The sudden turn of events left the audience in the live broadcast room confused.
Soon, many viewers from your province who knew about this funeral custom spontaneously started to learn about it in the live broadcast room. With the help of the director team, they quickly found the relevant information from the big data and inserted it into the live broadcast room.
It turns out that in your province, whenever a high-ranking elder in the family passes away, the younger generations must perform the ceremony of circling the coffin at the funeral.
The customs in different parts of the province vary slightly, but the two items of "scattering flowers around the coffin" are basically the same.
The former is called "Da Rao Coffin".
The day before the deceased is buried, a nearby fortune teller is invited to perform a sealing ceremony on the coffin.
After the coffin is sealed, the Yin-Yang master goes first, and then the younger generations of the family line up in order from oldest to youngest and follow closely behind, forming a circle around the coffin of the deceased.
Led by the master, the younger generations began to circle around the coffin.
Or they run and shake bells in their hands, accompanied by waiting and funeral songs;
Or let the eldest son and the second son hold the soul-calling banner and the spirit tablet in both hands, while the other filial sons and grandsons burn a stick of incense and pay respect to the deceased elder in the coffin when they walk around the coffin...
Some areas go around three or five times, while others go around twelve times.
This part is to express the younger generations' reluctance to part with the deceased and their respect for him, and also means sending him off for mourning.
The latter is "scattered flower text".
After the descendants have completed the ceremony of circling the coffin, friends and relatives attending the funeral will sit in front of the coffin and listen to the flower-scattering ceremony performed by the Taoist priest or the fortune teller.
Generally speaking, the content of Sanhuawen is to praise the deeds of the deceased during his lifetime, or to send blessings for their reincarnation.
[I am a local in your province and have heard of this custom, but it is a ritual that is only performed for burials. Nowadays, many people choose cremation, and funerals are not as weird as before. I have never seen circling the coffin.]
[I respect the culture and etiquette of each place, but I still want to ask, isn't it really scary to cry around a coffin in the middle of the night? I'm afraid I would faint at the sight of it...]
[This is the first time I've heard of this kind of funeral ceremony. It feels quite grand.]
So what did this brother do?
After hearing Gu Zhisang talk about the funeral rituals, sister Xiaoxi pursed her lips and said:
"My great-grandfather's funeral was indeed conducted in the most traditional way. He had never left the village in his life and was very old, so he held a very high status in the village. When we went back, half of the village went to pay tribute to him, and the funeral banquet alone lasted for three days."
She turned her head and glared at her brother, and said coldly: "Tell me yourself, what good thing have you done?!"
Xiaocheng hesitated and felt a little guilty.
He had disliked his great-grandfather since he was a child, and was indeed reluctant to attend the funeral, doing some things that made him feel guilty.
But the matter was so secret that he was sure no one knew about it except himself.
On the one hand, he was too embarrassed to say it in front of the camera, and on the other hand, he had unrealistic fantasies:
Maybe this contestant was just trying to trick her. How could she even know that?!
Xiao Cheng said, "I didn't do anything, sister. You didn't let me smile or look cold at the funeral. I cried and I pretended to cry, but you were watching me the whole time. What could I do?"
"You're still being stubborn? The master has already told you to reflect on yourself!"
Seeing his brother sticking his neck out and being stubborn, Xiaoxi felt anxious and angry.
At this time, Gu Zhisang spoke up. She did not expose Xiaocheng directly, but looked at the brother and sister's faces and said, "I see that your foreheads are both flat, and a straight line is formed from the forehead point to the side point. This forehead has the center and the blessing hall. In terms of the twelve palaces in physiognomy, they are the parents' palace and the fortune palace."
"The second palace is flat and empty, and there is no obvious parent line, which means that your parents both died when you were very young. This also led to your poor situation when you were young and you didn't enjoy much happiness."
The brother and sister didn't expect her to suddenly mention their parents, and they were stunned.
Gu Zhisang stretched out his fingertips, tapped the inside of his temple, and said:
"Did they tell me that your hair here is thick and messy?"
"People often say that..." Xiaoxi nodded and said, "My brother and I both have low hairlines since we were young, and there is a circle of fine hair like lanugo. My brother's hair is short and mixed in so it's not noticeable, but when I tie my long hair into a bun, this circle of hair is particularly noticeable. Sometimes it looks a bit messy when it's frizzy, but I don't like it."
Gu Zhisang curled the corner of his lip, "That place is the Tiancang position, also known as the Migration Palace."
"You two siblings have a lot of mixed and uneven migration palaces, which means you often changed your residence when you were young, either living under someone else's roof or wandering around. This is also the saddest experience in your hearts, so it is embodied in your migration palaces."
"It is precisely because of these experiences that you and your brother left your hometown and hated going back to that place and seeing those people. Am I right?"
