When I came outside, I realized that the old man was not there, and it seemed that I had wandered around while I was meditating. Only the little yellow dog Huanhuan was lying on the ground and looked into the distance, and when he saw me coming out, he got up and wagged his tail and turned around at his feet.

Even if the old man is not an ordinary person who has nothing to do after retreating to the "second line", he still can't escape this law, not to mention that there are several of his "old partners" under the mountain, and after a week, he has begun to sit still.

But it doesn't matter, even if they go shopping with grandpa, they will definitely come back before dark, so they put away the deck chair and sun umbrella and put it back in the grass hut, carry a bucket of water, scoop a bucket of water by the canal, and start washing rice and cooking.

Before I got on the fire, the mobile phone on the pillow of the grass hut bed rang, and it was my mother who called, asking me if I had finished my "homework" today, and if I was done, I would go home for dinner and not do it again.

"Home for dinner?" I can't help but wonder. In order not to affect me to follow the old man's "Qing Xiu", after officially moving to the mountains to live, the family has not called me again, even if I want to know what we lack, it is my father who came up the mountain in the evening to ask clearly, and then went home to prepare, like this kind of mother directly called me home for dinner, but it was the first time in a week.

"Yes, your master and his old man are at home now, so you don't have to cook dinner anymore, come back and eat, and stay at home tonight." Maybe it's because after a week, I can finally see my son again, so my mother sounded a little happy and smiled: "Have you forgotten that tomorrow is the second of February?" ”

Slightly stunned, I suddenly realized.

I see, why did you forget this day? I counted the days by day, and I knew that today was the seventh day on the mountain, and I couldn't even remember the calendar.

It seems that those who travel outside the world every day have been a little stunned by the unpredictable "qi".

"Let's come back quickly when today's things are done, my mother has already cooked dinner, just wait for you to come home, this is your master's old man's idea, it's not our own decision, bring Huanhuan back, don't leave him there." Hearing that I had already reacted, my mother suddenly smiled again.

Since the old man took the initiative to give me a holiday, then there was nothing to hesitate about, so I packed up the things and filtered out the soaked rice to dry, so as not to be able to eat after soaking in water all the time, so I put down the curtain of the grass hut and pressed it with stones, so as not to let too much moisture pour in, and then rushed home with the little yellow dog.

Except for our master and apprentice, no one dares to come to this place at night, so naturally there is no need to worry about being stolen.

The second day of February is over, but it doesn't really matter, the key is that Xiao Qinghe took the white-faced scholar away that night, I promised the general soul every fifteenth day of the new year, I will bring incense and candle offerings to worship him, I will go at home myself, and my father will do it for me if I am not at home, but I just came to the first time, and I almost missed it. If it weren't for my mother's reminder, I wouldn't have remembered it at all.

When I got home, my mother had already prepared a table of dishes, not only the two old men, Man Ye and Uncle Man, but also the old village chief's branch secretary and Pan Changhong, when I teased the dog to trot all the way into the house, the last dish was just on the table, so after washing my face, I sat down in the corner of the iron stove to start eating.

After returning from the General's Grave last time, I told my parents about the General's Soul's request, so they already knew about it, and this morning, they had already gone to sacrifice on my behalf, and they were still in front of the General's Grave, and told me the reason why I couldn't get out of my body and couldn't go there in person, hoping that the General's Soul would understand, so I didn't need to go overnight.

And the main reason why the old village chief is at my house, in addition to learning that the old man is going down the mountain today, is that after a series of events, my family has resumed the sacrifice to the general's grave and returned to the collective.

Every year in February, the second dragon raises its head, and most of the villages within a radius of twenty or thirty kilometers will raise funds to hold sacrificial activities, thank the general gods for protecting the people, and pray for a smooth year, the money needed is not much, and there is no hard standard, as much as you want, so all the time, almost every household will participate, and even the county will have many people spontaneously come to worship, and we are the only one in our village, because the general soul wanted to kill me back then, and I have not participated in it for more than ten years. Not a penny or a grain of rice has ever been delivered.

