Chapter 220
Hundred Forests Kingdom, Guangyang Prefecture, Guangyang City.
Just yesterday.
Li Qi on an altar.
After more than eighty days, the grand ceremony was finally completed.
A day in advance, various village Shaman and elders would preach to every household that everyone should turn off their lights and go to bed early to avoid disturbing the rats. They would also scatter some rice grains and cakes in the corners of the house for the rats to eat, a practice called "sharing money with the rats," signifying sharing the year's harvest with the rats and thus receiving blessings.
Originally, doing this would certainly not have been agreed upon by everyone.
Because, over the past eighty days, almost all the crops in Guangyang have begun to wither and die.
Anyone with eyes can see that this year's harvest in Guangyang is likely to be... a total crop failure.
There's no food left.
So, if there was no food to begin with, how could there be any to share with the rats?
However, these days, almost all the people in Guangyang who can't afford to eat have rats coming to their homes to deliver food.
One by one, golden and silver-haired mice carried grains from who-knows-where, delivering them to each household.
Every household received food delivered by these rats.
Meanwhile, more than a month ago, many wanderers carried wooden boxes on their backs, going from street to street. Inside the boxes were rat traps, and on top of the boxes was a small, lacquered wooden stage where performers sang folk songs, beat gongs and drums, and directed the rats to perform.
Inside the boxes of these itinerant street performers, rats put on shows, performing Rat Play like "rats pushing a millstone" and "rats swinging on a swing," making people laugh so hard they wanted to stay longer.
Not all people in the martial arts world are chivalrous heroes who can kill one person in ten steps and leave no trace for a thousand miles.
On the contrary, most of the real Jianghu people are buskers, medicine sellers, thieves, swindlers, wandering sorcerers and the like at the bottom of society.
These people have no fixed residence or fixed assets, so they can only wander around and use various means to make a living. Therefore, they call themselves "Jianghu people", and some laugh at themselves, "Everyone in the Jianghu is a miserable person."
But it is this group of people who understand the grassroots and the people best.
Zhang Lan rallied the outlaw forces of Guangyang, gathered almost all the street performers, and, together with Rat Soil Tomb, orchestrated this whole drama.
They arranged for itinerant performers and Rat Soil Tomb to work together to transport grain from wealthy families, such as the Guangyang Zhang Family.
They stockpiled a great deal of grain, enough to feed everyone in Guangyang for more than two years.
In this way, as long as the natural environment is restored, there should be no problem in continuing until next autumn's harvest.
But a complete crop failure this year is certain, so it is necessary to calm the public's panic.
To this end, Wang Baiyan rallied some elders and villagers to spread the word about "rats sharing money," and then performed various Rat Play and shows that were not usually seen to calm their minds.
With rats constantly bringing food into the house, and influential clan elders spreading the word that rats weren't scary, coupled with various cultural and entertainment activities, the first wave of food panic was effectively quelled.
This was Li Qi's first move.
The Rat Soil Tomb was also happy to help, because it meant they were participating in the grand ceremony.
The first part of the grand sacrifice benefits the Rat Soil Tomb. Although the Blood Sacrifice was interrupted, causing them to fail in their Spirit Transformation, they now have the opportunity to make up for it.
Li Qi also needed their help.
The Rat Soil Tomb is home to tens of millions of small rats, tens of thousands of ninth-rank rats, a dozen eighth-rank rats, and a seventh-rank Rat King. With the cooperation of the government, such a force can easily penetrate into every household.
Then, by using this, one can further promote what other things are needed for the ritual.
The mountain and water deities of Guangyang were mostly dead, and now, the thousands of ninth-rank deities from the Rat Soil Tomb could fill the gaps and become new mountain and water deities.
In this way, the path to Spirit Transformation at the Rat Soil Tomb can be fully realized.
After all, the purpose of Rat Soil Tomb has always been the same: to shed its demonic Spirit Transformation.
This is the moment when they are most likely to achieve their goal.
In this way, the two sides quickly reached an agreement.
With the help of the Rat Soil Tomb and the Jianghu people, the rituals that a village should perform can be well communicated and carried out.
These rats didn't even care that Zhang Lan had killed people from their ranks; they wholeheartedly cooperated with the martial arts practitioners Zhang Lan had rallied and began to convey Li Qi's message.
In a small mountain village in Guangyang.
An elder with a white beard nodded at a few rats, then turned to the people waiting behind him and coughed twice. "Ahem, the mountain god said!"
"Listen up, everyone! Tomorrow is the day when all the stars descend to earth! As long as we pray, the star lords will bestow blessings upon us. The withered crops will not grow back; that is the Earth Mother's business, and the star lords cannot interfere. However, the star lords can bestow food so that we can survive until next year!"