After a long silence, Xiaoxi smiled bitterly and said, "Although I don't know why Master Gu brought up these past events, you are right."
"In fact, my family was quite wealthy when I was young. My parents rented a shop in the county and opened a noodle shop. Although we didn't buy a house in the county, we had enough food and drink. We were the most prestigious among our relatives."
In Xiaoxi's memory, she and her brother had two or three yuan of pocket money every day, and they were the children with the most new clothes and snacks when they returned to the village during the holidays.
However, everything ended in an accident.
"When I was nine and my brother was five, my parents were out buying goods when they had an accident and both died. Since then, we two children were taken back home by the elders of the same clan and lived in the homes of our uncles and aunts in turn."
"We were like being kicked around, living in one house for three months, and then in another house for half a year. I don't need to tell you that this kind of life is like living under someone else's roof. You can imagine that you have to live according to the elders' wishes. Later, when I graduated from high school, I took my brother away from there."
Xiaoxi's expression was cold when she said this, and it was obvious that she had a deep conflict with her relatives over there.
She suddenly thought of something and turned her head to look at her brother beside her, "You, you wouldn't do anything disrespectful at Grandpa's funeral because of what happened in the past, right?"
This time Xiaocheng pursed his lips and said nothing.
He was reminded of bad memories, and recalled the suffering and grievances he had endured as a child, and said angrily:
"Can those people be called relatives? How did they treat us after our parents died? Did they do anything humane? They are not afraid of being stabbed in the back by our parents after they die, nor are they afraid of retribution, so what should I be afraid of!"
This was almost an admission that he had done something at the funeral.
"You!" Xiaoxi's eyes widened with anger, and she slapped her brother's shoulders twice. "Didn't I tell you to just go through the motions and never have anything to do with each other again? Why didn't you listen?"
"If you still recognize me as your sister, then tell me honestly what you did, otherwise I will pretend that you are not my brother."
Seeing that his only relative was angry, Xiaocheng became anxious.
"I'm telling you, I've confessed, don't be angry, sister." He hesitated for a moment, looked at the camera and gritted his teeth, "I know what I did was not right, and I'll accept whatever netizens say after the show airs, but I have to rip those people's faces off today and let the people of the whole country see what kind of ruthless people they are!"
From Xiaocheng's mouth, everyone heard a more detailed version of the two's childhood experiences.
It turns out that their family has four generations living under one roof.
Their father had three brothers and one sister, a total of five children in the previous generation. Their father was the only one among the five families who left the mountain village and settled in the county. At that time, the family conditions were the best, and he usually took care of his younger siblings during the holidays. Although their mother had some complaints about this, she did not stop it.
Among their grandfather's generation, there was only one child, grandfather. The next child above him was grandfather's father, great grandfather. At that time, great grandfather was the head of the whole family.
When their parents got into trouble, Xiaoxi was just over nine years old, and Xiaocheng was just six years old;
The two children had relatives and uncles, so it was impossible to send them to an orphanage. So my great-grandfather and grandfather called other people in the family and discussed raising the two children together.
When they used to help them, they always called them brothers, but now when they heard that they had to raise children, several families began to refuse.
It just so happened that the victim who killed their parents was a local factory owner. He came to their home and said he wanted to settle the matter privately, and the two adults paid a total of 200,000 yuan in compensation.
More than ten years ago, the 200,000 yuan was like a huge sum of money dropped from the sky for the villagers of Huangtu Village.
Although grandpa insisted on calling the police, several uncles and aunts in the family kept dissuading him, saying that their parents were dead and it would be better to ask for some compensation so that they could raise their two children.
Finally they came to their great-grandfather for help. The silent old man looked at the dilapidated courtyard and his pale and skinny grandchildren, and finally knocked on the board to settle the matter privately.
The brother and sister Xiaoxi and Xiaocheng had their future arranged for them without them knowing anything.
Several families agreed to use the compensation money to raise children together, and they promised that they would never let the orphans left behind by their brothers suffer.
But in reality, the two children could only barely make ends meet. While their cousins ate meat, they could only drink soup. They no longer had pocket money or new clothes.
He also had to clean the house, feed the chickens and geese, and was bullied and ridiculed by the younger generations from other families.
One year, the brother and sister even overheard that an uncle said that there was a bachelor in the village who wanted to adopt Xiaocheng as his son and promised to give their family 50,000 yuan in "adoption fees."
They made a big fuss and ran to their grandfather and great-grandfather to expose the matter, saying that they, the siblings, would never be separated.
The two old people were indeed very angry and disagreed, and scolded the uncle, but the situation of the two children became even more difficult from then on.
Whenever they ask for money for textbooks, they feel the most embarrassed. Their uncles, aunts and uncles will accuse them of secretly making money and complain about how expensive it is to raise a child.
