The Spring Festival is coming, and I often dream of spending the Spring Festival in my hometown when I was a child. This memory, which has been missing for 20 years, is so vivid that it seems to happen before our eyes.

On the 29th night of the twelfth lunar month, the village was brightly lit, the streets were clean and tidy, and the doors were open. Every household, holding firecrackers and burning paper and firewood, gathered in the front and back streets. Taking the surname compound as the unit, they ordered a pile, burned paper and put a whip. The villagers are thinking, whose house burns the most, whose paper ash flies the highest, whose firecrackers hang the longest and blow the loudest. This is a ceremony to invite grandparents (deceased ancestors) to go home for the New Year.

Firecrackers are ringing, paper dust is flying, children are shouting, and the year is really coming. Teams of people returned to the ancestral temple in each yard under the leadership of their elders. The ancestral temple was chosen in the middle of the main room of the prestigious elders' home in the yard. I have already been dusted with stains by the "old mother" net. Three pieces of yellow and white cloth hung on the ancestors, occupying the whole north wall, with red and green portraits on them.

Under the portrait, there is a long table covered with red cloth. There is a brazier under the table near the door. Those who come to sacrifice should take incense and paper from the table and light it, say a few words of prayer, then kneel down and kowtow three times, until the incense and paper in the brazier are burned, and then go home with offerings.

There are pig heads, chicken, duck, fish, fruits, jujube cakes and jiaozi. Bowls and chopsticks are also placed, facing the memorial tablets engraved with white characters on the innermost row of tables.

Girls are not allowed to enter the house casually. Our sisters stood in the aisle of the yard at a distance, kneeling and kowtowing silently with the dark crowd in the yard, getting up and patting the loess on their knees, waiting for the elders to walk in front, and then following them out of the yard.

Once out of the yard, I always breathe a sigh of relief.

When I was ten years old, my mother was busy working on the stove and asked me to move the offerings. When going out, I was told to remember to burn paper and kowtow, to formally meet my ancestors, and to speak politely. I promised.

When I came to Fourth Grandma's house, there was no one in the ancestral hall. I stepped through the door, glanced at the table with my eyes, found my plate and went back to the brazier.

Fourth grandma's family is drinking and eating in the back room. I quietly picked up the paper on the table, lit the red candle and quickly threw it into the brazier. With timidity and a little excitement, I watched the flames jump in the basin. Almost burned out, I boldly looked up at the ancestors sitting on it. He seems to be smiling at me.

The old man said that the higher the dust flies, the happier he will be.

I quickly grabbed some more papers and threw them in, poking them with a fire stick. The flame burst out, and the unburned paper fell on the red cloth covering the legs of the table and caught fire immediately. The torch burned my face red, and I was stupid and at a loss.

A man jumped out of the back room, picked up the burning red cloth, ran outside, threw it to the well, poured a gourd ladle of cold water and stepped on it with his foot. When the fire went out, he looked back at me angrily. It turned out to be grandpa four. Pointing at me, my beard stood on end.

Tears filled my eyes. "Nothing, nothing." Fourth grandma patted me on the dust. "Good boy, my ancestors are happy and I won't blame you."

I looked up and peeked at the picture on the wall. He seems to be the same expressionless face. Looking down again, I saw that the red cloth table had been dismantled, the paint had already fallen off, and there was a patch made of a new board. It turns out that red cloth is for beauty, as if everything is new.

At that time, every household only had enough food and clothing, and such ostentation and extravagance was held for them, and all the expenses were shared equally by the people in the courtyard. I have always hoped that my ancestors would bless this generation to get rich and live a good life, but I haven't seen much change in life. The poor days are still passing day by day.

I took the plate, took my legs for no reason, and walked out of Fourth Grandma's house. Seeing the smoke curling up from the top of the hutong, there was faint laughter in the room, and my mood was extremely heavy.

I really didn't fear anything when I grew up. Cut short hair all day, like a silly boy, can eat and sleep, and fight with a group of boys in the village school. Because they always paste mud on my newly painted white wall and always secretly put bugs and frogs in my schoolbag. I have no brother to protect me. When I was in danger, I had to fight them to the end with a stupid force.

My mother always slaps the dirt on me and bows her head and sighs: I wish you were a boy.

Later, I learned that the girl's name is not on the genealogy, and she is a family member when she marries.

As long as I can remember, every year in the early morning of the second day, my grandmother would burn paper in her yard, with a memorial tablet written with an origami brush.

"Grandma, who do you burn paper for?"

"Your great-aunt."

"Why not go to the ancestral temple?"

"There is no place for her," grandma didn't look up. "She has never been married or given birth in her life, so she can't go to Zutai."

I still don't understand.

But today, I seem to understand why grandpa four is so angry. If it were my aunt's brother, I wouldn't.

As soon as I entered the door, my mother confronted me and asked, Did you burn the paper? I vaguely agreed and went into my room. Carefully bolt the door, face the north, kneel down devoutly, knock three heads heavily, chanting: please bless grandparents and don't let parents know. Don't make it difficult for our family. I burned the cloth, so punish me.

I spent two days fidgeting. On the second day of the first month, I said goodbye to my grandparents together. Watching the brothers in the yard pull the whip all the way and follow their elders to the cemetery, their hearts are in their stomachs.

Just after the fifteenth, grandma called me in: Girl, why did you set all the red cloth on the ancestral platform on fire?

I know it is broken. Grandpa four complained.

Grandma sighed: it was your uncle who burned red cloth last time. He hasn't been home for two years, and he hasn't been home in his thirties. I bought a roll of red cloth and there is one piece left. Unexpectedly, I lost it again today.

I'm glad I don't have to embarrass my parents.

But as soon as I got home, I caught grandpa four telling everyone during the meeting in the yard that this girl is rebellious and not a quiet person. After listening to the rebuttal, my father took out my "feat" of burning red cloth on the granddaddy's stage.

For so many years, I haven't heard of any girl who dared to stand in front of her ancestors and study his appearance carefully. She didn't even burn him the red cloth on the table, which made him accidentally see the poor life.

Call me an anti-bone man. That's right. I'm not so afraid of him since I burned the red cloth and my wish for his blessing failed. When I go to sacrifice again every year, I will give him a small belly slap:

You have been here and seen it; People give you the best things, why can't you help them?

A few years later, I left home. Studying, working and settling down in other places really never see them again, and finally they become restless people in everyone's eyes.

Maybe twenty years after I leave, someone will tell the disobedient children about my glorious history of burning red cloth on the stage of my ancestors. I wonder if another girl has been burning for them.

end

I am a red leaf in the dust, and I will carry the beauty to the end.