How did hiring someone to press a pig image during Chinese New Year become a top trend?

The back mountain, the old quarry.

The wind here is even harsher than that of Black Wind Ridge, because it carries stone fragments that sting your face.

Xu An parked the borrowed Raptor pickup truck halfway up the mountain; it couldn't go any further.

The road had long been cut off, blocked by boulders.

"Family members."

"Why do I feel... a little creepy?"

Xu An wrapped his military overcoat tighter, hunched his shoulders, and looked around nervously.

It was already dark by then.

The setting sun, like blood, splashed onto the pale blue stones, resembling unhealed wounds.

The dark cave entrance looked like a man-eating mouth.

"bite--"

"bite--"

The knocking continued.

monotonous.

dull.

But it shook people to their core.

In the live stream, the netizens who were just immersed in the "smoked tofu love story" suddenly changed their tune.

[ID Coward]: This style is off! It was just a rural love story, how did it suddenly turn into "The Lost Tomb"?

[ID Protection]: Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony... Host, don't look back!

[ID Tech Analyst]: This knocking sound... doesn't sound like random knocking, it's rhythmic, like... a heartbeat.

Xu An swallowed hard; he was genuinely socially awkward and timid.

But looking at the letter in my hand without a stamp, and then thinking of Old Wei's hopeful eyes.

"Let's give it our all!"

"For the sake of reputation!"

"For a five-star review!"

Holding his phone, Xu An trudged towards the cave, his steps uneven.

The closer you get, the louder the sound becomes. It's not the sound of a hammer hitting a rock; it's the sound of a hammer hitting bone.

As we approached the cave entrance, a strong smell of stone powder hit us.

Xu An turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it inside.

"ah!!!"

Xu An let out a scream, and his phone almost flew out of his hand.

He plopped down on the pile of rubble, his face deathly pale.

"So many people!"

"They're all crying!"

"They're all staring at me!"

The live stream footage shook violently before finally freezing on the cave wall.

Hundreds of thousands of netizens felt their scalps tingle instantly.

[ID-protected by bullet comments]: Holy crap!!!

[ID Art Student]: Oh my god... what... what is this?!

Under the beam of the flashlight, the rough rock face was covered with countless human faces.

It's not a relief. It's the kind of sculpture that seems to burst out of the stone.

Hundreds and thousands.

Even... tens of thousands.

Moreover, every single face looks exactly the same.

That was a woman's face, the same woman, but at different ages.

Some had braids, some had short hair, and some had their hair in a bun.

Without exception, every face was crying.

Some covered their faces and wept, some looked up to the sky and cried, some had tears in their eyes, and some looked desperate.

The tears carved into the stone seemed to flow under the light and shadow.

It was as if all the stones in the cave were weeping for the person who carved them.

"This is fucking..."

"Is this a madman?"

"Is this a deity?!"

Xu An got up from the ground, his legs were still shaking, but his eyes were fixed.

Although he didn't understand art, he understood the overwhelming sense of suffocation.

This is the ultimate in deep affection, or... the ultimate in despair.

"bite--"

The knocking stopped, and a dark figure emerged from the depths of the pile of stone statues.

That was a savage.

His hair was so long it covered his face, he wore tattered burlap sacks, and he carried a hammer that had been worn down to half its original size.

He was barefoot, his soles covered in calluses and stone dust. He stood there in the shadows, staring intently at Xu An.

His eyes were cloudy, yet sharp as a chisel.

"that……"

"uncle?"

"I am... a messenger."

Xu An held up the letter in his hand, his voice trembling.

The savage didn't react; he just tilted his head, as if looking at a strange object.

Then, he raised the hammer in his hand.

"No, no, no!"

"I meant no harm!"

"I am Xu An from Xu Family Village!"

Xu An was so frightened that he shrank back and shouted loudly.

There was still no response. The savage frowned and let out a hissing sound of "Ah... Ah..."

That was the sound of vocal cord degeneration, and the sound of a deaf person trying to communicate with the world.