But what they saw was that in just a few years, several uncles and aunts built new houses and bought new appliances with money they "earned" from somewhere unknown.
The money that the great grandfather had left for 'their future education' was 'borrowed' by other grandchildren through constant persuasion.
He felt sorry for his other grandchildren, so he condoned these behaviors, but it chilled the hearts of his siblings.
By the time Xiaoxi graduated from high school, her grades were excellent and she was able to go to a very good university.
But when it was time to pay tuition, an aunt in her family actually told her not to go to college, saying that she had found a good marriage for her in the village.
The aunt said, "How can we afford the money? We have already done a good job of raising you and your brother. Don't bother talking about 200,000 yuan. What can you do with 200,000 yuan now? Besides, you are a girl. What's the point of studying so much? You still have to get married in the end! The person I introduced to you has a secondary school degree, but his family is rich. If you are not young and good-looking, he will not be interested in you..."
After hearing this, Xiaoxi was so angry that she burst into tears. Finally, she gritted her teeth and took her brother away from the mountains.
She worked odd jobs during the summer vacation and borrowed money from her former high school teacher, and only then was she able to rent a small apartment to raise enough money for tuition.
In the past few years, most of her tuition and Xiaocheng's tuition were earned from her part-time job and summer job.
Xiao Cheng was already choking up when he said this: "My sister and I have rarely eaten meat since we were young. We did all the housework, and yet they still wanted to harm my sister! People like this don't deserve to be called relatives. I feel sick when I see them! Why do we have to go back and mourn after someone dies?"
If it weren't for those shameless uncles and aunts who brought up their deceased parents, saying that they were extremely rebellious and unfilial, and that their parents would be cursed by their ancestors in the underworld, they would not have gone back to attend any funeral.
Gu Zhisang said: "So you actually have always had resentment in your heart. You hate every one of them. This hatred reached its peak the night before the burial, when the coffin was circling around the body."
Xiao Cheng looked at her deeply and nodded, "Yes, I think every one of them is ridiculous and hateful!"
It turns out that in their mountain village, there is a ritual when "circling the coffin", which is to place a copper basin in front of the coffin of the deceased.
During the process of circling the coffin, the younger generations, under the guidance of the Yin-Yang master, will circle around while throwing real gold and silver coins into the basin.
It is said that this is to pray for the dead to bless them with wealth in the underworld.
The more you sprinkle into the basin, the better your fortune will be. They also call it "turning the golden basin".
Afterwards, the Yin-Yang master would take 30% of the money in the "golden basin" as a reward for his hard work, and the rest would be used as money for carrying the coffin to the burial site the next day or for entertaining guests.
Perhaps it was to show off their good life and wealth in front of most of the village, or perhaps they were really filial to their grandfather and truly believed that the more they threw, the better their fortune would be, so each of those uncles and aunts threw a lot into the "golden basin".
Some cost six thousand six hundred, and some cost ten thousand or twenty thousand.
According to this rough estimate, the Yin-Yang master can earn 10,000 to 20,000 yuan for performing a ritual!
The surrounding villagers were all amazed at how wealthy and filial the younger generation of this family was, but Xiaocheng felt uncomfortable listening to them.
As the representative of his father's lineage, he must stand at the forefront.
When the Yin-Yang master in front of him beat drums and gongs and circled around the coffin, he felt that this so-called ritual was really ridiculous and stupid.
From the corner of his eye, Xiaocheng could see his cousins behind him also running and throwing money, with the bright red banknotes in their hands flying all over the ground. All around him was the noise of the villagers and uncles.
He looked at those faces and suddenly felt that it was very unfair.
Why do he and his sister have to work so hard every day just to survive, while the money his parents earned with their lives is squandered and used by these so-called relatives to build houses and enjoy themselves?
While they are still working hard to pay for next year's tuition, these people give tens of thousands of yuan to the Yin-Yang master for a funeral.
Xiao Cheng's anger grew stronger and stronger, and at that moment an idea came to his mind.
“I took the money from that basin.”
After Xiaocheng said this, the huge stone that had been weighing on his heart suddenly relaxed.
He smiled bitterly and said, "I know that doing this is stealing and shameless, but I don't think I did anything wrong. This is the money my parents paid for their lives! I deserve it."
The money in the 'golden basin' had to be placed upside down on the ground behind the coffin overnight. At about two o'clock in the morning of that day, Xiaocheng got up and went to the mourning hall.
The mourning hall was pitch black, and the coffin in the middle was particularly eerie. He felt a little scared, but still gritted his teeth and crawled behind the coffin.
Xiaoxi: !!
"How could you do such a thing?! Are you trying to piss me off to death?"
