Chapter 15: Long-standing

"The villagers who have been closing their doors and not going out all night have finally come out to check the almanac. Does this mean the Serpent God is not ill now?" Feng Yushu asked curiously, listening to the noisy footsteps under the roof.

"Maybe." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe didn't give too much evaluation.

Perhaps because today is taboo to 'sacrifice', the villagers who came to the ancestral hall didn't offer incense to the Serpent God after checking the almanac, let alone offer some melons, vegetables, or rice like usual.

But strangely, the crowd that poured into the ancestral hall didn't leave after checking the almanac.

They just stood still in place, motionless.

"What's going on?" Feng Yushu took out her phone cautiously and looked at the lock screen.

The time now is 05:51 AM. The sun has just climbed out of the horizon, and the surrounding environment is not very bright, still gloomy.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's gaze swept over the surroundings. The crisscrossing streets and alleys around the ancestral hall, whether coming or going, were already crowded with people. The streets were full of shadows, and the gloomy sky was full of gray people.

On both sides of the street, behind every open door, bizarre figures covered with yellow paper stumbled out with slow steps.

Their bodies were real and blurry, and their steps were as consistent as a calibrated machine.

He Shunsheng, He Youlin, He... The names written on the yellow paper covering their faces were different. They were clearly different people, but they all stepped the same foot on the wet stone-paved road at the same second.

Such a spectacular and bizarre scene made Feng Yushu extra nervous. Her hands couldn't help but hold the red cloth covering her legs tightly, and her face turned pale.

But turning her head to look, Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's appearance was still as usual.

His expression was calm to the point of being scary, his hollow eyes were as calm as a pool of stagnant water, as if a bored person was lazily sitting on the grass, looking down at a group of busy ants from high above.

Looking at Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's indifferent appearance, Feng Yushu's originally panicked heart gradually calmed down.

"Ni, Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe, what are they going to do?" Feng Yushu asked in a small voice.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe shrugged: "I guess it might be sacrifice, or a wedding and someone died, etc."

"Sacrifice?" Feng Yushu was stunned instantly: "But isn't today taboo to sacrifice?"

"That's why I said it was a guess."

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe said softly: "In such a village, there are not many scenes where the whole village gathers together. Either everyone is happy together during festivals, or they collectively worship gods, or it's the red and white happy events of weddings and funerals."

And now their gathering place is the ancestral hall. The possibility of villagers holding collective sacrifice activities here is not small.

It's just that if it's a sacrifice, it's a bit tricky.

"Why do these people risk violating taboos to worship the Serpent God today?" Such confusion began to linger in Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's mind.

Just as he was confused, suddenly, two figures of children holding hands suddenly emerged from a corner of the street and rushed into the crowd.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's sharp gaze followed their figures closely. These two children were a boy and a girl. Like other villagers, their faces were each stuck with a dry yellow paper, with different names written on them.

The boy's face had written: He Jingyan. The girl's face had written: He Yiyi. The arrival of these two people seemed to trigger a switch. When the figures of He Jingyan and He Yiyi disappeared into the crowd, the villagers who had been standing silently inside and outside the ancestral hall knelt down.

Rows of figures fell to the ground in unison, like rice folded by a typhoon. Their foreheads hit the ground inside the ancestral hall and the muddy water of the wet street heavily, and the yellow paper with names written on them was soaked with mud.

They knelt down toward the inside of the ancestral hall. Because of the kneeling, the lower half of their faces, which had been covered by yellow paper, were exposed. If you bent down and looked carefully, you could see mouths opening and closing one after another, and murmurs sounded in the crowd: 【Liangshan looks at the soil, not broken, not moving.】

【Old people, new coffins, not buried, not moved.】

【White jade is flawless, the full moon has defects.】

Murmurs as sticky as mud and as fine as rain continued to sound, carrying a certain indescribable religious meaning, making people feel a bit hazy.

The villagers' voices reciting the sacrificial words were very light, very light, almost self-talk that only the speaker could hear, and even a bit unclear.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe tried to concentrate his attention, distinguishing the specific content of these sacrificial words. The fragmented words gradually became clear in his ears:

【Gloomy swaying, lonely and traceless...】

【Full like water, brilliant like the sun...】

【... Zhao Zhao, green flowers fiercely shaking the sky light...】

【... Miao Miao, smoke and clouds vast, swimming dragon...】

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe's brows slowly relaxed. The originally confused and vigilant emotions became calm unconsciously.

These obscure and clear words seemed not to be heard through the ears, but sounded directly in the mind. The wonderful syllables brought a strange feeling that was hard to describe.

Vast, big, deep, far, vast, small... Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe could think of too many words to describe the strange feeling echoing in his soul and mind, but none could fully summarize it.

It seemed that once these obscure words were recited through the mouths of the villagers, they were no longer simple sentences, but a more transcendent existence was really responding to their prayers.

Sticky time flowed slowly in the sound of sacrificial words. Time came to 06:30 AM.

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe saw that the villagers who had been kneeling and chanting finally had other movements—dozens of people kneeling at the entrance of the ancestral hall stood up one after another, clearing a space in front of everyone.

Two robust young men walked out of the ancestral hall, and the two worked together to lift a wooden long table to the entrance of the ancestral hall where the space was cleared. If it weren't for the raw movements like shadow puppets, this scene even had a solemnity unique to religious occasions.

"This is..." Feng Yushu subconsciously wrapped the large red table cloth on her body tightly. She found that the table lifted out by the villagers was exactly the offering table that Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe had used to hide Lin Zhiyuan's corpse. The tablecloth was now wrapped around her body, and the table itself was lifted out by the villagers. Doesn't this mean that Lin Zhiyuan's corpse had also been discovered by the villagers? "Don't panic, just watch quietly." Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe put a finger in front of Feng Yushu's lips, which were slightly open due to panic.

Under the roof, several villagers walked up and placed three sheets of white paper, two long and one short, on the table at the entrance of the ancestral hall.

Subsequently, a bald old man with gray hair and beard came to the table, and others immediately served pen and ink.

The old man picked up a brush and wrote blood-red characters on the white paper as pale as paper: Upper couplet: 【Ba Snake on the table, pearls and jade testify to the ancestors together】

Lower couplet: 【Lotus Hall in front, descendants add incense together】

Horizontal scroll: 【Long-standing】

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 16 =====

(End of Chapter)