After billions of reincarnations

The sky in the west has taken on a purple color, and the sun has just set, but the location of the settlement has already begun to be covered by the shadows of buildings and nearby abandoned mining equipment.

Old man Liu has lived here for so many years, and he is familiar with the elongated shadows that fall on the road.But this time, the road suddenly became strange.

Shadows slanted across the gravel road, and something else, already unfamiliar, fell on the road.It was a series of lamps, the old street lamps emitted light from behind the yellowed glass, and the warm yellow brilliance drove away those elongated shadows.It looks like the stars in the sky are falling along two parallel lines.

The rickety old man raised his head, his old face was illuminated by the light.

A young man in a white shirt stood under the street lamp, looking at the entire brightened road.

After being dim for so many years, the lights finally turned on.

The street lights go out from the road in the settlement all the way to the last one extending into the abandoned factory.These street lights, which have been turned on again after many years, clearly illuminate the way for the old people to go home.

Several mahogany tables that had been left unused for a long time were lifted out together and placed squarely in the middle of the road, forming a large table together.The bone broth that has been boiled for a day is placed in the middle of the big table with the pot.A circle of clean old china bowls lay out.Benches are also arranged in circles around the table.

Old man Liu mentioned that old man Li, who almost broke his leg while repairing street lamps, took out the white wine he had hidden for a long time from home without saying a word, and poured a cup of every pair of bowls and chopsticks around the table.

The strong fragrance of white wine wafts in the evening wind.

The old lady with her silver hair pinned neatly behind her head smiled slightly as she watched the scene where everyone was so noisy.

The old lady's surname is Liu. When she was young, she originally sang Peking Opera with her father, and she was a well-known Huadan in the troupe.But then the theater troupe broke up, and she didn't want to go outside the solar system with the others, so she stayed in Venus, staying with old man Liu and the puppet show guys.

"It's a bit like Chinese New Year."

Seeing her standing aside, old man Liu habitually wanted to exchange a few words with her, but he heard old lady Liu muttering something.

New year.

Old man Liu stopped talking.

There are no lamps or lights on weekdays, and when it gets dark, everyone stays in their own rooms.And a group of people don't have children and grandchildren, so it's the same as having no children during the holidays.After so many years in the dark, even the calculation time can only be roughly calculated based on climate changes.

I don't know when the new year is.

"It's kind of like it."

Old man Liu watched as the young man took the iron spoon from old man Li and poured hot broth into the bowl one by one.

"Old man, you are still in a daze, don't wait for someone to come over and invite you?"

Sensing the eyes of him and the old lady, Jiang Ge raised his head and raised his eyebrows.

"Brat, why don't you hurry up and pour me the soup." Old man Liu hurried over as soon as he blew on his beard.

A group of people lined up their seats according to age, and after they were seated in turn, the oldest old man spoke, and everyone started to move their chopsticks.

The oldest old man sitting in the first seat picked up a piece of meat tremblingly with his chopsticks and put it into Jiang Ge's bowl: "More, eat more."

The old man's eyesight is very poor, and his vision is blurred. When he gets old, he can't speak clearly.Even so, he kept urging Jiang Ge to eat more.

Jiang Ge smiled slightly and only said "OK".

Wine, meat, old friends, young people.

After drinking white wine, the old people sitting at the table talked a lot more than usual, and their eyebrows and eyes vaguely carried the quack air of those years ago when they were singing.They talked to each other about their respective stories, such as who sang the best when they were young, and how many people were dumbfounded when they performed there.

Then someone brought up the black history, saying that so-and-so was so cowardly when he came on stage for the first time, he forgot all the words, and how many times he was beaten by the master later.

Not only to talk, but also to ask Jiang Ge who is sitting on the side, who he thinks makes sense and who is simply farting and blowing himself up.

Jiang Ge held the wine cup and drank slowly. When someone asked, he would answer a few questions.

During this meal, the old people seemed to have opened up a conversation that had been suppressed for decades. Even the most taciturn ones began to talk about how they were back then.

"You are all farting." Old man Liu is not a good drinker, and the baijiu suddenly became a little high, and he squinted at everyone present, "If you want me to say, the one who sings the best, of course...of course..."

"Who is it, tell me."

The others asked in repeated voices.

"Of course it's me." Old man Liu slapped his thigh and laughed loudly.

"I bother."

"Bah, what bah." Old man Liu stared, and reached out to pick up his chopsticks, "I'll sing a song for you now."

After all, regardless of other people's willingness or not, the old man Liu sang loudly as soon as he knocked on the edge of the bowl with his chopsticks.

"Don't you see it—don't you see it, the water of the Yellow River comes up from the sky, rushing to the sea and never returning... Don't you see it—the mirror in the high hall is sad and white, the morning is like blue silk and the evening is snow..."

