The bright sunlight gradually became hot, and the early morning mist finally dissipated. The wind blew across the mountain and dried the tears on Ye Jian’s face. She watched her father still hugging her mother’s tombstone as if there were still endless words he wanted to say to her.
Birds leaped from the green pine trees that looked like guards guarding the martyrs’ cemetery. Small shadows flew across the sky, making a string of crisp wailing and blending into Father Fu’s soft words.
Father Fu kneeled down for a long time and spoke a lot of words. Finally, he let go of the tombstone. It was not cold anymore because of Father Fu’s body temperature that made it a little warmer, as if it was warm enough to sip into Martyr Sun Xueqing’s black and white photo.
“You must be annoyed at me for talking so much; I’m sorry, Hong Mei, I have too many things I want to say to you; please be patient with me.”
“I can’t come to see you often, nor can I come to chat with you often, so I will talk to you for a long time whenever I come to see you. You must be lonely and cold to sleep in such a cold underground. I must accompany you more often.”
“Our daughter, Jian’er, also can’t come over to talk to you often. You have to bear with us a little. Hong Mei, although you have left us, we still love you and want to talk to you. Do you think I’m annoying?”
“You used to say that I was noisy, and you would kick me when you were annoyed. And every time after you kicked me, you would ask if it hurts. I would laugh every time and tell you that it didn’t hurt. But actually… it was quite painful.”
“You are very strong. You always like to kick my calf; even if you weren’t wearing shoes, it still hurts me; I’m just a weak scholar.”
“But now I really want you to come over and kick me a few more times and say that I’m annoying. But it’s just an extravagant hope now…” Father Fu, who let go of his hand, didn’t get up right away. He wiped the photo of his dead wife and the tombstone slowly and very carefully, “It’s all stained with ashes, you are a neat person, how can you stand it. Let me wipe it clean for you. Otherwise, you will have to scold me for not paying attention to cleanliness. In fact, I have always paid attention to hygiene, but you’re so neat that you haven’t noticed it.”
Father Fu wiped it very cleanly. He also cleaned the characters “Tomb of the Martyr Sun Xueqing” and the other words, like date of sacrifice, birthplace, and others that were carved at the bottom corner of the stele, with his fingers little by little.
After cleaning everything, Father Fu looked at Ye Jian, kneeling beside him, smiled, and said to his deceased wife, “Hong Mei, look at your silly daughter. I have kneeled for so long, but she is still kneeling with me. I’ll be honest, I think if I kneel here for days, all day or all night, our dear foolish daughter will also kneel with me because she is reluctant to leave me alone.”
“This kid is smart and also determined. Isn’t she like you? When she has her eyes on something, she will keep going for it; no one can shake her off.”
Father Fu talked to his deceased wife as if he was chatting with her. Then he smiled and beckoned to Ye Jian, “Come on, Jian’er, let’s sit here. You sit on your mother’s side, and I’ll sit here. Let’s chat with your mother.”
They kneeled for so long that Ye Jian felt some pain in her knees when she got up, but she smiled at her father and sat on the other side.
Father Fu and Ye Jian each talked for a while from early morning to noon, from noon to afternoon. They said a lot of things, and Ye Jian also listened to a lot of past events about her parents.
