Chapter 46 Helping with Funerals
The sky gradually darkened and all the descenders arrived.
The two villagers stopped chatting, walked into the crowd, and struck the gongs they held. One of them, calling himself Zhao Liu, shouted, "Everyone, gather towards me! Hurry, it's getting dark!"
Everyone quickly gathered around the two villagers, and the crowd was filled with constant chatter, everyone was discussing what the mission was.
Zhao Liu shouted, "Quiet! We have to announce the death in the village before 8 p.m.!"
"Mourning? Who died?" asked a man in a blue sailor suit in the crowd.
Zhao Liu angrily scolded, "What do you do for a living? Did you not hear clearly, or did the person who invited you here not explain clearly? We asked you to come here to send the old lady off properly. Don't be so careless and ignorant!"
Another villager named Zhou Paopi also complained: "Everyone is paid to do the work. Just pay attention and get the job done smoothly, then you can leave!"
Zhao Liu struck a gong and shouted, "Divide into two groups, stand behind me and Zhou Paopi respectively, and follow us into the village to announce the death!"
Xie Liang led Xu He and the others to stand behind Zhou Paopi. When eavesdropping on the two villagers' conversation, he found that Zhou Paopi was not as irritable as Zhao Liu, and was more gentle, so he should be easier to trick.
The crowd split into two groups and stood neatly behind the two villagers. Then, the leading villager beat the gong rhythmically and led the crowd along both sides of the road towards the village.
As the gong sounded, the two leading villagers shouted, "Zhang Weiqing has passed away! Alas!"
The descenders following behind had to repeat this sentence loudly as they requested, and pretend to cry bitterly.
This was done to inform the villagers that they could go to the bereaved family to mourn in the next few days. I heard from two villagers that according to the village rules, each family must send a representative to pay their respects to the old woman.
Time passed quietly as they passed one house after another. The two villagers still struck the gong seriously and shouted the words loudly.
However, in the team behind the villagers, the shouts of some of the descenders sounded very perfunctory, and some even kept silent.
Zhou Paopi angrily stopped, turned around and yelled at the people behind him: "Didn't you eat? Shout louder like this guy!"
The brother he was talking about was Xie Liang.
Xie Liang was standing behind Zhou Paopi, followed by Shi Xiaoyin, Lu Bubu and Xu He, and then the descenders whom Xie Liang did not recognize.
After Zhou Paopi had reorganized the team, he led the crowd to continue announcing the death. This time, the shouts from the crowd were much louder than before.
The sun had already set and they had walked through most of the village.
Xie Liang followed closely behind Zhou Paopi, pretending to be casual and said, "What a pity! I heard the old lady passed away very suddenly. I wonder if she had any unfulfilled wishes. If I can help her fulfill them, it would be a good deed."
Zhou Paopi heard what Xie Liang said, turned around and lowered his voice, saying, "As for the old lady's wish, when she was alive, it was nothing more than wanting to have a good meal. Tsk tsk tsk tsk... This funeral will probably cost a lot of money. The old lady has never enjoyed so much money in her life."
Xie Liang frowned and said indignantly: "You know what? I heard that the old lady didn't want to leave! She was forced to leave by them!"
Zhou Paopi's face changed drastically when he heard this. He quickly covered Xie Liang's mouth and warned him, "Little brother, don't say this again. Just send the old lady away properly. Don't worry about anything else and don't ask anything."
Zhou Paopi's voice was full of caution, as if he was afraid of being heard. He turned his head and looked around before releasing the hand that was covering Xie Liang.
After that, no matter what Xie Liang asked, Zhou Paopi ignored him and focused on beating the gong to announce the death. Xie Liang saw that he could not get any more information, so he gave up.
Around eight o'clock in the evening, they finally walked through the entire village.
At this time, everyone's voices had already become hoarse from shouting and they were extremely thirsty. Zhou Paopi and Zhao Liu began to take them to the bereaved family.
It was pitch black all around. The further we walked, the farther we were from the houses in the village. The road was silent on both sides, and people were making simple self-introductions as they walked.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, a descender named Li Jianguo asked Zhao Liu, "Where are you taking us? To this desolate mountainous area. Are you trying to trick us?"
Zhao Liu said with a stern face: "I'm just teasing you, if you don't want to follow me, get out of here!"
"Fuck you, what's your attitude?" Li Jianguo grabbed Zhao Liu's collar fiercely and raised his fist to hit him in the face.
Seeing this, the thin man named Wang Zhiqiang hurried forward and grabbed Li Jianguo's arm: "Brother, what are you doing? Calm down!"
Li Jianguo glanced back at Wang Zhiqiang angrily. Wang Zhiqiang looked at him and said, "Don't forget why we are here. They are just NPCs here!"
Upon hearing this, Li Jianguo loosened Zhao Liu's collar and glared at him as a warning. Zhao Liu then spat at him provocatively.
The farce ended quickly.
After walking for another ten minutes, everyone finally arrived at their destination.
At the foot of the mountain east of the village, a building with carved beams and painted rafters comes into view.