The elder's words filled the eyes of the villagers behind him with hope.
The clan elder tapped his cane and shouted sternly, "Listen up! No one is allowed to make a mistake. If anything goes wrong and we run out of food, you can kneel down and die in the ancestral hall!"
The villagers nodded repeatedly, but dared not say anything, only swallowing nervously.
Then, the elder began to preach about what should be done the next day.
First, a small lamp is made and lit as an offering, called "shunxing" or "jixing" (offering sacrifices to the stars).
The two sacrificial paper scrolls have been prepared. The first one is printed with a star, and the second one is printed with a large golden rat. They are placed together, clipped in a paper holder, and placed in the center of the back of the courtyard for worship.
Before the altar, lamp wicks made of yellow and white paper soaked in sesame oil are placed and placed in a "lamp bowl" about an inch in diameter. Forty-nine lamps are needed and lit.
They also served cooked grains and plain tea.
After dusk, the offering is made with the stars as the target. After the offering, when the lamp is about to go out, the effigies, incense sticks, sesame stalks, and pine and cypress branches are burned together. Only then is the offering considered complete.
The villagers didn't know what the ceremony represented, but they all remembered exactly how to do it.
After all, this concerns our food supply for the next year.
In reality, this is using human popularity as a sacrifice, borrowing the power of the stars in the sky, and injecting it into the mountain god that the Rat Soil Tomb has transformed into. In this way, the mountain god will have the ability to regulate the basic landscape.
As for the cooked food offered, it is actually just a carrier of human spirit, not the main body of the offering.
This is actually the principle that "the suburban sacrifice is nothing more than the silkworm cocoon and chestnut, and the steamed offering is nothing more than the grasp of the grain."
The sacrificial offerings used in the suburban sacrifice had horns no larger than a silkworm cocoon or a chestnut; the sacrificial offerings used in the steamed offering had horns no longer than a handful.
The reason for using such small items is that God descends upon the people with His essence, therefore He seeks completeness rather than abundance.
The offerings are not actually meant to be eaten by your food or livestock; they are merely a vessel. As long as the offerings are complete, there is no need for them to be in large quantities.
But the people don't need to remember any of these; they are all things that Li Qi carefully planned and then distributed.
Even the mountain gods didn't know why they were doing this; they were simply carrying out Li Qi's orders.
This village is where the stars are worshipped.
This area is outside the county, comprising forty-three villages, all of which are responsible for following the stars and guiding the power of the celestial bodies in the sky.
Other counties also have their own tasks.
For example, Qinghe County in the east is responsible for attracting chickens.
In the far east of the world, there is a place called "Tang Valley," from which the sun rises every day. In the sea stands a gigantic tree called "Fusang," whose height and girth are beyond description.
There is a white jade rooster on the tree, which is called the Heavenly Chicken. When the sun is about to rise, the Heavenly Chicken crows to announce the dawn, and all the roosters in the world respond by crowing, spreading the news of the sunrise to all directions. This is known as "when the rooster crows, the world turns white".
This not only guides the power of the sun, but also regulates the entire grand ceremony. As the saying goes, "The rooster is the sign of time, and it can mark the time." People use the rooster's crow as the dividing line between night and day.
The introduction of chickens in Qinghe County can not only guide the power of the sun to descend, but also help to standardize the scale of the great array.
In Guangyang Prefecture, there are more than twenty counties, each with different responsibilities, various rituals and methods, symbolizing different powers and bringing about different effects.
The entire grand ceremony was a collection of smaller sacrifices, each composed of millions of people from Guangyang.
Li Qi racked his brains, searched through countless books, and borrowed countless resources to finally devise a set of rules for a grand sacrificial ceremony that could be used.
Arrange the entire schedule of tens of millions of people in a single day, organize tens of thousands of ceremonies, create tens of thousands of different effects, and ensure that they do not conflict, so that they can all be brought together to revitalize the soil of Guangyang.
Just thinking about it makes you realize how difficult it is.
However, with Shen Shuibi's help, Li Qi spent more than eighty days and finally completed what was a miracle to him.
Tens of millions of people will benefit from this, which could save the lives of millions, gain the gratitude of thousands of mountain and water deities, and form a solid alliance with the Rat Soil Tomb.
He even had a vague premonition.
If I successfully complete the grand sacrifice, I will probably be promoted directly to the eighth rank.
Everything is proceeding according to plan.
Li Qi stood on the altar, his clothes clean and his spirits high, but although he had rested, the weariness on his face was impossible to shake off.
I've actually rested for a long time and my body has fully recovered, but I'm still mentally exhausted.
Shen Shuibi went to sleep; she was probably exhausted.
Preparing for a grand festival is truly a difficult task.
I completely underestimated the difficulty of this task.
