traces of all things

Seeing that Lu Zheng's face was not looking well, the old aunt of the Zhang family thoughtfully invited him to her house for a sit down.

Tang Shaoyuan followed beside him silently, holding his shoulder tightly all the time.

Sister Xiaobao who wanted to come up to comfort her: ...why do you suddenly feel that there is no place for me?

"Your father, Yu Shuisheng, is the most dexterous person I have ever seen. He is very smart. I have never seen him learn it. He can make furniture, carpentry, and repair radios by himself. Show him a picture of anything and see it with a glance." It can be done, and after everyone’s life is better, he also repairs bicycles for everyone, such as repairing tires, changing spokes, and he can do it at a glance!" Aunt Zhang asked them to sit down as soon as she entered the room, and washed Lu Zheng. The bright red crabapple fruit was stuffed into his hand: "Here, my aunt went to the ground to pick it two days ago. It's very sweet. When you were young, you and your brother came to my house and clamored to eat this."

Lu Zheng looked down at the fiery red crabapple fruit in his palm, and clenched his palm so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

In his memory, his father seems to be a character that does not appear often. There are often only his mother and younger brother at home. Taken down, a small bowl filled with sweet magnolia tofu.

Old Aunt Zhang is still talking about the past: "It's just that Shuisheng's life is not good. He was born with a big scar on his face, one leg is not working well, and he hasn't found a wife in his thirties. You Grandma is in a hurry, entrusted the relationship with Lao Yang from the former house, emptied the family, and bought a daughter-in-law, who is your mother Cuiping..."

"Wait, Aunt Zhang." Lu Zheng's heart skipped a beat when he heard this, and he hurriedly asked, "My mother...was she trafficked?"

Aunt Zhang looked a little embarrassed: "Hey, don't you all know that it is illegal now, but how did you know these things before, and no one cared about them at that time. Several families in Yujia Village even bought their sons... I was a while ago I heard from Lao Yang in the front room that your mother, Cuiping, was sold by her own parents, who disliked her for being unable to speak and being a girl, poor child."

Lu Zheng's heart couldn't help beating wildly!

In this way, everything is explained—after he was picked up by the police from the train station, the police also helped him find his family members, and after he was adopted by the Laolu police officer’s family, the Laolutou couple never stopped helping him. He searched for his biological parents, but he almost contacted the public security organs all over the country, and he couldn't find any police records that matched his disappearance.

He was even depressed because of this, and couldn't figure out why he was so unimportant, and his parents refused to even call the police after he got lost.

Now the answer to the mystery has been revealed. His biological mother was originally kidnapped and sold to Yujia Village, and probably did not even have a household registration. His biological father, as an ordinary farmer, must have not had the courage and consciousness to go to the police station to call the police when encountering such a thing.

"Twenty years ago, your father went to the village to work for others, and when he came home at night, he found that the bicycle at home, and your mother and two children were gone. I called the whole village to search for it all night, but they couldn't find it. , I was so anxious that I cried, and then I searched for it for several years. When I heard that I saw a woman with two children, I hurriedly chased after her. Finally, on the second day of the Lantern Festival one year, my head had an appointment I went to the neighboring village with your father to work for others, but no one came after waiting for a long time. When I went to the house to check, I found your father lying on the bed, already hard..."

**

A gust of autumn wind blew a few fallen leaves, and Lu Zheng stretched out his hand and gently pushed aside the fence in front of him.

The old wood made a crunching sound, and the fence was in disrepair for a long time. Lu Zheng just touched it with his fingers, and a whole piece of wood fell off.

Holding the broken wood in his hands, Lu Zheng lowered his head, feeling a little sad.

A pair of hands suddenly pinched his wrist lightly, gently but resolutely took the piece of wood away: "Brother, be careful of wood chips getting stuck in your hands."

After speaking, Tang Shaoyuan held up his left hand, and gently blew on the palm of his hand, blowing away all the remaining sawdust in the palm of his hand before giving up.

For some reason, Lu Zheng felt that this scene looked familiar.

A little bit of sadness quickly disappeared with the wind under Tang Shaoyuan's interruption, Lu Zheng settled down and walked into this ordinary farmyard.

The short houses, the well at the door, the little white figures carved out of stones on the brick walls...

All too familiar, he had spent the first five years of his life in this small farmhouse.

Lu Zheng walked forward silently, bent down and touched the edge of the well wall, and soon found a familiar groove.

When I touched it with my finger, it was a smooth object, which was cold.

Lu Zheng got up and took out all the things in the groove one by one—it turned out to be three small white enamel bowls, one big and two small, with a lot of dust accumulated on the bottom of the bowls. Brown stains, the food in the bowl has been weathered and decomposed for more than [-] years.

Lu Zheng's tears suddenly fell without warning, pattering on the bottom of the dirty bowl.

The door of dusty memories suddenly opened, that morning... when his mother took him and Ah Zhi out, he was sick and coquettish with his father, saying that he wanted to eat magnolia tofu.

Mulian tofu can’t be made at home. It’s a precious thing that pleases children in the countryside. It’s not something you can eat every day. You have to buy it at the store in the village. I touched the melon on my head, and said that I would bring it to him when I came back, and my younger brother and mother would also have a share. Go to the clinic to get an injection and don't cry, don't make trouble with your mother.

And then...he never saw his biological father again.

I will never be able to eat this bowl of magnolia tofu again.

