Chapter 30 Banquet to Snake God
Chapter 30 Banquet to Snake God
After the three strings of firecrackers were set off, the banquet officially entered the dinner stage. The servants of the He Mansion ran back and forth in the courtyard, deftly removing the cold dishes originally placed on the table to make room for the main course.
Qinzhou is a southern state. Banquet dishes are generally divided into three parts: appetizers, main dishes, and snacks.
The first course of the meal was soup. The milky white fish soup was served on the table in a white jade porcelain bowl. It looked like it was crucian carp.
The table used for the He Mansion banquet was a standard Zodiac style, but the table was not full of 12 people, and several seats were empty. Sitting at the same table with 'He Yulan', who was replaced by Ning Zhe, were all women, and some women had children who looked only seven or eight years old sitting on their laps. But whether they were married women with children or babbling children, everyone in Hejia Village had a piece of dry yellow paper on their face that just completely covered their face, and the paper had their name written on it.
After the first dish was served, Ning Zhe did not rush to serve himself soup. Instead, he sat upright, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
As he entered the room and sat down on the chair, everyone at the table accepted his identity as 'He Yulan'. The rule of ghost replacing others was triggered again and again. The identity of the same person was reflected from different angles in the eyes of different people. Silhouettes of different postures were pieced together on Ning Zhe, and the memories of He Yulan came to his mind.
Without any obstacles, Ning Zhe easily digested these memories:
1. He Yulan’s identity was not special. She was just an ordinary peasant woman in Hejia Village with two sons.
2. As Ning Zhe had guessed before, this banquet was indeed a wedding banquet. Tomorrow was the day when the owner of the He Mansion, He Changzai, would marry his daughter.
Mr. He wanted to marry his youngest daughter, He Nianjun, who was 18 years old. According to the traditional customs of Qinzhou, the bride's family would hold a banquet the day before the groom brought people to pick up the bride, and another banquet would be held when the bride arrived at her husband's house.
3. As Gu Yunqing said before, the snake god became insane 18 years ago.
In the past, the snake god would clearly mark the good and bad luck of each day on the almanac. However, since he became mad, one of his eyes has gone blind. From then on, there were only bad luck and no good luck on the almanac. The Hejia Village became more and more terrified day by day.
4,……
Ning Zhe's brain quickly organized the useful information in He Yulan's memory, and soon, the second dish came up.
The second dish of the wedding banquet was stir-fried eel slices. There were black marks on the inner wall of the eel slices, which were dried blood. The cooking method was very authentic.
Ning Zhe picked up a piece of eel slice and put it into his mouth, chewing it carefully. He already knew what to do next.
"I hope Auntie can hold on until then and not go crazy..." Ning Zhe murmured softly.
Time passed by minute by minute, and steaming dishes were placed on the table.
In Ning Zhe's impression, no matter it is the wedding of in-laws or the move into a new house, wedding banquets are always lively. From the guests chatting at the table to the helpers busy in the kitchen, all of them show a lively scene with noisy voices. The enthusiastic atmosphere will not gradually subside until the end of the banquet.
However, the banquet held in the He family mansion was not lively at all, but rather eerily quiet.
Apart from the crackling sound of three strings of firecrackers outside the gate, Ning Zhe had not heard any other noise since entering the He family mansion. The guest room was so quiet that the only sound of chewing food could be heard. The little baby sitting in his mother's arms was just eating obediently without crying or making a fuss.
There were 12 dishes in total for the meal, and soon it was time for the last dish, deep-fried steamed pork with rice flour, to be served.
But this time, the servant carrying the dishes pushed the door of the guest room gently but failed to open it.
The servant knocked on the door and shouted, "Serve the food~"
With a creak, the door opened a crack, and He Yulan poked her head out: "Are there any more dishes? There's no more room on the table."
"This is the last one. The master ordered..."
Before the servant could finish his words, Ning Zhe pushed the door open completely, took the steaming steamed pork with rice flour with both hands, and then kicked the servant in the crotch.
With just a scream, the man fell to his knees in agony, his whole body curled up in extreme pain. Ning Zhe casually placed the dish on the doorstep, picked up half a brick, and smashed it hard on the back of his head.
The servants were dead. Ning Zhe's expression remained unchanged. He stood up calmly and brought the plate of steamed pork with rice flour to the table. No one screamed or exclaimed because of his brutal killing of the servants just now, because they were all dead.
He killed everyone in the room.
After locking the door of the guest room, Ning Zhe carried the servant's body on his back and hurriedly ran under the albizzia tree.
He was going to deal with the body in a taboo way.
From He Yulan's memory, Ning Zhe learned that on her way into the He family mansion, she saw a dead albizzia tree located in the corner of the courtyard wall. The He family's servants dug up the dead tree with its roots and were going to transplant a new one, but they were too busy preparing for the young lady's wedding banquet to do so.
Ning Zhe dragged the servant's body straight to the unburied pit and threw his body into the pit. He then quickly filled it with the dead saplings leaning against the courtyard wall and the soil.
Qinzhou had the custom of tree burial and water burial. Ning Zhe was very sure that what he was doing now had undoubtedly violated the taboo of "burial".
As for funerals, there is no time.
Because Mr. He is about to start a grand banquet for the Snake God.
After burying the servant he had killed, Ning Zhe did not delay for a moment and quickly walked towards the south side of the main building.
The people of Hejia Village all believe in the snake god, and the most important part of every wedding, funeral, or happy event is to worship the snake god in public, either to ask the snake god to see off the deceased or to bless the living. This morning, a large group of people ran to the ancestral hall early in the morning and performed three knocks and nine bows, which is a ceremony to ask the snake god to leave the ancestral hall.
"If nothing unexpected happens, the servants of the He Mansion are already blowing trumpets and heading towards the ancestral hall. They will move the statue of the snake god out of the ancestral hall and hold a banquet in the main building of the He Mansion for people to worship and pray for blessings."
Ning Zhe couldn't help but quicken his pace: "This is my best and last chance."
Because of the continuous taboos, Ning Zhe's luck is now extremely bad. He stumbles even when walking a short distance, and falls on the gravel road with bruises on his face. But Ning Zhe doesn't care, because it was He Yulan who fell, what does it have to do with him, Ning Zhe.
Ning Zhe is definitely going to do something even more awesome.
"Let me try to see if I can kill all the snake gods and ghosts..."
Ning Zhe wiped the blood from his nose, staggered to his feet, and continued running towards the main building.
He had only run a few steps when he fell to the ground again, his chin hitting the ground and his mandible breaking.
But this time he didn't fall because his foot was caught by a stone, but because the koi in the pond jumped out for some reason, hopping around on the ground, and just landed at Ning Zhe's feet.
In this situation, Ning Zhe could only be thankful that he was using He Yulan's identity to travel this distance, otherwise the email would have been sent before he even reached the destination.
"I hope the situation over there with my aunt is better than mine..." Ning Zhe thought to himself.
Then he hit his head on the rockery beside the pond and broke his head and bled.
(End of this chapter)