It was Qingming Festival in Oxheart Village again.
People burning paper offerings lined the roadside without end. Most of the villagers had moved here from elsewhere and had no ancestral graves to visit, so they could only draw a circle by the road, leave a gap facing the direction of their ancestral graves, and burn their offerings there.
White smoke drifted everywhere beneath the scattered moonlight, wrapping all of Oxheart Village in clouds and mist like a fairyland. A lonely red figure emerged from the white haze.
It was Li Huowang. He carried bundles upon bundles of paper money and gold ingots.
He walked through the village and arrived at the Bai Family Compound. No one else lived here. He lived here alone.
Li Huowang stood motionless at the entrance, staring at the white gauze lantern above the gate and the yellow couplets on either side. Then he gave a mute, bitter laugh.
"Heh heh. I truly am... A full moon rounds and wanes, a few cold stars circle the remnant moon; gauze lanterns hang high before the gate, while an empty purse sees spring and autumn pass indoors."
As Li Huowang walked inside, the gate slammed shut behind him. He drew a circle on the ground, leaving a gap in every direction.
Li Huowang tossed the paper money and gold ingots into the circle, then took out a firestarter and lit them.
"Qingming. Come take your money. All of you, come take your money!"
Li Huowang's hoarse voice, like the mournful cawing of an old crow, echoed ceaselessly through the lonely Bai Family Compound.
Li Huowang kept burning them, burning them without stop, muttering all the things he wanted to say to his dead loved ones.
"Sui Sui, whatever you want, take the money and buy it. If there