Ball Ball Cultivation

Chapter 263 Modern Mountain God 7

"That locust tree was planted by your great-grandfather when he was a child. Later, your third grandfather cut it down when he married your third grandmother and needed to make a bed. But the locust tree didn't die. It sprouted new branches the following spring."

"When we built the new house, we dug out all the old roots. Your grandfather brought your father, your second aunt, your second uncle's father, me, your youngest aunt, and your third uncle came over after work to help. It took us three or four days to dig out the locust tree roots."

"The main root of the locust tree we dug out was more than two meters long. The big hole was right under the south wall of the east beam of the main house. Later, it made digging the foundation and building the house much easier."

Wen Lei is knowledgeable about construction: "There's such a wide crack under that beam. I guess it's because the foundation pit is too deep and not filled well, so it's sinking badly."

When building a brick house in the countryside, the foundation is dug at most one meter deep.

"By then, the new house was finished, the door frames were ready, and the remaining wood was used to make furniture. I used the sycamore trees in the yard of my hometown."

"The wood of the sycamore tree is too soft and not suitable for making doors and windows." Wen Lei is a decorator after all, so he knows a lot.

"That's better than the artificial wood we have now, which is made of wood chips glued together."

"Isn't this cheap? Where can I find so many whole boards that are over a meter wide?"

Third Aunt sighed, "The trees we plant nowadays are all useless ornamental trees. Even if we plant good wood, it will only take ten to twenty years before it's cut down."

Seeing the topic had strayed again, Qiuqiu quickly asked, "I used that locust tree root to make coffin for grandpa."

"Well, the tree roots here aren't very useful. They're usually just used for burning firewood. Your grandfather wanted to chop them up with an axe and use them as firewood. But the master carpenter has a good eye."

"They say the locust tree's roots are hundreds of years old. The reason it has a taproot over two meters long is because the ground has been continuously filled up, and the original trunk has become roots. It's good wood, and it would be a shame to burn it. I want to buy it back."

"At that time, Wen Lei was born, and we had a big fat grandson. Your grandfather was also sixty years old. According to the traditional concept of the older generation here, if someone has a grandson at the age of sixty, even if he dies, it is considered a natural death. It is a happy funeral, and we can prepare funeral supplies."

"The carpenter followed your grandfather's wishes and used the roots of the century-old locust tree to make a coffin for him. He then placed it in the innermost part of the west room of the old house."

"West Room? Aren't there only two rooms in the old house now?"

"Your second brother Quan had his new house demolished. Before the current house was built, your parents lived in the east room, your aunt lived in the west room, and your grandma and grandpa lived in the south room."

"Where do you live, sis?"

Qiuqiu thought for a moment and said, "I lived with my parents until I was three or four years old. After that, I lived with my grandmother. Grandpa lived in the outer room of the south house."

"Your grandfather lived in the outer room to look after the livestock. We had a mule, a donkey, cows, sheep, and other animals. We had to have someone nearby to keep an eye on them. Thieves were very rampant back then."

“My father was driving a tractor to transport cement before we built the house.”

"Well, we've built a new house and a separate house for the livestock, just west of the gate."

Qiuqiu thought about it carefully and it was true.

The subsequent chat did not yield any useful information, except that the coffin Wen Yuan used after his death was made from the roots of a century-old locust tree.

The hundred-year-old locust tree may have a bit of negative energy at most, but it poses no threat. There is no spiritual energy here, so it is impossible for the locust tree to become a spirit. Even if it did, its roots would have been pulled out.

Suddenly, he heard his third aunt tell Wen Lei, "Take the cremation certificate to the town police station to cancel your grandmother's household registration. You can get 500 yuan for funeral expenses, which is subsidized by the government. The government's policies are getting better and better now. There's no tax on farming, and there are even seed subsidies. There's medical insurance for medical treatment, and even money for burial when she dies."

Wen Lei: "Okay, I'll go back and find the cremation order." Turning to Qiuqiu, he asked: "Sister, do you know where the cremation order is?"

Qiuqiu: "It's on the second shelf of the back cupboard. There are cremation certificates for our mom, grandpa, and grandma. Can I get three shares of money? There's no money for dad."

"Funeral expenses are only for this year. Your grandfather didn't have any back then, and your father had no spark at all."

Qiuqiu looked at her third aunt in shock. "My father passed away during the summer of 1999. The cremation policy had been in place for years by then. How could he not have been cremated?"

Third Aunt said mysteriously, "Back then, they only needed a death certificate, not a cremation form. Your father was only 37 when he died, and your grandparents were still alive. According to our hometown, it was considered a premature death. There's no explicit requirement to cremate children who die prematurely, and no one in the village actually killed them back then."

That is to say, after Wen Yuan died, he was not cremated but directly placed in a coffin made of a hundred-year-old locust tree. Could it be that the abnormality detected after visiting the grave was not the mountain spirit as initially speculated, but Wen Yuan?

Qiuqiu was still there making all kinds of guesses, and happened to pass by that junior high school.

Wen Lei lamented, "It's really hard for children to go to school these days. Several primary and middle schools around this cement plant have had their enrollment restricted."

Third Aunt: "No, our village is close to the cement factory, so the elementary and middle schools were cancelled and students were arranged to go to other villages. But now that living conditions are better, families with only one or two children can send them to school in the county or city as long as they can earn a little money. Now there are less than ten students in a primary school class."

"When we were in school, there were at least 50 of us, and at most 80 or so. The teacher arranged for three people to sit at a desk meant for two people."

"The only ones left in our village are the old people like us. You young people have settled down in the city, so the village can be more lively during the holidays."

"Our village is well planned, with individual houses and courtyards, and 30% of the houses have two-story buildings, equivalent to single-family villas. But its popularity is declining."

"Because of the cement factory, we have become rich here, but also because of the cement factory, our environment has been completely destroyed."

"What's going on? Didn't they say that the dust must be controlled and meet the standards before cement production can begin?!" Wen Lei knew this.

"There's something weird going on in our village." He lowered his voice, as if afraid others might hear.

These words caught Qiuqiu's attention, and she signaled to her third aunt to speak quickly with her eyes.

"Your father was considered the most promising person of his age group, but he suddenly fell ill and died just as he was in his prime in middle age."

"After your father died, seven or eight outstanding young men died one after another. They were all not much older than your father. Si Qing, Hong Xiu, Lai Zi, and Fei Fei's father were all outstanding among this group of people. They all died within three years of each other for various reasons."

Qiuqiu asked: "Four people died. How did they die?"

The third aunt continued to expose the truth: "More than four, eight or nine died in this batch, most of them died of illness. Only Zhengwei's father, who lived in front of your house, was the oldest when he died. He was almost 40 years old. He was in a car accident."

Qiuqiu wondered, "Are they all the same illness? Could it be that the gas emitted by the cement factory is poisonous?"