Xu An was stunned.

Deaf?

A mute?

No wonder the villagers called him a madman; he couldn't hear the noise of the world, nor could he make his own voice.

All I can do is vent my emotions on this cold stone.

Xu An took a deep breath and stopped talking.

Instead, he pointed to the letter in his hand and then to the savage.

Then, he made a "letter opening" motion.

The savage understood this time, and his gaze fell on the letter.

To be precise, it landed on that strange symbol on the back of the envelope.

It was a simple line drawing of a hammer and a mountain, a secret code known only to him and her.

Clang!

The hammer fell to the ground, smashing a piece of waste rock.

The savage charged forward, moving as fast as a cheetah.

He snatched the letter away, and in that instant, Xu An saw his hand clearly—it couldn't even be called a hand.

Those were ten withered tree branches, covered with wounds, their fingernails all black, some even deformed.

The savage held the letter.

Suddenly, a clear spring welled up in those cloudy eyes.

He didn't rush to demolish it.

Instead, he used his dirty hands to rub himself repeatedly on the relatively clean piece of burlap sack on his body.

After wiping it clean, I carefully tore open the envelope.

The letter contained no words, only a yellowed black-and-white photograph and a dried, shattered...petal.

The photo shows a young woman wearing a floral shirt, with two long braids, smiling with her eyes crinkled.

That was… Xu An’s pupils suddenly contracted. The person in the photo was exactly the same as the stone statues filling the cave!

However, the people in the photo are laughing, while the people inside the stone are crying.

The savage looked at the photo, at the man who looked like a wild beast, and suddenly knelt down on the ground.

Under the gaze of those ten thousand weeping "shes".

Holding that photo, she let out the most heart-wrenching, yet silent, wail of her life.

"ah------!"

He opened his mouth wide, the veins on his neck bulged, and his face was covered in tears and snot.

But he couldn't hear his own voice.

The world can no longer hear his voice.

Only the echoes filling the cave could voice the grievances that had been building up for forty years.

Xu An picked up the envelope that had fallen to the ground.

Inside the envelope was a note, not written by the sender, but seemingly... written by someone else.

The handwriting is very messy, and it's written in pencil.

[Stone Bro:]

I'm leaving. My dad said that if I follow a deaf stonecutter, I won't even be able to hear my children cry.

I don't believe in fate.

【I asked the doctor, and he said your deafness was caused by the vibrations from blasting rocks, and it's treatable! I'll go work in the south and earn money to get your ears treated!】

Keep this photo. Don't forget what I look like.

And these flowers...

If you're willing to wait for me, let's light a fire on that hilltop we agreed upon.

If I turn around and see fire, I know you have a heart.

If it doesn't become popular... I'll give up.

[—Xiaohua. Autumn 1983.]

Xu An finished reading, her palms were ice-cold.

Lighting a fire? Lighting a fire in this abandoned quarry? Is this the "WeChat" of that era?

So primitive, yet so deadly, the savage… that is, the stone, remained kneeling on the ground, pressing the photograph tightly to his heart.

He didn't know what was written in the letter; the handwriting was too messy for him to understand.

He only recognized the code and the photograph.

Xu An squatted down, picked up the hammer from the ground, and placed it on a flat, large rock next to him.

He used the tip of the hammer to write forcefully, because the stone was so hard that sparks flew everywhere.

She asked you to light the fire.

[Light the fire, and she'll come back.]

[1983.]

Stone looked at the clear words.

He froze, as if struck by lightning.

His hands trembled as he touched the cold, icy words.

ignition?

ignition?!

That autumn, he did receive a package, but due to a landslide on the mountain road, the postman left the package at the village office.

The village children were naughty; they opened the letter, took the dried flowers inside to play with, and left only an empty envelope.

He thought... he thought it was a breakup letter, a heartless letter that couldn't even be bothered to write a single word.

That night, he sat on that hilltop all night.

Looking down at the village below the mountain, I saw the lights in her house go out.

