Chapter 1.19 Legend (Extra)

When Uncle Two repeated the question, Xu A Qin fell deep into thought as he tried to recall his memories. After thinking for a long time, we all thought he fell asleep, but then he raised his head and asked us, “Are you from the Wu family?”

Uncle Two nodded and Xu A Qin sighed, “Yes, you can only ask me. I am the only one who knows this.”

“Do you still remember?” Uncle Three asked urgently.

Xu A Qin’s face showed an indescribable expression as he patted the bench beside him and told us to sit down. Uncle Two and I sat while Uncle Three squatted. The old man shivered and lit a pipe before taking a few puffs and saying slowly, “I don’t remember it very clearly, but I do remember the general course of events.”

Xu A Qin spoke slowly and there was a long pause between each sentence. It was obvious that even though his hearing hadn’t been greatly damaged, his mind was indeed quite slow. We all stayed calm and didn’t press him for fear that he might forget what came next.

He paused and looked at the sun before adding, “That was when I was working in your village as a long-term worker, helping your Wu family build the ancestral hall. At that time, I heard it from an old man in your village. That old ghost died a long time ago, but he still owes me 1.60 yuan.”

It was at the beginning of the Agrarian Revolution when no one knew how the revolution would change things. At that time, the Wu family was classified as rich peasants and belonged to the re-education class. The whole country was at war, which meant that this should have happened in the 1930s. It was more than sixty years ago, so I couldn’t imagine what it was like since I was only in my twenties.

Back then, the repair of ancestral halls was heavy manual work, unlike now when it was only necessary to do things on the scene. At that time, expanding the scale of the ancestral hall was equivalent to building a bungalow now, so the Wu family hired long-term workers and stewed meat in the old ancestral hall first.

In those days, it was the emperor who ate meat, so many people came. Xu A Qin was an old long-time worker and was very familiar with the Wu family at that time. After everyone finished eating, they took a rest and basked in the sun in the square where the poles for bunting boats were stored. At that time, the people gathered together to talk about which wife had big tits, which widow’s wall had been knocked down again (1), or any manner of trivial gossip.

Xu A Qin was an honest man at that time and listened to everything. There was an old man who was bragging and saying that the reason why the Wu family was so prosperous was because ancestral graves weren’t simple.

When the ancestor of the Wu family made his fortune that year, he bought half of the village’s land and the big house with four courtyards. But before that rich ancestor’s generation ended, the family fell into strife and there were endless wars, which made it useless to have money. By the time the grave was set up, he was almost the same as the rest of the village, so he quickly found a place to be buried. When digging the grave, however, an ancient dry well was unexpectedly dug up there.

No one knew how long it had been there, but there was a large piece of bluestone on top that was engraved with a word nobody could understand. They removed the bluestone and saw that it was a dry well with dried snail shells thickly dotting the wall.

<Extra 1.18> <Table of Contents><Extra 1.20>

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TN Notes:

(1) Tiffany confirmed, they’re being crass and saying that the widows were sleeping around

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Updated 12/2/2021