortals table. Xiangyu was making porridge and I was holding chopsticks. In a daze, I felt that life was not that hard after all.
"Zhou Cang," Xiangyu took a sip of the porridge in the bowl, and then said to me: "I think you can start from your father to find grandma's picture album, because after all, this information was specially told by your father.
Yours. So I guess he should also know that grandma's dowry was donated by grandpa along with another batch of cultural relics in 1994."
Xiangyu said, picking out a dried shrimp from the plate of cold shredded bamboo shoots, and then gave it to me.
This action of hers instantly reminded her of her grandma.
Because growing up, when I ate cold shredded bamboo shoots, the dried shrimps in it always belonged to me.
I don’t know whether Xiangyu’s move was unintentional or whether he got it from observing the relationship between grandma and I when we lived in Zhou’s house before.
However, her move really warmed up my already cold heart in an instant.
"Zhou Cang, are you listening to me?" Xiangyu put down the bowl in his hand and waved his palm in front of my eyes.
"Oh, I'm listening," I came back to my senses instantly and looked away from Xiangyu's face.
"What's the matter with you? You've been distracted lately. This is not okay." Xiangyu said.
"I'm not distracted. I'm thinking about your question. By the way, we just talked about that." I lowered my head and took a big mouthful of porridge, staring at the plate of cold bamboo shoots in front of me and said.
Xiangyu chuckled and said, "You said you were not distracted. I said that we might start from your father's side to find the picture album. After all, we originally knew that this batch of cultural relics also originated from your father.
"
Xiangyu’s words immediately woke me up.
Along the way, my father has indeed given me a lot of guidance.
"Xiangyu, I've finished eating." I drank the porridge in the bowl in one gulp, and then stood up. "Can you please wash the dishes? I'll go to the room to get some things. These are some things that my father left for me.
Zhang Hua, and then we will study it together in the front hall, maybe we will find something unexpected."
"Okay, okay, go ahead. I'll clean up here and then go to the front hall." Xiangyu looked at me and said.
I quickly left the kitchen, went to the bedroom, took out the abstract paintings my father left for me, and then returned to the front hall.
Probably no one has sat on it for several days, so a thin layer of dust has fallen on the solid rosewood sofa.
I casually wanted to take out some paper towels to wipe them, but found that inside the paper towel box on the coffee table, there was only a paper towel in the outer packaging, and there was not a single piece of paper inside.
I put my father's picture album on the table, turned around and wanted to get some tissues, but then I remembered that it seemed that my grandma had always been doing these things. There was never a situation where there were no tissues in our tissue box, so at home
I actually don’t know where grandma put the tissue.
After living in this house for more than 20 years, I can't even find a tissue.
Under the protection of my grandma, I grew up safely and soundly. However, now that you have left without saying a word, what should I do?
I froze on the spot, as if the wind was blowing in my head.
"Zhou Cang, you are in a daze again. If you continue like this, you will get Alzheimer's disease." Xiangyu walked towards me from the patio, with drops of water still dripping from his hands.
"I'm not in a daze," I said a little embarrassed, "I just don't have any tissues. I wanted to go to that pack of new ones, but suddenly I couldn't remember where grandma's tissues were, so I was thinking about it."
"Oh, it's in the wing. I'll go get it." Xiangyu said, turned around and walked towards the west wing.
I feel a little uncomfortable in my heart. Even Xiangyu knows something, but I don't know about it.
Xiangyu came over with a tissue and wiped the sandalwood sofa again.
Then, the two of us sat down and opened my father's picture album.
"My father has a very good talent for painting. At first, he was in love with Chinese painting, but for some reason, he later became obsessed with abstract painting. He kept giving me his favorite paintings. Later, I discovered that there was something hidden in it.
Here are the longitudes and latitudes of the places we have been to." I said, pointing to the upper right corner of the album.
Xiangyu's thinking didn't seem to be on the same line as what I said. With a solemn expression, she picked up the pieces of drawing paper, then leaned close to the painting and studied it carefully.
She read one after another, studying each one for a long time. I sat on the edge and felt that I couldn't get a word in, so I didn't speak at all, but quietly waited for the results of her research.
Unexpectedly, her research lasted for more than an hour. I looked at the Yangcheng in front of the front hall. The shadows of the sunlight were lengthening from short to long, and then from long to short again. My eyelids began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Zhou Cang," the grandma finally spoke.
"What's wrong?" I replied almost instantly.
"Do you have paper and pen at home? These four paintings of your father are actually four parts of a complete picture. You go and get paper and pen, and I will re-splice these paintings." Xiangyu said.
.
"Yes, you wait." I said, quickly got up and walked towards my father's study.
I rushed into my father's study, picked up the pen and paper on his desk, and went straight back to the front hall without even having time to close it.
"So fast," Xiangyu joked.
Then he helped me move all the tea sets on the sandalwood table and spread out the paper.
Xiangyu was not polite, picked up the sketch pen on the table and started drawing.
I stood on the edge and watched her draw stroke by stroke.
Gradually, an outline began to appear on the paper.
What surprised me was that what Xiangyu painted was actually my grandma’s dressing table in my grandpa’s bedroom.
Could it be that after grandma drew those albums, she hid them all in the dressing table?
It doesn't make sense. When I was young, I tinkered with my grandma's dressing table a lot, but I didn't find anything.
The brush in Xiangyu's hand has not stopped yet, and she is still painting non-stop.
Slowly, I discovered that the dressing table in the drawing and the one in grandma's room looked the same at first glance, but after careful observation, I found that there were still some differences in some details.
Many different ones.
Finally, the paintbrush in Xiangyu's hand stopped.
"Zhou Cang, do you feel familiar?" Xiang Yu put the brush aside and asked while rubbing his wrist.
"It does look a bit like grandma's dressing table, but it's not grandma's dressing table." I felt that even I felt a little incoherent when I said this sentence.
"We have all seen this dressing table before," Xiangyu said.
"Seen?"
I repeated the last two words of Xiangyu, then frowned and looked at the rice paper still lying on the table.
Suddenly, a picture flashed in my mind.
"Sanitarium." I shouted instantly.
In the room in the nursing home with a back that resembles grandma's, there is a dressing table like this, exactly the same as the one in Xiang Yu's picture.