Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 137 Torch Festival

When Ran Qing returned to school, it was break time.

In the classroom, people were coming and going, and students were moving around and discussing something enthusiastically.

Ran Qing sat down in his seat and was a little confused by the lively atmosphere in the classroom.

"What happened?" Ran Qing asked his deskmate curiously.

The girl at the same table said, "The Torch Festival is the day after tomorrow. They are planning to go to Yushe to watch the Torch Festival."

Ran Qing suddenly realized: "Is that so."

The Qianghe region is remote and poor, with few entertainment options. A little fun can attract a lot of people.

Locals love to hang out together.

In some places in Qiangke, bullfighting competitions are held. Although the arenas are small and there are few prizes, they attract villagers from nearby villages to watch, and tens of thousands of people gather every day.

The Torch Festival in Yushe only appeared in recent years and does not have a long history.

It was just a lonely little square built beside the national highway in the wild mountains. The ground was leveled and paved with tiles. The original intention was to celebrate the Torch Festival for the nearby Yi people.

The place is remote and desolate, with only a few small mountain villages nearby. There is no one to publicize or guide, and it is completely left to its own devices.

As a result, when it was held in the first year, people from all over the place came to watch the fun.

It is said that tens of thousands of people arrived at the scene at that time. The huge crowds trampled the grass on the entire mountain to death and trampled out new paths in the barren mountains and forests.

When it was held the following year, there was still no one to guide and promote it, but even more people went.

Now everyone living near Yuezhao knows that this is a place to go during the Torch Festival.

In this way, Torch Festival suddenly became a local pastime with people flocking to Yushe to play.

Ran Qing couldn't quite understand the fun of this.

In his opinion, that place was a desolate mountain with nothing in it. He ran a long way there to join in the fun, sit on the mountain to eat two bowls of jelly and potatoes, look at a bunch of people, and then walk a long way back home.

What a waste of time.

If you have this time, you might as well read more books.

He lowered his head and ignored the hustle and bustle in the classroom.

Someone asked him to go out for a trip together, but he politely declined.

But when I returned to the cement house on Park Road at noon, I saw Mo Li standing at the entrance of the cement yard washing the car.

The girl parked the motorcycle in the middle of the yard and washed the mud off the motorcycle with water.

Seeing Ran Qing coming back, Mo Li said, "By the way, Ran Qing, when I went to the vegetable market to buy vegetables just now, I heard that the Torch Festival is coming. It is said to be very lively and fun."

The girl looked at Ran Qing with sparkling eyes and said, "Would you take me with you? I haven't seen what the Torch Festival is like yet."

The girl was excited and full of curiosity about the Torch Festival.

Ran Qing looked at her speechlessly and said, "That place is in the middle of nowhere. You can't even find a ghost there. It's just a small, bare square. There's nothing fun there."

Ran Qing spoke frankly, these were his true feelings: "Going there to join in the fun is nothing more than watching people jostling each other on the mountain and buying some jelly and potatoes to eat. It's more fun than watching TV at home. You'd better not waste your time."

A girl who has traveled all over the world should be knowledgeable and experienced.

A market in a remote rural area probably wouldn't catch her eye, and going there with high expectations would only lead to disappointment.

But after Ran Qing finished speaking, the girl remained interested and said with a smile: "It is this kind of original rural gathering that is interesting..."

Little Cotton also begged, "Come on, Ran Qing! Auntie takes me there every Torch Festival. It's so much fun there, and there are all kinds of people there!"

“Everyone who sells cotton candy has it!”

Little Mianhua is full of longing for the Torch Festival, mainly for the delicious food.

Villagers from nearby towns and cities would naturally come to this kind of market where a large number of people gathered to sell their goods, many of which were not normally available in the village.

But those food products will only be more numerous and more complete in variety in the city.

Ran Qing looked at the two of them helplessly and said, "Just don't be disappointed when the time comes."

Mo Li nodded with a smile: "I definitely won't be disappointed. This kind of original ethnic flavor is what makes it fun."

"By the way, won't that place be full of people? Maybe we can run into other people who are making money through illegal means."

"Besides your father, I also know a few of my mother's old friends. Besides your father and Meng Laoqi, there are also Wen Laoer, Zhao Laosi, and Ping Xiaoliu. They are all old acquaintances of my mother."

"Maybe they also know what happened to your family ten years ago. Let's go to the Torch Festival and try our luck."

"If you could ask someone else for the answer, you wouldn't have to go to the hospital and suffer your father's anger."

The girl smiled and gave Ran Qing some advice.

Ran Qing remained noncommittal: "We'll talk about it when the time comes."

He agreed to join in the fun at the Torch Festival because he found out that Mo Li and Xiaomianhua also wanted to join in the fun.

Although he felt it was a complete waste of time, seeing how much they wanted to go, he couldn't bear to refuse.

Ran Qing said, "Get up early the day after tomorrow. There will be a lot of traffic on the Torch Festival."

Ran Qing's reminder made the girl stunned for a moment.

"Eh? Isn't it today? Today is June 24th," the girl was very curious.

Ran Qing shook his head: "This Torch Festival is purely an excuse to get together and have fun. Most of the people who go there are not Yi people. Of course, whichever weekend is right is fine."

Mo Li's eyes widened in surprise. "Can we still have fun like this? Will we not see torches? Didn't they say there would be a bonfire party?"

Ran Qing said: "That's true. You'll know when you go there the day after tomorrow."

Ran Qing came from the countryside and was very familiar with activities like this where a lot of people gathered together.

This Torch Festival had no appeal to him at all.

But maybe it will be interesting for Xiaomianhua and Mo Li.

He walked into the house and did not rush to cook, but made medicinal wine first.

The thousand-year-old ghost trapped in the jar would hit the black jar tied with a red rope from time to time.

As Ran Qing poured the medicinal wine in, a shrill howl was heard from inside and a cloud of black smoke rose.

This black smoke was much more pungent than the black smoke from the female ghost in the well.

Thinking of the female ghost in the well, Ran Qing glanced at the large jar filled with incense ash.

Among those slowly moving, sleeping dead faces, a face identical to the ghost girl in the well was found.

But at this time, the female ghost in the well had become part of the ghost in the jar and no longer had any consciousness or rationality.

Ran Qing sighed, and after finishing everything, he lit a stick of incense with the burning candle and bowed to the big jar.

"Please bless us, ancestors of all generations."

As for the wooden sculpture of the evil god brought out from the Taoist temple, Ran Qing threw it into the corner of the main hall.

The two conditions he agreed upon with the evil god were that one was to help the evil god get rid of the thousand-year-old corpse.

Another condition was that Ran Qing would drip three drops of blood onto the wooden sculpture every day to worship the evil god for a month.

And today is the first day.

(End of this chapter)