Chapter 25: Happy
Chapter 25: Happy
"Then, what should we do now?" Feng Yusu asked.
"Let's go to He's house." Ning Zhe answered without hesitation: "Didn't Zhang Yangxu say that Ye Miaozhu died in He's house? Let's go and take a look."
"Hey?" Feng Yushu suddenly became nervous after hearing this: "Wouldn't it be dangerous to go there now?"
After all, Ye Miaozhu died there.
"Yes." Ning Zhe did not deny it: "If we don't prepare anything and just run over there like Ye Miaozhu, we will basically die."
But it's different now. He has already stolen part of the Snake God's identity. If there is ever a chance to go deep into the unknown and give it a try, it must be now.
Ning Zhe walked briskly across the uneven stone road. Because he walked too briskly, his toes were almost caught in the gaps between the stones and he tripped, but his superhuman reaction allowed him to quickly adjust his posture and continue moving forward.
"Even if it's a snake god, it will be unlucky if it breaks the taboo..." Ning Zhe sighed.
The rules apply equally to everyone and do not change based on who you are. Snake gods are no more guilty than common people when they break the law.
The two left the ancestral hall and walked north along the main street of Hejia Village. The vision during the day was much better than at night. Walking on the road, they could clearly see the green mountains in the distance. That was the edge of the basin where the village was located, with endless greenery.
There were still people coming and going on both sides of the street. An old man who had just finished his meal sat on a rattan chair with squinting eyes, watching his own children and children from the neighborhood chasing and playing in groups on the street, the yellow paper stuck on their faces fluttering in the wind.
Sometimes they would stop and look curiously at Ning Zhe and Feng Yusu as they walked leisurely, watching them walk far upstream in the river.
If it weren't for the fact that each of them had their name written crookedly on the same dry, old yellow paper pasted on their face, such scenes would even seem quite heartwarming. The stone slabs underfoot and the tiles above their heads were simple and gentle, as if one had approached an ancient town submerged in time. The thickness of history and the shallowness of humanities could be seen here.
After passing a crossroads, two clusters of dark green colors dotted the sides of the road. A few birds with black feathers and white flowers stood on the branches, neither flying nor singing.
"What kind of bird is that?" Feng Yusu looked up at the bird on the branch, somewhat puzzled.
"Magpie." Ning Zhe said nonchalantly, "Black with white flowers, dark blue wings, and a tail with a hint of bright yellow for warning. It's a very traditional magpie."
It's amazing that you could recognize him at first sight... Feng Yusu was just suffering from the silent and depressing atmosphere along the way, so she just picked a topic to bring it up casually, but she didn't expect Ning Zhe to blurt it out.
Ning Zhe continued, "By the way, those two trees are ungrafted wild plum trees. You can tell by looking at the main trunk below. Native wild plum trees, like osmanthus trees, do not have a thick, clear trunk. Instead, they are more like scattered bushes. Those that grow very tall and straight need to be artificially grafted."
"Wild plum tree?" Feng Yusu was slightly stunned.
She looked up at the dark green plum tree crowns at the intersection, then at the magpies standing quietly on the branches, and a word came out of her mouth unconsciously: "Happiness on the branches of plum trees?"
"Joy on the eyebrows?" Ning Zhe was also confused for a moment, and then he immediately realized what she was talking about: "Oh, joy on the top of the plum tree, right? Are you talking about the traditional customs of Qinzhou people? It is said that when a newlywed couple sees a magpie standing on the top of a plum tree, it is a good omen for a harmonious and happy marriage."
Feng Yushu nodded repeatedly: "Yes, the older generation believes in this. When I got married, my father specially invited a traditional Chinese painter from Yunzhou to paint an ink painting of 'Joy on the Branches of Plum Blossoms', saying that it would add a good omen and bring a happy and harmonious future."
"Very good." Ning Zhe didn't comment much on other people's family affairs. Anyway, he couldn't afford to invite Yunzhou's master of traditional Chinese painting to attend his wedding.
He won't even get married. Ning Zhe looked up from under the plum tree with the magpies, looking at the birds squatting on the branches without flying or calling, and doubts arose in his mind.
He still remembered the scene he saw in the hallucination that was suspected to be the memory of the snake god. The girl was leaning against the window and humming a song facing the misty drizzle. She was wearing a bright red dress that was very loose because it had no waist belt. Her delicate and tempting red lips were as bright as if she had just applied rouge.
"Is that Qinzhou's traditional wedding dress?" Ning Zhe couldn't help but think.
If he had only seen this hallucination itself, it would not have given him any inspiration, but if he found corresponding clues elsewhere, that would be a different matter.
"A woman dressed in her wedding makeup has no facial features."
"The plum blossoms at the crossroads neither fly nor cry."
Is there any connection between the two?
Keeping this doubt in mind, Ning Zhe and Feng Yusu continued to walk upstream.
With the intersection where the plum tree had just grown as the boundary, pink piles of paper began to appear on both sides of the street in front of the two people. They were firecracker paper scraps spread on both sides of the road, which were soaked by the two rains last night and this morning. Even the puddles on the roadside were pink, emitting a faint smell of gunpowder.
"It seems we are on the right track." Feng Yushu whispered, "According to Zhang Yangxu, he and Xie Si Ning walked along a road lined with firecracker paper scraps to the spacious He Mansion."
"It's okay during the day, but it would be very depressing to walk this road at night."
Ning Zhe looked around. He didn't know since when, there were fewer and fewer people on the street, until now there were none at all. He looked around and saw that the gatehouses and houses were all empty, without any sign of people.
He walked to a two-story building and reached out to touch the clay chimney built into the wall: "It's still hot."
The chimney was still hot, but there was no one in the kitchen.
The shops on the street were all open and the inside was clearly visible. There was a small bunch of licorice on the scale of the pharmacy, half a basin of water on the steps in front of the door, and a broom tied with bamboo branches was lying in the middle of the street.
All the details indicate that until recently there were still people active here, and quite a few of them. It was a bustling market, but what appeared before Ning Zhe was a desolate scene with no one around.
Feng Yuxu looked sideways and saw a recliner placed at the door of the fruit shop swaying gently, then slowly stopping, as if the person who was originally sitting on it had just stood up and gone somewhere else.
"Strange, where have all the people gone?" Ning Zhe became more alert. He carefully avoided the pink firecracker paper scraps on both sides of the street that stuck to the soles of his shoes and continued to walk forward lightly.
Suddenly, he seemed to hear a faint sound in his ears.
"what sound?"
(End of this chapter)