The aunt snorted and said to me, now that everyone is dead, do you still ask if these are useful? I told the aunt that if it was really our fault, we would also like to give Zhang Ma some compensation. The aunt called out again and again, "compensation?" If you want to compensate, you can't just compensate her, you have to compensate all of us neighbors. I glanced at Hu Zongren, who also frowned at me. We all know that aunties at this age like to make trouble out of nothing. More than half of the people joining in the fun are people of this age. And it¡¯s impossible for Hu Zongren and I to really make any compensation. It¡¯s just a blank check anyway, so it doesn¡¯t matter. So I said to the aunt, this is not impossible, but you have to tell me about Zhang Ma's situation first. You are all living well. Just based on what you say, do I have to believe you? At this time, a man came over and said, It's not that you really killed this person, it's just that you burned paper in front of our building, which made us neighbors feel very uncomfortable, and it was hard for us to live in the cemetery's urn rack. Same as above, people still come to worship every day, which is like talking nonsense. I turned around and asked him, did Zhang¡¯s mother also have any opinions on our burning paper? No one spoke. So I asked, are there any other family members in Zhang¡¯s family now? What floor and number does she live on? Are her family members present now? Still no one spoke. After a while, someone finally came up and said, Zhang Ma lives in 402, her children are not around, and now there is only an old man left in the house. I looked up at the fourth floor of this building. I just saw people on the two balconies on this side, and those people are surrounding us now, so I guess 402 should be on the other side. A house, Zhang Ma¡¯s family is not present now. The neighbors didn't answer the question twice before. They must have felt that it was inconvenient for outsiders to discuss other people's family affairs, especially the dead old man. I thought that if Hu Zongren and I continued to confront these neighbors here, we might not be able to find any new information, so I walked to Hu Zongren and said to him, let's evacuate first and talk about it on the way. Hu Zongren nodded and began to collect the money and paper he had just thrown on the ground. I also say to everyone, please rest assured that we will really not burn paper here in the future. We apologize to everyone for the trouble caused to uncles and aunts. We will clean it up now. Please calm down. It was a misunderstanding. Misunderstand! After saying that, I bowed to everyone, thinking that apologizing was no big deal, it was just the upper lip touching the lower lip. Then I helped Hu Zongren to take all the paper ashes left behind to the garbage dump and throw them away, and then I pulled Hu Zongren towards the way we came. Hu Zongren asked me, don¡¯t you care? I said of course we should take care of it, but now that we are making such a fuss and there are so many people here, how can we continue to investigate? Hu Zongren looked at the time and said, it's getting late now. If we don't hurry up, we might not be able to finish it today. I said don't worry. You and I go out to buy a bottle of water and a band-aid. We'll have another cigarette and then come back slowly. The crowd will probably have dispersed by then. Let's go directly to 402 to find Mrs. Zhang. Just ask your family to understand the situation. Hu Zongren probably didn't think of a better way, so he could only rely on me. I bought water because I was thirsty because of the old story, a band-aid because of the cut on my brow bone, and a cigarette because I was addicted. I can always find some excuse to spend the extra time if I think it is extra time. It seems that almost 10 minutes have passed since I finished my shopping and smoked all the way back. Sure enough, as I expected, the crowds who join in the fun are usually in a fun mood, and naturally disperse after there is no one to perform for them. As evening approached, the sky gradually started to get a little darker. When I walked downstairs, I could even hear the clang of spatulas and iron pans colliding from the kitchen of a household upstairs. I could also occasionally hear the clatter of someone choking on the fumes while cooking. cough. While there was no one around, Hu Zongren and I walked to the corridor first. I turned around and took out a small handful of grave soil and sprinkled it from left to right at the entrance of the corridor to form a boundary, because after all, we were going there. Visit the place where the deceased lived. Since it was not very friendly to us before, the band-aid on my brow bone can be my witness, so it is better to be careful, because if we need to escape later, this is our only way. Then Hu Zongren and I started to go upstairs. The lights in the corridor were the kind of voice-activated lights that would light up when we stamped our feet. However, because it was still bright, the lights were not obvious. This also shows that the lights here at night are actually only enough to see. The road cannot be said to be illuminated. On the way upstairs, Teacher Yang called Hu Zongren. Hu Zongren briefly told him about the