However, this is already a thing of the past, so the old village chief and the others also came over to discuss some matters during the collective sacrifice tomorrow.

It is completely different from previous years, because of the incident of Pan Guanghai and his wife years ago, many people now know that the general gods are real, not like before, more just as a spiritual belief, so after the old village chief and their proposal, the township took the lead, united with the other three townships, and united all the villages participating in the collective sacrifice, the four townships financed the majority, and the villagers continued the tradition of voluntary donations, creating a three-day "General's Day", no longer each village is sacrificed separately, At that time, there will be not only sacrificial activities, but also performances such as reed sheng singing, dancing and bullfighting.

Holding grand gatherings on certain specific solar terms is also an old tradition in our minority areas, and there are various festivals in many places, so both men and women, young and old, have been accustomed to "watching the meeting" everywhere, and there are also many businessmen who specialize in rushing to various "venues", and when it comes to seeing the meeting, it will attract a large number of tourists.

In recent years, in order to promote local characteristics and stimulate the economy, there are more and more "festivals" of various kinds, such as strawberry festivals, cherry festivals, cherry festivals, cherry blossom festivals, and mountain climbing festivals, which are also becoming more and more endless. I have seen a more strange thing, that is, in some festivals such as climbing the mountain to worship the Buddha, the merchants who sell dog meat also come one after another, setting up dog meat stalls in the middle of the mountain, and tourists go up the mountain to burn incense and worship the Buddha, and go down the mountain to chew dog meat.

It is said that when planning the "General's Day", we Shidonghe Township originally wanted to take the lead, and the other three townships participated in the sacrifice, without contribution, or symbolic contribution, but the adjacent Yangjiang Township did not agree at all, thinking that even if it was to inherit the big head, it should also come from Yangjiang Township, because strictly speaking, the General's Tomb is in the territory of Yangjiang Township, how can outsiders steal the limelight, and they are competing with each other, and the other two townships do not agree, saying that since ancient times, the General's Tomb is the object of remembrance for all people, and it belongs to the common cultural heritage of several townships. It is not possible to be completely occupied by a certain township just because it happens to be in a certain township, let alone to distinguish between priority and priority, and fight for the head to break the blood, and no one agrees with other people's arguments. There is no one who fights for this kind of.

In order to bring forth the new, play a better propaganda effect, and make the "General's Day" a well-known grand festival in the whole county, the whole region, and even a wider range, in addition to the traditional reed sheng song and dance bullfighting competition, the top priority of tomorrow is the sacrificial ceremony at the beginning of the festival tomorrow, for which the song and dance troupe was specially invited from the city, wearing national costumes and Hanfu for rehearsals, and also spent great efforts to verify the history of the general's tomb, and its heroic deeds during his lifetime carved into inscriptions, meditating and meditating all day long, During the week when I didn't hear anything outside the window, I was already standing next to the renovated general's grave.

It was also from this that I learned that the general soul was a Han general during the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, surnamed Yang Yuanqian, and our place was sparsely populated and belonged to a wild land at that time. After the rebellion of Nanzhao and the two sides turned against each other, the Tang Dynasty launched three large-scale wars against Nanzhao, and Yang Yuanqian, in the thirteenth year of Tianbao, Tang general Li Mi led the army to attack Nanzhao, and after hitting Taihe City, the capital of Nanshao, he entered the Nanzhao Kingdom as a reinforcement.

And then the next thing, when I took history class in high school, everyone who listened carefully should know about it. After the Tang army came to the city, the Nanzhao Wang Ge Luo Feng was clear of the wall, closed the wall without fighting, soon the Tang army ran out of grain and grass, more than half of the people died of miasma plague and hunger, Li Mi had to lead the army to retreat, and at this time Nanzhao took advantage of the situation to pursue, the Tang army was annihilated, so far, the Tang Dynasty regime formed a heavy blow, induced the Anshi Rebellion of the "Tianbao War", completely ended in failure.

