The Taste of Ghosts in the World

Walking on the slightly damp stone steps after the rain, the air is filled with the fragrance of soil and grass leaves, the surrounding is very quiet, except for the occasional chirping of birds, Qi Mu can only hear his own footsteps.

White tombstones are neatly arranged on each level of the platform. Looking around, the mountain is covered with white, densely packed to occupy the top of the mountain.

Feng Baisui asked: "Why do you come to visit the grave now?"

"There will be too many people when it's Qingming." Qi Mu looked at the empty hilltop and said with satisfaction: "It's so good now, it's quiet and spacious."

He looked around and found a clump of unknown plants with many petite white flowers blooming in the middle.After observing the situation carefully, I reached out and picked one of them.

"Will it be discovered?"

Feng Baisui looked at the flower, then at Qi Mu, "Do you want to wear it?"

Qi Mu rolled his eyes at him and continued to climb up without answering.

Feng Baisuiman thought he was coming to see people like great-grandfather, grandparents, or the generation of grandparents, but in the end he stopped in front of a tombstone with a picture of a young woman pasted on it. Very familiar.

"It's my mother." Qi Mu smiled, "Is she pretty?"

The woman in the photo has delicate features and soft expression, she is indeed a beauty.Feng Baisui took a closer look, and found Qi Mu's shadow between her brows and eyes.

Qi Mu leaned over and put the little flower in his hand on the tombstone, "She likes this kind of flower the most, and she always likes to pick one when she sees it when climbing the mountain." Then, he took out several boxes of snacks and placed them one by one in front of the tombstone , "These are also her favorite food."

"She... died in the line of duty?" Feng Baisui remembered that in the family photo, Mother Qi was wearing a police uniform.

"No." Qi Mu shook his head, paused before saying, "Didn't you ask me how I got this scar..." He gestured at the position of his ribs, "It was when I was about to be hit by a car when I was young, my mother pushed me away, It fell out and she died at that time."

"..."

Feng Baisui's hand lightly stroked the back of his neck and patted his shoulder.

"It's itchy." Qi Mu laughed.

"Little ghost, since you're here, why don't you take out all the good things?"

The sudden voice sounded, Qi Mu was taken aback, looked around, there was no one, not even a ghost, he asked Feng Baisui: "Did you hear that?"

Feng Baisui nodded, his eyes fell on the urn behind the tombstone, a little bird.

"When was it here?"

"No way..." Qi Mu looked at the bird, the color of its fur was quite beautiful, and its eyes seemed to be thrushes. "Forget ghosts, even birds can talk?"

As soon as the words fell, the voice said again: "You brought the bar? Why didn't you take it out?"

The sound really came out of it!

Qi Mu leaned over in surprise and asked, "You can talk?"

The bird did not hide, raised its pointed beak, and proudly said: "When I learned to speak, you were not born yet!"

"Then can you sing? I heard that Thrush sings very well." Qi Mu asked.

"You just sing when you rap?" The thrush was very angry, jumped up a few times, and said: "The stupid birds domesticated by humans are like that, we only sing when we need it!"

"Oh, forget it." Qi Mu didn't continue to ask, and said to Feng Baisui: "Then let's go."

"Wait!" cried Thrush, "there's still wine!"

"Wine? My mother never drinks, it's for others."

"That other person is also from this cemetery?"

"No."

After Qi Mu finished speaking, he turned to leave.

"Hey, brat, let me drink, I haven't tasted alcohol for many years." Thrush pleaded.

Qi Mu stopped and looked at it with a half-smile, "I don't know you, so it would be too much of a disadvantage to give you wine?"

"The kid nowadays is not kind at all." Thrush shook his head decently, "I'll sing for you as a compliment, and you can drink it for me, okay?"

"No." Qi Mu chuckled, "I don't want to hear it anymore."

"You!" Thrush jumped up and down on the urn angrily, "Then what do you want to drink for me?"