situation and what we were doing. He said that all your other colleagues had left and several places were closed. You It's best to find a place to wait for us, and we'll come find you when we're done here. After hanging up the phone, Hu Zongren and I almostWent to the fourth floor. I have a lot of feelings for this old and dirty corridor. Because I lived in such an environment for a while when I was a child. At that time, I had just learned to smoke from a group of bad boys, but I didn't dare to take the cigarettes home, so I hid them in the corridor. The piles of debris piled up by residents and the newspaper and milk boxes became the best places for me to hide cigarettes. But then it was probably because someone as smart as me thought of this and hid his cigarettes in the place where I usually hide cigarettes. So when I went to hide the cigarettes, I found a pack of cigarettes placed there and thought to myself Being discovered so easily showed that this place was unsafe, so I stole his cigarette, wrote a huge "Humph!" on a small piece of paper, and put it there. ¡°It¡¯s just that I still don¡¯t know who hid the pack of cigarettes there, and I don¡¯t even know the expression on that person¡¯s face when he saw the note. Facing the house number, we found 402. The iron gate of this family was different from what I initially expected. Usually starting in the 1990s, when most people install house doors, they choose iron security doors with higher security and cat holes. But this family only has a simple left-right pull-type iron fence gate, and inside the iron gate is a wooden door painted yellow. Hu Zongren whispered to me that such a retro door is really rare. Even if we don¡¯t know who lives here, just judging from the door, if there is not a pauper living inside, he must be living there. elder. I nodded, then reached out to pull the iron gate, but my movements were very gentle, just to see if I could open the door. Sure enough, the door was not locked at all, and I could open it easily even without a key. This meant that there was someone in the house at present, and the iron door outside was not locked, just for the convenience of entering and exiting. Out of politeness, it was my first visit after all, and I would definitely mention the sadness of the people in this house later. So I stretched out my palm and slapped the iron gate a few times, making a sound like the iron pieces colliding with each other. After slapping it several times, an old voice came from behind the wooden door, "Coming coming" The person who opened the door was a thin but tall man wearing a maroon fur hat. He looked about 70 years old. uncle. He was wearing a beige knitted sweater with some rips and wormholes on it. It was quite casual to be alone at home. The uncle didn't recognize us, so he looked through the iron gate and the wooden door was only half open. He asked slowly, "Who are you? Who are you looking for?" I quickly identified the old man in front of me and realized that when Hu Zongren and I were making trouble downstairs this afternoon, he was not among them. So I immediately said with a smile on my face, "Hello, uncle, we are street workers, and we are visiting today. We want to come to express our condolences to you and see how you are doing." After saying that, I stretched out my foot and kicked Hu Zongren, and Hu Zongren immediately echoed and said yes, yes, you see it's already this time, we are about to get off work, and I know you are at home at this time, so I took the liberty to disturb you. . Through the iron gate, the old man looked at Hu Zongren and me up and down. Although we both tried our best to put on a harmless smile, the old man still asked us slowly, are you here to sell something? I don't buy anything. After saying that, he was about to close the door. I quickly said, uncle, you have misunderstood. We are not selling things. We really want to know something about your wife, Zhang Ma. Earlier, the arrogant aunt's dictation, and when we knocked on the door, we saw it ourselves. In fact, it was obvious that the old man in front of him must be Zhang Ma's wife. Sure enough, when I said this, the old man showed a sad expression, but was unwilling to accept our sympathy. He still didn't open the door, but just asked us if everyone was gone, did we still have anything to talk about? In fact, I can open the iron door and break in. I also believe that Hu Zongren is capable enough to dig out everything about Zhang Ma from this uncle's mouth, but we still dare not do this. The world we originally lived in has changed. It's dark enough, and with the addition of a trespasser, it's going to make the two of us become human beings. When the old man said this, I told him, in fact, our street will conduct a census soon. Mother Zhang is already so old, but we also heard that she left early some time ago, and everyone knows that. Zhang Ma was a good person when she was alive, so our leader asked us to take special care of your family. We need to do some understanding of the situation. It can be regarded as our street doing something for Zhang Ma. I don¡¯t know if this street has done anything for Zhang Ma, but then the old man opened the door and said to Hu Zongren and me, young people, come in, it¡¯s windy and cold outside!