When the reinforcements led by Yang Yuanqian entered the Nanzhao Kingdom, Li Mi had already been defeated and surrendered to Erhai to martyrdom.

I don't know if I was really panicked, or what, after fighting and retreating from Nanzhao, Yang Yuanqian, the remnants of the collapsed army, inexplicably wandered to my hometown. Although our place also belongs to the territory of the Tang Dynasty, due to the sparse population, it belongs to the barren area, there are only ethnic minorities, and it has never been very peaceful, so the Tang Dynasty's dominance over the region is actually relatively weak, otherwise there would not be an army that fled here, and few people in the local area know about it.

Seeing that this place was sparsely populated, the remnants of Yang Yuanqian, who had just escaped from the battlefield, determined that the pursuers had completely disappeared behind him, and as the frightened party settled down, his thoughts gradually increased, to be precise, he gradually became distorted, so soon there was a mutiny, did not listen to military orders, turned from the army to bandits, and began to burn and loot everywhere, turning the fear on the battlefield into anger, and venting it to the local aborigines, thinking that these ethnic minorities are the same as the Nanzhao country.

As a general, Yang Yuanqian naturally couldn't allow such a thing to happen, although he was only a low-level general, and he still had the concept of right and wrong, but at this time, his subordinates who had gone crazy, where would they listen to him, so he was soon abandoned by his subordinates, and was even almost killed by his rebellious subordinates. Fortunately, a kind local minority woman rescued him and placed him in a cave to recuperate from his injuries, so that his life was saved.

So after recovering from his injuries, Yang Yuanqian, through this young woman, united the ethnic minorities in the vicinity and formed an armed group to resist the army that was originally led by him, but at this time had completely changed from the army to the bandits.

Although the minority nationalities have always been fierce and have the advantage of "fighting on their own," it is still difficult to compete with the still formed army when they have not yet joined together and are still scattered, and it was not until Yang Yuanqian joined in and also formed a joint operation and made use of the advantage of being familiar with the terrain that they gradually reversed the situation and began to turn defeat into victory.

However, in this way, Yang Yuanqian completely became a thorn in the side of his original subordinates, so in a pursuit battle, the minority armed forces led by Yang Yuanqian were scattered and lured into an ambush circle on the bank of the Xinyang River, and finally near the general's tomb, he was successfully killed by concentrating firepower. It is said that at that time, half of his neck was cut off, and when he died, he hung down to the side, and his body was full of arrows.

Although Yang Yuanqian died in this battle, the minority armed forces he formed did not disband as this bandit army wished, and turned back into a plate of loose sand, but under the stimulation of the tragic death of him, an outsider, it showed a cohesion that had never been seen before.

Just when the war between the two sides was in full swing, the local garrison also went through many difficulties, borrowed large troops from other places, cooperated with the minority tribal armed forces, and after several major battles, finally succeeded in suppressing the rebel army that had fled from Nanzhao.

In order to commemorate Yang Yuanqian, who persuaded the chiefs of various tribes to unite the tribes and took the lead in this battle of resistance, after the war ended, the various tribes buried him in the place where he died in the war, that is, on the bank of the confluence of the Xinyang River and the Shidong River. Although the deeds of this general have been gradually submerged in the long river of history and gradually forgotten by people over the long years, the tradition of annual sacrifices has been preserved to the present.

After dying in the war, Yang Yuanqian did not live up to people's belief in him, did not give up his attachment to this land, and since then he has been incarnated as a god and has stayed there, protecting generations of people on the land for whom he once gave his life.

As for the purpose of the old village chief's visit, it is actually very simple, that is, when the sacrificial ceremony is held tomorrow, there will be some "folk dance" performances and prayers for good weather. They knew that the old man was a real master, so they wanted to come over and discuss it, and invited him to participate in tomorrow's sacrifice as a guest, and read the proclamation on behalf of the four townships at the ceremony.