Hearing this, my appetite decreased greatly and I put down the chopsticks in my hand.
"But don't worry, the risk won't be great before the age of eighteen. Once it's under control, there won't be much danger."
Liu Ruxiang laughed and urged me to continue eating, and my mood improved slightly.
The rice cook was really good at cooking. The braised pork was shiny, soft and glutinous, and the stew was so flavorful that I ate two big bowls of rice in a row, making me burp.
But as soon as he put down the bowl, a middle-aged woman shouted from outside the door.
"Xiaoxiang! Something happened to my man. Go and have a look quickly."
Liu Ruxiang got up and walked out, and I quickly followed.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"My man fell into a manhole while relieving himself and almost drowned. He still hasn't woken up!"
Only then did I realize that this middle-aged woman was actually my new uncle’s wife. When I went to her house to deliver meat, I even called her aunt.
Liu Ruxiang said she understood, picked up the wooden box without saying a word, and hurried towards her uncle's red-roofed tile house.
I followed curiously, how could such a good person fall into the pit? Is it because of my fate?
As soon as I arrived at my uncle's yard, I could immediately smell a frowning stench of excrement.
Lying on the floor in the living room of the main house was a middle-aged man covered in dirt. His eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling slightly. He was the uncle I recognized in the morning.
"Xiaoxiang, can my man be saved?" My aunt knelt on the ground, sobbing, and kept wiping the dirt on her uncle's body with a towel.
Liu Ruxiang covered her nose and squatted down. She saw the problem at a glance: "The soul is lost. It's not a big problem. I'll redeem it in the evening. You go and prepare two pieces of his clothes and his favorite dishes."
Auntie nodded hurriedly and knelt down to kowtow.
"Get up, this matter is not entirely your man's problem. Please tell me the whole story."
It turned out that my uncle was happy at noon and drank some wine, which probably made him dizzy and fell into the pit.
After figuring out the situation, she returned home. Liu Ruxiang said she was going out to buy materials. Before leaving, she ordered me to wash the dishes, mop the floor, and wash and dry the clothes before five o'clock in the afternoon. I was starved for two meals without food.
I was so angry that I was so lazy that I wanted to wash my own clothes!
After finishing the previous tasks, I found washing powder, poured water into a basin of clothes in the bathroom, and soaked them.
Turning over the clothes in the water, a touch of pink came into view.
I picked up the thing and looked at it carefully.
There are two bags with two bowl-sized soft shells on them, which feel smooth and smooth to the touch, and there are several rows of shiny silver metal buckles at the back.
"What is this?" I dried the water and put it aside. After washing it, I took out another one. The style was slightly different. It was a thin piece of lavender cloth with a small finger-sized bow underneath. It was very nice.
"Could this also be clothes?" In my memory, I seem to have seen it in a women's clothing store in the market.
Until the end of washing, I looked at the two thin and transparent women's shorts on the bottom of my pelvis. They were all of the same color. It suddenly dawned on me that these things were clothes, so where were they worn? I do not understand.
I washed my clothes twice and was so tired that I was sweating profusely.
It was exactly five o'clock, and Liu Ruxiang came back not long after.
She asked me with a playful smile: "Are you done with your work?"
"It's done." I pointed to the clothes hanging on the rack not far away.
The moment she raised her head, she bared her teeth and came over to grab my ears: "Little bastard, who told you to touch my underwear..."
"Ah, it hurts! Didn't you say that all the clothes in the bathroom basin have to be washed? I don't know anything about underwear."
Then she slowly loosened her little fist: "Forget it, forget it, I don't remember the faults of villains..."
Looking up, Liu Ruxiang's fair face was stained with a faint blush.
…
Finally in the evening, I carried a big wooden box and followed the cook to my uncle's house.
The stench from the day had gradually dissipated, and my uncle's body was wiped clean. My aunt, who was standing next to him, walked towards us with a melancholy expression.
"When does the ceremony start?"
"Now."
Liu Ruxiang turned to me and said: "You have a life only if you have a soul. If you don't have a soul, you will lose your life. To protect your life, you must protect your soul first. If you lose your soul, you must redeem your soul. Do you remember?"
I was confused and repeated it in my mind, and I couldn't help but think of something.
In our province of Guizhou, local Zhuang people hold an Ox Soul Festival every year on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month. Grandma told me that because cows work all day long and are whipped, their souls will be frightened away. If they don’t redeem their souls, they may not be able to plow the land, or they may die without food.
I don’t know whether it’s true or not, because my family is not awesome either.
When I was a child, I saw from a distance that people from the same village used cattle to redeem their souls. They usually set up a table in the cattle pen, put green grass and leaves on it, put a plate in the middle to hold water, and then tied the cattle to the legs of the table.
At this time, the master in red robes chanted a mantra and sprinkled sesame oil on the cow. He watched the cow eat the grass and drink the water, and then the cow could be put out normally the next day.
Does redeeming human souls and saving lives have the same effect as cattle?
Liu Ruxiang took the wooden box in my hand and glared at me: "Read it carefully and remember it carefully. If I ask you later and you can't answer, I will starve you for three days!"
I pouted and nodded impatiently.
I saw her pick up a shirt that my uncle often wore, together with a fish, a piece of meat, and a tied chicken, and put them all in a big bamboo basket.
"Sister-in-law, bring over your husband's favorite dish and ask your nephew to bring it."
My aunt brought a bright red dish from the kitchen and handed it to me. It was still a little hot when I held it. It contained chicken nuggets stewed with vermicelli.
Hey, this dish is not bad, I like it too.
Liu Ruxiang led my aunt and I to the gate of the village, where I met my uncle in the morning.
She asked me to stand still while holding the food, then she opened the wooden box, took out a copper bell, swayed it, and started chanting a spell.
"The souls of my parents have returned, the star officials have sent their souls, the foreign souls have returned, they have summoned generals and thunder soldiers, and the North Pole Town Tianwu Xuantian God has issued an edict... Collect the souls and redeem their lives, and be the True Lord of our third division, urgently Just like the law!"
After reading, Liu Ruxiang put down the bell in her hand, took out a wooden stake from the box, thrust it into the ground, and used the knife to carve words on it.
After carving it, she turned to me and asked: "Has your uncle eaten?"
I was confused and didn't know what she was talking about.
Seeing this, she cleared her throat and raised her head and shouted: "Liu Mancang, where are you? Come back."
My aunt had just received the instructions, and now she was also crying: "Mancang, please go home quickly. I'll cook a little rooster stewed with vermicelli for you. Come back and eat it while it's hot."
As soon as I finished speaking, a cold breeze suddenly blew around me, and I felt as if something was coming.
What’s even more surprising is that the plate of chicken stewed vermicelli in my hand, which was warm just now, turned cold in an instant.
