What I didn't expect was that Dong Mengyao left Yuling in disgrace, but the matter didn't end there.

My encounter with Sima Jingjing in the backyard also brought a more difficult problem to solve. This trouble is Qi Xuguang, to be honest, I didn't have a good impression of this Qi Xuguang at first, this person is too tactful, talking to him is like hitting a ball of cotton, and he can't borrow at all. But that's it, the more you can't see the flaws, the more telling.

Qi Xuguang had a smile on his face and a kind face, but this kind of kindness was superficial, and he couldn't see any closeness at all. It's like a stranger talking to you, with a smile on his face, wishing to melt you with his smile, at this time, you will definitely be disgusted and want to keep your distance from him.

Who can guarantee that there is nothing conspiratorial about him.

But then again, I'm not a child of a few years, can you fool me with this smile? This method is obviously too clumsy, and it is absolutely impossible for Qi Xuguang to do this.

I never forgot Sima Jingjing's reminder in my mind, she said that "there are other masters" should refer to Qi Xuguang. However, I don't know how Sima Jingjing judged that this Qi Xuguang was not simple, and the two of them should just meet each other.

If Sima Jingjing's judgment is correct, this Qi Xuguang is not a good stubble, then what kind of ability does he have that makes Sima Jingjing fearful, and what is the purpose of coming to Yuling.

"Little brother Lin Kun, I wonder when Miss Ji will come to see me?" Qi Xuguang asked politely.

I shook my head and said, "I guess she'll not be here for a while." ”

"It's okay, it's okay, she'll be busy first if she has something, I'll wait." Qi Xuguang's words and deeds are very decent, even if he is a senior, but still follow the difference between respect and inferiority, in Yuling, age is not the first element to measure respect and inferiority, the difference between inside and outside largely determines that blood kinship is the most important condition.

Like this, although Qi Xuguang claims to be the cousin of the seventh uncle, in fact, the blood relationship between the two of them has been far apart, and to some extent, Qi Xuguang is suspected of climbing relatives, after all, the two of them have been in contact with each other throughout their lives, and if you want to mention such a thing at this time, if you want to say that there is no other intention, it is estimated that no one will believe it.

Speaking of Qi Xuguang's people, he has almost no records in Yuling. It can be said that he is extremely low-key, and if he weren't talking about him now, basically no one would have remembered that there was such a person as him. Especially with his qualifications, he is already a person with no sense of existence, and now he suddenly jumps out, which is inevitably suspicious.

Although Qi Xuguang lives in Hebei, he has always been active in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, mainly responsible for an ancient but rarely mentioned "work" - lake festival. Qi Xuguang took over this errand from his grandfather when he was twenty years old, and he has always been in charge of the "Lake Festival" is a family among Yuling's relatives, and the family in charge is not limited, and it has been changed from time to time in history. Because the "Lake Festival" is not an important "errand" in Yuling, almost no one has mentioned it for a long time, so take me

He said that he had not participated in it once since he was born, and he had not even heard of it.

Qi Xuguang's grandfather Qi Yuanli was only six years old when he took over the "Lake Festival" ceremony, at that time the Qi family suffered one after another, Qi Yuanli became the only blood of the old Qi family, and Liu He, who presided over the "Lake Festival" ceremony in Huzhou at that time, took Qi Yuanli to his home because he had no children under his knees, and adopted him as an adopted son. Since then, the Qi family has officially taken over the "Lake Festival" ceremony. Qi Xuguang's father died early and almost never participated in the "Lake Festival", so this Qi Xuguang is the second generation of the Qi family's "Lake Festival" priest.

Speaking of the "Lake Festival", this is actually one of the large-scale sacrificial activities in Yuling. There are many sacrifices with different doors in the Yuling clan, the most important of which is the annual Guyu Sacrifice Yu ceremony, and this lake festival seems to be marginalized a lot. The "Lake Festival" altar is located in Taihu Lake, because the Taihu Lake is vast, all have no fixed address, it stands to reason that the "Lake Festival" is held once a year, but the normalized "Lake Festival" activities are not participated in by the entire Yuling ethnic group, but by the priest who presides over the "Lake Festival" to run it himself, speaking of which is about the same scale as the ordinary people's ancestral worship at home, and the form is a matter of time.

Of course, this is not to say that the "Lake Festival" is only on such a small scale. The reason for the establishment of the "Lake Festival" priest is also to consider the need to hold a large-scale "Lake Festival". In history, there have been several large-scale "lake festivals", and their specifications are no less grand than the Gu Yu Festival.

In ancient times, in Taihu Lake, when fishermen went out of the lake to fish, they would sacrifice to the lake, but it was not a "lake festival", but a folk custom that evolved among the people because of the "lake festival". In the old custom, the fishermen prepared three animal sacrifices, and the women made good food to worship the dragon king, and then the people with good deeds made the money of the neighbors, and went to invite the opera troupe to sing the three-day opera, which is the sacrifice to the lake. Sacrificial activities are activities produced by the ancients to extend the relationship between people to the relationship between people and gods. So the specific manifestation of sacrifice is to pray or pay homage to the gods with gifts. Sacrifice occupies a very important position in the minds of the Chinese, there is a saying that "the major affairs of the country, only worship and Rong", and regard it as the important matter of the Five Classics, "all the way to govern people, do not rush to ceremony, there are five classics, no more important than sacrifice", so all things in heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars, wind and rain, thunderclouds, mountains and rivers, four spirits, people and ghosts are the objects of people's sacrifice.

