Chapter 23: The Double Ninth Festival (Part 2)
The Double Ninth Festival was very important in this world.
In Lu Heng's previous life, due to the change of times, people were not so interested in traditional festivals.
However, in this world, no one dared to ignore the Double Ninth Festival.
This festival was related to harvest and sacrifice. Every year, the most solemn and grand rituals were held on the day of the Double Ninth Festival.
This world had the Spring Festival, too. Usually, the Spring Festival was a festival for people themselves, a festival of family reunion and celebration of the New Year.
On the other hand, the Double Ninth Festival was for the God they worshiped. People needed to pay sacrifices and praise to the God. The villagers could afford not celebrating the Spring Festival, but never dared to ignore celebrating the Double Ninth Festival.
Even so, after the busy preparation, people felt very happy about the festival.
Lu Heng just collected some sacrifices and took some incense. He did not contact those villagers.
He stood on the main peak of Cold Feather Mountain, looking out at the busy group of villagers, and did not show up.
Very early this morning, before the sun came out, the villagers of Shuisheng Village had already went into the Cold Feather Mountain and came to the river bank at the foot of the main peak.
Every year on the Double Ninth Festival, these villagers would carry all kinds of food, cooking tools, and ritual supplies to bring to the river bank.
This river flew through Shuisheng Village and Cold Feather Mountain and disappeared at the other end of the Cold Feather Mountain. It went around the mountain and formed a river bay at the foot of the main peak, where there are a lot of plants and fishes.
The villagers started the stoke and light the fire at the river bay. They had to start cooking all kinds of food they brought, including chickens, goats, vegetables and fruits. So to speak, they were very busy.
In addition to the three sacrificial offerings prepared for Lu Heng, the villagers had to prepare meals for themselves. On the Double Ninth Festival, they would stay at this river bay for a whole day until the sun sat in the west, and the stars and moon were high in the sky, and they would leave after nightfall.
In the tradition of the villagers, this was a ritual for the God. They were also singing and dancing at the foot of the mountain, praying to the God for good weather and rain in the coming year.
The original wolf demon found the villagers' program interesting and would hide in the mountain to watch.
However, Lu Heng thought that the sadness and happiness of humans and demons were not similar, so Lu Heng only felt that these villagers were so noisy.
And as a spectator, Lu Heng found that the number of villagers in Shuisheng Village were more than he thought.
In Lu Heng's world, ordinary villages usually only had a dozen or twenty families. However, the villagers here were roughly estimated to be four to five hundred people.
In the memory of the wolf demon, Lu Heng knew that this world was rampant with demons and fierce beasts. Most of the human settlements were large in number, because there were more people to fight against the fierce beasts.
When the young and strong people of Shuisheng Village went into the mountain before, there were dozens of them, so Lu Heng knew that the villagers were quite a few. But now after he saw the whole village, he realized that the number was much bigger.
If it was in Lu Heng's original world, a small remote village would definitely be unable to feed such a large population. But this world wasn’t quite the same, with the blessing of a God, the crops in the land would always have a good harvest.
In addition to the abundance of fruits, vegetables and animals in the mountain, as long as the village hunters could hunt one or two fierce beasts, they could provide food for the whole village.
In such an environment where there was no shortage of food, a small Shuisheng village could support so many people. And as for the big cities and towns outside the mountain, there would be more humans and monsters.
Thinking of this, the desire to travel the world was becoming even bigger.
He was eager to see the customs that he was completely unfamiliar with, and how they differed from his original world.
But with his current cultivation progress, it would take several years... Lu Heng sighed.
At noon, the villagers finally had prepared the offerings. And under the leadership of the old village chief and a group of clan elders, the villagers sent the offerings to the Mountain God Temple.
However, the person who walked to the front and led the way was unexpected by Lu Heng. The leader was not the elderly village chief, but the girl called Xiao Ai.
Under Lu Heng's gaze, the little girl coldly walked in front of the team. Although she was not wearing the original big red wedding dress, the cloths she wore now was far better than the clothes of the villagers behind her. It was a dress that the villagers specially prepared for the ritual.
Leading the villagers to the Mountain God Temple, Xiao Ai took the place of the village chief and presided over the ritual. According to the tradition, this should be considered a big honor, but Lu Heng could not see the slightest elation on the girl's face.
So Lu Heng began to be curious about Xiao Ai.
But he did not appear in front of people. The villagers acted in accordance with the established process of sacrifice and worship, then they silently left.