He didn't light the fire. He felt like a useless, deaf man, unworthy of the most beautiful flower in the whole village.

He hammered all his inferiority complex into these stones.

He spent forty years carving her eyebrows and eyes, her dimples, but he could never carve her smile.

Because in his memory, the last time he saw her, she was crying.

"What a tragedy..."

Xu An stood up, her eyes red-rimmed.

"None of them received the letter."

"No one saw any fire."

"This missed opportunity..."

"It's for a lifetime."

Countless people in the live stream broke down in tears.

[ID: Unresolved]: Is this what love used to be like? The margin for error is too low!

[ID Wants to Send Blades]: Who is that kid who stole the letter? Step forward! I promise I won't kill you!

[ID Flower Granny]: Wait... Little Flower? Born in 1983? Went to work in the south?

Suddenly, a comment caught Xu An's attention.

[ID: Uncle Xujiacun]: Anzi! Look at that photo! Isn't that... isn't that Aunt Hua from the village entrance?!

[ID Xujiacun Ershu]: It's that old lady who went blind and suggested calling the cafeteria "White Rabbit"!

boom!

Xu An felt as if a thunderbolt had struck his mind.

Granny Flower?!

The blind old woman who always sat under the big locust tree at the village entrance, staring blankly at a pebble in her hand?

The old man who said, "White Rabbit milk candy is very sweet, but I've never tried it"?

The old man who suggested naming the cafeteria "White Rabbit" was actually commemorating his bittersweet first love.

She didn't go to the south?

Or rather... she went and then came back?

But why didn't they come looking for him? Xu An suddenly remembered the rumors circulating in the village.

Grandma Hua did indeed go out to work when she was young.

But he returned less than two years later, carried back by someone, having gone blind.

It was said that a factory fire blinded her, and she never mentioned marriage again after that.

He spent his whole life guarding the village entrance, listening to the wind. Xu An looked at the deaf man in front of him who was still crying.

Then I remembered the blind man at the village entrance who couldn't see anything.

One is deaf.

One that cannot be seen.

A stone that has been carved in the back mountains all its life.

A man who spent his whole life sitting at the village entrance, feeling for stones.

What kind of human suffering is this? What kind of divine script is this?

"uncle!"

Xu An pulled Shi Tou, who was still kneeling on the ground, to his feet.

He didn't care whether the other person could hear him or whether he was socially awkward.

He pointed in the direction of Xujia Village, to the wall painted with Tiananmen Square, and to the White Rabbit canteen.

He frantically wrote on the ground:

She didn't leave!

She's in the village!

She is Granny Flower!

She's blind!

She's waiting for you!!!

As Shi Tou looked at the words on the ground, a sudden light burst forth in his eyes, which had been clouded for forty years.

That light was redder than the sunset just now, and harder than the rocks in this cave.

He suddenly grabbed the iron hammer from the ground; it was his only companion and his only weapon in this life.

He didn't speak, nor could he utter a word. He simply turned around to face the enormous stone statue he had only half-carved.

It was a smiling girl. He had tried carving that smiling face because he had heard that a canteen was going to be built in the village these past few days, which had improved his mood.

"when!"

One blow.

Sparks flew everywhere.

The corners of the stone statue's mouth curved into a perfect arc.

That was... a smile that was forty years late.

then.

This old man has been crazy his whole life.

This stonemason was deaf his whole life.

He was carrying that hammer.

Barefoot.

Stepping on the rubble, he looked like a warrior going to his death, or a groom going to steal his bride.

They rushed out of the cave.

Even when it's dark.

Even if the road is blocked.

Even if he can't hear the wind.

But this time, the fire in his heart was ignited.

Xu An held up his phone and ran after them.

In the shot, the hunched back was stretched infinitely long in the afterglow of the setting sun.

He's long enough to span these damn forty years.

"Family members, please don't cry."

"Tonight...we're having a happy occasion in Xu Family Village!"

"Hold it big!"