The source of the "Lake Festival" is to worship the "Dragon King". Related to the dragon is related to Yuling.

The folk folk customs of lake sacrifice and dragon sacrifice are also widely spread, and the specific time that can be traced back is no longer possible to be examined in detail. Take the Tang Dynasty as an example, the custom of sacrificing dragons has been particularly prosperous, for example, the famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi, who was the envoy of the court and the military envoy of Hangzhou to guard the pillar country in the history of Hangzhou, wrote a "Dragon Sacrifice Text", from which we can know that the custom of sacrificing dragons has been very prosperous.

Wei Changqing in the second year of the year of the year of the second year of the year of the eighth month of the second day of Jiashen, the court of the doctor envoy to Hangzhou military guards Hangzhou Assassin history Zhu Guo Bai Juyi, the rate of the officials, recommend incense, pay respects

In the northern black dragon. However, the dragon is its color element, its position, its god is non-decan, and the water is psychic. Yesterday, he prayed in all directions, but there was no response, and now he is pious and pure, and he changed his life to the black dragon. The dragon has no water, what do you want? God has no spirit and will be exhausted. Ze can save things, I really hope to be a dragon; If things are not self-conscious, will the dragon not ask for me? If there is a rain within three days, it is the spirit of the dragon and the luck of the people, and the gift is all repaid. God hears it, and is as hasty as the law.

Sacrificing the dragon and sacrificing the lake are inseparable. Essentially, the purpose of sacrificing the lake is to sacrifice the dragon. The incense in the Dragon King Temple can be said to be extremely prosperous in the days of the lake sacrifice. In ancient society, people believed that the natural world had life and miraculous abilities, so they expressed awe to the mountains, rivers, seas, rivers and lakes, and asked for their blessings and blessings, so they formed primitive beliefs. It is believed that religious sacrifices guarantee the capture of prey, the normal sequence of seasons and even a good harvest of crops. This kind of sacrificial activity, which was based on primitive beliefs, became the prototype of the festival once it became customary. It is hard to imagine that the dragon king temple scattered all over the people, some only have so many square meters of courtyards, but the square table in the temple is full of all kinds of sacrifices, on both sides of the dragon king statue, on one side is a scholar, on the other side is a guard, pilgrims even come from all over the country, all directions.

Of course, the origin of the lake festival may be derived from the dragon festival, but in the process of evolution, the folk customs will absorb different historical backgrounds and folk tales in various places, so the final lake festival folk customs are varied. Nowadays, such a legend is widely spread in the lake festival folk customs of the Suzhou generation. said that a woman's fate in her previous life married a fisherman, that is one of several high-risk behaviors in the world, and the season when the fishing flood arrives, it is also the time when the fisherman's heart is high. Women enjoy the joy of the harvest, but they also have to pay the price of spiritual pain. I don't know when the widowed woman burned paper money to commemorate the ghost of the lake, but the pathos on the background of the fisherman's woman's soul is difficult to hide. For example, when the men want to go out of the lake, they sing for three days, and they have to read the joys and feelings of the world; For example, if relatives are in a hurry to walk around on this day, it is difficult to say that there is no sense of farewell; And it is their wish to burn incense and kowtow to the dragon king, place offerings, and pray; The women used superb skills to make dozens of pounds of large steamed buns that would not crack in the wind, which was for the Lakers to ride the wind and waves......

After the liberation, it was said that it was superstition, the Dragon King Temple was demolished, and the sacrificial lake was also banned, but the sacrificial lake that had not been seen for many years was now alive again, and the officials invited a group of foreign TV cultural experts to organize and plan the activities of the fishing and sacrificial lake, and the local fishermen listened to this group of experts and ran up the trick. Because I'm not a fisherman, and of course I don't know how to open a fishing lake, maybe I can only learn from the scenes of worship in that movie and TV and do a trick. In this way, don't say whether the dragon king can be seated, it is still a question of whether to worship the dragon king. The symbolic meaning in the custom is gone, and it becomes inconsistent. Don't look at it, any festival in the whole city is monopolized by these experts, so it is not a matter of doing it, and now there are a few people who can understand it, that is, those local fishermen, who dare to say in the face of the experts invited by these leaders, the TV station! hard

Where.

This phenomenon is also understandable, in order to develop the economy, everything will be linked to attracting investment and developing tourism, and turning the fishermen's fishing festival lake into a "fishing festival", which may be a good thing, but there is no original ecological connotation. Originally, in the face of the irresistible power of nature, the fishermen opened the lake to look forward to the safety of the creatures and respect the ghosts left on the lake, and begged for the blessing of the dragon king, and blessed the smooth sailing.

(End of chapter)

( = )