The voice of the old man has long lost the clearness of the young man, and it is as hoarse as the wind blowing over sand and gravel in the desert.The singing of Cang Cang was suddenly picked up by the evening wind from the wilderness, and swept violently into the sky.The accompaniment of the chopsticks colliding with the edge of the bowl also showed a bit of generosity in the sound of sand and stone.

So the poet who sang wildly and danced thousands of years ago came out of the singing.

He rolled up his sleeves frantically, held a cup in his left hand and waved a pen with his right hand, and drank wildly, advising those present who are already young and no longer gray and sad, that time is getting old and they should be drunk and not empty their cups.

I don't know who followed and knocked on the bowl, then the second and third...

Everyone sang along with Old Man Liu.

"To be happy in life is to be happy to the fullest, don't let the golden cup be empty to the moon... I am born to be useful, and I will come back after all the money is gone..."

Holding a wine cup, Jiang Ge sat among the old people singing.He listened for a while, raised his head and drank the wine in one gulp, and sang along.

"...The sages and sages in ancient times are lonely, but the drinkers keep their names. In the old days, King Chen had a feast of banquets, and he fought for a thousand wines..."

His singing voice is very low, but his accent is the same as that of old man Liu.

Since ancient times, when you are sad and you don’t see your sorrow, most of them are white heads.

................................................

The sun shines on the ground.

It was a rare fine weather, and the abandoned machines and other withered vegetation on the ground were clearly illuminated.

With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Jiang Ge crouched next to an automatic solar conversion generator, tightening the last nut with a wrench.

Old man Liu squatted next to him, watching him busy, not talking, just smoking the local cigarette he rolled.Guessing that it was the day when he became addicted to cigarettes, old man Liu dried the messy leaves and wrapped them in paper rolls these days, and made himself a cigarette that wasn't even considered a local cigarette.

Jiang Ge saw him smoking that thing, and said several times, old man Liu just continued to smoke as he should.

However, not even tobacco leaves grow here, and what old man Liu rolls is just some ordinary leaves.After confirming that there was no serious harm, Jiang Ge let him go.

"You don't think it's too harsh."

Jiang Ge stood up and put the wrench on the other side.

"What are you choking on?"

Old man Liu replied stiffly.

"You can see clearly the position I just took." Normally, Jiang Ge would have snatched him a few words, but today Jiang Ge didn't say anything about him, but just patted the cover of the generator. It can last for eight or nine years without breaking down. If there is a problem with the power supply, it usually occurs in the converter. If the power supply fails, turn off the switch, and then open it to check..."

As Jiang Ge said, he was a little worried, and wanted to turn on the converter and tell Old Man Liu again.

"Check your ass."

Old man Liu interrupted him abruptly.

Jiang Ge stopped moving.

"What a mess, I can't understand it, I can't learn it, old man."

Old man Liu stood up with a stinky face, turned around and left angrily.

After repairing the street lights that day, Jiang Ge found a lot of things from the ruins, and today he repaired the long-term automatic generator.This time, he didn't dismantle the energy source on the spacecraft, but directly used his "greedy" dagger to inject energy into the generator.

The dagger named "Greedy" has been hidden in the core energy of Alz Mine for many years, and the energy it possesses is equivalent to a small Alz Mine.

Standing next to the repaired solar generator, Jiang Ge silently looked at the back of old man Liu.

After a while, he smiled wryly, threw away the wrench, and leaned against the generator.

"Why, did you quarrel with that stubborn old man again?"

Granny Liu came over holding a pot of vegetables.

Jiang Ge said "Well", neither saying yes nor no.

Mrs. Liu glanced at the generator that Jiang Ge was leaning on, and then at the direction in which old man Liu was leaving. She shook her head helplessly, and sighed a long time: "You wait for this stubborn bone. Just go and teach him a lesson."

With that said, Mrs. Liu raised her foot and was going to find Old Man Liu.

"It's okay. I'll go find him."

Jiang Ge straightened up.

When passing Mrs. Liu, Mrs. Liu called him.

Jiang Ge stopped and heard Granny Liu's gentle voice.

"Son, those of us old bones who can take care of ourselves, don't pay attention to him."

"……I see."

Jiang Ge put one hand in his pocket, lowered his eyes, and replied in a low voice.

Jiang Ge found Old Man Liu in front of his spaceship. He was sitting on a rock, watching the spaceship smoking a cigarette.

Jiang Ge walked over and sat down beside him.

Old man Liu ignored him.

"Old man, give me a cigarette."

"Damn it, what kind of cigarettes do you smoke at a young age, you are not allowed to touch this thing."

Old man Liu glared at him and put out his cigarette.

"I'll grow the vegetables for you, and I'll find the paper for you." Jiang Ge settled accounts with Old Man Liu.

"I said no and no."

Jiang Ge sighed and looked at the spaceship.

The two were silent for a while, and old man Liu finally spoke.

"You go."