It can be said that Shen Shuibi single-handedly shouldered more than 70% of the workload in the final preparation of this grand ceremony, and she worked much faster than Li Qi.
Li Qi delegated most of the data calculations and information coordination to her, Li Qi himself was only responsible for the design of the general framework.
Bo Yue was also responsible for a portion of the work, but he also had his own things to do. He only took some time to help Li Qi process some data, which probably accounted for about half of the workload.
After presiding over a complete mountain and water formation, Bo Yue's foundation was sufficient, and he was preparing to advance to the eighth rank. Therefore, he was busy with his own affairs and could not help Li Qi much.
The Mountain and Water Grand Array is essentially the same as the Grand Sacrifice presided over by Li Qi; both are vast and complex systems covering an entire province.
However, Bo Yue was much luckier than Li Qi.
The grand formation of mountains and rivers that Bo Yue presided over was something that others had already prepared; he simply learned it after he took charge of it.
If Li Qi wants to achieve the same effect, he has to design it from scratch and then host it.
It can only be said that people are indeed different.
Despite both being sons of the Wushen Mountain, their luck was indeed quite different.
However, after so much preparation and mobilizing so many people, it's finally time to begin.
The grand ceremony is about to begin.
The sacrificial animals have been prepared, the Millet and Grains and sorghum have been offered, the altar has been cleaned, the sacrificial robes have been solemnly put on, and the sweet wine has been filtered.
This is the system of one pure, two refined, three sacrificial animals, four grains, Six Laws musical notes, seven matters, eight tones, Ten Suns, and twelve earthly branches, which are used to serve the common people, thousands of officials, tens of thousands of officials, hundreds of millions of ugly people.
With a pure heart, jade and silk, three sacrificial animals (cattle, sheep, and pig), grains produced in the four seasons, five colors, six rhythms, seven sacrificial rites, eight sounds of metal and stone, nine sacrificial methods, the well-regulated sexagenary cycle, and all the people and sacrificial officials.
Bright virtue is used to illuminate it, harmonious voices are used to listen to it, and the message is conveyed to all.
Everything is ready.
The Chen has come.
Li Qi solemnly ascended the altar.
This is a seventh-grade altar forged by the Guangyang Prefect. It can be large or small, and can be used to look up at the sky, observe people in the middle, and connect with the earth below.
This is exactly what Li Qi is doing now.
This is a sacrificial ceremony that is hundreds of times grander than the River Opening ceremony!
It was a grand ceremony that mobilized tens of millions of people!
At this very moment, there are tens of thousands of similar rituals performed by the boat trackers, such as the "first and second crossings," spread throughout Guangyang!
To obey Heaven, to follow the will of the people, and to cherish the land.
He was the center of Guangyang.
He is the bridge connecting heaven, earth, man, gods, and ghosts.
All the energy passes through his altar, and he, as a just and dignified Shaman, will uphold justice and righteousness, maintaining this balance indefinitely.
With the blessing of the entire Guangyang, he was like... a being even more noble than the gods.
The altar was very high, and countless people in Guangyang were watching it. Everyone knew that a grand ceremony was about to be held here, so while they were busy with their own affairs, they were all paying attention to this place.
Its aura is dignified, like the nobility of a thousand chariots, surrounded by a large entourage, as rich as ten thousand pieces of gold.
However, none of these descriptions are sufficient to depict Li Qi's appearance at this moment.
At this moment, he seemed to possess extraordinary wisdom, and the surging power he unleashed caused the altar to tremble dramatically!
As a protector, Le Ya stood on a high-rise building not far away, watching Li Qi over there.
A sentence popped into his head.
"In ancient times, the people were intelligent and straightforward, and they were able to be solemn and upright. Their wisdom was comparable to that of those above and below, their sagacity was able to spread far and wide, their brightness was able to illuminate, and their intelligence was able to hear clearly. In this way, the divine spirits would descend upon them."
"Those who possess proper etiquette, dignified bearing, noble appearance, and loyal and trustworthy character are considered 'blessings'."
This is the true shaman, the true incantation.
It should be this magnificent, this grand.
Only someone like this deserves to be called the young master of Wushen Mountain.
The fifth-rank Shaman from Wushen Mountain sighed.
What a pity.
If nothing unexpected happens, Young Master Li Qi should be able to advance to the eighth rank through this opportunity.
Of course, that's assuming... nothing unexpected happens.
With that thought in mind, he took flight and set up a defensive perimeter around Guangyang City.
It had actually been arranged long ago.
He just wanted to add a little more.
Even a little bit is good.
Uh... the classical Chinese in the first two chapters wasn't just showing off; it's part of a very, very important plot. The reason for using this style of expression is to fit the characters. It wouldn't be appropriate for both sides to use vernacular Chinese in this situation...