Chapter 499 Catch fleas
There is something pretty unbelievable.
The old woman has three sons.
They live in Menshan.
One of them lives in the local county.
This seems to be very ironic.
After all, when Gao Ge saw what happened in the past from the perspective of the monster’s soul, apart from the messy fight in the end, her three sons never showed up before that.
As is said in The Analects of Confucius, “They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion. The superior man bends his attention to what is radical. That being established, all practical courses naturally grow up. Filial piety and fraternal submission, are they not the root of all benevolent actions?”
What the above saying means is utterly simple.
A man of filial piety doesn’t oppose his superiors; as such, he will not raise a rebellion. Filial piety is the fundamental of a gentleman, with which, he will grasp the Way. Filial piety is the basis of benevolence highly praised by sages.
What a pity.
In the modern world, reality always does not accord with hopes!
It’s well known that filial piety is the foundation of all virtues. Kids are even required to write essays about that. Why do they forget it as they grow up? It is the father’s fault not to teach the son well. Since the three sons become such persons, Gao Ge is pretty sure that the old woman was somewhat accountable.
However, she is dead now.
Hence, it is meaningless to find by hard and thorough search why these three persons become like that.
Gao Ge only wants to do what he should do.
No.
In fact, he doesn’t need to do anything and may as well let the black cat do it.
Suddenly, Gao Ge stops.
“It is of no interest to go and kill them,” Gao Ge says.
The black cat screams.
The reason why it flies into a rage may be that it believes that Gao Ge has lied to it.
Of course Gao Ge won’t do such a thing.
Something more interesting suddenly occurs to him.
Then he makes a call to Tang Yashi.
“Ask the fox spirit to come here...”
...
Lu Zhong lives a happy life.
He is 42 years old.
He has a daughter and a son.
He feels very happy with that.
What’s more, he has a virtuous wife. At least he believes so.
Yet, the kids are too young.
Lu Zhong got married around 30 years old. His daughter is 9 years old while his son is only 5 years old.
Their academic performances are both great.
However, as he grows older, he starts to get more and more anxious. Otherwise, he won’t lose that much hair.
He doesn’t make any progress in his career. As a civil servant, he is on a monthly salary of 5,000 or 6,000 dollars. His son is going to primary school soon. As a result, his current house is obviously not enough. At least he must get a school-district house. It doesn’t have to be very large but it must be properly located, which is what his wife keeps talking about.
This is probably what is mentioned on TV...
That is, midlife crisis.
At the midnight, Lu Zhong suddenly awakes as if he has just had a nightmare. However, he cannot remember the nightmare, which is pretty rare. After all, he is awakened by the dream.
He lets out a long sigh for mood adjustment and then lies down again to sleep.
However, he lies in bed tossing and turning. Somehow, he just can’t fall asleep.
He feels like having a thorn in his heart.
“Do you want to sleep or not? If you don’t, just get out of here!” His wife has got impatient.
Lu Zhong hesitates, then climbs off the bed and then leaves the bedroom. He turns on the lamp in the living room, sits on the sofa and lights up a cigarette for himself. Then he thinks for a while, stands up, walks to the window, and opens it.
He didn’t have such a habit in the past.
Nevertheless, since his wife got pregnant and gave birth to the kids, he has smoked less. Even if he smokes, he will lean against the window or turn on the kitchen ventilator before smoking. He doesn’t want his kids to suffer passive smoking.
This is probably one of the changes after he becomes a father.
The weather tonight is not very good.
There are no stars or moon seen in the sky.
When the window is opened, a gust of cold wind blows into the house.
“It seems to rain tomorrow!” Lu Zhong thinks to himself.
He finishes one cigarette and hastens to close the window.
Having spent such a little while in the wind, he can’t help shivering. He starts to wonder since when the weather in Menshan becomes so changeable.
He grinds his cigarette into the ashtray, goes to toilet and then intends to go to bed.
The moment he turns off the light, he suddenly finds a shadow in the corner of the living room.
“Who is it?” Lu Zhong’s first reaction is rage instead of fear.
How dare a fearless thief sneak into his house and steal things?
He thinks of the two kids sleeping in their rooms. Without thinking much, he grabs a chair and then throws it at the corner.
Then he quickly turns around and switches on the light.
When he turns around again, someone is standing before him.
“You... That day, you threw a stool at me like this too...”
Lu Zhong stares at the person before him.
He is still and unmoved.
He is like a statute.
Eventually, after a while, he is slightly trembling.
His two legs are shivering too.
He finally sits on the ground, weak and limp.
The old woman standing in front of him looks down on him with a peaceful smile on her face.
Lu Zhong wants to cry out, but when he opens his mouth, he finds that he cannot make a sound, as if his throat is stuck by something.
The old woman slowly squats down and reaches out a dried hand to put on Lu Zhong’s head.
“When you were a kid, I often caught fleas for you, just like this...”
One hair.
Another hair.
She pulls off Lu Zhong’s sparse hair one by one.
Blood streams out of the blood holes.
Lu Zhong wants to fight back by instinct, but to his astonishment, he finds that he cannot move at all, as if being cast a Freezing Spell.
The old woman keeps pulling off the hair.
“Look. You always don’t wash your hair, so you have so many fleas!”
On the ground is all black hair.
Blood flows from his head across the face.
His head looks like a watermelon full of holes.
Such an amount of bleeding is so impressive indeed.
Gradually, the scene before Lu Zhong is changed.
The wrinkles on the old woman’s face is fading away slowly.
They seem to return to over 30 years ago.
He was sitting on the stool while the old woman was sitting on a higher chair.
He wanted to run away mischievously but he was caught by his mother and not allowed to move around.
“Good boy. It’s almost done.”
It was hard to tell whether the voice was real or illusory.
Looking at the familiar face, Lu Zhong couldn’t help shedding tears.
“Mom... Mom...”
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