Xiaoxi was so angry that tears were streaming down her face, she was so disappointed in him.
When she asked her brother how much money he had taken, she cried even harder.
Xiaocheng only took out 3,800 yuan out of the tens of thousands of yuan in the basin.
His grades were not particularly good, and he always wanted to work during high school to reduce the burden on his sister. His mind was not on studying, and in the end he only got into an ordinary second-tier college.
When he heard that the tuition fee was more than 7,000 yuan a year and there was accommodation fee, he immediately didn't want to study anymore and wanted to go out to work directly.
Because Xiaoxi had to pay for his own tuition, living expenses and rent for two people, even if he added the money he earned from working, there was still a shortfall of about 4,000 yuan.
But Xiaoxi disagreed and insisted that she must not skip school.
She had been worrying about how to raise the money for the past few days.
Because of his tuition problem, Xiaocheng lay in bed after work every day, thinking about how to make up the money as soon as he closed his eyes.
That's why he moved the copper basin that night for some unknown reason.
He thought:
It was my great grandfather who said before that he would save the money for his and her brother's tuition, but he broke his promise.
I am just fulfilling the promise I made back then.
So Xiaocheng didn't take more, and didn't even think about squandering it.
It was precisely because he did not take too much that the relatives and the fortune teller were busy carrying the coffin for burial the next day and did not notice that some money was missing.
After she finished crying, Xiaoxi said with red eyes: "It's my fault as your elder sister that I didn't teach you well. Let's go and pay the money back tomorrow. We'll solve the problem anyway we can. I'll go and apologize to them."
"I should be the one to apologize. I was bewildered at the time."
Xiaoxi was still worried because the amount was neither large nor small, but if those relatives watched the show and got angry and sued Xiaocheng, his life would be over.
At this time, Gu Zhisang slowly said: "When you want to solve this matter, don't forget to call the police."
"If I remember correctly, Xia country's laws do not allow major accidents to be settled privately, right? As long as someone dies, there must be a sentence. Moreover, you two are the direct relatives of the victim. Those relatives took the money of the perpetrator without your consent. This is not a private settlement, but a bribe to cover up the crime."
"We have to settle the accounts. We have to settle the accounts from more than ten years ago."
Siblings/audience: !!
[!! Yes, the anchor is right, criminal cases are not allowed to be settled privately! Those relatives are also breaking the law! ]
[Ahhh, Sister Sang, I love you so much! I almost thought my brother was doomed. With this incident, I'm afraid the relatives will ask them to "solve it privately."]
[These relatives are so cruel. How could they have the heart to do this to their brothers? Aren’t they afraid of retribution?]
[Two hundred thousand a dozen years ago is equivalent to millions now! ]
Xiaoxi realized this and felt relieved, but she was still very angry. "I said that even if you are poor, you can still have high aspirations. You really disappoint me."
Xiaocheng apologized repeatedly and sincerely in front of the camera, saying that he was willing to bear the consequences of his actions and asked the audience in front of the camera not to learn from him.
Xiaoxi asked again: "Master Gu, so he took the money from the back of the coffin and disrespected the master, which made the master angry?"
Gu Zhisang looked a little strange. "That was indeed the reason. That night was exactly its seventh night after death. It ran into your brother when it came back to the funeral. But the elder in your family didn't seem very angry. On the contrary, it had complicated feelings towards you and felt quite guilty."
"The reason why it made your brother's luck decline is probably because it thinks it's not good for a young man to do such a thing, so it wants to teach your brother a lesson and scare him."
The siblings were stunned, "He...felt guilty?"
When people get old, they always think back to the past.
In fact, their great grandfather always remembered the circumstances of the two children back then. He also knew that they felt wronged and always felt guilty towards their grandchildren and granddaughters-in-law who died early.
It wanted to apologize to the two juniors, but it was too late as the damage had been done, and it was too late for it to open its mouth.
This guilt remained with it until it closed its eyes and was taken into the coffin.
As a result, on the first seven nights, it ran head-on into its great-grandson, and sneaked behind the coffin to grab the money.
Gu Zhisang laughed and said, "When you were haunted by the water ghost, the reason why you only suffered some injuries and left the village safely was actually because your great grandfather was also protecting you and preventing the water ghost from harming you."
"This old man is quite contradictory."
So what Xiaocheng said, sometimes he always felt that something was watching him when he was sleeping, in fact it might not be a water ghost, it could also be the ghost of his great-grandfather who was following him.
Hearing this, the brother and sister felt even more complicated.
Gu Zhisang asked:
"It should be trying to compensate you in this way? Or to alleviate its guilt. Do you want to see it?"
The author has something to say:
Statement: Xiaocheng's behavior is not recommended. He was just confused at the time and it is not in line with the author's values. In any case, I do not recommend making money in this way.
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