"What?!" Zhao Xiaohe looked at Zhao Sanfu nervously.

"New Year's festival on the third day of the first lunar month!"

Zhao Xiaohe gasped when he heard this, and only then did he understand why there were no people coming in and out today, the card-keeping work was so easy to do, and it turned out that people were brewing more lively things.

The New Year's Festival on the third day of the first lunar month is the most solemn day of the year in Zhaojiazhou Village, and every household has to hold wine to welcome guests on that day. Welcome guests at noon, kill pigs in the afternoon, and walk around the village at night with the ancestors' golden bodies, and plant street candles together for good health.

The annual festival of Zhaojiazhou has a long history.

It is said that the ancestors of Zhao Jiazhou were a pair of brothers surnamed Zhao, who were said to be the cronies of General Yang Si, and when Yang Si was executed for some reason, the brothers were implicated and fled incognito all the way south to this sandbar in the middle of the Fushui River to settle down temporarily. By the time of the change of dynasty, the brothers had been living on the sandbar for several years, each having four sons. Seeing that the scenery here is good and life is smooth, after discussion, I decided not to return to my hometown, and resumed my name and took root. Since then, this wasteland has become Zhaojiazhou.

The descendants of these eight brothers derived the entire Zhaojiazhou, in order to facilitate management, the genealogy according to the bloodline of the eight brothers divided Zhaojiazhou into eight rooms, that is, the back of the eight village groups, the ancestors and the two brothers were honored as the two dukes, together with General Yang Si together with the golden statue, for the ancestral hall.

It is also said that the third day of the first lunar month is the day when General Yang Si was executed, and the annual sacrifice on the third day of the first lunar month was originally to commemorate General Yang Si, with the change of the times, the passage of time, and the rules of the annual sacrifice have also changed a lot intermittently, but the ritual of killing pigs and inserting candles to commemorate General Yang Si has always been retained.

With the increase of the number of clansmen, the annual sacrifice ceremony was changed to one room for one year. On the third day of the first lunar month, only the people of the Fang clan who are on duty for the annual sacrifice are eligible to carry the golden statues of the second duke and the general Yang Si to the village to plant candles, and the others can only follow behind. Originally, in order to show off the prosperity of the people of the house, the people on duty would invite all their relatives and friends to come to cheer on the third day of the new year. Fireworks, firecrackers, dragon lantern dances, stage singing, as long as it can add to the lively activities, they will be invited. For them, the liveliness represents prosperity, and the more lively the year, the more auspicious the coming year.

With such a lively event, the relatives of the other people will naturally come to join in the fun, and it slowly evolved into a banquet for all the villagers of Zhaojiazhou on the third day of the first lunar month.

This year, with the efforts of Zhao Fangzhong and others, the Zhaojiazhou New Year Festival applied for non-property cultural heritage successfully, and the four rooms on duty are the most prosperous and developed in the eight rooms, in order to celebrate the success of the application for the World Heritage Site, their people have planned this year's New Year festival activities very early, and they all said that this year's New Year Festival will be included in the Zhaojiazhou memorabilia. The troupe and the dragon dance team have already been invited, the promotional brochure of the New Year's festival has also been sent out, the souvenirs have also been prepared, and the people from the provincial TV station have been contacted to interview, and a special aerial photography team has been invited to make commemorative images.

"I'm afraid that this year's annual festival will become an alternative event in Zhaojiazhou. Zhao Xiaohe let out a long sigh.

Zhao Fangrong looked at him in astonishment: "You won't let the villagers have a banquet on the third day of the junior high school, right?!"

Zhao Xiaohe looked at him with a serious face, and said word by word: "It's not that the banquet guests are not allowed, but the New Year's sacrifice must be canceled." ”

"Cancel the New Year's Festival?!" Zhao Huiwen looked like he had heard a big joke, his face was full of disbelief, "You're not joking, are you?!" The New Year's Festival has a tradition of hundreds of years in our Zhaojiazhou!

Zhao Fangrong thought of something, and smiled: "The village chief should mean that the ceremony is simple." Everything is already ready in the fourth room, and you are afraid that they will not agree! I estimate that you will not be able to pass the old patriarch in the first place. ”

Zhao Xiaohe didn't say anything more, but looked at Zhao Sanfu, waiting for him to come up with an idea.

Zhao Sanfu's brows had already been twisted into a line, facing the Nanshui River, looking at the dark river steadily, and he didn't make a sound for a long time.

Zhao Xiaohe took out a pack of unopened cigarettes from his pocket and opened it, pinched the bottom of the cigarette box and shook it up vigorously, shook out a cigarette, and handed it to Zhao Sanfu.

"Uncle, smoke a cigarette. ”

Zhao Sanfu habitually stretched out his hand, and when he was about to touch the cigarette, he suddenly withdrew his hand, and told Zhao Xiaohe not to smoke: "Now is an extraordinary time, you have to take off the mask when you smoke, it's not a good habit." ”

Knowing what he meant, Zhao Xiaohe was not angry, and quickly pressed the cigarette into the cigarette case, put the cigarette case back in his pocket, and said worriedly: "On the third day of the first lunar month of the same year, Zhao Jiazhou is not crowded with people's feet? Especially when it comes to the official New Year's festival in the evening, the village can accommodate seven or eight thousand people, right? Among these seven or eight thousand people, as long as one person is diagnosed with pneumonia, the whole army will be wiped out! Uncle, we must not let Zhaojiazhou become the second Baibu Pavilion!"

