Chapter 1746: The Four Gods of the Household

The Kitchen God left behind a warning and vanished.

Tu Ying San Yi's face went deathly pale.

In this world, to be called impious by a god was almost a death sentence; nearly every place would become impossible to walk even a single step.

But the white rice at home could at most last until the lean months between harvests!

If he kept offering sacrifices the same way as when his parents were alive, in at most two months the stores would be utterly depleted, not even enough for the sweet-potato rice he himself ate.

Tu Ying San Yi was only an ordinary mortal youth; the mere thought of this made him tremble uncontrollably in his heart.

Outside, the sun rose in the east, its outline already showing.

"Not good!"

Tu Ying San Yi gave a sudden start.

No matter how frightened, how afraid, when the sun was about to rise, he would immediately and instinctively do certain things—many things his parents had taught him by word and deed since childhood, as natural as breathing—and at this moment they all came back to him at once.

Tu Ying San Yi went again to his parents' room to take out incense candles, paper money, and white rice.

Here, he hesitated a moment, then gritted his teeth, and still took out the same measure of white rice as for the Kitchen God of Kaoshan Village, came to the main gate, lit the candles, kowtowed without cease, and bowed before the two imposing portraits on the two side door panels.

"I bow to Lord Guangcheng Xuange, Lord Exorcising Iron Mace."

"…The courtyard solemn, divine light abides; the door and windows pure, auspicious air remains… Iron armor drives demons, the house is kept safe; the golden whip leads blessings into the splendid hall… By day and night they patrol, evil sprites scatter; at dawn and dusk they guard, descendants are kept healthy."

Tu Ying San Yi kept reciting without pause, while scattering handful after handful of white rice from his hands.

The white rice fell into the fire and turned into wisps of green smoke that dispersed—clearly enjoyed by the gods—yet no strange phenomenon arose, nor any rebuke like the Kitchen God's.

Tu Ying San Yi breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.

The Door Gods preside over driving out evil and ghosts, averting disaster, and protecting the household's peace.

If a home did not enshrine the Door Gods, at night ghosts and monsters would surely come to the door and devour a person's heart, liver, spleen, and lungs clean.

It was not that he did not know how serious it was.

It was simply that there was not much white rice left in the house.

Even if he ate and drank nothing it would be useless, because normally he could not afford white rice at all, usually filling his belly with wild greens and sweet potatoes; if lucky he could catch mudfish or grass carp and the like, and after offering most of it to the gods he could have a little meat, but that was a matter of luck, not to be counted on.

If it were only the Kitchen God, he could stake his life working and perhaps grow a bit more grain to get through the year.

"Many thanks to the Door Gods for their generosity…"

Tu Ying San Yi kowtowed without cease.

This was still the method his parents had taught him.

Legend had it that Lord Guangcheng Xuange and Lord Exorcising Iron Mace were the guards of the Emperor Lord before he became a god, repeatedly earning merit in battle; after the Emperor Lord became a god, he enfeoffed them as the Door Gods of the world, to enjoy the endless incense offerings of the world.

All the Door God incense offerings under heaven were enjoyed by these two gods.

That is to say, unlike the horse-headed, human-bodied Kitchen God of Kaoshan Village, in every place, wherever there was a door, it was all the avatars of these two gods, and they generally did not issue divine decrees.

After bowing to the Door Gods, Tu Ying San Yi went again to the water vat to worship the Well God, and to a plot before the door to worship the Lord of the Fields and the Lady of the Fields.

These four—the Door Gods, the Kitchen God, the Lord and Lady of the Fields, and the Well God—are together called the "Four Gods of the Household." Every morning after washing, the first thing a mortal did was worship these four gods, and all of it had to be finished before the sun had fully risen.

If one god were worshipped less, or a mistake were made during the worship, provoking the gods' thunderous wrath, one would face extremely terrible consequences.

Tu Ying San Yi, with an uneasy heart, worshipped the four gods one by one, and the offerings were all the same measure of white rice.

Perhaps his piety moved the gods; thereafter none of them showed displeasure, not even the Lord and Lady of the Fields and the Well God, who like the Kitchen God of Kaoshan Village had their own distinct consciousness.

This moved Tu Ying San Yi deeply; he secretly vowed that this year he would work himself to the bone, and next year raise the offerings to all four gods, so as to add to the merit of his dead parents, that in their next life they might be reborn into a good family.

He lit the fire, hastily boiled two sweet potatoes and the wild greens he had picked the day before, and Tu Ying San Yi shouldered his hoe and went out the door.

"Third Boy, off to hoe the fields today?"

Just as he stepped out of the house, an old man with a face full of wrinkles came back carrying firewood and called out a greeting.

This was the neighbor Grandpa Zhou.

Unlike Tu Ying San Yi, who lived alone, Grandpa Zhou had six sons—a thriving big family. The two households had been fairly close in the past, but recently had grown distant, probably because they feared Tu Ying San Yi, who had spent his family's savings holding a grand funeral for his parents, would come borrowing money.

—In this world, everyone believed that after a family member died, if one held a grand funeral for them and prayed to the gods of the four directions, the deceased would fare better in the next life.

Tu Ying San Yi was exactly such a person, and even more stubborn; he had held a funeral for his parents far grander than most, and had borrowed from every relative and friend to do so.

"Yes, Grandpa Zhou."

Tu Ying San Yi was taciturn by nature; he replied once, and could not help glancing behind the old man.

Sure enough, he saw a young girl with a red cord tied in her hair; she was pretty, following behind Grandpa Zhou, holding a tree branch perfunctorily in her hand to show she too had done work.

The girl also looked toward Tu Ying San Yi, her eyes full of disgust, and walked quickly away.

Tu Ying San Yi stole a glance at the girl, not daring to look more.

This girl was Zhou Xiaocui, the prettiest girl in Kaoshan Village; among the Zhou family's dozen-odd boys she was the only girl, pampered since childhood, and liked by many villagers.

Tu Ying San Yi was naturally the same.

When his parents were alive, he had even asked them to go propose for him, but they were immediately chased out, causing quite a laugh.

But now his thinking had changed.

"A girl pampered like that, unaccustomed to farm work—we couldn't afford to keep her…"

Tu Ying San Yi faced reality squarely; he had his own plan in mind: "The family is poor; ordinary girls won't look at me. After a few years of work and saving up some grain, I can ask an elder in the village to act as matchmaker, and find a widow whose husband has died—that should work out. Then I'll set up a household and establish myself, so that my parents' line may not be cut off."

Cherishing beautiful hopes for the future, he arrived at the fields and began weeding.

The sun in the sky was scorching, as if it would burn a person's skin, yet he was utterly oblivious, sweating buckets as he worked, looking forward to the harvest.

At this moment, deep within his soul, a consciousness began to awaken.

"This sun is wrong."

"The sun contains a substance that burns the soul, causing living beings' souls to constantly evaporate and dissipate, turning into some kind of substance that drifts far away. This is the reason living beings here cannot live past fifty."

Jiang Ding watched silently.

What puzzled him was that under such sunlight, mortals should at most last two or three years before dying—why were they still alive?

If the answer is to be known, simply seize the soul of any deity at random.

But this brings risk; even a very slight risk is unacceptable to him. The number of times he acts must be limited to one or two instances, such as with the Divine Son. At other times, if he can avoid acting personally, he will not act personally. This is the principle.

Jiang Ding was not in a hurry.

As time passes, all the secrets of this world will naturally appear before him.