I cancelled my flight and stayed with my grandmother for one more night.

She was grinding medicine all night, and I watched beside her. The smell was pungent.

I told her that Dad wanted her to come back to Beijing and live with us, and asked if she was willing.

She smiled and shook her head, saying that she had lived in Landang for a lifetime and couldn't adapt to other places anymore. When your dad's leg gets better, let him come and visit me.

"Besides, there are a bunch of kittens here. If I leave, no one will feed them. I can't bear to leave them behind.

"Your uncle is still here too. He has suffered so much, never got married, all alone. I have to accompany him."

"Aren't you suffering?" My nose felt sour.

"When it rains, the road gets slippery. If you fall, you have to pick yourself up. If you're worried, you have to solve it yourself. If tears flow, you have to wipe them yourself."

Grandma responded with a folk song, singing cheerfully.

"I'm not suffering, my child. This world is really good. Even when eating wild food, I want to keep this life to see it."

On the way back to Beijing, I wrote down Grandma's story, titled "Wei Aimei in 1944 Says the World is Really Good".

Yesterday, I called my wife and told her that I found a subject, but I didn't know if I should write it for others to read.

Because it was the secret Grandma had guarded her whole life.

After thinking for a while, my wife said, "Tianqing, you have to write it. After enduring so much, doesn't she deserve an apology?"

Yes, she is waiting for an apology, while the culprit is waiting for her to die.

I gave the story to my father on his sickbed. After he finished reading it, I handed him the "Bone Mender".

He buried his face in the pungent herbal medicine and cried loudly, "This is the smell of my mother. I miss my mother."

Unfortunately, my father couldn't see Grandma again.

After his leg recovered, I bought him a ticket to go back to Guangxi, but he suddenly had a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away in an instant.

In his last moments, he said, "Bury me in the village. I want to accompany my mother."

When I brought my father's ashes back, I brought two more people.

After the story was published in a magazine, it was widely circulated online. Many people wanted to interview her, and some wanted to make it into a movie.

On the screen, she held her father's urn with a stooped figure, pausing for a while after saying a few words.

After the interview, she sat on her own bed, murmuring to herself, "My child, we are reunited."

Later, she, who hadn't left the village for decades, not only went to Beijing but also visited South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and Japan.

She met many old sisters who had similar experiences, but they were becoming fewer and fewer.

Until 2019, when she passed away at the age of 99, she still didn't hear a word of apology.

But she told me that she didn't care about the apology as much as I did because she felt that the world was getting better and better.

At her funeral, I didn't hire a suona band for my uncle, but I had the village chief arrange it.

A group of people played the suona and bamboo tubes, dancing around her coffin with a cheerful melody.

Many villagers came to watch.

They witnessed the departure of a woman who had been despised her whole life.