"Alas..." Seeing him crying, the old aunt of the Zhang family couldn't help but wiped the corners of her eyes bitterly, as if she remembered something: "After you disappeared, Shuisheng would go to the village every morning to buy three or three yuan whenever he was free. A bowl of magnolia tofu came home and kept it in the well, saying what to do if the daughter-in-law and son came back today and couldn’t eat it..."

The three small bowls in the groove of the well should be the last time Yu Shuisheng bought them before his death. They were snacks for his wife and children who could never come back. The next day, he was there full of despair and pain. On the winter night of the Lantern Festival, looking at the reunion and beauty of other families in the village outside the house, he chose to end his life.

After Yu Shuisheng's parents gave him Zhang Luo's marriage, they passed away with the satisfaction of their only son finally having a family. After a while, no one noticed that such a secret was hidden deep in the inner wall of the well.

Until 25 years later, his eldest son returned to the small courtyard and received this belated gift from time travel.

Lu Zheng touched the three small bowls, held them carefully in his hands, wrapped them up one by one with a tissue in his pocket, and put them in his backpack.

"Shao Yuan, Aunt Zhang, let's go." After he packed his things, he got up suddenly, took a deep look at the small farmyard in front of him, pushed aside the fence and walked out.

"Ah Zheng, why don't you go into the house and take a look? Your father left something inside, we didn't touch it, I kept it for you brothers. Where is this going now?" Aunt Zhang asked a little puzzled.

"I won't go in." Lu Zheng said quite firmly, pursing his lips: "I'm going to the police station in the village now."

"—I suspect that something may have happened to my mother and Ah Zhi."

**

Dashui Township Police Station.

"You two are experts from the Provincial Department of A!" After registering the personal information of Lu Zheng and Tang Shaoyuan, the policeman in the police station said in a rather eager tone, and extended his hand to shake hands with Lu Zheng and the others.

Province A is much more developed than Jiang Province, and the Provincial Public Security Department's capabilities are also outstanding among the surrounding provinces. To be able to work in the Provincial Department must be the best in the industry. Vice-seeing the appearance of a great god in the industry.

"It was nearly 25 years ago." Lu Zheng said with fingers: "To be precise, according to the season when the wheat matures, it is about 24 years and [-] months. I described it to you, but it took too long, and I was knocked out as soon as I got off the bike. I don’t know the follow-up development. I just walked along the way we went to the clinic back then. I still have a rough idea of ​​where the accident happened. The impression is that it is on this small road with poplar trees on both sides. There were fields on both sides of the road back then, and I still remember the smell of straw burning in the air at that time.”

While speaking, Lu Zheng pointed at a corner of the Dashui Township map in front of him.

"According to what the folks said, my mother and brother never returned to Yujia Village after that. They all thought that my mother ran away with us two brothers - but I remember very clearly that my mother was riding a bicycle that day. The car took the two of us to the clinic, and stopped when we met a man in dark blue clothes. My mother was dragged to the side, and then I was beaten to the ground. Now that I have combined all the clues, I think there is a reason It is suspected that some kind of accident has happened to my mother and brother."

Police officer Xiao Pian narrowed his eyes with a serious expression, read all the files in the computer, and shook his head with regret: "I have read all the unsolved cases in the past twenty years, and I have not found any similar corpses or Records of remains."

The law and order in Dashui Township has always been good. Except for the human trafficking that has been severely cracked down, the number of homicide cases in recent years can be counted on one hand.

Lu Zheng frowned: "It's almost impossible for the three of us, mother and son, to be dragged away at the same time, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that the murderer has some means of transportation—can you check the surrounding towns, counties and cities?"

Although he was not a policeman from the Dashui Township Police Station, the small policemen had great trust in his ability, and immediately followed Lu Zheng's instructions.

As a result, the workload increased suddenly. While the small piece of policeman was rapidly rolling the wheel, two middle-aged men with their trouser legs rolled up stumbled into the reception room at the gate of the police station.

"Police! Police!" One of the shorter ones seemed terrified, with a panicked look on his face: "Dead...dead!"

The little policeman was startled, and quickly jumped up: "What's going on?"

Seeing that there seemed to be an urgent case coming, Lu Zheng quickly gestured for the shorter middle-aged man to come over and speak first.

The two people were still in shock, confused, and started talking incoherently. After listening to Lu Zheng for a while, they finally straightened out the case. It turned out that these two people were workers hired by Yujia Village. Regarding the problem of out-of-place management, the relevant departments ordered all townships to rectify the abandoned motor wells. After receiving the notice, the Yujia Village Committee hired several workers from nearby villages to be responsible for cleaning, filling and sealing the abandoned motor wells.Today is their third day of work, and they did not expect to find something remarkable in an abandoned motor well.

"Oh my god, the two big sacks, we thought they were rubbish, we lifted them up and opened them, oh! Two big black eye sockets are facing me! There are skulls in both bags! I'm scared to death!" The worker was trembling with fear: "We ran away quickly! We were so scared that we even forgot we had a mobile phone! Comrade police, go and have a look!"

"Where did you find it?" asked the little policeman.

"It's right next to the trail lined with poplar trees on both sides to the west of the village, and the motorized well in the field that has been abandoned for many years!"

When Lu Zheng heard this, he couldn't help standing up abruptly.

Pressing his left chest, he felt his heart beating wildly in his chest, as if he was responding to the call of something.