Zhao Fangrong corrected Zhao Xiaohe's words: "Which one is seven or eight thousand? On the third day of the first lunar month, who doesn't have a big banquet? My family has six tables of guests every year on the third day of the first lunar month. There are very few tables or two tables in the village, at least three or four tables, and there are more than a dozen tables. ”

Zhao Sanfu still didn't respond, because his family has ten tables every year on the third day of the new year. In a year, his family only feasts all relatives and friends on the third day of the first lunar month, and it is lively for one day, and on other days, relatives and friends come to eat as they please. This has become a routine among relatives and friends, and now even if he no longer invites in advance, relatives and friends will come over on time to eat and drink on the third day of junior high school if there is no important matter.

Zhao Huiwen has been involved in the pneumonia epidemic prevention work for the past two days, and he is well aware of the seriousness of the situation, and his face is also full of worry at this time: "Now that the pneumonia is so serious, it is indeed best not to hold this kind of party, but even if a few of us can convince our family members not to hold a banquet on the third day of junior high school, can we still persuade more than 300 households in the village? Even if we persuade more than half of the families and a small half of the families to hold this banquet, the efforts of the rest of us will be in vain! The contagion of pneumonia is too strong!"

Zhao Fangrong answered depressedly: "Don't say that half of the people do it, it is ten households and eight households, and the efforts of all of us are in vain." ”

Zhao Huiwen spread his hands: "If there are only ten households and eight households left, it is easy to say, we will stop them outside." ”

Zhao Fangrong shook his head: "If the guests really come, you stop the guests from entering the village, and ask their owners not to be in a hurry with you? ”

"Let the patrol team vigorously publicize tomorrow!" Zhao Sanfu suddenly turned around and looked at Zhao Xiaohe, "You can find a way to mobilize some more volunteers to participate in the epidemic prevention work, hand over the task of guarding the card point to them first, and let the team leaders and us do the mobilization work to cancel the New Year's Festival." ”

Speaking of this, he looked at Zhao Fangrong and Zhao Huiwen again, "Let's get our own affairs done first." ”

Zhao Fangrong patted his chest: "My family is my family, although my uncles and aunts may not understand, I will explain a few more words, it is not a big problem." ”

"I'm also a family member, and my family is fine, at most let my parents scold a few words. Zhao Huiwen also expressed his position, with a sad face, "But there are more people in my room who are older than me, and it is easy to talk about raising some money or providing a few free laborers, such things, I am afraid that they will not listen to me, especially the patriarch under the house." I guess I'll have to be scolded by them. ”

"Let's try to do our work first, maybe tomorrow the day after tomorrow, the town will issue a notice that it is strictly forbidden to drink and pick up customers or be guests, and then our work will be done." Think about it, I was going to quarantine Gangzi yesterday, he almost didn't fight with me, and today the town sent someone to isolate, didn't he cooperate very much?" Zhao Xiaohe was quite optimistic.

Zhao Sanfu also had expectations for Zhao Xiaohe's words, nodded and said, "Tomorrow, we will try to do our best work first." I'm going to talk to Arigen now, and if we can get his support, our work will be easy. ”

Zhao Yougen, 82, is the new patriarch this year.

According to the old rules of Zhao Jiazhou, to become a patriarch, you must meet the two hardware conditions of the oldest generation and the highest age. Once he becomes the patriarch, the whole village must respect him, and the owner on duty before the New Year Festival will buy him a full set of new clothes from the inside to the outside, from top to bottom. Before killing pigs on the afternoon of the third day of the new year, he had to burn incense and bathe, change into the line bought by the owner on duty, sit at home and wait for someone to use the ancestral sedan chair in the village to carry him through the village, and finally go around the ancestral hall to incense the ancestors.

Zhao Fangrong suddenly laughed: "Old secretary, do you know how many years you have been looking forward to being the patriarch of the province?

Although Zhao Yougen is not the oldest in the village, he has a high seniority, and Zhao Sanfu also has to call him Taigong (that is, grandfather), Zhao Fangrong and Zhao Xiaohe have to call Zhao Yougen Zeng Taigong (great-grandfather).

"I don't think you can count on it. Zhao Xiaohe and Zhao Fangrong had the same opinion, and smiled bitterly.

"If you can't count on it, you have to try. Zhao Sanfu drove away his old scooter.

Zhao Fangrong looked at the scooter that slowly disappeared from sight with sympathy and shook his head: "I bet: the old secretary will definitely be scolded by the old man today so that he can't even distinguish between the south and north bridges." ”

Zhao Xiaohe shook his head helplessly, looked down and saw that the patrol group was very lively, walked to the side, and was about to climb the stairs to read the news, Chen Lanlan's phone came in, and when he learned that his uncle was really angry, he also called his parents, and when his parents were now cleaning up the kitchen together and preparing to cook noodles to eat, he let go of his hanging heart.

After hanging up his wife's phone, it took him half an hour to climb the stairs to read the news in the patrol group, and when he saw that someone inside mentioned the cancellation of the New Year's Festival, he was very happy and immediately gave his approval. A group of people began to discuss in the group how best to persuade everyone to cancel the New Year's festival.

Zhao Xiaohe was discussing with everyone when a call came in indicating the Wuhan area.