This building does not look like an ordinary house, but more like a temple or ancestral hall. There are dim lights on inside. Several people holding elegiac couplets are going in and out of the gate, looking very busy.
"Is this a funeral home or an ancestral hall? Why did you bring us here?" asked a middle-aged woman named Zhang Guifang. She had dark skin and was wearing a pink dress, which made her look quite out of place.
Zhou Paopi heaved a sigh of relief and said, "It's right here. The bereaved family set up the mourning hall in the century-old ancestral hall in the village."
The middle-aged man who was busy pasting funeral couplets at the door saw them and immediately came out to greet them, shouting, "Why are you here so late? You don't even know how to check the time when doing things!"
After Zhao Liu's introduction, they learned that the man who was speaking was Zhao Batian, the head of the bereaved family, who was also the one who paid everyone to help with the funeral, and the eldest son of the deceased old woman.
Zhao Batian looked to be about sixty years old. There was a hideous scar on the right side of his cheek, extending from the corner of his eye to the corner of his lips. He looked ferocious and full of banditry.
He said to Zhou Paopi with an impatient look in his eyes: "Hurry up and let them go in to prepare for tomorrow's work. I'll leave this place to you."
Zhao Liu muttered in fear, "These people aren't yin and yang masters, how could they possibly understand this kind of thing?"
"Of course I know that. Do I need to tell you? The fortune teller we hired won't arrive until tomorrow morning. All you have to do tonight is arrange the wreaths and hang the funeral couplets. Oh, and remember to keep vigil for my mother. She's afraid of the dark!"
After Zhao Batian finished his instructions, he shouted loudly at the gate of the ancestral hall: "Xiu'e! Chen Xiu'e! Let's go back to sleep!"
A woman walked out slowly from the entrance of the ancestral hall, twisting her slender waist. She looked much younger than Zhao Batian, about forty years old, with a well-proportioned figure.
"You old man, I'm so sleepy." The woman's delicate voice gave people goosebumps.
"Okay, they are all here, let's go home and sleep." After Zhao Batian said this, he pinched the woman's plump buttocks in an obscene manner.
"Humph, all you do is sleep all day. I'm exhausted!"
Chen Xiu'e twisted her slender waist and walked to the front of the descenders. She pointed to the simple shed next to the ancestral hall and said delicately, "Brothers, there's water and food inside. If you're hungry, just heat it up and eat it. You've worked hard these past few days!"
She looked at the crowd with charming eyes. After seeing Xie Liang, she walked up to Xie Liang and said in a sweet voice, "I will come again tomorrow."
"You bitch, why are you talking so much nonsense to them? Come here quickly." Zhao Batian's impatient voice came.
Chen Xiu'e quickly responded in a delicate voice: "I'm coming..."
When Chen Xiu'e turned around and walked back, she staggered, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and fell towards Xie Liang with her swollen chest. Xie Liang was frightened by her and quickly dodged to the side.
The woman was unsteady on her feet and was about to fall to the ground. Li Jianguo, who was standing beside her, quickly hugged her.
Chen Xiu'e glanced at Li Jianguo and walked away shyly.
As soon as Chen Xiu'e walked to Zhao Batian's side, Zhao Batian hugged her waist and said, "You stinky woman, you get horny when you see a handsome guy, right? Just wait and see how I deal with you tonight!"
"No way, I just slipped on a stone."
Zhao Batian sneered and hugged Chen Xiu'e as they walked towards the village at the foot of the mountain.
After they walked away, Lu Bubu could no longer bear it and spat on the ground: "Bah, this woman must have fallen for me, and she's so slippery, why doesn't she fall towards us? I'm not much closer to her than I am."
Shi Xiaoyin laughed and said, "That proves she's not blind yet, haha..."
"I'm not any worse looking than that young man! Look at these muscle lines, so manly!" After saying this, Lu Bubu bent his arms and showed his biceps in front of Shi Xiaoyin.
He was like a peacock with its tail spread out, constantly wandering around in front of Shi Xiaoyin. Shi Xiaoyin slapped him on the biceps and said, "Go away! They've all gone to the shed to drink water. If you don't go over now, you won't even have water to drink."
"Damn, that's terrible. We're so thirsty now!" After saying that, Lu Bubu strode after Shi Xiaoyin and walked towards the shed next to the ancestral hall.
Xie Liang and Xu He also followed them towards the shed.
There were several tables and chairs in the shed, as well as a makeshift wooden bed and stove. There were also two cabinets on one side, which contained some bowls, chopsticks, rice and cooked meat.
After shouting around the village for most of the day, everyone was extremely thirsty. They took out bowls from the cupboard and gathered around the water tank to scoop water to drink.
At this time, Zhou Paopi and Zhao Liu walked in and urged them to hurry to the mourning hall.
The adventers were lazy and some slowly got up from the bench, a few turned a deaf ear and drank heavily, and some sat on the bench rubbing their legs and looked like they didn't want to move.
Xie Liang ignored these people. After drinking some water, he and Xu He and the others walked towards the ancestral hall on the high bluestone steps.
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