When everyone had left, Lu Heng then came out of the Mountain God Temple.
He came to the offering table and looked at the sumptuous offerings. He could not help but sigh.
This year's offerings were much richer than previous years. However, in terms of the duties of the Mountain God, the original wolf demon was many times more attentive than Lu Heng. But they were treated differently.
Lu Heng even had some sympathy for that wolf demon.
From another perspective, it was no wonder that the wolf demon's mood was bad after guarding this place for eighty years and eventually set out on an evil path. This simple-minded demon was still too stupid, in addition to coercion, it did not think of using other means to induce the villagers to believe in it.
Finally, it became a tragedy.
......But all of this had nothing to do with Lu Heng.
Walking to the offering table, Lu Heng took a deep breath, only to see some white mist wafting out from the offerings and being inhaled by Lu Heng into his belly.
At this moment, Lu Heng finally felt the long-lost food delicious.
Lu Heng did not need to taste the offerings by eating them. This kind of offerings were poured in with the villagers' faith and sacrifice. He only needed to inhale the sacrificial beliefs in the offerings into his belly, and they tasted better than if you actually ate them.
After Lu Heng finished this, the tributes’ inner essence on the table had completely disappeared although they looked intact.
After enjoying the offerings, Lu Heng went back to the ground. Although these offerings only took a breath, their fresh taste could last for a long time, and it was equivalent to eating a delicious meal all the time for several hours.
This was a delicious meal that only came once a year, and its taste was better than all the delicacies Lu Heng had eaten in his last life. Lu Heng had to enjoy it to the fullest.
It was not until after dark that Lu Heng, who had finished enjoying the feast, emerged from the ground.
At this time, the offering table in front of the Mountain God Temple had been removed. Once again the Mountain God Temple returned to the usual quiet.
But the bay at the foot of the mountain was bustling as the villagers gathered after harvesting the rice and getting a good year's harvest.
They were laughing, singing and dancing. The men clashed their porcelain bowls and drank the brewed rice wine. The women gathered at the side, laughing and discussing some jokes. The light of the bonfire shone brightly at the river bay, and the children were harmonious and lovely and played some games.
Looking at this scene, Lu Heng knew that these villagers were about to leave.
When the day's rituals were over, the dishes and tables were packed up. Now the villagers' laughter was the last remnant of this Double Ninth Festival.
Such playfulness continued for another half hour or so, with the village elders' order, all the people in the village would gather together and bow down together in the direction of the Mountain God Temple to pray for blessings in the coming year.
Lu Heng hid in the forests and looked at the smiles on the faces of the villagers by the bonfire from afar. A different feeling rose in his heart.
Although the villagers were ignorant and short-sighted, they were also simple, unpretentious and optimistic. Their happiness was so simple that Lu Heng was even a little envious of them.
Thinking of this, Lu Heng was bewildered for a long time before coming back to his senses at the sound of a child's cry.
"Oooooooh...... My nose! My nose!"
Lu Heng followed the sound and saw a five or six-year-old boy. He was lying on the ground, covering his bleeding nose and howling. Probably he fell down while running in the dark.
The boy's mother soon came over and helped the boy to stop the bleeding. After that, she used a branch picked up by the river to whip the boy's buttocks.
"Let me see you run around! Let me see you run around!" The boy's mother scolded and beat him painfully.
The little boy, on the other hand, cried out while tilting his head to stop the bleeding.
"Oh...... I will not do that again, mother! I won’t......"
That bawling made the adults around the campfire all laugh.
In the night wind, Lu Heng who saw this scene also made a smile.
This joyful scene made him smile, but at the same time made him have some emotion.
Unknowingly, he had come to this world for half a year, and had gradually gotten used to this boring life of cultivation in the mountain. He did not know about his friends and family in his original world.
In this strange world, he could no longer contact his friends and family. The only thing he could do was hope they could find true happiness in his heart.
From a point of view, whether the villagers in this mountain, or his friends and family in his previous life, or Lu Heng himself, they were all just simple and ordinary dust in the whole world.
What people can do is to be themselves.
Thinking of this, Lu Heng let out a low laugh and turned around to walk into the mountain.
After coming to this world, he had been cultivating and had never experienced the feeling of sleep.
Perhaps this night, he could put aside his cultivation and have a good sleep, reminiscing about the feeling of being a mortal once.
Perhaps, he could have a good dream.
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