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墨書 Inktalez
Is there a saying where you are?
It goes: "Daughters do not visit their ancestral graves during Qingming, which breaks the connection to their maternal family; sons-in-law do not honor their father-in-law's grave, leading to no descendants from the paternal side."
Do the traditions of the older generation really hold any significance?
I personally experienced something that still baffles me to this day.
This happened in 2017 when I was in high school in Jinan.
Around the time of the Qingming Festival, our art teacher took all of us art students out for a field sketching trip. For someone like me, who wasn't very good at academics, sketching felt more like a vacation.
I was having a great time when I heard Xiaofang calling out to me from over there.
She is now my girlfriend and often keeps an eye on me, not letting me wander off. However, back then, I wasn’t going to listen to her and was planning to sneak off to the nearby woods to relieve myself. Just as I unbuckled my belt, I heard some rustling behind me.
The figure looked somewhat familiar, so I quickly hid behind a tree. To my surprise, it was Teacher Jiang moving through the underbrush.
No wonder I hadn’t seen him earlier; however, his way of walking was quite strange—he seemed to be dancing, one hand pointing forward while his feet appeared to be stepping on cotton. He had a smile on his face as if he were floating through the woods.
I found it particularly amusing and pulled out my phone to take a picture.
Just as I was about to post it on social media, joking about how our teacher was dancing in the woods, I noticed something odd. In the photo, Teacher Jiang's outstretched arm appeared to be entangled with a dark mass.
What puzzled me even more was why there was that dark mass in the photo, while my eyes couldn't see it.
Could it be that the teacher's posture wasn't dancing, but rather being pulled forward by something?
To clarify the situation, I decided to follow Teacher Jiang closely. After walking for about a hundred meters, Teacher Jiang suddenly disappeared into the woods.
I hurried a couple of steps and realized that I had reached a slope outside the forest.
As I emerged from the woods, I was even more bewildered; I found Teacher Jiang kneeling in front of a Tomb Mound, staring ahead with his body trembling and murmuring softly as if he were saying something.
I was still somewhat puzzled but also felt a sense of relief; perhaps this was the grave of Teacher Jiang's relative, which explained his behavior.
However, I soon thought that something seemed off. Even if that were the case, he wouldn't just leave all his students behind in the mountains.
Worried that something might happen to him, I stepped forward and called out, "Teacher."
As I got closer, I felt increasingly uneasy.
It was as if Teacher Jiang couldn't hear my words at all; he kept moving, but it felt wrong.
His gaze was vacant, devoid of any emotion, like a wooden figure that could cry.
The more I looked, the less I understood, so I called out a few more times. He still acted as if he couldn't hear me and ignored me. With no other choice, I reached out to tap his shoulder.
As soon as I rested my shoulder against him, he immediately trembled all over, then let out a sharp scream. He turned to look at me, glanced around, and sat down on the ground in fright, asking me why I was there.
From his expression, it seemed like he had no recollection of why he had come here.
His question left me a bit stunned as well.
Teacher Jiang told me that he felt like he had fallen asleep and then heard someone calling his name. The voice sounded somewhat familiar, so he followed it.
At this point, Teacher Jiang looked behind him and let out another scream.
It seemed that he had just realized he had been leaning against a tombstone while talking to me.
I remembered that the tombstone was engraved with what appeared to be a woman's name.
He couldn't recall the name at first, but after a long time, he remembered it belonged to a close classmate from elementary school who had transferred away and lost contact with him.
Of course, he had no idea how she died or why she was buried there.
This only made it more inexplicable how he ended up in front of her grave for no apparent reason.
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