"You're a bird, why do you want to drink?" Qi Mu thought this little thing was really interesting, "And...why can you speak human language? You're not a starling, are you?"

"Brother? Don't mix the noble me with that ugly monster!" Thrush cried out, spread its wings, and disappeared in a blink of an eye, replaced by a tall and beautiful man.

Qi Mu took a step back in shock, Feng Baisui looked coldly at the person who appeared suddenly.

It's a little strange to say that a man is beautiful, but his eyes are extraordinarily charming, like the delicate fur around the eyes of a thrush.

"I have lived for a long time, and your human language is easy for me." The man's voice was somewhat indistinct, but very pleasant. He raised his proud chin, reminding Qi Mu of the thrush just now.

"Are you... the bird from just now?"

"It's really rude, you should respect my race instead of replacing it with an ordinary bird."

"Okay, are you the thrush just now?"

"That's right." The man nodded,

"What are you wearing?" Qi Mu looked at the soft feathers on his body.

"This?" the man said proudly, "It's my hair."

"...do you have any other clothes?"

"No." The man replied impatiently, squinting at the bag in Qi Mu's hand, "Where's the wine? You should let me drink."

Qi Mu took out the wine bottle amusedly, and reminded, "You can only drink a little."

The man couldn't wait to take it, opened the lid, took a deep breath, "It smells so good..." He then raised his head and drank it.

Seeing his throat rumbling, Qi Mu hurriedly snatched the bottle over, "You drank too much."

"It's delicious." The man smacked his lips, narrowed his eyes and said, "It's comparable to the best wine I've ever had."

Qi Mu saw that there was only half of the wine bottle left, so he quickly covered it and hid it.

Feng Baisui suddenly asked: "What are you?"

The man frowned, "What is a thing?"

"You are not an ordinary bird, are you?"

"Of course not, I've been living since a long time ago..." the man said, "In your human terms... it's a fairy, right?"

"Demons? There really are such things?" Qi Mu wondered for a moment, but he was no longer as surprised as before, "But that's right, mountain spirits and ghosts, even ghosts, and demons are not uncommon."

"What's a thing?" The man glared at him displeased.

Qi Mu changed the subject and said, "When did you learn to drink?"

"I can't remember..." The man tilted his head and thought for a while, "I was injured before, and I was rescued by a human and served for a while. He likes to drink very much. There are a lot of good wine in the house. It seems that it started at that time. .”

"Have you been raised by humans? Is he still alive?"

"I don't know." The man said lightly, "I'll leave when I recover from my injury."

"How many years ago was that?"

"Ten years? 50 years? Or 100 years?" The man thought for a long time before he could figure it out, and simply said, "I don't have any concept of time, unlike you short-lived humans."

"..."

"Okay, I've given you the wine too, we're leaving." Qi Mu pulled Feng Baisui towards the stone steps.

The man turned back into a thrush and followed them with flapping wings.

"I come to the cemetery every Qingming Festival to find something delicious, but very few people bring wine, and even if they do, it's the worst." It jumped on Qi Mu's shoulder, "When will you come again?"

"Next year is Qingming."

"Too long, too long." Thrush bouncing back and forth on Qi Mu's shoulder, Feng Baisui pushed it away with his hand.

Huamei flapped her wings desperately and flew beside Qi Mu, "Then I'll follow you to see other people. If that person doesn't drink, let me drink."

"You're so young, aren't you afraid of getting drunk?" Qi Mu laughed.

"What are you afraid of! I'll just turn into a human and drink." Thrush proudly flew back and forth in the air.

After walking out of the cemetery, Qi Mu turned into the nearby Martyrs Cemetery.

A mausoleum guard ran out of the guard room at the gate of the garden and stopped him.

"Hey, are you here to visit the grave?"

Qi Mu nodded.

"Are you alone?" The mausoleum guard looked at him.

Qi Mu nodded again.

The man blinked, leaned over and said, "It's only because you are alone that I told you that there is a problem with this garden!"

