"That's unusual, writing red characters on white paper." Ning Zhe propped his chin on one hand, watching with interest as the bald old man finished writing the couplets in a fluid hand.
Several villagers who had been waiting nearby immediately stepped forward. There were four men and one woman. The men paired up to carry the upper and lower couplets, while the woman carried the horizontal scroll by herself. Together, the five headed for the entrance to the Ancestral Hall, apparently to put up the freshly written couplets.
Ning Zhe had grown up in the countryside. Whenever major festivals like the Dragon Boat Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival came around, respected elders in the village would write a few couplets, either to give directly to local households or to put up at the Dragon King Temple by the river. He was used to seeing things like this.
Traditional couplets and Spring Festival Couplets were usually written in ink on red paper. This was Ning Zhe's first time seeing white paper with red characters in He Family Village, and it gave him the creeps.
Especially the contents of the couplets:
Upper Couplet: [The Ba Snake case's pearls and jades bear witness to our ancestors]
Lower Couplet: [Before Lotus Hall, descendants burn incense together]
Horizontal Scroll: [Source Flows Long]
"These couplets don't look like they're for any festive occasion, and there's nothing in them praising the Snake God. The upper and lower couplets, as well as the horizontal scroll, merely describe something." Ning Zhe watched the bald old man who had finished writing wash his hands in a bronze basin. He murmured, "The He family's descendants burn incense before Lotus Hall and offer pearls and jades before the Ba Snake case, to bear witness to their ancestors?"
Lotus Hall most likely referred to this Ancestral Hall. The Ba Snake case... probably meant the round table holding the wooden Snake God statue.
The couplets were baffling, their wording vague, and their meaning impossible to make out. Had the whole village really gathered here early in the morning without even eating breakfast just to cozy up to the Snake God?
Well, it was possible.
And that wasn't the only strange thing about He Family Village.
Generally speaking, the more remote and backward a place was, the more traditional and conservative its customs tended to be. The stronger the sense of clan identity, the more importance people placed on maintaining appearances.
Yet the Ancestral Hall in He Family Village was in a sorry state, looking badly run-down and long overdue for repairs. Cobwebs clung to the corners, and two or three roof tiles had fallen away. They had been missing for who knew how long, and no one had bothered to replace them. When it rained heavily outside, it drizzled inside. Ning Zhe figured the He family's ancestral tablets and the Snake God statue would probably grow mold in there.
Even so, the Ancestral Hall was still the most impressive building in the neighborhood. At least it was tall, with a couple more pillars than the others. It was clear that people had taken care when it was first built. The surrounding houses were all a head shorter, and none was as spacious.
After the couplets were put up, the people gathered in front of the Ancestral Hall knelt again, repeating the same sacrificial prayer over and over in low voices. The large-scale group ritual continued until the sun had climbed into the sky. It was 6:28 a.m. before the crowd finally began to disperse.
Watching the crowd slowly thin out, Ning Zhe said nothing and sank into thought.
Feng Yushu tactfully left him alone. The calm, devout, orderly group ritual had left her deeply shaken and anxious. There was something indescribably eerie about it.
"Hey, Auntie, did you notice anything strange?" Ning Zhe suddenly asked.
"Mm... What do you mean?" Feng Yushu sounded unsure. In truth, she felt that nothing about the ritual had seemed right from the start.
Ning Zhe raised a hand and pointed at the villagers filing down the street. "From the moment they gathered until they dispersed, these people showed an astonishing level of coordination. It was such a huge crowd, yet even when they were shoulder to shoulder, no one bumped into anyone or jostled each other. Everyone strictly followed some kind of order I don't understand. Honestly, even during high school military training, my classmates and I weren't this disciplined."
And these villagers weren't merely disciplined. Their crowd management and synchronized movements were practically on a military level.
"It was almost as if everyone were the same person," Ning Zhe said suddenly, apropos of nothing.
"The same person?" Feng Yushu didn't quite understand what he meant.
As she wondered, a phone began vibrating against her thigh.
Feng Yushu quickly pulled it out from under her skirt and looked down. Her already wary expression froze.
The caller was: [Lin Zhiyuan]
"How is this possible..." Feng Yushu's lips trembled slightly, and her shoulders drew in. Her hands shook as if she weren't holding a phone but the severed head of an Evil Ghost that had come to claim her life. She wanted to throw the burning-hot object away at once.
But Ning Zhe stopped her.
"Calm down." Ning Zhe gripped Feng Yushu's cold wrist and swiped across the vibrating phone screen in her hand, rejecting the call.
"Ning Zhe..." Most of Feng Yushu's panic instantly faded, as if she'd suddenly found someone she could rely on. She let him take the phone from her hands and asked nervously, "What's going on? Ning Zhe, didn't Lin Zhiyuan already die? Why is he calling me?"
How could a dead man even know her phone number?
"You know dead people can't move, so why assume the one calling you is Lin Zhiyuan himself?" Ning Zhe countered. "Maybe someone else is using his phone to call you."
Just like Xie Sining, who had already died in the river.
Feng Yushu bit her lip. After a brief moment of panic, she regained her composure. She could more or less understand what Ning Zhe meant, but the possibility he was hinting at might be even more terrifying and difficult to accept than Lin Zhiyuan, a dead man, coming back to life.
"Is that Ghost calling me?" Feng Yushu asked in a trembling voice.
Ning Zhe neither confirmed nor denied it. "Maybe. Who knows?"
After the crowd dispersed, Ning Zhe led Feng Yushu off the Ancestral Hall's roof and back to the ground.
Meanwhile, between six and seven in the morning, in the central part of He Family Village, a middle-aged man in a suit was walking through the flower garden of the old mansion with the plaque "He Manor" hanging high above its entrance.
A strand of hair, half wet and half dry, fell onto his forehead and tickled. Zhang Yangxu casually swept back the unruly strand, which wouldn't stay in place without hair gel, and listened intently to the footsteps outside the wall. They belonged to villagers returning after going out to "worship the gods."
The sound of their footsteps meant he didn't have much time left.
"Ye Miaozhu is too emotional. Is all the effort I'm putting into finding her even worthwhile?" Zhang Yangxu couldn't help asking himself.
Just as he hesitated, Zhang Yangxu's jacket pocket began vibrating too.
He took out his phone and looked down. The caller display read:
[Gu Yunqing]
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