Wen Qian passed away peacefully, but even so, An An was deeply saddened. When she cried, the child cried along with her.
After someone passes, a funeral must be held. Yin Chuan could only comfort his wife before going to call the neighbors for help.
Regarding the funeral arrangements, Wen Qian had expressed her wishes long ago. She hoped to be cremated, not wanting her body to slowly decay in the ground.
Before the natural disaster struck, she had wanted her ashes to be scattered in a great river or the sea after cremation.
After coming to this place, her wish changed to having her ashes buried in the forest after cremation.
An An gathered her strength and worked with her husband to arrange the funeral.
Wen Qian had previously shared knowledge about cremation with An An, including details like how much firewood was needed and how long the burning would take.
An An helped clean Wen Qian's body and dress her, then placed her in a thin coffin.
Afterwards, everyone together carried her to a prepared flat area by the river. To prevent forest fires, they had set up temporary mud brick walls around the area.
The firewood was already arranged, and the fire burned for a long time. Only after everything had turned to ashes did An An come to collect the remains.
Wen Qian had once asked An An if she would be afraid to collect her ashes.
At the time, An An had been angry, as she hated the topic and despised her mother's calm discussion of anything related to her passing, which scared her.
But now, she calmly collected her mother's ashes.
How could she be afraid of the remains of someone she had always loved?
Wen Qian had wanted An An to collect her ashes with the hope that if the pearl that had originally entered her hand were to be burned out, would An An see it?
But there was no pearl in Wen Qian's ashes. The Space had disappeared with her death, with no one inheriting it.
Perhaps at some time and place, under some coincidental circumstances, someone else might come to possess a Space again.
An An wrapped the ashes in white cloth, then placed them in an urn, which she buried on the hill behind their home.
She felt that this way, her mother could still watch over her after death.
At the funeral, the elderly neighbors, due to their age, didn't participate in the entire process. They only appeared for certain parts, spending the rest of the time chatting in Wen Qian's courtyard.
They spoke of the past, about Wen Qian.
Their first impression of Wen Qian was that she was not to be trifled with, but they also knew that this neighbor was in a very good situation, cold on the outside but warm-hearted.
She seemed difficult to get along with, yet would offer a great deal of help and exchange to new neighbors.
Similarly, they also mentioned the incident when Wen Qian had killed someone, a story from the past that even An An didn't know.
When An An heard them telling stories about her mother, including parts she didn't know, she would stop to listen. She thought about asking the neighbors more about her mother in the future.
Hearing about his mother-in-law's act of killing, Yin Chuan finally understood where her imposing presence came from. Though, thinking about it, it wasn't strange for someone who had survived a natural disaster to have blood on their hands.
Those old neighbors were also advanced in age, and Wen Qian's passing made them joke that their time was coming soon too. They all remarked that Wen Qian had died without pain or disaster, a sign of good fortune.
On this point, everyone agreed, all with a sense of envy.
After burying the ashes, An An and her husband hosted a meal for the neighbors.
Qiu Qiu was young and didn't understand what death meant. She didn't know to be afraid or sad.
But when it came time to eat, she held her chopsticks and her eyes searched for her grandmother.
An An remembered that her mother had eaten food fed to her by Qiu Qiu just before she passed, and tears welled up in her eyes again.
Yes, the child didn't understand death, but she remembered to look for her grandmother.
An An could only choke back tears as she comforted the child, telling her to eat first, saying that grandmother had already eaten.
Looking at the child eating seriously, she wondered if memories from before the age of three would be blank when children grow up.
When Qiu Qiu grows up, would she still have memories of her grandmother? Or would there not even be a blurry shadow left?
After the funeral, An An tidied up Wen Qian's room. She wasn't clearing it out, but wanted to carefully preserve everything that belonged to her mother.
The person was gone, but she desperately wanted to hold onto something, like the white hairs on her mother's pillow, which An An collected and put in a small cloth bag.
The saddest moments weren't when her mother left, but every instant afterward when she thought of her mother.
It was like she was just giving her child a piece of malt candy, but then remembered that her mother used to make this for her, and the next second realized she would never be able to eat anything made by her mother again.
At those times, An An could only weep, and this wouldn't happen just once. She would be sad in every moment she remembered her mother in the future.
Fortunately, when Qiu Qiu, who had received the candy, saw her mother crying, she immediately stuffed the candy into her mother's mouth, comforting her not to cry.
An An hugged her child's small body, feeling consoled.
She found many notebooks in Wen Qian's room, the ones she had seen her mother writing in before.
Opening them now, she realized that her mother had been recording her life all along.
The earliest entries dated back to before the natural disaster, but there was something strange. All these notebooks looked new, despite being folded and used, the paper all seemed fresh.
Over so many years, the books An An read as a child had all yellowed now, but her mother's notebooks hadn't yellowed at all.
This was because before, Wen Qian would always put the notebooks into her Space after writing, so they hadn't experienced the passage of time outside.
An An found the parenting diary her mother had kept, starting from when she had found An An, which spanned many volumes.
It recorded An An's appetite, little habits, and many amusing incidents and childish words.
Yin Chuan, holding these parenting diaries, marveled at how meticulous his mother-in-law had been in raising a child. He had never thought raising a child could involve so many notes and considerations.
There were also summaries of An An's temper and personality. Yin Chuan found it amusing, as the descriptions were very comprehensive and accurate.
After the autumn harvest came winter. When they weren't out hunting sables, the family would sit in Wen Qian's bedroom, reading her records.
An An learned for the first time where her mother had lived before the natural disaster, and how she had somehow made her way from the highlands. This route puzzled her.
She felt that although her mother's life experiences had been lonely, they were truly colorful. There were also some letters and symbols that An An couldn't understand, so she had to let them be.
When Wen Qian was about to pass, she had taken out the last few items from her Space.
As if she had a premonition, she placed the notebook, money, and some medicine in the bedroom.
She put the last of the fabric in her own chest of drawers, and stuffed all the food into the pantry.
There wasn't much else left, so Wen Qian kept the remaining items in the Space, such as some snow, large stones, and a small amount of firewood.
As for the old packaging with production dates, over the years Wen Qian had thrown it all into the woodpile and burned it clean, at least making the Space less cluttered.
