Chapter 195: The Tombstone is Broken

His sister-in-law even said that if the parents had been better to them in the beginning, they would have handled the funeral affairs more decently.

And his elder brother actually sat there eating while listening, without the slightest intention of stopping his wife. Instead, he nodded his head solemnly.

Having inherited the original host’s memories, Lian Li naturally knew what the sister-in-law meant by “favoritism.”

She was referring to how the original host’s parents had paid for his education while the elder brother received none.

However, the original host’s memory was very clear: in the beginning, the parents had sent the elder brother to study, but he simply didn’t love learning.

Several times he claimed to be going to the private school, only to turn around and spend the whole day playing outside.

The parents caught him many times and eventually gave up in disappointment. Only then did they stop his schooling and send the original host to study instead.

The original host did quite well in his studies, so the parents continued to support him.

Although the original host’s family wasn’t poor, they couldn’t afford to support two scholars at once.

If the elder brother hadn’t skipped classes back then, even if he hadn’t achieved anything great, the opportunity for an education wouldn’t have fallen to the original host.

Yet now, it had become a case of the parents “favoring” the original host, only giving him an education and neglecting the elder brother.

Furthermore, even though the elder brother stopped studying, the parents didn’t just abandon him. Instead, they spent a significant amount of money to send him to a carpenter in town as an apprentice to learn a trade.

It was precisely because he had this trade that the elder brother was able to marry his wife, a girl from the town.

When the betrothal gifts were presented, they were also given according to the standards of the town.

Despite all this, the elder brother actually felt in his heart that his parents favored the original host. After the parents passed away, he didn’t say a single word when his wife complained about them; he even nodded in agreement.

Lian Li felt his blood boil just looking through these memories.

In his previous life, his parents had loved him dearly, and his brother had been very good to him. Knowing that Lian Li could only stay in the hospital, his brother often found novel things to bring him to play with.

Whatever he wanted, his brother would readily agree and would definitely bring it the next time he visited.

Therefore, regarding the things the original host’s brother and sister-in-law had done, he truly felt a stifling sense of indignation on behalf of the original host and his parents.

Especially since the original host was gone, leaving only Lian Li, who had gained a second life using this body—he felt he still had to do something for the original host.

Thus, he spoke to Yun Huizhou, “This… isn’t far from my home. It’s only about two hours’ ride from here. I want to go back and take a look.”

He wanted to see the graves of the original host’s parents. If the brother and sister-in-law hadn’t taken care of them…

Yun Huizhou glanced at him and then immediately withdrew his gaze, his voice soft. “Do you want to see your brother and sister-in-law? Didn’t you say they treated you poorly after your parents passed away?”

As soon as he said this, Yun Huizhou suddenly realized he had misunderstood, so he immediately corrected himself. “You want to pay your respects to your parents?”

Lian Li nodded. “Yes. I’ve been away for a year. There were too many things happening this year, and then I was constantly undergoing special training from Martial Uncle, so I haven’t been able to visit their graves. I want to go see them now.”

Yun Huizhou replied, “That makes sense. Let’s go then.”

Yun Huizhou didn’t know exactly where the original host’s home was, but fortunately, Lian Li had the original host’s memories and was quite good at directions himself. Thus, the two of them arrived outside the village smoothly.

It was currently afternoon, and the villagers were busy working in the fields.

The original host had grown up in the village, and many people knew him well. Lian Li was afraid that meeting them face-to-face would lead to his identity being questioned, so he stopped Yun Huizhou before they entered the village.

“Let’s go directly to my parents’ graves to pay our respects. We won’t go into the village.”

Yun Huizhou felt some doubt in his heart, but he was, after all, accompanying Lian Li to visit his parents. Thinking that Lian Li was likely feeling sorrowful right now, he didn’t ask much and simply said, “Alright, then we’ll bypass it.”

Lian Li dismounted and led his horse, taking Yun Huizhou along a small path.

Despite having the original host’s memories, the difficulty of finding a grave was completely different from finding a village.

To find a village, you just need to remember the general direction and follow the road. But finding a grave was much more troublesome.

Lian Li led Yun Huizhou around for a long time—so long that Yun Huizhou began to wonder if Lian Li had remembered the place incorrectly.

“That shouldn’t be right. I remember it was in this area. Why can’t I find it?” Lian Li also began to panic.

He frantically searched through the original host’s memories and found that it was indeed this area.

Moreover, many people in the village were buried on this hillside, so he definitely hadn’t found the wrong place. On their way up, they had seen many burial mounds and wooden tombstones.

Even if he had to check the tombstones one by one, he should have found it by now.

Why couldn’t he find it?

Seeing his agitation, Yun Huizhou patted his back and said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. Think carefully. We don’t have anything else to do anyway, so we’ll just keep looking here. We’ll definitely find it.”

With Yun Huizhou’s comfort, Lian Li’s mood relaxed slightly, and he began to search again.

Suddenly, he felt as if he had kicked something. The sound didn’t seem like a stone, but rather like a wooden board.

He looked down and saw a wooden board about twenty centimeters wide. Looking closely, there were words written on it.

Hearing the sound, Yun Huizhou came over and saw the wooden board as well. He used his blade to push aside the tall grass on the ground and discovered another wooden board.

When he saw the words on the boards clearly, he immediately picked both of them up and turned to look at Lian Li.

Lian Li stood frozen in place, looking at the wooden boards in Yun Huizhou’s hands in disbelief.

The names of two people were written on the two boards respectively. Seeing that one of them was surnamed Lian, he knew exactly what these boards were.

In an instant, a surge of anger rose in Lian Li’s heart, along with an indescribable sadness that didn’t belong to him.

“Lian Li,” Yun Huizhou called out to him.

Lian Li snapped back to his senses, took a step forward, and received the two wooden tombstones from Yun Huizhou’s hands to examine them.

Yun Huizhou opened his mouth, unsure of what to say for a moment. He could only draw his blade, and the blade qi sliced away all the waist-high grass nearby. Finally, not far from where the two fallen tombstones had been, he saw the burial mounds.

“Lian Li, look. Are those the two graves?”

Lian Li looked up and compared them with the original host’s memories. Now that the grass had been cleared by Yun Huizhou, the scene matched the one in his memory.

“Yes, that’s the place.”

Lian Li walked over holding the wooden plaques and found two small pieces of wood, only as high as a person’s calf, still stuck in the dirt in front of the graves.

He looked at the wooden tombstones he was holding; the snapped edges at the bottom fit perfectly.

Seeing this scene, Yun Huizhou’s brow furrowed deeply.

He couldn’t deduce exactly when these tombstones had broken, but judging by the state of the weeds around and on top of the graves, he knew that no one had likely been here for a very long time.