"What's the problem?"

The mausoleum guard had an expression of "you're such an idiot", stared and said, "Well, what's wrong with the cemetery? It's haunted!"

He lowered his voice and said: "Tell you, I used to go in when I woke up in the morning, and sometimes I heard the sound of bugles, drill slogans, and the sound of footsteps! Who are they? Those soldiers who died in battle!"

"So scary?" Qi Mu opened his eyes wide.

"Of course, I don't dare to go in now." The mausoleum guard said with concern, "Be careful yourself."

"Okay." Qi Mu nodded, the corners of his mouth curled up uncontrollably.

After the mausoleum guard finished telling the ghost story, he took out a bunch of white flowers made of paper and asked Qi Mu, "One yuan for each flower, do you want it?"

"No need." Qi Mu refused.

The guardian of the mausoleum did not give up and said: "Since you are here, you must bring something. Before, there were many elementary school students organized to sweep the tomb, and each of them brought a small white flower and tied it to those trees. How beautiful it is!"

Qi Mu raised his eyes to look at the trees in the garden, they were lush and lush, but they were not white at all, and then looked at the white flowers in the man's hand.

"It was taken back by him." Feng Baisui concluded.

Although the mausoleum guard couldn't hear Feng Baisui's words, Qi Mu looked uncomfortable, put away the flowers awkwardly, waved his hands and said, "Go in, go in."

When Qi Mu walked in, he could still hear him muttering to himself from behind: "It's such a difficult life now, I can't sell a single flower for a few months..."

Bypassing the towering monument, loud military songs were really heard in the cemetery, followed by a burst of laughter.

When I got closer, I found four or five soldiers in military uniform sitting among several rows of tombs, each leaning on the tombstone and chatting. When they saw Qi Mu, they waved to him.

Qi Mu nodded with a smile, looked around, and said, "I remember when I came last year, there were still seven people."

They all laughed, and one of them shook his hat and said, "The third and fourth have gone to reincarnate."

"what about you?"

"It's almost the same, I just want to spend more time with our regiment leader." A soldier said.

The soldier sitting in the middle waved his hand to pick off his head, "Do I need you to accompany me? Just go!"

"Yes!" Xiao Bing made a face at Qi Mu, and everyone laughed again.

"To see Lao Wu again?" the team leader asked Qi Mu.

"Ah."

"You brought friends?" The group leader looked at Feng Baisui and nodded at him.

Feng Baisui also responded to him.

"Hey, Xiao Mu has friends?"

Upon hearing this, several soldiers gathered around to visit Feng Baisui one after another to join in the fun.

"Not bad, young man." A soldier patted him on the shoulder.

Another slap hit his vest, and there was a muffled sound.

"The physique is okay," he commented.

Feng Baisui's face darkened.

Qi Mu smiled and introduced to them: "His name is Feng Baisui, and he was my classmate when he was alive."

"Student?" Feng Baisui raised his eyebrows displeased.

Qi Mu added: "Now he is my friend..."

Taking a look at Feng Baisui's expression, the smile on Qi Mu's face deepened, "Well...a very good friend."

"That's great." The group leader floated over and said with a smile: "Xiao Mu has been visiting us since he was very young. We have watched him grow up for several years. This child is always alone... now it's okay. Yes, you are with him."

The group leader looked at Feng Baisui, "You guys have to get along well."

"Of course." Feng Baisui said indifferently, but his tone could not be questioned.

The team leader patted him with satisfaction, turned to Qi Mu and said, "Old Wu has already gone to reincarnate, you don't have to come every year."

"I know, I know." Qi Mu went to a monument and squatted down, took out the wine bottle and put it away, "But I still feel that I should come here to commemorate my dad."

"A friend of your father's?" Feng Baisui asked.

"Comrade-in-arms."

Feng Baisui raised his eyebrows, "Has your father ever fought?"

"I've fought." Qi Mu nodded and said, "Do you know the self-defense counterattack back then?"