When Lao Shuntou was young, he traveled with his father, selling porcelain and cloth, and made a lot of money. The courtyard of his family's three brick houses was the most beautiful in a radius of fifty miles. Lao Shuntou was the richest man in a town, but he was very low-key on weekdays. Later, his son joined the Eighth Route Army. After the founding of New China, they donated all their family property and kept only five rooms. Lao Shuntou went from the richest man in the town to the common people, and he didn't feel lost at all. In the past, he liked to drink some wine, but now he doesn't drink it. He used to like smoking foreign cigarettes, but now the dry cigarette bag can also smoke the wind of the gods.

When Lao Shuntou was sixty years old, he was still in great health. He planted sweet potatoes in the ground and dug a sweet potato cellar in the yard himself. But after the sweet potato cellar was dug, Lao Shuntou did not show the happiness he deserved. No one knew why. Lao Shuntou obviously did not have the same energy as before, but the dry cigarette bag smoked even more fiercely. Some people said that he was tired, but his wife saw what Lao Shuntou was thinking, and one night quietly said to him, "Did you hear what our father said?

Old Shuntou couldn't hide it from his wife, so he said, in fact, I don't care if there is anything underground, but if there is no one, it really makes people a little bit… Speaking of which, Old Shuntou did not say a word.

Behind the five upper rooms was a seven-foot-wide patio, deserted by people, with nothing but a tall Ailanthus tree, whose autumn leaves lay thickly on the ground in spring.

His ten-year-old grandson, Xiaoyu, liked to play on the patio. After the rain, he took a shovel to dig for earthworms. As he dug, he scratched the edge of a tank.

Grandpa Xiaoyu came to see him draw the roundest circle in the world, and Lao Shun immediately found the problem. According to the habits of his ancestors, the two of them soon found a hiding place for a hundred silver dollars — of course not in the tank, there was nothing in the tank — and circled the tank. Two steps to the south, there was a small jar in the soil three feet deep. Xiaoyu was the first to find the small jar, and he said, "There is another small circle."

"Don't tell your parents and grandma..." Old Shuntou said this first. In fact, Mom and Dad were working in a distant place at that time, and it was rare to come back, so Grandpa mainly didn't want to tell Grandma. Old Shuntou put the silver yuan in a cloth bag and hid it in a pile of rocks near the back eaves of the house, which Xiao Yu couldn't reach.

"Boy, when you grow up, marry a wife!" Lao Shuntou whispered to his grandson.

But how could Xiao Yu wait so long? Besides, Xiao Yu was not interested in marrying a daughter-in-law at the time! Lao Shuntou put the silver yuan out of Xiao Yu's reach, but Xiao Yu was very happy: because Xiao Yu knew he could reach it!

Xiao Yu liked to eat snacks, and every once in a while, he would go to touch a silver dollar and go to several supply and marketing cooperatives in neighboring villages to take turns exchanging delicious food. This kind of day lasted a long time…

Old Shuntou dug up the silver dollar, obviously refreshed, and drank some bottled wine and smoked some paper cigarettes from time to time. Old Shuntou liked to wear good clothes again, and when he was not working, he wore clothes that were only worn during the Chinese New Year. This was not enough, and soon Lao Shuntou was wearing a woolen coat again. One day when Xiao Yu went to touch the silver dollar, he found that the bag was missing. He didn't want to ask his grandfather, he was afraid that his grandfather would find out that he had paid attention to the silver dollar, and he was even more afraid that his grandfather would find out that he had enough silver dollars. He had to pretend that he was not interested in silver dollars as much as he was not interested in marrying a wife.

Sure enough, after a few months, Xiao Yu forgot the habit of touching silver dollars. After all, after searching for it a few times and failing to find it, it was no longer interesting. Children are always attracted to new things, and this incident gradually became a childhood memory.

In the spring of 22, Xiao Yu, who had already become the town tax official, came back from the outside and chatted with Lao Shuntou in the warm sun of the old house. Seeing that there was no one around, Xiao Yu suddenly asked his grandfather, "Do we still have those silver dollars in our house?"

Old Shuntou was already in his seventies, his body was still strong, and he could even eat a whole roast chicken in one meal. Grandpa tilted his eyes at Xiao Yu and seemed to smile: "Why, do you still want to spend this money? You also want to collect some taxes?"

Xiaoyu smiled and stopped asking, and his grandfather didn't say anything.

The two of them were thinking about each other in the quiet afternoon sun.

"Do you have a partner?" Lao Shun suddenly asked Xiao Yu. Xiao Yu shook his head and said, "Not yet."

Xiao Yu had just started work, and Lao Shuntou was not in a hurry.

Xiaoyu married at the age of twenty-five, and the happiest person was Lao Shuntou, who said that he would soon have four generations in the same house.

Old Shun took Xiao Yu and Xiao Yu's wife by the hand and said that he wanted to give them something. Xiao Yu saw his grandfather take out a small cloth bag from the box that exuded the ancient sandalwood smell, and he understood that it was indeed silver dollars!

Old Shun did not look into Xiao Yu's eyes. He looked at Xiao Yu's wife and said, "This was left over from before, and it's all given to you today."

Xiaoyu's wife did not dare to accept it, but looking at her grandfather's determined eyes, she accepted it.

Xiao Yu and his wife counted the silver dollars, a full hundred, and couldn't help but wonder: he had taken many times at that time, at least thirty or forty, in fact, grandpa smoked cigarettes, drank bottled wine and wore new clothes, Xiao Yu guessed that he also took those silver dollars for exchange. The bag of silver dollars must have been gone later, why is there still a hundred after more than ten years? Could it be that Grandpa himself found another bag later? Impossible, he and Grandpa later rummaged through every inch of the patio together. Xiao Yu suddenly thought of the small jar containing silver dollars, did grandpa sell that jar for a big price? But soon he saw the ancient jar on his grandpa's table, with a bunch of plastic flowers in it.

It was another sunny autumn afternoon. Lao Shun was basking in the sun under the eaves. Xiao Yu held a silver dollar in his hand and walked to a stone pier outside the gate.

Xiao Yu later regretted that move very much. According to him, his grandfather, who had always been in good health, could no longer keep his spirits up from then on...