Zheng Qing came to the kitchen and saw his mother carefully tidying up the evening's meal.

Kill chickens, slaughter fish, cut beef, fry shrimp, wash all kinds of vegetables, fruits and vegetables, and put them in different dishes and basins for use.

The fire on the stove starts in the morning and has almost no chance of being extinguished. Whether it's stewed pork ribs or stuffed chicken, it's a great test of heat and patience.

When he was a child, every Chinese New Year, in addition to going out to play crazy with his friends, Zheng Qing's favorite place was the kitchen. This is because you can eat a variety of freshly cooked foods almost all day long from morning to night.

Freshly cut red beef, stewed chicken feet, meatballs drained in a bamboo basket, fried golden hairtail, white lotus root slices, tender yuba, and so on, all kinds of delicacies fill the eye. It's just that before serving it to the table, the children rarely have the opportunity to feast, so they can only take advantage of the adults' inattention and sneak a little from the plate, like a fishy cat.

Of course, now Zheng Qing has gotten rid of the dilemma of sneaking a little bit of food when he was a child, and he can go into the kitchen at any time and try a little bit in his mother's reproachful tone - just like now, he picked up a piece of tender beef from his plate.

"Have you washed your hands?!" the mother glared at Zheng Qing, her voice slightly raised.

"It didn't wash either. Zheng Qing sucked his fingertips, looked at the hot stewed chicken in the basin with some greed, and tilted his head to signal to another uninvited guest next to him.

"Are you a cat?" said Zheng's mother, furious.

"In a sense, yes. Zheng Qing replied silently in his heart.

Of course, he certainly couldn't say this kind of death-defying answer to his face. So he turned his head, looked at the uninvited guest next to him, and said hello:

"Brother Huang has eaten enough?"

The yellow civet tugged at his ears and ignored the boy.

As Zheng Qing thought before, the yellow civet was also in the kitchen.

At this moment, it is obediently squatting on the cupboard, snoring, and enjoying the early arrival of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner - every time Zheng's mother makes a dish, she will take out a little and put it into the small plate in front of the yellow beaver. Zheng Qing took a look at it, and the small plate was already full of beef, fish, chicken nuggets, etc.

"If you eat it again, you're going to turn into a pig, be careful to collapse my cupboard!" Zheng Qing couldn't help but complain about the yellow civet, and then turned his head to look at his mother: "Moreover, we haven't sent the ancestral god yet, can we eat?"

According to the rules of the family, before the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner is served, a small portion needs to be divided and invited to the ancestors. Only after the ancestors have eaten it can the descendants start to eat it.

Hearing Zheng Qing's questioning, Zheng's mother said angrily: "Didn't you just eat it?...... Besides, it's a cat, not a human, so why should you follow the old rules of your family. ”

The yellow civet meowed just right, as if to show support for Zheng's mother.

So he harvested another piece of tender fish.

I very much doubt it's a cat or not. Zheng Qing secretly defended in his heart, and at the same time rolled up his sleeves and said, "Then what am I doing?"

"Don't, aren't you going to meet your ancestors in a minute...... Don't get your hands dirty. Mother stopped Zheng Qing and pointed to the outside of the kitchen: "You can stay outside in peace." ”

According to the old rules of sacrifice, women cannot preside over the ceremony, Zheng Qing's mother has a lot of complaints about this, and she has to stab Zheng's father several times every year during the New Year, and even Zheng Qing suffers from the pond fish.

He shrugged and obediently walked out of the kitchen.

There is no very set time to greet ancestors, but it is usually arranged in the early afternoon or afternoon.

Grandpa's house is already more than half empty.

On the wall due north there is already a picture of an old family hall - this is a large picture of ancestor worship, and the overall layout is a courtyard. Below the picture is the courtyard wall, with men and women gathered outside the courtyard; in the middle is a row of tablets, on which the names of the deceased ancestors are written, from top to bottom, decreasing from generation to generation; and above is the extension of the ancestral hall.

In front of the house, there is already an offering table that has been set up.

On the table, incense burners, wine, melons and fruits, dumplings, bowls and chopsticks and other tributes are readily available. On one side of the table stood a small, untidy mahogany tablet with no name on it. Zheng Qing once asked his grandfather, who was the tablet, and his grandfather said that it was the ancestors of the family who died early, although they failed to pass on the ancestry, but they were also a part of the family, and they should be offered to them during the New Year's holidays.

In addition to making offerings to the ancestral gods in the house, it is also necessary to set off firecrackers and burn paper money outside the house.

When he was a child, Zheng Qing was most active about this matter, because it was one of the few opportunities he could fire openly.

It's just that now, as an adult, his interest in these things is very low.

After all, after seeing the real world of magic and wizarding, the ancient folk custom of welcoming and sending off the family has become a dispensable ritual for him.

After the men of the family came to the open space outside the house with paper money and other things, the longest one, that is, Zheng Qing's grandfather, drew a circle on the ground and outlined a few simple symbols - Zheng Qing had carefully studied these ancestral symbols after learning the knowledge of talismans from Mr. Wu, and after careful screening, he judged that these symbols did not have any real effect, but were just some incomplete talisman combinations, and the only effect might be to comfort the people in the world.

Don't say that you can invite the soul to God, even if you affect the world outside this world a little, you can't do it.

Zheng Qing didn't try to use real talismans to invite the gods to hook the soul, but except for some lonely souls and wild ghosts who had just been mourned, he didn't recruit the souls of his ancestors. And the consequence of that attempt was that he went home and fell seriously ill.

Since then, he has never done anything like that.

The place to burn paper money is a quiet vacant lot in the community, which was originally a garden, and then it was not well rested and has been abandoned for a long time. Very few people come here.

After cleaning up the dead grass and branches on the open ground, drawing circles and outlining symbols, Professor Zheng Lao put the copper basin in the circle, then put a mat on the ground, and slowly knelt down with the support of Zheng Qing's father, and began to burn paper money.

Zheng Qing honestly followed the movements of the two elders, without saying a word, always thinking about what the friends who stayed in the school were doing now, whether they were galloping in the hunting ground, or mixing charming potions.

When he came back to his senses, the paper money in the copper basin was already smoking.

Grandpa and father lay on the ground, as if they were mindful of words.

Zheng Qing blinked, thinking that there was a bit too much smoke in the copper basin - it must be caused by insufficient combustion, he thought so, and looked around, trying to find a wooden stick or something to go to the basin to fiddle with paper money.

In the next second, a huge sense of fear snatched his heart, making him breathe.

Beyond the green smoke, a pair of bright red eyes appeared in front of his eyes.