ALL NOVEL Chapter 1: Almanac
The twenty-third day of the fourth lunar month is Grain in Ear.
It was raining outside. Ning Zhe walked into the temple dedicated to the snake god and opened the old almanac nailed on the tongue of the snake god statue to check the fortune for today:
[Advisable:]
[Avoid: travel, burial, mourning, sacrifice]
"Avoid traveling... Is the rule today that we can't go out?" Ning Zhe looked at the almanac in front of him and memorized its contents in his mind.
The contents of the almanac are the key to survival in this isolated mountain village.
The village is called Hejia Village, located in the middle of a basin surrounded by mountains, isolated from the outside world. The whole village is divided into two halves, east and west, by a river and connected by three arch bridges.
The people of Hejia Village all believe in the snake god, and every household has a picture of the snake god. The image of the snake god is depicted as a jade snake with a pair of long curved horns. A wooden statue of the snake god carved from camphor tree roots is enshrined in the clan temple at the south end of the village, surrounded by the tablets of the ancestors of Hejia Village, which is where Ning Zhe is now.
An old almanac is nailed to the tongue of the snake god statue. The most important thing for the people in Hejia Village at midnight every day is to come to the ancestral hall to turn over a page of the almanac, check the good and bad luck of the day, and then they can fall asleep peacefully.
According to the villagers, the good and bad luck in the almanac are the secrets revealed by the snake god.
The do's and don'ts given in the almanac every day are random. Knowing their contents can help you avoid misfortune and seek good fortune. Doing things that are appropriate today will bring good luck. Correspondingly, breaking taboos will bring bad luck. Breaking taboos repeatedly will bring disaster. People who break too many and too serious taboos may even die suddenly.
Ning Zhe has personal experience in this regard.
When he first entered the village yesterday, he accidentally violated the taboos of "seeing life" and "killing insects" in yesterday's fortune because he was not clear about the rules here, which caused him to have bad luck all day:
out... It was hard to make it to midnight, and the isolated mountain village was about to usher in a new day. Ning Zhe squatted at the door of the ancestral hall, and as soon as it was past midnight, he immediately opened the almanac to check the good and bad luck of the day.
Ning Zhe confirmed the contents of the almanac again:
[should:]
[Avoid: travel, burial, mourning, sacrifice]
"Burial, mourning, and sacrifice are all easy to understand, but what does 'travel' specifically mean? Does it mean traveling far away, or does it count as leaving a house or other building and reaching the outside world? In addition..."
Ning Zhe was puzzled, and his eyes moved up slightly, landing on the blank space after the word "宜":
"Why does the almanac only contain taboos but no dos and don'ts?"
Is everything wrong today?
and observed the main entrance of the ancestral hall through the gap in the candlelight.
Light and muffled footsteps mixed with the sound of dripping water, a pair of white sneakers stepped through the puddles on the street and arrived at the entrance of the ancestral hall.
"..." Ning Zhe stared at the figure that walked in from the door, his pupils slightly contracted due to shock.
"He thought he was the first person to come to the ancestral hall, and the almanac had not been turned over yet, and it was still stuck at yesterday. So he might be wondering why the contents of the almanac did not match the taboo he violated yesterday."
But in fact, Ning Zhe, who arrived earlier, had already turned the almanac to today, so of course it didn't match.
The man in the vest hesitated for a moment in front of the snake statue, and finally reached out his hand to the almanac. He was ready to look through the almanac.
the page with today's fortune on the nail. But before he could hang the page, a dull sound rang out in the ancestral hall less than a second after he turned over the almanac.
That was the sound of human flesh colliding with the yellow earth. He failed to successfully turn to tomorrow in the almanac, and he collapsed to the ground as if he had lost his strength, motionless.
"It seems the answer is no." Ning Zhe said to himself.
Although he had not actually examined the body, an inexplicable premonition arose in Ning Zhe's heart, as if someone had given him a hint.
He felt that the man was dead.
The cool evening breeze blew in from outside the door. The page of yellow paper that had been opened did not fall back to its original place for a long time. It was like a dead leaf rustling in the wind, or like a butterfly with deep yellow wings fluttering in this quiet ancestral hall. The "good or bad fortune of tomorrow" could be vaguely seen under the butterfly's wings.
Ning Zhe took a deep breath and turned his eyes away from the almanac, but he was not ready to leave.
The sudden death of the man in the vest was not due to luck, but was the result of violating some hidden death taboo that was independent of the taboo of "good or bad luck today".
"Is it similar to the unspoken rules under the official rules?" Ning Zhe thought in his mind as he quickly walked out from behind the curtain.
There was a cool breeze in the ancestral hall. Ning Zhe used his nimble hands and feet to drag the body of the man in the vest away from the snake god statue and hid it under the altar covered with a bright red tablecloth. A person who had just died would not have any smell for a short period of time, so the body should not be exposed if hidden here.
Ning Zhe tidied the tablecloth, quickly left the altar, and hid behind the curtain against the wall again.
"There should be other living people in this village besides me and this man. They may also come to the ancestral hall and look through the almanac."
Ning Zhe was not frightened by the strange death happening in front of him. He still knew clearly what he should do now - by observing whether other people who came here from outside were unlucky or not, perhaps he could judge the specific meaning of the taboo of "travel" in today's good or bad luck.
The contents of the almanac are the key to survival in this isolated mountain village.